Andrew Mall 8/26/24 Andrew Mall 8/26/24

Punk Rock

Punk rock is simultaneously a music genre and a lifestyle, an attitude and a philosophy, a political orientation and a commodified fashion. Insiders, outsiders, in-betweeners—everyone’s perspective on punk is different, distinct, and necessarily individuated. Punk is what you make of it, yes—but it also has rules, boundaries, and its own self-appointed border police: punk is always already what others make of it. In this course, we explore the ideological, musical, and social characteristics of punk rock, its precedents, and its descendants.

Andrew Mall 4/29/21 Andrew Mall 4/29/21

“Lift Each Other Up”: Punk, Politics, and Secularization at Christian Festivals

IASPM-US conference presentation (2021). When the members of Flatfoot 56, a Celtic punk band from Chicago, speak of “brotherhood” at AudioFeed, a Christian music festival, they refer to congregational cohesion; at a secular punk venue, however, scene unity is just as likely an interpretation. Whereas Christian punks sacralize secular places, such as the bars and nightclubs where they often perform, this paper suggests that bands like Flatfoot 56 might be thought to secularize sacred places (i.e., Christian festivals) by decentering U.S. evangelicalism’s most controversial public positions. Through an ethnographic analysis of Flatfoot 56 performances, considering what is sung/spoken aloud and what is not, this paper argues for a nuanced, mediating perspective that recognizes an ambivalence about identity politics among many evangelical subculturalists moving between secular and sacred spaces.

Andrew Mall 1/23/20 Andrew Mall 1/23/20

“Lift Each Other Up”: Punk, Politics, and Secularization at Christian Festivals

Christian Punk, Bloomsbury (2020). This chapter focuses on the Chicago-based Christian Celtic-punk band Flatfoot 56, analyzing their performances in secular venues and at the Christian music festivals Cornerstone and AudioFeed. Arguing that Christianity and punk are inseparable to the band’s identity, the chapter analyzes their approach to religious communication in songs and from the stage. The chapter also addresses the evolution of Christian music festivals and the tensions around youth-focused niche forms of Christian music, such as punk.

Andrew Mall 3/15/19 Andrew Mall 3/15/19

Subculture

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, SAGE Publications (2019). Subculture is a theoretical perspective used to describe and analyze social groups that constitute some subset of a larger dominant, mainstream, or mass culture. Subculture theory has been most commonly applied to oppositional social groups and youth cultures by scholars in disciplines as diverse as anthropology, communications, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, media studies, popular music studies, sociology, and others.

Andrew Mall 3/14/19 Andrew Mall 3/14/19

Emo

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, SAGE Publications (2019). Emo, short for “emocore” or “emotional hardcore,” refers both to a genre of rock music and to its subculture. The genre first emerged from punk rock and hardcore punk in the mid-1980s in local underground music scenes, most notably that of Washington, D.C. Throughout the 1990s, it gradually spread across the trans-local networks of underground music scenes in North America. In the early 2000s, several emo bands and the genre itself achieved mainstream success. Like punk rock and other subcultures in previous decades, emo became a popular trend and commodity at its commercial peak, especially among teenagers and young fans.

Andrew Mall 3/8/16 Andrew Mall 3/8/16

“This is a chance to come together”: Subcultural Resistance and Community at Cornerstone Festival

Congregational Music-Making and Community in a Mediated Age, Ashgate (2015). Based on historical research and ethnographic fieldwork in 2009–2012, including two summers volunteering as festival staff, this chapter examines the ways in which Cornerstone’s imagined community was constructed, manifested, perpetuated, and mourned. This work participates in a growing literature on contemporary Christian congregational music practices and contributes to scholarship in ethnomusicology and popular music studies that address explicitly peripheral musical activities.

Andrew Mall 8/3/13 Andrew Mall 8/3/13

Subculture as Liturgy: Resistance and Worship among Subcultural Christians

Christian Congregational Music conference presentation (2013). Based on several years’ of ethnographic research, this paper examines the musical practices of two subcultural Christian communities in the U.S.: Nashville’s Anchor Fellowship and western Illinois’s Cornerstone Festival. Music and congregational song are very important to these liminal spaces, challenging old boundaries and defining new ones. Subculture itself becomes liturgical, and the political potential of corporate worship and popular music is often made explicit. In illustrating these communities, their sounds, and their ideologies, this paper both demonstrates the utility of subcultural theory to the study of congregational song and challenges Hebdige’s dialectic of incorporation.

Punk Rock

“Lift Each Other Up”: Punk, Politics, and Secularization at Christian Festivals

“Lift Each Other Up”: Punk, Politics, and Secularization at Christian Festivals

Subculture

Emo

“This is a chance to come together”: Subcultural Resistance and Community at Cornerstone Festival

Subculture as Liturgy: Resistance and Worship among Subcultural Christians

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Andrew Mall, ph.d