Date: 02/10/05 13:21:17
Subject: Re: OT ELP/JP f(rip)p
Those who beleive that it is less than honest and honorable for musicians
to do things for financial reasons are basically making it difficult to
impossible for they themselves to make a living in music. Isn't it hard
enough already? Once contracts have been signed,a band name is a brand ,and
a marketing vehicle. if you want to sell recordings/tickets,packaging is
necessary,the package is the vehicle to deliver the goods.Since people in
modern industrial countries have been trained to respond to name recognition
( it's called branding -not too different from branding cattle) it is
necessary to work with that reality in order to sell recordings/tickets,just
as it's necessary to work with the conventions of staging,electrical current
standards etc..Now some people in music put everything into packaging ,but
there's little or nothing in the box-or it's like cotton candy -tatstes
sweet but when you try and swallow it,nothing reaches your stomach ,there's
no nutrition.On the other hand I often encounter creative, imaginative
intelligent ,soulful artists who put no energy into business .Some of them
consider themselves to have artistic purity because they don't stoop to
commerce but then have limited time to devote to their art because they have
to make money to live,y doing something that they only do for the money.Some
purity. Certainly very fine works can be produced with no commercial intent
by people who do other work that is satisfying.Well and good but no reason
to dismiss folks who are trying to make a living in music.Zappa,according to
his autobiography spent years turning out music aimed at teenagers ,and
touring the auditorium circuit in a music business he absolutley
hated,trying to raise money to hire orchestras to play his serious works.
If Fripp was just turning out commercial crap to make money I would consider
criticism valid,but to use an established name to sell recordings which are
imaginative, creative,original,take artistic chances etc, seems completely
reasonable to me.I think in fact an arguement could be made that the Court
of era Crimson was a more commercially oriented venture than later
incarnations.That music was made to be played in auditoriums for huge
audiences.It's great music but it's not hard to think -here are some very
talented classically trained musicians that have decided to try their hands
at stadium rock-w/ glorious results. The current Crimson certainly doesn't
play the big venues.
