Wendy Fonarow

Last updated

Wendy Fonarow
Wendy Fonarow 01.jpg
Fonarow in 2010
Born1969 (age 5455)
Los Angeles, California, United States
OccupationAnthropologist, professor, writer, A&R
NationalityAmerican
Genrenon-fiction
Website
www.indiegoddess.com

Wendy Fonarow is a Los Angeles based anthropologist, writer, music industry professional and Professor of Anthropology at Glendale Community College. She is best known for her book Empire of Dirt, one of the first academic monographs on indie music in the context of live concerts. [1] and for her column Ask the Indie Professor in The Guardian. [2] Her areas of expertise include ritual, performance and the music industry. [3]

Contents

Life and career

Wendy Fonarow was born in Los Angeles and studied applied mathematics and anthropology at University of California in San Diego, where she also worked at the campus radio station KSDT. At the time the station featured post-punk British bands and underground dance music. Milo Aukerman of the Descendants also attended UCSD at the same time. The band covered the Beach Boys' song "Wendy" for her. The song was later included on The Descendant's album Enjoy! [4]

After graduating, she continued to attend concerts in Los Angeles. In 1989, Fonarow attended the first Reading festival with a new promoter the Mean Fiddler. Mean Fiddler's participation changed the direction of the festival from heavy rock to the burgeoning genre of indie music. [5] As an American, she was unable to purchase tickets internationally and was therefore added to the guest list of the Irish band, Something Happens who gave her backstage access. Her experiences at this indie music festival eventually became the inspiration for her PhD thesis on indie and live music performance. [4]

She completed her masters research on Contemporary Halloween Practices and went on to research the practices of audiences at UCLA. [4] [6] She is frequently cited in and writes for popular media as an expert on Halloween, music, and pop culture. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

In 1993, she arrived in London to begin fieldwork on indie music and live performance and was introduced to Laurence Bell, the founder of Domino Recording Company. Fonarow was subsequently hired as Domino Records first employee. Fonarow worked closely with artists such as Slowdive, Ride and Mogwai in the initial phase of her research and continued to document indie audiences until mobile phones radically changed participation at concerts. She returned to Los Angeles, and between 1995 and 1997 worked at Reprise Records and at MCA Records as a talent scout and A&R manager while continuing to teach Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology at UCLA. [4]

In 1999, she finished her PhD thesis and in 2006 released a book, Empire of Dirt [13] She has given lectures and keynotes at Cambridge University, Princeton, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Milan, University of Oslo and the University of Edinburgh as well as conferences, including By:Larm, CMJ, SXSW, Music Finland, and EMP in Seattle, NYC, and Los Angeles.

Bibliography

Non-fiction

Influence

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamie Lee Curtis</span> American actress and author (born 1958)

Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress, producer, and children's author. Known for her performances in the horror and slasher genres, she is regarded as a scream queen, in addition to roles in comedies. Curtis has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globes, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy and a Grammy.

Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge, shoegaze, and Britpop subgenres in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danielle Harris</span> American actress (born 1977)

Danielle Andrea Harris is an American actress. She is known as a "scream queen" for her roles in multiple horror films, including four entries in the Halloween franchise: Halloween 4 (1988) and Halloween 5 (1989) as Jamie Lloyd, and Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009) as Annie Brackett. Other such roles include Tosh in Urban Legend (1998), Belle in Stake Land (2010), and Marybeth Dunston in the Hatchet series (2010–17). In 2012, she was inducted into the Fangoria Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cassandra Peterson</span> American actress (born 1951)

Cassandra Gay Peterson is an American actress best known for her portrayal of the horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Peterson gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ-TV in her stage persona as Elvira, hosting Elvira's Movie Macabre, a weekly B movie presentation. A member of the Los Angeles-based improvisational and sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings, Peterson based her Elvira persona in part on a "Valley girl"-type character she created while a member of the troupe.

Indie pop is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and subsequently generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. Compared to its counterpart, indie rock, the genre is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. In later years, the definition of indie pop has bifurcated to also mean bands from unrelated DIY scenes/movements with pop leanings. Subgenres include chamber pop and twee pop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Independent music</span> Music produced without commercial record labels

Independent music is music produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries; this may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyle Richards</span> American actress and television personality (born 1969)

Kyle Egan Richards Umansky is an American actress, socialite, and television personality. Since 2010, she has appeared as a main cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and as of 2024, is the last remaining original cast member on the show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lo-fi music</span> Music aesthetic

Lo-fi is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The standards of sound quality (fidelity) and music production have evolved throughout the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990s, when it became alternately referred to as DIY music.

Nicole Holofcener is an American film and television director and screenwriter. She has directed seven feature films, including Walking and Talking, Friends with Money and Enough Said, as well as various television series. Along with Jeff Whitty, Holofcener received a 2019 Academy Award nomination for Adapted Screenplay, a BAFTA nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">How Does It Feel to Be Loved?</span> Nightclub in London, England

How Does It Feel to Be Loved? is a London-based nightclub which predominantly plays indie pop, Northern Soul and Motown music. On the club's website, founder Ian Watson explains: "We love pop, we love guitars that jangle, we love foot stomping melodies and huge choruses." The club's name is taken from the lyrics to The Velvet Underground song "Beginning to See the Light".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ava DuVernay</span> American filmmaker (born 1972)

Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, film and television producer. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee of an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011 she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly Reichardt</span> American film director and screenwriter

Kelly Reichardt is an American film director and screenwriter. She is known for her minimalist films closely associated with slow cinema, many of which deal with working-class characters in small, rural communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ildikó Enyedi</span> Hungarian film director and screenwriter

Ildikó Enyedi is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. She is best known for directing On Body and Soul, which won the top prize at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival among other awards, and was nominated for a Foreign Language Academy Award.

<i>Empire of Dirt</i>

Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music is a 2006 book by Wendy Fonarow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brighton Sharbino</span> American actress (born 2002)

Brighton Rose Sharbino is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Lizzie Samuels on the AMC television series The Walking Dead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy C. Ortiz</span> American poet

Wendy C. Ortiz is an American essayist, creative nonfiction writer, fiction writer, psychotherapist, and poet.

<i>Marriage Story</i> 2019 film by Noah Baumbach

Marriage Story is a 2019 drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who also produced the film with David Heyman. It stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as a warring couple going through a coast-to-coast divorce. Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, and Merritt Wever appear in supporting roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alana Haim</span> American musician and actress (born 1991)

Alana Mychal Haim is an American musician and actress. She is a member of the pop rock band Haim, along with her two older sisters Este and Danielle, where she performs piano, guitar and vocals. In 2020, the band received a nomination for Grammy Award for Album of the Year for their third album, Women in Music Pt. III.

Gloria Cheng is an American pianist who won a Grammy Award for her 2008 Piano Music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, and Witold Lutosławski, and a nomination for The Edge of Light: Messiaen/Saariaho. Her film, "Montage: Great Film Composers and the Piano" (2016), documenting the recording of the eponymous CD of works composed for her by Bruce Broughton, Don Davis, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman, and John Williams, aired on PBS SoCal and was awarded the 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy for Independent Programming. She is on the faculty at UCLA. She served as 2012 Regents Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wallice</span> American indie pop singer-songwriter

Wallice Hana Watanabe, known mononymously as Wallice, is an American singer-songwriter. She is based in Los Angeles, which is where she was born and raised.

References

  1. "El Día de la Música calienta motores". europapress.es. Europapress. May 17, 2010. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  2. "Wendy Fonarow". The Guardian. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  3. "Wendy Fonarow". swimming.ly. Swimmingly. January 21, 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "England Made Me". The Word (86): 108–110. April 2010.
  5. "The Reading Festival. Richfield Avenue. Reading. August 25-27th 1989". UK Rock Festivals. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  6. "The Halloween History You Don't Know with Prof. Wendy Fonarow". asweetdoseofreality.com. A Sweet Dose of reality. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  7. "TBT: 'Cool Kids' Annoy Neighbors Near '1979 House Party' Thrown At Home Used For Smashing Pumpkins' Hit Video". losangeles.cbslocal.com. CBS. June 28, 2018. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  8. Fonarow, Wendy (February 26, 2016). "Made of Stone: what makes an American Stone Roses fan tick?". The Guardian. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  9. Jones, Byron (April 4, 2018). "Oasis song tops Best Of British all-white straight male radio poll". themusicnetwork.com. The Music Network. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  10. Rudavisky, Shari. "Trunk-or-treat, trick-or-treat or both?". indystar.com. IndyStar. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  11. Scribner, Sarah (August 11, 2013). "Generation X gets really old: How do slackers have a midlife crisis?". Salon. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  12. "A generation stuck in the middle turns 50". www./projects.presstelegram.com. PressTelegram. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  13. Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music Paperback: ISBN   978-0-8195-6811-3, Hardcover: ISBN   978-0-8195-6810-6
  14. Wendy Fonarow (March 22, 2011). "Ask the indie professor: Why so many bad band names?". The Guardian. Retrieved April 22, 2011.
  15. Wendy Fonarow (July 2, 2006). "Three vs. 3". mojave3online.com. Archived from the original on October 27, 2007. Retrieved April 22, 2011.
  16. _tunic_ (October 7, 2012). "SeBADoH" . Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  17. "Secret EP by Sebadoh". Sebadoh. Retrieved December 4, 2013.