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Re: (TV) Re: Eno and elevators



Keith Allison <keith@marquee.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> "No Pussyfooting", on the other hand is very groovy though I'm not at 
> all certain why I've thought that since it came out in 1970 whatever. 
> Possibly Robert Fripp, dunno... And it was, without a doubt, new and 
> visionary at the time and I suspect very influential.

That was where the tape loop thing (later dubbed "Frippertronics")
all started, right?  Maybe you are a bigger fan than I am.  I have to 
admit that I didn't get it at the time and still don't.  I did dislike 
the first side, "Heavenly Music Corporation", which has lots of Fripp's 
guitar, less than I disliked the second side, which had more Eno.

I didn't catch on to Eno's ambient music until much later, around
Music for Airports, after he jettisoned the tape loop apparatus.  
Even today I like his vocal music better. But that's probably a 
limitation of my taste, not Eno's ambient music.

On the other hand, I'm proud to hate a lot of "concept" music and 
electronic music.  However, Eno just puts his music out there and lets
you like it or not like it.  When everybody else is trying to prove
their musical chops, he credits himself as "Brian Eno - simple keyboards".
He is a good collaborator and makes other musicians sound good. 
His theories are zaney, but he doesn't ask anyone to believe them,
and he changes them from time to time.  He could easily have become 
an academic side show like John Cage, but emphatically didn't, 
preferring to be just a pop star. He's opposed to doing work to make 
money (such as with U2), but then, who is?

Eno's lyrics are even more obscure than Mr. Verlaine's, in some cases
to the point of being composed randomly.   But of course Eno selects
from the random output, so the process works like the ink blots in a 
Rorschach test to evoke the contents of his unconscious mind, which
(this being Eno) turn out to be rather bizarre.  

But the main thing about this method is that it allows him to hide 
his personality behind a mask, something we have also seen with Verlaine.  
The emotion comes out between the lines and in the intricacies of the
music.  Since 90% of rock lyrics are guys bellyaching because their 
girlfriend dumped them (or vice versa), it's nice to have something 
else to listen to.  "Enigma" is an over-used word, but it's hard not
to apply it to both Eno and Verlaine.

Another thing they have in common is that they have both done
soundtracks.  Anyone know Eno's and Verlaine's soundtracks well
enough to compare them?

Mostly I just think Eno is one of the few musicians that control
the synthesizer, rather than the other way around.

Mark
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