Subject: (exotica) Re: an old low-tech fart speaks
I'm afraid I don't agree. I think we are in a very good time creatively speaking. Of course I'm not talking anout Britney Spears or any of those Boybands. I really like the inheritance of punk and the DIY message. I think this is the right direction that music should take. Now everybody could make music. And that can produce some very unique and personal things that would be completely out of place a couple of decades ago.
An example of this is The Shaggs. I know they were from the 60s but they only became relatively popular in the last couple of decades. And I think now, with the conceptual ruptures of punk and the ease of use of the musical instruments, it is more possible to have this unique Shaggs-like kind of music all over the world. The possibilities are endless. we could finally get rid of all the standard music out there and become a world where everybody produces his (her) own peculiar style of music. And then you can exchange it, copy, pirate it or do whatever you want with it, and other people can do the same with what you do.
I think we are living in a really rich time. And that there is something for everybody out there. As Mo said you just have to try and "sort the pearls from the swines". And there are some really nice pearls out there.
I know this is really idealistic but I think that the whole thing with Napster and the internet is that it can turn music back from a business into a hobby. And this is a great change. People will do music not to make money but because they want to or need to or whatever drives artists to create without thinking of money.
I have a band in Colombia and last year we put out 1000 copies of a CD (it's called Las Malas Amistades). We haven't sold that many but that wasn't the idea anyway. We are proud of what we do (did) and we want to share it with other people. And I think that's the whole spirit of the moment.
But at the end, of course, it just becomes a matter of taste. If you don't like Shaggs-like, personal and simple music, then this scenario I imagine can be absolute hell for you.
Bye,
Manuel
> Subject: (exotica) an old low-tech fart speaks
>
> I've been reading all the posts about Napster, and reminiscing about the
> days when:
>
> 1- Music became popular because the melodies and/or harmonies were
> skillfully crafted by real musicians, (not posers and costumed choreography,
> not scratchers and samplers, not casting-call gymnast-pretty boys)
> 2- People that played music understood the beauty of understatement, didn't
> try to fill up every measure with every hackneyed lick they ever copied off
> somebody else's recording, understood dynamics and the concept that silence
> is an important element in music....
> 3- Instrumentals didn't involve hypnotic repetition of one riff over and
> over and over and over and over again etc.
> 4- Lyrics were suggestive, provocative, understated, imaginative, clever,
> presented old ideas in innovative ways, and didn't need to be hostile for
> lack of anything interesting to say...
> 5- Creativity didn't mean finding new ways to abuse a musical instrument.
> 6- When a musician was asked "What do you play?", the answer wasn't "A
> Marshall stack"....when musicians got together to chat, it was likely to be
> about chord changes to an old standard, and rarely if ever about
> equipment....
> 7- When pre-teenagers finally became adults, they stopped listening to
> pre-teenage music.....
>
> Oh well, that's just me....
>
>
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All - I recently acquired a used copy of this lp as a gift for a
friend. The copy I have, has a plain white inner sleeve. I'm
curious if the original lp came with any credits about session
players, etc. on the the inner sleeve as this one only has "thank
you's" on the back of the jacket itself.
thanks!
Michael
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 11:17:14 -0400
From: "m.ace" <mace@ookworld.com>
Subject: (exotica) hallucinatory music
"Rare Hallucinations Make Music In The Mind"
"Some hear choruses singing folk songs, others hear Mozart or even the Glenn Miller Orchestra -- but there is no music; they are hallucinating. New research in the August 8 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, confirms the region of the brain and condition that causes this rare and bizarre disorder..."
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------------------------------
Date: 8 Aug 2000 11:52:43 -0700
From: mkg@calle22.com
Subject: Re: (exotica) Re: an old low-tech fart speaks
> If you are going to accept the DIY approach to art, how can you exclude
> Britney, the Boybands, or any others of that ilk? Because you don't like
> their DIY approach?
Well, because they don't have much of a 'self' in the Do It Yourself departament. Or do they? I think they just sing what they are told to. They are performers not creators and, strictly speaking, they aren't doing anything, just repeating what they are told.
> --Ease of use of musical instruments? Is that what we are striving for? Is
> that the end result of evolution? Fast food, instant coffee,
> learn-a-language-overnight videos, McMusic?
Well in a way yes. This whole discussion has happened in the arts and there are interesting parallels with painting. Would you say that the introduction of photography and the abandonment of figurative painting was a loss for painting? I don't think so. When I look at a painting by Rothko or at a huge canvas by Jackson Pollock I can see things (and feel things) that wouldn't be possible in a figurative painting. So we can mourn that nowadays painters do not know the laws of perspective, but so what? The laws of perspective are not the only way of looking at the world. If we reject this laws in order to get a richer vision of the world, then I won't be complaining.
But then again I agree with you that judging becomes much more difficult and that a lot of mediocrity can pass itself as avant-garde by avoiding any class of critical judgement. There are no rules, so finding what is sincere and real and what is not is much more difficult.
>
> --Are you suggesting getting rid of classical music, jazz, musicals, opera,
> standards, etc.? Is literature next?
Basically what has happened in the XXth century is that we have gotten rid of all standards. In all areas. And that brings positive things (a sense of freedom) but also negative things (rootlessness, disorientation). The only exception to this would be narrative film.
The novel discovered that it didn't need plot. Music that it didn't need melody. Painting that it didn't need realism. And I think that at the end we live in a richer world because of that.
> --I live in Jacksonville, Florida, a cultural wasteland. I have students who
> have been playing instruments for (sometimes) 6 months or less. They put
> bands together that last 3 weeks. They can't play for shit but they always
> get mom and dad to finance a CD. They don't stay together long due to
> conflicts which result when people are incompetent and blaming the other
> guy. They sell them at their performances and give copies to their
> relatives. What distinguishes one band from another? (I'm talking music,
> not volume/equipment/costumes/lyrics/attitude)
Well. Your students seem pretty uncommited to me. Me and my group we've been playing on and off for 7 or 8 years. We are not very disciplined but then we don't need to be (we don't live off music or plan to). We are not professionals and that's what makes it is so valuable to us.
And also the fact that we are not profesionals allows us to play something that doesn't sound like anything else.
>
> --I managed to avoid the Shaggs all these years, but on your suggestion I
> will find and listen to some of their stuff and try to understand better
> your position.
I hope you like The Shaggs. But I can understand if you don't. It really is the absolute destruction of popular music. It's like breaking pop music with a hammer and rearranging the pieces at random. But it IS something unique and different. And as someone said here before, you would have missed something if you die without having listened to them. And perhaps they can be a teaching aid in one of your classes (as in 'don't do that or else you'll become like them' kind of device).
Cheers,
Manuel
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 20:10:06 +0100
From: hypnotique <hypnotique@btinternet.com>
Subject: (exotica) Martin Denny In "Forbidden Island" / exotica @ imdb
Volume 2 No4 of Film Score Monthly has an article by Kerry Byrnes
concerning the movie.
All of the following information is gleaned from the article.
The film was shown on TNT in August 1992 and was videotaped by Martin
Denny himself !! The film score is by Alexander Laszlo. Martin played
a cameo part of a piano player in a bar (typecasting!) I believe Martins
lines were "Night, honey" and that was it.
The stereo and mono versions of Denny's FI album have different covers
as do around 4 of his other lps.
I recommend digging out the article if you can. I don't know if the mag
still has back issues but they have a presence on the web.
John
www.martindenny.com
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 16:12:21 EDT
From: Rcbrooksod@aol.com
Subject: Re: (exotica) CD price-fix suit
In a message dated 08/08/00 2:31:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
mace@ookworld.com writes:
<< Twenty-eight states filed suit against the
world's five largest record labels on Tuesday, accusing them of
fixing prices of compact discs and demanding 'hundreds of
millions of dollars' in damages." >>
like we did not see this happening. time for all those industry lawyers to
go to work.
tb
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 15:11:39 -0400
From: Will Straw <wstraw@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: (exotica) CD price-fix suit
Great -- just what we need here : more grist for the Napster debate.
Will
Will Straw,
Associate Professor, Communications
Department of Art History and Communications Studies
McGill University
3465 Peel St., Montreal, Quebec CANADA H3A 1W7
Phone: (514) 398-7667 Fax: (514) 398 4934
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 16:36:58 EDT
From: DJJimmyBee@aol.com
Subject: Re: (exotica) CD price-fix suit
In a message dated 8/8/0 4:26:49 PM, wstraw@po-box.mcgill.ca wrote:
>Great -- just what we need here : more grist for the Napster debate.
Never used Napster, never will...Just give me the product to see, hold,
sleeve, shelve, and play.....Yawnster.com
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 16:43:56 -0700
From: "Stephen W. Worth" <bigshot@spumco.com>
Subject: (exotica) What ruined music?
exotica-digest wrote:
>Only who do you want to blame for the changes?
I blame the Beatles. Not because the Beatles are bad, mind you, but
because they set a bad precedent for other musicians to follow. Before
the Beatles, musicians had to be able to play their instruments very
well. Recording was secondary to performance. The Beatles showed that
a group with modest musicianship could be very successful. The problem
was that the groups that followed the Beatles' lead didn't have the
musicality that Lennon and McCartney had.
>Music had to develop, the old patterns were used in all kinds of
>thinkable ways.
I don't think that there is much diversity in music any more. In the
fifties, there were exotica albums, western swing, hillbilly, be-bop,
big band swing, pop vocals, r&b, rock & roll, blues, mambo, polka,
and a gazillion blends between. Today there are a million subtle
variations of "rock" music. Country music is no longer country music.
Jazz is no longer jazz. The varieties of music have been blended into
a fine mush.
>The messages of the elder generations did not speak
>to the younger.
That is just plain not true. Young people listen to what they are
given. The reason they listen to bland, corporate rock music is
because that is what the big record companies choose to force feed
them. When a person gets a little older, if he retains interest in
music, he learns to search out GOOD music, instead of just taking
what he is given.
>New technologies offered new possibilities, some musicians
>did handle them in pleasant ways, many did not.
New technology has made it even easier to be a musician without
chops. Twiddle a knob and set up a sequencer loop and you can
release your own CD. It doesn't matter that you can't read music...
that you can't play any instruments... and that you have very little
idea of the musical forms that went before you... All you need to
do is make interesting noise.
>it's up to you to sort the pearls from the swines...
The pearls are getting overrun by pork lately. Thankfully, the
music of the past is archived for us.
See ya
Steve
Stephen Worth
bigshot@spumco.com
The Web: http://www.spumco.com
Usenet: alt.animation.spumco
Palace: cartoonsforum.com:9994
Spumco International
415 E. Harvard St. Ste. 204
Glendale, CA 91205
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 21:22:50 -0400
From: "Peter Risser" <risser@cinci.rr.com>
Subject: Re: (exotica) Re: an old low-tech fart speaks
First, you guys gotta know that you really do sound like old farts when you
say things like "Musically dumbed down, of course". My son loves that Puff
Daddy song where he raps over Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. Well, whatever. I
respect him and his musical tastes, and am happy that he even cares at all.
Because, for god's sake, I started with Barry Manilow and Kenny Rogers as a
7 yr old and ended up with John Zorn, Ennio Morricone, Hugo Montenegro,
Kronos Quartet, John Cage, John Barry and so on and so on.
Is "Oops I Did It Again" really that much worse than "My Boyfriend's Back"?
I dunno.
> --I once had a conversation with a person who contends that ALL SOUND is
> music, and that distinctions between, e.g., dropping a bowl of marbles on
a
> tile floor and a Bach 3-part invention are irrelevant; between soaking a
> ferret in yellow paint, turning him loose on a concrete floor and the Mona
> Lisa are just different types of art.....etc....where do you draw the
line?
> One could fill up a book-sized volume using, in order, alternating words
in
> the dictionary--would that be a novel on a par with Anna Karenina?
Nobody's saying it would be on par with anything. The mistake is thinking
that "art" must be "good art". Therefore, if I really appreciate the sound
of marbles on a tile floor (and I do!), but I wouldn't suggest that it is in
anyway as on par with a Bach Cantata.
> --True. Many of them seem to be standards from long ago. My teenage
> daughters are always amazed and revolted that, when they discover
something
> exceptional to listen to, I am compelled to inform them that it's a remake
> of a song from 1950 (musically dumbed down, of course).....
> --I live in Jacksonville, Florida, a cultural wasteland. I have students
who
> have been playing instruments for (sometimes) 6 months or less. They put
> bands together that last 3 weeks. They can't play for shit but they always
> get mom and dad to finance a CD. They don't stay together long due to
> conflicts which result when people are incompetent and blaming the other
> guy. They sell them at their performances and give copies to their
> relatives. What distinguishes one band from another? (I'm talking music,
> not volume/equipment/costumes/lyrics/attitude)
Why is this a bad thing? It sounds like they are having a good time.
No-one's claiming they're going to be the next Beethoven. And yet, grab the
Nuggets compilation, you can hear the raw talent, the gems that come forth
out of what must have been a vomitous mass of mediocre pop tunes.
Anyway,
Peter
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