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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 6, 1986)
Eugene guitarist joins Robert Fripp-lIVE' Trey Gunn, a University School of Music graduate student, is one of 17 guitarists who recently Joined Robert Fripp to cut an album called "Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists — LIVE." scheduled for release this month on EG Records. It was recorded at George Washington University in Washington DC with an audience of 250 people, who watched and listened as Fripp and company played while sitting in a huge arc. "Sometimes we (Fripp and Co.) sit in a circle with the audience in the center, but this place was too big and we didn't want to spread out that much," Gunn says. To round out the album, there's also ten minutes of Frippertronics. There's a lot of interesting things in the album. Gunn says. “The music has surprizes built into the structure. They say they're (EG) only planning to sell 15 or 20 thousand copies, so I assume they're not promoting it that much." he adds. Gunn has been studying with Fripp for about one year. "What we’re doing is quite fascinating and there's nothing close to it as far as learned music. Style of music doesn’t enter into what we're doing. You tan use it for anything in that respect, since it's so open." Gunn says. It's a technique approach to music that can be ap plied to any style — rock, country, jazz — whatever you want, he says. However, the album will definitely feature the Fripp guitar sound. "People who have a tendency to say they have narrow tastes, really don't,” Gunn says. "If it's good, it tan cross a lot of boundaries." Gunn has also released three of his own cassettes. His most recent one is called "Trey Gunn arid the Magic If" and includes all original material. It is a hard release to pigeonhole. It contains a variety of styles done in such an open way that it really doesn't make sense to label it with an idiom It contains different types of rhythm structures and harmonic patterns and comes across simultaneously as subtle and immediate. Gunn says that on this cassette the lines between "the three big guys — rhythm, harmony, and melody" are blurred. Photo omtait Troy (iam) Besides recording with Robert Fripp. University music school graduate student Trey Gunn Iabove left I recently released a cassette with The Magic If. “Inside the structure of the music we've tried not to impose this kind of thing." Gunn says. “So if you wanted to go down into the middle register and hear how the bass combines with the guitar and say. ‘Ah. that's what I'm listening to now,' that's fine. We make everything more on an equal level, rather than everything being there to support the melody." “What is there is up for grabs," Gunn says repeatedly. "What you take is what you take. What I take is what I take." Communicating is important, but it has got to be a two-way thing." Gunn says. “We put it out there and you take out of it what you want. It's not 'This is it — I have something to say. Do you hear me?' And that.'s hard to get some people to realize. I still have people come up to me and say 'What do the words mean? Why is this? And why is that?' ” Gunn says the listeners' answers to these questions art* equality as valid as his. It's not that people are un willing to seek their own answers in music, he adds. it's just that it's a relatively new concept. Gunn says that once you have technique it doesn’t matter. "It's just something to get to 'The Other.’ " How you go about working on "The Other" is very dif ficult. he adds. "But it’s the most important thing." He says he has never heard talk about this at the University. "What you end up with is a bunch of guys who have great technique and nobody wants to listen to them. 1 figure that no matter how good your technique is. you have to be able to make contact with someone who knows absolutely nothing about music.” Gunn says that the people he clicks with right away are usually people who are not stuck in the music world but who are in touch with “The Other" through some other medium such as photography. Gunn says that "The Other" is something that can be worked on. but it is also something that you grab on to when it comes by. "You just have to be ready when it comes by.” he adds. Although Gunn admits that he cannot afford to put out a record, he extols the virtues of cassettes. He says that you can make any number of cassettes you want to at any given time. "It's really stupid to make an album unless you press 500 or 1000 copies, and I really don't want to be carrying them around for the rest of my life. When the time comes. I’ll just make another (cassette)." Another problem with records is promotion. Three other people helped Gunn with the Magic If cassette, "but still it's more than four guys worth of work. What gets done, gets done." he says. Gunn says another problem is that if you mail a company or agent a tape, the response is not that good. So after living in Eugene for five years, Gunn is go ing to New York to make contact with a more cosmopolitan music environment. He'll go prepared with concrete examples of his work on tape, so he won’t be just another person with lots of ideas and aspirations — and not much else. Gunn graduates from the University School of Music this month. By Alexander Balogh Time to say get out of here, you knucklehead, write me you oaf, or tell that favorite professor exactly what you think of him (well, maybe not exactly). Just don’t leave without giving your friends a PARTING SHOT 15 words for $2.00 Parting Shots will be published Monday, June 9. Deadline is Friday June 6,12 noon. Place Parting Shots at the Emerald Office (Room 300, EMU), UO Bookstore, and the EMU Main Desk PHONE:_ ART NO.:_ MESSAGE: NAME:_ ADDRESS: AND IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO HEAR FROM THEM AGAIN... Add some artwork printed in Parting Shot Blue for only 91.50: Some classic Parting Shots from last year: cy^> $jy* ,*e$r **>&* ^ V,"*1' VF> '^V> V . * O * ^ «T£c %.
