We are called the Wingdale Community Singers.

Rick Moody: I play in a very minimalist acoustic band (as befits my remarks above) that is mostly about singing.

I don't suppose you are? Have you always played in bands? And also a very convincing and well-informed purveyor of web-related discourses.Īustin Chronicle: When we met last year I believe you said you had a band currently and I suggested bringing them to SXSW. Dave is an extremely brilliant bass player. I listened to them incessantly in college, especially around the time of Solid Gold, their second album, and the EPs of that similar vintage. However: I love Gang of Four deeply, and by Gang of Four I mean the original lineup. (It was an e-mail back and forth that lasted a couple of months.) I think I was invited by him to talk because we enjoyed the intellectual sparring a bit. I interviewed him last year, and we both had a really great time doing it. And so on.Īustin Chronicle: How do you know Dave Allen? I've always been terribly impressed by the Gang of Four and saw a mind-blowing reunion show once, but don't know the group's music well. I don't think the newest, hottest gadget is going to save my life. I am, therefore, a curmudgeon in this way. Like 75 pages of argument against the drum machine. In fact, I have a book of music essays coming out next month ( On Celestial Music), and it contains a long argument against the drum machine. So, for example, I find drum machines extremely irritating, and even excessive amounts of drum sampling. Rick Moody: Not a tech head at all! In fact, while I'm not a Luddite, while I feel that suppressing technology requires just as much technology as working with technology, I am, generally speaking, attracted to the organic – and I know that's a loaded word – and often find that tech inhibits the organic. Here's our complete back-and-forth, with the exception of the exchange in this week's paper:Īustin Chronicle: You're a curmudgeon? And also a tech head? Please explain. “I think I am going to be the curmudgeon on this round table.” “I don't really know what Dave Allen wants to talk about on the panel, but I will do my best,” Moody wrote back to my initial inquiry. As part of this week's forthcoming SXSW panel preview, I emailed Moody because common sense dictates getting a writer to write rather than pick up a phone. Now, “What Happened to the Big Idea in Music Technology,” as moderated by Gang of Four bassist Dave Allen, is slated for Wednesday, March 14, at the Convention Center. A South by Southwest Music panel was already in the works given that Mychael Danna's haunting score to the film has nothing on the music in Moody's book. 6 benefit for Austin Bat Cave, a tutoring center for kids, Rick Moody appeared at the Blanton Museum of Art for a screening of The Ice Storm, Ang Lee's faithful adaptation of his second novel.

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody