Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!ucbvax!ucdavis!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!nessus From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: mainstream avant-garde? Message-ID: <116@mit-eddie.UUCP> Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 11:12:09 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.116 Posted: Thu Oct 17 11:12:09 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 20-Oct-85 06:05:43 EDT References: <850@decwrl.UUCP> <201@astroatc.UUCP> Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 84 > From: Gregory Taylor/ (wherever)!uwvax!astroatc!gtaylor /Madison, Wisconsin > Secondly, I'd say that it's pretty debateable that anyone who mediates > between the avant-garde and the public like KB or PG counts as the > edge.... > By Doug's definition, the cutting edge is sorta like the bridge > between Asgard and the lower worlds, and KB the messenger who commutes > between the two. Her work is extremely useful, as is Gabriel's...but I > wouldn't call that cutting edge. You seem to be implying that the "avant-garde" discover all the interesting things and that Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush sit around waiting for these things to be revealed to them so that they can then go and put them into pop music. I don't think it's like that at all. I think they both do a lot of work at discovering interesting things on their own (as well as scouting out other's discoveries) and then put it into music that one might want to listen to repeatedly. They might not be like some of the "avant-garde" who seem to like to develop grandiose theories and then make music designed to show off their new theories. And a lot of the "avant-garde" that isn't like that *sounds* like that. Instead, KB and PG are very experimental, and just try lots and lots of different things (the vast majority of which disappear forever on the cutting room floor) listening for interesting things. But the point of the music isn't to *show off* the interesting things, but to make interesting music. The results of the "avant-garde" may be more interesting academically in some sense, for the purpose of studying theories on music, but may perhaps fail as successful art, in that it may have been forgotten in the theorizing that successful art should be emotionally resonant. (Is this going to start a debate on what art is?) The music of Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel nevers fails to be that since that is their primary goal. In any case, the result is that I find the music of Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Joan Le Barbarbara, John Cage, and the Residents (are they "avant-garde" or really commedians?) all quite interesting, but I'd much rather listen to Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel repeatedly than either Joan LeBarbara, John Cage, or The Residents. >>> [Me:] People like Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, I feel are definitely >>> on the cutting edge. (In fact, the most important cutting edge.) >> [Karl Malik:] Ah, so there's more than one? If different people are going off in different directions, it sure seems to me that there is more than one cutting edge. >> If so, we're talking about apples and oranges. If you're talking >> about well-made, sophisticated, complex, popular music that is still >> accessible, then yes, they belong there. If Kate Bush is always so accessible, how come when I play "The Dreaming", most people make funny faces and leave the room just as quickly as if I'd put on Massacre? > I am not sure that a Surrealist would readily accept your notion of > distortion. Given the S. interest in the way that the unconscious > world pokes into the "real" conscious world, they might easily argue > that what you'd call a distortion is the true shape of the sign in the > real world rather than the "illusion" of the predictable construct. > This view does little to defend PG or KB, though. Maybe PG or KB would say the same thing about their music? The music of both PG and KB seems very surealistic to me -- especially KB. PGIII and "The Dreaming" have always seemed to me to be kind of the auditory analog of a Dali painting. There's this guy named Fred Vermorel who wrote what I'm told is a very respected biography of the Sex Pistols. He also wrote a couple of very questionable biographies on Kate Bush. In one of these, he maintains that "pop" is the only form of art that really counts today. Now, I certainly can't agree with that, but I do think that "avant-garde pop" (or whatever you want to call what KB and PG do when they are in their less commercial modes) is the most important area of art today, and that Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel are on that cutting edge. "More fun that having your eye slit with a razor blade!" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA) P.S. So what is Laurie Anderson?