moshkito wrote:
If there is some anger, and I don't think that his anger is that harsh or vindictive, unlike these types of comments about his nature appears to be, it is rather well founded! |
Never, said anything about anger. See, you say "pretension" like only something a certain sort of people can be accused of. I don't think that way.
moshkito wrote:
... to someone where concentration is important in a piece, it is his very foundation, but nooooo ... you interrupt him for an autograph ... or sto scream "rock'n'roll", and ignore the man on his trip ... and then you get upset that he got touchy with your interruption to his concentration |
I've never met the man let alone, molested his concentration.
Concentration doesn't have anything to do with it. I think he probably concentrated in his symphonic period and his trio period (Starless, Red), and the various parts of the Belew period. But the amount of concentration doesn't make them, in his mind "valid". If seriousness and concentration mattered, then each period should remain valid for the period it was. If it's like a painting, is it really that much like a painter to devalue his prior works or periods?
I mean if he expects us to dishonor his previous works in the way he does, wouldn't have be closer to denigrating what I cannot do myself? I can't write Lizard, or Fallen Angel or Frame by Frame. So my inability is a constant across his body of work, just like his concentration on his music.
I'm not trying to condemn a person as much as think about the whole subject of pretense and music. There's a certain point where punk is pretentious. A person who writes "songs like Genesis" because they love 70s Genesis is in a punk-fashion less pretentious than a person who has to make stuff that doesn't sound like anybody else because they want to prove what a original genius they are. (No, that's not a slam at Fripp, either.)
In one sense you can say "prog is pretentious" in another sense you can say pretending to like music that is current when I just love the soundscapes of the prog era was a stigma that a lot of us 90s prog fans shook off. On the other hand, I often find myself pretentious when I reject pop bands because they're pop and later end up finding their tunes infectious. I tried not to like INXS, for example. I just couldn't win that battle over defining my own image.
I guess you get so used to like-dislike discussion on these forums that it's hard to tell when somebody likes to go beyond that, call it pretension if you will.