I’ve never quite understood the point of rock criticism. What is there to say, really, about a rock song? It rocks or it doesn’t. Occasional attempts at a higher kind of criticism, freed from the burdens of mere subject matter, generally result in pretentious mush. (One thinks of Greil Marcus and winces.)
The manifestos (there are said to have been 150 in all, written over a three-month period) were strange and passionate little statements. They clamored for, and indeed demanded, attention. At times they bore extravagant proclamations–suggesting, for example, that Pavement be touted at trade talks as “our grandest export,” the band “carried on our shoulders and emblazoned on our backs and ushered into waiting planes at the last minute and with an almost effete, deliberate importance, their bellies bloated with our very best meats.”
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Most of these posters, I would imagine, have by now been torn down, covered over, or reduced to rags by inclement weather. Luckily, some two dozen of the posters have been collected into a small book, The Lost Manifestos of Camden Joy, available by mail from TransGraphic in Oregon and at the Rag & Bone Shop in New York.
The “facts” on the fact sheet are all improbable, of course, but it’s doubtful that they were intended to be taken as literal truth. For all I know, Joy may himself be an agent of a large publishing house who’s lighted on this simple ruse to gain some indie cred. Or he may in fact be, as he says, an underpaid liquor-store clerk with a lot to say and no place to say it. My communications with Joy have not cleared the matter up: he insists that the fact sheet is “mostly correct,” though he goes on to suggest that it may contain “a few intentional mistakes.”
Oddly enough, some of Joy’s most passionate writings are devoted to (or, rather, take as their grain of sand) artists with very little indie cred. His pamphlet The Greatest Record Album Ever Told is a joyous elegy to Frank Black’s Teenager of the Year, the second solo record put out by the former Pixie and freelance UFOlogist.
Of course, to describe The Greatest Record Album Ever Told as telling the true story of Frank Black is to miss the point; it’s like describing Ulysses as a book about a couple of Irishmen wasting a day. The pamphlet does deal with “Our Black Man”–it’s saturated with him–but it’s also a commentary on the contemporary state of institutionalized alternative culture, a postmodern parody of the tired tropes of music reviewing, and a bittersweet farewell to “angel-haired, candy-mouthed Shaleese,” a former (and much missed) girlfriend.
Like I said, this one is a little surrealistic. I found it much less affecting than Joy’s other writings; it seemed a little too precious, too self-consciously artsy. Though, admittedly, his admiration of Green is creatively expressed. “Al Green sings ‘Take Me to the River,’” he writes, “which I hear as ‘Take Me to Al Green,’ for Al Green IS my river.”
