Screw that, there's a lot of amazing shit happening in the United States, probably in San Francisco, surely in California, that I'm 100% sure PtK has never made any honest attempt to absorb.

And that's fine. I don't blame my dad for not listening to stuff I like, or even giving it a half-hearted shot and panning it immediately. I love my dad, and I respect his opinions, especially when it comes to stuff he knows a lot about (notably, late-'60s and '70s guitar rock). If I have any questions about jazz, I might ask PtK because I'm sure he knows a lot about it. But he's not qualified to say "art has hit a wall." He has no idea.

I still feel some of you are not quite grasping what I'm saying, but I never imagined I'd be hitting such a nerve.

Barry - believe or not, I actually do keep up on a lot of pockets of stuff here in SF and elsewhere, it's not an age thing with me -- for one thing, some of the business stuff I've been involved in is around music related things - and I know a lot of people much younger than me, so even if I wouldn't naturally know about some new development, I have friends in their early 20's even a couple younger that could turn me on to stuff. SF is pretty small town actually - and like many other cities, a lot of the underground stuff whether it was electronica, goth, punk, hip hop -- it's been squeezed out. Things are feeling mostly derivative to me right now.

To FTN's remarks about not needing to know historical info or context or technical info -- that's great, but I felt he was mostly talking about how he uses music in his life and his personal way of deriving use (enjoyment as someone else brought up) which is again - different.

Perhaps where some of you guys are missing my point - I still can experience music (other art forms) as you do, have things that appeal to me just because they do, or are things I've collected over the years or have moods and put a soundtrack to parts of my life. I didn't say "art/music is dead" "I have no purpose for it anymore" "everything bores me", that's now what I said/meant at all.

I said that when I look in to the academy or the 'hood, the rave in the wilderness or the experimental scenes in the former east berlin, whether its technology based, abstract, or cross-cultural pollination or just "oldies", that I can't even see the inkling of something fomenting that might be moving art-forms forward. I wish I had better words to explain what I'm saying.

Newness as I'm alluding to, is part of the motivation for the artist side of me, not just the consumer side of me. The truth is, my own listening habits are probably a LOT more tame than they were years ago when I was on a steady diet of cacophony and intense energetic angularity.

Someone mentioned Brazil and the interesting trends and sub-genres emerging there and I would say - yes, that is somewhat fertile. I'm a huge Brazilian music consumer. It is quite possible there are pockets of crowded populations or poverty or eco-disaster zones that will provide some kind of "new way" with art -- but I'm still suspecting not. Subject matter may be current and tied to a time and place and people but its going to be more likely that those people will be connected to each other in different ways than we have seen prior in the world and other cultural movements.

I'm sure there are some scenes out there I don't know about. Geez, there are like 6billion people in the world. But word gets out. Especially in these times when anyone and everyone can document as it happens and upload in real time.

A further comment to FTN who used the example of having a natural affinity to a record like Kind of Blue. When it comes to art consumption, not everyone is as curious or open-minded. Many people exist within much narrower boundaries. It's been my contention, that one way you can help bridge people in to something out of their normal reference is to fill in the context. Or explain more about the people who make it, how it came about.

No one creates in a vacuum.

When Woody said, "I hate Jazz, I'd never listen to that", it's almost like someone saying, I hate Chinese food, I'll stick to my burgers and wings thank you very much. We all have preferences, tastes, things that are more or less familiar or seem to fit in with our world views.

One thing I luv about this period of time, is that the ability for people to stumble upon and encounter and try new art forms (music) is much easier. You are only a couple degrees at any time from something. You can watch a show or movie and hold up your mobile with Shazaam and find something you would otherwise have never known about and then that leads to something else and on and on. YouTube. There are so many ways.

TV put up an experimental trio with a Jazz improv background, working off a Milton Babbit score, with choreographers using female movements that would be entirely from another language vernacular in juxtaposition. That was pretty cool and something that can be found by non-experts or academicians or even the equivalent of a "down town scenester". And I marvel at that. But along with the good, I think something else has occured and there is a wall that things are bumping up against. Maybe not forever. But it has impacted the way my own journey and progression vis-a-vis art consumption has shifted.

One thing that was dynamic for me, from 15 forwards was that "new discovery" thing and at best, I only get new configurations now, or new instantiations (well executed), or new versions of ideas already digested that give me a sensation that is satisfying but not the discovery more the familiarity.

No, I totally understand what you're trying to say. You're sitting at the centre of a vast media web observing and cogitating about art and culture throughout the world, and although some of it is really great, there are no innovative processes which give you a frisson which suggests to you that they are new, exciting and thought provoking. So therefore, art is stuck in some kind of stasis.

It's just I think the way you say this suggests you're an arrogant imperialist who believes that san fran is the centre of the fucking world. Which does not lead me to believe you are in fact as open to new ideas as you think you are.

Wizlah wrote:No, I totally understand what you're trying to say. You're sitting at the centre of a vast media web observing and cogitating about art and culture throughout the world, and although some of it is really great, there are no innovative processes which give you a frisson which suggests to you that they are new, exciting and thought provoking. So therefore, art is stuck in some kind of stasis.

It's just I think the way you say this suggests you're an arrogant imperialist who believes that san fran is the centre of the $#@! world. Which does not lead me to believe you are in fact as open to new ideas as you think you are.

Seriously Wiz? I'm really sorry that somehow I've tweaked you so hard. I still don't think you are following me. And I said from the first post that I didn't want to get in to it, and now its 3-4 pages later.

I don't know why its coming off to you the way it is -- I'm sorry for my part in that, because clearly I'm failing to communicate clearly.

I think you really have mis-read me, and along with many others have a very distorted view of who I really am ...

I'll try one last bit --

There are historical records, that recount places all over the world -- where in retrospect and even at the time, people could sense a very fertile, dynamic, creative -- whatever word you want to use -- time and place. New ideas fomenting, new experiements, reactions to things in the world or established dogma -- a meld of art and thought and poltiics and lots of things.

And its not ONLY noted after the fact. Word gets out, people pack up and head somewhere because that's where something is "happening". In academia, programs and institutions go through periods and are known for certain things - people are searching - and find out, "oh, there's something going on over at that program that's where I need to be..."

And history has documented huge huge moments and times when art forms moved forwards. I would say in my own lifetime and journey, I've seen some things that I felt were really more than just recombinant and places or virtual places that had that energy and fertileness. Right now, it seems that mostly that feeling is around technology or a meld of technology and business, or with political or self-referential art. People still make art for catharsis or to tell a story of experience of themselves of a people or time and place. And it can be very moving, powerful and essential to human life.

I'm not saying everyone got stupid and no one has passion and that nothing has a "spark". I'm saying I can't encounter any art-form now, regardless of the style or sub-genre, and experience a "new way". I can experience a "new instance". Does that help?

It has absolutely nothing to do with being in SF by the way. Like many, I'm not dependent on SF and local place for info and ideas. I grew up in Phila., and lived in NYC and LA and DC and Seattle, as well as SF. I've traveled some, and have friends - artists, musicians, film makers in Germany, Paris, Corfu, Madrid ... I have friends that have spent a year in Argentina or Brazil, in Favelas.... I'm not saying I know every slice of life on the planet, but there is nothing Imperial or elitist in what I'm trying to talk about. It's an observation, a personal observation something I've been struggling with within my own experience. It's not me trying to interpret other people's experience. I'm not discussing value. I'm not even rating or comparing cultures or works of art.

i think maybe life has just passed you by.

technology has changed so much over the last 20 years.

people don't need to "up and move" to where the new "scene" is exploding. They can have the scene streamed into their living room in the middle of nowhere. if you're a trumpet player in a jazz band in washington state, you don't have to move to NYC to experience what is happening in the NYC jazz scene. You can read about it online and download live shows a few days after they happen.

the digital age has changed the way music is made. in a lot of cases, its changed it for the better.

FTN wrote:i think maybe life has just passed you by.

technology has changed so much over the last 20 years.

people don't need to "up and move" to where the new "scene" is exploding. They can have the scene streamed into their living room in the middle of nowhere. if you're a trumpet player in a jazz band in washington state, you don't have to move to NYC to experience what is happening in the NYC jazz scene. You can read about it online and download live shows a few days after they happen.

the digital age has changed the way music is made. in a lot of cases, its changed it for the better.

This is partly what I've been saying. I don't disagree. It may in fact be part of the phenomena I've -- apparently -- been poorly articulating.

Nothing has passed me by at all. I'm involved with tech as an avocation. I've already made similar points.

One of the things I like about powerful tools in the hands of many, is the de-emphasis on specialization. A thread like the Photo one on BSG is a good example.

but the part you are still missing is that doesn't make today's music inherently less good or smart or potentially long lasting. it just means that with newer technology, people are making music differently, and i think it has to be said, people are making a lot more music.

30 or 40 years ago, you had to have a label to help you afford money to get studio time to try and cut a few songs. now the trend seems to be more bands dropping their label and taking a diy approach to music.

in a way, music is more organic now than it was 40 years ago, across all genres.

FTN wrote:but the part you are still missing is that doesn't make today's music inherently less good or smart or potentially long lasting. it just means that with newer technology, people are making music differently, and i think it has to be said, people are making a lot more music.

30 or 40 years ago, you had to have a label to help you afford money to get studio time to try and cut a few songs. now the trend seems to be more bands dropping their label and taking a diy approach to music.

in a way, music is more organic now than it was 40 years ago, across all genres.

See, you made a leap that I never actually said. "today's music inherently less good or smart". I never said that. I'm not saying that. I said, that the forms have hit a wall. That's entirely different.

I in fact, agree with what you just wrote.

Not sure what you mean by organic but I likely agree. I said it a slightly different way but you don't have to be a specialist or have special access to information or equipment.

A lot of people i know who do esoteric electronic music and learned about it in universities -- they dismiss electronica -- and they are foolish and oftentime less skilled than many DJ producers and less innovative.

I'm hopeful that something will punch through the wall in my lifetime ... it would be really cool!

Katy Perry has a nice rack.

TenuredVulture wrote:Katy Perry has a nice rack.

I like jazz.

PTK, there's a lot of good music/art still out there. Most of it can't be found in the mainstream, IMO. Esepcially in music, most of the art has become heterogeneous. There are still musicians who continue to develop the uses of their instruments and continue to find new ways to play them and advance the art form. There's a national radio program I listen to (called Echoes), that has a lot of new ambient/electronic artists who are kind of doing their own experimenting both with traditional instruments and electronica. If you think music has truly reached it's peak, I'd suggest you tune in to a program one night. Either that or check out what guys like Antoine Dufour and Andy McKee are doing with the guitar.

Philly the Kid wrote:I'm not saying everyone got stupid and no one has passion and that nothing has a "spark". I'm saying I can't encounter any art-form now, regardless of the style or sub-genre, and experience a "new way". I can experience a "new instance". Does that help?

I think it does as long as you realize your feeling about it doesn't equate to it being "true" for anyone but you.

See my earlier Gillespie reference; he fathered bop, but didn't at the time see it as some sort of defining epochal event.

Coleman Hawkins is an even more extreme case.

And these two were making the music, not merely consuming it.

So what you're sensing - or not sensing - is quite subjective. Only history can say whether you're "right" or "wrong", Kid. And you may be neither.

i think when it comes to art, there is no right or wrong. on any level.

FTN wrote:i think when it comes to art, there is no right or wrong. on any level.

FTN wrote:i think when it comes to art, there is no right or wrong. on any level.

Right or wrong? I don't think I ever got in to right or wrong. But there is succeeding or failing on your own terms moreso and less-so. There is being an innovator or an inventor and a derivative.

I'll give an example. There experts that have studied Beethoven to such a degree and have the skills to compose his "10th Symphony" and for all intents and purposes it could likely pass as Beethoven's "10th". There are painters who can mimic Monet so closely that they could create a "fake newly found Monet" that would require scientific forensics to figure out it got painted last week.

It's why when you see a lady on a bad PBS channel at 2pm on a Sunday painting wildlife by numbers, no one much considers it "art".

it's not about right or wrong. It's not even about good or bad in some cases.

When a some 13-14 year old came of age in the late 50's, they may have been listening to doo-wop or Elvis. They had some images like James Dean or brando to emulate. West Side Story was a new theme.

Then the 60's mods, rockers ... things continued to expand and evolve and be invented.

Think of all the sub-genres over the last 40-50 years -- at their moment of inception, they were reflective of something authentic being invented in its time connected to something.

Now, in 2010, a kid reaches 14-15, and has a lot of choices. A lot of costumes they can choose from -- Rasta, Punk, Goth, Rocker, Metal-head, Hip-Hop, New Wave on and on. Skater -- there is a nice big pool of brands, costumes and associated language, art images, bands/music that go along with it.

None of them now are newly invented. Some kid walking the streets of Manchester today with a pierced face and ripped fishnet stockings and bleached out blond spikey hair -- isn't part of a movement, but rather has adopted a brand to associate with.

My contention is, that things change or lose their meaning once they are removed from the reality that fostered them to begin with. It's like someone trying to write that 10th symphony.

Now, what has occured in the last 10-15 years, is a lot of cross-pollination, remixing, and a variety of things that began to take elements and re-approriate in new and interesting ways. but after a time, those techniques and the "aha" factor of that became familiar. I'm sure there are some configurations not yet tried, but the "way" -- the idea of "reconfigure and recombine" is now understood.

Is there a rock or pop artist who is doing anything that hasn't been tried already? You can change the haircut and swap out the 2nd guitar for a sampler, or put a style of singing that used to go with one genre on top of another -- but is there anything new being invented that is of now? 2010? Something that is to today, what Punk was to 76-79 or what the Who and Stones were to 64-67? or what Grand Master Flash, Beastie Boys, RUN DMC, Tribe, Gangstarr or Dre were to their periods?

Someone mentioned ambient -- Brian Eno, and others were doing that 30 years ago.

The range of sounds synthetic and sampled and processed now is vast, but really? I haven't heard something entirley new. Whether its a Kyma box sythesizer or some home made instrument in some guys garage -- i've consumed it.

You can write the next Kurt Cobain song or Ian Curtis tune or Monet or Beethoven or sound so much like Coltrane that someone would have to really do a double-take, you can even re-create the sound of the studios they had in the late 50's or 60's ...

But I'm just not seeing something that is 2010 and could only be 2010 that is largely "new" as in the "new way" or next step of something... and there I feel reasons for that, some of them cultural some of them technological and some of them political.

Yes, their is art that is 2010 is theme and subject matter. Political or trends of today. Relfective of some culture that didn't exist in another time or meld of cultures now knocking up against each other. Little styles emerge -- there has been some "new stuff" in the last 10-15 years and maybe a trickle of small innovations going on now or continuing. But in high art and low art -- pop art -- folk art -- I'm really just not seeing anything that is the logical next step or the natural combustion ...

It's not about right or wrong, or even necessarily about good or bad. There are lots of singer song writers and it is I believe possible to get together enough people familiar with the language and genre to gain some kind of consensus about some things being better or worse. This is a topic in the Philosophy of Aesthetics (something i've studied in college and continued to contemplate) -- can a work of art be good or bad? Better or worse? It's not meaningful to compare Classical Indian music to Seattle grunge music. But it might be meaningful to compare Tupac to Biggie? It might be meaningful to compare Clapton to Hendrix or Page?

but that's not even what I was getting in to.

I'm saying that while I still derive "pleasure" as someone brought that word in to it, from listening to music or consuming art -- that I cannot get a certain sensation nor can I see anything newly presented that can show me "a way" I haven't seen before. That's the best I can do to explain what I'm saying.

It doesn't make it de facto true because I assert it. But I don't feel I've gotten here without some serious consideration or on a whim.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzR1tAo-gRU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpBwdv7L6R4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2WSeZZV6iQ[/youtube]

FTN, I love the middle clip. The bottom was...interesting...if nothing else. Not particularly easy to listen to, but definitely made me appreciate such a skill on a guitar.

welp, PtK completely missed my point, so i feel even more justified.

FTN, I disagree. this is an entirely different argument. but imagine a 4-year-old girl who's learning to play violin. Let's say she's pretty talented for her age and level. She can bang out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" without any trouble. is that better than a professional violinist playing along to a symphony? it's clear who the better artist is, right? but ask that girl's parents: Who would you rather listen to, some classically trained violinist, or your daughter?

Subjectivity would clearly change each of those answers. But any objective source would know the classically trained violinist is better than the 4-year-old.

Philly the Kid wrote:

Soren wrote:6. If so, did you enjoy it? Was it pleasurable to you?

Not sure what you are trying to say, but if "enjoyability and pleasure" are your only criteria for rating something, then we aren't on the same page.

it was a reference to the stripper thread

Kurt Rosenwinkel yay guys

anyone here listen to ben monder?