ABSTRACT
Music has long functioned as a resource through which individuals situate themselves, and others, in relation to space and place. Most fundamentally, music that originates in a particular place often becomes part of the symbolic imagery of that place’s local culture and tradition, along with things such as local cuisine, dialect, styles of dress, etc. In more recent years, the increasingly trans-local nature of music production, performance and consumption has prompted a shift in thinking about music’s relationship to place. The increasing globalization of music, and culture generally, has also forced new questions concerning the relationship between the global and the local. In comparison to folk music which depends to some extent on the individuals’ willingness to buy into its status as an authentic aspect of ‘local’ culture, on the surface rock music would appear to have a far more tenuous link to place.
