From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Wed Feb 05 15:39:19 2003
Subject:Re: Alice Cooper...a question of talent

Wow! Burner, dude, this is amazing: this is some of
the most bigotted snobism I've ever seen from a
musician. Why do you think Alice or Kiss or whoever
started theatricality? You've never heard of
Paganini apparently; or a little known rockstar by the
name of Mozart.

In regards to Alice, I'm too young to have seen him in
his prime, and have never seen him. My experience
with his music is strictly as a listener. You will
never see me list Kiss as a great band, although they
are great "performers." There IS a difference as you
so sagely note.

Now, MTV has been a big problem with the
"Madonna-fication of music", but does that explain
Macy Gray? or Pink? Neither are what you would call,
um, photogenic, but yet they have found an audience.
And back before MTV or Alice Cooper you still had a
whole LOT of Pat Boones, Bobby Shermans, or pretty
boys/girls without a shred of talent. The fact that
people enter the music BUSINESS shows they are
interested in more than performing at the local
coffeehouse. When people pay to see you play, they
expect to be entertained, and there aren't that many
of us who are content to watch "fingers fly." Sorry,
it's always been that way. If someone is substantial
enough a talent that NEEDS to be heard, it'll happen.
But talent was NEVER enough in this business, not even
back in Mozart's day.

Think of talents like Scott Joplin, who was neither
attractive (he was black, and in turn of the century
America, that was NOT attractive): he was heard, and
he endures.

Frank Zappa: well, I'm sorry to disagree with you
again, but you HAVE touched a nerve. What 20th
century composer could support a family on composing
if he doesnt write the kind of music that is conducive
to film? Hmmm? So the fact that Frank decided to put
goofy lyrics (and while funny, when you get into them,
they are more than that: insightful, witty, sometimes
VERY critical and cynical, but always on target with
regards to their subject matter, much to the subject's
chagrin) on top to make sure his music was heard and
purchased, good on him. The way I look at it, he
worked 3x harder than John Williams. And Frank didn't
rely on "theatricality" to make his stage presentation
work: He pushed his musicians to make it work. I was
lucky enough to have seen him 7 times, and I can tell
you that each time was WONDERFULLY different, and the
bands were all unbelievably talented musos. Terry
Bozzio? Who remembers the devil mask? Is that what
they talk about? Or do they talk about the way he
plays, the things he does that are out of the realm of
possibility for most percussionists? Jean Luc Ponty,
another alumni, known for his stage shows? I dont
think so. Steve Vai? Yes. Tommy Mars? No. Chad
Wackerman? No. Vinny Coaluita? No. These are
consumate musicians. PERIOD. No capes. No smoke
bombs. And people do watch them play, but if it
wasn't for Frank, who would have heard them? The fact
is, America and the world at large do not accept
modern composers nor their compositions. So they need
an alternate route, and if biting sarcasm sung over
the top is whats needed to make a living, it beats
playing Holiday Inns. (No offense to ANYone)

Bohemian Rhapsody: wow, you picked another one. I can
see how you feel this is low-brow entertainment
compared with the compositional prowess of a John Kay
& Steppenwolf. (No offense to John, but I think enough
said there.) Ever try to play this one? I developed
a solo piano rendition to play at gigs 10 years ago
thanks to Waynes World, and let me tell you, it's
still a work out. And it's a great song to boot, with
AWESOME arrangement. Listen to it with your ears, and
not your eyes.

Deep Purple: One of my favorite bands, but it seems to
me they were very gimmicky. Ritchie destroying his
guitar (watch the end of Cal Jam II), that sounds
great when listening to the disc: very musical indeed!
Nothing quite relaxes the mind and body like the sound
of a Screaming Hammond Organ pumped through a Ring
Modulator and a stack of Marshalls. That's a Calgon
moment!!! And talk about "armadillos in our
trousers!" David Coverdale needed to go one size up
on the bellbottoms, dont you think? But you know
what? Its part of the presentation. Live, you have
to go one step further...at least. Always did. If
Jimi hadn't set his guitar on fire (what, Ritchie
Blackmore invented that?), would he have broken out of
Monterey? Maybe, but that stunt ENSURED it. Glad
too. Jimi is one of my guys.

If you are a true musician, of course you have
opinions, and we can be a VERY harsh bunch. (And in
all diplomacy, I didn't rip into Styx, which would
have been TOO easy.) But, we all listen first and
then decide what is trash. This generalization you
made seems quite brash, and well....young.

Composition is one thing: songs are different. I
would rather hear Alice sing something like "Eighteen"
and communicate the adolescent rebellion (without any
real cause to rebel against sometimes) if it's done
well and cleverly than say, some mindless exhibition
of technical dexterity for its own sake. And you know
what? I'm NOT in the minority. I tend to have a
wider tolerance for "music" than most of my musician
friends. Music is art, and sometimes you need to go a
little further to get your point across. And if it
means setting off a smoke bomb, burning a flag,
chopping your head off, setting your guitar on fire,
wearing a silver lame cape (thank you Rick Wakeman!)
or white fur and leather (thank you Freddie Mercury),
so be it!

tony

--- b3burner@ca.astounditv.net wrote:
> I'm seeing from others' replies, that maybe I was a
> tad bit short sighted in my criticism of Alice
> Cooper, and that it was way too presumptive of me to
> assume that everyone else shared my viewpoint on him
> (and/or A.C.-the band).
>
> I guess I need to proceed what I say with IMHO
> first:
>
> So IMHO, I have never dug "theatrical rock" as a
> musical genre. I feel music is primarily an
> auditory stimulus. It's something you listen to.
> The only exception to that being sitting quitely in
> a concert watching the musician perform his/her
> craft on their instrument of choice, where the only
> visual stimulus necessary is that of the musican's
> fingers weaving their way through the passages, and
> the facial expressions the musican yields as musican
> and instrument interface with one another. And
> musicans communicate with one another on stage. The
> PBS show "Austin City Limits" is IMHO a good example
> of the atmosphere under which ALL music should be
> presented.
>
> That's the whole problem I have with what MTV did to
> music from 1979 and forward. No longer was it just
> good enough to be a good MUSICIAN. Now you had to
> be an actor, a dancer, a choreograher, a
> cinamatographer. You had to have sex appeal. Mama
> Cass and Janis Joplin wouldn't have stood a chance
> in today's image oriented music world, yet they were
> fabulous musicians in their own right, and I believe
> their voices alone would still sell in 2003.
>
> But it all started with Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa,
> and Kiss. If you gotta' put paint all over your
> face, and shoot stage smoke and special effects all
> over the place to generate audience appeal, then
> DOES THE MUSIC REALLY STAND ON ITS OWN AS A
> LEGITIMATE ENTERTAINMENT?
>
> I remember trying my hardest to respect Frank Zappa
> as a musician, but he lost me on a song where he
> sang about dental floss in Montana! For cryin' out
> loud (IMHO)...if the lyrics made any sense and
> weren't so silly, maybe I'd have listened for a
> melody or God help us...a Hammond solo, if one was
> even forthcoming.
>
> Queen's BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY is another one (IMHO) that
> for the life of me I can't and will never understand
> what people see musical value in...."I see a
> silhouette...Galilaeo, Galilaeo..." (or whatever the
> heck he's trying to say in there). Save it for a
> Berkeley coffee house on poetry night for Christ
> sake!
>
> And then in the early 80's when Styx tried "Paradise
> Theatre" and "Mr. Roboto" and scarred my early
> adolesence (IMHO of course!) I had had enough! No
> wonder I was so relieved to have found Deep Purple
> in the haphazard year of 1982. A band that was and
> still is about the MUSIC, NOT flashy gimmicks.
>
> Music is about music. Chord progressions, long
> instrumental solos where the whole band falls into a
> groove and the audience is taken wih them. Listen
> again to Traffic's LOW SPARK OF HIGH HEELED BOYS or
> Steppenwolf's MAGIC CARPET RIDE if you need examples
> (IMHO).
>
> Sorry to go off on a tirade, but someone poked my
> "hornet's nest" when they mentioned Frank Zappa and
> "theatrical rock".
> I guess I'm just not there, but if others are, I
> recognize that these are heavyweight names within
> their own musical genre, that deserve respect. I'll
> give them that much.
>
> John O'Flaherty (The B3 Burner)
>

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