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If that guitar and humming was the only thing Flynt had ever done, I think you're right that he would have a deserved obscurity. But that's not his most loved work, which would probably be the Celestial Power tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8uMib5NM8U Despite any flaws of recording, this piece has amazing resonance when played from a good stereo in a large room instead of from utube on a computer. His odd "back porch hillbilly blues" makes sense in the light of his other work. Distortion and blurring of the guitar sound isn't a mistake, it's the background he wanted for the droning, chanting vocals. The 'hillbilly blues' tag is a joke, a purposefully misleading title. He's not trying to work in any genre, so comparison to commercially viable recordings is missing the point. That piece may be more concept than music, but I find other music he made to be very beautiful as music, not only as concept. On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Let's be clear, this is the "artiste" discussed in the essay: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6VjHYjXEM > > If 15 minutes of the same 3 chords with often out of tune humming along is > your thing, then have at it. Many people play acoustic guitar into a > portable home recorder. Very few of those recordings are worth hearing. > Almost none of them are worth canonized as "undiscovered gold." > > I understand the frustration with modern commercialized popular music, but > the modern impulse (often by younger writers with little historical > perspective, writers "born digital" and raised on digital pop music glop) > to "discover" performers from what is glorified as a "wonderful past," many > of whom don't really deserve to be canonized, is annoying. It seems to be > an academic, navel-gazing pursuit. And, it smacks of ignorance, of not > listening to enough commercially-released music from the same time periods. > That sort of listening will often reveal that there were many excellent > examples in the selected genre, musicians who could actually play and thus > make commercially viable recordings. > > -- Tom Fine > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "WS" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 6:35 PM > Subject: [ARSCLIST] Records Ruin the Landscape > > > > The link below is an excerpt (published in WIRE magazine) from David >> Grubb's >> upcoming book called "Records Ruin The Landscape". >> >> >> >> I thought it might be of interest to some ARSCLIST members, as it explores >> the implications of recorded material from an earlier era that only finds >> an >> audience much later than it was created. >> >> >> >> http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/book-extracts/read_ >> extract-from-david-gr >> ubbs_records-ruin-the-landscape >> >> >> >> >>