This great debate remains an open book , unfinished for now...

Basically it boils down to the fact that Leep and the Birdman argue against live performance and in favor of studio recordings. Myself(Sluggo), and the indomitable Ted E. Gray have made different arguments in favor of the live performance. We all agree that a live performance is a very different thing than a recording.

It all comes down to two very different activities. On the one hand crafting an artifact to be given to others to experience in the privacy of their own homes. And on the other hand, the direct confrontation, a direct human to human interaction, the live improvisational performance, subject to all the random disasters which always befall the mighty DragKing.

DragKing performances have developed into events very different than traditional Rock n' Roll. DragKing 's more recent performances have been attempts to subvert traditional Rock performance tropes. Both at the Ruiz Belvis Puerto Rican Cultural Center and at the Monk Parakeet Gallery DragKing performed its "songs" with everything but the standard guitar and drums of the Rock Quartet. Punk has historically tried to subvert the distinction between audience and Rock Star, showing that "anyone can do it", that the special skills of the Rock Star are not essential to making good music. A live performance can do this better than a recording, because a recording obscures the process of making music, while the performance exposes that process. At the same time a recording can allow for more interesting and controllable experiments which push the envelope of "music" and "song".

Questions Remain:

Will the band formally known as DragKing devolve into various isolated, independent artists working at home on digital pastiche/collages?

Is human interaction, and the compromises that that necessarily entails, obsolete? Do we no longer need to put up with each other?

Joe Carducci in his famous book, Rock & The Pop Narcotic, states that, "Rock music is rock and roll music made conscious of itself as a small band music". And that, "...in rock music the band is the artist", and even more positively, "the band-as-as artist opened up a new inexhaustible musical range". I have to say that I agree with him that rock music is an idiom of collective work. Rock is about that close collaboration of a small, consistent group of people. But then is DragKing playing Rock music?

How many unsung geniuses(I personally know of twelve) are laboring in the obscurity of their apartments constructing the music of the future on their computers?

Write me if you have anything more to add....

Love,

Sluggo