Where's the line that marks what is acceptable and what is not? CDs? T-shirts? Posters? Stickers? Bandanas? Bobble-heads? Candleholders? What about a "based on Jimi" clothing line?

Good question mke. I guess my big beef is the sheer magnitude & picayunish diversity of the products. Pretty much every commerical band or musician sells t-shirts & posters. Especially those in the exhalted rock/pop pantheon. But air-freshners & cell phone covers seems like crossing the line. The man’s been dead for 30 plus years. Shouldn’t his legacy rest chiefly on his music, not on mass-produced/marketed trinkets & junk? It still does, but this sort of crass commercialism undermines & insults it IMO. Then again, where there’s demand, there’s supply I suppose.

A related question to all of this is how do the proceed pies on dead musician merchandise divy up? For example, who gets what share of the bread on Coltrane crew-necks and saxophone stands? Is son Ravi collecting a regular royalty check on the stuff?

Nowadays, a cell-phone cover is pretty much the same as a T-shirt, wouldn't you say?

And if you don't buy the stuff you consider crass, how is your own memory tarnished?

Nope, I wouldn’t say. They’re quite different IMO. But what does actually buying the stuff or not have to do with being in a position to denounce or laud it? My memory/appreciation of Jimi isn’t tarnished. I just think it’s sad that he’s been co-opted for the Almighty Dollar to the degree that he has. Maybe I’m way off base.

Does it only become offensive after the star in question is dead? I wonder whether anybody felt like Sgt. Pepper's... had been tarnished (at the time) because of the existence of Beatles lunchboxes, wigs, boots, etc.

I suspect a large element of wounded nostalgia in this - which is weird, since you're about my age (31), aren't you, Derek? I wonder whether anybody felt like Sgt. Pepper's... had been tarnished (at the time) because of the existence of Beatles lunchboxes, wigs, boots, etc.

I think the mass-comodification of a musician can be construed as ‘offensive’ whether he or she is alive or dead. The fact that Jimi’s been in the ground for thirty odd years just makes it stranger. What if by some weird reality bending fluke there were Morton Feldman hairpieces and John Cage ear plugs for sale at your local music memorabilia store. These might be tongue-in-cheek examples, but in some ways I think such products trivialize rather than commemorate. Then again, maybe I’m taking the whole phenomena a bit too seriously.

Phil, you bring up an interesting idea re: nostalgia. I’m 32, but does the fact that I wasn’t even born when Jimi died preclude me from looking back nostalgically on him and his career? Given the amount of Hendrix information available in a myriad of media (books, cds, dvds) don’t we all have access to a nostalgic perspective these days? Or is nostalgia a luxury only available to “those who were there” so-to-speak?

Didn't realize the same sentence appeared twice in the above post. Used copy-and-paste instead of cut-and-paste, and now I feel like a moron.

Anyway, I tend to think of nostalgia as being pretty much rooted in chronology. So if you weren't "really there," but you have an affection for the music of the 1960s, you are not really nostalgic in the usual sense, and your claim that the Doors, say, are 10x the band Creed could ever hope to be actually carries more weight, to me anyhow, than hearing the exact same comment from someone in their late 50s. (Tangentially, I was just reading Lester Bangs' essay "Bozo Dionysus," about the Doors 10 years after Morrison's death, last night. He deals with these same ideas.)

This relates to the thing I find most interesting about the CD age - the idea that all (or anyhow a sizable chunk) of music history is all available simultaneously, thus obviating the need for historically-minded perspectives. This obviously comes into play more when dealing with jazz snobs who claim you should graduate the University of Armstrong, Parker and Ellington before listening to Charles Gayle, but there's a rock-oriented branch of this particular bullshit factory, too. Now that everything's available at once, there's no need to listen to things "in order." You can buy Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens on the same shopping trip as Miles' Dark Magus and Matt Shipp's Equilibrium, and enjoy them all equally. I myself went on a mini-Hendrix bender not long ago, as part of research for the Miles book. I discovered that the stuff I like best by him is the stuff from the last 12 months of his life - the Band of Gypsys and the reconstituted Experience with Billy Cox on bass.

Anyway...

"Nope, I wouldn’t say. They’re quite different IMO."

Really? How? I don't see much difference between displaying Hendrix on your t-shirt and displaying Hendrix on your phone.

"I just think it’s sad that he’s been co-opted for the Almighty Dollar to the degree that he has."

Maybe it's sad, but it's not the kind of thing I worry about. Maybe my cultural experience is a tad solipsistic, but I tend not to worry about this type of thing, as I would never buy a Hendrix t-shirt anyway, just as I would never buy a Jazz Corner t-shirt.

"music memorabilia store"

Doesn't that, in and of itself, give the game away? To me memorabilia=unimportant. CDs, DVDs and concerts aren't memorabilia, they're lifeblood. So right away a t-shirt or poster is reduced to the same importance as a bottle-opener or bedsheets.

My problem isn’t with the ‘displaying’ of Hendrix per se. Hell, cd & dvds- the ‘lifeblood’ as you call them- display him as well. As I wrote before it’s in the exploitation of his persona in so many ways for profit. Turning him into a commodity to the degree that the EXPERIENCE HENDRIX catalog suggests he has been.

And I wouldn’t call memorabilia ‘unimportant’ at all. T-shirts and posters seem less trivial to me. Maybe it’s because they’ve been around longer as collectables. I still treasure my Hüsker Dü Metal Circus shirt even though it’s frayed and faded. A Hendrix air freshener or a cell phone cover on the other hand strikes me as cheap and disposable. Just my opinion.

What can I say, mke? You’re a better man than I for not worrying about this sort of stuff. And to be frank I don’t worry about it. It’s not something that keeps me up nights, just something I noticed & decided to comment on. Nice use of the word ‘solipsistic’ by the way.

"And I wouldn’t call memorabilia ‘unimportant’ at all. T-shirts and posters seem less trivial to me. Maybe it’s because they’ve been around longer as collectables."

They've been around longer, that's all. Really, how is a t-shirt *not* trivial? But does it really depend on the objects, or rather on simply how much stuff there is? For example, some people feel that the proliferation of Miles Davis re-issues and box sets is exploitative... or maybe an overkill on biographies can have a similar effect.

"Nice use of the word ‘solipsistic’ by the way."

Thanks!

“how is a t-shirt *not* trivial?”

It can have sentimental value- commemorating a concert or communicating a strong interest in a musician or a band or a myriad of other positive & lasting connotations. I don’t think the same can be said for the air freshener and cell phone cover that keep getting trundled out as examples.

“But does it really depend on the objects, or rather on simply how much stuff there is?”

If you read back through my posts carefully, I think you’ll discover where my opinion lies on this.

"I guess my big beef is the sheer magnitude & picayunish diversity of the products"

So you'd answer "both"?

I don't know, but I get the impression that you're just imposing your own brand of "acceptable consumerism." It could be argued that freshening your house with Jimi's scent is a bigger decision than what t-shirt to wear.

"I just think it’s sad that he’s been co-opted for the Almighty Dollar to the degree that he has."

I think it's sad when, say, a beautiful landscape is marred by mushrooming tourist stands, hotels and the attendant litter, as your experience is directly impinged upon. In this case, however, you construct your own landscape. Mine would consist entirely of CDs/DVDs, yours would expand to include t-shirts and maybe a poster, someone else's might go all the way to a bottle-opener and a pen. By your logic, I could "condemn" you for commercialising Jimi beyond his music.

mke, I think you’re missing my point about t-shirts. It’s not about deciding whether to wear it or not or its functional use. It’s about the memories/connotations the object(s) hold. You could make the argument that an air freshener possesses these same attributes, but I’d be inclined to disagree.

“By your logic, I could “condemn” you for commercialising Jimi beyond his music.”

Go right ahead. Again, I think you’re missing my point & this isn’t entirely about logic. If there are people out there that want to commemorate/celebrate Jimi through bottle openers, pens & Patriot caps, more power to them. I think it trivializes him. Where’s the confusion here?

Phil, thanks for the clarification re: nostalgia. I echo your sentiments about the instant accessibility of music in the cd/mp3 age. But I’m not sure I’m down with your dismissal of historically-minded perspectives. We don’t need to listen to things “in order,” but we do need to have historical perspective if we’re going to make blanket statements about a genre or a musician, etc. That’s probably the chief problem I had with NEW YORK IS NOW. The positioning of the 90s NY free jazz scene in a fairly insular bubble, while other influencing factors (ie. European improv, earlier jazz genres) were ignored or out right dismissed.

To hit it from another angle, if someone is going to claim, for instance, that a given performance is one of the *greatest* or most representative jazz ballad performances ever, they should have a strong working knowledge of the body of jazz ballad performances that preceded it in a historical sense.

Re: Hendrix. It’s really hard for me narrow the stuff I like best, but if walking the plank I’d probably pick the BBC Sessions. The Experience at the tail end of their nascent stage, having a blast in the studio & experimenting a bit with their current hits & some covers. I even dig the jams with Stevie Wonder and the final cuts on disc two culled from the Lulu show are hilarious- Jimi and crew in full-on playful “let’s fuck shit up” mode.

"some people feel that the proliferation of Miles Davis re-issues and box sets is exploitative..."

What sort of an asshole would make a claim like that. Sheesh!

By virtue of the fact that you wear them, t-shirts are often a means of expressing one's identity via public declarations of taste. Young people who wear rock band t-shirts often also do so in order to demonstrate that they belong to a certain sub-culture (i.e., the goth crowd, the So-Cal punk crowd, etc.).

Like Derek, I'm just surprised there's a market for all this stuff. It takes money to manufacture all this memorabilia, so they must be making money somehow... Still, pouring said profits back into efforts to move large quantities of "incense, magnets, pens, key chains, stickers, patches, buttons, collector’s tins, figurines, air fresheners, bracelets, rings, pedants" seems a little sad to me. Especially given what the revolutions of the 1960's -- Hendrix's time -- were all about, and not just in America, but all over the world.

>What sort of an asshole would make a claim like that. Sheesh!

Um, Teo Macero?

"It’s about the memories/connotations the object(s) hold."

If it's about memories/connotations, aren't in an even weaker position to judge which objects hold significant ones, and which are devoid of them? In other words, doesn't it become an even more subjective discussion? If someone says "Every time I use my Jimi Hendrix air freshener, it triggers my olfactive memory and sends me back to the time I saw him perform/went to the museum in Seattle/first heard an album," how can you say "No, you're wrong, my t-shirt holds more/better worth"?

“Um, Teo Macero?”

And let’s not forget our own Mr. Milazzo, what a jerk! :)

mke, this is becoming ridiculous. If a person hangs a Hendrix air freshener in his or her car & the scent conjures warm fuzzies, great. Same thing if every time they crack open a beer with their official Hendrix bottle opener they flashback to the killer show they caught at Monterey Pop in 66’. Personally, I find these hypothetical situations difficult to imagine.

I’m still trying to figure out where the disconnect between what I’m contending & the way you’re interpreting it is. Actually, I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. Who said this wasn’t a completely subjective discussion? It has been from the start. I’m starting to think you’re just arguing for the simple sake of arguing.

Oops, the legendary Monterey Pop concert was in 67’.

Wish the CD of that performance was still in print, too. Great version of "Killing Floor" on there.

Agreed, Phil. There’s a ripping reading on the BBC set also.

"this is becoming ridiculous"

Hey, you asked for comments! :)

My main point is that I don't see how you can uphold certain memorabilia vs. others, as they all spring from the same commercial logic.

"Personally, I find these hypothetical situations difficult to imagine."

Hey, I find organizing your CDs by spine colour hard to believe, but some people do it!

mke, comments are fine and welcome. Endless rehashing of the same old shit, I’m not so sure about. I get your point, I just think it's immaterial to the larger topic.

“Hey, I find organizing your cds by spine colour hard to believe.”

Did I miss something? Where have I written about the way my cds are organized alphabetical or otherwise? Well, as long as we’re in the habit of capitalizing on bogus information, I could say the same about your constant sycophantic cooing over Stanley Crouch’s former column at Jazz Times. But I’d be equally wrong.

It’s a lot like what my painter friend Donald said to me “let’s stick a fork in this thread’s ass and turn it over, it’s done.”

The spine comment was intended as an example of actually existing "difficult to imagine hypotheticals" and was drawn from a discussion held on Jazz Corner. I guess it was a bit too esoteric.

And just so no rumours start spreading through the Internet like wildfire, I have never cooed, sycophantically or otherwise, about Stanley Crouch. Although I did meet him once briefly and got his phone number. But that's another story.

"Although I did meet him once briefly and got his phone number. But that's another story."

Don't be shy.

"Don't be shy."

Village Vanguard, september 1999.

Second day in New York, we are extremely tired.

Tommy Flanagan finishes second set.

Walking out: "Are you Stanley Crouch?"

"I sure hope so."

...

"Call me, I'll give you some books."

I lose phone number.

Kind of anti-climactic, I'll admit.

I'm with Mwanji in not wearing/displaying any form of branding. However, I'm less concerned about dead people's images being used on T-shirts, mugs, bottle openers, than I am about real live 6 year old children who's bedrooms and wardrobes are entirely furnished by Britney Spears' record company or approved licensees (no I can't offer any real life examples, but I assume there are some). Similarly 16 year old bedrooms entirely decked out by Marilyn Manson's label etc. etc. Especially since that in almost all cases, pick two diametrically opposed lifestyle-pop-starts and there's a fair chance they're on the same label.

Britney and Marilyn may have little control over how much their image is used, but they have more control than some pre-teen does in choosing what they themselves consume. And all of us have to look at this stuff if we make excursions, no matter how infrequent, into big shopping malls, or turn on the TV at the wrong time. The combined saturation of specific media outlets, and the increased number of items/media through which things can be saturated is a rapidly increasing and pretty nasty phenomenon, even if it's a part of the same phenomenon that allows so many indie labels to function.

Music companies, and the other successful brands like Nike which can almost house, feed and clothe you if you let them (doesn't Disney fit that particular bill? my girlfriend's ex-flat-mate is getting married at a certain place in Florida next year......) can't be accused of forcing people to buy their products, it is a market after all, and it's only backed up by force _outside_ Europe and the US, unless it's a special occasion. But there can arise a situation where it's impossible to buy something (be it a t-shirt or a lunch box) that isn't branded by one of those companies, without travelling several miles and having a fair amount of local knowledge.

That, for me, is a much more frightening prospect than Jimi's image being on a can opener. It's finding a can opener without someone's image (be it pop star, wine guru, chef, Homer, the IKEA logo (or branded-unbrandedness depending on the range) that's going to get harder and harder as this keeps going, and the market for items that don't evoke "lifestyle" (simple already being one) reduces.

I don't like to display brands because if I'm going to be advertising something I should be paid to do so, rather than paying for the privelege.

That's the problem for me: finding clothing without visible marks and logos.

Jermaine

"Britney and Marilyn may have little control over how much their image is used, but they have more control than some pre-teen does in choosing what they themselves consume."

I don't understand this sentence.

As I look down, I realise that I am wearing a Nike sweater and Nike shorts. Oh well, nobody's perfect.

It means that someone like Hendrix has no choice over how his image is used 30 years after his death, living pop artists probably have very little say either. However, the purchasing power of a 9-year-old, especially in small town with just a couple of major retailers, may restrict them to pretty much only branded products - it's often the case that clothing that doesn't display logos is more expensive than its logo bearing counterparts, certainly clothing of similar quality. I've got little sympathy for anyone who's famous enough that their image gets put on 100 different products, but it gets harder and harder to find stuff without those brands on them.

Branded clothing, and branded everything else aspires to some kind of lifestyle - Hendrix's, Britney's - that lifestyle is rammed down the throats of everyone who has access to major media, but those actually living the lifestyle have no need for any of that branded clothing (with the possible exception of sports stars who in fact do wear the products their images are used to advertise). Don't know if that makes any more sense.