Artiface

My thoughts on abstract art when it comes to art vis-a-vis Edward Hopper below are the same as with playing music. If you paint by rubbing fruit on shoes that's great, but if at the same time you can't paint a bowl of fruit I am suspicious, just like if you can make weird noises with your guitar that sound "arty," but can't play a Chuck Berry song. Same thing.

When I first moved to NYC I tried putting a band together, and was thrilled when a bass player actually answered my ad in the Village Voice (remember VV ads - $34!!!!! what's that in 2010 dollars, $1,900??) When we met he talked about doing things like playing in odd tunings like Sonic Youth, or recording through a  Speak 'n Spell. I was very impressed, thinking "this dude is WAY beyond me."  Then we started practice, and I realized the fact was he just couldn't play bass. At all. Sure you could record him hitting his bass with a frozen tv dinner and call it a song, but he couldn't play Oh Boy!, so.