If it please the court…
Exhibit A: Tour Tape.
I hereby submit into evidence this cassette tape containing improvised guitar meditations performed in a live setting, two in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one in Athens, Georgia, his hometown, where the defendent operates his label Null Zone. Your honor, this tape was created while the defendant traveled from state to state, playing the aforementioned guitar in front of live audiences, people who, like you and me, were subjected — with warning, I might add — to whatever psychedelic flights of fancy that happened to occur to Mr. Potter at any given point during the evenings in question.
Your honor, sir, these are prolonged compositions, heavily coated with effects, and played with surprising skill. They range from, in the plaintiff’s own words, from “freewheelin’” to “ramblin’,” which Mr. Potter neither confirms nor denies. In his official statement to the court, he simply says, “Hope you like ’em!” I think you’ll find that neither the plaintiff nor the defendant really have any disagreement — I think you’ll find instead a deep connection on some level between performer and listener that is difficult to convey into words, and it may be confusing to some. But let there be no mistaking that this Tour Tape should be allowed to sell out its full run, which means that sixty of them will end up out in the world. I rest my case.
JUDGE: I hereby find the defendant … groovy as charged! Play us out, Mr. Potter!:
More about: Michael Potter
