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That's a fair assessment, Travis. You reinforce
both sides of the fence. That there are, and they are based on relative /
varying criteria is the key.
K-
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 8:49
AM
Subject: Re: OT: Keller Williams / jam
bands/ rc50
The mainstream pop audience looks at experimental music and
says "The emperor has no clothes...my five year old could do this, this stuff
is crap". Imagine trying to explain that, say, Derek Bailey is one
of the most important musicians of the last fifty years to someone just by
playing one of his albums, without the twenty pounds of glowing "Wire"
mentions he accumulated every year. That's marketing too.
The
avant garde audience looks at the mainstream pop success (or even cult
favorite Keller Williams) and says "The emperor has no clothes...anyone could
do this, this stuff is crap".
Both sides are missing out on
something valuable from the other side of the fence.
But to me, if I
look at a cooking Keller Williams show, I see a performer and an audience who
are experiencing a joy at the event which greatly exceeds the joy factor of
any Derek Bailey show I could imagine. If the combination of "joy" and
"music" are important to you in assessing musical events, then KW wins
out. If there's something more important than "joy", then he may not
rate so highly.
For me, there is no "wrong sort" of joy generated by a
musical experience--the purpose of the musical event is to use whatever tricks
and techniques the performer has available to transport him or her and as much
of the audience as possible into a glimpse of the divine. That is my
standard for a successful musical performance--not whether I played anything
new or challenging (while not excluding those possibilities either).
TravisH
On 11/29/06, Krispen
Hartung <khartung@cableone.net>
wrote:
Okay,
I admit this is getting a bit off topic now....
----- Original
Message -----
From: "Miko Biffle" <biffoz@arczip.com>
>
> So
yeah, maybe thousands could pull it off, but what would be the point?
> It
> would be insincere, and most audiences can smell that a
mile away-so while
Do you think this is a true statement?
Hmmmm. I guess I'm skeptical. Given
how well marketing, even
the most blatant and superficial, works with the
masses, I've always
been inclined to think that the "herd" falls for just
about anything if
it is pitched right. How many pop stars can you think of
that are
completely contrived in their show and act, but the crowd just eats
them
up. The herd loves in insincere. Since when was honesty in
the
entertainment business a plus for the hoi polloi? This is why
people
looooove Vegas so much...it's pure cheese and superficially. Now
maybe
Keller has a unique following of special people who managed to weed
out the
herd instinct, but that would be surprising. I would
take the newer dead or
phish head scene (even with the neo-hippie punks
who drive to concerns in
their parents BMWs, but haven't showered for
weeks and are wearing dirty,
filthy dreds) as an example of a crowd that
flocks to the contrived, but
that would be a thread on its own.
:) Again, this does not reflect
negatively on Keller. I think
he knows what he is doing. All people with a
good business mind and an
understanding of the mass mentality do know what
they are
doing. The herd is a massive potential of untapped financial
potential. And if I was comfortable with playing mediocre music and
dancing
around like a white-boy clown, I'd be doing the same
thing! Heh
heh....sorry, I haven't had my coffee and I'm sleep
deprived from staying up
with a sick
kids...
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