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A genuine find
Missy and Will,
We recently had the pleasure of visiting Durango for the Christmas
holidays and left a few dollars up at DMR, over at Hesperus
and around town. In the continual tourist quest to always discover
something for nothing, we came across your newspaper. A genuine
find. Being in the same biz we read with rapt fascination your
enjoyable and easy-to-read edition.
Good job. Great paper. Don’t Change.
– Thank you,
Geoff Hancock, advertising
and production
Laurie Fagen, editor and publisher,
The Ocotillo & Southern Chandler News
Will the real jam band step forward?
Dear Telegraph,
In his e-mail to the Telegraph last week, Tad Winslow cries
out against an “injustice” that is at work right
here in Durango. The injustice at hand is that the Telegraph’s
Top 10 List of the Best Albums of 2002 did not fully reflect
Winslow’s tastes.
In speaking out against this injustice, Winslow proceeds to
put down all manner of music he doesn’t care for, including
pop, punk, heavy metal, country and even “music with catchy,
trite melodies,” all the while bemoaning the lack of what
he calls “jam bands” on the List. While he never
defines this amorphous term, he does specifically cite Medeski,
Martin and Wood (MMW), Keller Williams and Government Mule as
three acts worthy of inclusion on the Top 10 list.
Let’s address all three of these suggestions. First,
MMW is a funk-jazz trio that is fun to see live. Its studio
albums have not received much recognition (deserved or not),
and its “jams” have variously been described as:
exercises in building tension through discordant playing without
resolution; the pretense of jazz without its soul; and mindless
excursions into a void, ultimately signifying nothing. Next
up is Williams. How this one-man techno drum machine “guru”
is classified as a “jam band” is beyond me. He might
fit that category if he actually played with other musicians
and improvised or “jammed” with them instead of
the machines he is currently experimenting with. The third band
Government Mule was – the last time I checked (about the
30th time I’ve seen the band) – firmly in the blues
hard rock tradition. I’m not sure how they fit as a “jam
band” unless you can stretch that term to include bands
you like and exclude ones you don’t.
Winslow’s inexact definitions and undefined terms not
only leave the reader with a sense of arbitrariness and personal
bias run amok, but also are just plain puzzling. Why include
some bands but exclude others from his comfy “jamband”
universe? Three cool bands that are all about jamming are right
there on the Top 10 list. Los Lobos’ epic “How Will
the Wolf Survive?” is surely worthy of inclusion. So is
Jorma Kaukonen (one of the grandfathers of the “jam band”
scene from his days with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna) who
jams with the likes of jamgrass heroes such as Sam Bush, Jerry
Douglas and Bela Fleck on his great “Blue Country Heart.”
And why exactly doesn’t Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot” count as a jam band album? It combines pure improvisation
(just watch the documentary film “I Am Trying to Break
Your Heart” on the process used to make the album) and
combines blues, country, jazz, techno, short-wave radio noise
and other musical influences in one-jam-improvisational stew.
Winslow might find a better use of his time in actually listening
to music - preferably a wide variety of music - instead of pigeonholing
and separating music into categories and then deciding for the
rest of us that an otherwise fun Top 10 List should be arranged
according to his narrow tastes. Next, I would suggest he restrict
his use of terms like “injustice” – applied
to a harmless Top 10 List, it would border on offensive if it
weren’t just silly.
– David Hardiman, Durango
via email
Long live the Mohawk
(Editor’s note: The author of this letter may be
the father of Missy Votel’s love child. Genetic testing
is planned for early April.)
Dear Telegraph:
In response to the letter (by Tad Winslow) printed in last
week’s issue – I must note a major contradiction.
I agree that the Telegraph is filling the role of the “alternative
voice in the community.” However, if the Summit packs
to capacity so regularly (for jam bands), and the Abbey sells
out so fast for Garcia/Grisman, etc., I believe that implies
(at least in this town) that the “jam scene” is
the mainstream. So, I applaud the (alternative) Telegraph (specifically
Mike Sheahan) for giving press to the Thirteens, Lawn Chair
Kings, etc. – and I encourage you to keep on keepin’
on just like you are. For Tad (to plagiarize a favorite bumper
sticker from the past) “Face it: Jerry’s dead, Phish
broke up (unfortunately not all good things last forever), now
get a job.”