Original_To:  BITNET%"ALLMUSIC@AUVM"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 10:39:00 CDT
From:         CV01@SWTEXAS.BITNET
Subject:      Nothing important -- I just felt like chatting ...

>Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:46:00 EDT
>From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
>Subject:      Blather was 30 years old today

   Well, bless it's pointed little crown of creation!  :*)

>Unfortunate, that. How do you feel about the Black Rock Coalition, foundedby
>Vernon Reid and some of his friends and colleagues, just to fight that
notion
>that "black music" is somehow incompatible with rock'n'roll. One of his
better
>ideas was that the Elvis award should have been renamed the Chuck, as in
Berry.

Michael,

   Do you have info on what other folks are involved in the BRC?  Being a fan
of Vernon, I'd love to hear more about this.

> I'm not so enthralled with his guitar playing,
>but I think his use of the studio as a compositional tool was brilliant,
still
>almost peerless (sometimes Eno measures up, sometimes Mitchell Froom, and
leave
>us not forget _Pet Sounds_).

   You are the only person on this list who could get away unchallenged
(almost  ;*)  with that statement.  So Michael, what is it that you feel is
lacking in Hendrix's playing?  Technical expertise ... emotional depth ...
tone ... phrasing?  Or is it just a negative association stemming from that
bad experience you had with "Red House"?  ;*)


>Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 07:52:43 EDT
>From:         Sonia Kovitz <skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
>
>
>
> [ ... ]
>
>In
>other words, Peter Gabriel comes on and I really can't HEAR that!  It's as
if
>I'm from another planet and come across radio waves from earth, and all I
hear
>is gibberish.  So the interesting question is how we can get beyond this.
>Maybe this also has a little to do with Alva's post on what types of music
>certain types of people are "supposed" to listen to...  We can get stuck in
our
>own little boxes...but it's sometimes hard to break out.

   To borrow from your analogy above -- sometimes I think it's a matter of
"adjusting our antennae" so we can receive "other frequencies" that we
otherwise wouldn't.
   I grew up on the standard 60's fare (rock and folk); started listening to
blues via the back-door (i.e., heard folks like Cream, and decided to find
out where their stuff originated); got into jazz-rock fusion with the early
Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra days; gravitated to "standard"
jazz; and finally opened up to the "freer" jazz/rock/noise scene.
   I have always considered myself a reasonably tolerant listener, but I
found myself tested by the folks on this list.  Being on this list has helped
me to realize that sometimes you simply have to leave behind your musical
prejudices, and just look at (listen to) something on its own merit.
   The adventurous listener will allow his/her "antennae" to be responsive to
those "frequencies" and not let the "static" of our pre-judgements interfere
with the message they send.  (How's that for over-working a metaphor to
death?  ;*)
   Call it reverse-snobbism if you will, but there's a place in my musical
life for Hendrix, Allan Holdsworth, Coltrane, Quicksilver, James McMurtry,
Last Exit, Muddy Waters, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Leo Kottke, and John
Zorn, to cite a few examples.  Each one of these folks has something to offer
-- whether it's story-telling ability (either vocally or instrumentally),
proficiency on their instrument, emotion in their playing, improvisational
ability, bringing a "fresh voice", or simply a different cultural viewpoint.
   I think this has relevance to Alva's discussion on "black vs. white music".
Music (well, all forms of the arts, probably) may be the best place to start
understanding a culture -- if you can open yourself up in that area, you are
incorporating language, emotion, etc.  It may be the beginning of allowing
yourself to see that culture on its own terms.


>Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 17:16:28 EDT
>From:         Rick McRae <MMLRICK@UBVM.BITNET>
>Subject:      Before Ice-T...
>
>
>A tongue-in-cheek suggestion from RockBeat in this week's Village Voice
>(sorry, it's not with me now, so I have to paraphrase it) :
>
>    Shouldn't we boycott Eric Clapton? After all he advocated the murder
>    of our peace officers with his 1974 version of Bob Marley's "I Shot the
>    Sheriff", now in FM classic rock/"mix" permanent rotation.

   I forget whether this was part of a virtual or real-time conversation
(pretty scary when you can't remember which was which, eh?  :*), but I was
discussing this same type of irony recently.  When did we forget about the
author's point-of-view as a literary device?  Do we expect everything in
music/literature/art to be autobiographical and literal?  Or do we just
decide that it's autobiograhical when it threatens us?
   I daresay if Wm. F. Buckley writes a spy novel in which the protagonist
murders a cop, or foments a revolution, the same folks who are up in arms
about Ice-T or Sister SoulJah wouldn't be saying that Buckley advocates
cop-killing and revolution.  How about country music?  Are we prepared to
say that a country musician advocates running moonshine, committing
adultery, driving drunk, and getting into bar-fights, simply because they
are used as thematic material?


   One last shot from the "labeling front":  I saw Jabberwocky on A&E last
week.  They had a dandy "advisory" that went something like this:  Warning --
this film contains explicit acts of gratuitous violence, debauchery,
pillaging, sophomoric tasteless humor and a little sex.
   Now that's the kind of advisory I like to see!  ;*)


      bye,
      cmv ("chuck's babblin' like a brook again")
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