To the editors:
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Is it really more valuable in terms of our evolution to feel that we can now articulate down to the minutest detail what it is that we hate about Madonna, if such insight must be obtained only by continuing to remain ignorant about everything else that is exciting and powerful and beautiful that’s happening around her? After three years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Reader must bear some of the onus for the ignorance of new (and old) music which continues to flourish in Chicago. The Sun-Times, whatever your opinion of its writers, can be excused for neglecting the more subterranean alternatives to Madonna and REM when they pass through. (REM is “underground” to most Sun-Times readers, I suspect.) But by definition an alternative press such as the Reader would seem to have an obligation to its audience to pursue and ferret out that which isn’t likely to be found without some digging around. And to present the unusual–likeable or otherwise.
For me the last straw was your recent “Critic’s Choice” on Joan LaBarbara [August 16]. Where were you when Diamanda Galas was here last spring? There wasn’t one mention of her, either before or after her show here. A far more powerful, intelligent and experimental talent, Galas is not merely embellishing on the musical tradition in the manner of LaBarbara: she is literally reinventing the entire notion of “hearing” within the musical context. Over the past several years she has participated both as a performer and as a panelist in the New Music Seminars. Certainly, she would seem to command at least equal footing with LaBarbara. (Except that Galas didn’t perform at Ravinia. Perhaps that’s it!)
Patrick Andes
