>>I think the whole prog-bashing trend started as sour
grapes on the part of kids who just didn't have the chops to play it. As
I recall, at the same time that prog was declared a dinosaur by these young
turks virtuosity in general was poo-pooed just as much.
Not that there wasn't an awful lot of excess (and I spell
excess E-L-P) rampant at the time!<<
I like to console myself that the excess was necessary
somehow, & that there was a background of "arms-race" about it amongst the
bigger outfits & their trailers full of persian rugs, steel drumkits &
whatnot, which was genuinely tongue-firmly-in-cheek long before "stonehenge".
I think it's a very modern (read: politically correct) thing
to have any genuine, well-founded objections to the amount of horsepower
required by the likes of ELP to mount their stage show.
back then, the complaints were about the attention they drew
to themselves rather than any actual waste. though john peel called them a
"waste of talent & electricity", he'd actually quite liked "the nice"
& was merely voicing his disappointment with emerson's new direction. if
he'd known the expression, I'm sure he would have said "YMMV".
besides, a touring orchestra, opera or theatre company would
have been about the same size, & probably would've been drawing smaller
crowds.
the punk "revolution" is overstated, even with this amount of
hindsight.
we quickly forget how many experienced,
slightly older musicians were drafted in by these "young turks" to assist
& support their endeavours. (step forward nick mason & steve hillage,
amonsgt others, who produced some of this "punk" stuff despite belonging in
"the other camp".)
& the same dave stewart I mentioned last time (i.e. not
the guitarist who became a punk with annie lennox & then re-invented prog
in the mid 80s with much fairlight noodlery as a eurythmic, but the one from
egg/gong/bruford/national health) even appeared on top of the pops (a long
running british tv chart show of some repute) wearing a PiL
t-shirt.
in fact, a great deal of this antipathy was invented by the
music press, & by journalists generally.
at the
bands' level, things were often quite different, with punk rock's glitterati
turning up to see zeppelin at knebworth, ATV making albums with here&now,
& eventually the clash releasing a triple album. sharing of concert bills
made more sense than trying to stir up acrimony.
for me, it's much simpler than any genre or social divide.
there'll always be a number of musicians who manage to
combine the chops with the essential humour of music's ability to communicate,
& there'll always be a number of musicians who fall to one side or the
other of that bell-curve. some of the most technically adept musos of the 70s
were the most humourless bunch you could imagine, & they made you ache for
the cartoon nihilism of a sid vicious or a captain sensible.
hiromi made me want to see keith tippett, never mind keith
emerson. I'm sure she can be very funny.... but I couldn't see it in her
wackily titled showcase piece, I'm sorry.
duncan.
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