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Looper's Delight
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Howdy all, I think that NPR has become more watered down over the past 10 years, kind of pandering to the "Family Values" crowd. Maybe it has to do with all of the same people reporting/commenting becoming older and more family oriented. They haven't seemed to pick up much new blood over the years. I think that Odyssey just went into it's 25th year. But what else is there to listen to on the radio? Dr. Laura or Rush Limbaugh? Madonna or Britney? More oldies or classic rock? What other stations have featured Robert Fripp, Bob Moog, Charlie Haden or Bill Frissel? Not to mention local talent (if you live somewhere with a local NPR station). NPR is the only major thing happening outside of commercial radio. Sure there is community and college radio, but these are few and far between. I think that American Radio is in the saddest shape in it's history. I used to have a community radio show with my wife which was 2 hours every Sunday night. We specialized in 'Out' music whether it was Jazz (Sun Ra, Ayler, Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, etc), Electronic (Subotnick, Eno, Arcane Device, Teitelbaum, etc...), Improvisation (Zorn, Borbetomagus, AACM, etc...), Experimental Rock (Fred Frith, Fripp, ReR label, etc...) or Modern Composors (Cage, Xenakis, Berio, etc..). Our audience was small but dedicated. Without the generosity of the community our show wouldn't have existed. There is no way this kind of show could exist on commercial american radio. Yet I understand this kind of program isn't too uncommon in Europe... If there were more government support for cultural development like quality radio for instance, I think we as musicians would have more options in the variety of music that we choose to play and a more appreciative and learned audience. We would also stand a better chance at getting payed for being original. U.S. Radio today = Garbage in, Garbage out. This all kind of leads into Grants: The city of Berlin spends approximately 20 times the amount of money on the arts than the entire United States. Given that the various orchestras, opera companies and museums receive the lion's share of the funding they still have managed to pay a generous living to american artists as varied as jazz violinist Billy Bang and Avant/goth Diva Diamanda Galas (D.G. uses loops on her vocals). Try to make a living that way here. Fat chance. People who love creative music in the u.s. often bemoan the lack of new talent in more adventurous music here and end up listening to a lot of artists from England and Europe and elsewhere. I think that because our Government, which is culturally shackled by right-wing reactionaries, refuses to support the arts in more than a meansprited/stingy way and because of this has managed to stymie the intellectual and spiritual growth of our American culture. Whatever happened to the idea of Art for Arts sake! Maybe government patronage means a paternalistic attitude regarding training people to learn about the arts, but what happens if there is no guidance? The level of quality degenerates to the lowest common denominator (i.e. dumb kids). Most sales of music today are to easily impressionable youth for pap that has no artistic merit and is only created for purely commercial reasons. Music and Art in the USA has become a disposable consumer good with the longevity of used toilet paper. To make it as a musician here usually means that you must present yourself like a whore. Do what the customer/record company/producer/marketing department wants or be forever obscure and marginalized. Since popular music is totally driven by marketing, talent and skill have been replaced by attitude and hype. Anyway my point seems to echo an earlier post from someone else that was saying that the support of the arts has historically been from Governments. And I agree that it has had it's ups and downs, but at least there was something to show for it in the end whether you like it or not. No Art funding means less or no lasting tradition of Art. I also don't think that corporations have been or will be able to replace a free societies art support. Corporate Art is neutered by requirements of conforming to corporate cultures non-threating don't rock the boat mentality. If Disney and AOL/Time-Warner are your staples for culture then you will probably disagree. One last example of why Art Funding is needed: Does anyone remember EAR Magazine? This used to be my road map to new creative music of many different styles. They covered all of the artists I mentioned above plus many, many others. I found out about more music from one magazine than all of my music lessons and college education combined. This all died when they lost half of their grant money when New York killed it's arts funding. I'm sure that EAR was only a small part of all the arts that dried up when this happened. A lot of shows didn't happen. I see Art funding as the cost of educating a society in aesthetics, diversity and the pricelessness of free expression. Without the arts we are just mindless drones-slaves to endless corporate consumption. I step off the soapbox, Nick Wilson Why does our society value money over all other things or ideas? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com