Mellotronists

d.etheridge1@... wrote:
> Well I heard that David Bowie used to write lyrics, cut the sentences 
> up into individual words, and throw them together like some demented 
> scrabble on steroids -no one's taken the piss for such a 
> 'pretentious' approach. Or does chance immediately bestow street cred 
> on DB and not JA?
>   
Chance? I think not!

I think you'll find that Bowie has been the centre of much piss-taking 
in his time for this very thing, whether the rumour is actually true or 
not. The difference between him and JA is that DB arguably produces 
music that speaks to more people than JA could ever wish, and hence more 
people are willing to defend him. And the other glaring difference of 
course is that DB doesn't take himself quite as seriously as the 
ridiculously po-faced JA or the even more ridiculously po-faced JA 
fanboys who cannot countenance the least criticism of their personal 
talisman.

>> As an aside, it's interesting to observe that this is at least one of
>> the reasons why Prog Rock has managed to maintain its level of
>> unfettered ridicule over the years; grown men still argue about the
>> 'meaning' and 'value' of clearly randomly spouted lyrics, fuelled in a
>> hazing fug of dope smoke, from a record that is about 35 years old.
>>     
>
> Bollocks -the unfettered ridicule has been from people now ashamed to 
> admit that they bought such albums at the time, and then wanted to be 
> seen to be cool when they bought the Sex Pistols/name your own genre. 
>   
It's telling that your frame of reference of where prog rock found its 
ridicule is from another genre of pop music which is itself also about 
thirty years old. A lot of things have moved on. Prog rock is still 
*point and laugh* funny to an awful lot of people, again because it took 
itself so damned seriously. The added insult to all this is that for all 
the musicians wanted to be flash about it, most of what was recorded 
under that label was derivate, amateurish and woefully ham-fisted.

> There are a lot of prog fans still out there; yes it's more 
> of a cottage industry because prog fans don't give a toss about 
> fickle fashion.
>   

...or perhaps because no one is buying it.

> Even more ironic is the fact that Yes have lasted a good two decades 
> longer than all the bands that were supposed to have toppled them. 
>   

They have? Really? The fact that they are still 'together' doesn't mean 
that they are relevant to anything but a weird kind of nostalgia 
circuit. This very night The Edgar Broughton band are playing a club in 
Edinburgh less than a mile from where I am typing this. By any applied 
standard at all, they are *ipso facto* shite, but they are still 
together. To me, that doesn't say 'we have lasted' as much as it says 
'we cannot find another job'.

> Quality music can still win with those who think musically for 
> themselves, which is why we're having this discussion and 
> followers/haters of the Spice Girls and Sclub7 aren't. 

Wow. Two more bands who are themselves defunct, one of whom is already 
long in the tooth enough to have 'reformed'. Do you know any current 
bands out there at all?

-- 
Mike Dickson, Edinburgh