>X-POP3-Rcpt: erik@cybernetic
>Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 22:39:36 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Noah Apodaca <unclenoa@netcom.com>
>Subject: bay guardian article... (fwd)
>To: erik <eee@cyborganic.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>the cover story of this week's guardian is "the future of music",
>with a panel discusion that includes representation from dropbeat
>records co-owner mike schulman. the full text can be found at
>www.sfbg.com, below is an excerpt:
>
> BG: How significant is the American music media's
> recent turn toward DJ culture and electronic music --
> MTV's formatting shift, for instance? Is this a grassroots
> phenomenon that finally caught on, or the construct of an
> industry that's run out of ideas?
>
> MS: The media's idea of electronica is so limited and
> ill-informed that I can't imagine a full movement being
> brought about. Bands like Underworld and Prodigy
> aren't especially different in sound or intent from a
> typical big rock band, so it isn't a big stretch to get kids to
> buy those records.
>
> The real DJ culture of vinyl records and homebrew mix
> tapes is a million miles from that, as is the genuine
> underground techno and jungle coming out on tiny labels
> all over the U.S. and Europe. Whatever the industry has
> caught hold of is a very tiny piece of the picture, dictated
> by the need to sell units to a lot of people with relatively
> pedestrian tastes.
>
> AW: Journalists and TV program directors are not
> divine; they're depressingly mediocre people who only
> know how to latch on to what is being sold -- not what
> people actually like, or what's really good. Such trends
> only represent the directives of commerce.... Whenever
> I'm in a record store, customers crowd the pop aisles
> while the techno, acid jazz, electronic aisles are virtually
> empty. Maybe electronicats are getting what they need
> on-line. In the real world, love makes things spin and
> the music that gets people happy, that makes them need
> each other, still goes pop-ular.
>
> Given this need to connect, the music and news media's
> desperate search to segregate music -- ignoring black
> beats for faceless doodlings of white electronic
> musicians -- is just the latest wrinkle on rockism. And it
> will fail -- even if it doesn't end.
>
> WC: By and large, mainstream white culture (you can
> read "major-label rock" into that if you like) is bankrupt,
> and astute youth recognized that some time ago.
> Underground hip-hop/DJ/turntablist culture is alive and
> vital and has got originality coming out of its ears.
>
> BG: Do you view electronic music as the music of the
> future? Are you optimistic about its creative potential
> and the changing role of technology in music production?
>
> WC: Um, hello? Much of the groundbreaking in
> electronic music occurred in the '40s, '50s, and '60s.
> Stockhausen et al., baby. Though contemporaries such
> as Oval, Boredoms, the Invisibl Skratch Piklz
> turntablists, and even, yes, DJ Shadow are consistently
> redefining and gleefully obliterating genre boundaries, it
> is at best naive and at worst offensive to lump them
> together under the umbrella term "electronica" and
> presume they started it.
>
> AG: So-called electronica is the music of the future in
> the same way that Disney's Tomorrowland is a place of
> the future. Anyone with an ounce of interest in, and feel
> for, pop could have told you 20 years ago that Kraftwerk
> was the future. Africa Bambaataa understood that, too.
> The future arrived years ago, while half of America was
> listening to Bruce Springsteen.
>
> MS: The most creative music I'm hearing lately is
> coming from the electronic side of things. Savvy jungle
> producers are making tracks as avant-garde and
> theoretically grounded as any piece of rock-snob noise.
> A lot of people seem to have a real aversion to any
> music that has a beat, a relic of that whole "disco sucks"
> mind-set of the early punk years. And that's a shame,
> because what's happening with experimental beat
> science is creating a revolution in sound, and exciting
> records are coming out every week completely
> independent of the usual channels of distribution and
> press.
>
> It's really very punk rock in a totally now way --
> independent labels, distributors, shops, fuck-off
> attitudes. The folks making great electronic music right
> now couldn't care less about MTV, unlike your typical
> "punk" band, which rehashes boring 1978
> pseudo-politics (and music) and poses for Alternative
> Press fashion layouts.
>
> BG: Will "electronica" supplant rock culture or be
> absorbed into it? What does the recent shift toward
> non-rock styles say about the cultural mood?
>
> WC: This is like asking if black people will take over
> America, or if aspects of black culture will be co-opted
> (once again) by the white mainstream. What do you
> think? Commercial "success" is all about power and
> who holds the reins. Rock will flip its ungainly wig for a
> while over how cool it is to have Photek remix your next
> Blues Explosion atrocity, then eventually discard the
> multisubcultures, proclaiming them spent, too digital, too
> whatever, and then all the rock critics will start
> rhapsodizing over plain ole rock and roll's newfound
> renaissance.
>
e r i k
@bossanova.com
http://www.bossanova.com/erik/
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