Re: A negative review for 2002 >> Biting the biscuit...

[Miko Biffle <biffoz@pacbell.net>]

> Hi Miko!

Hey there Ted!

>> I've lately become confused (mostly) by the lumping together of odd
coalitions and factions around the bay area (and California). We've got the
BA-NEWMUSE list members comprised of many Mills faculty and students, as
well as a variety of real-time free-improv types. We've got the pfMENTUM
crew with Jeff Kaiser, and his many friends such as Steuart Liebig and Nels
Cline ... While I dearly love many from each faction, it's sometimes hard 
to
know where I fit into it all as well...

> I'm a bit confused too. Jeff and I both sort of began our current musical
trajectories together in Southern California...ah...er... mumble mumble
umpity years ago. In fact, via a mutual friend of ours he sort of
"discovered" me and pushed me out into the spotlight (actually repeatedly,
'till I became comfortable doing it myself). I owe so much to Jeff and
consider him a great life-time friend. But I really don't totally fit into
his/their program either. I'm not a trained musician with multiple advanced
degrees like he is. I have no particular agenda, no artistic philosophy for
what I do. Nothing is particularly well thought out at all. What I play, 
how
I play and how I think about what I play really comes from a very, very
naive (not to say primitive) place. I really find myself out of my depth in
such company. My only option is to resolutely be "me" 
musically/artistically
and to try not to talk about it too much if I can. I AM relatively well
educated, but my family background is very blue collar and very decidedly
anti-intellectual. Maybe this is the source if my own internal conflict and
confusion to some degree.

First commonality... Southern California!

I somehow managed to avoid college and wandered off playing folk music, 
then
reacting against that and going off into space-noise land... I waffle back
and forth to this day... total pendulum effect... I've yet to somehow merge
the two polarities into anything cohesive. Maybe someday.

That's great having Jeff pushing you onward... I have Stig here to thank 
for
much of my mental and musical boundary pushing! Hey... those pfMentum guys
really *are* nice (if not over-educated) guys! 8-) And I'm such a Nels 
Cline
fan! I'm actually really grateful that he's out there throwing SO much at
the wall, and getting it to stick! Makes it easier on the rest of us...

>> It seems that rhythm (groove-like) and melody (stated in anything other
than either a radical-outburst-noiseattack) seems to imply
old-school-wankerism in the player who commits these grievous errors. Dan
Plonsey over on the BA-Newmuse list recently posted similar thoughts on
complete free-improv and it's narrow constraints.

> ..... The tracks on my CD that actually have any sort of rhythmic 
>"groove"
were not intended for release. The CD was recorded during two 4-hour
recording sessions on two consecutive days. I sort of get the "jitters" in 
a
recording situation (more so than on stage). And the 'pieces" in question
were meant to be warm-up exercises in order to get the fingers working and
have a little musical "fun" in the process ... to loosen up in other words
(and to exorcise any rock guitar cliché's from the system while I was at
it). Well, these things got recorded anyway. And Jeff, who is one of those
folks who seems to conspicuously avoid rhythm and melody at almost all
costs, is the one who insisted on including them on the CD. Go figure. It
goes to show that you just never know.

Ah yes... the producer! I sometimes get the feeling that they actually pick
pieces they wouldn't dare put on *their* releases, but like anyway. (just
joking, but there IS a ring of truth there maybe?)

> ...... I began my own musical life as sort of an eccentric, electric Leo
Kottke wannabe if you can believe it. That's still the sort of thing I play
around the wife and kids at home (the technical fallout of which is that I
still play with metal fingerpicks and bizarre tunings -- even when I'm 
being
Mr. Avant Noismaker).

Second: Folk music...

Wow Ted... I'm a total closet folk junkie! Martin Carthy, Nick Drake,
Leonard Cohen, Leo, Fahey etc.... I've written quite a pile of acoustic
guitar instrumental stuff as well as with voice... I'm thinking that maybe
just doing them with solo electric guitar might not be such a bad idea?

> I love all sorts of music and listen to a wide variety of things. But I
don't (or can't) play a good deal of what I like. I have a special, strange
fondness for old Herb Alpert and the TJB tunes. I can play spazzed-out
covers of a couple of their hits. But, you won't catch me playing them
around the pfMentum gang (to be sure) -- or much of anybody else for that
matter. Talk about offending EVERYBODY? Indeed! That would just about do 
it.

Third: Zany influences...

I get the strange feeling that I'm doomed to be forced to include all my
various tangents into some huge hodgepodge. That may be where the real art
lies? To be disciplined AND honest enough to force oneself to include 
*every
last influence* in a huge trash-compacted style to be true to oneself.

> Well, a lot of us mistakenly go into Art school thinking we are going to
learn how to do what we already know and love in a better and better way.
What Arts education is actually all about involves the same end but they
typically accomplish it by forcing us out of our comfort zones and into new
and untried territories, new ways of seeing, hearing, thinking, being.
Whether this winds up molding everything you do forever after in their
image -- or merely
 coloring, shading and adding depth to it is our choice.

Ok... I give... I do realize it's about stretching boundaries. And maybe 
I'm
a little set in my ways! I'm so jealous *now* of those who actually have 
the
time to go to art school! I'm trying to achieve a degree of that now
following 'the cyber way'... bouncing ideas off everyone here and
collaborating etc. What puts me off though is the feeling that I'm just
plain NOT going to play with most of those guys, because I'm somehow more
derivative and less edumacated. I'm probably just being paranoid... 
(lurking
wampeters... I can actually count my blessings!)

Maybe we'll all get down to the Central Cali Loop Fest and hear each other
there. I'm trying to get it on my calendar, but embarrassingly enough, I've
actively resumed racing skateboards and am busily penciling in events I'm
going to be racing at in the upcoming 2002 season... Very strange for a 48
year old.

Fourth: Age... Hey I'm old (48) too!

So... to throw another tangent into the mix.

I had the wonderful opportunity to be included in music events up at Mount
Madonna Center, rounding up their huge yearly yoga retreat. I was in the 
pit
band for a play "Renouncement" as well as their New Years eve program the
following night, and got to play with Steve Oda (sp?), an amazing Sarod
player. It turned out that he either is or was the director up at the Ali
Akbar Khan college in Marin. It was so humbling to hear Steve and other
Indian trad musicians sing play... a Bansuri player named Sanjay and 
several
others. Now I want to learn some Sarod and Indian music... Do I have time?
NO... but I'm probably gonna be trying to hang out with those guys a bit
more and soak it up. I'm wondering what a decent student Sarod might cost?

ObLoopItem: I DID integrate looping both evenings...

> ....... A friend of mine (it might have even been Jeff Kaiser) once told
me that all Art is nothing more than children calling to one another across
a mud puddle and saying, "Hey everybody! Look at the mud pie I made!"

Hey! I want to throw mud too! You betcha...

>>Hey! And I also wanted to compliment you on your recent release somewhere
in all of this...

> Thanks! Do you have a mud pie... er...CD (or other music posted or
otherwise available out there in cyberspace)? I'd be interested in hearing
it. I'm often surprised that comparatively little music itself gets
exchanged or shared within the community of the LD list members (as far as 
I
ever hear about it anyway) other than the LD CDs and the odd
self-promotional message of confirmed egoists like myself.

Well... a bunch of us from the list decided to do a chain tape, and ended 
up
with a 4 cd set... we then formed the Chain Tape Collective
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CT-Collective where we propose projects. Then
there's the Loop Exchange at
http://www.music.columbia.edu/~cecenter/mhl21/ct/ct.html where I and 62
others have several tracks in various locations. (We've really grown!)

I have to say I seem to have caved in (or many of us have) and haven't
pushed forward on our latest projects, mine being of a "Lounge" theme. 
Maybe
you want to dust of some of those top-secret Tijuana Brass fetish licks and
send me a track! Maybe 2002 will bring us back on track... I still hit
'record' from time to time, and now have a computer DAW... The studio is
partly in disarray, but I'll get it more set up and crank out more stuff.
I've just purchased a printer to put labels on cd's etc.!

I will be back!!!!

> Best, Ted Killian

So very nice talking with you too!
-Miko Biffle