Sat, 11/12/2011 - 23:37
To be heard and get some constructive criticism...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/01/pete-townshend-john-peel-lec...
Mon, 11/14/2011 - 20:19
#2
Thanks for posting that -- it was an interesting read and I had never heard of John Peel. We have a local station here (still owned by Clear Channel, i think) that does a pretty good job of playing new and different stuff. While they maybe are not as experimental as John Peel was, it seems there might still hope for terrestial radio. And if not, the internet is still the wild west.
Mon, 11/14/2011 - 20:49
#3
I'm not disagreeing with you, Calum. But saying he is wrong "of course" seems to imply that it's a widely held belief or assumption. But then saying you're not sure what he's wrong about kind of diminishes the strength of the original statement. If you have further comments I'd love to hear them. I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts on the subject.
I guess all that just means that you've piqued my interest and I'd like you to expound if you are so willing.
Tue, 11/15/2011 - 16:07
#4
There are some points to make about the John Peel lecture in my view.
Firstly, I think that John Peel would have hated the idea, preferring, i think to listen to music than to lecture about it.
Secondly, if it is to be a lecture then the choice should be for a skilled lecturer. Choosing a musician who has pretensions in this area is not enough.
Pete Townshend's mx of adolescent humour and extremely dull business babble was neither enlightening nor entertaining. He seemed unable to separate himself from his subject matter. Had he given a talk on songwriting or guitar playing then he would probably have been excellent. However, his venture into a somewhat rambling set of criticisms regarding the business side of music was not engaging. John Peel would have cut this off after 20 seconds and gone on to Captain Beefheart without the slightest hesitation.
Wed, 11/16/2011 - 13:33
#5
i agree with Roddy entirely, to start with. :-)
TC, well, i'm not actually sure which bits of it i think are wrong, i'm genuinely not sure. But i think it stretches credibility to think that none of what he said there is wrong, and that's what i meant. What i also meant was that i would find it much more interesting to see what people found in that to either agree or disagree about, because it doesn't really take one platform, or make one point of view clear, it really is, as Roddy says, a mix. I understand that may be part of Townsend's attitude, the spirit of rock 'n' roll or whatever you might call it. That's fine, i just think he's done a good job of touching on some subjects and putting points (and bits of points) across, but i'd be fascinated to hear people taking what they want from that and how they would integrate it into their own world view.
And Roddy's comment about listening to Beefheart stands for my post too i think, in fact i am genuinely about to go and put on Mirror Man by Captain Beefheart right now!
(PS - the CD collection is hiding Mirror Man from me, so i am now listening to Dichotomy instead)
that's interesting. He has a lot to say which makes good food for thought.
He is, of course, wrong on several things. The debate really, though, is which things he's wrong about. I'm not actually sure to be honest. Perhaps time will tell.