View From The Crow's Nest

Welcome back to another clam-packed edition of the Tentacle. Much water has passed under our keel since our August/September issue, which posed the probing question "What is Creative Music?" to a phalanx of musicians and writers throughout the Northwest. Turning our attention to community events, travels, birthday parties, listening sessions, gigs, moving to new abodes, and connections with ever-increasing numbers of adventurous music enthusiasts around the region, the crew enjoyed a brief but well-earned shore leave, hence the slight delay in publishing this Ink edition.

The magazine you hold in your fins is a veritable bouillabaisse of savory morsels hauled up from the deeps, including instrument builder Dave Knott's account of a Deep Listening retreat with pioneering composer Pauline Oliveros; Doug Nufer's muy provocativo manifesto for creative artists; Kreg Hasegawa and Whitey Black's insightful reviews of the 15th Seattle Improvised Music Festival and the Llahngaelhyn reunion concerts, respectively; Ron Drummond's Gulf Stream-of-consciousness ruminations; more tomfoolery from cartoonist and cover artist Ffej; plus an overflowing region-wide performance calendar and the usual informative features.

Many thanks and multiple tips o' the tentacle to Nancy Whitlock and the Nature Consortium for their honorarium and for hosting a memorable "Outdoor Museum of Sound" at this year's Art & Nature Festival at Camp Long in West Seattle; thanks also to Angelina Baldoz, Troy Grugett, Frank Junk, Jim Knodle, Eric Muhs, David Nicholson, Greg Powers, Charley Rowan, and Mark Schlipper for donating their time and musical acumen to perform at the festival's Tentacle cabin. Cetacean tips 'n' props to the SIL2K Collective for generously donating to the Tentacle the proceeds from the ambitious Night of Musical Games at Seattle's Consolidated Works, to ConWorks director Matthew Richter for making the space available, and to Dave Buhler and the Elysian Brewery for their generous donation of a keg, which helped slake the thirst of NOMG attendees. We'd also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the following people who donated hard-earned greenbacks to the Tentacle over the past few months: Reid Mukai, Keith and Karen Eisenbrey, Ginger Jensen, Grayson Eudy, Oliver Kay, Carl Farrow, and David Milo Fryling. You, too, can join the donor ranks by making a much-needed contribution to this nonprofit, volunteer-produced endeavor ­ see the Isolation Tank on the back cover for details. Finally, thanks to our contributing writers, volunteer distributors around the Northwest, and advertisers. The Tentacle proudly subsists on modest donations and ads, and does not accept large corporate payoffs like some other Northwest music publications.

Harpooned!

Really enjoyed the August/September issue ("Creative Music: What's at Stake") and decided to submit some of my own verbiage/blather on the subject of creative music.

"Creative music" is probably as good a definition as any to umbrella the various sounds covered by the Tentacle. I'm not sure the words "avant (-garde)" and "experimental" should be made obsolete, and they probably don't have the negative connotations that, say, "alternative rock" has had in recent years, thanks to the mainstream media. Why not call it "avant experimental music," or simply "avant music," of which "avant jazz," "avant rock," "avant folk," "avant improvisation" would be subcategories, since these are terms lazy journalists like myself often employ as a reference point.

The term "creative music" works when one looks at the motives of the musicians making this music. They are neither trying to uphold a tradition like blues, reggae, or bluegrass, nor is commercial acceptability an overriding factor. That's not to say that "creative music" musicians don't want or will not get some commercial gratification, or that more commercial artists are not also expressing themselves creatively. With creative music, creating a personal music is the ultimate motive, and anything else like financial gain is secondary, whereas with other music (at least in my experience), lurking in the back of one's motives is the desire for a hit. Another difference might be that with other music, say Country & Western or reggae, if you stray too far past the parameters, it ceases being that sort of music, whereas with creative music, can it stray too far past its parameters? Of course we don't want to become too comfortable with any labeling or categorizing of this music, since that goes against the grain of what the music is about. If we don't call it "creative music," we can always call it "tentacle music."

-- Rolf Semprebon

Portland resident Rolf Semprebon writes music reviews for the Rocket and the Mercury and hosts the biweekly radio show Subterranean Modern on KBOO 90.7 FM. -- eds.