EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 60, Issue 04 This issue's topics: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn (4 messages) Laurie Anderson (3 messages) Research, Zorn, and other scorched earth doctrines (2 messages) Zorn Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 23:57:23 EST From: "Jason E. Geistweidt" Subject: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn Are there any aficionados of Laurie Anderson, john cage, or john zorn out there ????? i'd like to begin an active discussion of their music and their contri- butions to modern music. We might learn something in the end. Jason E. Geistweidt [ "Alas! An ill fated philosophy leads to an The American University [ ill fated religion!" -- S. T. Coleridge jg8602a@american.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 11:09:33 EST From: Eric Harnden Subject: Re: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn camile paglia must hate laurie anderson. she's a postmodernist without a chip on her shoulder who maintains a cool humor and keeps sight of what she's playing with, as well as the game she's playing. i never really thought of her as an electronic musician, sort of in the same way that bill cosby isn't really a comedian. they're story tellers, who manipulate the expectations of their respective media. all the same, i've found some of her games quite clever... although clever's about it. i loved the tape-strung bow, for instance. personally, while i was pleasurably absorbed by her United States performances, the real excitement for me was when david van tiegham started playing. he breaks up the measure in fun places. as for cage... well, you sort of can't get around him, even if he is entirely unlistenable. although i have to admit that every time i play "aria and fontana mix" for the class i actually like it more. for me he's largely a theorist, and an important one at that. his ideas about what is admissable as music, while arguable... well, i think that was always the point... i've never found cage's thinking to be conclusive. it is argument, and a sort of cognitive jamming, if you know what i mean. in particular i liked the ideas of his later work with merce cunningham... allowing sound and space to be discovered, as opposed to made. john zorn i have to admit ignorance of. -----------< Cognitive Dissonance is a 20th Century Art Form >----------- Eric Harnden (Ronin) Voice:202-885-2748 The American University Physics Dept. 4400 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington, DC, 20016-8058 ---------------------< Join the Cognitive Dissidents >------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 11:41:57 -0500 From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Re: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn Jason E. Geistweidt writes: > > Are there any aficionados of Laurie Anderson, john cage, or john zorn > out there ? Yep. Laurie Anderson is a classic case of talent and ideas transcending technique. She's not the world's greatest singer or violinist, but what she does is *good*. I like Cage's prepared piano pieces a lot. Some of the other stuff I just don't really enjoy (I've never been able to enjoy a David Tudor performance of anything). I haven't heard much of Zorn's stuff, other than a track from a Monk tribute album on which he played various duck calls (worked marvelously well). He's also worked with Christian Marclay, who is a musique concrete god. I borrowed an album of "new electronic music" from the library the other day. His piece "Black Stucco" was the only listenable piece on the album and it was just flat wonderful. Oh, by the way, his equipment consists of a big stack of those old grade-school record players, a bunch of old disks which he buys in thrift shops, a great ear, and a lot of energy. Apparently he is quite something to see live, slapping a disk on, playing a short segment, running to another player, slapping on another, tossing records around with abandon. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 14:42:53 -0800 From: metlay Subject: Re: Anderson, Cage, and Zorn >Are there any aficionados of Laurie Anderson, john cage, or john zorn out there >????? i'd like to begin an active discussion of their music and their contri- >butions to modern music. We might learn something in the end. I like Laurie Anderson. She has been very polite and pleasant to me in past conversations, and very friendly and helpful in answering queries from novices (such as my girlfriend at the time I met her, a violinist fascinated by the tape-bow violin). She's the world's most effective performance artist because she recognizes one most important thing: first and foremost, performance art must be good stand-up comedy, because it's so damned ridiculous to watch. She's a great comedienne; all else follows from that. Seriously. Her musical/hardware ideas are often clever, but the most exciting ones work well because they make you smile. I liked John Cage. He beat me at chess three times in a row, always in less than ten moves, while stoned on mushrooms. Of course, I'm a lousy chess player. His glory was the ability to think in ways others didn't see for themselves; the operative words one finds oneself using when one studies his work, over and over again, are: "But of course." -- mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howler of the week: "What is the worst crime ever committed with a fork?" "Probably a windows emulator running under UNIX." (thanx to patrick schaaf) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 21:37:42 -0800 From: Michael O'Hara Subject: Re: EMUSIC-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994 Laurie Anderson? swoon. Introduce me. Please. She has got to be one of the most creative humans on the planet. I am not worthy, I know... but I can dream. :) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 08:02:57 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: EMUSIC-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994 >Laurie Anderson? >swoon. >Introduce me. Please. Join the queue. Nick Rothwell | cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance | cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 07:22:57 -0800 From: metlay Subject: Re: EMUSIC-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994 >Laurie Anderson? > >swoon. > >Introduce me. Please. > >She has got to be one of the most creative humans on the planet. >I am not worthy, I know... but I can dream. Oh, heavens, I said I MET her, not that I KNOW her. We haven't chatted in over ten years; I doubt she'd remember me. Hell, I WISH we were friends; it might have gotten the Team Metlay disc out sooner. Or maybe not at all.... anyway, sorry if I misled anyone. I found her visit to be most entertaining and informative, and I still have fond memories of it, which may have led to an overly familiar tone. -- mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howler of the week: "What is the worst crime ever committed with a fork?" "Probably a windows emulator running under UNIX." (thanx to patrick schaaf) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 09:48:32 CST From: Gregory Taylor Subject: Research, Zorn, and other scorched earth doctrines Joe, I think that the problem that I have personally with the notions of "music" and "research" in tandem don't so much brush up against notions of professionalism so much as power. Except in a very limited sense [and by that "limited sense" I mean a very specific kind of activity in which we're looking at the relationship between models and acoustic output], I tend to see the appropriation of the term "research" as an attempt on the part of some folks within the community of those who make music to co-opt the "objectivity" and power and control of resources implied by the scientific terminology. Nor, I would argue, would they necessarily be alone in that pursuit; given the power and prestige that "scientific" work implies [particularly to a public which still by and large would accept the vernacular notion of science as "the pursuit of objective truths about the world through experimentation and research"], who *wouldn't* want to claim the same? Such a kind of definition, though, seems unsatisfactory to me because what musicians do [and what "scientists" or "researchers" do, for that matter] is to participate in a concensual community with other folks who do or care about similar issues. However much this might offend the aesthetics of either folks who believe that music "expresses the soul" *or* that certain kinds of music "embody scientific truths or are the product of the search for them", I think that *any* music produced by *anyone* IS a kind of research, whether it chooses to align itself with Burgundian ballads or a stretched overtone series; the fight is really about who *validates* whose "research," and I'm not entirely content with the the claims that those folks who advocate a kind of "final vocabulary" [be it scientific *or* Romantic *or* whatever] claim about the finality of their authority. That might suggest that I might also claim that the differences between the way that a Shaker chair and a Mozart aria or a Gehry summer cottage or one of George Lewis' Voyager interactive improvisational duets "mediate the mind of their maker" are quantitative rather than qualitative; such a question would be answered with a "Yes" here. Such a view might also suggest that I'd be willing to entertain the notion that certain aesthetics might be attractive in terms of what they're willing to *omit* from the act of their creation, dissemination, and reception [Romantics have no "social responsibilties" save for sending all the Genius their indulgent selves can muster to the ears of the Philistines, while "researchers" are not required to question either utility or engagement on the part of their auditors]. This lack of basic controllability seems to me to result in the possibility of experiences in which one person's data point is someone else's transforming encounter. But just to comment on a couple of things - >lab notebooks make for dull reading in general. Unless you're looking for what they tell you about the writer; Folks in the History/Philosophy of Science like Bruno LaTour have done some really interesting work by looking at precisely those boring details about how "scientific" labs/cultures "work." There's also an interesting dissertation out there from a British cultural anthropologist who did the same kind of study of IRCAM, believe it or not. >But it certainly helps me understand why the music >department seemed resistant to the idea of "outsiders" wanting to work with >them on computer music, etc., when I was in college. If I had walked into >the physics lab and asked to borrow a couple lasers and ten gallons of >liquid nitrogen to play with, they'd have hurried me out pretty quick too. The crucial difference here is that you seem to imply some "danger" which might accrue from turning the masses loose in the lab. And very little danger results from democratizing the technology of music - no danger to anyone but someone who's specifically got a stake in exercising some kind of cultural hegemony over the "music" produced by a given technology by controlling access to it and by handing out those awards and positions which signify "approval" or "acheivement." And I think that it's fair to assume that at least some of Jeff Harrington's comments stem from and are perhaps colored by the very real pain of *his* exclusion [it just doesn't bug me as much, I suppose. I'll program Jeff's "Obliterature" *and* those avant-garde folks he hates right next to each other and lose little sleep. My listeners like both.] But for those folks who need the validation that the notion of "research" or "academic" positions require, their position is *very* much at stake. But I am continually amazed to meet people from within those environs who embrace those nasty and threatening outsiders, and even learn from *them.* [horrors!]. In the bargain, some of those *outsiders* become *insiders* too, of course. Let a hundred flowers bloom, as the old guy once said. But I *mean* it. And as long as we're on outsiders, I suppose that Zorn is as good a case as any of one of the great Loisaida unwashed who's gone from playing clarinets in bowls of water to writing stuff for Kronos [who *love* the guy - at least David Harrington has nothing but good to say about him]. His absolutely ferocious productivity is a source of envy, and his nearly complete fearlessness combined with an incredible range of musical knowledge is not what one would expect from the great unwashed [and you think that Harrington can subject the "establishment" to withering blasts of bad attitude. Holy Moses....] Now - do I like everything he does? Absolutely not [I find some of it nearly unlisten- able]. Will I listen *once* to anything he tries? Yep. Who else can rub 55 second trash tunes right up against arrangements of Messaien, Debussy, and Scriabin on the same disc [the Naked City "Grand Guignol" on the Japanese Avant label]. His neo-Klezmer ensemble Masada was through town a couple of months ago, and they blew the doors off the theatre. Zorn dissolved Naked City with two different recent releases: the darkly ambient crypto-industrial "Absinthe" chockablock with "Radio" which took up where his jumpcut jazz work on "The Big Gundown" left off. While he's certainly more than capable of being a complete and obnoxious b*stard [it's the Romantic way, right?], he's doing some *amazing* work. Try: The Sonny Clarke Memorial Quartet "Voodoo" [Zorn as reverent bebop player] Naked City "Absinthe" [I'm listening to this quite a lot currently] "The Big Gundown" or "Spillane" [two discs of homage to Ennio Morricone and Mickey Spillane] Naked City "Grand Guignol" [this is the disc of Ives, Scriabin, etc. and Zorn's wind tunnel thrash stuff *and* a 20 minute film soundtrack that's about as wet, dark, and low as they come.] News for Lulu [a great post-bop date with George Lewis on Hat Hut]. And beyond the Kronos pieces, there's also a recent disc of chamber works, which I think is on Avant, too. The title escapes me. There was a piece called "Kristallnacht" on it which I kind of liked. I hope this helps a little. However much I'm conflicted by Zorn's behaviour [I can still see him perched on the edge of the Bimhaus stage in Amsterdam, screaming "FUCK YOU JAZZ SNOBS" at the top of his lungs and windmilling his arms while the rest of Naked City just *burned* behind him. He put his sax to his lips, and they dropped into this turn-on-a-dime groove in 17 so fast it made my head spin] and the consistency of his music, he is nonetheless one of them Heisenberg clouds around which all kinds of wonderful things coalesce. Gregory ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 23:19:47 GMT From: Keith Hedger Subject: Re: Research, Zorn, and other scorched earth doctrines In article <9401311548.AA19307@vme.heurikon.com> Gregory Taylor writes: >I hope this helps a little. However much I'm conflicted by Zorn's >behaviour [I can still see him perched on the edge of the Bimhaus >stage in Amsterdam, screaming "FUCK YOU JAZZ SNOBS" at the top of >his lungs and windmilling his arms while the rest of Naked City just >*burned* behind him. He put his sax to his lips, and they dropped into >this turn-on-a-dime groove in 17 so fast it made my head spin] and >the consistency of his music, he is nonetheless one of them Heisenberg >clouds around which all kinds of wonderful things coalesce. > >Gregory As usual, excellent insightful writing from Greg. His anecdote about Zorn live rekindled a memory I have of him. I saw Naked City in Cambridge a few years ago...Zorn was into his obnoxious metal persona. At the beginning of the show he said something like... "Welcome to Boston, one of the great music towns in the US, with some of the best music schools and teachers, like Herb Pomeroy over at Berklee" There were gales of laughter from the audience, to which Zorn replied at the top of his lungs in the meanest snarl... "WHAT THE FUCK ARE LAUGHING AT YOU SHITHEADS! HERB POMEROY KNOWS MORE ABOUT MUSIC THAN YOU'LL EVER KNOW IN YOUR WHOLE FUCKING MISERABLE LIVES!!!" Interesting... keith -- ============================================================= = Keith Hedger| "AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGGHHH" = = | "S-S-S-S-Stupid !" = ============================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 14:14:54 CST From: John Eichenseer Subject: Re: Zorn >john zorn i have to admit ignorance of. Inexcusable. John Zorn's composition, "Spillane", is *required listening* for any modern musician. Got it? Spillane is an amazing example of virtuoso collaged pastiche, programmatic music concrete with a razor's edge... IMO. It can be found on Zorn's album of the same name, along with a Kronos piece and an Albert Collins tribute. Check it out, dammit. The Big Gundown is another fine album, dedicated to the music of Famed Composer Ennio Morricone (sp?). Features some pretty crazy re-writes of classic Western movie theme songs... For more recent, Japanese punk-influenced blasts of sculpted noise, try "Torture Garden", or "Naked City". He's a busy bloke. -jhno ....... . . .. . . . . . . . . Joh n E i c h e n s e e r D e l i c a t e E a r (512) 458-6474 eichen@trilogy.com . . . . . . . .. . .... ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************