like
In a message dated 5/28/2012 2:03:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
gabru@comsec.net writes:
I actually liked his concert until he started up with his political BS.
My advice to him: Shut up and sing! That’s what I paid to hear.
From: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of lsf5275@aol.com
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 7:21 AM
To: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] Re: Peter Gabriel - So what?
So who likes Peter Gabriel? Anyone want to comment?
Frank
In a message dated 5/28/2012 9:52:11 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
_bluesrock77@hotmail.com_ (mailto:bluesrock77@hotmail.com) writes:
Hi y'all,
I'm very happy to see that my posting sparked such a great discussion!
SOme of what I said where in jest...like Ecstasy being a bad drug for
music making...some where not...I still want to see a musical instrument being
played, whatever it is, even a single tambourine, rather than watch
someone playing records with one note beat...it's not just the mechanical act of
it...it's the lack of harmony and the one note beat that bothers
me...besides it doesn't move me a bit...I just can't relate to DJ's...sorry...besides
nothing to do with the Tron, which a a note reproduction system in most
cases, not full songs...
as for the downloading..well, anyone who's ever been to a music store knew
what a great experience it could be...browsing all the different
rows...discovering new bands and maybe interacting with the buyers (I made quite a
few friend in record stores) etc, when I lived in London I'd listen to John
Peel and other DJs (quite different eh?) and then on the next day go to
Virgin, HMV, Portobello Road etc in search of the records.....now that they
are gone...what do you do? Just download something for free (nothing against
it) and then delete? (Totally against it, if you know what I mean) In that
case music has no value, it's just a disposable thing... I still have
hundreds of my vinyls because I had to work hard to get them...
I'll stop here...I have a PhD to finish...great to be part of this
group...
best,
Roberto
____________________________________
To: _newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com_
(mailto:newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com)
From: _mike.dickson@gmail.com_ (mailto:mike.dickson@gmail.com)
Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 13:37:49 +0100
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] Re: Peter Gabriel - So what?
Chris makes a few good points but a few downright weird ones too.
I would agree that a musician is someone who 'makes music'. I wouldn't say
that he necessarily 'crafts' it, though. That's the composer's job. I
think there are probably more musicians out there who play what they are
told (or what they expect, in the case of any number of bar bands I've
witnessed) than people who are actually engaged in creating music from nothing
other than ideas and influences.
Perhaps a DJ can be a composer, but to say 'but often times they aren't'
is a little like saying a good composer (say, Bruckner) was sometimes great
but often he wasn't. (Anyone doubting this should read the story about
Anton and his 'zeroth' symphony) I wasn't trying to refer to the sort of DJ
who just plays records, but to the DJ who tries to do something creative with
the sound he is playing. There probably ought to be a term for this type
of person, to differentiate. Maybe there is. I dunno.
However, the humdinger is that DJ music 'lacks credibility'. Chris - who
hands out the Credibility Tokens in your neck of the woods? The
Credibility Cops? When does music 'become credible'? Do they have some sort of
certificate to show this? Maybe a party of some kind. What is it that makes
music 'credible'?
* Is it music? Yes it is.
* Do people like it (as if that even matters) Yes they do.
That's kind of the end of the argument, unless you want to argue 'what is
music?' and I am afraid I will have you completely cornered on that one,
and the answer is but one word long. Maybe you are trying to say 'is it
credible to me and people like me?', in which case you are making an argument
of taste, and that's no argument at all. (If that is an argument then I am
afraid that most of the Sacred Bovines round here aren't credible either as
I cannot stand them)
You say that credibility is associated with 'physical innovation'. I'm
not entirely sure what that entails, but innovation is certainly a pretty
shaky nail upon which to hang any musical argument. Show me 'innovation' and
I'll show you plagarism and what is charitably called influence, and I don't
mean in the last ten years. If you don't believe me then have a look at
_this video_ (https://vimeo.com/14912890) and tell me what you make of it.
(Good film series, incidentally)
Sampling without consent is unethical maybe. And I mean maybe. Brian
Wilson was a bit bent out of shape when he found out that Air had sampled the
snare drum from 'Do It Again' on 'Remember', until it was pointed out to
him that (1) it's a pretty good tribute to him and anyway (2) it might mean
he's going to sell a few records when Air say where the drum samples came
from. In that case, the sound was the innovation (and a great one too) and
Air made Fair Use of it. If they tried what is known as 'passing off' then
it might be 'unethical', but fortunately they didn't. Hell, I released a
tune which has CLEARLY got a huge sample of a very famous tune indeed in it.
It's so obvious that 'passing off' isn't even an option. (Incidentally, I
don't think the Mona Lisa is Leonardo's greatest - he has done some far
superior work, but that's another argument) Sampling is a broad argument.
Try reading _Remix by Lawrence Lessig_ (http://remix.lessig.org/) . It's a
better explanation of everything. (Tangentially, _this book_
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Rave-Shawn-Fannings-Napster/dp/0609610937/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid
=1338208583&sr=8-1) is also a great read and is close to unbelievable.
At what point did someone say 'hang on....')
You do go on to say that it isn't 'morally right'. Oooh. That's a
personal itch of mine. Don't confuse ethics and morals. The two are not
equivalent.
Marketing and selling has always been a science, Chris. Don't kid
yourself otherwise. Stockholders existed in the 1970s, same as now, same as
always. The music 'industry' (a term I hate) cannot sell anyone anything they
don't actually want. They might however oversell it, but that's their
problem. More worrying to me is the way everything ties together commercially,
where the song, the burger gift, the film, the tee shirt and the computer
game are all part of the same 'immersive experience'.
I am dying to hear how 'dragons and fairies' take you out of the Matrix,
though. That angle has been sold to death since JRR put pen to paper and
engendered an entire division of depressing guff about..well...dragons and
fairies. And Peter Jackson's film is about as 'corporate' a tie-in film as
you can hope to imagine. Are you picking your bovines with enough care? :-)
Mike
On 28 May 2012 12:11, Chris Dale <_unobtainiumkeys@gmail.com_
(mailto:unobtainiumkeys@gmail.com) > wrote:
I think a musician is someone who 'intends to make sound and craft' music.
As far as the attention span goes - yes people seem to be getting 'dumber'
these days and failing education systems where music and reading have been
cut back are partly to blame. There's no question about that.
I agree that a DJ 'can' be a musician and composer, but often times they
aren't. I don't think DJ music as a genre has been explored fully and
because of that it lacks credibility alongside historic genres of music.
We all know of some great technical guitarists, but there are very few
proficient or innovative DJ's.
Most are just playing back two records at a time, and re-mixing. That is
something that anyone can learn to do.
The difference is there is a world of musical technique involved in
physically playing an instrument, and so far there is a real lack of manufactured
dynamic turntables that respond the same way a guitar, piano, etc. do .
So I personally don't attach the same amount of musical credibility to
DJ's partly because we don't see too much physical innovation there. But I do
welcome it and can see it happening in the future.
As far as sampling goes - the idea of sampling someone else's art without
their consent is unethical to me.
If I took a piece of the Mona Lisa and put it into my own painting, I
wouldn't think I would be that great or inspiring. It would suggest I'm at
worst a thief, and at best, someone who needs to rely on the work of others
because I can't come up with something better or original. If I painted
Leonardo DaVinci painting the Mona Lisa - well that might be interesting.
To me Mellotrons and their ilk are different from contemporary sample use
because the performers knew and intended the recordings they made would be
used in the creation of other music. Sampling someone else's work or even
re-mastering it or altering it after they've died is an artistic rape
because it's not in keeping with what the original artists intended.
For example, the Isley Brothers, Kraftwerk, etc.etc. didn't consent to
having their music sampled and just because it's a common practice, that
doesn't make it morally right.
As far as album credits go, they go from both outright lies to total
truth.
You will never have me believe someone like Justin Timberlake (who can't
play an instrument) can compose and arrange a movie soundtrack. I don't
care what the movie credits say. That's where politics and back scratching
are an influence.
The music industry as a whole is completely different than what it was in
the 1970's. Marketing and selling is now a science.
In the mid 70's smaller music labels were bought up and absorbed by bigger
music labels.
This happened again on a big scale in the 80's when Warner took over Time
/ Life and Seagrams Liquor bought up most of the major record labels. And
it happened again in the 90's and again in the early 2000's.
Today music is completely corporate, and the multinational companies that
own the music industry are not interested in selling music with ideas about
dragons and fairies, or brewing your own beer, saving your money,
meditation, or anything that takes you out of the 'Matrix" so to speak.
The simple reason why is that they can't make big money from it.
They are interested in selling ideologies related to consumerism of
products like tobacco, alcohol, and fashion, and also a group-think homogenized
mentality where everyone should largely react or think the same way in the
world.
Politically, you would do this by removing or censoring diversity of
expression on multiple levels.
As record company owners or controllers - they don't want to foster talent
and individualism. They would rather have a universe of talentless 'idols'
where there is a collective lemming mentality, easily to manipulate
contractually, and favouring style similarity over diversity. Why? Because once
you create something unique or diverse, you must be willing to defend it
and promote it on your own - requiring a much more costly noble and valiant
quest.
Record labels don't want to have to fight with individualistic creative
artists. The idea of the tradional guitar hero or keyboard hero is not really
encouraged.
It's in their best interest to sell and promote a 'mass mentality' where
they can push products on to a receptive audience, and make money for their
businesses and stockholders. So we really can't compare the time of the
70's and back with now.
This is the reason for the all the observations here.
If you want to control a country and it's people you must make them
subservient to a belief system.
You homogenize values through TV, music and magazines so that eventually
they all think the same.
And then you've replaced the individualism of invention, innovation, etc.
with a dumbed down - go along to get along - collectivism.
Plato said it himself -
“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of
music change, the laws of the State always change with them.”
“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 11:55 PM, Mike Dickson <_mike.dickson@gmail.com_
(mailto:mike.dickson@gmail.com) > wrote:
1. Digital life made musicians almost obsolete.
* What's a 'musician'?
* Why is someone who puts together music digitally less of a
musician than anyone else?
* If '[a]ny moron can "play, record and post it in the web"' then
doesn't that fly in the face of the point entirely? Far from '[making]
musicians almost obsolete' doesn't that increase the number of musicians there
are out there? Are you confusing 'musicianship' with 'personal taste'?
2. Ecstasy is not a good drug for music. People get so stupid that they
see a DJ as musician!!!
* Why is it 'not a good drug for music'? Says who? What about the
myriad people who take it every weekend and get off on it and the music?
Are you perhaps (again) confusing what is 'good' with 'what you personally
like'?
* Why can a DJ not be a musician?
* In fact, given the definition of the word, why is a DJ not viewed
as a composer?
3. People are so anxious and neurotic that they can't 'listen'to anything
without pressing the FWD key to the next song.
* Maybe. I suspect attention spans are getting shorter because
music (among other things) is so easy to get your hands on now that it's a
disposable commodity. But has it ever not been? Who says it has to be
anything but?
* Maybe the music lends itself to the whole ideal. Do you have to be
'anxious and neurotic' for that to be true? Are you seeing a stereotype
where none exists?
4. "Total lack of identification with the band. Digital made bands/record
covers/credits useless...nobody knows who's playing and nobody cares.."
* To come out with an absurdly sweeping statement like 'digital made
bands/record covers/credits useless' requires some form of evidence.
* To say 'nobody knows who's playing and nobody cares' is plainly
flat-out wrong. If anything, the speed at which music (digitally played and
recorded or otherwise) can be put together and uploaded to the web so a
musician is in direct contact with his or her audience is such that it cuts
out the middle man entirely. Who needs a publication deal when you can
publish it yourself? Why is it that a musician speaking directly to his
audience (or market) is a bad thing? Do you think record labels and music
publication deals are a necessary thing?
You sign off with 'All in all...nobody cares for music at all I'd say'.
How do you know?
Mike
On 26 May 2012 15:06, Fritz Doddy <_fdoddy@aol.com_
(mailto:fdoddy@aol.com) > wrote:
I agree with point #3, but vehemently disagree with 1,2 and 4
Sorry for the brevity as I am replying from a remote region of
iPhonekstan.
fritzdoddy
On May 26, 2012, at 8:38 AM, R l <_bluesrock77@hotmail.com_
(mailto:bluesrock77@hotmail.com) > wrote:
Hi Chris,
I totally agree. So much so that I said I'd rather visit the Pompeii arena
empty and feel the vibes of a bygone concert by the Floyd than see the
band nowadays (last 30 years).
As for why this is happening, there are many possibilities of course, my
theory.
1. Digital life made musicians almost obsolete. ANy moron can "play,
record and post it in the web". Just like picture taking.
2. Ecstasy is not a good drug for music. People get so stupid that they
see a DJ as musician!!! Bloody hell...
3. People are so anxious and neurotic that they can't 'listen'to anything
without pressing the FWD key to the next song...3000 songs in the Ipod
and most never listen till the end...
4. Total lack of identification with the band. Digital made bands/record
covers/credits useless...nobody knows who's playing and nobody cares...
All in all...nobody cares for music at all I'd
say...Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad: but true!
best,
Roberto
____________________________________
To: _newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com_
(mailto:newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com)
From: _unobtainiumkeys@gmail.com_ (mailto:unobtainiumkeys@gmail.com)
Date: Sat, 26 May 2012 02:53:12 -0400
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup]hris,
Re: Peter Gabriel - So what?
I almost never go see big name classic rock concerts anymore.
Usually, some of the original band members are missing, (Moody Blues,
Beach Boys, The Who, Pink Floyd) or the performers can't sing as well or play
as well anymore (The Police, Led Zeppelin).
Or - the band is naturally using some shitty vapid digital equipment in
place of the original instruments, and the sound is an updated, sterilized,
modern version that has all the life sucked out of it.
I saw The Band once and Garth Hudson (and some other unknown keyboardist
alongside him) were using the shittiest, most depressing 80's reverbed Korg
and Roland organ sounds to do Chest Fever. It was unbelievably bad.
It sounded like kids playing a casio keyboard in a Walmart toy section
aisle.
The same with Jerry Corbetta of Sugarloaf. Green Eyed Lady was played with
tinny hip-hop organ sounds - just sonic garbage.
Some of these bands also use augmenting hack musicians on stage and girl
dancers that have nothing to do with helping the original band or music
style. It's just insulting to the original spirit or identity of the band.
A different example a few years ago was when I went to see Paul
McCartney in Toronto. It was enjoyable up to the point when people started trying
to sing along. It was sufferable for a while.
But then came 'Hey Jude' which was the absolute worst. The song was
literally murdered by the sing-along of the absolute worst choir of out of tune
morons I've ever heard. And their collective breath stank like a sewage
pipe.
I remember seeing a Beach Boys concert clip where one of them asked those
who could sing to sing along, and those who couldn't to 'please keep
quiet'.
I thought it was very rude for them to say that at the time, but after
that Hey Jude performance, I now understand why.
Overall, the expense, time and the trouble you go through to see a
concert just isn't worth it.
These bands today mostly exist as shadows of their former selves - almost
their own tribute bands.
I now prefer a good DVD of a classic quality performance from the by-gone
days to what's passing as a live show.
Of course, if it's a band I respect and never got the chance to see, (like
Nektar) then I'll make an exception, but generally a glorified tribute
band version, with tinny keyboards, vocal harmonizer effects, and anonymous
helpers and dancers doesn't make for a decent concert.
And the irony is with the technology today - we can have a great sounding
concert more times than not.
So why is this happening?
On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Bruce Daily <_pocotron@yahoo.com_
(mailto:pocotron@yahoo.com) > wrote:
(GROAN)
I'm sure he's READY for it.
I was surprised to hear one of his songs on a TV commercial recently. It
was "Big Time", and I think it was on one of those god-forsaken Swiffer
ads. Money trumps integrity once in a while.
-Bruce D.
From: trawnajim <_jimab@rogers.com_ (mailto:jimab@rogers.com) >
To: _newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com_
(mailto:newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com)
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 8:11 AM
Subject: [newmellotrongroup] Re: Peter Gabriel - So what?
--- In _newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com_
(mailto:newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com) , Bruce Daily <_pocotron@..._ (mailto:pocotron@...) > wrote:
>
> Hi all-
> It would be fun to see him at Red Rocks here in Colorado, except for
the unreasonable ticket prices and the bullshit on-line ticket sale methods.
Those reasons alone reduce the enjoyment of the event. I haven't seen a
major concert in years.
>
> -Bruce D.
> (with a trace of sarcastic bitterness)
I suppose it's likely that he will do Red Rain at Red Rocks. Perhaps they
can get Red Rider as openers.
Jim Bailey
--
Mike Dickson, Edinburgh
--
Mike Dickson, EdinburghMessage
Re: [newmellotrongroup] Re: Peter Gabriel - So what?
2012-05-28 by lsf5275@aol.com