Iain Cameron's Diary
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2003-02-05 - 10:15 a.m.

A very interesting mail for Mark � Joni M � and also his digigtr � which I think is a close cousin of my Dhorn. Casio certainly came through with some ideas between 1985 and 1990.

I went up to a place on Watling Street � there was an aerial photo of the site in reception and I thought you could see the traces of the hut circles in the next door field. I met a visiting industrial professor from Loughborough and we got into organisational model and metaphor � he said he liked the Platonic one � the top management are usually working off reflected shadows.

I got there by going North from Coventry through Nuneaton but came back a different way � across the Forest of Arden � starting from Atherstone which unlike most of the towns is actually on WS. From there the road went up onto the ridge of old rocks that�s linked with Charnwood Forest and the Long Mynd. It was very pretty indeed. This was the old road across the forest from Atherstone to Coleshill � and a lot of the way it went along the edge of a scarp with great views across the valley of the Blythe/Cole/Tame and way beyond to the Shropshire Hills and I suppose Cannock Chase. At some point I turned left and picked up a road from somewhere � maybe Tamworth to Coventry � and then the old road to Meriden via Maxstoke. Maxstoke is an astonishing place � there is hardly anything there but what there is built round medieval remnants � especially of the priory and castle. Pevsner tells us that the castle was an innovation � away from the Norman motte and bailey and indeed beyond the strict symmetry of Harlech towards the pattern of Bodiam inSussex. The priory is Augustinian and incorporated into a farm but still has a towering fragment in a field which Pevs thinks is the most interesting bit of the whole lot. The road leads from here to the centre of England � and then (if you need some sandwiches) onto Hampton in Arden.

I am kind of wondering whether I have done the right thing doing this gig tonight � I have settled on a set of ideas � gtr solos which I can deploy at various points depending on need. But my more ambitious flue/Dhorn stuff had better stay at home.

I must remember to pay the rent.

I lent my Domesday Book to a colleague at work who is really taken with it has concluded he must have one himself. He thinks his house stands on what was once a beech wood.

I switched from JM to Prince � pretty powerful stuff too � I first got interested around Paisley Park although I have always liked 1999. I saw Purple Rain early on and was kind of bemused � I think the tracks sound great now.

I sent Gilbert a cover design for SS using Paul W�s words � I am really looking forward to hearing his new release. I finally managed to package up some nite stuff and send it to Robin.

There is some really interesting stuff about India on www.kwase-kwaza.org. Some schoolchildren have been found to be HIV positive which is really provoking a reaction. Meanwhile the UN is telling the leaders of South Asian countries that the epidemic is �at the tipping point� and the window of opportunity is closing � its lead now or be damned by the future.

I had been meaning to do some fashion stuff - - paraphrasing Mr S Smee. The article starts with Manet�s barmaid who has effaced herself. The suggestion is that she is like Kate Moss. Fashion is contingent while some art aspires to be timeless - except that some art arises when momentary impulse meets absolute conviction. A phrase like that can�t help but bring to mind the great improvisers � and the suggestion is that Manet can do this.

Fashion is the trivial opportunity for us to do the serious business of negotiating our desires and identity with the world. Smee�s thought is the art gets to this point from the opposite direction � possibly snatching greatness from whim and an attention to surfaces.

This is a spectacular thought � especially vis a vis the death of classical music under the weight of popular culture. I was reading an article in the pub last night by the editor of the Guardian who has taken up the piano seriously in his 40s � he wrote about this and got an absolute avalanche of a postbag. He was saying the power of popular culture threatened to eliminate the high art tradition of music. As it happened Abba was on the juxebox � Whats the Name of the Game � and of course it struck me at that instant that you couldn�t say that Abba were just camp Swedes with funny clothes and suppressed emotions. You could start with the length of the sentence in Dancing Queen � but I wont drone on.

If pop music is fashion and indeed in the widest sense offers people a medium for thinking about desire and identity � you could hardly say this is controversial � look at how well people have explored gender identity in theory and practice through the medium. And of course we can apply �attention to surface� and �absolute conviction� to music � also to pop music � maybe especially to those bits that arise from art schools Lennon, Eno, Townshend , Richards.

Or if you were explaining jazz then �attention to surface� would be individual tone � the signature of identity � Armstrong, Bix, Webster, Young, Parker, Trane, Miles are tone. One of the things WS brings to Travelogue is that soprano tone. Tone with conviction in the moment � well that�s also the blues � BB King sustaining a bend.

The bigger issue is not whether pop will bomb classical � the bigger issue is how in music (and other forms) significant surface and conviction in the moment encounters structure and narrative.

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