BLOGDIAL : We are the best

X-Envelope-From: marrisa69@cranfield.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:27:00 -0500
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Subject: Hey Fred
X-Envelope-To: irdial@irdialsys.win-uk.net

Fred,

It was nice to talk to you today I will send the proposal tonight.

Thanks,
Heidi

X-Envelope-From: kisser@secretlykissed.com
Reply-To: kisser@secretlykissed.com
From: kisser@secretlykissed.com/
To: irdial@irdialsys.win-uk.net
Subject: IMPORTANT: You have been secretly kissed! . 063f8d5
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 10:17:17 +0200
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X-Envelope-To: irdial@irdialsys.win-uk.net

This is not a joke! You have been secretly kissed. Someone really has the
'hots' for you, and has secretly kissed you. That special someone also added a
message:

I found this free game to secretly express my feelings. I went ahead and
Secretly Kissed you. Guess who I am!

If you would like to find out who has secretly kissed you
click http://www.secretlykissed.com/urkissed.asp?xs=kissme

( Please do not reply to this e-mail. It will not work. Someone who really
likes you is waiting at secretlykissed.com. )

X-Envelope-From: wantme69@cranfield.ac.uk
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 04:36:12 -0500
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Subject: Hey Fred
X-Envelope-To: al@irdialsys.win-uk.net

Fred,

It was nice to talk to you today I will send the proposal tonight.

Thanks,
Heidi

We are in a time of desert famine in popular music

that depends on whether or not you enjoy eating what's being offered ....... the grey sludge that we so despise is enjoyed by many, and that by default makes it popular music .....

no, it makes it sludge. sludge is bad. there are no two ways about it. I think we are talking about different things here.

in its short history, pop has always pandered to the lowest common denomenator,

not true; there was always a small percentage of something exiting going on, what i am talking about is the dwindling of that small percentage. I am not talking about appealing to the lowest common denominator. I am talking about the dissapearance of that small island that used to exist where it was possible to do something interesting, AND live. Anyone that was there knows what I am talking about. Anyone who was not there, cannot know what I am talking about, because that environment ceased to exist before many people got a chance to see and feel what it was like.

i would guess that there are plenty of people making the "good stuff" out there, but i don't think it'll be made visible within and by the music industry machine because the majority don't want it

we didn't need that machine, and do not need that machine to hear these works. That fact has already been proven. What I want to know is WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE AND THE WORKS THAT THEY ARE MAKING? Guessing about the existence of these people is not the same as going out hearing the sound and being taken away by it. If it is there, I want it. If someone knows where it is, then I want them to show it to me.

...... it is a pointless endeavour to try and point out the error of the mass-market's ways to it, because the mass-market enjoys its food ....... i don't like that fact any more than anyone else with an idea of what the alternative could be, the only difference is that i'm not inclined to poison myself with angst about that fact ............

Like I said, I am not talking about the "mass market", but about an environment and very large group of people and organizations that grew organically and which supported a large number of incredibly talented and noteworthy artists that does not exist anymore, the last remnant of which is the worst piece of crap that just happened to exist at the same time. Those that know the history, know what I am talking about.

what i meant was that if everyone wrote like bach, bach would cease to have the resonance that he does, because his standard would be the norm, and that as a consequence people who judge whether or not something is "good" according to how different it is might consider it to be boring, not that it would be boring per se

I am saying that a human alive is preferable to a human dead. I am saying that if there were two Bachs, each would not diminsh the other. There are quantifiable, indivisible bodies of works that even if there were many of them, the effect of each would not be diminished. Sun Ra for example, made many recordings, and this fact does not lessen the value of each. In other words, the value of each Sun Ra work would not be greater if there were fewer total Sun Ra works, or for that matter, if there were two Sun Ras. To say this, is to not appreciate the greatness of the finest artists and thier works. These people and what they did trancends the Freedman/Regan/Thatcher/$capitalist economic values that are universally missaplied to art. We didnt have to live with this either. Once again, anyone that was there will confirm that I am not halucinating or making this up.

how can you conceive of something as being on the left if you do not first have an idea of where the right might be positioned ? how can something be high if the concept of low hasn't been established ?

It is not necessary to make a comparison for something to have a value, though the process is useful to give someone a feeling of why one work is to be prefered over another. In music, the idea of place is used again and again to describe when a work is great. "We are there", when groups acknowledge that they are playing well together. "It is there" when a mix or recording is perfect. That you are there, is enough. What is in the streets now is not there. Its nowhere.

....... and yet, THEY LIVE.

we don't need u2, but we need the essence of what they represent in order to justify praising what they are not .....

if we even need this, which i clearly think that we dont, we only need it once. when there is nothing to "be on the right" as you say, or as I say, when there is nothing that is "There®" then we have a problem, and this is the problem that I am talking about. The channels of communication are better than ever. Nothing escapes the attention of everyone. There is nothing on the right.

There is nothing There.

stinging nettles and ivy thrive in this country because they have adapted the most effectively to their surroundings : if you're not careful you can walk / drive around and not see anything else living in a hedgerow except these stifling breeds,

Sounds exactly like what has happened; we are in a sea of stinging nettles, stinging our ears every day. No escape, nowhere to run. No stone or tree stump to stand on.

but every now & then, and then more & more regularly as you become accustomed to looking, you see tiny flashes of colour where the most intense flowers do their thing ..... am i saddened that they are not as numerous as their bullying cousins ? no, i am glad because i have seen them, and enjoy the little bursts when they do occur ..........

we call this, "suffering". People in bondage live for the small mercies; the chain gang working the roads breaking rocks can be controlled by the single drink of water they get twice a day. This is not living, this is existing

their presence is made all the more striking because of the conditions in which they grow ......... have you forgotten those great writers just because u2 still breathe ? no, you remember them with greater clarity because of whom they're being compared to I need to eat every day. I cannot eat once, and be sustained on one meal forever. If listening to the works of the past were sufficient for mankind, we would still be listening to people clacking rocks together in caves. Men need new thought, new expression, new sounds. This is absolutely fundamental to the condition of man, and when man creates only sludge, then he IS sludge, and that is what this generation is, PURE SLUDGE, content to raid the record collecitons of thier grandfathers to trott out disgusting prostituted versions of worthy art. You want an example. I know you do. Alicia Keys: Takes "This is a mans world" marrys it to "We are the champions" and creates a sickening syrupy eruption of sludge, that the brain dead hail as being "important fresh and new work".

....... maybe they're still writing, maybe they've come to the conclusion that attempting to broacast their message through such a diluting medium is detrimental to their sense of well-being, maybe they don't feel the desire to tell thousands what they're thinking, maybe like us they're happier being part of a smaller group that is interested in what they have to say, comfortable in the fact that many many many similar cells exist that give their members the same sense of satisfaction without having to look further afield .......

That is alot of speculation, but lets say that its true for a moment. If that is so these people are displaying behavior that is the opposite of true human nature. Humans create in order to share thier thoughts and works, for whatever purpose. If the behaviour of these people was truely happening as you say, then they would be inhuman, and fit only for flogging. This is true now more than ever, since its possible to network with many people for near-zero money, and since people like this are so badly needed. Even before the wide usage of the net, people were pressing records in small numbers and distributing them via mail. There is no excuse for what can only be called hoarding.

If people are huddled together in caves like the pre homosapien men in "2001 a Space Odyssey", then we are in more trouble than any of us that care realized. Human nature is outward in its direction, not inward. Once again, our favourite sounds would be clacking stones or heaving into buckets if people didn't move between circles, share, perform, record, transmit and write down what they thought said played and did.

Thats why I discount the "working in secret" theory. There is no secret group of great artists quietly re writing the rules for the pleasure of a few friends. That just is'nt how people, especially creative people, operate.

..... a long time coming ....

it will be if that's really what you're looking out for ........ i think that "culture" will become, is becoming, or is returning to being a much more dissipated affair, in the way it was before the invention of publishing

So, its going backwards, falling to pieces, receeding. This is A Bad Thing®.

........ people who went out to the local drinking hole made their own entertainment because trecking over the hills to the nearest neighbour was too arduous, and dangerous when pissed ....... it really didn't matter whether that entertainment was crap or not, because the point of the whole enterprise was to share some time with other people and get some perspective on what you considered to be problems .......

to what end? after you hav the perspective on what the problems are, then what? with no printing presses, no communication, everyone is an ape crouched in a cave waiting to die.

No thanks!

everything is engineered to exclude .......

what are we doing here ? ............ i think that these areas where people can discuss topics of shared interest are where we should be looking for our stimulus, not a market that is geared towards reaping the rewards of the economy of scale

we never have, and thats not what I am talking about.

...... i think that the era of mass entertainment that appeals to the whole of society will prove to be a minor socialogical blip ......................... yes, I have heard this before. What this ACTUALLY MEANS is that all the generations of the future are condemned to living like the generations that lived before Rock & Roll. I didnt live then, but I have heard about the way youth was spent in those times, and I can tell you that it was not pretty. Just listen to the description of the first time that people heard Elvis, how it transformed them, and changed their world, for the good, forever. The Rock & Roll generations (the last 40 years, around 3 generations) had something that made humans better and if it does not happen again, then the quality of human life will suffer, and the landscape will be greyer. Look at the footage of music entertainment before Rock & Roll, and shudder with fear, because that is what you and your children are condemned to. Crooners. Nuff said.

Cant you see it all around you? look at these people and thier shitty groups. Here is a good list of them In particular, listen to the "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club".

This is a real world example of the theoretical medical condition known as "clonal fading". In cloning, when you make a human clone from a cloned human, each sucessive clone is weaker than the preceeding version. What we have here with BRMC, is exactly this; a weak multi generation copy of something extraordinary. Listen to it. If you know your music, you will laugh and then cry at its total uselessness. And don't think that because this is at the BBC it must, by logic, be rubbish. The BBC was responsible for driving many good things into the ears of millions, whilst keeping the main mutitudes more than happy.

i think we should meet at the dog & duck, sounds like it might do you some good ;

"I drink to remember who I am" someone said long ago in the NME. I never forgot it.

Beer doesnt change over time. There is a God, no doubt about it.