The motivation for creating a 'cover' band is problematic. A group of musicians, competent but bereft of ideas start doing songs by, say, Bob Marley or Sting and in so doing imagine themselves as something else. The saddest person is the singer who tries the darndest to reach the intensity of the original performers' styles. "No woman no cry." "Every move you make, every step you take I'll be watching you." What's happening in practice is an approximation of the 'real' thing. At its best it is like a decimal 0,9999999... expanding ad infinitum but never actually reaching the 1.

You might say that classical symphonies are merely glorified 'cover' bands given that they do not play original music. However, the differences between rock and roll and classical music are abyssal and the fundamental problem of imitation in the former is insurmountable. Rock and roll is simple, in theory, but its essence lies in the individuality of the artist in defining a unique 'sound'. In order to perform someone else's material, it has to be interpreted almost beyond recognition because of the 'necessity' - to be original. The condition for playing classical music and its difficulties are contrary. The reading of a complex score requires disciplined training. Once this has been achieved the flow relies on touch rather more than originality. You might also ask why fewer and fewer people listen to classical music. The usual answer is that it is a 'difficult' music that requires aural education before the pieces can be appreciated in full. OK, I've done that, studied music theory, I hear the polyphony but it is still somehow foreign. Why? More than blame the academies, I ask myself what it is that I want music to do. Perhaps something like this: Huun Huur Tu

Frankly speaking, I have become bored by music. Perhaps I should just start reading aloud words unaccompanied, like Louis Macniece.

Well, there is Hobby Horse, a jazz trio; Dan Kinzelman: saxophone and baritone clarinet, Joe Rhemer: bass and keyboards, Stefano Tamborrino: drums and percussion. They would challenge my boredom. The vaguely familiar jazzy underscore sounds more intermittent than usual with oriental overtones. Over this rudiment rush the choking strains of the saxophone, or the burpings of a baritone clarinet. Killing me softly? No, thumping me for a knockout, strumming my pain through the obliteration of harmonic theory. I am probably doing Dan, a lanky good humoured fellow, a disservice because of my own cultural neuroses but I do want to compliment the band for their virtuosity, and above all for making it a 'real' event. I enjoyed their concert, which was held a few weeks ago in an Umbrian forest, very much.

The approximations in daily life are exemplified by the way people get addicted to Facebook. It's one thing to put down spontaneous thoughts in writing in the spirit of fun but there are hidden dangers. Writing, unlike speaking, is revealing by its very nature. What am I to make of so much flummery? It is a fragmentary place filled with illusions, vanity and vapidity, that of the know-it-all radical and the wannabe romantic hero.

In a world where the collective soul is dazed from media over exposure, the approximation fallacy lies in assuming that the images that we see and the words we hear, are indeed the world we know. It is how information is 'packaged' that create this effect. Promoting the packaged product goes hand in hand with the sedentary lifestyles of the globalised metropolitan suburb where no one cares to approach the neighbours, where indeed large tracts of space are reserved just for sleeping. In these places there is no need for any kind of communal cooperation, not even buying and selling. It is the 'Brave New World' but modern life looks dishevelled, quite unlike the movie with the pristine interiors and tight space age costumes. Our version of 'soma' is not the contemplative LSD trip imagined by Huxley, instead idle hands tap madly on the video game console. Next to it sit used take-away food boxes and a bed stays unmade behind. The gratification of life's urges are performed as a series of approximations of the real things. The city evolves following the forces of an artificially inflated economy, via an architecture that systematically denies our earthbound nature. Even to the few who might try living more fully, the media insists that bungy jumping is the only way to do it - an activity that approximates the thrill of falling to death.