[NewMusic] one of the worst writeups i've ever seen

[Sarah - 21 Grand]

on 1/29/09 10:08 PM, Matt Davignon at mattdavignon at gmail.com wrote:

> 
> On the other hand, if we don't want people to accuse us of being
> hoity-toity and self-marginalizing, we're going to have to
> occasionally stop being all hoity-toity and self-marginalizing.

This is at least the 3rd straw man foisted on this thread ...who's being
hoity-toity? Give me an example of this hoity-toitiness, please. A lot of
the descriptions of new music shows penned by the artists aren't what I
would call hoity-toity ... Mostly lists of names, instruments, recordings
that to the theoretical layman, isn't hoity-toity or pretentious, just dry
and not particularly compelling as a sales pitch.
> 
> I'm not particularly targeting SFSound here, more the attitude in
> general that if people don't know who Pauline Oliveros is, then their
> ignorance is "unforgivable". And that if they don't listen to our
> music they are on a lower cultural level than us.

Who has this attitude? I don't see anyone here having this attitude. I see
mild disgreement as to what extent we should cultivate the interest of the
general public, and general agreement that it is appreciated when people are
interested and when the press writes about us. There is also general
agreement that clearly written descriptive prose about the music is possible
without resorting to academicism and obscurantism.

There is also general agreement that there a significant number of
dumdumheads in this country that probably prefer watching pole dancing by
scantily clad young women or guys that look like car stereo salesmen
aspiring to be pimps gesticulating to a repetitive dance beat with vocalized
"oohs" and "yeahs" to listening to Xenakis' music or any of Weasel's bands.
There are probably a good number of people of average to above average
intelligence that enjoy the new garage rock breathlessly promoted in this
week's Guardian.

I skimmed through those articles and recognized a few names, but not very
many, and eventually shrugged and said, "not familiar, don't really care,
not my thing," which is probably how most people that read descriptions of
new music shows respond.

Again, I don't see any hoity-toitiness here ...just realistic responses to
general apathy.

sl