On the other hand, if correct ideas are pampered in hot-houses without being exposed to the elements or immunized from disease, they will not win out against erroneous ones.

Mao "you gotta love it" Tse-Tung, Four Essays on Philosophy: On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People p.117-119

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Q: If somebody handed you a billion dollars would you buy the Mariners or give every school child a wordcore record?

A: "I think you can do both of those things with a billion dollars. I wouldn't give it to the UN (Ted Turner, are you listening?), or start a retarded museum for the purpose of explaining rock and roll to the mainstream in some kind of bizarre attempt to strip away the very last whiff of threat or danger that rock ever had, and turn even the most exciting, crazy music into some kind of sick, safe, cotton-candy-Disneyland experience."

Slim Moon as interviewed in 2000 by the Portland Mercury.

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All animal populations produce a surplus from natural increase, where they are managed as breeders. Like a crowded forest, too many animals on an area become non-productive, thus dense fish populations in lakes or rivers cannot put on growth and dense mammal or bird populations are self-thinned by starvation, crowding stress, or consequent disease and epidemic mortality... If we do not cull animal species, nature will do so for us--mostly as catastrophic population crashes due to overcrowding. To exclude animals from agricultural areas is to kill them in the long term...

Bill Mollison, Permaculture Two: Practical Design for Town and Country in Permanent Agriculture, p. 27

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Ben Young: What would you have to say about Alber Ayler, Clifford Brown, Booker Little and Cecil Taylor?

Charles Gayle: ...I would have to ... mention to the younger people who are, and certainly the ones who are older but especially the ones who are younger people who are playing music today and the young ... "Jazz Musicians", to caution them. I don't have anything negative to say, but just to caution them about what they are doing and how they are doing it. And I am going to say something--I don't know if everybody is going to like it but I would tell anybody, I don't care how successful you are and who you are--don't give in to any type of unnecessary pressures that are leading you to play the way you are playing in terms of money or fame or what ever it is, or somebody in your immediate surroundings forcing you to do certain things...I just tend to think that a lot of musicians that I know and heard and have heard some of their careers and have seen them go along I think have made ... a left turn when they should have made a right one or a right one when they should have made a left one. Now I am certainly not walking in anyone else's shoes but to tell them that there isn't in my estimation a lot of Coltrane's walking around, Clifford Browns, Booker littles and Albert Aylers and Cecil Taylors and Charley Minguses and other ones...I tend to think that a lot of it has become watered down. Now it is no great coincidence that at one time there were so many people that were happening and [now] there are so few that are going on and carrying the music on now. I am only saying this out of care for people, just a love for the music and the people that are playing. It isn't anything personal but I've been around a little bit and I've seen some people with some beautiful talent just throw it, ... they didn't use it, or they misused it. Certainly some people are doing the best they can, but I think a lot of people are lying down on the job...I don't think you can go backwards, and I'm going to say that stright up.

Charles Gayle in an interview with Ben Young on WKCR some time in the early 90's

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Fun summer time feelings, fun summer time fun!

Everybody likes fun, right?

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Here's a fun one: "is there a war against music?"

How can music be killed? Can music be killed? Did I already ask this? OK, I'll ask it again: Can music be killed? If so, who is in a position to kill it? Who would benefit from such a 'crime.'

Rap music. Scary, angry negroes saying angry, scary things? Hey rap music, take this! See, anyone can do it! It's not so scary after all--so long as you aren't in the CIA. And really, who is scarier, Karl Rove or RUN DMC?

[yeah right, like that will ever happen to improvised music...improvised music is too out there to ever be 'recuperated' by anyone. please, enough of your half assed theorizing and idiotic 'connections'--which are really just a lot of crap anyway.]

And say, just how is rock music doing since it got that, uh, really neat museum? Has it done for rock what other really neat organization have done for jazz? (Who remembers jazz? That hideously constricting music from which stems all those awful constraints...)

A museums for rock music. How's that working for everyone?

Was it something the makers of that music had in mind when that music was being made?

Jimi Hendrix--Paul Allen, samey-same. Bold as Love and Windows XP--who can tell the difference?"

Can you possibly dig it?

Yes? No?

Here's a fun one: Does guaranteeing a music's "survial" also guarantee a music's death?

The "tribute" band. Ah the tribute band. Or shall we call it the repertoire ensemble. Hey, did we ever figure out "what good are half truths and simulacra?"

How's that one making everyone feel? Feeling alive? Feeling inspired? Feeling smothered in rotting corpses? Feel like doing some drinking? Feel like making some money?

Here's another fun one: Can all music be done by all people, just because they want to? Can everyone do music? Can everyone improvise?

What if there was (and I'm not saying there isn't) a music that "everyone" could do--and did. What would that music sound like--a music that was accessible to everyone? And what if that accessible to everyone and done by everyone music was played all the time to everyone.

What then? World peace?

Ascots adjusted and snifters go 'clink?'

Are we heading for a cull?

Will we be so lucky?

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p.s. Now that we've had a group hug and wiped our tears from Keith Jarret's hurt words, how was the music? Did anyone listen to the music part of the evening's performance?

copyright,  © 2007 Stanley Zappa

for information on Stanley Jason Zappa's collaboration with Wyatt Doyle, STOP REQUESTED, click here. 

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