Re: names names names - was "how to announce performances"

[Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>]

>  > ----- Original Message -----
>  > From: "Matthias Grob" <matthias@grob.org>
>
>>>  Due to Per/Rick/me Live Looping Festival tour in Sweden, there was a
>>>  documentary about Live Looping on national TV.
>>>  Was there a concrete result for you, Per?
>
>
>Not as anything near "a common definition of live looping as a musical
>style" - if that's what you mean(?)

no, I did not expect that, I just hoped that they could show how we 
do it and bring some of the feeling that comes along with it...

>But as a technique for creating music I
>think the word "looping" has kind of caught on here in Sweden.

thats something!

>  My personal
>benefit from doing a lot of local announced "live looping gigs" (the first
>in this row taking place three years ago) is that I have made contact with
>lots of interesting musicians. I'm not sure if the TV documentary had much
>impact there, probably it would take a lot more to break "live looping" 
>;-)
>
>I really don't know about television in general. Sometimes I'm getting the
>impression that television and all kind of media is just destroying
>everything that is good in art.

I had that experience more with written media. Sentences of mine have 
been abused to proove the stand point of the journalist. Or they 
simply invented: once a concert of mine was announces as "swiss 
singer interpretes traditional swiss songs" - the gui certainly did 
not read any of the text I had sent him!

I have given quite some TV and radio interviews over the years and 
felt they represented reasonably well what I was trying to express.
Then again, the impact was next to zero: Usually an amazing amount of 
people meet afterwards tell me they saw and liked it, but thats all!

Giba and me played at a great festival in December (any of you could 
apply to that: Mercado Cultural, moved by the alternative school 
viamagia
http://www.viamagia.com.br/mercado5/port/principal.htm, a week of 
really good concerts, no very famous artists, but high quality of all 
kinds and a constant public, spread over 10 different places in 
Salvador, from silent theater to late night open air rock shows...)
There, MTV Brasil made a documentary about our show and when it 
recently was on air twice, the only return was a single CD order, no 
gig. I found it amazing: there must have been far over 100'000 people 
watching, and exactly one made the effort to look me up on the net? I 
could conclude that the music is not good enough, but the show was 
really viby and my CDs are in use in many places, be it for massage 
or just to wash the dishes.

I am pretty sure that its the repetition of many such appearences 
that make people confident, for the same reason maybe why we loop. 
Any learning process needs repetition.

If we had made the effort to contact venues, mentioning the TV event, 
it probably would have helped. But we dont have time and punch for 
this kind of work, so we will see how far the music takes us without 
effort :-)

>When "the personal touch" is dropped in favour of "the lowest common
>denominator" television and media plainly sucks IMHO. I would really hate 
>to
>see "live looping" being turned into that kind of "average  journalists
>all-round categorization".

how can we avoid that? only by not using any genres/labels/style names at 
all?

>
>Speaking about that particular documentary on Live Looping I think the TV
>producers missed the point badly. They tried to make "a funny program 
>about
>some unusual but interesting music" and it just came out wrong.

yes, I sometimes had the impression that TV did not film me because 
of the funny clown potential rather than serious art content. As long 
as they dont turn it ridiculous, I still think its better than 
nothing...

>They never
>mentioned the tape looping roots, just to pick one of their mistakes.

I think we should mention the roots in respect for the ones that came 
before us, but it may be not very interesting for the public, 
really...

>I've been in similar situations before, when doing more commercial 
>music on major label deals, but this time it happened to the music I 
>care for the most.

sounds sad really, you did not tell me that...

>  Why is it so extremely difficult to keep media from getting things the 
>wrong
>way?

stress of the makers / final decision by some editors rough rules...

>One way for musicians to stay clear from the-usual-media-fuck-up is to
>CONSTANTLY show a strong Manifesto on what they are doing. The 
>shorter and stronger, the better chances that journalists will not 
>mistreat the
>information.

yes, and this keeps it superficial by itself, because no serious art 
can be described short and strong. :-(

>You also have to learn to speak like a politician, making short
>and strong statements that can not be misunderstood. The media hype 
>is about the music but music has nothing to do with how the media 
>works. A sad fact of life, but you have to play by their rules, or 
>stay out ;-)
>
hmmm... did we play their rules or stay out?


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