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Re: Is it "Live" or "Memorex"



ok...gotta jump in on this one...
 
i wouldn't say that dj spooky or whomever is on the same level as, say, yoyo ma.  not even close.  and virtuosity doesn't make one any more or less of a musician.  creating something out of nothing makes you an artist or a creator.  regarding music, creating sound out of silence makes you a musician, silence being the total absense of what one will ultimately go on to create...as in: the song isn't written yet, so it isn't music...or something like that.
 
may i offer an analogy: john coltrane vs. dj spooky
 
coltrane would be painting on a blank canvas with only the colors within his technical range available.  so he paints a picture.  dj spooky comes along and cuts the painting into tiny and not-so-tiny pieces (along with multiple other paintings, as suits his fancy).  he then reassembles them to make a "new" creation.  key word: reassembles.  he's not taking nothing and making something...rather, he's just taking what's already there and rearranging it.  if you take the frame of your '88 toyota and put a honda hood, chevy doors, and a vw engine in/on it, you haven't built a totally new car.  you've just taken parts of pre-existing cars and mushed them together so that perhaps it looks new, drives differently, and gets better gas mileage but the parts still belonged to cars that were already in existence.
 
sorry, it's a touchy subject for me.  i'd be pretty angry if i wrote a song and a dj cut it up and remixed it just to have them say "look at this new song that i wrote"
 
as well, i'm a fan of dj spooky and john coltrane.  but i can't agree that they are capable of existing on the same musical plane.
 
-jim