Bil-
Do what you want, but I think an integral part of any good listening and playing is an open-mind. To bash a band because of it’s bio is meaningless, because we’re talking about music here, something which written words have very little to do with (theres that famous zappa quote which goes something like "writing about music is like dancing about architecture). There’s nothing wrong with having a negative opinion about someones music, but to have a negative but ignorant opinion can do serious harm to good musicians, something that has been done by far too many “respected” critics.
If you’re going to put down any musical act, you need have to have actually heard the music for any knowledgable musican or listener to take you seriously. You might actually deter someone who doesn’t know better away from music they might actually like.
It’s bad for every party involved.
By the way Pat, I’m currently a full-time jazz performance major at the University of Michigan on the low whistle. The band I’m in is making an album, which has been very delayed by a long wait for a new batch of reeds. They will arrive sson at which point the album will be quickly completed.
Will I see you at the tionol?
I bet yourself and Kynch would have a lot to mull over! Great to hear your still at it… how were you able to convince them that the low whistle is a jazz instrument?
I would love to go but will be getting things together for the So Cal Tionol (see my signature)… are you playing Kirk’s pipes these days?
I had completely forgotten you were a full time jazz student at U-M…It was an offhand post but the omission was by no means deliberate or intended to run you or your band down. You have every right to be proud of that, I know it’s an exclusive place and you need to be a quick study to get in. I am sorry if you took any offense, you know I respect your endeavors with Millish.
As for the tionol, I might be able to make the concert on Saturday but not the workshops, my schedule doesn’t give me a lot of wiggle room right now, although after the first week of October it opens up. Good thing too cuz I need a vacation…
Sounds good bil. “Wasdiss gangsta trad.” Thats funny stuff.
Paddy, I was not offended by anything you said. Sorry if you thought my comments were directed at you, did not mean anything even close to it.
See you soon.
I’d be interested to know what you’re thinking of when you say this. Are you thinking of criticism in an ITM context? I wasn’t aware of any respected critics.
Criticism is a reality of musical life that has to be accepted. If it does have to exist then some of it has to be ‘good’ (i.e. well versed, well written, from a consistent view point, generally of some conviction). This is not at all the case with criticism in Irish music. What you have instead are hobbyists and fairly blatant opportunists who like to try and make it look like they know what they are talking about most of the time for various (often selfish) reasons.
As with many of the maladies contagious to Irish music this situation largely exists because, for one reason or another, people can’t bring themselves to accept or discuss Irish music as an enduring art form preferring instead to treat it as a sort of ramshackle cottage industry where any attempt to make a fast buck may be lauded no matter how cynical or rediculous. It is lumped in in it’s illusive enduring stylised forms with subsequent stylistic off-shoots that really deserve a classification of their own at this stage to avoid the widespread confusion.
Any sort of ‘fusion’ (a rather shallow and flash term considering that a sublime process of fusion has been at work in Irish music since our earliest records of it!) has to be identified as what it is (i.e. “Contemporary ITM”, the same way that they make the distinction in Jazz music) and critcised on it’s own musical faults or merits under it’s own set of values. There are any amount of music writers who can/ could do this given it’s proximity to modern pop or art music.
Instrumental music that is distinctly coming from an enduring style perspective has a different set of values and a very different sensibility. In my experience this is the music that is least understood in the modern world and the one that needs good critics to discuss it as a set of enduring art forms.
Tyler and his music kick some serious @$$, whether he’s playing the sort of pure-drop trad that won him the All-Ireland, or whether he’s tearing it up with wicked, jazzed up whistle backed by mandolin, guitar and a funky beat.
Tyler has a gift very few of us have. Most of us can’t play any sort of music very well. Tyler can play trad, jazz, fusion and more and sound mighty fine every note of the way. I respect that in a big way.
