Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 13:21:29 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Spanish castle magic

From:         CV01@SWTEXAS.BITNET
Subject:      Nothing important -- I just felt like chatting ...

>    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.

There's a compilation CD on Ryko with a hifalutin title something like _The
History of Our Future_, which presents ten unsigned BRC bands. There was one
that I thought was into some interesting new possibilities, merging some of
rap's scratching/sound bite notions into something like George Clinton mutant
gospel singing, but of course I forget their name. Then there were nine bands
pretty well positioned at increments along the arena rock/funk continuum.

There was also a band called 24-7 Spyz, who worked with the BRC early on, and
then left again because they'd come to the conclusion that it was nothing but
an admiration society for Vernon.

Re Hendrix:
> > I'm not so enthralled with his guitar playing,
>
>    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"?  ;*)

I dunno, I just never connected to Hendrix as deeply as to his acid-drenched
peer group. I loved the San Francisco bands; I taught myself to play all of
Jorma Kaukonen's solos with the Jefferson Airplane, then started to study
John Cippolina.

If I had to formulate reasons, I would say it was some combination of tone
(I prefer the stinging sound of a Gibson guitar to the timbres of Fenders),
note choice (too many thirds, not enough fourths), and the cumulative abuse
of "Red House." I also relate better to a more tentative or clinical approach
to string stretching-- I like Peter Green's touch (which is really B.B. King),
and Cippolina's whammy bar technique, but Hendrix's stretches are too broad
(ditto Jeff Beck).

Bob Blumenthal, who writes about jazz for the Boston Globe, used to talk about
a quality of music appreciation he called "metabolism," some visceral response
where you knew certain kinds of music were right for you, and others were just
wrong, no matter how diligently you listened, regardless of any intellectual
appreciation you might develop. It's like your antennae notion, except it may
prove to be resistant to any kind of studied approach to music appreciation.
Blumenthal figures he's never gonna like Dylan (which was how the subject came
up); even allowing for the insights in his lyrics and the raw conviction in his
voice, it's just always going to sound like caterwauling to him. Sonia might
similarly hear Peter Gabriel as nothing but machine twitching. I hear Fender
guitars and they sound like the lowing of cattle to me; when Hendrix played
them, they were more like a stampede. (I love Richard Thompson, but I sure
wish he'd go back to playing a Les Paul. I'm beginning to suspect my idea of
what's cool in guitar would be better served by a lap-top harpsichord.)

As you also point out, you have to speak the language. I'd be at a total loss
listening to Derek Bailey if I hadn't already gotten into Frith and Kaiser.
(Kaiser is awfully fond of the ground Bailey walks on, and Frith also cites
Bailey as originator and/or inspiration of much of his more arcane technique.
Tony Oxley was the drummer for the original trio where Bailey came up with
this stuff.) But there are also musical vocabularies I am familiar with that
I don't find especially interesting. Chopin doesn't speak to me. Neither does
Miles, unless he's got Gil Evans as an interpreter. I tend to find blues a
limited language-- at least in the sense that there are way too many artists
trying to come up with something to say in it and ending up redundant. If it
ain't Skip James, I don't wanna hear it. (I'll never forget the time I heard
James Cotton play 32 bars of the same 3 note phrase, over and over and over
again. A sarcastic comment on Philip Glass?)

>    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?

Good question. Ask Salman Rushdie.

>    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?

Zappa made that point at the PMRC hearings-- in fact he went on to suggest that
the decision *not* to apply labeling to country music was protectionism for the
major industry of Nashville (in Gore's home state, you will note).

From:         Rick <MMLRICK@UBVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Before Ice-T...

> I'm very reluctant to relate the violence in LA to popular music. As
> you realize, it's much more complicated than that. Such easy simplifications
> feed into the hands of the PMRC and other would-be censors.

Don't you think the LAPD were probably all staying up late, sniffing glue and
listening to subversive rock'n'roll? Dollars to doughnuts the cops clubbing
Rodney King were all listening to "Beat On the Brat" on the police radio :-/

From:         "Leonard Watkins" <ISTS024@UABDPO.BITNET>
Subject:      Sky is crying

> every few months, but now they're a "dance-club" it ought to be against
> the law to saturate the air-waves and clubs with dance music it irritates
> me severely. It was in me and had to come out..sorry

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, and of the press.
If you're gonna be close minded, at least don't be a Republican about it.
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