Most avant-garde prog band?

lucas wrote: Paco Fox wrote: Anyway, I really don't like avant garde.   Me too. And I don't understand how one can "listen" to it. It is so boring and has nothing to do with the ideals of music. Zappa, Varèse, Ligeti, Boulez and other contemporary composers created a "music" that only snobbish people can appreciate.

Instant gratification is great, but not the only way to get some enjoyment. Sometimes it takes a certain amount of mental participation from the listener to achieve a degree of entertainment rather than having it spoon fed to you.

Do you prefer to slowly enjoy your meal, taking time to savor the flavors and enjoy the smells, converse and luxuriate in the atmoshere or.... chow down and run? Many approach music in the same way. Give me something complex to breakdown with each listen, Mental Medication. MMMM

Please define "snobbish?" Is it anything like PROGHOLE?

danbo wrote: lucas wrote: Paco Fox wrote: Anyway, I really don't like avant garde.   Me too. And I don't understand how one can "listen" to it. It is so boring and has nothing to do with the ideals of music. Zappa, Varèse, Ligeti, Boulez and other contemporary composers created a "music" that only snobbish people can appreciate.  Instant gratification is great, but not the only way to get some enjoyment. Sometimes it takes a certain amount of mental participation from the listener to achieve a degree of entertainment rather than having it spoon fed to you.

Mmm... but, for me, it lacks emotional appeal. It's like conceptual art. I can understand it in its complex layers of meaning, but it fails to move me. I understand what Duchamp meant when he put that toilet at an exposition, but that doesn't move me a bit. One thing is mental participation and attention to what it's being said (Close to the Edge) and another is trying to listen to a dodecaphonic composition or a Battiato one chord album.

Avant Garde was the musical manifestation of the vanguards of the 20th century, and, as all other forms of vanguards, it ended up failing when they took thiings to a dead end (I repeat, a one note album, a 'classical' compoosition with only silence), losing the audience on their way of expanding the boundaries of art.

That's not saying it was useless. Great aesthetic ideas were born and adopted. Take some avant-garde, for instance, and how it developed into, for example, film music. There will no be music for The Silence of the Lambs without the works of avant garde composers. And no Lair of Shelob either!

philippe wrote: Sorry Lucas bur I think that too structured songs tend to be boring after several listenings...it's not the case with Zappa, Parmeggiani, Conrad and others...each listening is new...

Amen

lucas wrote: OK : music has to be a pleasure for your ears and not a pain, so if I say that only snob people can listen to avant-garde, that's because they belong to a minority that listens to a music that they only can appreciate (in spite of themselves and their ears I suppose). But maybe it's not the right word to qualify these people. To Danbo : snob here can be assimilated to "proghole".

I don't enjoy ALL avant-garde, probably not even a majority of the genre. The bits I do like, intrigue me. There is a fine line between art and trash and it's all about individual taste.

Now there are those who like, or pretend to like, something avant-garde, because they are think they will be percieved as "hip" or chic or whatever.

Have you heard David Torn's "Best Laid Plans"? I would classify that as avant-garde. Totally improvised with no real song structure, but it appeals to me. I can't really explain why or what it touches in me, but..... it does.

PROGHOLES UNITE!!!!!!!!!!!

Avant Bands of Note for this Owl:

Thinking Plague

Bone

Shubb Niggurath

Skeleton Key

Zappa/Mothers

No Secrets In The Family

Present

Univers Zero

Area

Miriodor

Cartoon

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

PFS279

RUINS

Happy Family

Captain Beefheart

Well this clown sure is a snob, I even listen to the Kronos Quartet...Out demons out !!!!

Zappa, Univers Zero and Miriodor...WOW what a bunch

danbo wrote: lucas wrote: OK : music has to be a pleasure for your ears and not a pain, so if I say that only snob people can listen to avant-garde, that's because they belong to a minority that listens to a music that they only can appreciate (in spite of themselves and their ears I suppose). But maybe it's not the right word to qualify these people. To Danbo : snob here can be assimilated to "proghole". I don't enjoy ALL avant-garde, probably not even a majority of the genre. The bits I do like, intrigue me. There is a fine line between art and trash and it's all about individual taste. Now there are those who like, or pretend to like, something avant-garde, because they are think they will be percieved as "hip" or chic or whatever. Have you heard David Torn's "Best Laid Plans"? I would classify that as avant-garde. Totally improvised with no real song structure, but it appeals to me. I can't really explain why or what it touches in me, but..... it does. PROGHOLES UNITE!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate David Torn's playing, and can't understand why he is seen as such a great artist. "Best laid plans" reminds me of the title of a song by the late Kevin Gilbert (a great vocalist), but there is surely no link between the two titles.

lucas wrote:   I hate David Torn's playing, and can't understand why he is seen as such a great artist. "Best laid plans" reminds me of the title of a song by the late Kevin Gilbert (a great vocalist), but there is surely no link between the two titles.

"The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley:"  Robbie Burns

(The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.")

(Later quoted in the Steinbeck novel title.... Some of these old musicians read great literature.)

I would guess AG depends on the year. What was avant in 1967 or 1976 is not quite so avant no, or a dead end.

1966: Beatles and Beach Boys (not joking)

1967: Beatles, Zappa and Vanilla Fudge

1968: Beatles and The Nice.

1969: Beatles, Led Zeppelin and King Crimson

1970: Beatles, Gentle Giant and ELP

.......

2004: Mars Volta? No, not really.

The best of the still strange sounding AG-bands?

Well, not really sure, at least I would mention Henry Cow, 5uu, Van der Graaf and Hatfield and the North.