Re: Maybe why Avante-garde looping in US...

["loop.pool" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

very nice post, mech

i learned a lot.      i hear your frustration with the status quo and your 
analogy to the big hair metal days is
really a well thought out take on the subject.   i think you are exactly 
right about the number of creative
musicians who eschew hip hop for that very reason.     As Bjork said,  
"The 
laptop if the folk instrument
of the twenty first century."   Where I live a hell of a lot of the young 
creativity going on is in the realm
of creative laptopery.  Unfortunately,  a lot of those musicians either 
feel 
they have no place to play or
are very reticent to put there stuff out into the public so you don't get 
to 
see a lot of it.   About five years ago
I did 7 concerts called the FESCE  (festival of emerging santa cruz 
electronica) where 35 young local artists
had there debut in public..............it was great and a scene started to 
happen but then they closed down the
last affordable small performance space in town and it squashed the 
emerging 
scene.  Luckily in our little town,
there have been some changes (that we have fought long and hard for 
politically) so that there are suddenly
a lot of new venues in town and all businesses can now have entertainment 
for under 100 people in the audience
without having to pay a fee.  Hopefully good things will come of it.

also,   i think that Chicago, while having innovated a lot of styles is a 
very style bound city and in certain
respects though having provided our culture with a lot of very cool things 
it can be a very conservative
and slightly repressed scene for all the reasons you mentioned.

I do really love some of the more expansive jazz and jazz fusions that 
have 
been coming out of there in recent years.
I saw the Chicago Underground Duo and LOVED THEM to 
pieces.................wow, what a great show.
Is that scene still pretty vibrant or has the traditional strait jacket 
syndrome  set into the AACM scene too?

For Tarwater, please check out the first two CDs they have out.  They are, 
by far the best.
There's is a very understated vibe but I think of them as being as 
creative 
as anyone in new electronica/trip hop.
To Roccoco Rot is the same way.   I love there 2nd CD.   It doesn't hit 
you 
over the head with a hammer but
has really understated brilliance imho.   It's a constant on the 
holographic 
turntables of my wife and I.

And is that John Foxx thing,  by the former lead singer of UltraVox? 
oooooooh,  I can't wait to hear that.
I saw them live early on and really loved 
them........................right 
around the time of "Systems of Romance"
which sounds surprisingly  good after twenty plus 
years...................a 
friend just burned it for me.

While we are on that topic,  have you hear the last thing WIRE did.
What incredible guitar tones he's getting.......................it is so 
minimal as to fake you into thinking it isn't intelligent
but I think it is a kind of genius.

yours,   rick