I don’t get the “sell out” bit at all. If we have heard the music, it is because it has been released, mass-produced and sold, is it not? All artists that we hear about want recognition for their work. If they made music just for themselves, we would simply not hear about it.
Some artists that we now hail as “minimal wave”, thought they were making pop music! I tend to collect records with inserts if I find them, and in the press sheets, a score of unknown synth heroes are described as the Next Big Thing. I expect most of the original minimal wave, the early eighties stuff, must have been made by people with dreams of, if not worldwide fame, then at least not the total obscurity they faded into. And I also think that most of the rarities in my collection deserved a wider audience than they got.
As for Thanasis Zlatanos, he was a greek artist who lived in Norway in the punk-and-beyond period. He played in a few Norwegian new wave bands before starting his own, synth-based band, called Nekropolis. This band disbanded before the first LP was finished, so he finished it himself and released it under his own name - but entitled “Nekropolis”. I think it came out in 1982, and I think the Lollipop label who issued it is his own. He released a live tape in 1984 (of a december 82 gig), and then another LP “ARTificial” in… 1988? Maybe it was in 1986, I don’t remember now. This 2nd LP is more instrumental soundscapes, kinda new age but still some good tracks.
Veronica played a track on her May 20 show. Maybe the link @ eastvillageradio.com still works?
[quote author=“reactorlgtn”]I don’t get the “sell out” bit at all. If we have heard the music, it is because it has been released, mass-produced and sold, is it not? All artists that we hear about want recognition for their work. If they made music just for themselves, we would simply not hear about it.
-Ø-
Well, I guess it’s more going in the following direction:
A band has a certain style and the style changes big time like in Vice Versa becoming ABC (again as in “not Absolutely Body Control”). The new style is hugely successful and the old one forgotten.
In the case of ABC, the band seems to consider Vice Versa an experimental phase which they needed in order to find their “real” selves in ABC. If the story goes like this, they didn’t sell out as such even if you think Vice Versa was the better part of the story.
Now if I remember correctily, e.g. Gary Numan on the other hand said in interviews that for a long period in the late eighties and early nineties, he made music he didn’t really like himself and that he mostly made it because he thought it would appeal to bigger audiences. Well, it didn’t. Respect for at least being so honest about it & so glad he changed his approach.
Now I wonder where that school of rethorics is located where they teach you that “that’s your words, not mine” is a good answer to almost everything. :D
But let’s get to the core of the matter once and for all:
I do appreciate seeing a couple of positive posts here from you. Time will tell if it is a tactical manoeuver or not.
What I generally find so tiresome, though, is that whatever you post, the underlying message is: I, Alan, want some recognition as a musician.
It is all circling around your two main themes
a) the musician is godlike
b) the cream of the crop remains unsigned
And by the biggest of coincidences you are an unsigned musician.
Now I am more familiar with the frustrations of not finding a “label” than you might think. I published my latest book myself, gave some copies away for free to friends, sold some, still got a number boxes sitting in the basement and overall lost money on it. So what? I did what I wanted to do and I am bloody glad I did.
You’re a musician? Tell you what, I love musicians, for they make music.
You’re making the music you want to make? Great, don’t change a thing.
Just please stop acting as if you were the only person on the planet who’s got problems to get their musical career going. It’s rather common.
I’d just like to say that whatever whiny, motherly complaining you kids have to do about M. Alan Byond, I just received his newly completed and unreleased songs and in my opinion he is doing what may be the most sophisticated and complex minimal music in the world right now, seriously amazing trax!!! - drum programming is extremely well-crafted, complicated, and constantly changing within each song, vocal effects and sampling are subtle, and carefully chosen, never coming off as remotely gratuitous as in nearly all other analogue electronic music being made right now, (especially you ‘formulaic’ Germans, ughh god yr new trax all sound exactly the fuking same, take some chances, jesus…), and best of all he is perhaps the only artist I know right now who is successfully able to make, and in so doing realizes the difficult art form of making very short, aggressive songs(:50 - 2 mins. in length), truly a lost form/genre of musical composition in my opinion, and so hard to do well.
Long live skepticism and negativity, the vacuous, abstract ituned, ‘soulseeked’ and ‘photoshopped-out’ world really needs more of this ‘Resistant’ attitude - to me its very much what the true DIY/punk spirit of the earliest minimal elektronik bands embodied…and in keeping with this if I were Alan I’d tell the WIERD to fuck off for these very rare ‘Byond’ words :!: ...
...and on another note, prepare for the second chapter of the cold black repulsively resistant mess that is WIERD Records, coming this fall(to no record stores near you!)...VRp
I think no PM required for what I am going to say now.
If you read it carefully, my post has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of Alan’s music in the slightest sense. I do not know his music, and the reason for that is that I am turned off by the way he is promoting it. In these matters, I prefer to decide myself what I take an interest in.
Now it’s a big universe out there and I don’t exclude the possibility that Alan’s music could find my taste. Believe it or not, I’d even be prepared to admit to it in public. :D Still, I’m just not tempted to check.
Now as you like his stuff a lot, please note that this thread is actually the overrated thread. No invitation for ego clashing meant.
This thread wasn´t intended to discuss neither how difficult/easy it is to get your stuff released nor how artists prostitute themselves. Rubbish on this particular board, since none of the so-called “Minimal-Wave” Bands did sell out like U2 for example or has probs to get their stuff released.
To get on topic again, I defintely agree that Transparent Illusion is the most overrated amongst this scene.
Fall of Saigon is also one candidate, but only for Nr. 2 :wink:
There are also a lot of titles I can´t understand collectors paying so much for: Class Info, Short Wave Mystery, Second Glance 12”, Iron Curtain for example. But these are only overrated in their collector´s value (price) not for their significance amongst this musical genre.
Fall Of Saigon ? Their mlp (5 tracks) is excellent from the first untill the very last note.
Concerning Iron Curtain, the 12” went for 1.300 $ last night. 8O
Okay, the Condos is a nice one and I like First Punk Wars also, but for the rest it is plain pop music to my ears and definitely NOT minimal wave.
Always amazed their records are so expensive. Bought their 12” in the early 90’s for 0,50 Guilders, not knowing who they were and still don’t understand the prices they fetch today apart from the record being relatively rare. The music is nice, but not brilliant in my opinion you see. But it is good enough, so I do not wish to sell it. Maybe that is stupid, I know.
