To Geoff's list I'd add Gastr del Sol (Crookt, Crackt, or Fly) -maybe they're old news now, but I never heard them till last winter. I'm only slightly familiar with Six Organs of Admitance (great name) and Charalambibides and I haven't really learned to "hear" them yet, but I am planning on it. I like the idea of it and 'folk' (I haven't been paying much attention to it and I had no idea there was a movement afoot to wake it up) really needs a breath of fresh air. To express ideas that challenge orthodoxy without feeling obligated to have a sonic chip on ones shoulder is a welcome development. The more the genres break down (withering away like the marxist idea of a state) the less up-and-coming musicians will feel compelled to shoehorn their ideas into them (take what you need and leave the rest).

I have way less knowledge than some of you on this, but I think the circumstances more than the music has changed or died. Part of the reason there is an avant-garde, I think, is the conservative nature of music from early last century. People said 'fuck it', and tread their own paths, often shocking and pissing off the conservatives along the way.
Now we have the strange situation of anything shocking or strange being either deemed 'cool' or edgy', or simply derided as being too safe etc.

Didn't many of the early avant-garde artists start in the system, making it easier to fuck with it? I'm not massively knowledgable here, but that's the idea I always had of this genre.

Everyone has individual ears, so one note to me is another to you, but maybe the spirit of a true 'fuck it' mentality has eroded into an 'I'll be cool now' one...

I'm probably rambling, so now I'll leave ....

i sure hope so. it's not music, its noise. if you like it, that is fine, but don't call it art

Thank you for the productive contribution to this forum...if you don't like a certain style of music, just don't bother commenting on it in general...besides which, given your comment, you obviously have heard very little Avant-Garde music and have proven to be as ignorant as your namesake...

Avant garde is art.

(...yyyYuh...i may not know what i like, but i know art...)


...BTW, I wouldn't be awl-that much more'na horse-dover fer yall... there's a bigger goat comin' down th'road just beEhind
yers trly... ..whyntchYall go'n eat him 'stead'a me...


-- drsquid

Squid Quote of the moment:
For instant bagpipes, simply: Stuff Cat under arm, pull legs and chew tail.

... What drugs are available in Walmart, MrDrMcSquid?

...just a tiny little literary allusion for the ARTist formerly known as George W. TrollBoy...

---drsquid

Squid Quote of the moment:
Every joke is a tiny revolution.

You know, a comment like this really makes me wonder if the man behind this handle isn't the real deal!

Avant-garde is always dying...and being reborn!