You make a valid point Marshlander, perhaps intelligent music is destined for the musical scrapheap. First quality musicianship is replaced by deejays playing great music, then great deejays playing great music are replaced by bad deejays playing Simon Cowells productions then perhaps with a couple of wars and a depression in between we might go full circle back to listening to the likes of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.
Anything is possible but in the meantime I will fight for the intelligent music.
It's funny but there are lots of people who agree with me but the fight seems to have gone out of them and they kind of shrug and say "well at least Simon Cowell is making good money, you've got to respect him for that" Whereas in the past a hippy or an acid raver would have denounced Cowell as satan and burned his cd's now they are resigned to his prominence. On the other hand the people who disagree with me are coming in strong calling me an ignorant elitist and an old bastard.
I guess in a way that proves my point that this generation likes bubblegum pop in a way that the previous generations hated pop and rebelled against it. It seems to me that youth culture which used to be all about rebellion against the vapid mainstream has turned into a rebellion against what would be seen as highbrow elitist culture and an embracing of consumerism and commercial pop culture.
It may just be a fad but it's a bloody sad one.
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PS - if i knew of a way to help your cause i'd love to do my best to help :biggrin: and likely there are other people on here that would support you too
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This is turning into an interesting discussion. At the same time that music and the means to produce and distribute it are probably more evenly shared throughout the population than ever the big bucks are falling into fewer hands.
I'm pretty certain you can find whatever kind of music you want to hear on the web, but the live music experience has been hampered by economics and legislation. Live performance and running workshops are pretty much the only way most of us working musos can make any money at all. I certainly don't make anything from my recordings. If Radiohead feel the need to market their music by giving it away there is not much likelihood of me selling many cds except the few I sell at gigs. I do hear of people making copies for their mates though. Er, thanks for that! :frown:
Performance venues are caught up by having to earn their keep and have new demands on their income, time and ingenuity in terms of insurances and compliance with health and safety demands and other local authority rules. There is also the extra quagmire of paperwork devised by police forces (particularly in London) who demand that promoters fill in tedious and lengthy questionnaires imagining and flagging up the unlikeliest of problems and filling in extensive personal details of anyone who might otherwise just want to get up and play or help set up the gear and projecting the likely composition of the audience. In the past there was no need for a promoter to know who any of these people were. There are between five and twenty-five of us in the bands with which I work most regularly. I often have to work with substitute musicians if one or more are working elsewhere that night. That means I have to provide several extra sets of details if I want to work in a place obliged to meet such requirements. The licensing arrangements have become an unwieldy monster that discourages smaller venues from taking chances and financial constraints are seeing bigger local venues close down - certainly the case up here in West Norfolk where we are about to lose two more arts centre/theatre sized venues.
Some of these changes have been necessary. I'd hate to see a return to the sixties where I took my life in my hands going downstairs into the old Marquee Club in London and when I got there I would need a shoehorn to lever myself into the audience and a machete to cut through the cigarette smoke to see the stage.
I do believe that the quality of musicianship is generally much higher now than it was in those old days. However, I also believe that the number of people in possession of a genuinely interesting voice and creative imagination is probably about the same. This means one has to shout louder, above an increasingly able bunch of musical technicians, just to be heard. To be honest I am much happier just writing and making music and have little skill or interest in marketing or publicity. Those who excel in these areas are the ones whose acts are going to get noticed. Add to that the fact that music is not a life-shaping experience for a significant proportion of the population any more, a cult of celebrity and presto ... Dr Frankenstein has created Simon Cowell. It's not difficult to trace his genealogy either, going back through Pete Waterman, Malcolm McClaren, Peter Grant through all those gay-owned stables of pretty boy singers in the fifties and sixties. I doubt that Andrew Oldham made many more friends in the sixties than Simon Cowell has now.
For me and for my friends, we generally fly under the radar. My bass player recently released a cd with his own band and had a launch party in his village hall. It was a great evening. Among the other performers was a world-class classical violinist and a drummer who has worked extensively with some big names and who in his own right was a known regular on British, US and European circuits in the 70s, 80s and 90s. A couple of locals provided a set of ambient live bleeps and a local video artist coloured the walls with his swirling projections and photographic montages. Several times I have thought of creating a festival where all the musicians have connections with my band. I reckon we could fill two or three days in our various incarnations and it would all be interesting stuff. The thought of organising such a thing fills me with horror though and I don't think it will ever happen, but we make small-scale events happen here in the Fens.
Just because something ain't happening in London doesn't mean it ain't happening elsewhere.
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What the fuck is "intelligent music"? (Mozart?) I like trashy music. I thought Franky goes to Hollywood was great too and Queen etc etc. I don't want to have to think when I'm in disco-bunny mood - not that that happens often these days. "Intelligent music" sounds a bit snobbish to me. Incidentally I think Mozart is great too but I don't think they play him much in the clubs these days.
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What happened to the gay music scene?
no longer "smash the guitars" but "blow out the speakers" 
LOL
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