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A Priceless and Yet Truly Terrible Review of an NNM Member and Friends

You guys have got to check this out. Admittedly, it's a small town CT paper, but it is truly priceless in what it says about the critical arts today. The crass judgementalism, the inability to even feign an exploratory methodology, and the childish venting about the 'state' of the arts when backed by a cretinous philosophical outlook.

The Art of Noise

Favorite phrases from this gushing of hyper-critical excrement include:

What I got was three artists so overloaded on theory that they were unable to cooperate, choosing instead to masturbate all over their audience.

This one might actually be a good title for something:
The purposelessness was deafening.

Meanwhile, percussionist Bill Solomon tinkered with a table full of objects — some were musical instruments, and some were anything but.

Good pic of our Bill Solomon tho!

Congratulations!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Johnny & Faith on November 21, 2008 at 10:11am: "He quickly fell into a predictable pattern of picking up a given object, hitting it a few times with a stick, and putting it down to start again with the next object. There was no nuance or rhythm, no randomness or emotion. Behind him, the projector spewed out bad Stan Brakhage imitations, while Sargent's laptop barfed up bleeps and bloops."

lmao; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by XLR on November 21, 2008 at 10:45am: The last two paragraphs of the review probably show the writer's more familiar territory... and his idea of what "diverse" means.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Carlo Serafini on November 21, 2008 at 10:55am: I guess we are all art-damaged!
:-); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jeff Harrington on November 21, 2008 at 12:36pm: That was actually my favorite idea in the piece. Art Damage! Sounds so '80's. Like a PS122 evening or something.

Carlo Serafini said:
I guess we are all art-damaged!
:-); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ANALOG Arts Ensemble on November 21, 2008 at 12:50pm: That's not the way the review reads to me, but I understand your take on it. The reviewer strikes me as fairly open-minded. He entered the event with great expectations and simply saw something that left him cold. I don't see anything crass in his review.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Lief Ellis on November 21, 2008 at 1:15pm: The one problem I have with this review is that the reviewer showed up late to the event and then left early. He missed our pre-concert discussion and only received a short glimpse of the piece. Not really sufficient to make well-informed judgements or criticisms.

ANALOG Arts Ensemble said:
That's not the way the review reads to me, but I understand your take on it. The reviewer strikes me as fairly open-minded. He entered the event with great expectations and simply saw something that left him cold. I don't see anything crass in his review.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alphonse Izzo on November 21, 2008 at 1:19pm: Well, I actually posted my thoughts in the comments box on the Advocate's website. I do lean toward thinking it is a little crass. There are statements that contradict each other and some word choices that simply don't make sense to me. I think it could and should have been written with more care; I would have said that even it if was favorable.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jeff Harrington on November 21, 2008 at 1:54pm: Heh, I think the use of the phrase art damaged was meant not only to insult, but to depict with intensely sarcastic wordplay an 'artsier than thou' concert. I just can't see how abstract video, percussion and two laptops can achieve that effect in all honesty.

If the reviewer was expecting something else, how is that the musicians fault? His explanation about his expectation is a little disingenuous to boot. I was hoping for a performance that might demonstrate that electronics could be warmer and friendlier, and percussion colder and more mechanical, than how we normally think of each. That is just bad writing, contradictory and if you're reviewing a concert that you 'hope' is one thing and it turns out to be another, than perhaps you should skip reviewing it!

The writing is not professional nor is it within the emotive boundaries of a well-intentioned critique. And maybe Joe is just feeling a bit contrarian these days since the election? ;)

Regardless, this critique is a gem. It's the kind of thing that experimental musicians dream of! IMO, it's so much better to get written up like this, than it is to get some lukewarm philosophical treatise, like you see in European papers. This kind of shit you can keep, re-use and even laugh about. Priceless...

Alphonse Izzo said:
Well, I actually posted my thoughts in the comments box on the Advocate's website. I do lean toward thinking it is a little crass. There are statements that contradict each other and some word choices that simply don't make sense to me. I think it could and should have been written with more care; I would have said that even it if was favorable.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by J.C. Combs on November 21, 2008 at 4:23pm: You can read the first sentence and predict the rest. Judging from the comparison to what the reviewer recommends at the end of the review, experimental music isn't his cup of tea.; ▶ Reply to This