No Music Day/ The17

Bill Drummond - the trickster - has spoken. "Live music, too, has had the same effect on me [as recorded music - constricting]. The experience is one-dimensional. You buy a ticket, go to a place, watch it performed on a stage, you clap, or even scream, enjoy yourself, you get your money's worth, you go home. But you weren't part of the music; you were just consuming it in bite-size chunks as defined by those who have decreed how these things should be done. I know these traditions are as much determined by the economics of bringing musicians from all quarters of the world to your local club or concert hall but that doesn't stop me from wanting more, something else in a different shape."

Two of his responses to this situation are The17 and No Music Day. He'll also be at hcmf on the last week of November - but not on the 21st. Good to see he's as consistent as ever/ still a controlfreak/ pedant/ perfectionist...

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1 comment:

Rob (the ergonomist). said...

Hmmm. I find the concept of The 17 somewhat ... excluding? self-centred? Narcissistic? Something, anyway.

Bill did two of these at Greenbelt this year. Fine, if you were one of the lucky 34 who got to take part. Other than that: nobody else was there. No audiences, no witnesses, no recording.

So: was it any good? Nobody can say with any objectivity. Certainly, at a festival of almost 20,000 people, it seems not really living up to the inclusivity image if 0.0017 of the festival get to take part.

Anyway, we can't all be Mozarts, Terfels or Knopflers.

Some of us were born to listen to music. After all: if 17 people perform music and nobody hears them, did a bear shit in the woods?