Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 15:13:40 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      I know a hawk from a handsaw

From:         MMM <MASUDA@SJSUVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

> Also, does anyone know if Peter Gabriel plans to tour for his next
> album?  And when is his next album supposed to come out?
> It's been over a year since his first official release date for it.

Nobody knows, not even Marco. Maybe PG should just join the next King Crimson
reunion band-- it'll be his favorite rhythm section anyway. On the other hand,
I think his Fripp-produced second album is clearly his worst, so possibly they
shouldn't collaborate. I agree that the Lamb tour was amazing rock theatre.

From:         MASUDA@SJSUVM1.BITNET
Subject:      Re: rap

> I think Muhammed Ali and Nipsey Russell had
> something to do with the origin of rap...

Heh. There's something to that, more like the early rap tradition of the "Big
Brag" comes from some deep cultural wellspring. (Actually I've got a friend
who says that rap derives from the performers' childhood memories of hearing
the TV blaring in the background all the time, and that's why it has the
form and effect of advertising!)

> I think the next thing in the step of rap evolution
> is fusion rap.
> I can see Alan White playing Manchester
> and John Anderson chillin' like a homeboy onstage
> tryin to rap with his unnaturally high pitched voice.
> Or, someone like Pat Metheny playing with Ice Cube...

Lord help us... Jon Anderson's new age blather would be utterly intolerable
without his airy singing. Pat Metheny's tone is way too prissy to stand up to
a hiphop beat. What would be more interesting would be genuine rappers trying
to cope with all those progressive rock rhythm grooves in odd time signatures!

> Rap is cool, but it is way overplayed on MTV... (etc.)

I agree completely, but you gotta bear in mind that MTV is geared to viewers
with an attention span measured in nanoseconds and a cultural background about
as deep as Archie comix-- plus it works hand in glove with the major labels to
push the stuff they want pushed. So where's your constituency for this classic
footage you want to see? Who watches MTV that even knows this stuff exists?
Who *works for* MTV that even knows this stuff exists?

From:         Sonia Kovitz <skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Walk a mile in my shoes

> re: "talking over a groove" - the Beats used to do that...wonder how that got
> started with them--must be their version of a "black thing" in one way or
> another

Their favorite "black thing" was a turtleneck sweater.

From:         David Malbuff <SPGDAM@UCCVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: rap

> Somewhere in the bowels of my tape collection I have a ten-minute
> performance from the glory days of the old Haight-Ashbury, which
> stars the legendary beatnik/proto-madman/avatar/literary-character
> Neal Cassady free-associating over a backing groove by the early
> Grateful Dead. His raps don't rhyme, however...

I would love to hear this, and not even to hear Uncle Jerry as a kid.

> It would be good, as Jeff says, to see someone take rap music to a new
> level, with good musicians. However, I think one of the defining
> features of rap is its essential democracy: anyone with a boombox and
> some tape can be a rapper. 'Course, some of 'em SOUND like that, too...
> :-)

Part of the charm of rap is supposed to be this democratic, street-level thing,
right? I would like to propose that as soon as you get your hit and make your
pile, you should be forbidden to do another rap, because now you've become the
elite, the money and fame have removed you from the grass roots. Now you have
to learn to sing :-)

From:         Sonia Kovitz <skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Subject:      News of the Weird

>Researchers in Connecticut, writing in the February Hsopital and Community
>Psychiatry, reported that patients in psychiatric wards who constantly watched
>MTV suffered psychological deterioration...increased hallucinations,
>belligerence and hostility toward staff.

Gosh, what a surprise that psychologically powerful imagery thrown at you at a
manic pace should aggravate people whose emotional state isn't terribly stable.
Makes you wonder about the long term effects of the intense level of advertising
we're constantly exposed to.

>Princeton Univ. finally granted Milton Babbitt's doctoral degree in
>mathematics--46 years after it rejected his dissertation on the mathematics of
>the 12-tone musical system of modern composers.  The univ. recently concluded
>that at the time Babbitt's work was so advanced that no one at Princeton
>understood it.  In the ensuing 46 years, Babbitt won a Pulitzer Prize and
>developed the first electronic synthesizer.

Babbitt's the one who published that famous article on academic composition,
"Who Cares If You Listen?" I don't think he was enough of a propellorhead to
work much on the technical details of synthesis, but he was an enthusiastic
proponent and user of the technology-- he was prone to write really complex
and subtle rhythms that he couldn't depend on mere mortals to play properly,
and the idea of a machine with absolute rhythmic precision appealed to him.
Conlon Nancarrow had the same problem, but IMHO came up with a much neater
solution: the player piano. He punched the holes by hand in the piano rolls
to get the rhythms he wanted-- neat stuff. Babbitt's music goes right by me.
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