Re: KC; Lawson's Missive and Originality...

[Miko Biffle <biffoz@pacbell.net>]

Lawson >> Is that a bad thing? Is Fripp any less influential in either real
or theoretical terms because he was taking that which was being caried out
largely in academia and then regurgitating it in a pop context (or even 
that
which was being used in a fringe pop way, and making it a little more
mainstream)?

DT > no, i don't think so!, and, i certainly wasn't ever degrading rf's 
role
as a **major** influence, in this oeuvre..... not at all, though someone 
may
have misinterpreted my ridiculous blabbering thusly..... i was, though,
attempting to illustrate how easily 'popular opinion' can recast 'history',
and that i react very negatively to that.

It's quite easy to take Fripp's fairly standoffish public 'stance' as
pretention and extrapolate all sorts of other faults and fallacies to his
practices. So many of us have had a very long-held love/hate releationship
with his music and personna... I tend to think that because he's had such a
*major* impact, that it's easy to resent folks overlooking many of those we
all seem to consider essential milestones.

Lawson >> I'm a firm believer in credit where it's due, so it would be nice
if peope perceived as innovators were a little more vocal in crediting
sources..... very unusual, for musicians to do so.

Sometimes it feels like you're abandoning a hard-earned 'atmosphere' 
created
by the music at a performance, to take any time talking about other aspects
of a performance. I find myself most engaged by either complete folksiness,
or complete muteness and letting the music speak on it's own. I certainly
think liner notes and interviews are places where these credits could be
communicated?

DT > it's more important to be 'personal', imho.

That's what makes it art as opposed to craft for me...

The subject of originality sometimes seems so completely focused on
creating, seemingly from scratch with no references to other people's work,
etc. The folk tradition otoh, focuses on taking given forms and breathing
new life into them.

I'm wondering where the middle ground between these two might lie; while
avoiding comparisons to bland, banal forms we all seem to loathe here? Some
of the Euro bands like Hedningarna and Garmarna seem to have a very cool
blend of modern instrumentation and mythic storytelling, without resorting
to the gypsy-and-shawl personna.

(This is all about my selfish quest to comingle my folkie-self with my
skronky-improv-self!)

Best,
-Miko