Brad, 23, is not, to be exacting, a resident of the Pit. He does, however, pass through it several times a week between his workplace in the square and his pad. There, he makes self-confessed terrible music with similarly soft-spoken, sensitively-slanted friends. Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" was the first song to make a dent in his consciousness, but the Backstreet Boys haunt him now as the curdle of the pop crop. He won't admit it, but Brad knows.

Ludwig, 33, probably does not know what the Pit is. He happened to drop in from Austria, and was idling over an ice-cream before gunning it back to Logan to catch his plane. Jazz and classical are his realm, but he will venture a thought on pop when forced to do so. Ludwig is reserved in his opinions, but is almost certainly a man of good taste, as inferred from his revulsion at our interrogative assault. At the least, his point of view possesses the advantage of maturity as well as continentality.

THC: What do you think of pop music?

L: Well, it's nice music, very commercialized.

THC: Who do you perceive as the big movers and shakers in the music industry now?

L: Well certainly Prince. Well it was Prince, and probably Michael Jackson. Now I'm not into that stuff.

THC: Because it doesn't move you, doesn't speak to you?