[Facetious]

[RoundTheBend]

This is how I felt when I heard the King of Limbs for the first time- especially the song Feral. I felt like I was listening to a CD that was skipping or something. I felt like it was not music- everything except some of the most beautiful stuff they have ever done- the last two songs. The last two reminded me of In Rainbows, which is arguably one of their best albums. Songs that were approachable and "pleasing." I now like most of King of Limbs, but it is still very not approachable for some of it, and then the rest of it sounds like B sides almost.

I play bass as a hobby and one of my best friends growing up started learning guitar at like 5. He could play Fleur de lise on the guitar in 6th grade. The kid is crazy now- tapping master- and just all over the place. Really great stuff technically, but hard to approach. I have always asked myself- is that a bad thing that it isn't approachable? How much better would the same concepts be if they were approachable. Don't know...

[Mind Movie]

[CellarDoor]

[monosyllables]

I am a firm believer in the cliched (also french!) addage that music is a universal language. That being said, I think it's a little silly to think that only the stuff that automatically sounds nice to us is worth immersing ourselves in and listening to. I've learned more about music listening over and over to stuff that (at first!) was more "interesting" than it was aesthetically pleasing. Chief among what I learned is how easy it is to adapt your palette to a much broader range of sounds, and really why wouldn't you want to?
One of the best examples I can think of is the totally arbitrary slavishness to a minute handful of accepted time signatures by a puzzling majority of musicians and composers. Even the ones that still sound pretty organic to us--5/4, 7/4, 7/8, etc.--are grossly underrepresented! Maybe it's cause we can't dance to it. And who says we even need time signatures for all our music?
Another important thing I think one ought to keep in mind about the avant-garde is that it absolutely relies on the background of straight up-and-down rock and roll and other mainstream music, because it's all an outgrowth and a revolution. Just look at an earlier Beefheart album, Safe as Milk! The last few tracks on that album KILL precisely because we're hearing them in the wake of almost a full record of funky rock and blues!