there was one point he made that i thought kind of insightful or at least interesting to think about, where he talked about how rarely i brought "the tribunal of live performance" into my assessments of bands in Rip It Up... i thought the language was interesting (tribunal with its suggestion of popular justice)... and he misses the mundane pragmatic reason for why i don't talk
much about the gigs--my memories of them are faded (wasn't taking notes,
obviously) whereas the records are here, accessible to me, something i can
plunge into as part of the research and writing process ... but it's also
quite true that the phonographic experience is much more key to me than the live one... i've seen some amazing, amazing live performances in my time, but the majority of my profoundest experiences with music have been based on listening to records (plus some epiphanies via radio or TV). and then secondarily in the writing
and discourse around music... i think that may actually be quite a British thing
(in American it's the opposite -- seeing the band live is the ultimate
arbiter)... also there's something ephemeral about a gig (they vary so much)
whereas when a record is released it is the Band's Statement and also it's Accessible
to All, it becomes the locus of shared memory...