[NewMusic] coasting?

[weasel walter]

> I merely implied that I'm kind of sick of hearing younger musicians
talk about how music 
> isn't "innovative" unless they are making it (because they're young and
> "revolutionary"). I also lament that those same musicians are not 
> "well acquainted" with their own instruments, the history of their 
> instrument, or the history of music as a whole. 

ah, bringing it back home. this statement returns a lot of focus to this
discussion . . . 

i guess i don't really hang out with those kind of self-congratulatory
avant-gardists so i'm not as sensitive to how odious that kind of
claptrap can be. maybe some of that hubris comes from finding some level
of "success" too quickly? i dunno. i can't relate. 

a lot of the people i play with actually seem a little too beaten down -
due to the experimental musician's general position in society - so
there's more emphasis on "doing" than "talking about doing". not a lot of
auto-fellating going on.  

personally, i just see myself as a participant in a fusion of a bunch of
different traditions - free jazz, heavy metal, blah blah blah. it's
inconsequential to me if i'm "original" or "innovative" or whatever
because i'm too busy just trying to find time to actually do music most
of the time. as they say, "the present is built on the shoulders of
giants".  without the work of people like ornette coleman, captain
beefheart, albert ayler, cecil taylor, iannis xenakis, alejandro
jodorosky, james chance, ad nauseam, i'm not much of anything. 

ww