Re: Great Quote about Looping by Brian Eno

[Michael Billow <mbillow@gmail.com>]

I think you misunderstood me Rick; Every artist engages in creative process. That creative process involves self-editing. I am probably the last person on this list who needs to be given a resume Eno and the people he's worked with, as I am intimately familiar with his career and ideas. As impressive as that is, my point remains; Eno is not God. Like ANYONE he can issue statements that are self-indulgent, narcissistic or altogether inaccurate. Whatever his 'intent' may have been, I simply didn't agree.

On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

In my own history as a professional musician,producer and teacher,  the overwhelming greatest detriment to good art that I've seen is the fact that the editing side of so many musicians seems to take a distant second to the creative side.

I see more artists who seem more motivated by fear than by the love of creativity.   I see more artists who struggle to put anything out to the world for fear of the judgment that they perceive to be 'out there'.    In my history with most people,  the internal critic within these musicians' psyches is a vastly more brutal judge than the society that surrounds them.

I know so many artists who would do the world a favor by moving away from perfectionism;   who would produce more art and better art
if they could balance their love of creativity with their fear of external judgment.

Sure, there are exceptions.     There are people who put out lots of fairly uninteresting music.   There are artists who are
grandiose and think every thing they do is wonderful.   But this grandiosity is just another form of the low self esteem that seems to
pervade culture.

I think this is what Eno addresses with this quotation.

Eno is not God, certainly,  but if you go see the list of artists who have come to him to help them become more creative it's a pretty fucking
impressive list.    There's a reason that Eno is revered:      He's very, very wise about the creative process.     Wise enough that he's worked with
U2, David Bowie, the Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Robert Fripp, David Lynch, Peter Jackson, Coldplay, Genesis, Nico, John Cale,
Grace Jones, Devo, UltraVox, James,  Jane Sieberry, Depeche Mode and many, many others.

These people are not idiots, obviously.

So I think there still might be something to this quote though it obviously pushes some buttons.

Rick Walker