[Tango-L] The ZVI MIGDAL group

[Jake Spatz]

Okay, Lucia-- spoon by spoon:

The documentary dealing with the Dixie Chicks and their singer's 
political outspokenness is titled "Shut Up and Sing." This title is a 
quote of THEIR OPPOSITION's attitude.

There was a well-known punk band called The Dead Kennedys. The group's 
name was a REMINDER, the gesture of that name an aggressive statement of 
fact. An _unwillingness_, you might say, to let fact be forgotten, 
elegized, paved over. The semantic gesture is rather like the image of 
blood (or an unburied body) crying out for vengeance in the Bible.

Towards the other end of the semantic spectrum, there also was a 
well-known group named Nirvana, whose music was almost universally 
recognized as the embodiment of angst. I've always taken the name to be 
a Foil to the band's music: it hovers over everything like an ideal, 
falsified or at least challenged by the reality of the music-- and the 
music thereby comes to seem more legitimately "reality," due to the 
contrast. This is much like Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti calling his 
first book (dealing with metaphysical alienation, loss, WWI) 
"L'allegria" ("Joy"). The point is that there is None in the book.

The notion that a name, or the presentation of a subject, is ipso facto 
_an endorsement_ belongs to facile theorists. There is power in the 
presentation of a negative. The image of the crucifix is one rather 
glaring example. Calling one's band Public Enemy is another.

Now, I haven't heard Pablo's group, and I don't know Pablo. Judging from 
the contents of his recent post, I'd say the name of his group is a 
defiance along these very lines. He even comes down hard on the cabeceo 
(or a certain way of doing it), linking it to sleaze. If my 
understanding of his band's name is off, I'm sure he knows how to say so.

Last spoon-- if you've eaten it this far: An explanation such as mine is 
NOT an endorsement either. Do I like the band name? Eh... a bit obscure, 
a bit heavy-handed. But again, I don't know the band. It could very well 
be brilliant, but making it so is a tall order. It's certainly 
provocative, but the question is what that provocation has to do with 
the band's material and its stance within the larger musical context.

How any of this concerns "acceptable and fun" is beyond me.

JS
DC


Lucia wrote:
>> "Trini y Sean (PATangoS)" <patangos at yahoo.com> escribió:Their name is
>>     
>   thought-provoking and adds to the event.
>   
>   > Trini de Pittsburgh
>   
>   Trini,
>   
>   I can think of a few other thought-provoking names: The NSDAP Band  (that's the Nazi party name), the Ku Klux Klan Band, then a name that  will resonate with our British friends, The N9S or a name that will  resonate with the Italians, the Mafia group. Or, why not the Nigger  Boys and Girls Slave Running Band?
>   
>   Shall everything be acceptable and fun? Doesn't this attitude cheapen  history and memory and makes the horrendous acceptable and more  palatable?
>   
>   Lucia
>   
>   
>
>
>  		
> ---------------------------------
>  Preguntá. Respondé. Descubrí.
>  Todo lo que querías saber, y lo que ni imaginabas,
>  está en Yahoo! Respuestas (Beta).
>  Probalo ya! 
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