MGH and BradH...

[Resident Loser]

...firstly, my apologies for the tardiness of my response...been kind of blue for the last few weeks, what with real life and all...just now getting back to some semblance of normalcy...

Back to MDs KOB...Is KOB pretentious, excessive, contrived or whatever?

I don't know, is it? Simply strikes me as a really good album with less than self-indulgence as it's root...don't really see any long winded, endless solos...everybody takes a shot, de rigeur for most jazz (pretty much in all periods) as I see it...I don't see it as particularly dated, No overt big-band sound...Birth Of The Cool borders on that...it's not Dixieland and it's not pop...usually lyrics will tend to do that...

OTOH the VU disk is of the moment IMHO...produced with lyrics aimed more for shock value back in the age of Aquarius...evabody's gettin' nekkid and high and gettin' it on...top it off with AWs jacket and it seems to be a poster child for contrivance...

Which one is "...of the streets..."?

KOB? He!!...I'm sure if one is of a mind to root around long enough, a case could be made to trace it's lineage to field hollers of the 18th century...Does it contain secret musical codes only black folks can relate to?...It may have a tale to tell, but without any story or mytholgy to accompany it, what do we have?...It's not like Peter And The Wolf where every instrument represents a character, a concept further buttressed by a narrative...no Wagnerian leitmotif to guide us along...Bassoons indicating the arrival of a basso profundo heavy, a la Mozart' are conspicuous by their absence...No Moody Blues tales...Perhaps MD had something in mind...is there info to support that hypothesis? I'd be eager to read it...Is Freddie Freeloader lookin' for a fix? Or has he more to do with the Red Skelton character with the middle name of the? I suppose we'll never really know...

VU is simply a paean to the underbelly of society; certainly it revels in it's street savvy...But without lyrics, where do we position it's music? With apologies to Elvis Costello: less than zero?

So how can I like and enjoy KOB and disparage VU with extreme prejudice?

jimHJJ(...seems obvious to me...)

[BradH]

OTOH the VU disk is of the moment IMHO...produced with lyrics aimed more for shock value back in the age of Aquarius...evabody's gettin' nekkid and high and gettin' it on...top it off with AWs jacket and it seems to be a poster child for contrivance...

Oh, it was definitely "of the moment", no argument there. And you may not like the music, that's fine. It's more psychedelic than a lot of 70's punks probably would've admitted. Parts of it aren't far from Pink Floyd circa '66. But to categorize that album as part of the Age of Aquarius crowd is a huge misunderstanding. It was the total antithesis to the I'm Okay/You're Okay Let's Get High And Make Love To Groovy People mentality. We're talking NYC, not Haight-Ashbury. Reed's vision was inspired by the dark underbelly of society via Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Those writers were his source of inspiration and he wanted to create a darker music to reflect that. I think he succeeded. Does that make it a "paen to the underbelly of society" as you say? You may as well ask the same of Hammett & Chandler. You may as well ask the same of all writers and artists. Jay and I talked about the irrationality of the arts one time and I described it like this: No one wants to watch a movie or read a book where every character attempts to solve their problems in a calm rational manner. No, we like to see people f*ck up, act irrationally and then solve their problem. Or not, depending on whether you like happy endings. It's not just a holdover from the Romantic Era, either. This goes back to Norse mythology. They were almost like soap operas. There's a voyeuristic pleasure in it. Schedenfruede the Germans call it. Enjoying the suffering of others. So, if you want to talk about glorification of seedy characters I think it opens up a much larger question about the arts in general. Does VU's debut have more street cred than Miles? Not in my books. Those cops who beat the sh!t out of him in midtown didn't bother to ask who he was and wouldn't have cared either way. He was just another black guy standing in front of another jazz club. This gets to the point Jay was driving at, I believe. It caught my attention because I'm fascinated by how the cutting-edge underground transforms into established, accepted norms of society. The old swing bands and crooners were frowned upon in thier day by "proper" society so forget about field hollers. Jazz had street cred all through it.

[MindGoneHaywire]

ZZZZZZzzzzzzz....


>Is KOB pretentious, excessive, contrived or whatever?

Not to me. However, it is to some. To wit: "Let's go into the studio & record only modal toons, like what we started on the last album, with no standard blues chord progressions whatsoever, and it'll be all artistic & novel & great! Bill Evans can write the liner notes, which just might be scandalous in itself, since only critics write notes, not the musicians, so this could help make it seem even more self-important than it is!"

That's a summary of some criticism I've seen & heard lobbed at this rec due to people finding it pretentious. I do not agree with this view, but I understand where they're coming from. As I've previously stated, I have nothing against "pretentious" per se. If I think it's good, it doesn't matter to me if someone else thinks it's pretentious.


>don't really see any long winded, endless solos

Difficult to see how anyone could miss the point any more than you have. I fail to see why anyone would apply the same standards to criticism of long solos in rock that they would to long solos in jazz. Or, if Troy is reading this, fusion, for that matter, or jazz fusion. Or jazz-rock fusion. Or...


>OTOH the VU disk is of the moment IMHO

And how is KOB not of its moment? Let's see. It wasn't 'behind the times.' Maybe it was 'ahead of its time.' Well, then, I guess it's not 'of its moment.' You win. Unless you take into consideration that Miles was not the only artist working in this area & towards these ends. Musically I think it's fair to say that this record could very much be considered 'of its moment.' If you listen to what Miles did on Milestones, along with a few jazz recs that were recorded at the time KOB was, and come to a different conclusion, that'd probably be an interesting read, if only for amusement.

Also, this "Aquarius" stuff is nonsense. January 1967? In New York City? It helps if you know a little about what you're talking about. In California, I believe it was Cher who proclaimed that the VU 'will replace nothing, except suicide,' or something to that effect. Lou Reed put down the Grateful Dead & Jefferson Airplane thusly: "...it's a joke. The kids are being hyped." They also disliked Zappa intensely, in no small part because Zappa allegedly received favorable treatment they were denied at Verve. White Light/White Heat was conceived as a reaction to the Summer Of Love, which they hated, but that's not the point. "The moment" when the rec you dislike so much was recorded & released was specifically not related to "Aquarius" in any way, shape, or form, and preceded it by at least a year or two. I suppose it's beyond any reasonable expectation that you'd know that Galt MacDermot's music for Hair didn't even make it to the stage until 1968, and the popular, 5th Dimension version of 'Aquarius' didn't even come out until 1969.


>lyrics aimed more for shock value back in the age of Aquarius

Most of which were written in 1965 & 1966, some prior. Aquarius...geez. I'm not sure what validity the 'shock value' charge holds; even if true, so what? It resonated with people, so even if that happened for reasons you don't like, it doesn't really matter, since the point of the piece was influence. It's okay to view that influence as negative. It's okay to put up the wrongheaded view that it wasn't influential because you didn't like it, too, but when you do this, you risk looking like a fool when it's pointed out that you're arguing personal like & dislike, as opposed to whether or not the piece is valid: either the influence can be measured, or it can't. The writers of the piece ended up presenting a muddled & shaky piece that makes some good points & ignores others in favor of some frankly inexplicable posturing, but most of their choices make sense according to the terms they defined. That you chose to ignore those terms & make it about what you wanted to make it about is a rather telling commentary on yr seeming inability to understand the intent of a rock critic. I think a 3rd grader would have an easier time with it. It's just a list of albums, for Pete's sake.


>Which one is "...of the streets..."?

Brad--you think this guy knows anything about the Birdland incident? Doesn't seem likely to me. Now, to be fair, that happened a few months after the record was recorded, but I think it's fair to say that the treatment that a black jazz band received traveling around America in the 1950s & decades prior may well have played a role in how the musicians chose to approach their creativity. This is something that's hard to measure. However, as I've previously pointed out, 'So What,' perhaps Miles' one signature tune above any other, bears a title that, uh, sure sounds like it's 'of the streets' to me. It was a phrase Miles was known for. He was a jaded & cynical guy. The Birdland assault & arrest was something that was probably more symbolic than anything else, something that may have come close to happening before that, but never quite did. I don't know if you can say that it or any prior ill treatment (or, by contrast, the far different treatment that American black jazz musicians were afforded in France, which always impressed Miles greatly) led to anger being reflected in Miles' music per se, although it's probably far more evident later on. Nevertheless, it was a far cry from the more established jazz forms such as Dixieland & swing; and what Miles did to standards wasn't exactly conventional, either. (In other words, "Dig" & "Blue Haze" sure seem more "of the streets" to me than, say, "In The Mood," but I don't even expect you to agree with this or see the point) So I say it's not that difficult to look at KOB as reflecting 'the streets,' because bop in general, which preceded KOB, can certainly be looked at in this way. The musicians made music that some saw as shutting the outside world out. Which was why Louis Jordan stated specifically that he wanted to make music for the audience, not for other musicians. Maybe we can assume that it's not that difficult to figure out who & what he was talking about.

Now that I'm in the position of having to repeat myself...Freddie Freeloader was based on a real person, YES, and he was indeed considered to be a...freeloader. How is this not 'of the streets'?

It's a debatable topic that Miles stole some or all of 'Blue In Green' from Bill Evans. But we know that there was a dispute between them on that score that played a significant role in Evans leaving the Quintet/Sextet, and there is the (again) previously mentioned issue of Evans' insistence on claiming at least co-credit when able, especially on his own re-recording of the toon. Yeah, I guess theft shouldn't be considered 'of the streets.' Must happen only in some elitist stratosphere.

Yawn.


>I'm sure if one is of a mind to root around long enough, a case could be made to trace it's lineage to field hollers of the 18th century...Does it contain secret musical codes only black folks can relate to?

GMAB.


>It may have a tale to tell, but without any story or mytholgy to accompany it, what do we have?

If we're interested enough, we have more than you've cared to make yrself familiar with. Yr slant on this is not completely wrong, it's just directed with no discipline or insight on a poor target. If only you found out just a bit more about stuff you're spouting about, you might understand how others may come to more valid conclusions based on actually knowing something about the subject in question.

As if a further example was needed, Lou Reed wrote 'Heroin,' so he's of the streets...but Miles, who was an ex-junkie, and who played with junkies & ex-junkies for years...was not. You don't perceive this in the music, which is fine, but that doesn't give you the right to dismiss that others may validly feel differently. You're saying jazz wasn't 'street' music. I say it was. And I think that's a difficult notion to contest if you look at the lifestyles of the people involved, and under what conditions these works were created. For example...

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2305



>Perhaps MD had something in mind...is there info to support that hypothesis? I'd be eager to read it

There is information available, and people are free to draw their own conclusions. I linked to the book about KOB in the previous thread, I believe. And I think there's been a book or two written about Miles Davis. He even wrote one about himself.


>VU is simply a paean to the underbelly of society; certainly it revels in it's street savvy...But without lyrics, where do we position it's music? With apologies to Elvis Costello: less than zero?

Uh-huh. Interesting. Well, you have yr view of the instrumental portion of tracks like Venus In Furs, and I have mine. Elvis Costello's own pop songs aren't that far off from the pop songs on this record. Curious that you would quote him in a dismissal of music that many consider to bear quite a few similarities to his own work. Well, I guess we can count you as a member of the "Elvis Costello: good/Lou Reed & John Cale: bad" camp.


>So how can I like and enjoy KOB and disparage VU with extreme prejudice?

Because you're free to make yr own decisions, ridiculous as they might seem to those of us who choose to listen with very different ears. As always, you are entitled to yr opinion. I'm not certain that Senator Moynihan was the author of the related quote, but he was certainly known for it...you are not entitled to yr own facts. I say the facts don't support yr conclusions. You are free to disagree. Just don't hurt yrself there.

[BradH]

Lou Reed put down the Grateful Dead & Jefferson Airplane thusly: "...it's a joke. The kids are being hyped." They also disliked Zappa intensely.

Let's give a little shout out for Lou, shall we?

[Resident Loser]

...get the children and small pets to higher ground...it's gettin' awful deep...

There's this thing called the KISS (Keep It Super Simple or if you prefer, Keep It Simple Stupid) principle...very reductionist...We see questions like "should we use banana plugs or spade-tips on our wires?"...I say use bare or tinned wires...Such is the case here...

An awful lot of rhetoric and posturing, ranging from from literary comparisons to a near endictment of western art to lord knows what...

Reed inspired by the authors of such classics as The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man and The Big Sleep?...Funny. I thought it was more like some porn or eroticism (if you prefer) from Sacher-Masoch and Tony Conrad...Seems a world of diff between some hard-boiled private detectives and sado-masochism...but go figure...

Now let's apply that KISS principle:

Simply based on prima facie evidence, VUs name and the title of one song is based on those aforementioned porn references...The lyrics, well what can we say that hasn't already been articulated...the music sans lyrics leaves much to be desired IMHO...and we have a bit of pop art from one who doesn't deserve his oft-quoted 15 minutes of fame...soup-to-nuts pretense and packaging...A calculated reaction to Mods, California dreamin', the nascent stages of the summer of love and pot-smokin' hippies, tie it up in a neat hemp string and you have the BS decade of the '60s aka the Age of Aquarius...a title from '67s Hair which BTW predates the 5th Dimension...

OTOH...KOB, a picture of a young man with a horn and some enigmatic liner notes...the music, just plain cool...no lyric needed...no hype...just brings me back to that tumbler of Wid Turkey...

Racism? Gee. like we didn't know what black performers had to deal with...

Drug addiction? From what I've read both Davis and Coltrane were considered persona non grata by record execs...

Doesn't wear it's "street cred" on its sleeve...it doesn't need to...

jimHJJ(...not one bit...)

[BradH]

There's this thing called the KISS (Keep It Super Simple or if you prefer, Keep It Simple Stupid) principle...very reductionist...We see questions like "should we use banana plugs or spade-tips on our wires?"...I say use bare or tinned wires...Such is the case here...

You really don't know what the hell you're talking about do you?


An awful lot of rhetoric and posturing, ranging from from literary comparisons to a near endictment of western art to lord knows what...

In other words, you have no response to any of those points. The only rhetoric and posturing I see is coming from you. Lots of posturing with your phony intellectual sig quotes and lots of rhetoric to the tune of "gosh, I'm just a reg'ler reductionist feller" when your ignorance is exposed.


Racism? Gee. like we didn't know what black performers had to deal with...

Again, you missed the point. Not surprising.

[Resident Loser]

You really don't know what the hell you're talking about do you?

...I do...sorry you don't quite get the wire analogy


In other words, you have no response to any of those points. The only rhetoric and posturing I see is coming from you. Lots of posturing with your phony intellectual sig quotes and lots of rhetoric to the tune of "gosh, I'm just a reg'ler reductionist feller" when your ignorance is exposed.

...Respond?...I did...sorry you didn't get it...

..."Phony intellectual sig quotes"...Don't quite get them either, eh?...you should get out and about more often...at least away from Rave Reviews...This hobby (audio, that is, just to make it perfectly clear) is rife with BS pseudo-science and much of it is based on heresay, anecdotal hogwash and wishful thinking; that's what the majority of my sig is aimed at...Opinions re: the music, well, just like the now infamous LIST itself, isn't rife with or based on anything...It is the genuine article...Although I must admit the last sig does somewhat apply in this instance...


Again, you missed the point. Not surprising.

...and what point was that? I really don't need a primer in history unless I'm dealing with historical events...As a simple consumer, I don't need "product" that advertises my good taste, or my urbane, east-coast "intellectuality"...although some of us do, and like to talk loudly in public about such things...Just to veer slighlty, I recall being in the Guggenheim some while ago during a Kandinsky "retrospective"...for those of you unaware of his "work", suffice it to say he's one of those artistes whose "art" resembles those ugly future-iffic curtains from the '50s...So bad he makes Pollock look good...anywho, you've got two leather-clad artsy-fartsy types loudly going on and on about a particular piece which was IMO a collection spirals, doodles and variations on the old Nabisco trademark of an oval with antennae...they were there seeing and being seen and what more could you want?

So, sorry charlie... we don't want tuna with good taste, we want tuna that tastes good...VU (with or without Nico) $uck$ and KOB doesn't...

jimHJJ(...and I can't reduce it to anything simpler...)

[MindGoneHaywire]

Unbelievable...


>Simply based on prima facie evidence

Ever hear of "Doesn't Always Apply"?

Here, I'll "Keep It Super Simple," & reference this one example, if only to show that NO, it wasn't ONLY about the impressions that SOMEBODY in this thread drew, with, er, limited knowledge of the subject at hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delmore_Schwartz


"In 1962, Schwartz began teaching Creative Writing at Syracuse University. One of his students was future singer-songwriter Lou Reed, who dedicated several songs to his mentor (most notably "European Son"). Schwartz reportedly told Reed at one point, "You can write—and if you ever sell out and there's a Heaven from which you can be haunted, I'll haunt you," and Reed never forgot. He attended Schwartz's funeral in 1966, and years later in his song "My House," Reed tells a story of a ghost in his new home who spells out D-E-L-M-O-R-E on an Ouija board, and who doesn't spook him, but inspires him instead.

"The expression "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" is a favorite among literary intellectuals and shows up in unexpected places (i.e. the movie Deep Cover [1]).

"Schwartz has been called "the greatest of American writers, whose work has a place in the hearts and minds of the everyman, adrift in the anguish of modernity" (J. Kredell: "A Smudge on the American Cultural Panorama," 2000)."


Lastly, on the perfectly reasonable supposition that this last quote there might be a reach, I'll offer one from Lou Reed himself, which I'm sure will change a lot of minds at this point.

"I'd harbored the hope that the intelligence that once inhabited novels and films would ingest rock. I was, perhaps, wrong."

[BradH]

I really don't need a primer in history unless I'm dealing with historical events...

Hey, that works fine for a lot of people. Like you, they see music as simply a product and everybody's opinion carries equal weight. No sweat, it's what makes the board go 'round. But that doesn't mean you get to re-write musical history or erase the context these works were created in. Those issues are based on facts, not some touchy-feely post-modern opinion fest that you claim Rave Recs to be. I couldn't care less whether you think VU sucks or not. But your opinion about VU's influence has no more significance than a guest speaker at a crop-circle convention. Instead of goose-stepping about leather clad elites in art galleries or masturbating over your simple-minded sig quotes you could just answer the questions that are raised in this thread. Of course, that would require a higher level of linear thinking than you've displayed so far. Oh well, thanks for responding. I thought there might be a good debate about jazz in all this but it ain't gonna happen.

[MindGoneHaywire]

So let's make it happen, it beats this BS. I have a question: what lines can be drawn between hard bop & cool? I hear so much overlap in certain areas that it's difficult to reconcile that there was a divide between, for example, the Modern Jazz Quartet, who seemed to care about the alleged conflict, and, say, Chet Baker, or Lennie Tristano, or Dave Brubeck, who apparently either didn't, or just weren't interested in a deconstruction that was liable to lead to some pointing to what they did as a generalization, as a lily-white copy of the genuine article. I think this is absolute nonsense, regardless of how much more interesting I generally find the records of the 'east coasters.' I can listen to the Baker stuff from the 1950s for literally hours on end, but that can't make me like it more than the two names that seem to tower over all, for the most part, during this period, Miles & Coltrane, of course. (Of course, once we bring lunatics like Mingus & Monk into the picture, all bets are off, nevermind the free crew)

KOB seems to cut directly through the middle ground between these labels & incorporate elements of both. If anything, it does so more effectively than any record I've ever heard--the pinnacle of jazz crossover. This analogy may seem odd, but I'd mention Michael Jackson's Thriller, not in a popularity competition, but in terms of capturing the attention, and fancy, of fans of at least somewhat disparate styles that are merged for what seems be the equal goal of crossing over artistically and commercially. In the case of KOB, there is the technically involved matter of the structures being modal, but in any case, if you're looking for the moods of West Coast Cool, it's there. If you are looking for the distinctive tone of the more East Coast hard bop, that's in effect as well, even if it's structurally different & isn't necessarily the focus of the record (as it was on previous Coltrane recs, not to mention the one he was working on at virtually the same time, Giant Steps). Unlike the landmark 4-pack of Prestige contractual obligation records, there are five songs that are as different as can be, all of which go to such different places that it's difficult to think of jazz records that offer such a positive, deep, and rich listener experience while being as flexible and diverse. I mean...Flamenco Sketches? Does that song make sense on Milestones? On Miles Ahead? On Round About Midnight? Or on the next quintet album, Someday My Prince Will Come? No, it's a one-of-a-kind entry that might perhaps be comfortable to hear if tucked in neatly somewhere on the very different Sketches Of Spain.

There's so much that sounds relatively genteel today--nothing terribly aggressive--that helps establish the pointless & ultimately somewhat dubious assertion that this record is NOT 'from the streets,' yet a closer examination yields information that points to it being more so than one might think. But, hell, what streets? 52nd Street, where the clubs where? We're not talking necessarily about the streets of the East Village, or Chinatown, or Douglaston, Norwood, Todt Hill, Sunnyside, or Greenpoint. But...hell, I'm not sure when exactly Miles purchased his townhouse on West 77th St. It's down the block from one of my favorite restaurants in the entire city. Tell you what, put a pair of headphones on a Walkman or a Discman, and take a walk around the Upper West Side where Miles lived, for many years, even if not exactly when that rec was made. Walk around Broadway, Riverside Park, West End Avenue, from the West 50s up through West 125th, perhaps higher up. Do it on a weekend morning. Or, hell, any evening. Use that album as a soundtrack to a journey through a neighborhood that boasts incredible architecture. Hell, go to Brooklyn Heights & try the same thing, or Park Slope, even. There's a phrase for this little listening experiment: it works.

Of course, it works with a variety of jazz. I remember driving around the UWS many years ago, with prime Billie Holiday on the car stereo. We had nowhere to go in particular. A friend's remark, as we drove around just admiring the city, the buildings, with the music as the perfect backdrop: I feel like I'm in a Woody Allen movie, he said. It clicked, made absolute sense. A very fond memory. And one that's not as difficult to at least attempt to replicate as certain others.

A similar experiment can be done down on the Lower East Side with that VU record--that's where that particular album belongs, where it deserves to be heard. Seeing the sun come up, if that's not too cliched. But I've never done that. I usually feel empty on the rare occasions I do see the sun come up. Beyond that, I'm not a huge fan of that particular VU album, as if I haven't stated that a jillion times, and am just a little baffled on the basis of my finding other recs of theirs to be much better...if not quite as interesting. I lived around the corner from the apartment where the early incarnation of the VU recorded some of the demos that comprise the first disc of the Peel It & See box set, and it didn't mean Jack. It's a good rec, but give me the 3rd one, give me VU, give me Live 1969, the Quine Tapes, or Loaded. What can I say. If I could have only one, it'd be VU, which was the first I ever heard, and one I fell in love with, because it was the epitome of a great 60s pop/rock album, along with the mystique of it having been buried & unreleased for well over 15 years, for no apparent rational reason. You're going to listen to 'I Can't Stand It,' 'Stephanie Says,' 'Foggy Notion,' et al, and render the same judgments you have applied to the first rec based on yr dislike of the audience & what they wore? Of course, it doesn't matter that when this rec was recorded, John Cale was mostly long gone, that the EPI was a thing of the past, that Andy Warhol had been tossed, that they were, had become, a rock band, had tossed away the trappings of the arty stuff, the classical conceits brought in by Cale, who, again, had been brought to this country to study music partly due to the recommendations of the likes of Aaron Copland & Leonard Bernstein. Ah, none of that matters. They suck, and sucked, because you say so. This record that came out in 1985, I do wonder if you've ever heard it, though one muses that the dismissal that 'the VU sucks with or without Nico' or whatever it is you wrote is a remark that indicates you are familiar with what they did. Hey, I'm sure you can tell us exactly why Willie Alexander just didn't bring that much spark to the band, too.

I spend far too much time defending records that aren't exactly my cup of tea, or ones in catalogs where I far prefer other offerings, merely to rebut halfwits who don't know anything about what they're talking about, and revel in their judgments, which is their right, but which they make without, again, knowing what they're talking about. Considering the posturing through clever wordplay, a specific voice, and oh-so-hip sig lines designed to let us all know we're messing with one super-in-tune mofo, you'd think such a harsh judgment would at least have been arrived at on the basis of knowledge such as what Brad & I have raised in this thread, about the, yes, literary influences beyond s&m paperbacks, and such. It's nearly impossible to believe that someone who was a self-described rocker pro in NYC doesn't know these things. The opinion that the music sucks, that anyone who likes it is a pretentious wad? You're welcome to it. Doesn't mean it has a shred of credibility. Isn't informing yr judgment with a little knowledge something that may give you a shot on making an informed judgment, rather than what seems to be an emotional one? Some of us don't like or give a sh*t about black-clad hipsters, either. Personally I've always loathed those sorts of people. Yet I find myself on the side of defending their pretentiousness, merely because yr attacks on that scene are simply not well-founded.

You could make a LOT of points that would make a LOT of sense...if only you knew a little more about the subject. That's not a lot to ask. Since of course you can say & think whatever you like, I would simply offer the friendly suggestion that harsh judgments, regardless of right or wrong, deserve to be backed up with knowledge, the ability to be able to respond to examples, based on documented facts, that end up being in direct conflict with your point of view.

It makes for a far more constructive debate, too. I mean, aren't you tired of this crap? Trying to tell us that the decade of the 60s was BS, the 'Age Of Aquarius?' Do you know even ONE person who will tell you that that phrase came into use until the 1969 megahit recorded by the 5th Dimension. Maybe you're the type who's willing to accept the retroactive stamp, but I call BS, sorry. Oh, hell, if you want to stick to the technical argument that Hair was a 1967 musical, that's great. It managed only a few dozen performances at a decidedly unconventional venue before it finally made it to a real theater in the spring of 1968.

Calling the 1960s the 'Age Of Aquarius' is as feckless as calling the 1970s the 'You Light Up My Life' decade. Or, hell, the 'I Will Survive' decade. Drop that one, if you would, sir. It's a load.

But then this whole thing is. You have yr view, which I see as lacking in facts, which when I bring them up, you respond with snide remarks about how 'deep' it's getting in here. Why'd you bring it back up, then? I take little joy in this. I'd rather have the far-more-worthy jazz debate. Hell, not only do I not care, I believe I might just sleep better knowing you'll never again listen to another VU record since you hate them so much. But that doesn't mean I'll stay silent when you characterize them as being primarily about this or that, when the things you point to might've amounted to perhaps 15% of what they incorporated into what they did. I have no great love for the reach for more, not less, artistic pretense, but sometimes it works & sometimes it doesn't. I understand the criticism of modern art, and I agree with them to an extent, but that doesn't mean I'm not capable of looking at a Pollock work & marveling that he was able to create drip paintings that captivated people after his early career as a 3rd-rate Picasso ripoff. The art in him was the art of the con, but that doesn't mean the work in question is entirely unworthy of observation. What's more interesting is that he hated that he saw his talent as akin to being a con man. Hell, I like the drip paintings, even as I have little or no use for just about anything else that MOMA or the Whitney can trot out to try to wow me. The frustration you express about whatever exhibit you saw would be a hell of a lot more interesting to read if it didn't involve non-specific cheap shots & lackluster descriptions of whatever it is we're trying to imagine you witnessed. I have no problem believing it wasn't much to look at. Not the point. A lot of what you're saying about the VU constitutes judging them on the basis of their audience. Hell, when was the last time you even listened to that record? Ah, it doesn't matter. I really don't care. I just think a far more productive conversation could take place here. Instead I'm reduced to playing know-it-all because I know what names to enter into a search engine or online encyclopedia that help to counter yr arguments in a manner I deem to be solidly effective. You are free to disagree. But the attacks on Lou Reed & the VU work far better if you're able to offer examples for yr dislike that range beyond what you've laid out to this point. I don't really see any need to continue that part of the discussion, but I see little difference between this & having a problem with John Lennon because he deemed the Beatles 'more popular than Jesus,' or dismissing the music of the Rolling Stones, the Who, or, hell, the Sex Pistols, because at one time or another, Brian Jones, Keith Moon, and Sid Vicious all were photographed wearing something that either contained swastikas, or were otherwise connected somehow to WWII German SS imagery. Or throwing Jimi Hendrix' music in the crapper because his friend Eric Burdon claimed he beat women. Or throwing away Cat Stevens records for his religious foibles. Or having difficulty with bands like Van Halen, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, or Southern Rock acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd, because they struck poses & their audiences might be perceived as sycophantic, denim-clad cement-heads who might make it difficult for some who see themselves as different, if not "better," or "smarter," in some way, to attempt to enjoy the music on the same level, given a potentially dim view taken of the rest of the audience.

This actually doesn't seem all that far off from what you're getting at. Makes no sense.

Now--if MIles & Coltrane were persona non grata among record execs, how'd Miles get signed to Columbia, and Coltrane to Atlantic, especially after both had recorded sporadically for Blue Note & Prestige? That one isn't exactly, uh, true, although you could perhaps find a way to make that make a little more sense if you put it in some kind of context & give us examples.

Hmmm?

[Resident Loser]

...Instead of goose-stepping about leather clad elites in art galleries or masturbating over your simple-minded sig quotes you could just answer the questions that are raised in this thread. Of course, that would require a higher level of linear thinking than you've displayed so far. Oh well, thanks for responding. I thought there might be a good debate about jazz in all this but it ain't gonna happen.

...what this is supposed to be?...Funny thing is I'm responding to the notion put forth that I am somehow inconsistent by lauding KOB and dumping on VU since they are oh so similar...to wit:


...What, you think there's that large a gap between the cultural & societal behaviors & trends, in fashion & elsewhere, between the scene north of 125th St. in the 40s & 50s, and the East Village hipster gang a few years later? Or, for that matter, the folkies a few blocks to the west, who populated the scene Dylan emerged from?

Talk about verbal masturbation...This concept was never responded to because it was totally and completely irrelevant to the thread...I neither said nor inferred anything of the sort...but in typical smokescreen-style, it's simply a device intended to put me on the defensive...and validates quite nicely my final sig of: "If you repeat a lie often enough, some will believe it to be the truth..."

And when all is said and done, if you cite my use of the phrase "of the street" as some sort of reference point, it will only go on to prove your reading comprehension is subpar...VU howls at the moon citing it's intent and ability to expose the underbelly of society with all of its' over-hyped trappings while KOB simply makes music...

jimHJJ(...how many different ways must I say the same thing until you get it?...)

[Resident Loser]

Quite convenient to use only some of the info, but for a brief reprise to all and sundry, the quote in it's entireity:


Drug addiction? From what I've read both Davis and Coltrane were considered persona non grata by record execs...

And do note the underlined...wasn't privy to the events, only have the written word to go by...I won't bore everyone to tears with a lengthy tome, kitchen sink inclusive...from what I've read while they were both under contract with various labels, output seems to have been limited, Davis live performances were spotty, which annoyed the audiences (Do unhappy fans buy recordings?) and the group Coltrane recorded with for Prestige broke up as a direct result of his heroin addiction...I doubt the suits had real warm and fuzzy feelings at the time...Even in the '50s, there was this thing known as the bottom line.

So while my reductionist verbiage may strike a dissonant chord to some, it is essentially a truism...HOWEVER (and again from what I've read) both parties cleaned up their respective acts and tried to get past their prior indiscretions...That lifestyle doesn't seem to have been some sort of badge of honor.

jimHJJ(...unlike the POV of others we have discussed...)

[Resident Loser]

...some "poetry" re: LR...

THE LITTLE WILLIES LYRICS

"Lou Reed"

We were drivin through West Texas
The land of beef and pork
Where they tend the hides of leather
We wear back in New York
In a pasture, along a roadside
Behind a brokedown shack
On a dusky side of evening
We saw a figure dressed in black

And we don't mean to sound like we're trippin
But we swear to God
We saw Lou Reed cow tippin
Cow tippin

Hey Lou, "Is that you?"
She said as we pulled to the shoulder
He just said, "Go screw."
And then he turned and tipped one over
Under a spitshine Western sky
The color of blue varnish
Hey it's like Fellini
Actually I'm thinkin more like Jim Jarmusch

And we can't say how much we've been sippin
But we swear to God
We saw Lou Reed cow tippin
Cow tippin

I got cops on the cell
I said I got a little story to tell
Lou Reed is in the cow pen
They said, Oh no! Not again!

And we hope our perceptions isn't slippin
But we swear to God
We saw Lou Reed cow tippin
Cow tippin

Cow tippin
Cow tippin
Cow tippin
You really think that was Lou Reed?
Cow tippin
I'm sure it was, he was wearing black Levis
Cow tippin
I thought he was a vegetarian
Cow tippin
He's just tippin them over, he wasn't eating them
Cow tippin
Oh
Cow tippin

jimHJJ(...Delmore Schwartz it ain't, I'm sure...)