NOISE/LIMITS
1. Noise
There has been discussion of TBW! "noise" in recent local publications . . . once in Burt magazine’s bandslam issue, and once in a LEO catalogue of local bands. The former notice is a good one, written by a reviewer who doesn’t particularly care for the band: at least he gives us props for sticking to our ideological guns feast or famine (well, famine). The latter review is a rehashing of the Burt review minus the props. I’m sure they meant us some respect simply by including us, but "slavish dedication to noise"? That’s enough to send me off on a Nietzsche rant to bore even my most tolerant friends.
We have, on occasions in the past, even implicitly staked this claim ourselves. We never shied away from the noise band classification floating around when we first started out. Recently, following a sprawling ambient pair of sets by Ut Gret, we threw down a very conscious noise, a noise informed by the years of our playing together (released as "Relaxing at Caritas [for N. M.]"). At this point, it is absolutely one of my favorite TBW! moments. It is also one of the rare moments of the band that doesn’t have pretty deep roots in the conventional . . . and also begs the question: what is music, what is noise?
Some things never get written because they seem obvious. Some thoughts are never spoken because they are assumed. I have a novel in my head that will never be written: I already know the ending, so there seems to be little point. The whole "noise" problem is this way. This seems obvious to me: there is the concept of music being based on either rhythm or melody. Then some "open-minded, liberal" sort will allow for a different kind of music based on noise, which is a little avant-garde offshoot of "normal" music. To me, melody & rhythm, all aspects of normal music, are a subset of noise: maybe proportional to the subset of whole numbers ending in 0 . . . the subset is infinitely big, yet smaller than the whole set.
Who ever raises their voice makes noise. Who ever picks up an instrument, and attempts to play it, makes noise. When you get out of bed in the morning, you rustle the sheets, your feet hit the floor, you make noise. Those who make music are participating in a cultural ritual: they are organizing noise. They are organizing noise according to a large and complex body of rules as old as our culture. The question is this: why follow the rules?
There are many that have, from the inside, pushed against the boundaries, that have tried to re-write the stone tablets of musical law. John Cage, perhaps, should be held up as one of the most diligent and uncompromising of all. Yet, he is (quite rightly) held as a genius . . . why? Because there was method to his madness, even if his method was not that as prescribed by law. He is respected because, even though his music is out, he came from the inside . . . and, regarded or dismissed, he is undeniably a part of the canon.
So where does that leave TBW! in regard to the law? Surely we would have a bit more credibility if we ‘fessed up to following the lead of Cage and others, if we portrayed ourselves as bandits fighting against the law, especially if, like all those TV lawyers, we gave ingenious & compelling arguments (based within the law, of course) as to just how & why we break those laws.
It is the law itself that has changed . . . or, more accurately, been repositioned. In the past, the variations of the canon occurred incrementally, almost minutely. Cage made a major break, and his justifications were actually tangential to the canon, leaving it to various commentators to reconcile Cage & the law. At the same time, the 20th century saw the merging of "high" and "low" forms of music in very concrete ways (in America, Gershwin & Copeland, among others), accompanied by a radical questioning of just who it is that keeps the laws of "good music" (think of Ives railing against "the blue-haired matrons", as well as countless others bemoaning the philistine public). As the century wound down, it became clear that, for the most part, the laws were kept by the same people who kept the wallets.
Western culture holds the origin of laws to be divine. When the divinity of law is called into question, the law is transmuted into social contract, and the boundaries become liquid . . . or, to those who hold the divinity of law, disappear altogether. Those who would be outlaws now have the luxury of choosing their sheriffs, and the added responsibility of justifying their struggle. Rebellion occurs outside aesthetics, or with aesthetics as its tool. Laws (the canon) are no longer necessarily associated with aesthetics past the point of an agreement between the artist & her/his audience.
It’s fun to play outlaw, and we certainly got our mileage from that . . . and still do, from our few apologists. But the fact of the matter is that we can no longer be transgressors when it is clear that the boundaries no longer exist in any real way. The law is now nothing more than a matter of social etiquette; it has no import outside that realm. To that extent, we choose to play rock shows, we choose to do ambient shows, we choose to do "noise" shows as a game of expectation with our audience. With no laws, no limits, no boundaries, we are free to do what we want, to fill the void with whatever we want to create.
Post-Cage, post-Ayler, everything is permitted. The question becomes "what will the audience permit us?" I think our consideration of that question, at least, is clear.
2. Limits
Perhaps a little clarification is in order . . . in my "noise" discussion, there was some fast & loose discussion of boundaries, limits, and laws. The idea of boundaries seemed to be too easily dismissed. It is not my intent to make the dismissal trivial.
Limit & transgression lead an interdependent life: one defines the other. As the limit lives, so lives the transgression. Beyond simple definition, one controls the other’s intensity: if the limit is strong, the transgression is large.
The idea of "absolute" (non-relative) limits has its roots in the sacred. Absolute limits are articles of faith, and, as such, do not ultimately require defense . . . these limits are seen as "the way things are".
Absolute limits are no longer current in aesthetic realms: rules are required to have reasons & partisans, & can be generally described as "schools of thought". They are products of social negotiation: we argue amongst ourselves as to what defines "good music", and the definition is always fluid. Though partisans may claim that their ideas are absolutes, they are really honed through years of arguments and the vagaries of personal taste . . . and, importantly, their response to the present moment.
It is this requisite response to the present moment that is the hallmark of modernism . . . indeed, a hallmark to almost all 20th century aesthetics, both "high" and "low", whether or not self-consciously modernist. We almost take as given the idea that "newness" has value: think of a current jazzman who can, with adroitness and creativity, explore the boundaries put forth by Charlie Parker. Now, if this jazzman were a contemporary of Parker's, he would be acclaimed as a pioneer on the cutting edge of music . . . however, as a modern jazz musician, he would be at least partially dismissed as "stuck in the past". Even those who hold bop as the pinnacle of jazz would expect an update, a recontextulization.
However, the relativity of limits undercuts the transgressive nature of modernism: without absolute limits, modernism runs out of hard targets to transgress. And, ultimately, calls into question the value of transgression itself . Transgression no longer has absolute (modernist) value in the same way that limits no longer have absolute (sacred) value. Both become currency in a closed-loop exchange, one establishes the other.
"Those who would be outlaws now have the luxury of choosing their sheriffs, and the added responsibility of justifying their struggle" . . . . Transgression has become optional, an aesthetic choice instead of a modernist imperative. Transgression-as-choice requires that the limits be made visible (remember, they are no longer self-evident), and that the transgression is worthwhile. Put another way, limits present themselves as problems to be solved, and the artist must not only solve the problem, but establish that the problem exists to begin with.
The disappearance of limits (and the receding of transgression) is behind the current vulgar definition of postmodernism & a heavily context-dependant aesthetic . . . one no longer need to define rebellion, for it has been commodified: you buy (into) it if you want it, but please don't confuse it with transgression. And, being "traditional" or "mainstream" has been dislocated as well: if the limits (rules) don't exist, then it is no easier to follow them than to transgress them.
* * * * *
So here we are, new rules = no rules. Back almost to a new objectivism, where ultimately only the objects exist. And, the new freedom, new rules = my rules. Why be transgressors when you can write the rulebook? While our (TBW!'s) aesthetic displays an obvious disregard for what many consider limits, we don't posit these limits at the center of our work, either positively or negatively, as rule or transgression. While the modernist in us clings to that last shred of modernism, context, we ultimately let the thing itself speak, without appeal or redemption.
All of which is just a convoluted way of saying we play what we like, we like what we play, we play what we play.
2/19/2000, updated 3/31/2004
coming next: the last of the great limiters, the "free marketplace"
[Bill]
