but scene and social function are elastic concepts at best... you go to the wexford opera festival and you meet people who go there every year, know each other, get surprisingly cliquey for upper middle class middle aged irish types [not to mention surprisingly shit faced] meet up with each pther occasionally for the first time in a year, and all hang out in the lobby during the intermission checking each others fancy threads out and breathlessly describing the soprano in the lobby... thats my definition of scene and social function. experimental electronica has a crowd that differs from that opera crowd in far less significant than a trad jump up drum and bass crowd... freedom to experiment then clearly need not imply loss of a social significance for your music to be heard in....
...it's like a bloody LIBRARY out there!!! http://twitter.com/executivesteve