Re: innocent pleasures:

[Dave Trenkel <improv@peak.org>]

Hey all,

It's nice to see this list turn back to discussion of esthetics 
instead of gear! I've been sitting out the definition of looping 
thread because I really don't have anything to add, but I'm glad to 
see a serious discussion of the difficult topic of just what the hell 
it is we're all trying to do with these crazy boxes. Made me 
nostalgic for the early daze of LD (aw-shucks)

As far as the guilty pleasures thing goes, I don't think anyone 
should feel bad about any music they dig or have dug. I get accused 
of being a music snob now and then, but hey, I was a huge Paul Simon 
fan in Junior High, owned all of his solo and S&G stuff on 8-track.

I sometimes feel like my Miles Davis fetish is a bit out of hand. 
Bitches Brew was the record that, once I heard it in High School, 
convinced me that I wanted to be a musician. Since then, I've gotten 
just about every millisecond of music he recorded from 1960 onwards, 
including a lot of bootlegs. I also suffer from a major Bill Laswell 
fixation, which can be an expensive habit. I'm not saying either of 
these are less than great musicians, just that my own involvement 
with them verges of obsessive/compulsive

Lately, a lot of my listening has been hip-hop, especially the more 
experimental stuff. Anti-pop Consortium's latest mixes way cool 
analog electronics with very clever raps. Blackalicious' Blazing 
Arrow is the best, smartest, most upbeat rap record I've heard in 
ages, in a just world this would top the pop charts (and in the real 
world isn't doing that badly). Bonus points for featuring both Gil 
Scott Heron (in person) and Harry Nilsson (in a sample) on the same 
disc. The new Dalek disc on Ipecac is  just about the perfect fusion 
of NY Noise Rock ala Sonic Youth with hip hop. The new Cinematic 
Orchestra (Every Day, amazing disc) has British rapper Roots Manuva 
rhyming "Take you to my Tardis" with "Who's the hardest," a couplet 
that never fails to crack me up. It seems like a lot of people are 
dismissive of hip hop, even around LD's enlightened membership, and I 
just wanted to point out that, just like any other genre of music, 
there are great people doing interesting music out there.

BTW, I just scored a Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo, tape delay 
w/sound-on-sound, spring reverb and chorus. Beautiful box, hooked it 
up to the Rhodes and spent last night in tape decay bliss. And it's 
covered with Tolex, the true hallmark of cool gear...