Djam Karet Fan's Club

Now one question : How can Bands like DK  to relesed too many albums? Who support them ? You can see in PA, They haven't too many fans in this Prog site.

I think "Real Artists" have many troubles around the world and they must challenge against Commercial system or fanatic system! or these kind of systems!! I respect to these Artists and I try to promote them in different ways. One of these ways is "Introducing"  with talking about them.

 

Was just listening to some DK on the way to work and the dentist ... yeah ... perfect music to get me in the mood!!!! ... and one thought I had that I think was important ... DK doesn't break into blues chords or jazz chords ... it's just "there" ... and in many ways, when someone says that this sone or that song reminds me of PF ... I can see now that Gilmour is into blues really heavy ... DK is not! And in this sense, DK is way more progressive than Pink Floyd is ...   massive difference.

 

(Sorry .. it's impossible to do this in 3 sentences ... so with that said ... )

 

In general, the majority of music that we listen to is formula based. To my ear, some of it is boringly so!

 

It has a beginning, middle and then an end. That is a formula, or a design for a piece for many things, including music.

 

How it manifasts in music is easy ... Let's say this is an example ...  theme A, theme B and then Theme C, which more often than not is a variation on Theme A. For several hundred years this has been called (I'm not a music major ...  please ... and the wording could be incorrect!) a "sonata" ... and basically the majority of rock'n'roll is centered on a "sonata" process. Thus you can see why I do not consider a lot of "classic" "progressive" bands, important or major ... because their basic format for their work was ... ??? ... you got it ... been there, done that, old school! ... and therefore, in my book, it does NOT fit into the "progressive" grouping at all.

 

The basic "rock" and "blues" structures, are almost all variants on the same thing and on occasion you find a Jean-Luc Godard fan in the middle ... that is, the school that say that there is a beginning, middle and an end, NOT NECESSARILY in that order -- which is interesting to say the least.

 

A lot of jazz music, and this is according to "Bass Player" Magazine, is centered on point/counterpoint in music, that is "contrasts" of various details in the music, be they chords or notes. However, in a way, even with Miles Davis, they still had a basic/main theme, that all of them were supposed to meet back up at and end things. So, guess what ... it's a formula of sorts. Most conventional jazz is based on a perception that you have to know the notes, chords, the scales and so on, so you know which ones to go up on and which ones to go down on, so you can stay together ... again, you can see that is a "formula" based on music designs already used. The other one, which was a bizarre suggestion by that same magazine is that jazz "tends to use a lot more minor chords" ... which was the single stupidest thing I have ever heard said about music, or any kind!

 

Speed things up in time and ... let's look at krautrock and what became kosmiche musik ... the basic idea from Berlin's Schools of Music was ... to not use any musical concepts that were based on Anglo-American music, which are/were (still) the best known around the world because of the commercial distribution. ... and you can see that you already have 3 or 4 basic ideas ... and now ... we want to create music with none of those ideas.

 

More ... it has been said that all or rock music is based on "melody". And that all of jazz music is NOT supposed to be based on melody, but what should/could be called "anti-melody". Well, the European jazz scene ate this up and threw it up on the same breath and decided that was not a good definition for jazz and did their own thing. So you can listen to Keith Jarrett on the Koln Concert ... and go ... wow ... that's jazz ... wait a minute ... that can't be rock ... what? ... what the heck is it? ... and the definition of concentional jazz, gets thrown for a loop ... it's fabulous music, that might ... MIGHT ... have a slight connection to jazz, and Keith is well versed and educated enough in music that he probably can play with that in his head and his sleep ... but wait a minute ... how can someone just play like that ... and keep track of notes and chords? ... you can't!

 

So, let's try this again  ... it means ... you don't setup a solo. You don't setup a moment in the music. You don't use "bridges" or "verses" in order to transition the music from this place to the other ... you play ... and what comes ... comes ... and goes ... that's it.

 

Now you stop ... then what is the music about?

 

Well, for me, it is this ... you close your eyes, and fly ... and in that flight there is a massive movie and a story that th emusic gives you, and it doesn't need a lyricist to tell you, or hold your hand so you know that this song is about some sh*t or other! And this is where the European style of using the voice as an instrument is important ... oooppps another concept ... a singer telling you what this is all about? ... wow ... what a concept ... yeah! ... and you can get it in AD2's Yeti and Dance of the Lemmings almost non-stop in Renate's voice. And I think that it was merely intuitive, and not quite intentional ... which adds something else to the music that we haven't discussed yet. Or Can ... in Future Days or Soon Over Babbalooma ... check out the wonderful music transitions in the long cuts, totally seamless and smooth and so very pretty ... a total continuation of the music in a way that allows for the "movie" or "tripp" to continue and not get slowed down or lost, by a music change ... the flow continues quietly, softly and smoothly.

 

Now, when you go back to some of the list in "progressive" top of the pops, you will find that a lot of things ... are really boring and actually very repetitive and not very original when it comes down to it ... but we like them!

 

My favorite part of DK, is that ... the music just keeps going, and I want more when the pieces end (notice I did not call them "songs" ... because they AREN'T! format wise!) on the way to paradise ... and you go ... more ... more ... more ... and it may be there or not, but it doesn't exactly create an ending setup or format, like most rock bands do, so you know when to applaud! ... and guess what ... that would suggest that most "progressive" music is not designed for an audience and it's rock'n'roll proclivities! Or idiocies!

 

Now comes the hard part.  Free form expression or weirdness or ... who knows?

 

There is a point in music, where someone has to let go, so they can find out what is "on the other side" ... and some people are very good at imaging what was on that other side, and writing about it, and creating music and works off it. Others have to tape it and then figure out how to get back to it, and hope for the best.

 

Improvisation is, usually, and by definition, not something that you can, or should define, or decide what should be done with it. However, when you see what theater groups do with improvisation, you can see the massive benefits this has on music. You can setup a starting point, and an ending point ... but what the heck are you gonna do the 2nd hour ... how about the 3rd hour? ... yeah ... try this in acting with 10 people in a room, "locked up" and they each have to select a "character" and that is your character for the whole afternoon ... and then ... you lock them all up for 3 hours ... in the 1st hour the "games" and interplay slow down. In the 2nd hour the freaking out starts ... what do I do next ... in the 3rd hour ... if you have tuned to something, it flies and shines ... if you're still searching, you're done with the character and performance. You can't improvise!

 

The "anti-music" group, that came with "anti-film" (10 years before), "anti-theater" (about the same) and "anti-literature" (almost 20 years old by then) ... was a strange bunch. One thing they had in common was weirdness, and in theater you even had Ionesco making fun of firemen on a stage with ... whatever in their hands, and what not ... and music was not immune to that kind of thing, and sometimes, when you hear "Art Bears" or "Faust" in the really early days ... this is what you are hearing ... total free form and let go. The great side of that is that once in a while that crazyness tells a neat story on its own that you could not have imagined. The bad side? ... what the heck am I gonna do with all that? ... and if someone is a "notes" musician, or a "chord" musician, or a "classical" musician, they will not exactly be able to gain anything from this exercise ... because it scrambles the sequencing of the notes that they have been taught, are "right" and "proper" and considered "correct" based on the history of music and how many times it has been used and so forth.

 

There is another school ... so Peter Brook took his actors out to the Greyhound Bus Depot in London, and his Edmond was to turn around and piss on his brother's pants next to him in the other urinal ... that's the attitude you take with these lines for this whole act in this Shakespeare play ... no one is questioning Peter Brook's King Lear or any other Shakespeare work and his unbelievable scholarly works and writings on directing ... but it tells you that you can take an attitude and do something with it ... now, you can't exactly piss with a guitar, but you can a good FU with it (a la 10CC -- Sheet Music -- of course) as an example, and you can, all of a sudden do something distinctive and different that has nothing to do with notes or music itself ... has to do with your inner feel and your expression. The other school is the Marat/Sade school of destruction in the name of "education" and "social something or other" as exemplified by Pete Townsend ... it's an expression, and has nothing to do with music, but it adds something to the music that ... we had not expected, that sooner or later becomes a part of something else. I have always called the results of that (for Pete and The Who), is called "Who Are You" ... the whole album! Aptly titled as well and amazingly so!

 

And then, there is the last school of it all ... the one that drives you nuts ... and I call it the Andy Warhol school of ... nothing ... you turn on the camera, and you film those two people sleeping for 3 hours ... no kidding! ... or if you are bored, you show me a Campbell Soup can and hope that it makes you hungry (makes me want to throw up!), or if you are really bored, let's do dearest marilyn in 20 colors.

 

Some of it is good. Some of it is weird. Some of it takes a group somewhere else.

 

Pink Floyd was massive with sound effects, even if it was because they had to setup the effects between their pieces and sets, but many of them were quite long, according to the bootlegs ... and eventually they do 2 massive pieces that are chock full of effects ... you learn as you grow ... if you are not an idiot and get stuck on the fame!

 

DK, does what appears to be a lot of experimenting ... and it is not the KC style of experimenting.

 

KC's experiments, for me, are like this. ... I found this sound, and let's see if we can do something with it. And 35 minutes into playing around, lo and behold we found something ... it's the same in his solo projects these days, and sometimes things click and he has something on top of everything else, and it is nice ... sometimes not as nice, but no less interesting. The hard part? ... it's different each and every time, and you might not be able to get back to that exact second or sound. However, after the first several albums, a lot of KC's music DID become a bit more ... "designed", so they could start it and end it. And by the time you add lyrics ... guess what ... you have a song ... not a free form piece.  But Robert Fripp, by himself, is one of the best experimenters around ... and his work with Eno is legendary and is the work I love the most and enjoy the most. I love KC's first album, but dislike the gross mismanagement and conceptual nature that makes it the progressive album of all time, and the total disregard for the lyrics as poetry instead of rock music lyrics -- which is the worst falacy of the definition of "progressive" ... it's just rock'n'roll and like the other post ... I like it ... in other words, who gives a sh*t about the music and it all?

 

You either paint the picture of your experiment, and you might have a Guernica, or a Miro, or a Dali ... and that's that ... but to sit here and try to duplicate the same thing over and over again ... is boring, and no one has done it yet!

 

Hope this helps ... it's a big topic ... and very tough to discuss in an area like this and I can see/hear one or two people criticize it for its length, and it being totally ignored for its contents!

 

That's the part that hurts the most ... for art without a soul, is nothing ... and sometimes I want to call it ... just another religion!

 

 

 There is nothing to understand ... the whole generation has grown up to see and think that where quantity is, the important stuff is ... and thus you have that kind of thing.

 

The next "revolution" is going to be "anti-advertising" and control ... and you wait to see the viciousness on it ... it's not going to be nice ... but people really need to stop being "controlled" like that ... and it still is my theory that the government wants people to "have fun" and "entertain" themselves ... (old Reagan ploy!) ... it means that no one cares what else they do!