“Bang on a Can is a loose association of self-consciously edgy composers and performers whose stated aim is to write music “too funky for the academy and too structured for the club scene.” They speak of their formative years this way: “We had the simplicity, energy and drive of pop music in our ears-we’d heard it from the cradle. But we also had the idea from our classical music training that composing was exalted.” This too-neat division of labor-funky fun on one side, serious structure on the other-threatens to repeat the mistake of Paris in the twenties. It undersells both the wildness of composition and the wiliness of pop. Try telling James Brown that his music isn’t structured.”