Errors-To: admin at elephant-talk dot com Reply-To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Sender: moderator at elephant-talk dot com Precedence: bulk From: moderator at elephant-talk dot com To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Subject: Elephant Talk #884 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 884 Wednesday, 31 October 2001 Today's Topics: GIG BIZ: Tickets available for KC Chicago GIG BIZ: EP Re: Can anyone help? Re: PROG DECLINE IN THE EIGHTIES AND THE CRIMSO RECIPE Heavy ConstruKction on Mac OS X wetton colaboration PROG DECLINE IN THE EIGHTIES world financial center memories The 80s and MTV for the soundscapes (and dgm-cc question) debates damage the prog slog Re: The Decline of Prog In the Audience Prog decline in the 80's; Club 17 ------------------ A D M I N I S T R I V I A --------------------- POSTS: Please send all posts to newsletter at elephant-talk dot com To UNSUBSCRIBE, or to CHANGE ADDRESS: Send a message with a body of HELP to admin at elephant-talk dot com or use the DIY list machine at http://www.elephant-talk.com/list/ To ASK FOR HELP about your ET subscription: Send a message to: help at elephant-talk dot com ET Web: http://www.elephant-talk.com/ Read the ET FAQ before you post a question at http://www.elephant-talk.com/faq.htm Current TOUR DATES info can always be found at http://www.elephant-talk.com/gigs/tourdates.shtml You can read the most recent seven editions of ET at http://www.elephant-talk.com/newsletter.htm THE ET TEAM: Toby Howard (Moderator), Dan Kirkdorffer (Webmaster) Mike Dickson (List Admin), and a cast of thousands. The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. ET is produced using John Relph's Digest system v3.7b (relph at sgi dot com). ------------------ A I V I R T S I N I M D A --------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 13:46:54 -0800 (PST) From: Daniel Jacobson Subject: GIG BIZ: Tickets available for KC Chicago Upgraded our seats. Six tickets available for Chicago Theater Crimson show November 24, 7;30 pm. Face value plus Ticketmaster extortion fees requested. e-mail requests to djacobsonmd at yahoo dot com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 18:05:11 -0000 From: "Glyn Morton" Subject: GIG BIZ: EP Hi everyone does anyone know if the ep due to be on sale at the forthcomig US gigs will be made available for general sale? Also would anyone be able to oblige and collect a copy for me, I would of course send over cash in advance. Here in this sleepy little Irish village, I doubt King Crimson will ever perform.......will you Robert?? Anyway, anyone prepared to oblige re the EP, please email me privately. Thanx Glyn ggm at gofree dot indigo dot ie mortyg2000 at yahoo dot com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 09:07:14 -0800 From: "LAVERNE MUNARI" Subject: Re: Can anyone help? After reading Paul Dickenson's post in ET 882, my interest was really peaked towards being able to buy the Jamie Muir inclusive KC performance on the "Beat Club" Best of Beat Club 73 Edition! Paul stated this $12.99 DVD was "readily available" at HMV. I did'nt know about HMV until experimenting with the HMV letters on my pc, then finding it seems to be a bunch of Canadian "record" stores. They have a big website, but this title is no where to be found on it!? Since I live in the U.S. it looks like i'm gonna need some help from some kind soul out there in ET land. Does anyone know of any U.S. "record" outlets that sell this dvd? If so please respond to my e-mail address. If not maybe I could sweet talk a Canadian ET'er into buying 1 for me? Of course i'd pay for the dvd/shipping and something for your trouble, but I do hope I can get some help with this! I tried Paul's e-mail address(of course)but it seems to be mis-typed as I tried different variations on what came w/his post and those were all "undeliverable'! So I do look forward to any info that can put me together with this dvd. Is anyone listening/reading?? I hope so.... Thanks in advance, Steven Munari ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 16:53:55 +0000 From: "mike mclaughlin" Subject: Re: PROG DECLINE IN THE EIGHTIES AND THE CRIMSO RECIPE A few comments of my own on the (already frequently commented) post by Tony Colina which I felt I must comment on simply from my own P.O.V. >the way some of the best prog acts of the seventies sold out in the >eighties. As has already been mentioned (I believe) these bands did not in fact sell out in fact "The Final Cut" is in my opinion the most introverted album "Pink Floyd" ever did (for "Pink Floyd" read Roger Waters and session players who happened to include Nick Mason and Dave Gilmour) and Ummagumma is (by the floyd's own admission) a poor album with many below par moments "Several Species..." is funny at first but ends up seeming quite sad when you think how much time Roger Waters put into such a throwaway track, also most of the pre-73 material (with the exception of the somewhat better Meddle) is seen by the floyd as being a case of fumbling around in the dark. >It is actually very sad to hear the enormous differences between records >like Abacab, or 90125, or The Final Cut, and records like Selling England >by the Pound, or Close to the Edge, or Ummagumma. This seems to suggest you would rather they produced albums that all sound very much alike, a comment in sharp contradiction with King Crimson whose every 70's album had something new and interesting to offer (although ITWOP sounds very much like ITCOTCK) bands are groups of people and people develop different tastes over time. >What happened and why did it happen? Well, the answer is simple. The >rules of the music business had been changed by punk, and now only bands >who could play three chords were given attention; the look was > more >important than the music, and our beloved musicians were so displaced in >such a situation to be referred to as dinosaurs Where to start here? well first up "our beloved musicians" had never pandered to anyone in the past and they didn't start here (that in some cases happened later) in the early 70's some of the biggest trends were Glam Rock and the fledgeling heavy metal bands, a sharp contrast to the prog rock of the day (although crimso were at times heavier than all the heavy metal bands) and in the early 80's punk and new wave were far removed from The Wall, abacab, and 90125. The rules of the music business had changed dramatically between 1970 and 1980 the main difference being the emphasis being placed squarely on the word business wheras in the 60's bands were signed left right and center because the emphasis was on the music. >A musician, however good he / she may be, has to pay rents and bills, >therefore our heroes tried to fit in the new situation as best as they >could. Did they have to fit in? No, the bands had already secured an audience they appealed to they could have subsisted by remaking Selling England By The Pound, Close To The Edge, and Dark Side Of The Moon, of course they didn't, they were far too intelligent for that, they wanted to challenge themselves in new directions and so they did, in fact when Pink Floyd were touring Animals Roger Waters was disgusted by the fact that the audience only wanted to hear older stuff and had little or no interest in the band's progression (this tour was called the "In The Flesh" tour but then you probably all knew that) and of course the tour triggered Waters to write "The Wall" (the song of the same name as the Animals tour being all about audiences expectations as also you probably already knew) as to Yes they were an entirely different line-up on 90125 there were only two people on both 90125 and Close To The Edge and the entire melodic side of the band (guitar and keyboards) was different so the music was undoubtedly going to sound somewhat different and new. (I always saw Prog rock as being about doing something different each time was I alone in this view?) Did they try to fit in? No, they had changed over time but the material they were producing was still what they wanted it to be new and innovative. >But could they fit? Well, obviously the answer is no. They couldn't, > >because their musical visions and the eighties music biz's ones were >totally different and unmatchable. They believed that the only way to > go >on was to "refresh" their music, but the only thing they were able > to do >was to pare down arrangements and shorten track lengths, thus taking away >from that music some of its best ingredients. Ok now this is just silly, sorry I've no wish to offend anyone (here come the flames) but this is just not making any sense to me perhaps it's me perhaps I don't understand but as I mentioned Prog-Rock is (in my opinion) about making music that pushes the boundaries of what has been done before and still entertains (as opposed to some art-music which pushes the boundary past the unlistenable on a lot of occasions) and there were no ingredients of 70's prog missing from 80's prog band's output >All of these bands tried the AOR way, songs like Another Brick in the Wall, >or Owner of a Lonely Heart, were composed to get airplay and get accepted >by the new hordes of record-buying youngsters worldwide. AOR from Pink Floyd????? nah I just don't think so Another Brick in the wall is not AOR it is a piece from a grander scheme taken out of context as a single from a band. AOR from Yes? hmm close but no cigar Owner Of a Lonely heart had hints but it wasn't AOR. AOR was Asia, Toto, Journey and Owner of a lonely heart is not like Rosanna or Heat Of The Moment. AOR from Genesis? not in any form I can identify. >in my humble opinion Pink Floyd's musical decay started way back in 1973, >with the widely acclaimed Dark Side of the Moon. Do not misunderstand me, >that one is a beautiful record made up of beautiful > songs, Ok here we go Pink Floyd got their act together for Dark Side Of The Moon and began producing quality music with strong statements behind it as opposed to funny beeping noises and songs about gnomes. but this is the point: >"beautiful" is not always a synonym with "interesting", or "avantgarde", or >"experimental". Why have I chosen these definitions? Because that is what >Pink Floyd were when they started: > an avantgarde, experimental band - >perhaps the most avantgarde and experimental band of their times. Just >think of their first three albums, skipping More, to understand > what I >mean. Their music was a constant research of sound, textures, > space, and >so on, They were on drugs they produced music to trip to and they happened to do it well but where would they be if they continued singing about gnomes, scarecrows, and ownership of a bike, to quote some their earliest album's subjects? They'd be stagnating or they'd have given up music and become architects. >whereas from 1973 on they took away all of this from their tracks, >confining experiments to all-in-all-avoidable effects in between songs. Let's take a look then Money was based on the rhythm created by those "all-in-all-avoidable effects in between songs." and is in itself an interesting excursion into a strange time signature and a damn good song, then of course there's the textured space created on Shine On You Crazy Diamond. >Curiously enough, the level of lyrics started to improve from that record >on, probably reaching the top with The Wall. But that, as they > say, is >another story. Why should the lyrics be another story? they were very much intergral to the music. >In this sad and saddening picture only one band seem to have been able to >avoid the quicksands of selling out, and that is King Crimson. Ok now I've dealt with why Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis did in fact not sell out lets entertain the theory behind why Crimso didn't the fact of the break the band took is neither here nor there. >The second reason is that, Fripp being the intelligent guy he is, >when it was time to start Crimso again, he looked for new men. He didn't >call John Wetton back, for example, or whomever else, because > he knew it >wouldn't have been of any advantage to his cause. Let's >face it, mates, Wetton is a great vocalist and a fairly good bass player, >but he is no risk-taking musician. >Getting one like him in the band again would have meant playing the nth >version of Starless again (which is what Wetton still does around >the world). On the contrary, Fripp recruited one of the most innovative >guitarists of the time, Belew, and one of the most innovative bassists of >the time, Levin (remember the Chapman stick >was a kind of a martian tool then), thus creating a brand new line up that >had nothing to share with any of the prevoius ones. Well, during >that hiatus Bruford had played with Genesis, National Health and even >Gong, that is to say no rookies, but he had gone on experimenting on >the drums, and his playing in those three albums of the eighties has >nothing to do with his old style, so, in a sense, he was a new one too. Ok lets start here Fripp wasn't even forming King Crimson in 1982 when he called Bruford, Levin and Belew, he was starting something new the band was going to be called Discipline the KC name came up once the band had begun practicing together. and now onto the blatant Wetton bashing he's not only a fairly good bass player he's a damn sight better than KC's previous three bassists (Giles, Haskell, and Boz) as for not risk taking he was one of the most risk taking line-ups of crimson ever and T-Lev although undoubtedly a magnificent bassist and stick maestro has hardly been one of the biggest players in the 80's-90's Crimprovs (now I'm making up words sorry) as to Bruford he's good there's no mistaking that and he was playing differently then (because the band he was in was different duh!). so we come to Adrian Belew now I love this guy he is a fantastic musician with great depths and broad talents (and here was everyone saying he shouldn't be in Crim any more a few months ago, shame on you all for such lunacy) so new crim fresh ideas ok yeah. By the by you did mention Yes, Pink Floyd and Genesis aiming for the mainstream which in the early 80's was new wave I give you Crimson's 80's output. "The thinking man's new wave!" >That's the secret: renovation. Refounding the band on brand new bases, >creating something new. As simple as that, but, as all simple things, >not so easy to be seen by everyone. How could we expect anything really >new from Genesis, or Yes, or Pink Floyd, since the players >were the same and hadn't had no break from their usual musical >worlds, no chance to live what was going on outside their yard? Let's see the Yes lineup of 90125 was (as already mentioned) almost entirely new and the sound was drastically different to previous output, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters now the thinking man's lyricist. and of course Gilmour had done a damn good solo album and then of course by the time of The Final Cut Rick Wright was not in Pink Floyd. Genesis battled on admirably after losing two fifths of the band their Lead Guitarist and their singer so they're bound to sound a little different. >That is why, in my humble opinion, no matter how a Crimso fan can judge the >eighties trilogy, especially if compared to the seventies records, although >there is no point in comparing them, records like Discipline, Beat, and >Three of a Perfect Pair stand out as the best example of how an old band >could fit into a new era, embracing >whatever interesting the new era itself could lend them but without >forgetting who they are, thus retaining a very high level of musical >quality and artistry all the same. This the others did not understand, that >is why they lost it. Now you've changed your P.O.V. entirely you wanted Yes, Pink Floyd, and Genesis, to continue to bring out Close To The Edge, Ummagumma and Selling England By The Pound but KC to completely change their line up and sound what do you want from your rock stars, blood? I'll not mention the number of times I've corrected your spelling in reproducing portions of your original article, suffice to say I could possibly have been less nit-picky but hey "anal" is my middle name (actually it's John but still). Mike McLaughlin "Originality is dead long live plagarism" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 16:31:44 -0500 (EST) From: david craig Subject: Heavy ConstruKction on Mac OS X I've been receiving some questions about whether you can view the Heavy ConstruKction video on Mac OS X. The answer is yes, but so far one must take a modestly back-door approach rather than just using the web-page interface provided by DGM. (This is because the Mac OS X-native version of the Windows Media Player hasn't been released yet.) For details, please consult the updated . Enjoy, and feel free to contact me if there are any questions. David Craig ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 21:29:58 -0500 From: Ignacio Cuevas G Subject: wetton colaboration A message i would like to include in ET: Just for -Wetton at his peak- fans: A reissue of wishbone ashe's 1981 " Number the brave" is now on the stores. Wetton plays a quite dynamic bass all along, and he sings an excellent song of his own, called "That's that", quite fast and rocking stuff. This is not prog at all, just good old Wishbone. Just one bad news. The cd is japanese, digipack, and costs 29 bucks. Ignacio Cuevas MEXICO CITY ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 23:30:21 -0600 From: "Gordon Griffith" Subject: PROG DECLINE IN THE EIGHTIES Having read a number of postings that feel inclined to believe that Prog declined in the 80's, I wonder how much of the decline was due to listener growth, how much to artist growth and how much to technology growth. If Pink Floyd stopped being as 'experimental' was it because as the artists grew their experimenting got away from banging on trash can lids and playing their instruments upside down and became more subtle, to the untrained ear, and therefore not as 'out front' as before. In terms of experimenting, after a group has done something outrageous there is no reason to duplicate that action except: 1. It is done for a publicity stunt to attract attention because of the nature of the act or 2. To repeat it because it has musical value to the artist. As more groups and individuals 'experimented' there became less room for 'experimenting' or what seemed 'experimenting' to the outside listener. This is true in every field that man has spent time and energy and money on. As more is learned it becomes harder to discover or experiment on something new and unique, instead the new is less astounding and much more subtle in nature. Look at PC gaming software. Remember 'Doom' and how it changed first person shooters. Then Doom II, then Quake, then Quake II, Half Life, etc. In a short 6 to 8 years we no longer see dramatic leaps in computer games. The advances are much more subtle and sometimes difficult for the user to see, much less lean back in their chairs and yell 'Eureka' in unbridled joy. Leonardo was a 'Renaissance' man. He was a true genius but also because the fields he investigated were new and there was so little information already researched. Today it is probably not possible for anyone to be a pioneer in 6 to 10 fields because of the steepness of the learning curve in terms of knowledge and the time required to reach the cutting edge. In the year of our Lord, 2001, we may fail to remember how new and fresh playing techniques were in 1965 to 1980 and how much was being developed. We forget that until around 1976 the synthesizer was a single note instrument which required patch cords for each separate sound. Larry Fast named an album after a technology in 1976, Sequencer. The development of the Stick was the first major change in the bass in over 25 years. What major change has the guitar seen since Les Paul added electronics? Or drums or keyboards?. IMO what happened was that bands found it harder and harder to develop startlingly new sounds or approaches. Some stopped. Some, as the artists grew in age, experience and hopefully wisdom, developed in ways that the listeners were challenged to hear, much less understand. Perhaps the true 'decline' in Prog music is a combination of older musicians, older techniques, older listeners and older expectations. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 13:02:36 -0500 From: Larry Rader Subject: world financial center memories Although I seldom, if ever, post here, I've been attending Fripp perfs in nyc (and elsewhere) since the 70s, including many early Frippertronics shows at the Kitchen (and elsewhere). Over the past few years, the place to catch the solo Fripp has been the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center. I live and work within a few blocks of the World Trade Center and have, obviously, been quite affected by all aspects of the attack there. For those who've never been there, the Winter Garden was, to me, the most beautiful example of modern architecture in New York City. It was a huge atrium with palm trees, harbor views, expansive wide stairwells to transport people but also to sit on. It was wonderful when there was no performance there, and magical when there was. Fripp picked the right place to play, and played there a few times. I also experienced one of two Eno music installations I've ever had the pleasure of hearing there. It was a rainforest piece where Eno installed speakers all over the place and created an ambient sound piece for the commuting masses. The Winter Garden will be sorely missed if it can't be rebuilt. (It's in very bad shape since tower #1 fell pretty much right on it, but it's part of the complex which will evidently be rebuilt, so we'll see.) Here's hoping that, if it is rebuilt, Fripp will be part of the re-christening ceremony. Thank you, Fripp, for putting out the soundscapes. I'd respectfully suggest, as a perfect compliment to these releases, a simultaneous downloadable release of some of the earliest Frippertronics tapes from NYC. Your solo shows in this city have always captured something rare and very much of the time and place. The raw energy of the soloing during the early solo shows juxtapose neatly with the later energy of the soundscapes, and any New Yorker who's heard both and is affected (as we all are) by the recent events, would be grateful to hear both during this time. They both define your presence here over the years. Since I live right here, I've photographed the sites around my neighborhood quite a bit. I've posted a few images, including one of the Winter Garden here: http://www.geocities.com/tubrotubro/wtc_disaster/ peace, larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 14:46:16 -0600 From: "Don Hosek" Subject: The 80s and MTV > I view it as more of a music decline in the 80's. > With the emergence of MTV, it changed everything. > It pushed the envelope toward, not how good is the music, to how good do you > look. It all depends. The early days of MTV were truly special since with few videos to play, a lot of music that wasn't mainstream suddenly had a mass audience. Eventually money came and $%^&ed it up like it always does, but the early days of MTV spawned some really great music. I'd also throw my hat in the ring as someone who came into prog courtesy of 90125 and Abacab. And I'd say that right up to Invisible Touch, what Genesis was putting out, while it wasn't prog, couldn't be declared to be bad music. Yes, on the other hand, I think hasn't had much to say since 90125, and while when I saw them on the Big Generator Tour, I thought it was cool that they only played one or two songs off the new album and mostly played the older pieces, I've since realized that there wasn't much point in going back for another show to just see more of the same. In any event, my recommendation to people who like good music: Adopt a policy like mine: No tickets over $35, no venues over 3500 seats. Consider this: For $5 you can take a chance on music that you can't for $50. There are bundles of less known bands out there who will blow you away and leave you with a far more memorably experience than you'll get at some large venue show (even a large venue show with KC). -dh --- Don Hosek 312/953-3679 Bassist http://don.dream-in-color.net/music/ Dream in Color http://www.dream-in-color.net/ "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS." -Mahatma Gandhi- NP: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Mustt Mustt ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 23:06:02 +0100 From: "C. Skina" Subject: for the soundscapes (and dgm-cc question) Hello >From Japanese ancient poetry: "The large strings hummed like rain, The small strings whispered like a secret, Hummed, whispered--and then were intermingled like a pouring of large and small pearls into a plate of jade. We heard an oriole, liquid, hidden among flowers. We heard a brook biterly sob along a bank of sand... By the checking of its cold touch, the very string seemed broken As though it could not pass; and the notes, dying away Into a depth of sorrow and concealment of lament, Told even more in silence than they had told in sound... A silver vase abruptly broke with a gush of water, And out leapt armored horses and weapons that clashed and smote-- And before she laid her pick down, she ended with one stroke, And all four strings made one sound, as of rending silk." and the question: is there any soundscape planned for the collector's club release? Greetings Christian Skina ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 17:32:45 -0500 From: Steve Rewa Subject: debates Hello all, I just thought I'd toss my thoughts in on the 80's decline debate. First of all I'd like to express how impressed I am at the maturity of this debate. I honestly expected people to be correcting each other's grammer and spelling as I've seen so often on listservs when people want to insult each other's intelligence. I guess it shows that both sides here have valid points. Personally I have to side with Tony on most points although I wish (and I suppose that Tony does also) that I could staunchly defend my bands at all points. As it is, I'm a really big Jethro Tull fan and their stuff after Broadsword and before Roots to Branches was for the most part quite bad. It surprises me that no one has cited this example yet. Granted each album in that range has one or two great songs on it, such as underwraps 2 and the like. Black Sunday is one of the more vocally (and perhaps lyrically) intricate songs in their discography. I suppose I can't forget that they won a grammy in there somewhere as well. However, the vast majority of the stuff from this period is really not up to snuff. 90125 is I think, my least favorite Yes album. But it is worth listening to. I don't want to say that it was forced on them by local pressures though. It sounds like an experimental album to me. It's a completely different sound than what we'd come to expect from the earlier Yes. I think we can't lose sight of the fact that inovative is not necessarly good. In my view, 90125 was an innovation for Yes, but one which Yes fans didn't really go for. As seems to be the case with prog bands, that basically guarunteed them a hit record. I think it's important to note that that sound hasn't permantently taken root there. A true sellout would have stuck with the pop sound. -Steve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 23:02:58 -0000 From: "shaun kemp" Subject: damage I have to agree with the comments I have read so far on the remastered Damage. The snare on Gods monkey is the first thing I noticed too! It sounds sharper, & seems to have better seperation of sound. Does anyone know if alternative recordings were used? I am aware that the recordings are from 2 days at the Albert Hall, so alternatives could have been chosen for some tracks, since they do sound so different. Well worth buying this even if you have the original! spiderkemp ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 18:13:03 EST From: Bknt at aol dot com Subject: the prog slog Funny thing happened to me in the 1980's: I became a music critic. I confess, I did it for the money, which wasn't good; for the free tickets, which were always good, for the free recordings, which came in so frequently that I rarely had the time to learn to love a record; and a chance to talk to some of the musicians who made the music I really loved. At all times, I believed I was writing "for" the music, that is, I believed that a critic served his readers best when he brought their attention to interesting music. I didn't think a critic had the right to tell a performer how to perform. Others may disagree with me, and, certainly others feel they have this right, but what counts, I always felt, was the music. All told, I learned several important lessons that have made it easier to appreciate King Crimson, in its many incarnations, and smile at the numerous and, sometimes, preposterous ways Mr. Fripp permits music to come into my world. The first major lesson is that, as much as we want to divide music into categories--pop, rock, classical, prog, punk, jazz, elitist avant garde, pandering commercial slop, etc., it's really part of a single culture. Divide it up, and you limit what you're willing to love. What you love has something to do with what you've loved before. It also has to do with who introduces you to the music, how old or young you may have been at the time of the introduction, what other situations made the the opportunity to experience the music appealing or confusing. But, with each band, with each tune, with every ircumstance in which music comes into our lives, there is something mysterious about that moment when we wake up and understand, if only on an intuitive level, that we really like what we've heard. Is what we like "in" the music itself, or does it have to do with the context in which we heard it? Hey, it's both, and neither, but the music we let into our lives unquestionably enhances the task of being. As a listener, I believed that there really wasn't much "good" music in the world, that whatever I liked was rare, eccentric, different. As a critic, I learned that there is too much really great music in this world: so much that if Mr. Fripp did not play another note, we would find music (or music would find us) to carry us through. I also learned, as a critic, that music isn't one thing to an audience: it's many things, and artists who try to impose their will on how an audience meets music will always fall flat on their faces, if not their back sides. As Mr. Fripp has told us so many, many times, music is, for some people, a thing to possess, and the act of possession, by covert recording or flash photography, so thoroughly annoys him that it blows his performance. Music is, for others, a thing to make dancing easier, a thing to inspire mating, or a thing to transport the soul, a badge of social class, a thing to fill one's attention while doing a monotonous task, a thing containing spiritual insights, a commodity to generate trade (the recording industry, alas), an adornment to a Hollywood movie. For some, it's even a way of survival. Who can say, with any certainty, what exactly motivated King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and so many other proggers who may not have been born on the British Isles, to "change" in the 1980's? Artists themselves are notoriously untrustworthy when commenting on their art: they may make decisions, have pathetic hissy fits, fire their management or, in the case of Mr. Fripp, discover that their management has been undermining their best efforts. They may also decide they like being popular and make an effort to maintain the attention that popularity may bring. Though artists are not to be trusted, I can tell you with a great deal of certainty, critics should best be ignored when they purport to show why and how a specific musical event came into the world. As journalists, they may be able to reveal some of the personality conflicts and business decisions, but the process that ends (or begins) with people hearing the music, is ultimately mysterious and unknowable, even in hindsight. And, in so many ways, it really doesn't matter: with so much great music to enjoy, we don't have to possess every work of our favorite artists in order to continue our enjoyment. We don't have to waste our time getting mad at them for doing what they may, or may not, have realized was a mistake. We can, if we chose, laugh at them for being less than we imagined. We can curse the radio and the larger entertainment industry for not appreciating our artists as much as we do, but, such curses are silly: what counts is that we can enjoy the music, with or without the participation of the entertainment industries. I stopped being a critic because I got tired of the dull, sad truth of music journalism: almost all of what passes for music writing is not "for" the music, it's for the publication or the medium that supports the writing. A critic may try to write "for" the art that he loves, but, if he wants to stay a critic, he must always write for the publication that supports him. Alas, I found most publications are just not worth the support they provide. Art may, at times, be a craft, but journalism is always an industry. So, now I buy tickets, buy recordings and don't have the chance to meet most of the artists I admire (though some bands are actually encouraging contact among fans via the Internet and post-concert invitations, Mr. Fripp does not, so...). I still enjoy music. I enjoy as much music as I did when I was wallowing in it as a critic. And I feel, in a naive but meaningful way, that the attention I give, as an individual who just likes music, to the artists and works that I like, is even more important in a qualitative way, than all the inspired blatherings I did as a music journalist. The activities of these wonderful (yes, they still ARE wonderful) prog groups, in whatever shape in form they may aquire are really part of us, the culture that likes to listen. Let us permit them to make astonishing blunders. Let us celebrate their unknowing achievements. Let's laugh when our artists sing about the redeeming power of love while they treat their lovers, families and fans with fierce contempt. If only so we can talk less, and listen more. Bill Kent ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 20:18:09 -0500 From: Brian LaPeter Subject: Re: The Decline of Prog Interesting theories on the decline of prog music. But I think one point is missing: Evolution - the evolution of the artist and the evolution of the listener. Bands and their members grow older and the world around them changes. It's natural that both also change and produce different music. Maybe the fan grows in a different direction than the band and therefore sees the band as selling out. Really, do fans want to hear ITCOTCK rehashed for all eternity. It's a great piece of music history, but I want to hear new ideas. Yes, Crimson band members change and so does the music. But that's all part of the development of the band and the artists involved. Hopefully the listener also becomes more mature and sophisticated. If not, they move on to other musical tastes. Though I don't like later albums by Yes and Floyd, I chalk it up to my changing tastes and the bands changing tastes. Does that make it bad music? I've listened to Adrian Belew since his pre-Crimson days and I still like a lot, but not all, of his solo works. Though I still recognize his style, I see a definite evolution in his work. Maybe I've evolved in the same direction as his music and that's why I like it. Other fans may not. That's not bad. And what if a musician only has so much music in him/her? I'm convinced that some musicians only have so many songs in them and then they either do something else or spend the rest of their careers producing insipid music. I see it in evidence all the time in pop music.- the one hit wonders. The same applies to prog musicians. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 19:48:13 -0800 (PST) From: Bill Messinger Subject: In the Audience It has been asked: what is the role of an audience in a musical performance? On the surface, it seems to be a matter of approval or disapproval, and if that is the intention of the performer then perhaps there is nothing more to it. There are certain people, though, who move things to see what happens. It doesn't matter whether these people are "on the stage" or "in the audience." They focus their intentions, and those intentions may be received by anyone having enough awareness. You hipsters may be using the term, "vibes" to describe this phenomenon. Artists play with the vibrations of their chosen medium/media and are sometimes especially keen at picking up subtle human vibrations. Those who are really adept may turn on and even possibly drop out. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 13:25:10 -0500 From: "Robert Bennett" Subject: Prog decline in the 80's; Club 17 This is the first "response" post I've made to ET. First, I don't think you can blame punk rock for the demise of "progressive" music. As all of you should know, "punk" started in earnest in New York around 1972 - 1974 or so (with bands like the MC5, Iggy Stooge, New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers, the Deadboys, Wayne "Jane" County, to name but a few). >From there it took off in 1976 in the U.K. (incidentally after the New York Dolls toured there and played for an audience filled with future bandmates - such as Joe Strummer, John Lydon, Mick Jones, etc...). They heard the sound and went from there. The point is, this music was coexisting with "prog" music in the early to mid seventies when "prog" was doing just fine. So you can't blame it for any decline. What I do think you can blame is the record business in general, FM radio taking off as the main platform for "rock" music, Money and the need of artists to play big venues - sort of the my D_ _ K is bigger than your's thing), and the fact that several bands had simply lost their musical edge (to much money, drugs, ego, sex and ticket sales). Some bands aged better than others. This aging process effects all bands of all types of music. It is very rare indeed for an artist, who's musical career lasts as long as 20-30 years, to remain fresh and still be writing relevant and "new" music. Fripp is an exception, as is David Bowie, Bod Dylan, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, and Bryan Ferry. There are of course many more that have been able to carry the "torch" over long periods of time. Phil Collins is not one of them however or Jon Anderson. That doesn't mean their music is crap (ok for Phil it does) but just that it has lost an edge ( or I've lost interest in it for whatever personal reason). What I really did not understand from the prior posts was the attacks on Pink Floyd. I grew-up "musically" in the eighties (I'm 37 now). I found King Crimson from David Bowie. I found Brian Eno from Roxy Music etc... I found Pink Floyd from FM radio - i.e. Dark Side of the Moon. That was my first exposure to Floyd. I worked backwards from there. However, to say that Dark Side represents a decline is just wrong. Different than the earlier work - yes. Any less interesting - no. Different than the other music being played on the radio - most definitely yes. And The Wall - well I loved that album when it came out and I love it just as much today. Just because Syd isn't nooddling away on a out of tuned guitar doesn't make it any less valuable or interesting. This music, unlike a lot of other from that period has stood the test of time. I don't know how you can find fault with that. Plus, what Floyd was doing musically on Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and even the Final Cut, was not normal or easy music. Being a guitar player myself - that is clear. So for whatever it is worth, I think a lot of the past posts on this subject miss the mark and are flawed. Bob Bennett ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #884 ********************************