[NewMusic] caveman make tool

[Ron Lettuce]

AAAAAARHRHRHRHRHRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ugh make Tool, Ugh make Rock, Rock Tool for GET LAID, Rock Not Tool for Start Lame Conversation about Derivitiveness!!!
What wrong with Derivative, Ugh DERIVE Meat from Wooly Mamoth, Ugh derive warmth from fire, Ugh derive sore head from Martini...

Best Regards,
Ugh

----- Original Message ----
From: Sarah - 21 Grand <21grand at 21grand.org>
To: Banewmus List <newmusic at music.mills.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 5:12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [NewMusic] caveman make tool


The ever insightful Mr. Walter wrote:
rock and roll is a tool. good things and bad things can be made with the
tool. that is the responsibility of the user of the tool, not the tool
itself. it's a blank slate for whatever one puts into it.

- Well, yes and no. Rock music is indeed a tool, much like, say, painting,
that has millions of practitioners and, despite which, is regularly
proclaimed dead and triumphantly returned by critics, depending on whim,
subscription revenue, trends, or the nature of their bowel movements, etc.
I'm currently waiting for The Wire cover story on "The Return of Melody."

Of course to call everything currently made by the vast numbers of people
working with said tool, "boring" or "dead," is off-the-mark, and if the
disaffection with said medium is solely based on what is popular, then I
always hope that the complainers would set about looking for work made in
said medium that doesn't suck (which takes more time and effort than writing
the breathless headline-garnering obituaries).

But then again, to say that it's a blank slate is also off-the-mark, the
tool/medium/genre has a well-known history and a lot of things have "already
been done," and thus new work that is similar to existing work often gets
placed in the "derivative" category and becomes fodder for the obituarians.
In fact, the notion of rock being a blank slate seems to be contradicted by
the fact that, I'm not sure if I'm using the term correctly but, so much of
it is idiomatic (same goes for painting).

Basically, it's the same quandary as with most all art forms, acknowledging
precedent and history, yet, as an artist, not allowing oneself to be too
overwhelmed by it all to keep going.  In other words, one can't rely on
novelty the way one once could, which makes the Modernist era seem so
appealing and like a much easier period in which to be an artist.

sl

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