[Dixielandjazz] Why do people love bad art?

[David Richoux]

Yes, the philosophy of "What Kinda of Music?" is pretty well known in  
the San Francisco Bay Area - back in 1960/1961 the Los Trancos Woods  
Community Marching Band started public performances and parades  
playing whatever instruments were available and whatever tunes they  
could (usually to just the point of recognition/comprehension.) I  
first saw the group in 1971 and joined them in 1978. I am now The  
Semiconductor and the band is invited to major parades and festivals  
all over Northern California. We are usually well received by the  
audiences, even if they don't quite "get it..."
http://www.ltwcmb.com

There were/are a surprisingly large number of pro and semi-pro OKOM  
musicians in our ranks - it is fun, and a nice change from the more  
traditional performances we usually do. Also, there have been many  
sub-groups of jug bands, small jazz bands and the like that have  
formed from members of LTWCMB.

There is another branch of the LTWCMB - a radical free-form and  
spontaneous experimental music organization called "Friday Night  
Music." Not exactly jazz, not a "jam band" but it is quite creative.  
FNM has been going on since the late 1970s. It would be hard to  
describe FNM in a paragraph, so you will just have to visit the website:
http://www.fridaynightmusic.com/

Anyway, it is good to know that others have been doing WKOM? There  
are groups in Atlanta, Portland, Seattle (and many other cities) and  
a large number of "Action Marching Bands" of varying musical quality  
have been forming all over the world in the last few years.

http://thereallyterribleorchestra.com  has some sound clips, by the way.

Dave Richoux
(BTW, for really BAD visual Art - www.museumofbadart.org/ )

On Aug 27, 2007, at 7:35 AM, Dan Augustine wrote:

> Folks--
>     Hummpf!  An upstart latter-day laggard, pretender to the Wurst  
> Band's throne of incompetence!
>     We of the Wurst Band have been plowing this uncertain field  
> since i joined it in 1979, and its unnamed brethren were doing it  
> far before that date at Scholz's Garten in Austin, Texas.  And i  
> know Brother Richoux and others on this fine List have also been  
> playing for years -- nay, decades -- in similar semi-musical  
> clottings around the country.
>     Here's the blurb i sent out last May to announce our new season:
> ---------------
> Lovers of fine music--
>     Please delete this message now, and then go wash your hands,  
> tongue, and brain with strong soap.
>
> Fans of and players in The Wurst Band--
>     Greetings.  I figured that would strain the unbelievers out.
>     It's that time again.  For the players, dust off that old  
> clarinet, shake the succotash out of that saxophone, and run a  
> garden-hose's water at approximately 153 ft-lbs/sec through that  
> old sousaphone (so _that's_ where the dog was sick!), and bring it,  
> a music stand, and your somewhat disreputable self down to Scholz's  
> on Thursday, May 3rd, a skosh before 8 pm (Marty and Darlene, you  
> know to do your own thing here).
>     For you benighted tone-deaf individuals in the audience, we  
> love you.  Who else is willing to sit through two hours of  
> unbridled cacophony disguised as polka and march music?  You may  
> want to invest in another bale or two of cotton (your ears, you  
> know), a fresh stack of Depends (don't ask, unless you're an  
> astronaut), and a heightened level of musical sophistication that  
> would gag a goat (sorry, you goats out there in Eldorado).
>     Unless you've been living under a rock in Wabuska, Nevada, for  
> the past 29 years, you know that The Wurst Band plays every  
> Thursday from 8 to 10 pm in May, June, and September at Scholz Bier  
> Garten (1607 San Jacinto; see http://www.scholzgarten.net/ 
> Page7.html).     While 'play' might be a bit too ameliorative  
> (think the opposite of 'pejorative' for you folks who made less  
> than 800 on your SAT) a term for what we do to melody, harmony, and  
> rhythm, the music we do it to isn't all that great anyway.  I mean,  
> the first set of German polkas, waltzes, and so forth should remind  
> the careful listener of their childhood in Cleveland and a visit by  
> the Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band (who immediately became the _best_  
> band in Cleveland). This aural onslaught is, after all, why Germans  
> drink so much beer (it dulls the senses and glosses over the  
> trombones playing a different song, the drummers rushing the tempo,  
> and the trumpets fighting among themselves to play 3rd).  The  
> second set devolves to a gallimaufry of Sousa marches (sorry, J.  
> P.), Broadway show-tunes (in shows that closed after one night),  
> 'popular' songs of the 1950s (yeah, among ax-murderers and  
> dyspeptic sea-captains), and bad arrangements of "New York, New  
> York" (love that last high Ab in the trumpets).  The furious pace  
> of the first two sets, coupled with the band's consumption of beer  
> between and during the sets, explains the nature of the third set,  
> in which the band plays the shortest tunes that can be found, to a  
> rapidly dwindling number of listeners in the audience.  However, we  
> console ourselves with the old Limeliters line, "Yes, i _know_ they  
> liked us: they rarely left in _groups_."
>     So there you have it.  Come down to Scholz's on May 3 at 8 pm  
> and partake in yet another season of the finest music this side  
> (the bottom side, unfortunately) of Uncle Al's Septic Tankers and  
> Musical Gurglers.
>
>     Dan Augustine (Master Gurgler since 1979)
>