I remember the period in the 1980s where the Beatles were terminally uncool, and it seemed to me then like they were just my little secret, and the rest of the world didn't know anything about them.
Alasdair MacLeanWe're in a situation now where we've got five long-play records of sort of eerie psychedelic pop music. I don't think that we can make another one. That's really my position on it. If we were to do a film soundtrack or something else where I could take the rest of the band with me. I really don't think bands should make more than five records anyway. In fact, five is one too many. We'll have to see how it pans out.
Alasdair MacLeanI was very lucky, because when I was at school, I had a great music teacher who would just take out these free-jazz records and play them for me. So it was in my early teens that I started to listen to jazz.
Alasdair MacLeanIt's very interesting to read why Cornelius Cardew became disenchanted with academic avant-garde music. He wanted to reach as many people as possible and change their consciousness. He wanted to reach the "working classes" in England. The kind of music he was making was very much from the academy, even though it had a lot in common with things like free jazz and improvisation, and he felt that it was the music of the elite, and that he wasn't really speaking to the people.
Alasdair MacLean