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Re: BAY AREA new music scene:



topics: SF is just too small, experimental music in Brazil & urban  
centers generally

one problem with San Francisco i think is that it's just too small.  
really there are not many urban centers in the US, of substantial  
size. what, New York, Chicago, Boston mb? San Francisco is surrounded  
by essentially a giant suburban ring, although admittedly with the  
highest average income and educational levels in the US. if the Bay  
Area counts as a city, that might be enough people but geographically  
it's way too spread out. without decent public transportation it's  
hard to get a really urban scene going for a variety of things,  
including experimental music. true, there are good shows here and  
there, from UC Berkeley, to Oakland, san jose and santa cruz, even  
Big Sur, Stanford, Mills College (the Tape Music Center). there's a  
lot of history and great artists, just not much of a scene in terms  
of audience that actually attends events.

how many people actually live in SF proper? maybe 700,000? compared  
to many major cities in the world that ain't much. i'm living now in  
Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in Brazil, i think about 7  
million. i think Rio has 9 million, and Sao Paulo more than 20  
million. and really only Sao Paulo has a substantial scene for  
experimental electronic music. granted, in the US the economics are  
different such that a smaller base population should suffice. but not  
That much smaller... and the essential problem of too suburban a  
geography remains. places like London, Berlin, Tokyo - they have good  
public transportation and a high population level in a small area.  
and they have the money to spend on these things... and the  
experience of living and working "in the machine", which i should  
think would pre-dispose one to appreciate electronic music.

actually, on a somewhat different note, some early electro-acoustic  
musical experimentation was done in south america in the 1950s-1970s,  
which is generally quite under-reported it seems... there are several  
good websites about this topic which i can't seem to find atm ;)  i  
did stumble on this one by Gordon Mumma which is interesting as he is  
an old professor of mine, and i had never read this or even spoken  
with him much about latin american electronic music - http:// 
www.brainwashed.com/mumma/latin.html

ah here we go, found one:

Ricardo Dal Farra
Latin American Electroacoustic Music collection

http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/stage.php?NumPage=542

how's that for rambling? ;) around the world in a single post...

-3nki