Re: Frippertronics and Soundscapes

["Steve Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

"Kim Flint" <kflint@loopers-delight.com> eloquently put forth:

> To set that record straight a little bit, I never even heard of Robert
> Fripp until long after I was into looping. I played guitar for a good 12
> years or so before that and didn't ever hear of him then either. I never
> remember any other musician friends, teachers, or even magazine articles
> discussing him while I was growing up, and I was a guitar fanatic at the
> time. It seems to me he was mainly an influence on a different generation
> from mine. Sorry if your generation's heros didn't become mine, but that
> wasn't really my doing.

It's okay.  I'd never heard of huge list of artists including David Torn
(sorry!) until I was on this list.  Still haven't heard a vast majority of
the stuff discussed, either, beyond Internet URLs.  This is mostly because
[a] I don't really listen to the radio (and LA radio sucked when I was 
there
anyway; [b] I usually just have enough money to buy blank CD-Rs (and that's
LATELY!); and [c] the CDs I've added to my collection since oh, 1995 have
been thanks to swaps and Christmas/Birthday presents.  (If anyone's got a
suggestion for stimulating radio in the UK that you don't have to put up
with hearing a boy/girl band to hear nuggets, I'd love to hear it!)

So yes, it might seem a bit limiting!  There IS the Internet, thank God.
It's been my only real channel for new music since 1996, besides the
suggestions of this list.  And so my first request/suggestion for the
future, when folks say so-and-so is really cool and so forth, gimme a URL!
We're in the midst of a move within the next month or so (yes, another 
one!)
and selling a flat, but up at Mum's house we'll be getting broadband, and 
so
I'll be able to listen to music and whatnot with impunity, and not a lot of
gaps, either. :)

But back to the discussion.  I started playing guitar 'round 1970, because
my Dad's guitar lessons went south after the store went broke, and let him
keep the nameless guitar, which languished in the corner of the TV room,
rendered to uh, decoration.  I snaked it upstairs very soon, and until 1979
or so played general rock.  You know, ROCK?

I found myself in suburban New Jersey after an aborted stay at Syracuse
University in 1979; and the scene at the time in the NYC area was just
fucking reverberating with new stuff all the time.  Very exciting.  During
this period I "discovered" Fripp and Eno, unless you include King Crimson's
first album; and, to be frank, I was a very stubborn, often pragmatic 
person
as an artist at least at the time, so much so when in school.  Very
reluctant to take the slightest suggestion, much less recommendations for
Music You Might Dig.  Amongst such recommendations I recall were Roxy Music
and Brian Eno.  Shame on me!  Immersed in the wonderful media attention 
that
new music got in the NYC area back then before I moved to LA in 1984, I was
finally exposed to Fripp's work, and re-exposed to Roxy, Eno, etc. - 
getting
to Fripp play live multiple times, becoming some kind of musical disciple 
in
a sense, and after seeing the diagram on the back of Discreet Music, saw my
future, if not a severe case of Techno-Lust.  I didn't get my first looping
device, my beloved DDS Time Machine 7.6, until I got it in 1992.  I like to
think that I've been part of a huge tide of home recording artists (not 
just
"enthusiasts", thank you very much!), that started in the early 80s, and
became the wave it is today, thanks to the lower prices of components.
Excelsior!

To distinguish that period (1979-1984 for me) from the present one, people
for the most part back then used different signatures for their beats, and
didn't equate musical climax with simply turning up the BPM to the max.  So
much for that.

To finish on a point of advice from someone who was very difficult to give
it to once, I say don't be difficult when folks who think you might like
something push it on yez.  Hell, who knows what my work would be like if 
I'd
just sat down and listened to Music for Films, in 1977?

Steve Goodman
EarthLight Productions
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