RFI: writing abt the avant garde

I like Ben watson's writing about the avant-garde, and especially the fact that he fuses it with politics. A lot of writers just review these records as if they were made in a vaccum whereas he is saying that this music is part of the world. That's what is really good about it. I don't get all the socialist references but when you listen to some of the stuff he recommends I find it mostly really good and quite original (Iancu dumitrescu and henri chopin, for instance).

The fact that Ben finds rock innovative as well is a bonus, the fact that he finds the avant-garde wing in rock (not for it to become classicised of course) is a bonus and says that he is listening, unlike jazz bores like Bill Shoemaker.

Alan Cummings is not a reg. contributor for the wire but he can write about improv-, rock and avant-garde very well. i like his review of taj mahal travellers on this months wire.

I like Philip Clarke as well for similar reasons (though he is not as aggressive as Ben, or he may he is but it doesn't come accross in his writings). He writes well and is very knowledgable (again, do find marxist references in some of it).

Finally, a mention to David Toop. As a writer, he is the best of the lot though I'm not too keen on some of the stuff he is enthusiastic for but it's always well argued. Love the flow of his sentences.

Now here is who I don't like: julian Cowley, Andy hamilton and a couple of others because they give improv- and a lot of releases an easy time. the writing doesn't seem to put their enthusisams across anyway, it seems to be: 'here is the avant-garde, why don't you support it unconditionally.' Anyway, they never stretch themselves by reviewing too much else, you know.

No problem. Keep up the good work. I enjoyed your review of the new Derek Bailey on the 'Fork this week.

I think David Keenan and Ben Watson sometimes manage to communicate some of that same enthusiasm/passion. Watson in particular can let rip w/ a gd slag-off when he wants to, and is one of the few Wire writers to describe what a rec might actually sound like/what a musician might or might not actually be doing on stage. He is fatally undone by kneejerk Marixst politics/a crude and inflexible reading of Adorno/a boneheaded opposition to popular music/and, frequently, lousy taste - the ideological/textual contortions he has to go through to acommodate both the dreaded Zappa and any kind of left ideology in his 'Poodle Play' bk are mindbogglingly awful.

Sorry, didn't mean to sound TOO negative - but it's a pretty thin field all told, isn't it?

That picture in The Wire of David Toop's writing desk beats most of the writing on the avant garde that I have read.cuz it was pretty and it
made me think about writing and music and the evolution of the pen.

And I'm not even sure if free/out jazz is 'avant-garde' anymore.

Sod it, I'd still say Meltzer, wartsnandall - re-read his John Cage piece recently, and I can think of few other examples where AV-G ideas are actually put to the TEST in a way that also works as GREAT writing, as funny as Terry Southern on a VERY gd day.

Does Watson think Brotzmann's native Austria...
Well, in which illadelph previous life was Brötzmann an Austrian? Or does Watson really think Brötzmann is from Austria, d'you think? Do you yourself think Brötzmann's from Austria? Or do you think it makes no bloody w'atso'ever difference where his actually from?

The sum total of African-American 20th- century music 'American parochialism' until some subsidised art- school Europeans found it?
Whom you have in mind, dave q? (Brötzmann - subsidised?? Not at the time of 'Machine Gun', I bet!) Are you perhaps speaking of Holland's improvisors? (Who are believed to be - e.g. according to Alan Tomlinson's opinion circa '92 - "enviably better subsidised" compared to their British colleagues)

Actually, I tend to read with interest Watson's writings on Improv - half of the time. The other half makes me wanna (holler, howl, scream, and then) stuck him in the time machine and send him back to serve the 2 compulsory years in the Soviet Army; or better still, 3 years in the navy.

haha well when derek bailey is TOTP then it certainly won't be avg anymore ;-)

''Sod it, I'd still say Meltzer, wartsnandall - re-read his John Cage piece recently, and I can think of few other examples where AV-G ideas are actually put to the TEST in a way that also works as GREAT writing, as funny as Terry Southern on a VERY gd day.''

can you tell where you found that bcz I am currently readin cage's 'silence' book and am really enjoying it and I quite like to read that meltzer piece.

oh, and people, please post the web link of your suggestions if that's appropriate

and i wish there was some choice in the matter of reading about a.g. music -- seems that beggars cannot be choosers, so little to find written that even mentions interesting stuff, that i find i have to put up with what is very often just factual information from the unkown story of such'n'such -- when such litle informatiion is in wide circulation the mere documentation is itself helpful

so yes The Wire is good as central clearing house, i mean i can't very well complain about it, as it's doing something