Doug wrote:
> So the four years he spent at the Royal Academy of Music - waste of
> time?
I don't know. What are the criteria for judging whether something like that is a waste of time?
I'm addressing the non-correlation between political commitment and intellectal "sophistication". At the end of the day I'd rather read Adorno than some Maoist political tract, but in terms of political mobilization a Maoist hitting the streets against Hartz IV is worth more to me than some Adornoite who talks about how the German mob's immanent yearning for National Socialism implies that the most prudent course of action is to encourage demobilization.
And yes, I like Cardew's "experimental" music more than his political work, but then again I'm more interested in Cardew's milieu than the man himself. Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, and Lou Gare were all Jazz musicians with working class backgrounds. That encounter of Europeans influenced by Black American Jazz but determined not to be emulative, combined with the the classical training of figures like Cardew and Tilbury, is what makes AMM musically interesting.
Political implications? None.
Any time good politics coincides with great art -- like with Pynchon -- it's a very nice coincidence, but can't be expected.