Oh, do I dare...?

["OUT, OUT - YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE FALL-O..." <OLIVOTTO%ITNVAX.CINECA.IT@ICINECA.CINECA.IT>]

Subject: Love-Hounds Digest #7.186

Original_To:    Love-Hounds@EDDIE.MIT.EDU
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Date:   Wed, 26 Jun 1991 10:08:14 -0800
From:   dwelch@devnull.mpd.tandem.com (Dan Welch)

>This makes me hesitant to try it, because EVERY artist has his/her/their
>die-hard fans, and I tend to discard these people's opinion's immediately,
>because they cannot be objective in re the artist.  But what does everyone
>else think?  For instance, in KaTe's case, non-Love-Hounds are usually
>saying "She is so weird", or else "Wow, that's really inventive".  I don't
>know ANYONE who has a mild opinion concerning Her, and this tells me
>something, or would if I didn't already recognize her genius.  But in
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Date:   Wed, 26 Jun 1991 16:13:52 -0800
From:   nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)

>These people are eeeeeeevil!  They want to make MONEY!  How could you
>even think of having any sort of connection with slimy worms like
>that when you know that at this very moment they may be turning a
>PROFIT!?

*-*-* OUT, OUT... *-*-*

        Maybe this is not the right place for philosopical considerations, and
I would like you all to tell me whether my actual comment is out of place.
I do not really know whether this is the right list for philosphical conside-
rations about music and all that is related to it, but - as it seems - some
people have sent in some comments undoubtedly falling in this field before me,
and so I feel authorised to intervene.
        I would like to highlight that I'm writing as a musician, not as a
KB's or anyone else's fan. I would like to say a couple of words about the
meaning of music and why one usually makes it.
        I think there are two main streams of action: on one side, there are
those who think that music is a rather easy way - once you start selling, of
course - to make money and gather some success. These people are usually in-
clined to selling themselves in some way, and do not care about the personal
and artistic side of the thing. On the other side, there are people who think
that music is a rather universal way of expression. There are many artists who
follow this bumpy road, and most of them are unknown to the public. They usual-
ly have problems in continuing their activity because they run short of cash
(I mean, you MUST eat some way) and so on. There is also a third category of
people, and it is filled up with serious artists that at a certain point decide
to go the other way round, and simply offer themselves to the market with
products that they probably do not love at all - or, optimistically, they love
just a little.
        It's all here. Of course, there is a strong request for commercial
products - I mean, how come we are flooded once a year by Madonna's howls, and
newspapers looking into the songs in order to find a hidden meaning? But,
on one side, this is not bad. The right side of the thing is simply that
*TRUE* artists, once they are able to make up a shell and live in there with
their music, can give us much more than if they were largely acclaimed people,
full of money and business. With regards to record labels, let me please state
that it's much too easy to spit sand into their eyes: they may in fact have
the power to make a star out of a goat, but they don't have the power to ob-
fuscate some immortal pages that people write. More, I personally run a studio,
although it is not my main activity; I have started it with some friends for
two main reasons: first, to produce my own music, and to give a chance to non-
professionals to come and record their own things at a ridicolous price, and
make their own demo-tapes, or their own small productions. It is not something
commercial - it was made for MUSIC and MUSIC alone. Well, would you believe it?
People do not come to record at TNR - The Noisy Room, usually: they'd rather
go out on a highly professional studio, and pay the equivalent of $1000 a day,
in order to have a demo tape which always turns out as a bad dance-like ver-
sion of what they had in mind. Expert musicians, who try to work their way
across the Danceland, come to TNR, work for days and then leave with their
ideas on tape, fully satisfied in many cases. Unfortunately they are not much,
and we should try to reach them all because we work with a continuous shorte-
ning of money, which we usually supply by ourselves. You see, you MUST love
music to pay for making it, come on!
        I have resigned long ago from pushing myself onto labels - in fact, I'm
starting my own, and I'm sure that I'll never become rich. But I see interest
and appreciation and respect in what I do. After all I'm 26, and not 57 - I
can still have a chance to say my word... it is my own right, as far as I
let other people think aloud.
        The main point of this letter is simple: if we want to speak about a
commercial thing, OK, let's go but never regret about how things finally turn.
If we are speaking about art (and Kate Bush is perhaps the most sincere artist
that I know - deliberately non-commercial when it's the case), well, that opens
up completely different perspectives. But there's no way to put all the blame
on labels' back: it's mostly a state of mind of the people who prefer to buy
Michael Jackson than Kate Bush or what you want, and sometimes, definitely, a
state of mind of so-called artists that (see "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway")
think <<money, honey, be on neon>>. Just one last thing: everything one creates
was once just imagined; it simply didn't exist. When we will be able to bring
the right respect to this fact, things will be better - in music and the whole
world. And, I'm sure, stupid creations will die away without a sound. Let's
simply destroy pedestals on which artists stay - it will work.

        Best Wishes!

                                        Marco Olivotto

olivotto@itncisca.bitnet