I think you're on the ball as ever, Brian. The Schwimmer disc is one of those classic cases of "if they hadn't told me would I have figured it out?" - it's true there's a world of difference between the last track on the album (the only one where all four players improvise simultaneously) and the other six. By and large, as I wrote in Wire, I found it a bit insect musicky, as you say.(60s? Which group were you thinking of? I'd put it about 1975 SME-ish)

Yes, the other one has a bit more gravitas, which is my quaint way of saying the musicians are all playing at the same time and listening to each other :) - and have a good ear for pitch too (Mota rules.. what a superb discography this guy's amassed so far!).

MANUEL MOTA s really one of the most intense and spontanious player around
for me

I m really a fan of the way he moves in music

very inspiring

n

As I've opined before, most everything I've heard from the Iberian improv scene of the past several years I've liked very much. Trying hard to keep track of it all....

i never heard this players on record nor live
humm, wonder if i can get this in paris, probably...

its funny hearing sugimoto being quoted here, i had some reviews as well where my playing was somehow compared to sugimoto's...

we're in post onkyo-style!

everything is cool

open

alexandrer

Couldn't agree more about Mota, Noel. Alex, don't know who stocks Creative Sources in Paris (we'll ask Franq at Bimbo Tower when we see him later!) but somebody should.
I don't know who compared your playing to Sugimoto but personally I can't see what you have in common. Maybe Sugimoto about 10 years ago, but not the recent stuff.

First time i ve heard of Mota
was ..... DEREK BAILEY ......
and that was already 6, 7 years ago

Mota / Sugimoto ?
i dont really see any link
i mean from far ..yes they both play Guitar

but TIMING s totally different

AND CHECK OUT SEI MIGUEL s band

that s also unique to me
first you may think that s like jazz Improv
but again they re moving in such a way

Plus if you ever meet these guys they are so
warm and so great ...the older generations
knows barely everything in Contempo Free Improv and Jazz plus they all played Fado for a good while

REALLY RARE
Portugal like Poland are too ingored

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The good thing with Taku
i d say is YOU know he s gonna be around for a long time so
we ll see many things i guess

unless they really get stuck here

cause i ve seen him already in 3 , 4 different
stages ...from Blues to spare then
various stages until where we now are

Alex

just go on their Web Pages ( Portugese players ) and you ll get an easy contact
and help to find records

best
n

Rafael Toral always raves to me about Sei Miguel, he sent me a bunch of his CDs once, they're really poorly distributed. his music is very nice, although not exactly my thing...

I love the DORSAL cd. I reckon it's a real grower. First time I heard it, I thought it was really charming, if a bit slight. Now I can hear plenty of almost unbearably tense moments. Mota lends the whole thing a real urgency (quite a feat when you consider the deliberately constrained atmosphere they've generated for themselves here). It sounds to me like there are some ground rules they've agreed upon on this disc - in that there are plenty of moments that threaten to go all out and dramatically up the volume/speed of events, but those moments never last longer than about 4 seconds. As if they have an agreed, self-imposed 'noise gate' on their activity. If so, it works extroardinarily well, avoiding any of the pat free-improv peaks and troughs, without straying even close to reductionism.

Mota has something i d say Natural
it s like naked music and really unexpected
you re really feel so close in the solos
every moment s taking you i find
it s about the process too
he s just in front of it ...nothing else

Jon , with much respect
but you dont need to say NOT REALLY MY THING in such case cause i would have guessed

Jon any suggestion of a REALLY OUR THING album recently ? seriously
just as an advice ...i ll be happy to try

"Jon , with much respect but you dont need to say NOT REALLY MY THING in such case cause i would have guessed "

gee, sorry, Noel, I'll run all future posts by you before I put them up.

"Jon any suggestion of a REALLY OUR THING album recently ? seriously just as an advice ...i ll be happy to try "

you mean something I like that you might like also? I don't really know your taste, but you could try the Mattin/Margarida Garcia disc on L'Innomable, reviewed elsewhere here, I believe.

"the Mattin/Margarida Garcia disc"

Good choice Jon :-). I'm sure Noel already knows it.
That's one of my favorite too.
Mattin has something very strong in mind. Sure ! And he wants us to know it!!

And I dig Mattin with Rosy Parlane and Eddie Prevost (Matchless).

I'm just listening to David Maranha's "Noe's Lullaby" on Rossbin, a recording I'd sorta forgotten about but which holds up really nicely. Anyone familiar with anything else by Maranha? This is a septet recording with Manuel mota on board, but I'm ignorant of the others: Andre Maranha, Bernardo Devlin, Luis Desirat, Patricia Machas and Rodrigo Amado (his name actually rings a bell). Any more info on these folk?

Maranha has a couple of other solo records, one on Namskeio that was much lauded, as I recall. he was (is?) the founder of Osso Exotico, google on them and him and you'll find plenty of info.

Thanks for thet tip
I ll try this one then

I ve indeed found some strong ideas and physical gestures in Mattin

Just heard the Akiyama Martin NG on IMJ
that sounded alright

As for taste ..i dont know either
i guess it s more that are all sorts of reasons and ways to listen to music no ?

just got the new Duran-Duran
sounds really good too

cheers
n

How do other people here buy or listen to CD s ? that would be quite interesting

Per Artists they follow or Labels
or genre or ?

I follow few artists for example i really like
cause any album will often bring something

then they are some records i ll buy cause of a subject or even very concrete research or interest ( Acoustic guitarists before electricity ,
harpsichord in non classical contexts etc ... )

Then in improv or so , for example you d hear a duo or band you know and find out bout some other musicians ( Sei Miguel -Mota , Keith Rowe with others etc ... )

Then also when you play with people you get sometime interested to see what else they do and how do they play in other contexts and so on

gee, sorry, Noel, I'll run all future posts by you before I put them up.

Jon
i ve just said that cause too often possible points of discussion are ending nowhere
if everyone just close it with : not my taste or my taste ....

dont you find ?

When i asked things and gave my harsh points of views on EAI that was to get some sort of discussion but indeed it often ends up
in cul-de-sac

Duran Duran? They still exist? You're bullshitting man! Just spent all day listening to Mott The Hoople Greatest Hits (at least 6 times in a row - Max (5) likes Ian Hunter's hairdo)
"Roll Away The Stone" - fuckin awesome.

Fuckin Awesome
NO they really got a new Album DURAN DURAN and that s really lovely to hear this kind of music by people who really know how to do that ....MELODY runs in your head after first bar but for next month ...plus really funny cause they didn t change their sound at all
no Update technoish NO Pichshifter effect on the voice a la Cher ......

Plus THE STREETS still runs here a few times per day and RED KRAYOLA singles 68-02 on Drag City is Just LOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYY and FUCKED UP as well

Got me back to WORKSHOP and JUSTUS KOHNCKE again

cheers
n

Cause basically you can divide the world in two parts .....
the people who love JET PLANE by Johnny Guitar Watson (no ben here )

and the people who ignore it ...

same with : le Grand Maitre FRANCO et sión TPOK JAZZ

Otherwise !

Tal Farlow - The Complete Verve Tal Farlow Sessions - 7 CDs (Mosaic)
-- 1954-59; first time on CD

A direct link to Keith Rowe , just before .....

hey

just got back from toulouse playing solo yesterday nite
sharing the bill with australian lukas abela
he's such a weird guy i feel, doing this stuff with the glass he breaks on his face, he's got so many scars on his fingers as well

anyway, i see activity is permanent on bagatellen especially with you noel

i saw this question you asked : how do people buy records?

i remember their was this subject on the londonimprov website
if you wanna checkl, there was quite a few answers from various people

hummm, first i'd say i buy artists i follow probably or just like. then i try stuff i dont know at all, on some label i know, or because its bargain. at FNAC now they do second hand cds for like 10 euros. i dont know if reviews influence me so much on buying in fact

i would really also like to get so many old stuff i still dont know... but it would cost me too much.

but what amaze me is that so many musicians and bands you quote here i just never heard about them... i feel i still really havent listen to so much music in my life maybe... its a shame and its excting too!

but i spend hours re-listening stuff i know already...

DURAN DURAN reminds being 10/12 years old, and going to "BOUM" (kid/teen party) and dancing on them, also WHAM...

i listened to pinknoise at well
mattin and i did some cds exchange,
so i had the white noise too

i started really enjoying the pinknoise when i listened with headphones, somehow i couldnt really listen loud enough on my stereo to get the feedback changes that clear...

i like the energy used, employed and given for this, junko must have a very amazing strong throat no! also this is quite a stuborn attitude they took on this one... like a game, or a bet... or a composition?

just maybe i wonder about duration, but i am not sure... maybe not every day too long... i am often wondering about the length to give to certain pieces, sometimes stretching time is good, sometimes not. of course. sometimes its just a need, necessary to make something work fine.

like for example, lukas abela, this australian i was mentionning, yesterday he played just 10 minutes. and it seemed a good timing for he does. maybe its more performance somehow.
i saw him before alreay, once 15 minutes and once 5 minutes.
10 minutes seemed fitting.

hummm.

actually

as you were mentionning the EAI discussion noel...

i think it is an interresting discussion, because its a good starting point for thinking on a more general level about the 'state' of improvisation and its meaning at the moment

have u read the essay of Mattin 'A Second Subterranean Ethics:
An exploration of the political and ethical connotations of contemporary improvised music'?

Gosh ...... WE FROGS are Buzzin the thing
obviously our old gibbering thing ( goes with a Bottle of Red and Camembert and other raw things i guess )

Toutes mes excuses
n

I believe the Mattin essay came up in another thread (do a Bagsearch for Mattin, Alex, and find out where).

The bagsearch wasn't all that helpful, but I did remember this exchange from the review of
John Tilbury/Eddie Prevost - discrete moments, which you'll find here:

http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000522.html

Here's the excerpt Dan probably had in mind:

"There's quite a long essay by Mattin, which supports Radu Malfatti and criticises Eddie on the L'innomable website -

http://www.linnomable.com/

written after the Wire interview - you remember, Pope, Jesus Christ - under essays, word format. It also contains a response to Eddie's comments about sampling in that interview or possibly elsewhere, which Mattin has obviously attributed to himself (probably a fair assessment since he's one of only a couple of people who use live processing I can think of that Eddie plays with, although from memory I'm sure the comments were very generalised). To use Mattin as an example of someone who has a musically uncritical relationship with Prévost despite disagreements is inaccurate."

Posted by: Nat at July 10, 2004 02:11 PM

"An interesting essay, indeed, and I love the following passage:
"in the long silences that Radu performs you can hear people squickling, stomachs, siliba, sacricition"
I think I may have to swipe that as a title for a piece!"

Posted by: dan warburton at July 11, 2004 12:38 AM

etc.

Could i get Eddie Prevost
on "Spring can really hang you up the most"
then ?

in a 4tet version or just duet ?

n

Personally
I thought that Prevost Wire thing
was a possible discussion ...
i felt also like it s anyway going to be very personal and private .... ( i mean the thing is going on ...and again just go back to some Derek Bailey arguments , not that i would suscribe it all, but just to say IT AINT NOTHING NEW here ..... )

Take the Coxhill stories then Beresford then AMM off course and so on ........ Henry Cow
....... blabla ..... SME JOHN STEVENS .......

AT THE end ........ it s been such a RICH SCENE there and still IS !

n

Personally
I thought that Prevost Wire thing
was a possible discussion ...
i felt also like it s anyway going to be very personal and private .... ( i mean the thing is going on ...and again just go back to some Derek Bailey arguments , not that i would suscribe it all, but just to say IT AINT NOTHING NEW here ..... )

Take the Coxhill stories then Beresford then AMM off course and so on ........ Henry Cow
....... blabla ..... SME JOHN STEVENS .......

AT THE end ........ it s been such a RICH SCENE there and still IS !

n

I may be totally wrong but i could imagine
Post Onkyo the EXACT same

actually i did read this essay dan, this summer in fact.

i didnt know bagatellen at the time you discussed about it together though.

oh... i also missed that Prevost Wire thing...

what do you mean noel "... Post Onkyo the EXACT same"?

by comparing with english you mean, for them, free improv 'styles' went on one after another, successively following new arguments given by new players, each time in order for a new move/style to happen...

but i guess its like fashion too, trends come back after a while, or it gets deformed and re-used in another way.

i was talking to someone about post-onkyo recently.

Went to read this now

but I did remember this exchange from the review of
John Tilbury/Eddie Prevost - discrete moments, which you'll find here:

http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000522.html

I ll stay aways from the HOC thing ( havent anyway heard it ) but few things on FUNDS

I dont see it s a problem at all to find corporate or Public money in Concerts and festivals ( with records it s abit of another thing i find though )
THE MAIN problem is
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH IT ?and also of course that NO ONE WANTS to TALK ABOUT IT !

It s impossible more or less to play if you refuse any FUNDS from outside
BUT it s very possible TO TALK ABOUT IT and musicians are MUTE on the subject ( by the way i can asnwer any questions on that subjetc cause i ve on few various sides here ...from Louis Sclavis to Monday at Vortex to Fat Cat tour with Grubbs and so on ...so that i can give a personal view and indea of fees and conditions ....whenever i actually spoke about that in France everybody runs away ....
I said once that i d get for 45 minutes of show with Henri Texier what we d get with Grubbs in 2 week or so ...... )

SEE where i always REACT is when i have to hear Bullshit about how against every systems and every Public funds and so
from artists and BEHIND the Curtain
see how Good these Funds are for these ( i m not talking Vienna even here )

Every on s up tp decide for himself or herself
POLITICS starts with your own

BUT enough LIES
and what i discuss ( jacques said Musique Action for example ) is HOW PUBLIC are these shows
should we talk of a certain amount or balance
in the programs related to amount of public funds ?

The big tendency is often ( cause FUNDS are POWER ) to attack in a general lefty speach
all these BIG CAPITALISTS but to work your assoff to GET as much as you can for yourself

Right now I personnally Find the situation in many improv EAI events FAR too personal
we all know that someone who cant bring something valuable to the "comunity" wont get anything out of the scene ... Potlatch ?
no ............

etc bla bla

n

And just to start it clear ( in case this needs to be discussed ) here is how i work ( that s only representing me of course )

in a european festival with public and corporate funds i ask for a solo set for
1000 euros pus travel plus Hotel

for a Club in the same fields 800 or 500

for someone who really wants to do something : whatever or nothing

I dont ask for ANY public money at all myself and refuses it in most cases ( unless it s part of a festival that needs it and this doesn t go much further in than travels and maybe helps for organisation or PA systems )

I gave back my "french spectacle unenemployment money " card 6 years ago
and before i used it ( a separate account only for that ) to fund the label Rectangle

At this point more than 70 % of my income
( i m not having at all a Ranch on Beverly Hills ...i dont actually Own anything myself )
comes from Copyright and Records BUT
barely nothing anymore from Live events
( i d be lucky to one per month but that s been a choice after doing 5 per week for 10 years )

I stopped European Jazz scenes (networks as they say for some of these reasons ...INCEST public money turned into Private artists interrest too often ........ ) but at that time the PAY was extremely good - until around 1997
i had monthly ( altogether Shows in Festivals , records and Unenplyoment money ) between
6000 and 10000 euros

WHO WANTS to TALK about it whithin colleagues that still does the job ?

reading Noetinger on INTERMITTENTS DU SPECTACLE i still disagree on the fact that
public money should be helping indivudals artists through this system

i would rather hope for a more Democratic system in the Programs ( that s far from being the case as we all know how many scenes are centered on their own little world )
I dont deny at all an organiser s taste
OF COURSE he has to present what he LIKES
no question .... but that s not really the case anymore ...for jazz festivals they mainly present what they get Offered ( which means public and other funds have been already invested in the product in order to present it widely ..... )

I ll give a clear example here :
from Paris or Vienna how can one play Tonic
if no extra funds ? ( or you come to NY and make an album on the side that can pay for it
or you get Public funds ..fine ON WHICH BASIS ? and why does artists still gibber about FREEDOM and POLITICS on one side and ..... lick the ass of any FUNDING systems on the other ? )

Nothing is a problem as far as you NAME IT CLEARLY ............

if it says BEANS on the Tin but if you get
Cucumbers inside ...you ll probably go back to the shop and ask for a change ...

best
n

And JON i ve been touchy with you sometimes
but i think its FANTASTIC that YOU do all the things you do the way you do them
THAT is no question at all for me ( and i ll keep away now releases , tastes and whatever i disuss here sometime )

What i find less beautiful is ( apart from what i call a certain EAI snobery ...) how i see when someone has a bit of power ( and you clearly have one here , you know that , no ones does such a job like you do around ) Most Artists
becoming very very SMOOTH
just in case there s chance for them to
GET A GOOD GIG .....

my main concern is
WHY did so many things around turned out
to be SO SELFISH and PRIVATE ???????

if those last two paragraphs are still pointed at me, Noel, I don't really know what you mean.

When we had Rectangle
Q and myself proposed to clear the situation
and publish online ( cause of course as a label you know the sales precisely ...... 17 copies altogether here and 5 there eventually another 8 direct orders and so on ..... very sometimes a little more but , and Jon said it clearly THANKS ! i remember , we re around 300 and 500 for laready known artists whithin a tiny scene SOME bigger names would go 1000 - some less or more obscure projects would go 80 or 100 IF )

But from all the labels we proposed that in improv and so on fields barely no one agreed .... i think actually Jacques Oger did and could well be the only one ......

that s for me on the same level of GODARD saying : dont explain me , SHOW me

and if anyone s interested by these sorts of things and public art policies
you can always read Gustave Courbet s correspondance ..... extremely clear
more than half of the paintings bought by the state of France during this times
are lost or just too poor to be kept since ......

PUBLIC MONEY is GREAT
if it goes FOR PUBLIC SERVICES

and my experience is that Private funds are often much more CLEAR with the whole project

best
n

Thanks Noel for your long posts.
Not easy to understand well - problem of english language for me sure...
In particular, I don't understand well the following passage:
"Right now I personnally Find the situation in many improv EAI events FAR too personal
we all know that someone who cant bring something valuable to the "comunity" wont get anything out of the scene ... Potlatch ? "

Potlatch as a form of exchange ( my english is shite sorry ) NOT your Label

I meant that in the last 5 or so YEARS
and because many events or festivals or clubs are organised by Musicians ( or collective including some of them ) the basic exchange is WHAT can YOU GIVE BACK to MY GROUP or OWN PERSONAL BUSINESS in exchange
Would it be just that it ll be no problem

But the problem is that cultural politics
always look for the least possible direct involvments in LIve Music ( and other manifestations where public funds are involved ) so that it came something like
WHOS asks for it and ans LOOKS stronger gets it ........

In France that s what created AFIJMA
like that Culture minstry didn t have to
give to each festival that made them NOT anymore involved directely into TASTES and so on ......

WHEN a PRIVATE GROUP gets a PUBLIC fund nowadays THEY dont care much of anything PUBLIC

I FIND

and i d like to stay AWAY as far as possible from naming people cause that s gonna be understood as private criticism again

yes, the French system of interlocking festivals and promoters is why Keith Rowe boycotted playing in France for all of 2003, he refers to it as the "mafia" (he likes to be extreme for effect).

Why are INTERMITTEND du SPECTACLE
demonstrating these days ?

one reason is clear A MASSIVE amount of people are leaving MAINLY on this money
not from their work at all but from a system

I dont agree that you should totally Drop that out cause that would be like in the US where artists are left alone with it if doesn t sell somehow ( i know it s more complex etc but
we all know also USA and Europe regarding culture are two different worlds )

But we all know in France what would be left if this system would END .....

Well Jon
i talked to Keith about it recently
i know what he means ( the main difference is i know from inside BOTH sides )
and i dont see the "other" one to be LESS of MAFIA either

I STILL FIND IT a REAL SHAME that KEITH lives in France since so Long and no one Cared at all ( again remember 8 years ago Keith Rowe ? who had any idea apart from people like Jacques and few other ones ?)

best
n

and the MAFIA he s reffering to
he s namely called EUROPEAN JAZZ NETWORK .......

the other side being what SAALFELDEN festival represents The biggest booking
for Jazz and others in europe (Saudades)
but that s another story

Noel, I only understand maybe half of what you're talking about here, but it is interesting. your monthly income before 1997 is pretty incredible, I don't know almost any other musicians making that kind of money, maybe none.

Altough AMM s show in Vienna on the 25th sept is taking part in the heart of THIS Mafia

so my final claim here is
LET S LIVE IN PARADOX !
it s impossible otherwise
PARADOX is Life somehow too

BUT LET S JUST NAME IT and not Hide everything that stinks under the curtain

IN FRANCE recently was a work on what some people called LES BRAVES
the french that helped jewish and others to escape the Nazis and French Vichy gov
they have made STATISTICS that are
pretty depressing THE ONLY group or Social group that was the least involved in these single survive actions , but rather murdered themselves with endless selfishness
where INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS

that wouln t be much different today

yes, obviously there are always paradoxes involved in any sort of boycott or protest. Keith's problem was (is) specifically with the French system, which you stated the problems with above. I don't think he has much contact with or interest in the larger jazz festivals, and as they don't have much interest in him either, his boycotting them would be the equivalent of my stating "I refuse to participate in English Premiere League football, as I don't like the way it's run." :)

but it sounds like you talked to him about this more recently than I have, and you know the details way better than me anyway. I was just trying to chime in where I could in your long flow of posts... :)

if those last two paragraphs are still pointed at me, Noel, I don't really know what you mean.
Posted by: jon abbey at September 13, 2004 11:57 PM

JON i ll answer that later i have to go
not their not pointed at you
their for me a sign that whatever resistance
people want to talk about THEY still want to get a great Reward

but that sounds like unclear i guess so i ll explain that

I give you a short example
i hear a lot of musicians publically saying how UNCOOL is Winter & Winter (Kultur , Jazz .... )

but i still get MANY private mails from same to get DIRECT CONTACT .......................

CAUSE indeed W&W is very well distributed in that era

n

on some normal level
it could have been a PUBLIC concern to present AMM in French festivals
I FIND

if you see what i mean

just at least 2 or 3 shows per year

just
FOR PEOPLE to KNOW or TRY even

and i often think here of YOUNG audiences
getting in France the same Program in public theaters THAN 25 YEARS AGO !!!!!!

n

a French festival organiser ( massive city and state money involved ..again i dont gibber i talk about NUMBERS in Black on White sheets )

said to me soon :
OH YES we HAVE NEW music and Free experimental and so on ......

HE had BROTZMANN CONNIE BAUER
with some French of the same generations

IT WAS callled a WORLD PREMIERE ( wrong cause there s a record late 60s in Rome with some of them on it )

THAT KINDA OF THINGS n

Well I've never read such an amount of posts about french situation. Thank you Noel. Don't know if people here are interested ?? Anyway, let's go...

"Why are INTERMITTEND du SPECTACLE
demonstrating these days ?"

About "Intermittents du spectacle",
just one precision:

In France EVERY worker (whatever his job category), when he is unemployed, has some rights : he can receive money from a PRIVATE organization (called Assedic) whose funds are paid every month by employers (companies) and employees/workers. He can receive some money back only if he has worked a certain amount of time before he was fired.

Artists are considered as workers. When they are employed (even for one gig), they pay this organization; their employer do it too (Instants chavires for instance). When they are unemployed, as every worker, musicians have some rights so they can get what we call "allocations". Of course, no musician (even Noel) can't play gigs 8 hours a day. So they have some specific rights.

The employers (these horrible capitalists) want to change this specific system because they say that it's too expensive for them. It's not sure at all. And there is another big problem, many employers are cheating, mainly in televieion corporations.

I wish that many artists (music, theater, dance, cinema..) could benefit from this system, not only in France but also in other countries.

judging by his frequency of posts, I think Noel actually might be able to play gigs eight hours a day. :)

judging by his frequency of posts, I think Noel actually might be able to play gigs eight hours a day. :)

You mean switch from one to another ?
i did that before indeed

But you know i have too many centers of interrests so if dont start every mornig at 6 AM
i can t go through all these things

and music s just one of them

best
n

"a French festival organiser ( massive city and state money involved ..again i dont gibber i talk about NUMBERS in Black on White sheets )

said to me soon :
OH YES we HAVE NEW music and Free experimental and so on ......

HE had BROTZMANN CONNIE BAUER
with some French of the same generations"

-> that's funny, it actually reminds me of taktlos festival here in zurich (the "biggest" festival in switzerland for "experimental" music), except they stick to günter sommer, barry guy, evan parker, fred van hove... (hey, nothing against these musicians, it's just that... if you get public funding wouldn't you be responsible for presenting a bit of newer currents as well?). like they have 9 gigs on 3 nights and out of this 9 gigs maybe 3-4 do NOT look like they could also have happened 20 years ago.

The employers (these horrible capitalists) want to change this specific system because they say that it's too expensive for them. It's not sure at all. And there is another big problem, many employers are cheating, mainly in televieion corporations.

THE ONLY one thing Jacques forgot to tell you
is that the "ARTIST" rate s about FIVE times
the one of other WORKERS ...........

So that even Gerard Depardieu gets on the top of his mountain of gold ( he s a great bloke though , JON try his restaurant next time you go to Paris .... ) another 2500 euros per month

and Jacques , when i decided for private reasons to refuse this system i went to legally stop it at Assedic ( cause you leave about 50 % of your fee to it when you get a job )
i wanted to not get any assedic money but ALSO Not to PAY any - just flat
all they told me was IT S YOUR OWN PROBLEM

PEOPLE should just know that this system AVERAGE balance is
The income is about 1 / 9th of the OUTCOME
( others can give more detailes rates but
more or less if it brings 1 MILLION euros in
it Costs 9 Millions ..... and who pays for artists ? WORKERSSSSSSS )

cheers
n

And Jacques i may well be a worker in some ways but i dont understanf under which
HOLLY LAW should as an "artist" be blessed
by such a higher rate than any other "brothers" then .....

the reason why this system goes fuck is
that the Meal is too good ...and many people
sneaked in that have nothing to do with it ( cause of course it s easy to corrupt ) )OFF course not only BUT let s start as i said before we our OWN personal Politics

and in all cases I REALLY DONT CONSIDER what i do THAT important that other workers should pay for my own fuckin squickies

I d rather SELL records enough or find a way to entertain AND say something all at ONCE

"i have too many centers of interests so if dont start every morning at 6 AM
i can t go through all these things"

same here, except I have to stay up until 5 AM to get everything in... :)

I m sure you do ...that is like FACTS looking at all the things you do and i higly respect that
cause at the end FACTS helps better than gibberings often

what i said before about artists Smoothing
was something like that :

when you do AMPLIFY together with artists
that gives a Subject of share but also love/hate
for others ..at the end it makes a serious BUZZ around

IF YOU WOULDNT do IT
# 1
they wouldn t be any POSSIBLE GIBBERINGS around

but

# 2 That fact that it s seen as a BUZZ and something GREAT creates desire for many others to BE PART OF IT

that s where i see a lot of smoothin Schmoozin TOO .....around

Of course in my case it s probably easy to be critical ( not only actually and not as an GOAL for SUREEEEE ) just cause i m OFF all that

but even if that wasn t the case i would certainly not shut up either

TOO MUCH smilin around just to GET SOMETHING i find

i also find SCENES totally Locked on themeselves .... these days

VERY LITTLE CROSS OVER

best
n

yes, of course, schmoozing from people to try to get something they want is present everywhere, but speaking for myself, I find it pretty easy to separate my musical taste as a producer from my friendships with musicians. maybe it's because I didn't come into this business with any musician friends, but all I'm personally concerned about is making (what I think are) the best possible records in the area of music I work in. I try to avoid politics as much as possible while doing this (both the international government kind and the individual cities' scenes kind).

I can think of at least a handful of musicians (no names) who I consider myself friends with, who would love to be on Erstwhile, and who I haven't worked with yet and may not ever.

Jon

Noel, I only understand maybe half of what you're talking about here, but it is interesting. your monthly income before 1997 is pretty incredible, I don't know almost any other musicians making that kind of money, maybe none.

Are you so Sure ? not Even Johnny Zorn ?
Well the counting is easy
if you play these Public Theaters for 600 / 800 sits ...and the audience is Local people who have a ticket for the year and get to see
a bit if everything PLUS in France ( it s increasing all the time still they are about 130 jazz festivals just for summer ...) that each Show is in between 500 - 1000 euros
and you d do 5 to 10 per month PLUS this unenployment money that goes Max rate cause High Fees ( 2000 euros minim / month ) ...plus you play on quite some records ( i dont count them anymore but we re talking like 350 / 400 or so ) blabla PLUS other funds from copyrights and so on exisiting in France
YOU CAN make te TOTAL easily

AS SOON as i Stopped
it went 0000000 though for a LONG time
and still is very dodgy but IT S MUCH easier to
learn how to live without all that mess than to go on SMILIN for me

n

noel you wrote:

IF YOU WOULDNT do IT
# 1
they wouldn t be any POSSIBLE GIBBERINGS around

but

# 2 That fact that it s seen as a BUZZ and something GREAT creates desire for many others to BE PART OF IT

that s where i see a lot of smoothin Schmoozin TOO .....around

I really thought about this actually, pretty much same way you describe here.

maybe having Erstwhile around create also some feeling like 'do something different', THEN.

emulation, more cross-over.

in toulouse i saw this hip hop australian band in a tiny cd renting shop, it was very good though small PA, and yeah, i could see/hear myself playing decks with them...

already its so hard within one scene to find many people you wanna play with. and everywhere i feel its like all this small groups of people sharing one same way to do things, in paris its really like this, electronic noise/electronica, free improv (historically), 'new' improv... and sometimes i think everyone want to hate each other.

about other stuff which was discussed its hard for me to react.

i am pretty still amateur-semi-professionnal-something in music, i dont know. i dont understand all of it yet. but i appreciate reading this discussions.

yes, of course, schmoozing from people to try to get something they want is present everywhere, but speaking for myself, I find it pretty easy to separate my musical taste as a producer from my friendships with musicians

NO QUESTION ....YES !
But also cause has an Active producer things are much clearer for YOU than they are for people who always give it a try ..... just in case it ll work

maybe it's because I didn't come into this business with any musician friends, but all I'm personally concerned about is making (what I think are) the best possible records in the area of music I work in.

INDEED that s how i see your work
i can also separate someone s activity from the actual taste i have for the products
but that s what i wrote you somewhere else
i see your records as Produced which means to me YOURS .... it s a Erst thing i ll hear and not just another session

I try to avoid politics as much as possible while doing this (both the international government kind and the individual cities' scenes kind).

Again that s a personal choice
In all the things i wrote earlier i think i clearly stated it : Every one s choice starts with himself or herself
I dont think at all that there s one and only Choice ...or way .... I JUST refuse certain Lies
or hypes especially when being in the business you know how things Work ( well in France i ve been long enough around to see people starting from zero and now being big politicians .... )

I can think of at least a handful of musicians (no names) who I consider myself friends with, who would love to be on Erstwhile, and who I haven't worked with yet and may not ever.

YES TOTALLY i understand that 1000 %
( but i guess you also get mails from people who think you should take their records
and they have no idea at all what you re really
doing and probably would hate it .... )

I ve had the problem around sometimes with people thinking i m pissed not to be around these EAI scenes ...BUT that s NOT the case AT ALL
i ve been around when it started ( i mean i ve seen it around rather ... ) and
passed some tryings didnt felt like going that direction ....

( just found a tape a totally forgot about it of a show with Keith , Taku and Taillard in nantes ..1999 ... and i had no idea what to do there on stage ..... well I CAN HEAR it )

cheers
n

"in paris its really like this, electronic noise/electronica, free improv (historically), 'new' improv... and sometimes i think everyone want to hate each other."

It s just that i m sometime ready to cool down a bit the whole thing ... when it goes like
THE NEW THING and nothing else
PLUS my main problem with scenes is that are so full of Pathologies .......
A doesnt talk to B cause C gave B this and not A ........ God .....BOLLOCKS !
As for France ok it s true have always had a Pretty conflictual relations with the officials of
"improv electronica and so on"

Cause they probably hate me doing THIS and THAT also plus another 10 things
the usual speech about that is
IT CAN BE A PROPER IMPROV if HE ALSO ENJOYS playing with THAT POP SINGER blabla bullshit ....

But on the other side if you take some of these French festival it s better not to be talk about certain amount of FRUSTRATIONS around ...
as an analyst ...i have a certain clear other picture there ... and not only there

hummm,

as i said in some previous talks here, why (in france for instance) there is this such rivality between people from different scene, or just even inside one thing, like you said noel A hate B because B... its so true even with young people i think, i mean i am bitter younger than you (noel).

so why? i often wonder, is this some kind of reaction of protection, people are scared to lose what they won?

also sometimes i remark that some musicians in this EAI scene, like in many other disciplines, suddenly become kinda BIG, REGARDED, by magazines, reviewers, listeners and labels...

i feel sometimes its too quick, too sudden, and not always based on something already solid.

i think its a bit dangerous because, you can start thinking you're so good and then maybe you dont really push that much more...

i am trying to not have this exactly, rather wanna take my time and be regarded when i 'deserve' it.

comes back to your idea of 'SMOOTHING' noel i guess

"just found a tape a totally forgot about it of a show with Keith , Taku and Taillard in nantes ..1999"

this is probably from late October that year? Taku, Keith and Gunter Muller recorded the concert I released as "The World Turned Upside Down" on October 14, at Les Instants Chavires. a couple of weeks later, at the festival Otomo curated in Wels (which is why Taku was in Europe then), was when I met many of those people for the first time in person: Keith, Otomo, Gunter, Voice Crack, etc. amazing, amazing festival, and one that inspired me to do the AMPLIFY series later...

"you can start thinking you're so good and then maybe you dont really push that much more..."

obviously this is always a danger for any artist, but one thing I find really exciting about the musicians in the "eai" scene (at least the ones I work with), is that they're never content to sit in one place, no matter how much people like what they're doing there. this is also one of the ideas behind the AMPLIFY festivals, having people play three or four times in a couple of days, it quickly becomes obvious if they always do the same thing (again, I'd prefer not to name names). Keith and Otomo especially are very inspiring in this way to me.

somehow for example, i take sachiko m
i am not so into it anymore because
i feel stagnating, or its so subtle change that its not significant i feel

i still really think she was pushing when she did this percussions sampler sine solo which is on the 'four focuses' record.

sugimoto, whatever way is going, seems to me to push and look for something (personnal maybe?)

by this pushing thing, i mean, still considering an improv piece, live piece maybe, intensity, tension, reaction, intention, de la volonté...

i dont know.

on the contrary, yeah jon, otomo is interresting for this, but i also am curious what he's gonna do from now on
i saw he's playing more and more guitar gigs this days.
i like some of onjq very much

I'm not getting into the Sachiko debate here again, but I will say that I think she's one of the most beautiful musicians I'm aware of right now, even if she chooses to work within a certain range currently.

as I've said before, personally I pretty much ignore her recent solo recordings, they're not my thing, but she's an incredibly sensitive and disciplined collaborator, always pushing the people she plays with.

" i mean i am bitter younger than you (noel)."

here does the Witz start ! Alex

lovely .....

( private Witz sorry ..from off line talks )

n

"so why? i often wonder, is this some kind of reaction of protection, people are scared to lose what they won?"

i m also into the question
and i have very little answers though ....

couldn t it be France is the country of
TEXT ?

SERIE BLANCHE Gallimard ?

# 1 Clue

"i feel sometimes its too quick, too sudden, and not always based on something already solid."

Let me be Abbey-ish for a second

WHO ?
NAMES ?

I met quite some early enough to not use SUDDEN
but i m interested in you point

TAKU will be around for long
i think .....OFF SITE is more of a name now
EAI is vague (indeed ) so

Gunter Muller ? he s around for god knows how long ....

someone else ?

KEITH ROWE ?
40 years of indiiference around (not here i know )

"just found a tape a totally forgot about it of a show with Keith , Taku and Taillard in nantes ..1999"

this is probably from late October that year? Taku, Keith and Gunter Muller recorded the concert I released as "The World Turned Upside Down" on October 14, at Les Instants Chavires. a couple of weeks later, at the festival Otomo curated in Wels (which is why Taku was in Europe then), was when I met many of those people for the first time in person: Keith, Otomo, Gunter, Voice Crack, etc. amazing, amazing festival, and one that inspired me to do the AMPLIFY series later...

PRECISELY YES .......! that was ( let me get that old fuckin CDR i have somewhere )
28th Oct ....1999 it says ... Next day Taku and I with my beloved friend REGIS BOULARD
drove ( he did regis in his FABULOUS SAAB car ) on our way to an art school ( let me think ...i guess VANNES ...where we stopped for some lovely CREPES ... pancakes )
and we played a kind of 17h type of show in a lofty space ( there s a great photo in a local newspaper ) that was fabulous for me

but my "fabulous" here could be interpretated
in many various ways ...from other people i guess .... I really loved that one anyway
though i played Full on a tiny overfeeded amp
and Taku did a great gesture show for 20 minutes into ( dont get me wrong Taku is one of my favourite human beings ----- though we see very seldom )

and ( i ll make it short now ) indeed he was heading to London .... we had a great dinner ( with liquid things around as we do there ) and
i Asked : Are you gonna Drop by Derek (aka Bailey ) for tea time ?

i got as answer a wonderful piece of silence
that i STILL REMEMBER very well cause that started me into ...Oh OK maybe they Days are gone of good old Improv ( including of course me going ..... OUT..... )

See Jon

i first heard of Keith through Wire ( in these days they had Courtney Pine on the cover )
with a tiny little article saying THERE s a Solo album on Matchless ( this one you know ..the only one there i think ? ) and the adress was Keith s own

I (being into "diiferent" guitar players then ...but that meant also Eliott Sharp, Chadbourne, Kaiser and so on ) wrote to Keith and got a lovely Letter plus the CD

THAT is very far from some EAI discussions
no ?

but if you d take OFF SITE ....... well i have the same sort of experiences ...went there on a tour ( 2000 ? ) with Grubbs and Q and there was this Vienna-berlin-Chicago- Tokyo Shows
that s where we ended up after the long flight

I was jet lagged but more than this i was pretty uninterseted by the music and took all of us for good Shibuya-ku dinner

but there s a real recording of this event
in Star Pines cafe- Grubbs japan tour 2000 ? - that i ought to release one day ( i dont have copy so .... )and
that was Taku , Sachiko, Yamamoto, Q, Grubbs and myself .......

Lovely ( duos , trios and other things )
we had a fantastic harsh dinner the night and morning before ........

i did sone Photo sessions for adverts with Nob ´ARAKI on that trip ...for kind of Book magazine "people by "

best

n

star pines 2000 or so

AND : OTOMO !!!!!!!!!!!

had a very enjoyable loud duo

sorry

n

was when I met many of those people for the first time in person: Keith, Otomo, Gunter, Voice Crack, etc. amazing, amazing festival, and one that inspired me to do the AMPLIFY series later...

The year after i played there with Andrew sharpley and had a great dinner after or before
with AMM (3 !) and SPACEHEADS and US
Siewert Martin was sitting next but did not say a word and we had long
discussions with people staring at us like mad .....

at a point Joe Morris came up and went to keith ....I ve seen you somewhere ...Keith replied nicely but Morris had obviously never heard of him ( very JAZZ )

n

"THAT is very far from some EAI discussions
no ?"

again, I don't exactly understand. I learned about AMM probably around that same time, and went to see them when they played here in 1994 (the show that is the third disc of Laminal). I didn't like that set so much (and I don't like the CD too much either), but I really liked most of the CDs, kept exploring, and when I started Erstwhile in 1998, one of the first things I did was to e-mail Keith and ask him about doing a project for my label (which was going to be a duo with Jim O'Rourke, actually, both of them agreed to it, but it never happened, we all kind of lost interest, I think). I got a very nice answer from Keith also, met him the next year in Wels, and the rest you know. he'll be arriving here again on Thursday for some shows this weekend, I'm really looking forward to that...

so that sounds somewhat similar to the way you first encountered him, no? I learned about AMM from the first Penguin Guide, not the Wire, but again, not so different...

one part of the story you'll like, Noel, is that just after I met Keith in Wels, later that weekend, I started asking him about why he didn't record more outside of AMM (at that point, he had only done one record in the previous ten years outside of AMM, the duo with Jeffrey Morgan). he told me that Ramon Montoya, who he thought was the greatest guitarist of the century, only ever recorded 45 minutes of material, so he didn't think he should do more. I told him since he was already over that, he might as well keep going, and thankfully, he eventually agreed.

'
Jon

" m not getting into the Sachiko debate here again,

Let s share that one
cause i REALLY DONT

And

" but she's an incredibly sensitive and disciplined collaborator, always pushing the people she plays with."

i ll take this one as Keith being really excited by jerome ..... and i m sure it was great !

i just have of another Noetinger experience

BUT in all CASES i m happy to change
just i would need SOMETHING to do so

cheers
n

"again, I don't exactly understand. "

but since when is SHARING about understanding ?

more to come
n

OK

and there s nothing to argue about i find
we DO agree here

"he'll be arriving here again on Thursday for some shows this weekend, I'm really looking forward to that..."

LOVELY i d love to be around too
but the same i loved being with Chet Baker for 2 years or meeting Fred Frith and Derek Bailey
That s all i m saying

Let me say it like this
KEITH is for me an AMAZING Guitar Player and more i guess .... but when comes down to
THE NEW thing i smooth ot down

NEW THING i ve seen already few times in my short life ..that was Metheny and Brecker then
Braxton and Lewis then Tim Berne and Frisell
then all the Post New things still around

and again GREAT that you re doing all these albums with keith ( actually let me be honest
i ll BUY any of his on Yours .... )

and i m ready to LEARN more about other players that i ve never really heard
but i cant help it ....
it s like ASCENSION Coltrane ....
not all of them really made it while ( hello Dan ) Jimmy Lyons is a classic to me
underrated for sure and still

best
No animosity
just REALLY HAPPY KEITH DOES A LOT THESE DAYS and open heat HE DESERVES IT REALLLLLLLLYYYYYY

"so that sounds somewhat similar to the way you first encountered him, no? I learned about AMM from the first Penguin Guide, not the Wire, but again, not so different..."

YES !!!!!!!
and all i will always remember is that whenever i went totally naively to most ( no actually ALL of them ) of these artists
i always had a great answer ....... !!!!!!!

indeed Derek was a strong Push
but Keith too and i m not talking about Sam Woodyard Sam Rivers or SACHA DISTEL
( peace to his ashes )

n

ok, fine, I understand all that (at least the last post)...

"it s like ASCENSION Coltrane .... not all of them really made it while ( hello Dan ) Jimmy Lyons is a classic to me underrated for sure and still"

ok, fine, but following that analogy, like Impulse in the 60's, Keith isn't the only musician I work with (like Coltrane wasn't the only one they worked with), and if there's an equivalent to Jimmy Lyons in "eai" who I don't work with, either I'm not familiar enough with them, or I don't agree that they're really on that level of output.

also, Noel, just because I choose to keep Erstwhile generally focused (and the range between Radu Malfatti and Marcus Schmickler is pretty extensive) doesn't mean that that's the only area of music I pay attention to. I think that a record label should maintain a certain focus, at least in a general way. if I started releasing cutup plunderphonic discs, like DJ/Rupture, or underground hip-hop, like clouddead, I think it would be a bit false advertising to keep releasing them under the Erstwhile name, I would create a new label for that.

but as of now, I think there is still plenty of music that I find very exciting within this "eai" field for me to keep documenting it on Erstwhile. maybe that will change in a couple of years, we'll see...

See Jon
i think the only thing that makes difference is
How long are you around ...... cause many people can make a season or two
but 30 years.....LESS ... i d say (i m not talking quality ) ...today i was reading this Itw with Taku in Wire and felt very close to him Physically ( not necessarily the music but not against it either ) just i understand his points

i produced lat month an opera where amongst many was Herb Robertson ...he was one of my idols ( still is in many ways ) in the mid 80 s ........ Herb plays great ..he s totally out of any fashion and even focus now

What do we prefer ? the music or the trend ?

for example there s really no reason we d work together you and me these days
but let s say in 20 years maybe we share things differently ..... i NEVER say NEVER
that s all i m saying

i loved playing with Joe Diorio when i did
i hardly can put a record on now if i did
i would listen to what HE PLAYS and not the times or genre or so .....

it s a little hard to explain sometimes
but as you re probably close to otomo as well
i think he understands that ---- i ve seen him naming UNDERCURRENT jim Hall Bill Evans
once in wire .... NO one wants to go back there though we anyway CANT for many reason

IT S A LARGE WORLD
and TIMING IS EVERYTHING

cheers
n

yes, I agree with a lot of that, Noel, but one point maybe we differ on is that I never really connected to trends like Metheny/Brecker (a little before my time, but still), or the downtown guys like Herb Robertson/Frisell/etc., who I explored pretty thoroughly at the time, in records and in shows. I thought some of that stuff was cool, but it never deeply moved me like the world I work in now does.

the thing about the "eai community" (awful words) is that they're much broader than other scenes (again, the range from Malfatti to Schmickler or Pita is about as big as it gets), and they're geographically so spread out, that I have hope that it will not just be a short-term trendy "new thing" of a few years, and that it will continue to develop as new musicians come in. only time will tell.

from my own perspective, I'll keep putting out records as long as I can find ones that meet my own (very tough) standards. if I can't find those anymore, then I'll probably move on to something else, I would never just put out records to put them out, there's already way too much mediocre product in the world, in all genres.

for instance, right now, I'm listening to a very strong compilation from a Malaysian label, featuring some artists you'd generally associate with "eai" (Toshi Nakamura, Andrea Neumann, Taku Sugimoto, Oren Ambarchi, Axel Dörner, etc.), but also artists from other adjacent genres, like Jeph Jerman or Volcano The Bear.

http://www.japanimprov.com/indies2/xingwu/insight.html

another recent compilation from a Ukraine label has similar geographic and artistic breadth:

http://nexsound.org/psychogeography.html

it's these kind of developments that give me hope that what has happened in "eai" over the last 4-5 years isn't just a brief flare of brilliance, but a more lasting thing. but again, only time will tell.

Lovely

About to be answered after a short sleep

n

I sort of expected that people concentrated on SOUND

would hear it whatever the context is

Brecker might play in record you dislike

that doesnt mean HIS OWN sound is to be neglected ............

i guess that needs serious explanations

but it wasn t a 100 % piss off joke for me AT ALL to link Farlow and Rowe
THAT IS WHAT I HEAR

AS WELL

n

for sure noel i understand now the farlow rowe thing

i realised that playing free improv for 5 years by now, really helped me to understand other music differently... feel them differently, yeah physically, also how to place the sounds.

i used to play rock, written suff, post grunge, sonic can something...

recently i've started a more rock format band i write compositions for, really tight, fast and changing.

well i feel much better.

improv teaches a lot

"i feel sometimes its too quick, too sudden, and not always based on something already solid."

Let me be Abbey-ish for a second

WHO ?
NAMES ?

when i wrote this somehow i was thinking maybe about ami yoshida, or somehow i feel even someone like mattin had a very sudden 'explosition'. i am not saying its bad or putting down the quality of the work of this musicians, but i am just hopping its ok.

also i have to say i ignore there 'parcours' (past), i guess they are maybe not just starting 3 years ago, i know...

but i mean, i am not so fan of this Cosmos thing, but to see it sometimes being put as such an 'extraordinary' thing makes me wonder what it stands one...

yeah, maybe some artists have made very limited amout of work which was genious, but that s not general rule i feel

still picasso made about 10.000 sculptures... knowing he was a painter...

also i guess variety of the work (l'oeuvre) of an artist adds something to its character.

in our context, otomo is definitely strong for this

for a while when i started improv, and then the japanese influence became big, i somehow had the temptation, which was strong, and seemed like 'THE ONLY WAY', to follow the trend, the movement, maybe an art movement.

maybe for a while even i would get upset if musicians start fucking around or would do something 'odd'.

but quickly then, i realised i dont want to do this

inf act it had the opposite effect, again now i feel involved in pretty different stuff,

and when i play solo with turntables i start doing dj stuff,
but like noise still,

me, dj?

no, i love guitar too much as well

some musicians of my age (or around, 30 let's say) here in paris, maybe elsewhere i dont know, they've gone for this trend i feel

its bizarre

still as a remark, a lot of gigs in eai stuff i saw in 2003/4 were all really slow, long, not very active, unernegic. its my opinion

i dont mind slow stuff or long even, but then you must play it with yr guts still, with style, not just because its the NEW way to play, so lets all play like this.

i like this shorts messages noel

its much clearer in fact,

this 'bitter younger' humm

bitter = better
or
bitter like acid

what else!

why is it that french people like to split their messages into that many posts? ;)

you see, Tomas,
"le desir attrape par la queue" (Picasso)

myth·o·ma·ni·a n. A compulsion to embroider the truth, engage in exaggeration. –
log·or·rhe·a n. Excessive use of words. –logor·rheic adj
"until around 1997 i had monthly ( altogether Shows in Festivals , records and Unenplyoment money ) between 6000 and 10000 euros"
I'm sorry, Noel, because I enjoy our exchanges of emails, but unless you're prepared to prove this, I simply can't believe you. I suggest you nip down to the local Copytop and make a copy of your tax return (Avis d'Imposition) for the years 97 and 98, scan it and email it. 600 and 1000 euros (that's about the same in $, folks) maybe, or 6000 - 10000 a YEAR, or even 6000 - 10000 FRENCH FRANCS but I simply can't believe you were making the same salary as a Senior Manager in a large company. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.
A little bit of exaggeration for effect is OK, but this kind of obscene bragging serves little purpose, other than alienate you from the community you're supposed to belong to - improvising musicians who play door gigs to 12 people for $20, and there are plenty reading this, not to mention "big names" in improv like Daunik Lazro and Joëlle Léandre, who you both know well. They must be falling off their chairs.
For the benefit of readers outside France, the Instants Chavirés back in 2000 when I first played there paid 800 Francs (call it $120) to musicians living in Paris. In order for Noel to make his minimum 97 salary of 6000€ he would have had to play 48 gigs a month. Either that or he must be the Notorious B.I.G. of improvised music. And we all know what happened to him. Send proof! Sorry to be blunt but - put up or shut up.

I spend almost all of my money (from a, like, job) to play music. Travelling, gear, recording, helping out other players & c.

I try to work as little as possible (to allow more time for music).

I have been paid from public funds a few times, I think: art museum? festival (no list of financiers obvious)? Colleges?

Spending all my savings to do 25 west coast shows in October, next. Is my conscience clean? Or my wallet?

" The good thing about playing duo with Michel Portal is that you get the same Fee " -
------- Louis Sclavis ---------

Dan

since when do you consider me as a Full time
improvisor ? -
I VE NEVER DONE THAT - Still i dont
and that s not for financial reasons at all

you seem to be really forgetting
that it has always been a "side" ativity for me

if i havent got the Jazz Jobs i could surely not
pay for my trips to London and play Vortex for 30 Pounds

n

"And we all know what happened to him. "

Do you ?
cause it seems i don t -
Any infos to pass ?

Send proof! Sorry to be blunt but - put up or shut up.

will

n

what are you on with now?
du calme!

why is it that french people like to split their messages into that many posts? ;)

Maybe cause they cant get their shit together ?

OK i ll be MUCH MORE SPARE and QUIET now and on ( if any actually )

AS for Proof well .... i cant scan papers that i dont have here but you can look around on the web and you ll fine some Published amounts
for example on Subventions for French festivals or so

I REALLY dont see the point for me to BRING such an issue if that was all Rubbish and lies
unless people want to proove me Insane and Mentally gone .....
( why not .... )

best
n

OK i ll be MUCH MORE SPARE and QUIET now and on ( if any actually )

-> please be NOT!!! my comment was tongue in cheek, really, i enjoy your posts. it was just funny to see that you and alexandre have this multi-post-system to communicate, while others prefer to write one large thing à la dan (mostly). it's just styles, who cares. we don't want no blog-reductionism, right?

;)

go on...

I think in my case only
it s just cause that s the way ideas or whatever it is comes to mind ....like a discussion
one point leads to another
and then that s why i need to come back to it

as for being more spare ..well i dont know i mean if these sorts pf discussions just bores and takes too much space for other people
there s no reason for me to fuck up other peoples Chatroom or Forum

as for MONEY and BUSINESS
well Or the subject makes sense
and other people want to open up and say HOW MUCH as WELL or
it looks like me doing a Strip Show
and that s really not the place here for that

Tomas can talk about it with Taklos and MIGRO in Switzerland ....the scores are really not bad there either

best
n

"Tomas can talk about it with Taklos and MIGRO in Switzerland ....the scores are really not bad there either"

well i don't really earn a lot of money with this, that's for sure. but after my experiences, the amounts noël mentions don't sound that astronomic. i mean, i get your point dan, but i don't think "instants" is a good example. i don't know about fees at "taktlos", either. but for example, i participated in this compilation CD "construction sonor" which was commissioned by the swiss arts council, and when i play a gig within this project (a couple of days ago in milano w/ gunter muller, for example), i'm paid really well...and i guess if i had 10 of these shows every month, it would be around the sums noël mentioned. so with funding it's possible, i guess.

also i know of at least 2-3 (better known) musicians who will not play for less than around 800 USD, and they get their gigs, and they get their money. it doesn't happen all too often, but it does happen.

Anyone around who Played the SAALFELDEN festival once at least in austria ? an example

Can tell

BUT ATTENTION i m talking about a certain ERA ..... it s not like it s all like that
it s just that JAZZ in EUROPE is a HIGH fee rate in general and some smaller places are different but they are still quite some big festivals around

n

I dont think Keith Rowe talking about a "jazz Mafia" in France did it in the air at all

there s something like that around
and that s quite strange to see always same things with less and less real link to reality
or younger audiences ....

France particularly is always very late with new music coming apart from very very few places like Instants chavires .... but you could nt really Tour the country with such music
altough they are Many Jazz Festivals and
National Theaters

n

"already its so hard within one scene to find many people you wanna play with. and everywhere i feel its like all this small groups of people sharing one same way to do things, in paris its really like this, electronic noise/electronica, free improv (historically), 'new' improv... and sometimes i think everyone want to hate each other."
Alexandre, one thing i would share is the sympathy on this issue as i have had the same kind of experience now in three or four different cities both in europe and usa: this is a sadly stable phenomena that i am no less shocked and dismayed by after so many years. to play with certain people in nyc was almost to experience their fist against your face rather than a cooperative attempt to make music. the attitudes gets worst as the players got younger (although some older are as bad--to drive you away, to make you allergic to their scene) and experience their playing as part of a TREND to hop on to get the gigs and as it grows away from the kind of feeling of social revolt FREE music grew out of partially (one writer in last STN refers to Amiri Baraka--a great American poet--as "blustery" when talking about the new Ayler re-releases---this shows you how far many people are from understanding the context of THAT music (Baraka was/is as important as Ayler to the history of MY (yes, a white guy) culture. Today I'd say the musicians play increasingly in no context (or simulacral context) or only in their club context: the music is not seemingly related to any social struggle (except for me, that is, who grew up seeing the smashed heads of vietnam war protesters, soldier corpses twisted in newspaper mud and the regimentation/miltarism/patriotism ignorance and the beautiful balance between chaos and order the main fulcrum of THAT music and the music i drive towards) I had never grown up wanting to be an artist except one that would be seek to operate through belief in ideals (like civil rights then, other issues today) and higher forces pushing creativity. this doesn't survive into an entirely materialist regime: the severely prosaic time we live in, i have been in the car travelling up the east coast with a musician i thought more or less shared my beliefs and he said he condemns all marxists (trashing cuba without knowing anything about what good has been done there) and thinks capitalism is the way the way bush thinks it is. how did this happen? i felt like i should just exit the car in mid flight. i personally can never think of the arts as separate from the great struggles of the sixties and seventies which is about emancipation--and many are as enslaved in our languages and social constructions now as then. those years are my teachers those years are ME. for anyone ten years younger, that context does not exist (unless they are transported there somehow. so it is okay to be an improvisor capitalist experimental conspicious consumer competing fiercely for the gigs, being a snob openly against anything that seems different from your trend attitude, hating anyone who stands in the way. what makes a person really think this kind of behaviour is wrong and certainly unacceptable among artists especially? it has to do with your VISION of what art is to achieve in this world, how it needs to raise everyone up, not trash them out...

jeff gburek

"already its so hard within one scene to find many people you wanna play with. and everywhere i feel its like all this small groups of people sharing one same way to do things, in paris its really like this, electronic noise/electronica, free improv (historically), 'new' improv... and sometimes i think everyone want to hate each other."
Alexandre, one thing i would share is the sympathy on this issue as i have had the same kind of experience now in three or four different cities both in europe and usa: this is a sadly stable phenomena that i am no less shocked and dismayed by after so many years. to play with certain people in nyc was almost to experience their fist against your face rather than a cooperative attempt to make music. the attitudes gets worst as the players got younger (although some older are as bad--to drive you away, to make you allergic to their scene) and experience their playing as part of a TREND to hop on to get the gigs and as it grows away from the kind of feeling of social revolt FREE music grew out of partially (one writer in last STN refers to Amiri Baraka--a great American poet--as "blustery" when talking about the new Ayler re-releases---this shows you how far many people are from understanding the context of THAT music (Baraka was/is as important as Ayler to the history of MY (yes, a white guy) culture. Today I'd say the musicians play increasingly in no context (or simulacral context) or only in their club context: the music is not seemingly related to any social struggle (except for me, that is, who grew up seeing the smashed heads of vietnam war protesters, soldier corpses twisted in newspaper mud and the regimentation/miltarism/patriotism ignorance and the beautiful balance between chaos and order that is main fulcrum of THAT music and the music i drive towards a which represented the better TOMMORROW) I had never grown up wanting to be an artist except one that would be seek to operate through belief in ideals (like civil rights then, other issues today) and higher forces pushing creativity. this doesn't survive into an entirely materialist regime: the severely prosaic time we live in, i have been in the car travelling up the east coast with a musician i thought more or less shared my beliefs and he said he condemns all marxists (trashing cuba without knowing anything about what good has been done there) and thinks capitalism is the way the way bush thinks it is. how did this happen? i felt like i should just exit the car in mid flight. i personally can never think of the arts as separate from the great struggles of the sixties and seventies which is about emancipation--and many are as enslaved in our languages and social constructions now as then. those years are my teachers those years are ME. for anyone ten years younger, that context does not exist (unless they are transported there somehow. so it is okay to be an improvisor capitalist experimental conspicious consumer competing fiercely for the gigs, being a snob openly against anything that seems different from your trend attitude, hating anyone who stands in the way. what makes a person really think this kind of behaviour is wrong and certainly unacceptable among artists especially? it has to do with your VISION of what art is to achieve in this world, how it needs to raise everyone up, not trash them out...

jeff gburek

i don't know how it got posted twice. the second is my prefered copy

SOME OF YOU IN PARIS
may have heard this radio spot they did with me, i apologize, i thought i was a boring interview until i started talking about butoh... i also had the impression they didn't translate my comments on javanese gamelan very well, i heard the word incroyable a few more times than seemed necccessary... but i can't be sure...but nicolas is a good sport and i appreciate his efforts
--jeff gburek

"and ( i ll make it short now ) indeed he was and i Asked : Are you gonna Drop by Derek (aka Bailey ) for tea time ?

i got as answer a wonderful piece of silence
that i STILL REMEMBER very well cause that started me into ...Oh OK maybe they Days are gone of good old Improv"

Noel, this reminds me of the famous silence
of Cage to Schoenberg
(the lacunae of power struggles...)
---the question is:
how far does one have to go to be
really a different composition, a continental divide, a series of lives, ten worlds, the "community" like a comic book one remembers from childhood
with detachment

are you familiar with the Sun City Girls?
i poorly remember a great quote of theirs
"you're still making history but we're already forgetting you" it keeps perspective for me...

--they are the only POST (to laughingly use the term) group that i ever liked (and they'd rather release whatever records they want rather give a hoot about what anybody thinks of it...
they are greatest exemplar of how to never
GENRE yourself

i have respect for that DIVERSITY more than any uniformity

---JEFF

myth·o·ma·ni·a n. A compulsion to embroider the truth, engage in exaggeration. –
log·or·rhe·a n. Excessive use of words. –logor·rheic adj
Sorry to be blunt but - put up or shut up.
Posted by: dan warburton at September 14, 2004 09:45 PM

Well, o lucky ones who have stuck their noses into the Holy Box (and I'm not talking about Briana Banks) - how is it?
Who's writing it up for Bags, first of all?
Posted by: dan warburton at September 15, 2004 11:42 AM

I (hesitatingly) bought the xing-wu cd on your recommedation, Dan, and I'm glad I did. Reynols, Nakamura, Volcano the Bear, Ambarchi, Jerman are as bad as you would expect, but Sugimoto, Doerner, and you yourself&al, sir, are worth it IMHO.
"treve de plaisanteries...la soupe qui, entre parentheses, commence a refroidir a une vitesse folle." (Picasso)

Thank you. The soup in brackets indeed - wonderful line. Like the Marx Brothers exchange in Animal Crackers. "Gentlemen, question mark.."

are you familiar with the Sun City Girls?
i poorly remember a great quote of theirs
"you're still making history but we're already forgetting you" it keeps perspective for me...

Feist and Gonzales on Viva ( that s sort of alternative MTV in Germany ) yesterday :

---- I find Future more stuck than the past ! ----

( i think i know what she meant there , no RETURN to but going through rather )

And i was also reading this ( cant quite remember where actually ) TO IGNORE HISTORY is to be condamned to REPEAT IT .....

Whatever ...as for HATES and SCENES
i think it s a mixture of things it s like
YOU first of all need to be able to afford it

like i say ...to have MONEYproblems you need to have money ..otherwise you JUST HAVE : PROBLEMS ...... !!!!!!

"C est enorme une vitesse folle deja ...."

( Pique-a-t´chou )

---- I find Future more stuck than the past ! ----

the future and the past is never what it's going to be
is the rule!

is that a human state or are your pants just in brackets? barbed WIRE?
might be a perpendicular universe
expression of it

TO IGNORE HISTORY is to be condamned to REPEAT IT ...

hence the allusion to the cage/shoenberg
---sugi-bailey beastie

as retour eternelle?

ruptures fuse

...to have MONEY problems you need to have money ..
otherwise you JUST HAVE : PROBLEMS

when I have money I have other people's problems whereas I steal from myself without shame

"What Trane spoke of, what Ra means,
where Pharoah wd like to go,
is clearly another world. In (w)hich we are literally (and further) 'free'"
--Amiri Baraka, Eulogies, 1996

"I refuse to pay any money to hear something called 'free jazz' " --Zbigniew Karkowski, over dinner table in Stausbourg, 2004

"RUSH THE FUCKING DOOR"--Perry Farrell, to some kids who had been tossed out of the club in Santa Barbara, 1989

"I refuse to pay any money to hear something called 'free jazz' " --Zbigniew Karkowski, over dinner table in Strasbourg, 2004

Is Zbiggie a pal of yours then, Jeff?

Is Zbiggie a pal of yours then, Jeff?

it was one of those dinners where by rant and mutual inquisitions you came to discover where one another stood more or less. much less adventurous was that with malcolm goldstein with the pipa player picking her cuticles over saag paneer--before the instants chavires gig--
ah, i can say no more now, i must go teach a "band" class. when you teach high school "band" in the usa you can see where frank zappa comes from

"for sure noel i understand now
the farlow rowe thing"

when keith was here in albuquerque
he started talking about art-school
and painterly originality and i began
talking guitaristic precedents--
pointing out that "flat" guitar may have
a nearer ancestor in slide guitars--
but other than sharrock using
bottle-slide and then later people
playing pedal steel, like susan alcorn,
i wondered who doing improv or late free jazz or whatever it is we call it nowadays
played/plays a mean slide as signature (or what does that mean anyway?).
tom carter tricks more sounds out of slide
than anyone i know.
but back to keith, he of course talked
a lot about jazz guitarists before
he made the switch and maintains
that hand positions still correspond to divisions of melody and rhythym for him
(something which never occurs to me "consciously"
playing table-top guitar)

and it had me thinking this morning
about how many attitudes "stick"
from the old ways of playing that are inescapable

few admit to such as this:
it compromises the (con)cept
of originality

i back it up to what noel was saying about
"listening" and the role of ears and minds in transforming what we'd normally call undifferentiated substances into music

since i use field recordings i have been in a different praxis: as soon as i begin recording something i have made a choice to listen
in a more meditative and determined way
and it already has become "musical",
i am already "playing" then--

it is a wider field (that plays me)

than what comes down the pressurized tube of performance

but those previous decisions are with me

free as i am to choose to go against them, turn them off etc

there is something endlessly unstable about it nevertheless

which i can't tie back to "guitaristic"

ideas?

Noel,

I played a solo set at SubTonic the night after playing in Tokyo, Osaka the night before that, and Nagoya two nights before that two weeks ago. All out of my own pocket, money earned and saved through a high school teaching gig - saxophone and special needs support. Summer holiday so better to not get paid in Japan than not get paid in London, and we stayed with my girlfriend's family much of the time. You're right that the money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is rarely the concert itself, but although I think people should go for what funding they can (better than someone else pissing it up the wall), there are ways of doing things without filling out forms all day for a living (although I've done form filling jobs in hospitals before as well, should have thought more about that one!).

We also bring people over a few times a year to London, and at least cover their costs, without funding from either side. Although it's something we consider applying for from time to time, and eventually we'll probably do it, it's nice to do things that don't depend on Arts Funding Bodies for their existence. Too much stuff shuts down or never happens because people are waiting for applications to be processed. At the moment I'd much rather have a day job, no matter how bad, than rely on Arts Funding Bodies to decide whether I do a concert or not (playing or promoting).

I don't give a shit if people are able to get some cash from somewhere to do something good, but very often it changes the music or the way it's presented in a way that is clearly done to attract the funding - softening the discourse if not the music itself. The fact that almost all funding for "new music" in England is for "new works" - i.e. compositions, is indicative of this. Improvisers can get that money, but only if they call what they do composition, or shove a bit of paper up front at a gig. All goes back to reinforcing property relations in the end.

"... if people are able to get some cash from somewhere to do something good, (it) very often changes the music or the way it's presented in a way that is clearly done to attract the funding - softening the discourse if not the music itself."

Having taken Walto's recommendation (posted on another thread) to heart and picked up a copy of Orwell's Down and Out, I'm beginning to see why my Austrian friends seem to be perfectly comfortable with the thought of leaving it to us (trying to support "something good" in these English speaking parts) to endulge the nobility of the starving artist.
Are the Brandlmayrs really that bad?

"... approaching poverty, ... you discover boredom and mean complications ... , but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future." (Orwell)

Nat

sorry for short answer
cause i m really OFF for a good month now
but

YES i know what you re talking about very well

I dont think it s wrong to use all these funds
i just mean ONE should be CLEAR with himself ....
and I HEAR a lot of artists claimings their
RIGHTS to be helped and get funds
but what about DUTY ?
- WHAT is the deal ? is my question here ...

Under what name, situation, context
for which reasons etc are FUNDS given ?

best
n

I think the system like any system
carries a huge amount of SELFISHNESS
and PRIVATE INTERRESTS from small organised GROUPS

i dont see it as a democratic or public
system at all

But FUNDS never comes for nothing ...
the question is ...WHAT do they BUY with it ?
the artists work ?
i dont think so ......

What does the artist look for then .... ?
just a way to go further ?

JUST check in most cases (that is very vague indeed and we d need to be pretty precise and also see things in particular , per country etc )

On which basis Funds are given ...

CULTURE is one thing
it s like service or tourism
so you can easily be a cultural employee
and that s all fine

But it s A JOB
not a society buying ART cause it "SOMETHIN GOOD " .....

and the political questions for me are on the same level as mapping down where do you EAT bio products and Organic and so on in the world ...
Surely not in poor countries ....

LA SOCIETE DU SPECTACLE ....

But FUNDS never comes for nothing ...
the question is ...WHAT do they BUY with it ?
the artists work ?
i dont think so ......

What does the artist look for then .... ?
just a way to go further ?

JUST check in most cases (that is very vague indeed and we d need to be pretty precise and also see things in particular , per country etc )

On which basis Funds are given ...

CULTURE is one thing
it s like service or tourism
so you can easily be a cultural employee
and that s all fine

But it s A JOB
not a society buying ART cause it "SOMETHIN GOOD " .....

and the political questions for me are on the same level as mapping down where do you EAT bio products and Organic and so on in the world ...
Surely not in poor countries ....

LA SOCIETE DU SPECTACLE ....

"I'm beginning to see why my Austrian friends seem to be perfectly comfortable with the thought of leaving it to us (trying to support "something good" in these English speaking parts) to endulge the nobility of the starving artist. "

as well as a high sense for Victimology you mean ?

9
 

"Dans le monde réellement renversé, le vrai est un moment du faux. "

Guy Debord - La Societe du Spectacle

Yes, when people start demanding funding I start to twitch, it makes the music entirely dependent on the State and puts musicians in a position (stated or real) of not being able to organise things themselves. I don't know about the situation in France, but in the UK, the only people with guaranteed full time jobs in this area are the people who work for the funding organisations. Those organisations don't give out any of the reasons for their decisions, and meetings are held in private.

A friend of mine who applied for some funding (not music, fashion) told me that the people on the panel had awarded £20000 to themselves, because they thought their application merited it. As far as I know that's very illegal, but I'd be surprised if it's isolated. There should be a lot more discussion about this in general.

"Dans le monde réellement renversé, le vrai est un moment du faux."

Guy Debord - La Societe du Spectacle

Bingo!

"Die Kunst, in der gerade die Luege sich heiligt, der Wille zur Taeuschung das gute Gewissen zur Seite hat, ist dem asketischen Ideale viel grundsaetzlicher entgegengestellt als die Wissenschaft."

Friedrich Nietzsche - Zur Genealogie der Moral III, 25

"Yes, when people start demanding funding I start to twitch, it makes the music entirely dependent on the State and puts musicians in a position (stated or real) of not being able to organise things themselves. I don't know about the situation in France, but in the UK, the only people with guaranteed full time jobs in this area are the people who work for the funding organisations. Those organisations don't give out any of the reasons for their decisions, and meetings are held in private."

Nat, just to be clear, who do you mean when you say "people" in your first sentence? It makes a big difference if people more or less democratically discern the need for arts the way they feel they have concluded they have need of scientific research. i suppose your twitch comes from the artist that says they deserve it. the funny isssue is that so much funding in the usa goes toward such overwhelmingly crappy work that an individual artist can't help but feel a bit offended if they look at the numbers. i locate this feeling of resentment completely within the have and have-not division. obviously, no artist with the wherewithal to do without grants needs to think this way, being able to bask therefore in a vanguardist Goethean nobility. there are a lot of (no names, sorry)independently wealthy musicians, painters etc. in the usa that look down upon those who apply for grants. it's like someone employed looking down on someone who applied for what we call food stamps here. there are a lot of people on the left (musicians) who scream that WAL MART should be boycotted, yet how many of them have effects units and mixing boards made by taiwainese/chinese/indonesians working at wages the moralists toss away when buying a morning coffee? there is certainly much abuse in the realm of grants. that we can't find out about them, that the organizations are not transparent, is certainly what puts them on the immorality level of governments and corporations whose illegal activities would not be allowed to proceed if there were something more powerful to stop them. the problem is there isn't. but i think the over-arching issue is to de defined in the area where what we all think of as our business practices and ethics as publishers/distributors of works starts to behave only with respect to selfish market values. this is where the line gets drawn even in the contexts of these discussions, where people really start to chicken out...

A friend of mine who applied for some funding (not music, fashion) told me that the people on the panel had awarded £20000 to themselves, because they thought their application merited it. As far as I know that's very illegal, but I'd be surprised if it's isolated. There should be a lot more discussion about this in general.

Funding in the USA goes almost toward that which is framed in the most academic way. Those people adjudicating on boards are now (unlike in the Seventies) usually people whose opinions are likely to be so aesthetically nuetral as to be benign and who goes with the flow or when they are someone who has been more "cutting edge" it's because they rose into that position and will now help their friends who you may not be lucky enough to be (again not dissimliar from skull & bones society). There is a good book about the history of arts funding in the USA by Richard Kostelanetz, who also writes about Cage and is concrete poet, some of you may know already. When I get into discussions with people about funding my head starts to spin. Who can remember all the people you need to remember and who can stomach the schmoozing inherent in getting to know them? I get lost when people talk "taste" because it is already once removed from the actual practice of making works. Same with funding. But I can imagine a situation where such things were not so repulsive to consider, one in which these things were much more transparent. Because then things integral--like resources--to making works would be revealed as part of the process. Here we truly have entered into a new post-modern kind of occultism, were all the money handling is in the shadows. Why? It really is linked to the high-bias of taste as well, linked to fashion, which has a thread of value similar to artistic values but does not go as deeply. In the concept of transparency I speak of I include the revelation that "taste" is something that is groundless. By groundless I mean that it has no basis in fact, only in perceptions, and narrow ones at that. Art is to expand perceptions. By groundless I mean further that, like Blake said, Practice is Art (I read the Four Zoas three times--so i have healthy appreciation of one "working it out"!--something we don't see much of in music--unless its Phil Schaff's show on Parker on WKCR) and that results of art are not reducible to products and what is seen to be a judgement based on evolutionary perspectives of the history of music or painting can never lay claim to understanding outside of perhaps flawed or incomplete perceptions. The provenance of the taste is nothing more than the limited perceptions of those with power who then nail these perceptions into those with wooden heads. What do I oppose to this groundlessness? Only questioning and honesty about how and why we make works. And the haggling over values--which is what would make a market place more human than it is today...dearest pay pals... Not having any money to do things here doesn't prevent us from organizing events (but how many of you musicians are attracted to performing without compensation?). I have tried to bring people to Albuquerque and have. But we may never have seen Keith Rowe play here if the Nonsequitur foundation hadn't footed the bill. I have brought younger artists to town and they didn't get much money in return from the door, I'll tell you that. But when I heard Polwechsel/Fennesz was to come on tour here, I really wanted my community to hear them. But Nonsequitur relocated. I could not offer them anything. So it didn't happen (and that tour, ironically, didn't happen I heard, for other reasons anyway).

It's great that Noel has helped push some of these issues more into the open. I am extremely curious about what is going on with promotion and organizing in Europe because I spent 4-5 hours a day over a four month period last year trying to find gigs from my project with my partner who is butoh dancer, working with myself and Kyle Bruckmann, and we sent over twenty videos ($35 per transfer fee from NTSC to PAL system!) of this project out and majority of times we never can even get a second email from these "promoters". i don't mind at all if the work dosen't suit their needs, its just the assumption that we have infinite monies here to do this and that we don't deserve the courtesy of a response...well let's just say i would never operate that way...

enuff for now...

"Die Kunst, in der gerade die Luege sich heiligt, der Wille zur Taeuschung das gute Gewissen zur Seite hat, ist dem asketischen Ideale viel grundsaetzlicher entgegengestellt als die Wissenschaft."

Friedrich Nietzsche - Zur Genealogie der Moral III, 25

and off the top of memory Nietzsche in traduccion: "culture, they call it their theft."

and by contradisctinction, a path towards tranformation of such conditions (inherent in our sick societies you think?) Novalis: "Every illness is a musical problem" and "All method is rythymic"

off to the studio!

A friend of mine who applied for some funding (not music, fashion) told me that the people on the panel had awarded £20000 to themselves,

I was Just with Andrew Sharpley now
in Vienna ... he remembers a Stock, hausen & walkman tour funded in UK
and the person resbonsible for that answered to his question WHY ?
: cause we wanted to show this music doesnt work ................ !!!!!!!!!

I wouldn t draw the same line as you do
cause i think each country has different ways to deal with it THOUGH the RESULT is all the same at the end INDEED

but ......

Herr Miller Jacob
is very vivid indeed

Would you like to say something on your own ?

i d rather go for BONGO than BINGO

cheers
n

I don't know about the situation in France,

France is not a country for music somehow ... i mean at least in cultural representations
( Malraux hated it anyway ) it s all about TEXT

But YEP it s a small circle of people and artists taking care of a certain idea of how things should be ... and more or less Until audience dont ask for something else
they ll go on like that

maybe the reason why some french associations of improvisors are quite harsh and ready to fight is cause it s quite impossible to bring it further than the lowest level of existence there ..plus for that you have to be quite isolated

"Entre nostalgia y nostalgia
entre tu vida y la mía
entre la noche y el alba
se van pasando los días."

33 AÑOS
- Julio Iglesias -

Bueno ?

'Novalis: "Every illness is a musical problem"'

and it goes on:

"-die Heilung eine musikalische Aufloesung."
(from "Das allgemeine Brouillon", Fragment no. 386, in Novalis, Schriften, vol. 3 of the Samuel-Maehl edition, 1960, p. 310). This is followed up with a note on the proper dietary regimen:

"MOR entertainment (Volkslustbarkeiten) falls under the jurisdiction of the poetico-medical police." (no. 395) But that's 1798/99.

"Would you like to say something on your own ?"

I'd rather hand over the mic to resident medic Al:

"Don't let it distract you that some of today's music is so conscious of its own supposed social and philosophical implications."

Others are so much better at following the bagatellen style sheet, e.g.:

"1. The Cecil Taylor piece on Disc 1
2. The Pharoah Sanders piece on Disc 6
3. The Don Ayler Sextet pieces on Disc 7
4. The Albert Ayler Quintet pieces (w/Frank Wright) on Disc 4
5. The Albert Ayler Quintet pieces on Disc 3"

m.j.

very interesting discussion, Noel, indeed.

I see that s a whole program

it s really nice ...it plays on its own too

Lovely
thanks

n

And who said that again ?

"Would you like to say something on your own ?"
I'd rather hand over the mic to resident medic Al:

"1. The Cecil Taylor piece on Disc 1
2. The Pharoah Sanders piece on Disc 6
3. The Don Ayler Sextet pieces on Disc 7
4. The Albert Ayler Quintet pieces (w/Frank Wright) on Disc 4
5. The Albert Ayler Quintet pieces on Disc 3"

or if you can't afford this pharmacy, i'll send you twenty minutes of piper frogs recorded in virginia last year, for free

France is not a country for music somehow ... i mean at least in cultural representations
( Malraux hated it anyway ) it s all about TEXT

and most places that i used the artaud broadcast either knew it already or had absolutely to know who it was, eventually (as soon as the room cleared out and it seemed safe again)

"-die Heilung eine musikalische Aufloesung."
and this is why William Carlos Williams, also a doctor, wrote "the mind must be loose"---?
heal me of the disaster of citation--probably in "imaginations" though--and this ante-debord--from blake: dissimulation isui =the jodsuiontoday

"I see that s a whole program"

Nothing but an instance
of "L'Etourdit" (a sound-bite coined by Lacan, see Encore, edited by my near namesake Jacques-Alain Miller).

"France is not a country for music somehow ... i mean at least in cultural representations
( Malraux hated it anyway ) it s all about TEXT"

"Culture is the fact that it has a hold on us (ca nous tient). We no longer have it on our backs, except in the form of vermin, because we don't know what to do with it, except to get ourselves deloused." (Mr. Lacan)

Please, send me those "twenty minutes of piper frogs recorded in virginia last year", Jeff :)

en Francais JAM ..............

indeed

n

" Personne ne semble reconnaître autour de quoi l’unité se fait, et qu’au temps de quelqu’un où se recueillait la « signature des choses », du moins ne pouvait-on compter sur une bêtise assez cultivée, pour qu’on lui accroche le langage à la fonction de la communication."

Radiopho ......

"Ce mardi 12 janvier 1965

Mon cher Perrier,

Je ne ferai pas au Directoire au sens restreint la trahison de demander conseil à quelqu’un d’autre sur la lettre que je reçois de vous.
..... "

etc, etc ...

bien a vous

n

Please, send me those "twenty minutes of piper frogs recorded in virginia last year", Jeff :)

well, in the edit i just made it comes to 7 minutes on the CD. brings tears of joy to mine eyes ne'er-the-less
will do
need an address of course
if you want a cassette (i love tape hiss too) you can have all twenty minutes

"Culture is the fact that it has a hold on us (ca nous tient). We no longer have it on our backs, except in the form of vermin, because we don't know what to do with it, except to get ourselves deloused." (Mr. Lacan)

wow. and this is the guy who treated artaud and said he would never write again. seems like artaud treated lacan. magicians are literalists.

WE FROGS are Buzzin the thing
retour
au hazard

hum ......

rather stuck nowhere

i find

Hey, I've been hearing a bunch of wonderful music from a group of players from Spain and Portugal and....oops.

Sorry, wrong thread. ;-)