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March 2, 2000
In the early 80s, there was some buzz
in the music press about a new folk
scene renaissance happening in New York. Technically, I guess these
would be "New, New Folks".
At the top of the And Ani Difranco would
list of have to be "New Cubed Folk"
performers was
always Suzanne
Vega, and when I
got to hear her
first record, I There wasn't too much
was impressed. question of me running
into the city to check
Second on the out the scene directly.
list was always I was busy being an
"The Washington undergrad engineering
Squares", so I grunt.
ran out to buy
their first I did get to see Suzanne
release. It was Vega play out at Stony
really, really Brook once though (sometime
bad. before her second release).
She was very good...
Not "New Folks". She came off as this
More like: charming, nervous,
Old Journalism. "guarded" intellectual,
though whether the
insecurity was real or
schtick at that point
I couldn't tell you.
It was some time later
in the mid 80s, when
she scored a big hit
with "Luka".
It's amazing how that song
managed to go from touching
to trite in the space of a
few years.
Music biz overplay can be
really cruel.
Sitting in my car,
parked at the curb,
unwilling to leave
before the Vega
song on the radio
ends. A young
woman on the
sidewalk turns and
looks at me through
the windshield,
telling me "she's
great!".
In the common room at
CroMem, channel flipping Delighted to
while a couple of other stumble across
grad students were another fan.
hanging around...
I stumbled
across the new music
And you, of video for Luka. My VORTEX
course are more reaction: "well, that
likely than was the best thing
not totally I'm going to see on
sick of this TV tonight, I might
video, and as well give up now."
you can't
imagine why One of the people At the Stony Brook
anyone would agreed, but there was show: We all sat on
have *ever* a woman there who had the floor waiting
liked it. problems with Vega's for the band.
Vega's voice... she
said she prefered When they came out
singers with a little some people up front
more "Oomph" like tried to stand up,
Whitney Houston. but the audience
shouted them back
I commented: down, "This is a
"Does that song *folk* music
deserve 'Oomph'?" concert."
(Camille Paglia sneered at So we all sat on
Vega as a prime example of the cold linoleum
"Women's" music: weak, floor, in a
wimpy, quiet.) self-conscious
attempt at being
In the 90s, I was enthusiastic about retro-folky. I was
the new Suzanne Vega releases, the near the front, and
tracks "99.9 Faherenheit" and "Blood had to strain my
Makes Noise". neck to look up at
the stage.
These became canonical examples
for me of the great, non-existant
genre of industrial folk music.
(It would be funny if
Vega were trying to
counter Paglia.)
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