normal music for normal people

[hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu)]

>Really-From: prs@oliven.atc.olivetti.com (Philip Stephens)

>Thanks also to someone else, sorry I forgot who, who suggested requesting 
>college radio play some of the stuff that's been recomended. 

Yeah! Yeah! Call up some typical Rockpool-type college radio station and
ask them for these guys:

Diamanda Galas (hey, she's on the cover of Rockpool, so she must be trendy)
Swans (on the cover of a trendy British music rag)
Happy Flowers (well.... they were interviewed in Shredded Slime...)
Psychodrama (reviewed in Option! must be good)

(maniacal snickering)

>Sounds about right.  A smidgen more clarification on trendies, please, so I
>may correctly use it as an insult?

How does one define "trendies"? Let's see...

A trendy is not really into music as MUSIC. To a trendy, music is like
clothes; have it around to show that he's "cool", don't pay much attention
to it except for the "look", and discard it when it's out of fashion.

How much do most of us love music? When I see people who can't pay the rent
but donate money to a non-commercial radio station, musicians who work
60 hours a week at pizza joints so they can make their own music outside
the corporate music machine, kids who spend all their money supporting
independent music and put every penny on the line by promoting shows, I
hang my head in shame because I do not do as much.

ME:
->Oh c'mon... there's never enough weirdness in the world :-)... maybe you
->just never had that much tolerance for the outre in the first place.

Phil:
>Outre?  Depends on just why it is "considered to pass beyond the bounds
>of what is normal or proper". 
	    ^^^^^^    ^^^^^^

Uh-oh, my pet peeves... How do you DEFINE "normal" or "proper"? Who
makes these "standards"? And why must music need a good reason to "pass
beyond the bounds of what is normal or proper"? I would have no problems
with your statement had it been something like "I like what's normal and
proper", but you claimed to like "weirdness". 

>Could be, I like *some* of the 'atmosphere' (yuppie Muzac) music played on
>a local 'New Age' station, though by no means all.  

Minimalist music (Reich, Glass etc.) has only very tenuous connections with
New Age mush. I'm not sympathetic to either. Refer to the Great What-is-
Minimalism-Debate last month or talk to Greg Taylor or IED.

>The guy [Hof] I just called a little boy?   :-)

Hof has shown open-mindedness and sophistication in his appreciation of
music. You have not. 

> [Me on Moody Blues]
>Which makes it all the more outre, no?    :-)  :-)

Only in the way that cheap slasher flicks, Lieutenant Kelly's Fight Song,
The US Marines Workout Record are outre. And in that sense the Moody Blues
would lose easily to Plan 9 From Outer Space. (Only half smiley here.)

Bill