hard core logo, and music as a simulacrum

i don't know how many people have seen this movie or read the book, so maybe none of this will make much sense but i'll try to write it out. it's just something i've been thinking about. there'd been discussions in class especially around the subject of delillo's work that sort of tie in i think, and matt's presentation last week hit on some of these thoughts, too.

mostly the idea of image as reality, persona as reality when applied to people, shown (sort of) through music and the music industry.

i know, original, right?

hard core logo is a book by michael turner about a fictional defunct vancouver punk band named hard core logo who get back together to play a benefit show for a global awareness organization. the show goes so well that joe dick, lead singer, wants the band to reform and do a reunion tour of western canada. the story follows joe, billy tallent, pipefitter and john oxenberger along the tour, goes through the good shows and the bad shows, dealing with all the crap of the music industry and "selling out" and feeling like a has-been, aging punk at thirty-two, and follows through to the eventual, final disintegration of the band.

turner's approach to the way he writes is very postmodern, and hard core logo in particular is similar to house of leaves in that it's very unconventionally structured and it challenges the way a book "should" be written. hard core logo is made entirely of images. the story of this band is told through photographs, set lists, song lyrics, poetry, journal entries, letters, answering machine messages, receipts, posters, interviews, etc. rather than a narrative storyline. what we get from this is a look into the lives of these characters, small snapshots of their personalities and what makes up their lives-- a collection of crumpled gig posters and ratty old notebooks filled with lyrics; interviews with radio stations and articles in magazines; inventory lists, merchandise, road games.

the movie, shot as a mockumentary, is an image also. not only is it physically visual but it's a product of turner's original images; an image made from an image. it's a combination of the pictorial quality of the book and the tangible physicality of film. being able to put faces to the names on the page, to actually hear the songs that were only lyrics before, helps make the characters even more real than they started out.

the characters appear as images as well, and here is where i'll get to the persona as reality part. right off the bat, the name of the band is more of an image than a name, not even going so far as to provide an actual logo, just saying insert one here. joe dick, billy tallent and pipefitter are images themselves, smaller images making up the larger one of the band. they're nicknames and rockstar personalities. in the film version, john says that pipe doesn't even remember what his real name is, he's been calling himself that for so long. joe and billy gave themselves their punk handles when they were teenagers and still refer to each other by them. as the story progresses, joe begins to see "billy tallent" as an image billy is projecting to the world, this rockstar front. he thinks billy is getting too lost in the surreal world of The Rock Star, that it's becoming less about the music and more about the limos and the models and the fame. joe's worried billy is starting to buy into the hype about himself and believe he really is "billy tallent," famous lead guitarist of seminal punk band hard core logo. the name, the idea of billy tallent becomes much bigger than the man himself-- joe's best friend; the guy he's known since they were kids; the guitarist in joe's band; just billy.

another character in the story who becomes an image is bucky haight. he's a punk legend and joe's idol. bucky represents punk music for joe-- what it used to be, the essence of what it should be. none of the rock and roll, music industry problems that inevitably come with being famous. during the tour, the band spends a night at bucky's place in new york city, and instead of this great legend, all they see is a regular guy trying to live a half-way decent life after speeding through it too hard. in john's tour diary he says he "reckoned [bucky]'d be healthier, but he looked as bad as he did in the eighties" (140). bucky tells them stories from when he was first starting out as a musician, the trouble he eventually ran into with the industry and drugs and burning out too quickly, and it culminates in him finally saying:

"if i could give you all
one piece of advice:
ditch the band
and buy a farm.
it doesn't matter what you grow.
it's the fact that you'll see
whatever you do" (139).

to see his idol in this shape, to hear from him that the music really isn't worth it because everything that comes with it is shit and fake, joe's picture is totally blown-- not only of bucky, but of his own life, in a way, when he thinks about how much he's put into believing in music whole-heartedly. john writes: "we drove in silence down the highway. i could tell joe was really bummed. while billy and pipe were bemused by buck, joe grew more despondent" (140).

the idea of bucky haight became larger than life to joe. bucky's image started to mean more than the real thing. so when confronted with just the man, stripped down and human -- with the reality of what the music industry is and what it can do to people, with how bad it can get for people -- joe doesn't deal with it well. the idea of bucky had become more real than any physically real person could have been. it wasn't even necessarily the idea of bucky himself, but what bucky represented musically that joe is now not sure he can believe in as strongly anymore. when the band makes it to the gig in saskatoon, joe dedicates a song to "bucky haight, the legendary punk king who died last year in new york city" (143).

possibly the only character who isn't an image is john oxenberger. he's the only band member without a nickname, and more importantly the only one who sees the truth about the people around him while everyone else struggles with the representations of truth bombarding their lives. so much of the insight we get about the other characters comes from john's journal entries (in the book) and his narration (in the film).


i guess my wanting to write about this book for this blog came about because i started to think about the idea of the simulacrum in a more everyday sense; to wonder how i could put this into simpler thoughts i could wrap my head around.

much like how hard core logo the book is written (a big collection of images), and how the film version is put together (an image made from that big collection of images), the story parallels this structure through commentary on the music industry. the image of an idea is what consumes everyone rather than anything real or tangible, and even characters like joe dick who just want to be on the outside of it all, who fight against falling into that, are images themselves. music is reduced to appearance and managerial bullshit, essentially.

we see people as simulacra everyday, know people who have their own fronts and images they like to project, and for some that image may even go deeper than just surface value. because even as superficial as our outward image is when compared to the whole of an individual, it still gets so much meaning placed on it in society, whether it's an indication of socio-economic status or subculture; our symbolic value, as baudrillard would say. if reality is image and image is reality, then the image of the rock star is just as real -- if not more so -- than the actual person underneath all that; the person who grew up in the same neighborhoods we did, who has parents and siblings and a favorite breakfast food.

the example of music speaks strongly to the point delillo makes in mao when he says that the novel used to be what people found meaning in, that writing and writers used to be dangerous, and nowadays people need bombs dropped on them before they're affected by anything. we all know plenty of people who don't read for pleasure but i can probably count on one hand the number of people i've met who don't listen to music. music can be synonymous with reading in that it's something people find meaning in, something revolutionary that affects and inspires. if the images of bill and his novel become real in mao, the same can be said of one's favorite band and their music.

in the lecture on baudrillard monica gave us, it said baudrillard felt that "the postmodern human condition is a combination of 'fascination,' 'melancholy' and 'indifference.'" that cries so loudly for music. musicians say everything we feel better than we think we ever could and that gives the music dual meaning: it gives us something to hold onto, a sense of belonging where we feel like we aren't the only ones who feel or think the way we do; and it gives us a human something we feel we can connect with, the empathetic musician who speaks to me and knows exactly how i feel.

matt included this quote about bill from mao in his presentation: "a dream locus, a doubleness that famous places share, making them seem remote and unreceptive but at the same time intimately familiar, and experience you've been carrying forever" (120). haven't we all felt this way at least once before about a musician we really admire? they seem larger than life but it still feels like they're speaking directly to us. joe felt this way about bucky haight, i think.

at some point during the course of the experience, the reality of the musician- or author-the-person seems to fade away a bit and what we're left with is the impression the work has made, reduced to the words (the books or lyrics or sounds) themselves. it doesn't matter if we really know farrokh bulsara or the image of freddie mercury; the rockin' world still goes 'round and we're still a part of it. the person who created those words still exists, certainly, and we know that, but if the image of that person isn't in the forefront it's the new images they've created.


that was so long winded and i'm sure there's still more i could have said, i just hope it made some amount of sense. sorry for the probably too-specific example, again. :/



film trailer: