Re: Music Descriptions

[Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.COM>]

Andre writes:

>_Guitar_ and _Guitar Shop_ both seem to be good outlets for coverage of
>more "out there" music; Pete Prown in particular, who writes for the
>former and edits the latter, is an avowed prog-rock/experimental fan, and
>devotes a substantial amount of print space to more off-beat, unusual
>releases.  

Funnily enough, Pete Prown has a review of Silent Extinction coming in the 
next
issue of Guitar Shop. We've kicked around a concept for an article on 
"finding
your own voice" though he thinks it may be better received in Guitar than 
Guitar
Shop. It turns out that his readers get  a little put off by columns that
espouse mental activities: what they want are "put this knowb at 11, and 
that
knob at 7 and you'll sound just like Nigel" articles.

>p.s. - with the deluge of guitarists releasing techno/dance albums these
>days, I can't help but think how far ahead of the zeitgiest Torn was when
>he dabbled so successfully with electronic music on last year's _What
>Means Solid, Traveller?_.  I suspect it'll still sound fresh when most of
>the rest of the current crop of electronic music reeks of late-'90s dance
>crossover.  Too bad CMP didn't know what to do with it! 

'Tis true: the man has always been way ahead of his time. But it wasn't 
just
that CMP didn't know what to do with it. It was more what they *couldn't* 
do
that was at issue. Sometimes a record company can have the best of plans, 
and
they still get squashed by an industry that isn't ready to accept change. 
And
many times they don't have the resources to do what's 
necessary--especially if
they can't see the return coming any time soon. And, of course, there's 
always
the combination of all the elements that conspire against independents 
that end
up making it nearly impossible to be "successful" in this biz without 
being a
partner of one of the biggies. 

But that's no reason not to try!
Jon Durant