Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 226
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4422-2975-4 • Hardback • August 2014 • $90.00 • (£69.00)
978-1-4422-2976-1 • eBook • August 2014 • $85.50 • (£66.00)
Alex DiBlasi has done extensive research on The Kinks, The Who, The Monkees, Frank Zappa, and the influences of Eastern religion in popular music. His other fields of research include experimental film, Czech New Wave cinema, and east European History.
Victoria Willis, Ph.D., is a research analyst in the Office of Institutional Research at Georgia State University. Her research interests revolve around the intersections of rhetoric, music, and popular culture.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “Q: Are We Not Geeks? A: We Are Geek Rock!”
Chapter 1 “Frank Zappa: Godfather of Geek Rock”
Alex DiBlasi, independent scholar
Chapter 2 “Taste, Kitsch, and Geek Rock: A Multiple Modernities View”
Martina Topić, University of Zagreb
Chapter 3 “Futurists and New Traditionalists: The Antagonistic Critique of Devo and Italian Futurism”
Ian Steinberg, Wilfrid Laurier University
Chapter 4 “Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Geek Rock: Haustor and Darko Rundek”
Julijana Zhabeva-Papazova, DMBUC Ilija Nikolovski-Luj
Chapter 5 “They Might Be Lacanian: They Might Be Giants, Jacques Lacan, and the Rhetoric of Geek Rock”
Victoria Willis, Georgia State University
Chapter 6 “‘A Very Subtle Joke’: T.S. Eliot, J. D. Salinger, and the Puer Aeternus in God Shuffled His Feet”
Paul Alexander Cantrell, independent scholar
Chapter 7 “‘Fuck Me, I’m Twee’: Performing Gender and Age in Twee Pop
Caroline Gates-Shannon, independent scholar
Chapter 8 “Man [Seeking] Asto-man?: Nouveau Surf Rock and the Futuristic-Past Nostalgic”
Shannon Finck, Georgia State University
Chapter 9 “The Geek’s Guide to Love: Knowledge and Failure in the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs”
Nadav Appel, Bar-Ilan University
Chapter 10 “‘My God, What an Infantile Gesture’: The Mountain Goats as Emblematic of Geek Rock’s Relationship with the Authentic”
Taylor Peters, independent scholar
Chapter 11 “‘Now It’s Time for a Little Braggadocio’: Nerdcore Rap, Race, and the Politics of
Appropriation”
Christopher Russell, Northwestern University
Appendix 1: Contributor Biographies
Appendix 2: Suggested Listening
Geek Rock, a series of essays edited by Alex DiBlasi and Victoria Willis, places key figures and trends in the burgeoning geek rock subculture under the lens of critical theory. The inspiration for the book came out of a panel at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s annual meeting in Boston in April 2012. . . .As a study of geek subculture, Geek Rock suggests possibilities for future scholarly exploration.
— American Reference Books Annual
DiBlasi and Willis collected eleven essays from around the world, trying to cover the how, when, where, and whys of geek culture’s music from its earliest preferences, which include (as said previously) Zappa and Beefheart, Devo, They Might Be Giants and on to what has now become known as 'nerdcore.' These various essays aren’t simply a fan’s point of view; rather these are serious cultural and musical looks, evaluations and dissections. . . .As a fan of Beefheart and an appreciator of Zappa, I would say, yes, do check this book out. And extra applause for compiling a serious book on a musical subculture; this is not a predictable tome of fan fluff. These are smart music people.
— Popdose