Torturing Nurse and the Chinese underground
 

So I was browsing on the internets and recently the great Diamanda Galas had this to say regarding this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musi...d-noi-shanghai

This is NOT alternative MUSIC. The performance of this work
in China may be alternative to ANY future work for these brothers. People do not live to be bought and sold. And the black flags of every boat that sails may be beating just to move through the wind and water of the sea most loved.

Not to come to AMERICA!!

Diamanda Galas
Alternative music HATER

Love her, but I'm not sure what she's getting at here, other than maybe some annoyance at her name being dropped with people in the article she doesn't think highly of. BUT, it got me wondering, even if you think TN are aesthetically crappy/not "music," might their performances/noise music resonate differently in the context of China's growing power? If this performance was taking place in the US, should one be using the same set of standards to evaluate its merits?

I think she's saying that theirs is a political action - while noise artists in the West might get the odd punch thrown, or some police action from anti-socialness, these guys are pretty much putting their lives on the line. It's not the dilettantish action of the mastubatory distortion pedal-twiddler making 'music', but a political action with very real consequences for those making it, and listening to it within China.

Theirs is a different order of social resistance, more volatile than the average noise group. They're not playing the game of 'Oh, I hope I can get to play the knitting factory' - I assume that's what the 'not to come to America' statement means.

Can you link to where Diamanda says this? I'm going on a non-context and a fragment.

Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if she's decrying alternative music in general - she's long been criticising the cosy, say-nothingism and cod-political rhetoric of 'alternative' music. Quite rightly, to my mind.

Awesome article. I'm not familiar with this group but am certainly interested in checking out more and would really like to see what else, if anything, Diamanda Galas had to say.

this doesn't mean anything.

Not like a good old conspiracy, eh?

She mentioned this on her facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diaman...19418238086371

"...this one-man whirlwind wasn't impressed. "I don't like him or his band. They are too rock'n'roll. I don't care if he's a fan. What we do is totally different,"

Sounds like some of the board members here...