Radio Boy:
Duchamp's found objects were also "shortcuts" to art. He praised this
democratizing process as thankfully eliminating phusical "originality" from
art production, reducing it to concept perception alone, a sigh of comic
relief that deflects the worshiping of preciously crafted unique objects
for the rich and elite. It's up to everyone to decide for themselves if
they meant that or anything more than that, but I certainly do on both
counts.
As I may have mentioned before, when you reach this inevitable point in the
history of "original" music experimentation where all the best moves have
ALREADY been made, recycling becomes "revolutionizing" itself. That's where
we are in the 21st Century of music and there's no way around it. New has
become old and old has become new. It's only "political" because of
copyright laws which are so far oblivious to this contradictory shift in
modern creative practices. Otherwise, it is the most natural development
out of actual circumstances (mental and technological) that one could
expect from any art that has been so fully fleshed out experimentally and,
from its inception, was always based on the joys of copying anyway.
As a consequence, modern artists should back off their traditional God
complexes, expecting to be prayed for (and payed for) their individual
creative efforts wherever they appear in subsequent new contexts by others.
Complete propriatory control is neither possible nor desirable in a culture
of significantly increased recycling. Ironically, found sample manipulation
is the ONLY actually "new" thing to happen in "original" music making since
about 1970. If anyone thinks it's "easier" to make something worth while by
copping the "best" stuff of other artists, just try it. It has just as many
creative pitfalls as "original" ideas ever had, including the one about
resting on others' laurels if you don't make it "work" in some new way
that's original to you.
"There is no solution because there is no problem" - Duchamp.
DJ
Negativland
>hi today,
>
>just wanted to say that mp3's of the first two chopping channel live shows
>are now up and working at www.detritus.net/wobbly/mp3s/cc.
>
>only the first show is clearly linked on the site, but if you click on the
>words 'chopping channel' towards the bottom of the first page, it'll take
>you through to the page for the second show, which has a superior version
>of 'sales techniques' and a few other high points but certainly start with
>the first show.
>
>
>I just found these typically provocative liner notes in matthew herbert's
>new album as Radio Boy, a not-for-sale given-away-for-free-at-gigs release,
>and they were interesting, so I'm attaching them below. Some nice angry
>responses now that sampling is an ingrained mainstream practice. PCCOM,
>his personal sampling manifesto is quite interesting. I'm not totally in
>agreement but I'm a sucker for a fully realized manifesto.
>
>The first two paragraphs are the best, but I shouldn't edit the guy, the
>lividity of the rest is understandable given it was written a week after
>9-11...
>
>ok
>jl
>
>
>
>liner notes to Radio Boy's 'the mechanics of destruction'
>-
>
>This collection of organized noise began life as a late but sharp
>realization that music is always political.
>
>The democratisation of composition that followed the electronic music
>revolution inevitably has led to the consumerisation of methods of
>production. sampling, instead of revolutionizing the very accepted idea of
>music, has become a short cut to authenticity. instead of musicians
>constructing imaginary worlds out of real sounds, they have instead openly
>selected and stolen their way round their usually brilliant record
>collections, borrowing the best parts of the best recorded, best played
>songs. the composer has somehow become simply a qualified selector.
>
>the rearrangement of previous ideas into different and contemporary
>contexts has always been a part of traditional western technique, but never
>before has the performance also been lifted. not only does the composer
>rarely get paid (except where ironically backed by a label of signifigant
>size intent only on collecting its own disproportionately high share of
>royalties), but the performer, engineer and producer rarely get mentioned,
>let alone renumerated. capitalism has once again inserted its filthy brown
>finger into a creative and thus political process. at a time of unbridled
>consumerism and electoral apathy, it is hardly surprising then that music
>has become a bloated and arrogant beast, still buying in to, and selling on
>at a premium these myths of modern consumerism. the pinnacle of which is
>the series "popstars" that blatantly manufactures groups before the very
>eyes of a cynical and distant audience before then turning round and
>inviting it to buy into the mirage it has created. a trick so neatly
>summarized by "the pardoners tale" by chaucer.
>
>anyone with a sense of injustice and a mind prepared to read beyond the
>facile celebrity driven literature put forward by a media intent on
>promoting its own social and business agenda will have noticed the
>extremely dangerous and deeply disturbing shift from state-power to
>corporate-power.
>
>it is this then that this album is largely about. from the takeover and
>systematic destruction of local diet by mcdonalds to the failure of western
>societies to intervene in rwanda and thus become implicit in another modern
>genocide. that I have largely destroyed everything that has come to make
>the noises for this record is symptomatic of my anger at being ignored by a
>government so far removed from my basic human concerns it doesn't think
>twice before risking the lives of every one of us by entering a war with
>people we have spent a large part of the last century arming.
>
>there's so much to say on the subject of destruction in a society that
>creates so much packaging to lure us into buying things the earth can't
>bear to dispose of, but instead of words, I have chosen music.
>
>matthew herbert, 18th september 2001.
>
>this album is profit-free.
>
>
>
>
>
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