Keith Rowe - Prepared Guitar

Legendary innovator, UK 'tabletop' guitarist Keith Rowe has explored the guitar as a primary source of pure sound, extending it with an array of objects and bric-a-brac, for more than 30 years. Keith Rowe is probably best known for his groundbreaking work with AMM and the SCRATCH ORCHESTRA. "Twanging ruler-shaped objects set off a cartoon style jiggling tremolo, a block of foam causes mountainous scuffling booms...A one man sound lab and dub studio formed out of a corner hardware shop.."[The Wire June 1999]

Category:

Music

Tags:

• subsonics
• experimental
• music
• noise
• guitar
• Keith
• Rowe

[revolverfish]

when some groups started to play distorted guitars it wasn't music. when disco came out it wasn't music. when computers were used it wasn't music. every now and then there are some guys breaking the rules. if it wasn't that way, we would still be sitting in our caves, banging on a piece of wood.

i don't like that kind of music either, but i like people who think outside the box.

[bigtime360]

I have been a music teacher for a long time, and for me, music is the external sonic expression of our internal emotional landscape. That's why there's so many styles. I personally find this refreshing in a way. I love traditional music as well as avant stuff. Too many people want to turn their point of view into some kind of all encompassing paradigm. If you don't like it, don't listen. What's the point in being so damn negative? Find something you like, and go listen to it. Seriously.

[revolverfish]

@skatertumen Hey college boy, how long did it take you to come up with that? Are you on the computer because your mom is busy sucking other dicks?

[skatertumen]

@revolverfish fuck you.

[gwalkron]

@alcoholya Who is that considers things to be 'Art' or not? Excellence is subjective, is it not? Ideas are the thing. Finnegan's Wake might be considered by some to be an unintelligible heap of crap that no-one [except Joyce] understands. Some people, having been musicans/artists/whatever for years, get sick of turning out the same old stuff. People do though by and large, have expectations of music - look at some of the commetns on here - in a way that they don't in other areas.

[alcoholya]

I dont know enough about keith rowe to make such a determination, but I can understand how the vast majority of 'ears' out there immediately feel hoodwinked when highly experimental stuff like this is proclaimed genius and art.

[alcoholya]

@gwalkron nice try.. but the truth is, there is really and truly a thing called EXCELLENCE in art.. it's not just technical skill, but that at the end of the day, is an important element, and if it's not on display in a given piece of art, that piece is rightly suspect. This is why a book filled with a schizophrenic's ramblings--although it may have certain hallmarks of poetic language-- is not ultimately considered art, but james joyce's finnigan's wake, is, just one example.

[venpresath]

I'm gonna go strap a turd to a desk, stick some wires in it and take a chainsaw to it. I wonder if it'll come out sounding like this.

[Photonzos]

Where's the drummer? Obviously didn't turn up. How embarrassing.

[DredNaught65]

Shite! Pure unadultered shite!!

[thenamesfrancisco]

if people hate what your doing you know your doing something right!

[OffhandDelivery]

Like it or hate it. If you don't understand the importance of experimentation with sound then you do not truly understand music. The only reason you have your favorite bands today is because of people like this who had the balls to think outside the box.