Re: [microsound] white middle class music

[Christopher Mitchell <chrism@xxxxxxxx>]

As a rather retired jungle/drum&bass/uk happyhardcore dj (who took a 
long strange trip through dj'ing as a break from making silly 
synthpop), I can attest to the fact that there are ravers who love 
anything electronic and turn their noses up at guitars.  However, there 
is too much variety to assume that is even the majority.

1)  I always found it ludicrous when the goths from the local black 
death clubs would show up at raves dressed in glitter and shiny happy 
t-shirts.  These I called the "gravers."

2)  On the one hand, I could not get enough of 70s classic rock for the 
majority of my time involved in the ""scene""  ...

3) On the other hand, there is much more internal strife than external. 
 Nobody in that scene was worried about rockers, but what other 
micro-genres in electronic music they liked or disliked.  It was almost 
like gangwars with the breaks people vs the trance people vs the 
ambient people vs the massive house gang.  And all those groups against 
the junglists :D... and everybody against me and my happycore.

It is more rare to find the few that actually liked anything electronic 
than to find those just be obsessed with their particular flavor of the 
month.  I think that something from europe was lost on the US junior 
raver society (they all seemed so young, especially when I left): that 
you don't have to be dedicated to this scene like a cult, and that in 
general the crowd in europe was older and more musically "intelligent" 
(for lack of a better term).  Some good friends of mine in their early 
40s still go back to the UK every year or so to some of the massive 
events, and were always a bit disgusted by the crowds and the attitudes 
here.

It's all about the music...!*

(*so long as it is exactly the music *I* like and not your crap!)

Yours,
Chris
On Mar 31, 2004, at 1:20 PM, pelagius pelagius wrote:

> > From: "rick" <microsound@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> I think you missed my point.  I said nothing about dumb rubes or the 
> public in general.  Quite the opposite - I was referring to well 
> educated, die-hard music fans who happen to have blind spots or 
> predjudices in their tastes.  Have you never met someone with an 
> eclectic music collection and encyclopedic knowledge of music but an 
> unexplainable distaste for hip-hop?  Or a raver who loves anything 
> electronic but turns his nose up at guitars (I'm sure there are some 
> on this list)?
>
> I could be way off base but my impression of the rest of the world (as 
> an american looking out) is that there is much more openness elsewhere 
> and less of a desire to categorize and segregate.  For example, I 
> can't imagine a magazine with the breadth of the Wire (spanning Derek 
> Bailey to Missy Elliot) being published in the US.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
website: http://www.microsound.org