RE: reaching folks

["matt davignon" <mattdavignon@hotmail.com>]

>From: "Mike Biffle" <Mike.Biffle@asml.com>
>
>Hi Matt,
>
>Ok... while I'm optimistic, I'm hoping that we're going to see things 
>continue to grow and get better. Maybe... the corporations may manage to 
>weasel things around and screw it up.

I think this is one place where we can actually benefit from corporations. 
After all, live365 is a corp. Same with the people (Yahoo Groups) who 
provide us with the mailing list for the CT Collective.

>I think I also mentioned the extremely small size of our genre. If it 
>doesn't entertain (dance-able, drunk-able, party-able, 
>background-muzak-able) then it's gonna be sparse.  It seems obvious to me 
>that we're not going to get the mainstream advantages of large-scale 
>movements.

I'm not expecting "experimental" to become as big and successful a genre 
as 
the ones that are um, bit and successful. I do feel, however, that there 
enough experimental musicians/fans in the world that if they put us all 
together, we could fill out a medium to large sized city. I also think a 
large portion of us have internet access. So... I know it's out there, I'm 
just having trouble finding it.

I went back to live365 last night, and clicked on the genre 
"experimental". 
The first 150 listings I got were stations that play: Techno, drum 'n' 
bass, 
blues, ambient, industrial, gothic, new age, alternative, and indie 
(college). I also got some stations that were just police scanners (!) and 
a 
really nice psychedelic station. I guess the point of this paragraph is 
that 
"experimental" has become one of those words like "alternative" was 10 
years 
ago, where musicians and fans simply like seeing it next to their music. 
So 
now, the fact that everybody and his left mother uses the word 
"experimental", it's lots harder to find anything in the tiny little genre 
of music that used to be called "experimental music".

Unfortunately, the same is true for the phrase, "My music doesn't fit into 
any particular genre." (Must be a pretty cool thing to say, because I've 
heard it tons of times, even from people whose music fits exactly in an 
existing genre.)

Now I'm not going to say that people who listen to more popular forms of 
music have bad taste, or would simply grow out of it if introduced into 
the 
right musical environment. From my experience, I've found that to not be 
true. In fact, people tend to dislike that assumption as much as 
vegetarians 
dislike being told that they'll eventually grow out of that phase.

Personally, I'm kind of glad that we're small. It gives us more of a sense 
of community, and a sense that what we're doing is more likely to make a 
splash in the world we work in. (Personally, a splish would be just dandy 
for me.)

Matt

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp