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Re: New Music



What Steve Lawson had to say about establishmentism is sadly all too 
evident
in the academician's approach to Art in General: that the question isn't 
"Is
it Art?", but "If it's difficult to categorize and a huge number of people
don't all agree as to what it is, is it Art?"  Such business creeps
dangerously towards populism - which is, alas, also easy to teach as well 
as
document.

We're all basically composing, producing, arranging, compositing, and/or
performing material which is in itself difficult for people who require 
such
categorization to identify as "Music", much less "Jazz", "Rock", "BeBop",
"Swing", etc.  We know better than most that there is not a TRUE "in" or
"out" to any of the work we do, except for the popular definitions of Those
Who Get Heard (For A Variety Of Reasons).

Besides playing guitar, some of you might know I do cartoons and
illustrations.  I've done that longer than I ever played instruments, 
unless
you count the voice I sang with when sitting in a tree drawing at age 3.  I
put forth this little tidbit from my Art school days, brief as they were, 
in
Syracuse in the late 70s:

We were in a General Drawing class, taught by a somewhat self-important
fellow of whom I only remember his white hair and matching highland dog, 
the
latter which enjoyed tearing up plastic baby dolls in front of the class
while we drew.  One day at the completion of a sub-project involving
cutting-and-pasting fragments from magazines (which is miraculously not
drawing, folks!), this teacher asked the worst question one can ask 
freshman
art students, "What kind of Artist do you want to be?"  He asked student
after student, allowing each to expand briefly on the topic, but didn't ask
me.

A girl next to me who liked my work asked him, "Why didn't you ask Steve?
He wants to be a cartoonist."

The teacher replied, "Why doesn't he want to be an Artist?"

I had already been paid several times for producing cartoons for the 
student
paper there, and was then known to not be a classical artist - as if this
was some stain upon my artistic character!  Such gall and attitudes are
unfortunately more than ordinary in the so-called Art Community.
Cartoonists I suppose are the stand-up comedians in the drawing world - at
their height, the Marx Brothers at the Opera.  I did however have the
appreciation of the Art History teacher I got, who was a great lover of old
comics like Little Nemo, the Toonerville Trolley and Buck Rogers.  I guess 
I
could have not chosen a worse role if I wanted respect for my work as a
default - and so then looping and ambient-situational music would then
become a foregone conclusion as a choice for playing/etc.

It's what I DO.  And I'm STILL an artist, no matter what the elitists of 
the
community might think.  This particular community, you loopers, you sowers
of loop, this circle of many - have been perhaps greater inspiration than
you might know to me.  We continue, no matter what people call our work.
It's what we DO.

Stephen Goodman
http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery.html - Online Cartoons & Illustrations
http://www.earthlight.net/Studios * The free Loop of the Week!
http://www.mp3.com/StephenGoodman * New MP3 Releases!