Iain Cameron's Diary
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2003-04-11 - 4:48 p.m.

I spent about six hours in a car yesterday with Stephen Bates driving up to Sunderland and back � a good chance to catch up on a lot of different issues � and (on the way up at least) to look at the changing shape of England. The speeches at the retirement party were very witty � and there was a special message sent by the former mayor of Detroit which I thought was a really good touch.

Detroit has really been on my mind these last two days. I have been looking at the ONCE programme which ran out of Ann Arbor in the first half of the 60s. It was an incredible project which encompassed (for example) the last ever US performance of Eric Dolphy and much else besides. There were a group of committed experimentalists who believed both that music should be integrated with other art forms and that new art should be offered to the community. One of the most controversial works peformed in the various annual programmes was by Lamont Young. I have also established that this was probably after the first ever performance work of a Lamont Young piece in the UK which I think took place at Sadlers Wells in 1964 with Robert Rauschenberg on illuminations. Maybe that�s where Andy Powell first zoomed in on that stuff. I find these odd eruptions very very provocative.

I am gradually getting to the point where I can move beyond the standard history of Minimalism � four great figures and an exploiter. The point is that in places like Ann Arbor there were already people evolving alternative late modernist approaches on the back of Cage. Some of them had been taught by people who had taught members of the New York School, before they all met up. Similarly coming out into the 70s and 80s, beyond the point when three of the big four gave up hardMin, people were integrating overtone music with other forms like free jazz and punk rock.

Paul Wheeler tells me that he has been interviewed by BBC2 (again) for his unique witnessing of certain aspects of the evolution of music in the UK. Cant wait to see the programme.

I have said I will go the AIDS seminar in Cambridge on the Wednesday after Easter. I think I�ll meet up with Nick Brown the night before. I also mailed the other Cambridge Nick to see if he is free at that point.

I did some work on the Budget � it was so overshadowed by Iraq that I had quite forgotten that there might be something of substance in it.

I keep listening to classic Byrds but I did put Berg�s Lyric Suite on this morning � the Arditti�s version. Made me wonder what on earth happened when one of the Arditti�s jammed with Mick Beck.

Tried some bebop on the Dhorn.

I mailed Simon Prager 7500 words on blues and related matters � in the hope of provoking disclosures.

Everyone seems to have enjoyed D Gilmour on Dersert Island discs.

I put a piece up on www.kwase-kwaza.org about Caiaran�s Race Against Time.

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