what is this, love-hounds, an inKwisiTion?

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu]

First, a bit of KT News:
Someone named Russ Tolman has released an LP on a Middlesex, England
label called Zippo Records. The LP is called "Totem Poles and
Glory Holes", and over the cover photo of Mr. Tolman a transparency
has been super-imposed of Del Palmer's cover illustration for Kate
Bush's single of "The Dreaming". The same illustration, by itself,
is reproduced in black and white on the inner sleeve of the record.
Yet -- get this -- Del is not credited anywhere on the album, nor
is the source of the picture mentioned. Someone ought to let Del know
about this sort of exploitation.
 
And now, to the mailbag:
>Subject: Excuse me?
>> IED: The same is true of Kate Bush: despite the undeniable
>> importance of her innovations, it is the TIMELESS qualities of her
>> music -- the magic of her muse, so to speak -- which give her art
>> depth and lasting beauty. The innovations arise out of the needs of
>> the muse, but they are not the muse herself.
>
>  Excuse me?  I must not be reading this correctly.  How can you call
>Kate Bush timeless?  Her earliest music is barely a decade old.
>
>-- Steve "Blore" Howard, Icon of Bad Taste
 
You're right -- you're not reading it correctly. Look up the word
in the dictionary. 'Timeless' does not mean 'new'.
 
>From: Stephen A Bloch
>Subject: Subtlety, sophistication, complexity, and refinement
>Yes, IED, I've read what you said.  Over and over.  But I'm inclined
>to dispute that "subtlety, sophistication, complexity, and refinement"
>are themselves objectively measurable, for the simple reason that if
>person A finds music X more SSC&R than music Y, and person B thinks
>the other way around, person A can say (perhaps justifiably) that
>music X was _too_ SSC&R for person B to appreciate.  That way lies bad
>feeling.
 
That is certainly a danger, at least in Love-Hounds, unfortunately.
(Witness the recent Eno debate, which was initiated  -- not by IED,
either -- with comments to the effect that anyone who claimed
his music wasn't "consistently crafted" was simply incapable of
hearing the subtle craftsmanship involved.) There is always
the likelihood of arguments spiraling downward into expressions
of personal animus. Nevertheless, it is IED's optimistic conviction
that most musical subtleties can be identified for anyone else, providing
both parties are willing to be patient, careful listeners. For instance,
alot of people may never have heard the backwards track that was
noticed by a Love-Hounds the other day, running simultaneously with
the phrase "We let the weirdness in," from "Suspended in Gaffa". Whether
that backwards track is a voice or an instrument is an even subtler
question, but, in theory, at least, it should be possible to determine
the precise content of the track. And what about a detail like the
backwards track from "Experiment IV"? Many people may not have heard
it before it was identified in Love-Hounds, but there's no doubt in
IED's mind that, once it was pointed out, anyone who wanted to take
the time would be perfectly capable of hearing it, too. Why not?
This is the kind of positive result that might have been achieved from
the "challenge" that IED launched a while back. Love-Hounds COULD
have been providing specific examples of truly subtle or complex
musical passages, themes, etc. in their favourite albums, instead
of taking the challenge as a hostile expression deserving only
ridicule. At this point, IED thinks it's time to withdraw that
challenge, and maybe he'll replace it with another one later on,
when this forum sinks back into the doldrums it was in a month ago.
 
>Subject: Kate, Eno, and consistency.
>From: Michael Knight
>Doug,
>
>Sorry if it's been a while. I've only just started poring through the
>raft of stuff which accumulated in my reader over the weekend. I thought
>IED was probably only referring to The Dreaming and Hounds of Love.  It
>just seemed to me that if he could just discard three out of her 5 albums
>then everyone else ought to be able to toss out half the albums their
>favorite artists have produced when responding to his challenge. Sorry
>if I dragged you into this.  I admit everything that she has had total
>control over has been excellent (or better!).  Mayhaps the challenge
>should be re-phrased to concern only albums that a particular artist
>had total control over. I think everyone is tired of this subject any-
>way. I know I am.
>
>-- Mike Knight
>'I've let the weirdness in.'
 
Though IED was not the addressee of the above, he'd
still like to express his approval.
 
>Up to a debate IED?
>
>-- John White
 
No, since IED can see what you mean, and even agrees with you
in one or two respects. Personally, he doesn't much like the
actual musical content of Quadrophenia, but he concedes that it has
alot of interesting permutations of theme and even of production.
Anyway, you've already gone a lot further towards justifying
your claim with quantifiable support than anybody else has all month.
 
>Subject: What the fuck are you talking aboit, IED?
>John
 
Well, IED apologizes about that one. He screwed up the
id's on a couple of messages recently. "Oh. Never mind."
 
>You know, I've been remarking of late that I tend to find this whole
>business of inventing a twee persona for oneself and stuffing it with
>cute little Britwords and sundries strikes me as something that's more
>commonly found in emotional cripples and persons with little faith in
>their own real-time egos: people who would rather invent a life than
>have one. But reading this little bit of comment from California
>starts me thinking on quite another tack. This playacting on andrew's
>part allows the boy to spout all kinds of wonderful objective judgements
>and take no credit for them at all. It's IED who's the smug, condescending
>one, not poor andrew.
 
Why do these arguments always end up in the ad hominem toilet? What
difference does IED's id make to the discussions? What makes you
people so thin-skinned that you can't simply argue the merits of your
case and rebut the flaws that you see in IED's arguments? Gregory's
nasty entry is directed almost exclusively at a persona whom he has
never met and probably never will.
 
>Maybe andrew actually believes that we're
>willing to make a separation between the persons and somehow forgive
>*him* for acting like your garden-variety elitist when he has his
>little IED suit on. Yeah. Look at that above paragraph and tell me
>you're reading the work of someone who has carefully considered the
>language in which he couches his critical pronouncements. He seems
>ah so blissfully unaware of all this, though.
 
Not at all. IED, and all his entourage, are well aware of his
"elitist" attitude, and in fact the topic has been discussed
at length -- and his position heartily defended --
in Love-Hounds before. As for the ironic tone and
occasionally patronizing remarks in some of his recent postings,
to which you have so strenuously objected, IED is willing to
admit that he may have been a little extreme; but indulgent
readers will appreciate the pressures placed upon a Love-Hound
who dares to undertake the role of devil's advoKate in this forum.
 
>We'll avoid for the moment the point that andrew seems to have
>confused Minimalism as a compositional category (to which we
>might well appeal to Eno's releases on the Obscure label in the
>min-70s..a then relatively unknown bunch who have since become
>well known and identified as Minimalists: Gavin Bryars, John Adams,
>John White, Michael Nyman, and Eno's own "Discreet Music") with
>minimalism.
 
It is your definition which is arbitrary, not IED's. Your perspective
is very narrow indeed if you think that the term minimalism, even
with a capital M, had never been used before Bryars and his ilk
discovered it. And the allegation which IED was refuting specified
minimalism's "RE-birth", anyway, remember?
 
>Oh. This is all a kind of clever charade, and andrew is assuming his
>IED persona so that he can say things he could never say on his own.
 
This obsession with IED's moniker is far more bizarre than the
i.d. itself. And why would you think its use an act of cowardess?
After all, the postings are signed by Andrew Marvick, aren't they?
Under this kind of attack, it requires considerable strength of
purpose not to give in and abandon the tag altogether; but IED
is a reed, not an oak: he will bow to the wind, not break before it!
 
>As of the last posting, there's even some clever little note
>about someone doing his typing for him while while that cad Raffles
>and little Buttercup are off on holiday. And just think: all those
>clever little horsie and bunny sig lines are coming from a single,
>very real human being on the other end of a terminal somewhere. Makes
>you quiet and sad.
 
Raffles takes offense at being called a cad by you, and there's nobody
called "Buttercup" here. What motivates you, Gregory, to spend
so much time and vent so much spleen on a shadow? Isn't THAT something
to make one "quiet and sad"? Fortunately, there seem to be a few
Love-Hounds out there who don't reject everything IED says with
slipshod insults, so he will not quit yet.
By the way, what makes you think they're ALL coming from "one human
being"?
 
-- Andrew Marvick