so what are YOU gonna do about it HUH?

[glean]

so how many of you have lobbied the editors so far? it isn;t that hard , really... here's one we prepared earlier.......

Dear Sir

As a regular readers of your paper our family enjoys reading your arts and entertainment section but we've noticed that your coverage of Australian jazz and contemporary improvised music is almost nonexistant thesedays.

Apart from coverage of the major festivals. We don't understand that when ________ (your home town here) has so many people who enjoy that kind of music. We want to read about music other than what is in the pop charts and we want to celebrate the artistic diversity that makes Australia great.

Please cater for ALL your readers (not just the brain dead ones) and allocate some regular space for regular Jazz CD reviews, interview and performances again, especially of Australian artists.

yours sincerely



Glen Valley
Vermont

(ignore the bits in brackets we didnt realy say that)

[aj]

alimcg wrote : I get the distinct impression that eg is run by a pack of dills.[/quote]

Back when I used to write for EG, I did an interview with Pat Metheny (prior to his tour here). The EG editor grudgingly ran it, but told me it wasn't really the kind of thing his readers were interested in.......like, who's ever heard of this Ornette Coleman ? would it have hurt me to ask Pat what he thought of Madonna ?

[glean]

I would actually like to know what Pat thought about Madonna - maybe that is a way to get more jazz coverage include questions like that and maybe for your next one if you had to sleep with Mark Holden or Kyle Badhair which would you choose. (you HAVE to pick one)

[gator]

Im writing yet another one Glen - although the mother of all that I can remember was Joe Chindamos"If Don Bradman was a Sax Player" -single handedly managed to infuriate musicians and others alike with its attack on some of the more ordinary aspects of australian cultural development...on the other hand , I can feel another one coming on,...If John Howard was a Drummer..........

[glean]

go Gator! go Gator! go Gator! go Gator!

but dont understand the Don Bradman (is he the old guy who plays vibes?) and Chindamo thing - are they the same guy?

[ironguts]

I want to know more about the Don playing Sax, come on, give it up.

[gator]

This was the title of a letter to the Age editorial some years back - Im almost certain that the Don did not kiss the Brass Chicken - but the content of said letter provoked some virulent replies from punter and muso alike.

[cartman]

If Don kissed a brass chicken he must be a girl

[glean]

Cartman! Mr Hat must have told you by now that boys can kiss brass chickens too, it helps them stay in touch with their feminine side, kinda like when u have your little pretend tea parties with your action men dolls, you think no one knows. But we do, kid and we know Guts usually joins in.

[freddy]

timothystevens said:

glen said:

but to get more uninitiated people to hear or buy our music , i reckon good to keep a profile of our music in mainstream publications wherever possible and it is fastly dissappearing from the mainstream

You're right, of course. Recently EG ('Entertainment Guide,' the Friday supplement to The Age) turned 21, hosted a birthday party and gave out some awards. This was banged on about for weeks and weeks in advance, as though it were something important. Probably few remember that when that magazine started, there were weekly columns on jazz and classical music, written up by actual human beings. Neither was represented in the birthday celebrations, as far as I could tell. All that seemed to be being celebrated was the publication as it is now: infantile celebrity-worship, movie reviews, and currently fashionable pop music. We surrender our memory and fall into line.

It's the same with The Metro here in Sydney. It's called "serving their target audience" as if the target for a newspaper shouldn't be the readership as a whole. It proves one thing though: those who warned about the pop culture industry being "exclusive" rather than "inclusive", were right.