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Looper's Delight
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topics: SF is just too small, experimental music in Brazil & urban centers generally one problem with San Francisco i think is that it's just too small. really there are not many urban centers in the US, of substantial size. what, New York, Chicago, Boston mb? San Francisco is surrounded by essentially a giant suburban ring, although admittedly with the highest average income and educational levels in the US. if the Bay Area counts as a city, that might be enough people but geographically it's way too spread out. without decent public transportation it's hard to get a really urban scene going for a variety of things, including experimental music. true, there are good shows here and there, from UC Berkeley, to Oakland, san jose and santa cruz, even Big Sur, Stanford, Mills College (the Tape Music Center). there's a lot of history and great artists, just not much of a scene in terms of audience that actually attends events. how many people actually live in SF proper? maybe 700,000? compared to many major cities in the world that ain't much. i'm living now in Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in Brazil, i think about 7 million. i think Rio has 9 million, and Sao Paulo more than 20 million. and really only Sao Paulo has a substantial scene for experimental electronic music. granted, in the US the economics are different such that a smaller base population should suffice. but not That much smaller... and the essential problem of too suburban a geography remains. places like London, Berlin, Tokyo - they have good public transportation and a high population level in a small area. and they have the money to spend on these things... and the experience of living and working "in the machine", which i should think would pre-dispose one to appreciate electronic music. actually, on a somewhat different note, some early electro-acoustic musical experimentation was done in south america in the 1950s-1970s, which is generally quite under-reported it seems... there are several good websites about this topic which i can't seem to find atm ;) i did stumble on this one by Gordon Mumma which is interesting as he is an old professor of mine, and i had never read this or even spoken with him much about latin american electronic music - http:// www.brainwashed.com/mumma/latin.html ah here we go, found one: Ricardo Dal Farra Latin American Electroacoustic Music collection http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/stage.php?NumPage=542 how's that for rambling? ;) around the world in a single post... -3nki