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09.58  II…  ...while Cheese Constructionists continue to apply their skills to the attic & rear roofs I…  II...  16.58 An exciting invitation to visit Australia, for a project that means a lot to me, has become enveloped in a surfeit of bureaucracy that would press on DGM to an unacceptable degree. It would also take up a huge amount of my time to simply read & deal with the terms of the contract, and this has had the effect of crushing my enthusiasm for the event. Stuff, yes. Too much stuff, unlikely. Too much unnecessary stuff that diverts DGM’s creative energy & presses the joy in my heart flat: not. DGM has a contract policy, the paper equivalent of the No Jerk policy: if a contract written in English takes longer than 15 minutes to read and/or is less than 95% intelligible, it is declined. So, I invoked the Contract Terror Policy & have declined the appealing & interesting work, with deep regret. To the Australian promoter: this is way too complex. Let’s drop this immediately, please. 17.05 News has come in regarding the latest court adventures befalling Mr. Carruthers, the well-known music educator & saviour of Scottish rugby. Reportedly, The Big C was paid c. £750,000 on leaving the club. More on the court proceedings in the fullness of time. 17.11 Recently, I was asked to make a written contribution to an upcoming Hall & Oates Box Set... Subject: Re: quote for hall & oates box set… would happily settle for even one quote from you. the "sacred songs" album is an artistic milestone in daryl's career and I would be very grateful to have you represented. From my reply… interesting for this milestone, then, that getting the second half of the modest advance was like pulling teeth, and i have never been paid the producer's royalty; and no mention was made of paying me for the attached contribution! nevertheless, it is attached. Sacred Songs I It was a time, it was a place & a certain something was in the air. This certain something was reflected in the vibrancy & power of movements in popular culture. Actions & undertakings in popular culture are time sensitive: we hit the moment, become part of the dialogue & conversation, and something changes. We miss the mark and, if we are remembered at all, become part of an interesting alternative history of what-might-have-been. The creative act is inherently unsettling. Afterwards, we recognize that things have changed. In retrospect, we could see it coming; at the time, who could see the form that change might take? Vested interests do not, in their nature, seek change; institutions & their agents understand the creative leap as threatening. The creative leap comes with no guarantees, other than that the leap is taken. This is a qualitative assurance. Business demands that success is guaranteed, inevitable. This is the quantitative imperative, and undermines the creative act. In the music industry, Power Possessors pay lip service to artistic endeavor. A hard lesson to be learnt is that management, nominally representing an artist’s best interests, and their record company, nominally presenting that artist’s music to the world, actively co-operate to prevent the artist’s creative aspiration & endeavor from succeeding. II We ask our artists to be true. Actually, we demand that our artists be true. When poets, storytellers, & singers lie to us for money, our culture is diseased & in decline. Songs sung truly, for their generation, may well be sacred. III A quiet tragedy of my musical life is that public ears have never quite heard the breadth of Daryl’s talent. The best pipes of anyone I’ve worked with, a wide-ranging musical instrument, an embodiment & compendium of vocal styles, he would stand & sing in the moment, solo & full doo-wop. Give the boy a sheet of words and say go! and he went. None of this is likely to surprise anyone familiar with Daryl’s career. What might surprise them is what they haven’t heard. The lesson to this cautionary tale is: turn a seeming disadvantage to your advantage. For that, we seize the moment. Otherwise, the opportunity lost also becomes part of an interesting alternative history, if it is remembered at all. Views I…  II…  Search Robert Fripp's diary archive. |
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