IASPM conferences are always enjoyable. There is plenty of enthusiasm for music, as well as much skilful delineation of its form and cultural context. IASPM conferences also have a pretty flat structure and, although there is never enough, a relatively high degree of interaction between people from different countries, ethnicities, disciplines, sexualities. Certainly, the academic star system is in evidence, but its worst manifestations are suppressed because most people want their conference to be democratic, to represent an alternative kind of academic culture.