“Do you remember the fifth of November?”
Having exploited Bastille Day 2009 to open a discussion of arcane French rock ‘n’ roll, I thought it only fair that Guy Fawkes Day acknowledge a landmass many of us identify more closely with the genre: the U.K.
From the Beatles to the Pretty Things to Monty Python to the Sex Pistols to the Clash to the Damned to Crass to Siouxie to “Quadrophenia” to everything else that little cluster of islands produced … Our interest in British art and culture seemed especially plangent in contrast with the San Diego landscape in which we grew up.
How did the mores of Albion inform your youth? How did music, style and culture from there inspire you?
Lemons Are Yellow play “Spotted Dick”!
Paul Kaufman on the decline of the British Empire … And our own?
Their empire might have faded before most of us were born, but the sun never sets on British popular culture. What are your fave bits?
I first visited England in summer 1967, and snippets of that trip comprise my earliest memories. (My parents attended one party with assorted Beatles and Stones … I, alas, was left home along with their hosts’ kids.)
We did come back to the States with a heap o’ British children’s books, and British authors became the staple of my early diet. Syd Barrett’s whole “Wind in the Willows” aesthetic spoke to my own early childhood!
all those groups
Animals Yardbirds Rolling Stones Zombies
had greater respect for Black Music
then the US ever has
>>all those groups
Animals Yardbirds Rolling Stones Zombies
had greater respect for Black Music
then the US ever has
i’d love to see you tell that to a black-man~ as an expert on the subject, of course…and be sure to include that part about being an expert.
the other part of your assessment which is perhaps missing in your equation is that the animals yardbirds zombies and stones forgot to pay that black man while showing so much respect…..
most of those songs would read jaggers/richards…..ya know?
on a less contentious note…there’s nothing like starting one’s morning with the clash’s THIS IS ENGLAND.
someone needs to remix that shit btw…where’d paul simonon’s bass go!?!?
>>I’ve gotta give it up to Crass though – so influential politically. Reading the lyrics along with their simple beat – terrific propaganda method. Crass taught me about radical feminism and the punk brand of resistance that matched me more than the old hippie style.
MRAT: I learned about Crass from you! They were fantastic — the whole agitprop machine they created, the thought behind it.
Remember this?
hmmmm….lou hangs out with one guy who happens to be a black-cat who mostly hung out with white-dudes and therefor can speak for what should be black music as decided by…..a white dude who hangs out with a black-cat who….etc….or?
and yes….let’s pretend we, in any shape or form, were about the crass while flying our cute british flags.
now that’s comic-genius beyond the usual yawn.
a bit like u2 celebrating the fall of the berlin wall while they and mtv build one of their own.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8344776.stm
>>hmmmm….lou hangs out with one guy who happens to be a black-cat who mostly hung out with white-dudes and therefor can speak for what should be black music as decided by…..a white dude who hangs out with a black-cat who….etc….or?
MCC: Yeah, it sounded pretty absurd to me, too. So … What insight were you going to glean from asking your hypothetical black man his opinion? (In a very non-patronizing way, I’m sure.)
Who said they were “about the Crass”? Honestly, I don’t think you can really be “about the Crass” unless you ask a British man if it’s OK. Sheesh!
Read Gunther Schullers “History of Jazz”. Definitive, non-racist account of the beginnings of cultural sharing of music. (not money or fame,… music).
i think what’s missed here is this tendency for us whities (or semi-whities> non-blacks to be sure) to suggest we KNOW “black music” or what’s “good black-music” and thus what should be
expected in the future from all who make black music. this on the basis of what 20 to 50 years of blues and jazz accomplished here in america. black music goes back several hundreds if not thousands of years and today’s (2000+) manifestations have absolutely nothing to do with coltrane or willie dixon…..and yet it is unmistakably black.
as a note>this tendency also includes us knowing what’s good politically for our dark-skinned friends and usually it entails some sort of hybrid of malcolm x and the reverend dr. martin luther king….(which i myself even subscribe to) but one who also doesn’t mind apple corp and itt running the communications systems of it’s intra-global infrastructure.
what i think is dangerous is for us to say, with any degree of certainty, that all good black music came from the likes of howlin wolf, robert johnson, & john lee hooker between the years of 1913 and 1959 or 69 or 79 and that page beck and clapton? did more to further the black man’s creative legacy and juices than did americans george clinton, bootsy collins, bobby mcferrin or tupac shakur, x-clan, poor righteous teachers, derrick may……
you just can’t keep him down like that.
i was okay with maragaret’s obviously heartfelt rallying for the crass.
i’m always moved by such sincerity and you know…those who stand up for….the less-privileged…etc.
>>and that page beck and clapton? did more to further the black man’s creative legacy and juices than did americans george clinton, bootsy collins, bobby mcferrin or tupac shakur, x-clan, poor righteous teachers, derrick may……
MCC: Yeah, those British kids in the 1960s did not give a lot of recognition to the roster of musicians you list above … Maybe because they all gained recognition in the ’70s and ’80s?
now you’ve you put it that way
it puts the zombies’ lyric in a whole new light….
who’s your daddy> oooh is he rich like me….?
….so 90’s ghetto yo.
i always enjoyed my early brit bands more when they weren’t confused as to whether they were being white or black.
i mean even by the early 60’s the blues had been done.
it was okay to move forward again.
the kinks and the who immediately come to mind as consistent pioneers.
in the same light, i enjoyed my sd peers much more when they weren’t confused as to whether they were american or british. that always kinda drove me crazy.
>>i always enjoyed my early brit bands more when they weren’t confused as to whether they were being white or black…. in the same light, i enjoyed my sd peers much more when they weren’t confused as to whether they were american or british.
MCC: Authenticity was never a major concern of mine, probably ’cause I was never any good at trying on new personas. 🙂
I actually love watching different cultures/subcultures borrow from each other. (Issues of financial gain and historical recognition — whether somebody else’s creative output is being exploited — are stickier wickets!)
I remember talking to Brian Phillips around 1984 about “Louie Louie.” He was pretty appalled at the Kingsmen’s 1963 cover compared with Richard Berry’s much cooler 1955 original. I maintained that the screechy white-guy attack of the Kingsmen was the right aesthetic choice for them. (Likely the only way they were capable of playing it, anyway.)
On the other hand, the fact that Berry sold his portion of publishing and songwriting rights for $750 to the head of Flip Records in 1959 makes me sick to my stomach.
Bringing it back to the UK … A ton of British music owes a debt to its colonial history. It wouldn’t exist in any recognizable form if England hadn’t been a major imperial power and a mover of goods and people (often involuntarily). Was the artistic output worth the historical injustices? Probably not to the people who were oppressed.
nicely put matt.
but as for berry selling his master-stroke for a nauseating $750….
at that time $750 was a lot of money (if you weren’t a junkie).
he probably completed the thing within 2 hours…..perhaps or even hopefully less.
my sense is that music in general is overpriced, overhyped and oversanctified simply because it can be and it’s rarely the artist that sets that price or even agenda.
it’s the publishers and lenders and…yes….the myriad players and denizens who man the front-desk and back-rooms and board-rooms who yearn to be part of this great nirvanic orgiastic dream.
we are savages and what better (safe) way to express that than thru
music….music….music.
i know i got mine.
but yes….back to the cr@ss….god bless them for all their faults and
contradictions and questionable production-mayhem…..
i can’t help but believe they wouldn’t today be writing an entire album dedicated to the ft. hood massacre. the world’s a mess, it’s in my kiss.
this is a very strange article detailing much about the tragic epicenter….the way the army processes it’s
young soldiers as they head to or back from the war-zone….almost as if sitting in a metal chair for 30 seconds before moving onto the next one….on down the line…..before you got to the next line….was a good thing.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/06/inside.fort.hood/
i’m so moved obama has ended this endless war.
god save our lion king…..and yes he is a leo.
Clay,are you being ironic?These wars seem to be far from over,and I’m not sure he has the power to do anything about it,if in fact that is truly his intention.
none of us will be here in 100 years.
It’s interesting how British music seems to longer be at the forefront of what’s going on in American culture. Up until the 90s, I always took it for granted that a lot of our music came from England… but now it almost seems like that was just a trend that started with the Beatles and ended after the ’80s. Other than Oasis in the ’90s, I think British music has stopped being very important to American kids.
“…how British music seems to no longer be…”
techno killed the brit-pop star.
true….you’d probably find many american kids today having a tough time even identifying a british flag much less naming even 5 of it’s most formative groups.
bobby….do you really have to ask me if i’m being ironic?
i’m still thinking you owe me a beer.
whaddaya say?
whoa all im sayn is respect for black music
and credit for being a source of inspiration to claptons and pages
black identity is a whole other plate of food
where im from
you had to be part of the black, samoan and chicano community and
in the churches is where you see these individals of color speak their peace
mostly in their homes (which i was fortunate to go to) is where these educated black men spoke as true scholars until they returned to the 40 hr factory workweek
to see these men light up cuz i was interested in jazz and blues and their culture was quite an experience
and i keep that tradition going on in the house i live in
playing records inviting folks to play music on the front porch, drinking coffee and frying fish or roasting vegtables
next time you are in town stop on by
im all for racial unity which include black and white
but if you wanna paint me
paint me
white red brown orange gray yellow
now that’s some poetry i can hear….how do i know which porch is yours?
which by the way i got my weekly collared-greens going!
Nicely put Louis!
“I heard somebody say once I was way too black
And someone answers she’s not black enough for me…
I bite my tongue and it bites me back
I bought a house and the neighbours moved
…It must be something I have no control of…Oh how cruel to make a girl cry”
-Joan Armatrading
>i’d love to see you tell that to a black-man~
Didn’t she just? Are you assuming no one with African ancestry comes by here?
Who can forget the lovable, “Fab Four” in their Saturday-Morning incarnation?
I for one, remember getting up early, before the Quisp was poured into bowls and eagerly awaiting the sing-along from each week’s episode.