Eurock - Music & the Second Culture Crash
In the past few years, there has been a paradigm shift in the role music plays in society. In the beginning blues, jazz folk and rock for the most part reflected a particular cultural tendency and appealed to a fringe social element. Today the landscape of music and art has altered radically. I felt a new Eurock book had to be put together examining the ways technology has mutated the creative process, the way we listen to music and the culture of music itself. I asked a few friends from diverse music areas and different experiences to write something along these lines hoping that maybe we could come up with a collection of articles that would shed some light on all of this.
The books main contributors' are:
My old friend Joe Carducci who was instrumental in running Systematic Record Distribution and SST Records, wrote a piece about his coming of age musically. Now a screenwriter/ author, his definitive tome Rock and the Pop Narcotic is essential reading.
Michael Beinhorn contributes an insightful piece on the making of music today. Michael was nominated for a Grammy as Producer of the Year on albums by Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson. He also worked with Herbie Hancock and developed the Ultra Analog Recording format.
My partner in various Eurock projects, electronic experimentalist and ePub guru Doktor Bob, contributes an in-depth piece on the historical conflict for profit and corporate control between Technology & Music.
Renowned Portland, OR artist Tom Cramer writes about how the love of music played a major part in shaping his long, successful career in Art.
From South of the Border Samuel Máynez Champion violinist with the Mexico City Symphony Orchestra and cultural historian did two articles: an Interview with Luis Perez Ixoneztli, plus chronicle of his own Opera adaptation, Vivaldi en Tenochtitlan, about the life of Motecuhzoma II.
Two pioneering French musician/journalists Dominique Grimaud & Gérard Nguyen both contribute insights and articles about their work past & present working in the experimental music scene in France.
There is also a text from 1973, translated from the original German and published here for the first time, written by the late Florian Fricke on the power of music and sound to connect people to the sacred nature of life.
In addition, there is an Interview with Ulrich Rützel. He was one Germany's top music producers who founded one of the very best original German Indie labels, Erdenklang.
My old pal and eclectic music maker Fizzè also waxes prosaically about his own particular form of Rasta wango tango and cosmic musical enlightenments place in the world of today.
The historical scope of this book ranges from Plato; Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them - The Republic. Then it moves on to 1960s Youth Culture with Revolution With Guitars, Not Bombs - Mick Farren.
From there it takes a quantum leap forward to the state of music creativity today with Innovation & Appropriation. Followed by the history of how we appreciate and listen to music now and may well on into the future in How Tech Ate the Music Industry.
These topics only scratch the surface of the 65 articles and 335 pages in the book. Included are Special Features filled with personal histories, opinions and musical flashbacks. Today there has indeed been a Revolution carried out in both Music & Culture. In a sense, Plato truly was a visionary, and for a time during the 1960's there was music made by some artists who truly did inspire people to keep hope alive. After reading Music & the Second Culture Crash and what the various writers have to say you can draw your own conclusions about how it all turned out.
About the Author: The debut issue of Eurock magazine was published by Archie Patterson on the Ides of March 1973. It was the first English language publication devoted to the exploding International progressive & experimental electronic music scene. Its purpose was to explore & promote the radical new sounds coming out Europe as well as other countries being created by the new generation of rock musicians who had come of age in the 1960's.
He moved to Oregon in 1976 to help found the first U.S. mail-order company devoted to importing experimental and electronic music from Europe, Intergalactic Trading Company, a part of Music Millennium. In 1979, he got a call from LA inviting him to join a brand new import company named Greenworld LTD to create their retail arm called Paradox Music Mail Order. Greenworld in its prime was the second largest indie wholesale music importer in the US. In 1981, he made the decision to transform Eurock into an indie distributor and label, releasing and promoting the best alternative, underground music the world had to offer.
Since the dawn of the millennium, he has published two books. European Rock & the Second Culture, an anthology containing all the original articles - Bio's, Interviews & Features published in Eurock magazine, which was a real time cultural history of the experimental music scene that existed in Europe from 1970-2000. In 2013, he published his second book entitled Music & the Second Culture Post Millennium that featured an overview of newer artists as well as commentary on the changes that music and Eurock had gone through over the years.
That same year the ultimate form of recognition for his work happened. Jennie Thomas, head archivist for the Museum of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame contacted Patterson, inviting him to include his work in the Museum Archives. His response to that was - "my life has been a long miraculous journey. The greatest part of it was doing Eurock and sharing music by artists whose work I admired with people all around the world and having them thank me for bringing adventurous, unique music into their lives. I feel honored to have my life's work included in the Archives of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. I am thrilled that now all of the musicians Eurock helped, promoted and wrote about over the years will also have their work become a part of official rock history. I could never have imagined such a thing, and today still find it hard to believe."
