[rumori] re: Advertising

Boster, Bob [rumori] re: Advertising
Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:37:57 -0800 (00887420277, c=US%a=_%p=HIII%l=MAIN_SERVER-980213173757Z-9280ATserver2.orban.com)




>----------
>From: Steev[SMTP:steevATdetritus.net]
>
>yeah good point. all we can hope for is incremental change. When Nirvana
>hit it big, for example, and "alternative" got coopted, it was kind of
>noxious, but it was kinda good, cuz it really blew open a bunch of minds
>and doors.

Thing was, Nirvana happened because "pop" hadn't turned itself over in too long - classic rock had been consuming pop's place on the food chain
for too long, so "alternative" was the almost unavoidable return of something to the pop radio for white kids slot in the world. The
boomers could force classic rock down the throats of the 13 Gen posse,
but the Millennial generation wouldn't stand for it. The noxiousness is
self-evident. The good of it remains to be proven, but the phenomenon
of Nine Inch Nails shows some hope for the future...



>Same with "electronica". Everytime some trendy beatbox jockey
>mentions that he likes john cage in an interview in some raver magazine,
>thousands of teenagers think "who the hell's john cage?" and then 10 or 12
>of them actually look him up, and then maybe 2 of them read "Silence", and
>their lives are changed forever. heh. no really. that's kinda what
>happend to me...

I would say, though, that the issues is having your tastes expanded in
an audial way more than the intellectual overdrive Cage can represent.
I was just thinking about this in reference to Sun Ra (see my comment
below about NC). What prepared me for Sun Ra? Big Band (from my
grandfather), weird electronic mainstream stuff (Wendy Carlos on one
end, Yaz on the other), my Dad's lonely copy of Miles Davis Live at the
Fillmore... It might be more important that Aphex Twin's "Ventolin" has those incredibly crunchy noises in than you've read _Silence_; now
when you hear Cage's (and Tudor's) "Indeterminacy" it fits into some context of sound... Not to undercut _Silence_ in any way (used "Lecture on Nothing" samples in my thesis concert). Just a thought...
>
>
>i dunno bob. who's outside? it may feel that way to you, but i'm in it
>too. and it feels awfully topdown to me. I mean, not in freaky san fran,
>sure, but most places, barnes & noble & "Friends" is the height of
>culture.

I don't feel outside, I'm expressing that from MY inside, I don't feel
like it's all top-down. I mean, I saw Tricky on Sessions at W. 54th St.
a couple weeks ago and can honestly say I'd be less of a person if I
hadn't. PBS as sponsored by Coke and IBM and a bunch of payola from
the music industry...but it was still transformational. Maybe a better
model is that there's a billion top-down messages, but they all slam
into each other and mix around with the prevailing air currents and the
whole thing goes bezerk.

C'mon, think back to your North Carolina roots!

Bad example. In MY North Carolina I had even doses of Sun Ra and the
Louvin Brothers on the radio, amazing BBQ from small family owned places
that couldn't even construct a recipe for you because they were doing it
from genetic memory, a club that had on an average week more interesting
rock shows then your average week in the entire Bay Area, a weekly local
filmmakers series at a club with an excellent Bourbon selection... I
could go on, but it'd just make me maudlin. The only thing missing
there was the Knitting Factory and a decent Rave space...

I agree there's a lot of crap in the malls and living rooms of a lot of
America, and that it dribbles down from the top as if from the exploded
sewer line of your upstairs neighbors, but that bullshit has it's place
- I mean if watching Friends makes someone think it'd be better to get a
job and get an apartment with a bunch of other 20something goofs as
opposed to sitting around at home, that might be OK. I think that's a
decent cultural sign, even if they do all look like they're pressed out
of plastic at the Barbie factory. And I bet your average Barnes and
Noble has a copy of _Silence_ (or at least the _Trouser Press Guide_).

I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate here, but I remain committed to
the idea it's NOT MONOLITHIC. Every aspect of this commercialization
process is complex and contradictory. Starbucks sucks, but if you're
driving across the country AT LEAST there's Starbucks...y'know?

>

My question is this, should we be shooting for getting our message onto
that MTV/Barnes and Noble platform or not? If yes, how? If no, can we
be satisfied to speak back and forth to ourselves for the rest of our
artistic lives (adding in the two people per generation who read
_Silence_)? That's where this hurts me, not the quality of the pap the
Culture Industry pushes, but their control of the pipeline...


Bob
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