33 rebellions per minute
© 1997 bokonin@hotmail.com
1981
Renaissance, CAMERA CAMERA
Archaeologist/ ecologist Tim Flannery recently wrote a book entitled The Future Eaters, which I strongly recommend to anyone remotely curious about how human beings got that way and how the lifesystems of planet Earth have been attempting, from the beginning, to adjust (if your interest is remote, Flannery's obvious love and enthusiasm for his subject should bring it closer). For me, one of the most memorable discoveries was of how human beings, frail and slow and clawless, made such mighty hunters. The answer--- extensively deduced from fossil remains, and repeatedly confirmed in the journals of 16th-to-18th-century explorers visiting previously humanless islands--- is that the animals peacefully sat there waiting to be killed. In the normal course of nature, where the only predators are ones you've been co-evolving with for millions of years, it seems that the exhausting effort required to run away from unfamiliar intruders is far worse for your survival chances than the risk that you'll be eaten. That changed when us humans came, of course; soon the only animals surviving and breeding were the mutants, the outlying data points, who scrammed. They passed the run-away trait on, thus quickly the creating the "wild animal" (or else the "extinct species"). And as Newt Gingrich would point out, because it was men most likely to be preying on creatures too passive to resist, today men are more qualified than women to be U.S. Congresspersons. But my point, as I recall it, was that under normal circumstances, laziness, i.e. energy conservation, can be adaptive and useful.
A similar lesson from the same book would be the wombat, a creature lucky enough not to be tasty to humans or to live in crowded regions, and also a creature lucky enough to live with no predators and with easily-found food, which wasn't always true. In less benevolent environments, wombats once evinced a certain animal intelligence. But brains are very expensive to maintain; 2% of the human body mass, for example, but something like 30% of the calorie requirements. Since wombats no longer need intelligence to feed, and since they have a deeply underdeveloped social system, genetic selection has favored the tiny-brained wombats, such that by now you would not bet on them to outwit a paramecium, because hey, they don't have to. And so we come to the topic of popular music.
Renaissance, in their home environment of the early-to-mid 1970's, were a progressive rock band, and easily one of the most distinctive and impressive ones. Based around piano, often strings, a soft-sounding conception of bass and guitar, and classically trained alto singer Annie Haslam, they composed songs that quite naturally, without the usual signs of strain although with the genre's tendency towards solos, lasted in the 7-to-23 minute range. I normally object to the snots who call progressive rock "regressive rock", because the classical elements are merely one small part of the equation, but Renaissance really were merging the romantic style of classical with soft rock on a 1-to-1 basis and making it work. I'm not a big fan of their records, but that isn't remotely their fault; if you think you'd like them, check out either the 2-disc compilation TALES OF 1001 NIGHTS, or from their regular LP's, TURN OF THE CARDS or SCHEHEREZADE. Renaissance were commercially successful; in New York, Philadelphia, and D.C., they were even major stars. But then came New Wave, and no one listened to such grandiose material, or if they did, they at least learned to lie about it. So in 1979's AZURE D'OR, Renaissance experimented with 4-to-5 minute songs. But you could still tell who they were: tricky time changes, off-kilter flourishes, all that piano, Annie's too-perfect voice. So finally, under the leadership of bassist Jon Camp and guitarist Michael Dunford, and at the expense of two members leaving, Renaissance entered 1981 with a simple, normal synth-pop record: up-to-date, with-it, verse-chorus-verse, a hired keyboardist named Peter Gosling providing lots of Casio and Yamaha textures. Annie Haslam sold her voice and bought a used copy of Kate Bush's with a few of the eccentricities sanded down. And it turned out, they were fully capable of making a great record by some other standards than their quirky own. The old band is certainly still there: as much 6/8 time as 4/4, a continued keyboard flow, most of their melodic reach intact. But the solos are gone; the songs are catchy + hooky ones that make their points and leave; Gosling does a really outstanding job teching them up; and jeez, it's not as if the real Kate Bush is singing on too many records. Unfortunately, the record did bomb; slowing down and dumbing down can work miracles, sure, but there's rarely a shortage of others able and willing to compete on that turf. And often, alas, to get by doing it much more convincingly.
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