I've been guilty of all of the college radio sins mentioned by Ross and
Keith--well, actually, I don't think I've ever had the temerity to flaunt
my nonexistent scratching skills, and I really don't know what the point
of warping the LP would be.  Anyway:  I don't commit them as a way of
showing disrespect for my audience (although I'm aware that some of them
might find it boring or distasteful--a risk that seems inescapable even
when or esp. when playing stuff in rotation), or because I'm bored
(getting 'creative' usu. occurs when I'm excited about what I've been
playing and where the segues are going), or because I think I've just
invented the wheel.  I commit them not as random ejaculations of ego but
as part and parcel of an attempt to articulate a mood, a feeling--an
aesthetic, even, if that's not putting it too grandiloquently.

Wifflefist-y kinds of things are v. dear to me.  I love woozy, fucked-up,
hallucinatory shit (I know that doesn't run the Wifflefist gamut, but
'Pain, A Sharp Pain' is careening thru my skull right now).  That's why,
on occasion, I like to hear stuff played at the wrong speed (I rarely
play stuff at the wrong speed by design, however; I'm just biased towards
stuff that sounds a bit off).  That's why, on occasion, I'll play two
records at the same time.  Playing barely audible bits of Sinatra's
'Autumn in New York' under the Silver Jews' 'Old New York' just hits me
right in the reptile-brain for some reason (but not because of title
symmetry).  

Do I abuse the latter 'technique'?  Sometimes:  probably more so back when
I was a rookie who really did think he was inventing the wheel, or getting
*really* artsy.  But there are people out there who do plan it out in
advance, who do 'THINK about them' (vague as that description is), and are
amazing and revelatory, even if they haven't recorded and produced and
neatly packaged the end product with a little ribbon on top.  Maybe I'm
not one of them, but I've got time to improve.  Maturity involves
restraint, sure, but there's nothing wrong with a modicum of playfulness.
Go ahead and play two records at the same time, says I.  Add a CD or two.
The oldest trick in the book isn't necessarily the most hackneyed in
practice.

But what do I know?  I've still got a soft spot in my heart for 'Carry On
Your Wayward Sun'.

Jay Murray

On 22 Dec 1996, Keith Weston wrote:

> 
> 
> Just wanted to concur with most of what RG said here.  It's been done before 
> (the wrong speeds, the scratching, the warping the LP, etc., playing two or 
> more things at once), and it is boring, for the most part.  Now, when people 
> plan these out in advance, recording them, produce them, THINK about them, they 
> can be amazing and a revelation.  Otherwise, they are most often the most 
> egregious form of "self-abuse" foisted on the public.  And, did anyone mention? 
>  It's been done before.  It's been rode hard and now it's time to put it away 
> wet.
> 
> -- 
> Keith Weston  http://www.io.com/~jkweston       
> POWERED BY HOT JAVA, ICED TEA & SOFT DRINKS     
> 
>