*Avant Garde* ...

Back when I was doing a whole lotta free improvised music, in the 80s and 90s, mostly, it was always described or promoted as *experimental*, or *avant garde*. There was always some notion attached to it that it was somehow... intellectual. Or high falutin, or academic. And none of that, in my case at least, was even remotely true. Not even close. I had no musical training to speak of, ever, outside of a few lessons here and there with some jazz drummers. I was then, and have remained, a completely *primitive* musician, in the sense that I've always just played simply, and from the heart, with essentially no "theory" that gave birth to my music, or that my music got filtered through. Everything I've ever done has been... folk music. You dig? Just music played by a guy, you know, doing what he feels. That's the best way I can put it. And anyone who thinks otherwise is just plain mistaken.

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