From Ashok Divakaran Sent Sun, Dec 28th 1997, 17:11
From Ashok Divakaran Sent Sun, Dec 28th 1997, 17:11
> I'll say this: all your arguments are good, and they all apply to the > arguments I made. However, the arguments I made are not my _main_ problem > with the wire. My main problem with them is this: they claim to be the > last bastion of experimental/avant-garde music, while they refuse to > actually go out and look for new music. They wait for the music to "come > to them" as it were. They never write about a band that's just started up > with no commercial or "credible" backing. They just sit on their asses. This is simply not true. Here's a selection of some of the people, off the top of my head, that have had full pieces written on them in the Wire. None of them, to my knowledge, have "commercial or credible" backing (what does "credible backing" mean - that you're not part of the tape-only circuit ant more?) Ryoji Ikeda, Panasonic, Nijimu, Stefan Jaworzyn, John Wall, Simon Fisher Turner, Pete Namlook... > > See the NWW point: NWW has been around _forever_. As has Current 93, > Death in June, etc. Both these last two stopped making Wire-relevant music years ago. It's great that the Wire has recently done a cover > story on Stapleton and a feature on Tibet. But why didn't they notice in > the early 80s? Answer: because they were a bunch of crazed crowleyites > making a lot of noise, and no one "important" was backing them - they > created their own scene while everyone else paid no attention, > _especially_ the "new music" rags. Come on, this is pure conspiracy theory! Firstly, I understand that the Wire itself changed its focus quite a bit in recent years. Maybe NWW simply didn't fall within their sphere of interest in those days (did the Wire even exist then anyway?) Back in the 80s ambient industrial/noise/whatever you want to call 'em bands were a dime a dozen (and most of them stunk.) Even the dedicated underground industrial/noise zines couldn't keep up. I think the Wire can rather be excused for having overlooked NWW, who, in any case, are overrated IMO and owe their popularity more to their secretiveness, surreal attitude and plain old inexplicable cultdom than any particular musical prowess. > Why does the Wire, to this day, ignore Aube and only write about Merzbow, > Violent Onsen Geisha, and a few others, when Aube is infinitely more > interesting than all of them? Hey, BTW, since when has VGO had any "commercial or credible" backing? > The Oval and Skinny Puppy approaches to the sound are WORLDS apart. I > love both, pretty much equally. The point is that the wire an co. made a > big deal of it as if it were something totally new, when SP did it years > ago. This I can agree with... If there's one thing that the Wire _is_ guilty of, it's their tendency to "discover" the next coolest thing and drown in their own mouth-froth. Look, any mag that's as brave as the Wire is treading in dangerous waters. How many mags do you know of that discuss all of these: Ravi Shankar; Stockhausen; Daniel Pemberton; Derrick May; Mark Isham. And what's more, they do so seriously and try to understand the music they discuss on its own terms. The flip side is that this free-ranging eclectism often results in trite and shallow discourse on how all the threads of "new music" all mesh together into this gigantic conceptual tapestry (something David Toop is particularly guilty of.) That's something I'm willing to live with - it's food for thought and in some cases they're actually onto something. All considered, for a glossy mag that's freely available and has a large circulation, I find the Wire to be a happy compromise between obscurity and commercial considerations. They are in business, after all - this isn't your 4-page xeroxed zine that costs 10c a copy to make. Ashok