the past wasn't good enough

a while ago someone on dissensus mentioned a quote from some guy in the incredible string band. it was something like "there was a period in the 60s where we lived in the woods and i genuinely thought that money wouldn't be a thing in like six months."

before that i listened to a recording of an AMM performance from around the same time, then to a few minutes of a more recent recording of theirs. the difference was striking. maybe it's not fair to compare them, since the one from the 60s was the group at their most cacophonous, and in the later one they were certainly aiming for something different: quieter and more delicate. but still, there was a sickeningly 'mature' quality to the second one. you could tell that by its time they had decided that they had to draw from not just the new, but also temper it with the timeless. but the first performance was interesting BETTER because it was ruder, more visionary, seeming to announce "your conception of music will be completely different in six months, get with it!"

in the 90s sean booth said that music in 10 years would sound completely different from how it did then (/does now). "i was young and naive, what can i say."

anyways these kinds of sentiments are very inspiring, i think. sure, it's easy to fall back on the narrative loved by middle-aged (well old now) classics-western-cannon types that there wasn't anything particularly special about these eras (other than how delusional they were!) and the quotes above are just myopia: people buying too hard into the hype and fads of their times--being so arrogant as to assume that they could leave mozart or whatever--the Timeless--behind. basically the story of icarus, except instead of the sun it's the new. (it's been 100 years now and the postman still isn't whistling shoenberg!) a lot of the time i side with this boringly reasonable take.

but on some level, i really want to think that even if these magical eras didn't fully make good on their promises, nevertheless, new forms, sounds, etc. will come along / be discovered at some point that will blow everything before (everything that we know) out of the water. so we should explore the past, by all means--but keep looking forward too. cause maybe the future holds possibilities so revelatory that they'll BTFO everything we've known and done. sure it's absurdly optimistic... but wouldn't that be cool?