On being an ageing prog act

[Jay.Dee]

The degree to which Crimson fandom regurgitates Fripp's rhetoric over the "double trio" is depressing. Fripp didn't start out with the "double trio" plan. He was, in part, manoeuvered into a sextet by circumstances and then offered up this convenient explanation -- this is Bruford's explanation of events, not mine. And most of the album simply doesn't fit the description.

Well, here is how Bill Bruford actually commented in 1996 his experiences with KC's double trio:

Working with another drummer is both a challenge and a limitation. We are part-playing, so when you've agreed to do something you kind of have to do it. Just "let it be". Whereas with one drummer, if you arrive at "let it be" and you decide you want to do it completely differently, I think you probably can.

The challenge and the excitement of two drummers is that you can do things that you just couldn't do with one drummer. You can go much further out with the beat, with the grooves. I can do polymetric stuff against Pat, I'm free to explore the uglier side of sonic choice - anything for the extreme. Had I done these types of things on my own in the past, the entire house of cards would have collapsed. So Pat is both a limitation and a liberation, which is really nice.

I was the last one on board. Robert had tried another drummer, Jerry Marotta. For some reason that didn't work out. And then Robert had a blinding vision - which he is occasionally prone to do - that two drummers was the answer.

To him, Pat, on his own, wouldn't provide everything that was necessary, and Bill, on his own, wouldn't either. But a combination would have everything that was needed and more. So Robert and I corresponded on the subject - being British, of course, we never use the telephone. And then Robert brought us together, "Bill meet Pat. Pat meet Bill. It's a double trio. Good luck and goodbye." And he left us alone. [...]

Robert's function is in creating an environment in which something might happen. He didn't know what would happen with two drummers, but he felt that something might, and that it might be exciting. He creates the environment, and then steps out of the way. I think that's the nature of bandleading sometimes. So it was up to Pat and me, and that was particularly interesting because I didn't know Pat from Adam. [...]

I don't have any reservations about this setup at all, because I enjoy creating something new. I quite like trying to make things work, no matter what the direction. If someone says "Pat Mastelotto and Bill Bruford playing together - very strange," to me that's great. That gets me salivating. Let's explore the very strange. [...]

I don't think there are any rules when it comes to sounds. [...] A lot of what I do, actually, is very improvised. A lot of that "Vrooom", "Thrak", and "Vrooom, Vrooom" material is improvised on my part, because the beat is very simple. It's just ticking along at a hundred and twenty or a hundred and seventeen b.p.m., and it's in 4/4. A lot of what I'm doing involves looking for a snaky little figure in between something Pat is doing, or just trying to stay out of his way. I can embellish around him. [...]

Robert's made requests of all of us. They are suggestions on how the group should go about its work. He is the leader. Some suggestions have been: "Gosh, Bill, I like the look of those funny hexagonal things. What do they sound like?" "Gosh, Bill, let's not use a hi-hat. Let's be brave." He's trying to make an interesting-sounding group, one that sounds a little different from the next, which I totally subscribe to. [...]

In general, I'm quite happy to work with these structures and constrictions, because it's often through working with limitations that you find out how to get around those limitations. And when you do that you develop as a musician. If you ask a lighting guy to only work in blues and greens you are going to get some really special blue and green effects. If you tell Picasso to have a blue period, he's going to go especially big time into blue. Tell me to work without a hi-hat, and I'll find something else. And I might not have bothered to find it if I hadn't been given the limitation.

A lot of performing artists like limitations of some sort. In fact, freedom is a terrifying concept and often leads to very bad music and very bad improvisation. It's often better to put on some type of limitations to get the people to work around or work with them.

[The recording was] much more straightforward than people might think. You put six people in a room and turn on lots of microphones. You play a take and if you don't like it you do another. Very jazz style. [And] very performance satisfying.

I know that people would assume that a King Crimson recording is a multi-million dollar project and that we went round and round, manicuring it to death, but that's not the case. No one has the patience for that at all. Either the thing has a broad flavour of a roar to it that you like, or you do another take.

Nobody gives a damn whether that little hi-hat thingy you wanted to do in bar four got played or was even audible. There are six guys in a room and they've got their own problems! Who cares? If Pat Mastelotto can't hear anything I'm doing on the electronic drums, that's his problem, you know. It's like, "Too late, we recorded it." So it was brutally fast. You can't get precious about it and say, "Oh, but you know, I think the bass drum is a bit funny in bar four." Sorry. It's funny in bar four.

We're an organic recording band.

... and his opinion on YES' double quartet and stadium rock in general:

Alan White is also a good drummer, but Yes was a nightmare for me to play double drums in because Alan and Chris [Squire, bass] breathe together time-wise, kind of like a symphony orchestra. When Chris decides to slow the tempo, he slows it up. If he decides it should go faster, it goes faster. That's fine, and Alan does that very well with him. The only trouble is, if you're trying to play percussion with that, it's like, "Where did the time go?" It would take three or four bars for anything to settle. So that was very difficult.

My function on that tour was to have a good time and to fulfill a cast of characters - the reunion of Yes - and that was fine. I had no trouble with that at all, but it's not the sort of thing I'd give up my day job for. I had to get back to work after a tour that was really just a very nice summer vacation with old friends. [...]

I think the lure of the stadium can cause bad habits. [...] But stadium rock is stadium rock. It's an obsessive, narcissistic kind of endeavour. All those who want to do it, fine, but I don't think you're going to hear a lot of creative music happening at the stadium level. Usually you hear a prepared, straightforward rock thing, and that's fine. However, it's not a place you're likely to discover something new.

http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/In...Modern_Drummer

[Jay.Dee]

But colder reception to new tunes does provide a test of your thesis.

No, it does not. Colder is always relative, hence it does not necessarily mean cold.

[Jay.Dee]

Bill Bruford's autobiography is interesting on this topic: he's a renowned progger, few would attack Bruford as a money-grabber, yet he writes about being proud of how all his albums have turned a profit and castigates those who think that shouldn't be an artist's intent.

Yet at the same time he clearly sees what happens when the money takes over the music:

[Union] got hijacked by Arista Records who, having plowed money into this, decided… You know the phrase, “He who calls the piper calls the tune?”

The more money you pay for a record, the more money you interfere with it – and this was a big budget record. So, they eventually decided that the guys in France (Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe) needed the assistance of all the other Yes guys in California (Chris Squire, Tony Kaye, Trevor Rabin and Alan White).

So, our work was duly e-mailed, I guess, to them. They were then put on and found lacking. Then, also put on was a cast of a thousand studio musicians. So, the whole thing turned into the most God awful, auto-corrected mess you could possibly imagine! The worst record I’ve ever been on.

Union [was] just an awful waste of money; it’s an embarrassment. It’s a whole failure in the system that music should be produced that way. [...] At this point in my career [2005], I would rather produce an artefact with which I am 100 percent pleased and proud and perform to the best of my ability – to my highest sensibilities – in front of 300 people than do a mega tour in front of 30,000 people.

It was difficult [to tour Union]. I mean, I’m a professional guy, and I don’t mind taking a two or three month summer vacation with old friends and prancing about on a stage, but there was no (new) music played so… It was do able, because no new, fresh music needed to be originated. So, it was essentially a sort of fashion show with the full cast of Dallas or Dynasty all on stage.

http://www.worldofgenesis.com/BillBr...erview2005.htm

[Adm.Kirk]

Three artists that I would say are still pushing their new music: Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Bob Dylan. They regularly play lots of new material from whatever their current record is and, in the case of Dylan, new songs may stay in the set list long after the release. A recent show this summer is Durham found him playing six tracks from Tempest, his album of two or three years ago.

But the point about new music is well taken. Mick Jagger was asked about the huge break between Stones albums and he said that when the band tries to play new music, the crowd heads for the bathroom. However, it appears the Stones will be making a new album next year and I think that's more of Richards wanting to than Jagger.

Bill

[bRETT]

But the point about new music is well taken. Mick Jagger was asked about the huge break between Stones albums and he said that when the band tries to play new music, the crowd heads for the bathroom.

Which is an oft-used bad excuse. It's not like Jagger onstage really has any sense of whether people are going to the bathroom or not. I saw Santana last month and the set included a few songs from their NEXT album-- People stayed at their seats and danced, just like they did for everything else.

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ You do realise SS is being sarcastic there, yes?

article-2351071-1A90474E000005DC-533_468x586.jpg

[Rick Robson]

^ You do realise SS is being sarcastic there, yes?



It's one point of view, but other artists have talked about the importance of reaching out to an audience, of having an interaction with the audience. Bill Bruford's autobiography is interesting on this topic: he's a renowned progger, few would attack Bruford as a money-grabber, yet he writes about being proud of how all his albums have turned a profit and castigates those who think that shouldn't be an artist's intent.

So, I'm not saying you have to agree with Dolina or with Bruford, I'm saying that the presumption that an artist should ignore their audience isn't a god-given truth: it is a position that can be debated.

Henry

Hell yeah! his sarcasm was even more obvious at the fist paragraph.. my bad .
And I think it's a big truth that an artist should never ignore his audience, I see that interaction which BB refered to as an important feedback, I think an artist can learn a lot with it too, I take the interaction as an ability that each artist can acquire and develop to some extent, but just in order to improve or better his compositions/performances.

I just have to add a little amendment about Dolina words, he also remarked the importance of the interaction with his audience.

[yamishogun]

What's interesting about Asia and Cinema (i.e. what became the 90125 Yes) is that Rabin turned down Asia because he thought Cinema more interesting, and Cinema, reportedly, looked down on Asia for being too simple. As far as they were concerned, Cinema were definitely not modelling themselves on Asia.

Henry

You beat me to it... Asia's first album is solid but to me nothing close to the much more interesting 90125. It never occurred to me to compare the two and as I've said before I still forget that Steve Howe was in that band.

[yamishogun]

Which is an oft-used bad excuse. It's not like Jagger onstage really has any sense of whether people are going to the bathroom or not. I

I think when Jagger sees 20,000 in the audience head for the bathrooms, he has a sense of what caused it apart from beer.

[Rick Robson]

Meanwhile, in other genres of music (classical, folk), it is entirely acceptable for a musician to be a performer not a writer and to spend a whole career trying to perfect the same repertoire. Cellist Pablo Casals was asked, aged 90, why he still practiced for four or five hours every day. He replied, "Because I think I am making some progress." Casals didn't compose (least not anything of note) and spent his whole career performing the same core of classical pieces.

Henry

Isn't it because in the classical world the interpretation role has a much more prominent weight in the final result of a recording?

[notallwhowander]

Would you say Union and THRAK have nothing in common?

Outside of Billy-boy Bruford?

I like THRAK, and for the record: your favorite band sucks.

[PeterG]

Nobody has claimed this. This kind of discussion is talking about contemporary prog bands who stay to a certain sound, not the older music itself.

Yes they have, countless times, on this and other forums

[RapidRefresh]

My criteria for seeing an older artist is simple. If they can deliver the goods, I will go. If not, I'll pass. Examples: No to Ian Anderson and his over the hill and down into the valley voice. Yes to KC who still look and sound marvelous.

[Adm.Kirk]

Robert Plant continues to push new music and to greatly rearrange older Zep tunes, as well as some of his solo material too. I think he's done a great job at pushing forward and he really doesn't seem to rest on the nostalgia of the past. Jeff Beck hasn't exactly done that either.

Bill

[bondegezou]

A different perspective of whether a musician should be attentive to his audience, and to profit:

"the nightmare is Irrelevance. For the creative musician in a commercial world, relevance is confirmed in the only way it can be: by profit. I love profit and detest its absence. Profit is evidence of connection with real people who, having considered your work, find that diverting scarce resources from, say, that takeout Indian to your latest CD is a wholly worthwhile gesture. And in that gesture lies confirmation for the artist: that way lies sanity. The vanity publisher is toying with, at best, the irrelevant and, at worst, the delusional. Therefore, if you don't make a reasonable profit, you are either irrelevant or delusional, or possibly both. [...]

"If you, the artist, persist in cluttering the marketplace with objects, irrespective of monumental public indifference, evidenced by an unwillingness or outright refusal to pay for them in sufficient quantities to cover the cost of bringing them to the market with a modest profit, then we, the public, may safely accuse you of vanity publishing. [...]

"To be talked about, to be noticed for your work, is life. To be ignored - the unthinkable makes me shudder - that way lies death."

From "Bill Bruford - The Autobiography", p. 318-20.

Henry

[bondegezou]

Outside of Billy-boy Bruford?

I like THRAK, and for the record: your favorite band sucks.

Things Union and THRAK have in common: Bill Bruford, Tony Levin. So, a third of the THRAK band play on most of Union.

And there's one track on Union that wouldn't sound out of place on THRAK.

Henry

[Jay.Dee]

"the nightmare is Irrelevance. For the creative musician in a commercial world, relevance is confirmed in the only way it can be: by profit. I love profit and detest its absence. Profit is evidence of connection with real people who, having considered your work, find that diverting scarce resources from, say, that takeout Indian to your latest CD is a wholly worthwhile gesture. And in that gesture lies confirmation for the artist: that way lies sanity. The vanity publisher is toying with, at best, the irrelevant and, at worst, the delusional. Therefore, if you don't make a reasonable profit, you are either irrelevant or delusional, or possibly both. [...]

"If you, the artist, persist in cluttering the marketplace with objects, irrespective of monumental public indifference, evidenced by an unwillingness or outright refusal to pay for them in sufficient quantities to cover the cost of bringing them to the market with a modest profit, then we, the public, may safely accuse you of vanity publishing. [...]

Yet again, some later thoughts from the same author:

In a world in which everyone makes CDs in their bedrooms and everyone is a guitarist or a drummer, it's obviously harder to get noticed, because everyone is screaming, "Look at me" at the same time. I think the trick is to think local, act global, and expand one town at a time. Get with like-minded guys and play the music you want -- the stuff that you must play because you'll blow up if you don't -- to two men and a dog if necessary.

All the good stuff I've heard has been in some crap club somewhere -- by the time it gets to Madison Square Gardens it's usually rubbish. You may have to do a day gig to support yourself -- cab driving, cover bands, and teaching are honorable occupations. Yes started out as a cover band, but then quite quickly grew fancy bits. But if you can survive and play the stuff you want two nights a week, you're winning. Everything else is just a matter of expanding on that. [...]

Robert Fripp of King Crimson did heroic work on behalf of the small owner-drivers like himself with DGM and subsequently myself with Summerfold and Winterfold Records. We were shabbily treated by the majors way back, who deleted items but wouldn't allow the artists to re-release. This is close to a legally unacceptable restraint of trade. Since then my catalog has been re-issued along with my new material and I am fully in control. But I have an audience, albeit a modest one. Only the majors still have enough bucks to present you to the audience via radio play and a sustained marketing campaign. I'm not looking for hits -- I'm developing a niche market -- but I would imagine it is still very tough to get a hit without a major. The few exceptions prove the general rule.[...]

The niche artist may have total control and a large per-unit profit from a tiny sales base -- an awful lot of not much. [...] All I know is that like many other occupations, the business of being a musician is now unrecognizable relative to the one I grew up with, and that nobody knows where it's headed. What remains inviolate, what remains certain and timeless and unchanging, is the skill and patience needed to master a musical instrument. The core skill, it seems to me, is to be able to stop the ordinary person dead in the street with your musical skill and passion on voice or instrument. That's what we need to concentrate on.

http://www.ink19.com/issues/august20...llBruford.html

[Rarebird]

In the end a musician should be some kind of businessman as well, if only to survive.

[DTA]

From my perspective, I have to refuse to see Yes nowadays because it's the "same-old, same-old". I mean, I'm only 30 years old and have seen them about 6 times since 2001, and I cannot in good sense spend money to see the same shit from the same 3 albums played over and over again at every show. I do like the fact that they're expanding a bit and are willing to do Drama in its entirety, but switch up the damn 70's material every now and then! Why the hell do they ignore Tales and Relayer so much? And throw in a few 80's/90's/00's tracks so it doesn't feel like a nostalgia trip through 1972. I think Yes' best music is absolutely in the 70's, but they still even ignore a large portion of that stuff.

Whereas King Crimson has not driven their 70's material into the ground over the past 20 years, thus making it feel fresh and exciting. If they do the same setlist on the next tour, then I might call it a cash-grab, but hopefully they have enough good sense to realize that fans are fans of their entire catalog, and not just of a two-year block in the 70's.

[Leibowitz]

Technically, all acts are aging.

[trurl]

Technically, all acts are aging.

"There is no dark side of the moon really... matter of fact it's all dark."

[mogrooves]

Technically, all acts are aging.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...angers/407848/