(David Rinck freaks out to a Moon Age daydream.)
NOTE: This post works best if you slip on Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album and cue up the tune “Soul Love” as you read it.
That tune, “Soul Love,” always takes my mind to a hip London of the very early ’70s, a sleepy, happy, self-contented London where hippies happily ate organic alfalfa sprouts in little cafes, and men wore frocks, complacently proud of having created and survived the ’60s, and looking forward to wallowing in their achievements spreading peace and love ad infinitum. The war was protested, the pot was plentiful, and everybody’s hair was down to his or her ass.
But it’s actually an unsuspecting London, on the eve of the explosion that was Glam, and then the firestorm of punk rock.
On the album, Ziggy Stardust comes from outer space and lands on a dying earth with his message of love and hope, but in reality the Ramones arrive from New York, and Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer and Polly Styrene emerge with a very very different message, and what proves to be dying is the old guard — cuts all around — haircuts, rough cuts, and even “Tyrannosaurus” gets cut as Mark Bolan goes electric. “If they could do it, so could I” gets said by an entire nascent next generation.
Somewhere in all this, in sleepy little towns across America, a motley collection of misfits is listening to Debbie Harry sing “Rip Her To Shreds” on FM radio, courtesy of Doctor Demento, and a light goes on. Down on the southside of Manhattan, the poets are done studying rules of verse, and a blank generation is going through a tight wind. The kids are loosing their minds! Hey ho, let’s go!
And man, we had our kicks! Growing up through punk rock was one hell of a good time. Flyers got made with felt-tip pens, t-shirts were stenciled, fanzines got cut and pasted together, and music was played by anyone that could afford a guitar pick. Some people even went wild and started their own record labels, and the abominable mega-million “music industry” happily collapsed into the music cottage industry. DIY – do it yourself babyface!
Twenty long years of DIY later, and here we are. Autonomous and free — CD Baby, ITunes, and Garageband. Open mic night would-be superstars line up to croon breathy sketches of life in 2010 to each other. Retro-reformations let us catch the bands we missed, boxes get checked — from the Sex Pistols and X Ray Spex to the Wallflowers and Noise 292.
But whither go thou, underground? Now what generation is this, anyway? What do we do now with all this hard-won freedom? What is the state of the underground now? What is the next conspiracy we can get in line behind? I’m bored again.
— David Rinck
More from Dave Wallflower:
Join the Republican Party and help your fellow Americans.
A love so strong it tears their hearts to sleep --
Through the fleeting hours of morning…
“What is the state of the underground now?”
That David is the correct question!
Retro-reformationist -- Jim Ryan
stuff like this i guess…
or maybe this
Oh God…How could we possibly sink from the genius of David Bowie and Mick Ronson to this rappy shit in a mere thirty years??
“freedom’s just another word for nothin left to loose” Lou
lose
“Whats this in my head. Something that you said. Now I understand…..” -- Paper Towel by the Cardiac Kidz
Thanks for makeing the point Dave.
>>>Oh God…How could we possibly sink from the genius of David Bowie and Mick Ronson to this rappy shit in a mere thirty years??
I thought the whole point of punk rock was that you didn’t have to be part of a small handful of “geniuses” in order to make your own original music and find an audience for it. Punk rock and rap are like folk music or blues, where anyone can participate and create something of their own. That’s what it’s all about.
I was just having a discussion last night about the eminent decay of civilization (or more appropriately in this case: “decline”) and Post-modernism. Everything original was done in the 20th century, and now as this society degenerates, the newer generations regurgitate the past with nothing new their own. It’s the new rise and fall of the Roman empire.
Rock and roll has jumped the shark.
You’re too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don’t eat when you’ve lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you’re a rock ‘n’ roll suicide.
>>>Everything original was done in the 20th century, and now as this society degenerates, the newer generations regurgitate the past with nothing new their own.
I think that’s kind of the way it’s supposed to be… If you look at the history of art and music, the world has gone through classical and romantic periods. In a classical period, new forms are being created. In a romantic period, those forms are being put together in different ways to create something new. I think that’s kind of what we have now, and I don’t think that’s going to change for many years.
When I was 18, we all thought music and culture would be radically different 20 or 30 years later… but nothing has changed all that much. People are used to looking at cultural history by decades, but before the industrial revolution, life barely changed for hundreds of years. I have a feeling that we’re going to see much less change in culture in the coming decades… but who knows?
On a positive note, it’s all out there and accessible for us to explore & enjoy:
(right now, I’m listening to the entirety of Ziggy Stardust on my ipod at work)
Environmentally, the population has reached proportions where emphasis on an individual is like trying to single out a bee in a hive. The perspective has to shift because resources can’t possibly sustain a self-centered view. Culture will reflect this, don’t you think?
Ooooh….this is a fun topic! Let’s all get coffee and discuss!
Matthew, when are you going to incorporate webcam/webinar portals into the blog?
“Thought I saw you in an ice-cream parlor…drinking milk shakes cold and long…smiling and waving and looking so fine…don’t think you knew you were in this song”.
I agree that folk music is fun…just surprised to see any rap, (which should be relegated to a “folk” genre), on a thread that IS about musical genius!!
I didn’t say folk music was fun, I meant that it’s a style of music that people can play without years of study and practice. Anyone can learn a few chords and start making music… and they can express themselves by writing and singing their own songs. Punk rock and rap are the same kind of thing. You start out with a few chords or a few rhymes… the more you develop what you’re doing, the more it becomes an artform.
I’m all for drinking coffee and discussing it, preferably at 2 am. I miss Topsy’s.
I miss Topsy’s too. and I consider Chuck D. to be a musical genius.
I just realized that I sound like a communist.
The complex rhythmic, sonic and thematic propulsion of many hip-hop lyrics is incredible to me, as are the textures of the music. That includes the sophisticated use of samples — it adds to the creative ferment.
Not that I know crap: I’m embarrassed at my own lack of erudition in this department, but that’s true about 95 percent of any media created since around 1984.
I thought this thread was about the state of the underground,not the presumed musical genius of a couple of arguably overrated pop musicians.That being said,I thoroughly enjoy most everything they did together,and much of what Bowie did without Ronson,but there never would have been a Ziggy Stardust if Bowie hadn’t seen the Stooges,and there never would have been any Stooges if Iggy hadn’t gone to Chicago and seen and heard what Rock and Roll really was all about.It may have come by way of Memphis,but it certainly wasn’t originated there nor was it originated by those who were inspired enough by witnessing it to venture imitating what they saw and heard.Now don’t get me wrong,I love some of those imitators nearly as much as I enjoy the works of the more authentic practitioners of the art.Ok,well not nearly as much,but I do like many of them very much.But they did not reinvent the wheel and neither did they improve on it,they just rolled it further on down the road from where they found it.
The musicians I enjoy the most are the ones who do just that,add a bit of themselves to taste,and play their songs as if their very life depended on it,because of course,it does.
And as always,the underground is all around,we may or may not take part,but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and it may not take the form that is expected.If it did,predictability would diminish it’s relevance.But rest assured,kids will be doing some weird shit that we won’t understand or enjoy,because whatever they are doing is meant as a venue for them to communicate amongst themselves,and that’s how the wheel rolls on.
Of course there are also the lifers,people who will always be doing what they do,regardless of recognition,or sometimes even in spite of it.
Don’t close your mind or your ears and eyes,you may just sleep on something you would otherwise really enjoy.
the spirit of rebellion
is a beautiful thing
I think the reason I mentioned David and Mick as examples is because the original thread started out with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and mentioned specifically Soul Love.
I’m not sure if these guys can be defined as over-rated pop musicians in any context…no more than Lennon and McCartney…or Lerner and Lowe.
I DO listen to everything…for better or worse. As a music teacher and a punk/classical/jazz musician I have the same concerns that many of my colleagues, and even serious students, share.
There is a perceived cultural dumbing down that scares many people. NOT like our parents view of Elvis, Beatles, etc…an actual loss of something beautiful, or terrible, or at least artistically shocking…(Sid, My Way).
Star Search, American Idol, computer music, sampling, all have their place but there is a historically lower number of people, especially children, participating in learning the actual language of music. Public schools share a large part of the blame.
Learning music takes discipline, strength, time, devotion.
I think punk, like rap, is a necessary means of expression and performance art. Music?? at least it’s worthy of discussion.
Read Donal Grout, Elliot Eisner, Bennet Reimer…there are many minds greater than ours who spend their lives studying music philosophy and there is an eye-opening wealth of debate and controversy out there.
I don’t want my daughter to think that carrying handguns, pretending to be gangsta, and peeing on 13 year old girls is the stuff that stars are made of.
The world is much bigger and art is much deeper than the shit we are fed now…
“art is much deeper than the shit we are fed now…”
um, certainly you’re not talking about Ramadanman and Don Strapzy now.
Okay “to lose” thanks Lou.
In my opinion, there is just no excuse for hip-hop music. Look, if you really are too lazy to go out and learn how to play your instrument, or write some lyrics, why not just buy play station and stay at home ok?
On the other hand, with all the freedom that the “media revolution” has put in our hands, I’m amazed how hard it is to find something worth downloading these days.
I secretly wish that some corporate or political regime would emerge and take away enough freedom that we would have something to rebel against again. Stallone for president!
“In my opinion, there is just no excuse for hip-hop music”. David Rinck you are a brave man…..and that makes two of us.
Yeah, well as you pointed out (or maybe I did anyway) “freedom really is just another word for nothing left to do”…
But also, no matter how much fun it was, I do not really admire all the excesses of Glam. I hope the NEW UNDERGROUND that emerges will not have anything to do with men dressing as women, I have really no desire at all to see Dylan Rogers in fishnets, or Ray Brandes in high heels.
>>I don’t want my daughter to think that carrying handguns, pretending to be gangsta, and peeing on 13 year old girls is the stuff that stars are made of>>
And neither do I,Bruce,but that is the shit we’re being fed and what’s being bankrolled the most,the stuff that further advances that same agenda of dumbing down the great unwashed.You must look further than what is given to find substance,because there is substance in every musical genre.Usually it is not to be found where people are making a lot of money by pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Just as rap and especially gangster rap has become a cartoon of itself,punk has become an impotent and flaccid proposition at best.But that’s because the real thing doesn’t sell like the lifeless,bloodless doppelganger of it does.
Music, like religion was in the past,has become an opiate for the masses,and it,along with the rest of the media,is used as a tool to distract and placate us so that we may become the complacent sheep that some would like us to be.
But surely you know all this,at least I have the feeling that you do.
And when are you and Lou going to come out here and show us what it’s all about?
Though Paul Kaufman in a pink boa would be strangely intriguing…
“We don’t need freedom”-Jack Brewer
We don’t need freedom
We don’t need freedom
Freedom is what ruined your brain
With creativity drugs and pain
Freedom is what let you run wild
Explain freedom to your fatherless child
We don’t need freedom
Do we now
Freedom preaches disobedience
Idiot rebellion false allegiance
Pride waste lust and greed
We’re free to obey all of these
Comfortably that’s how we’ll be
Enough for you plenty for me
We won’t need actors or rock stars
All we’ll want is farmers and soldiers
We don’t need freedom
We don’t need freedom
We don’t need freedom
We don’t need do we
>In my opinion, there is just no excuse for hip-hop music. Look, if you really are too lazy to go out and learn how to play your instrument, or write some lyrics, why not just buy play station and stay at home ok?
Since when is the voice not an instrument?
Rhyme and flow are not reflections of laziness.
Also, for several months when my daughter was a baby, there was an hour or two a day when she felt very fussy until she heard crunky rap music. If she heard it, she was happy. If she did not, she cried inconsolably. Nothing else worked. Not funk. Not Motown. Not classical. Not lullabies. No variety of rock. She wanted her Wu-Tang and Lil Jon. Lil Jon gave me hours of giggling baby followed by sleep. He is a beloved genius in my house. Best “excuse” for loud rebel music I know.
All this hippity-hoppity with the pants falling down and the MC Hammer and the Marilyn Monster, dagnab it! With their break dancing and the M and Ms!! It’s all a bunch of bull puckey, I tell you!!! Learn to play the oboe, for cheese sake, or something nice like a nice hurdy-gurdy. You get a little monkey with a vest, you got a perfectly good trade, make your mother proud, not selling this marihuana with the hoochie-coochie girls and rolling the twenties like Vanilla Ice-T! In my day, we knew how to do a day’s WORK for our Schedule One narcotics, by crikey, not like this Beastly Boys 2 Men, ding-dang it! The girl took my Crass T-shirt again … They move my things and laugh.
Well, my gerbil slit his throat when he heard rap music!
So I take it no one here wants to come over and dance to my grandmaster flash extended remix of The Message? that. is a shame.
or how about some Kool Keath?
I always want to go over there an dance to your G-Master flash remix.
And, to quote Sugarhill Gang:
“Hip Hop, and you DON’T STOP!”
Okay, let’s get it straight about rap in the time-tested way -- let’s ask Jerry!
The television always talks about the gangster ramps, but they don’t tell you where those ramps go, with Snoopy the Doggie and the Easy Evil Knievel! I know!! I’ve seen them!!! The ramps go to the tubes in the Internets!! There are gangster ramps in my Web!!! They put things in there. That’s how they took my colored Cramps record RIGHT OUT OF MY ROOM!!! It’s in there, that Doggy man took my Cramps record, and nobody will look in the tubes. Give me my dessert.
If that Snoopy man comes back up the ramps, I’ll bust a crap in my pants. That’s what the television say those hippity-hoppity people do, they bust a crap in people’s pants!! Can you IMAGINE??
Has anyone heard R. Kelly?? Is there anything worse?? If so I want to hear it.
>>Has anyone heard R. Kelly?? Is there anything worse?? If so I want to hear it.
Amusing for sure…but Patti Page is WAAAAAY better than R. Kelly 🙂
David Rinck Says:
“In my opinion, there is just no excuse for hip-hop music. Look, if you really are too lazy to go out and learn how to play your instrument, or write some lyrics, why not just buy play station and stay at home ok?”
Bold talk for someone who is incapable (or perhaps too lazy) to assemble a song arraingement in garage band, even when provided with all the necessary constituent parts.
“Music, like religion was in the past,has become an opiate for the masses,and it,along with the rest of the media,is used as a tool to distract and placate us so that we may become the complacent sheep that some would like us to be.”
Best quote of the day. Where has Bobby Lane been all my life!
Each and every note displays a beauty of its own, an oboe, a voice, a child’s laughter, the sound of rain, a cell door closing. It is all in the ear of the beholder. Yes, Chuck D is a genius, Boyd Rice as well.
Awww, you guys are going to make me get serious!
OK, OK: I believe every generation tends to think its popular culture is degraded compared with how fancy things were before. In my mind, that’s a lot like thinking Paris is more sophisticated than anywhere in the U.S. because even the little kids speak French!
Some treasures of classical Western culture certainly couldn’t be created today because labor isn’t as cheap. (That’s a good thing for the laborers if not for your parquet floors.)
People also tend to romanticize past undergrounds, especially those of their own youth. Baby Boomer counterculture gets extra credit ’cause there were so damn many of the insufferable little bastards. (And our own SD underground of the late ’70s was fueled by a population boom as families with kids moved there.)
Purveyors and consumers of popular culture are never as stupid as the fringe likes to claim.
And as for DIY, the means of mass production and communication were way out of our hands when we were kids. There were wonderful things about hand-crafted propaganda (our clandestine photocopies were already miles ahead of the previous generation’s mimeographs, though). But the very fact that we can have this debate thousands of miles apart — let alone create and distribute any damn thing we can think of — is really a huge advance for anyone who wants to blaze their own trail or emulate their pop-culture idols. Of course a lot of it will be derivative, but of course it always was.
Very nice comments, Matt and Jim. We do romanticize, in general, but there were specific periods of time that music flourished. There seems to be at least some consensus that this isn’t one of those times.
Although I don’t agree with Skum as all sound being beautiful…the cell door closing has a haunting charm to it.
Like the Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells…..
>Each and every note displays a beauty of its own, an oboe, a voice, a child’s laughter, the sound of rain, a cell door closing. It is all in the ear of the beholder. Yes, Chuck D is a genius, Boyd Rice as well.
That’s why I got your name tattooed on my neck.
Paul and Kristen, let’s blow this geeze fest and wave our hands in the air.
While all you guys were clowning around arguing about rap music, I got busy and wrote an anthemic song for the NEW UNDERGROUND. I’m kicking this revolution into high gear (babyface)!!
Person of Asian-Ethic Origin Rocks
VERSE I
Somebody text messaged me on their IPhone
They said hey ho, is D2 home
Do you wanna take a walk?
Are your pants about to drop?
You wanna go listen to hip hop?
(CHORUS)
Hey ho, wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care!
I said, hey ho, wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care!
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
VERSE II
It’s open mic night at Lestats
We’re eating tofu burritos, but we still look fat
My Yamaha’s out of tune
My girlfriend got her face tattooed!
Everything is for sale on eBay boohoo!
(CHORUS II)
Hey ho, wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care!
I said, hey ho, wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care!
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho, hey ho
Repeat chorus 15,000,000 times…
Oh yeah, and since you guys are getting it done, I also devised a “look” as well. With all this fusion going around, I figured we’ll just create a mix of hip hop with glam rock. That means, the guys wear their pants down around their knees still, but now their g-strigns are showing. Hahha it’s awful!
Words to Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony:
” .”
Guess lyrics aren’t always the best metric for quality.
There’s a lot of music out there that I personally don’t enjoy. Sometimes because it’s by and for people living differently from me. But I don’t have a need to insult it or state that there’s no excuse for making it.
WORD.I gotta go,my g-string is showing.go see Rhythm and the method at Queen Bee’s or hing at tin can ale house.
Okay sorry Robin, but seriously what IS up with the pants down around the ankles thing?
Honestly, I just don’t understand kids these days..
That’s cuz you haven’t seen how good it looks on me.
Using your voice as a percussion instrument does not imply any ideology or set of values.
Just like the “funny” lyrics about abducting Gilda in “Rigoletto” don’t make all opera lovers advocates of violence against women. Nor are all rock lovers responsible for Axl Rose’s lyrics.
I was never great at staying current with music … Never, ever. My “expertise” skews way more heavily than I’d like toward whiny white men with guitars who recorded between 1958 and 1981.
And as I mentioned before, I feel positively ADD when it comes to variants of popular music (commercially ambitious or aggressively underground) since 1985. Some I know, some I don’t, none of it do I feel I know inside-out.
But even a fool such as I realizes that the “rap” you’re referring to (rather broadly and stereotypically) here is a sub-genre that gained popular and commercial ascendance more than 20 years ago.
There are all kinds of different sounds and themes and approaches going on under the umbrella of hip-hop … Dismissing them all as a glorification of misogynistic, pants-dropping, violent drug gangs is like opining that hair metal is the cutting edge of rock music.
(In my opinion, it also makes the dismissing party sound like a crabby 85-year-old white guy who drives a large American car very slowly and hasn’t been more than 15 miles from home since the Reagan administration. People like that arguably have their own charms, but they’re hardly the front lines of a “new underground.”)
>People like that arguably have their own charms
Indeed, you do, sweetheart. Yes, Matthew, sorry. You, also, are invited to wave your hands in the air- even if you do seem to keep your room all hot and stuffy these days; and you’ve begun sharing too much about what keeps you regular.
To recap:
>”But whither go thou, underground? Now what generation is this, anyway? What do we do now with all this hard-won freedom? What is the state of the underground now? What is the next conspiracy we can get in line behind? I’m bored again.”
>”stuff like this i guess…”
>“In my opinion, there is just no excuse for hip-hop music”
Recalling the plain-spoken, aggressively marketed rebel anthem of our parents’ generation, who taught the value of perpetually feeling young and rebellious: “Why don’t you all just fade away and don’t try and dig what we all say.” The youth underground is just fine. And quite pleased to offend you with their music and clothes. If you’re bored and want an “underground,” why is the first step to find something you can get in line behind?
Somewhere a group of 17-year-olds is forming a Facebook group to mock 45-year-old ex-punks who think their underground was the BEST underground! (At least I hope they are.)
>>Gimme my bifocals
I got awesome bifocals a couple months ago! I can actually read again without having to whip off my glasses, close one eye and position the print precisely 15 inches from my face.
Nancy picked them out. They’re horn rims, which is a big change after wearing wire frames since around 1975. The 20- and 30-something Brooklyn hipsters in my office got a kick out of my embrace of a look similar to theirs; my mother is appalled that I made this change in eyewear, since to her, wire frames signal “modernity.” (She also still mourns the loss of my Jewfro.)
I think they suit me pretty well; it’s fun to make a little change, especially one that my spouse thinks looks sharp. But mostly I’m glad not to be squinting like Mr. Magoo!
Iggy Pop would never rap
What!?
“Five-Foot-One” and “Girls” are both practically “raps”.
“With a bottle of aspirin / A sack full of jokes / I wish I could go home / With all the big folks”
Iggy Pop would never say never.
Matthew, the world mourns the loss of your Jewfro.
I’m gonna go find a young staff member to call a “punk ass kid” just to start the weekend right. I think I’ll also tell a righteous story about my day. Suggestions anyone?
By the way, if I had to pick a role model — which I don’t, ’cause I’m a grown-ass man — I’m personally more interested in what Jerry thinks of rap than what Iggy does! 🙂
Best line in “N.O.T.O.R.I.O.U.S.”: “What kind of grown-ass man calls himself ‘Puffy’?”
Igbo Pop rapped?
Dee Dee King
>>>To sum up hip-hop thusly indicates one with extremely limited exposure to hip-hop.
Also known as “contempt prior to investigation”, which was the original reaction to punk before it became marginalized by Green Day and Hot Topic.
To the haters:
Explore the underground hip hop scene, not the mainstream one. Most mainstream music sucks no matter what genre it is. Rap is the blood relation of spoken word. So in essence, Patty Smith and Henry Rollins are rappers.
Check out the soundtrack to Ghost Dog (I am in a Jasmusch mood today) -- it’s got a great mix of classics. Or talk to Paul H. and he’ll school ya.
Matt needs to post a link to that hip hop song he put on facebook a week or so ago… the one with all the lyrics. That was at least as good as anything David Bowie ever wrote.
The problem is that you guys turn on the radio and think that’s all there is. Imagine if you put on a rock station and heard Styx and Journey and judged all rock music based on that.
Well, if it’s good enough for Dee Dee, Iggy and of course Debbie Harry (who famously hip-hopped back before hip-hop was cool), then it’s good enough for me! I’m on board.
I accept that the next messiah that comes to earth with a message of love and rock and roll will arrive with his pants down around his knees!
If you’re not open to new sounds, the “new underground” is something you’ll never even hear. The new underground isn’t going to look or sound like what’s come before… if you expect it to, you’ll miss it completely.
Hey, I’m already booking the next show. The line-up is:
-- Da Wallflowaz
-- Da Ansaz
-- N292
-- Underwear Theater
-- The Rapp’n Dogz (singing their hit single “Candy Rock Cocaine”)
I’m more down than Snoop Doggy’s trousers!
Wow, 6 posts got made while I was drafting that last one. Haha
“Charon” fits you better than “P Man.”
In DC, it’s literally underground- shows and dance parties on the lower levels of places like strip malls, furnished with couches dragged in off the curb. Lines between spoken word and song are blurry, and predictable ethnic identity is for old people.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=charon
definition 1. 2. 3. or 4.
Enough for today. I need to spend some quality time with my records.
Wait a sec PMan, where does dubstep fit into all this? How does that work?
the kingdom of the underwear is within you
Oh great, Ray is becoming -- THE BMAN… The Tell-Tale Heartz anyone?
Rinck, Blackstarline are flinging down some pretty dubby dubstep on sub fm right now http://www.sub.fm/
see you in the chatroom
Paul: Def.1, the dude who transports you to the Underworld.
Time to go hang out with the Fam and Not Work.
>>There has not been a generation in the history of mankind that has not thought the generation which succeeded it was causing the end of civilization as they knew it.
“Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.” — Aristophanes, ca. 446-ca. 386 B.C.
(Aristophanes had a lot to say about ways in which the fourth century B.C. was a lot worse than the fifth century B.C. — kids with their butts hanging out of their togas, loud pandouris music at all hours, the usual.)
Yeah…but I don’t think this is the case here…as mentioned above. I don’t think we’re ragging on another generation at all.
>>Yeah…but I don’t think this is the case here…as mentioned above. I don’t think we’re ragging on another generation at all.
I’d argue that the statement “thirty years of rap, underground, mainstream, whatever … has gotten SO old and played” is generational at its core, since it leads inevitably to the conclusion that generations that succeeded us haven’t come up with anything new.
Listen, I’m not totally immune to that feeling, either — but I suspect there are millions of creative young people around the world who’d think we’re both full of shit. 🙂
It don’t mean a thing if it aint got that swing, it aint nothing but a g-thing, are we not pins?
(I.e., I believe a sense of ennui is one of the hazards of longevity and requires increasing efforts to keep at bay the older and more experienced we become. The world does not owe us novelty; we ultimately have to create it for ourselves.)
Is it an underground concept to use some shareware to re-purpose a piece of dreck into something wonderful? I have no idea….but it’s definitely an improvement…
I think it’s pretty badass that a chunk of shlock can be transformed into something rather inspiring simply by changing our perception of it, in this case by allowing us to hear it 800% slower.
You can hear the entire 35-minute track here:
http://soundcloud.com/shamantis/j-biebz-u-smile-800-slower
>>Oh great, Ray is becoming – THE BMAN… The Tell-Tale Heartz anyone?
I don’t get it. I was merely proposing that those of us who are in our forties (and beyond) recognize that perhaps we are not as tuned into what is currently cool (and novel) as we think we are. Human nature does not change. There are brilliant, talented, angry young people doing amazing things in art, music and film, just as there always have been.
I do think Bruce is on to something when he notes that there has not been a MAJOR long lasting movement in art since the late seventies, but perhaps we are looking in the wrong place? So much of what has made transformational change in our culture in the last several years has been in the area of technology and the way the great majority has access to information it never had. I love Dave E’s description of rap and punk as folk music--that’s exactly what it is. People without money now have the ability to create, to publish, to get their ideas to a huge audience. That’s a huge difference from the way that the wealthy elite have always controlled the flow of ideas. Society is changing--the old institutions are dying (and that includes the music industry, the publishing industry, the corporate media. Any new revolution is not going to look like late 1970s punk rock--if it is at all meaningful, most of the world won’t recognize it.
Okay you guys you all got me speachless… which is very hard to do. Luckly I came to from my drunken stupor before the neck tatoo was started. Sorry Lou. I was looking forward to it too. And not to draw all the attention to me, but I still equate Hip Hop to Disco.
would we all have been in rap bands if we were all born 30 years later?
Wow- so much happened while I ran out to a 26-year-old’s basement so we could lay down some tracks and make fun noises with a vocoder.
And while I fear this may boost our noise-to-signal ratio even higher: I bet you $20 that even with the names removed, any visitor to this thread would know it was driven by middle-aged white men.
Jim, am I missing something? Disco and Rap are the bomb. No one doesn’t like the Bee Gees. I still have my black jump suit with red leather lining and platform shoes 4 inches high, For real. I do not like every rap band or song, as well as any other musical genre, I think it is all like pizza, noone agrees which place is best, or one man’s trash is another man’s treasure . As for style, could I mix it up. A skinhead, with a silk shirt , bell bottomed pants hanging off my butt with a watch on a gold chain. a pair of spats over my moccasins and have a spliff hanging out of my pocket and a funy tatoo on my neck, the revolution will not be televised……. step.
To quote my best music buddy’s mom: “Only boring people get bored.”
Way, way back in adolescence, Paul Howland was always my favorite musician because he wasn’t trying to be a star or a rebel or an innovator. He didn’t play to make some kind of argument or abstract point. He expressed who he was, not who he was trying to be. He played for himself and the people listening at that moment.
A great thread with so many intelligent opinions. Underground…rap…Ziggy Stardust…it’s all here. Oh, except for the lunatic ravings, finger pointing, name calling, and death threats…I LOVE the new face of CHE 🙂
I never cared for Garth Brooks either but doesn’t mean he’s not a talented muscian or artist. I have always been drawn to music that had something to say… Child of the 60’s you see. And I’m a sucker for a sweet love song too. Disco was music whose soul purpose was to make money and that is how I see Hip Hop. Music with no nutritional value but boy does it taste good. Now Back to the new underground…
“The artist that is involved in the music scence and plays for him/herself and the people listening at that moment” will be part of that new underground. On that I do agree with you Robin.
…And just because I “feel” this was doesn’t make me right or wrong it’s just my opinion and as you can read in this thread we all have one. Now there is a song in there some where.
Salt & Peppa? These are MY girls!
Well, since the heydays of Claudia Lennear and Tina Turner…
>>Do you not sense a loss that there are no more Lennon/McCartneys….David Bowies….Pink Floyds…music that really is eternal…not generational. Rolling stone still rates Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds as the number 1 and 2 albums of all time. They were created 40 years ago!!
What makes it “eternal, not generational”? …the fact that people from that generation think so? …the fact that Rolling Stone, a magazine by and for this generation thinks so? You think so highly of this music because its your music… its your generation. People from earlier and later generations don’t agree.
Rolling Stone has no idea what’s going on in music. How would they? These writers were able to critique music in the 60s and 70s because they were in the middle of it… they were a part of it. They’re so disconnected from anything going on today that they’d have no frame of reference to write about it… that’s why every single issue has some ridiculous list of the “greatest” bands, or songs, or whatever. All they can do is try to create an institution out of music that was once vital and relevant.
And ok Matt, I’ll bite. Who is in the hell is Chuck D?
BTW, I just picked up this gem on the Public Enemy Wikipedia page: “Poet and Hip-Hop artist Saul Williams uses a sample from Public Enemy’s ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’ in his song ‘Tr[n]igger’ on the Niggy Tardust album.”
Best album name I’ve heard in a while.
Matt, no underground ever evolved anybody FOLLOWING anybody, okay except maybe Malcolm and Vivian, and punk rock. Oh yeah and Steve Epineter and Grew Shaw were nice enough to teach us a thing or two… but look, Keriouac studied fine literature, but in the end he just went and took a bunch of speed and wrote “On the Road”. A damn fine read in my opinion (if I’m still allowed to have an opinion that is…). Enough reverse agism, I don’t care if somebody calls me an old fart living in the past, if you don’t like it, go take a pee or something…
And okay; Carlton Douglas Ridenhour (born August 1, 1960), better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy. Got it, he’s some rap guy. Whatever…
And whining about your order at Starbucks? Really? Come on,I just wanna have somewhere to hang with the gang this weekend, and see some music (not rap or hip-hop). And if it takes some chiding to get people out, well…
The NEW UNDERGROUND gonna be the best one ever, because it’s happening THIS WEEKEND. Coming soon to a dive bar near you!
Ok, now I read up on this Chuck D fellow. He sounds like a great guy. I’d probably like him a lot, but HATE his music, cause of the way it sounds. I also admire Greg Ginn A LOT, but I’m not particularly into Black Flag. Never really paid much attention to them even when they were up on stage at shows I attended. But they’re welcome to join in the NEW UNDERGROUND. I guess guys like that will suit up and show up not matter what happens…
If Punk Magazine re-leased it’s instruction manual manual today, how would it read? Maybe:
1) this is the online intro to Garageband
2) this is how you upload a few tunes onto CD baby
3) this is how you create a MySpace for your “band”, and then open your own internet radio station
Now go get in line at open mic night!
Damn, the NEW UNDERGROUND kicks my ass! Are you guys as excited as me?
>>Are serious about him carrying Johnny Thunders’ amplifier?
Nah, I just wanted to lure you into looking him up. Now if I can just trick Bruce into listening to “Astral Weeks,” my life will be complete. 🙂
Bruce won’t listen to “Astral Weeks”? Why not?
My own report on the State of the Underground (we’re ready now):
Bar Pink seems to be pretty happening these days, and big crowds show up for open mic night at Lestats, even though it’s on a Monday. Of course, Tim and the Casbah are there.
Good news is: people are still going out, and they have a will to create music (most of the open mic night crowd seems more interested in playing their own stuff than bothering to listen to what the other guys are playing -- a very good sign). Also, all the new technology out there (blogs, Garageband, MySpace, CD Baby, etc) means we don’t have to conform to anybody to get our music out there and heard.
Bad news is: a general lack of direction, coherence, cohesiveness. A bland visual style (and fashion sense, though certain folks are prepared to mutilate their body’s into all sorts of things to express themselves). Not much happening on the rock and roll front either.
In terms of the “what does it sound like” question. Well, there is rap and hip-hop, and dubstep, and a lot of folks playing breathy acoustic bits, sometimes bordering on Jewell clones, but all in all, not something that can’t be managed with some proper impetus, a big amp, and a kick in the ass.
So, in general, the kids are still there, the DIY ethos is in fine shape. and the technology’s there. So, wherefore art thou Ziggy?
Whether it’s Chuck D. in PE or Minor Threat, they are saying the same message: Fight the Power. I was listening to Public Enemy in 1986 because punk rock had jumped the shark with Rancid. It was the only angry, real, but beat driven expression that was original coming out.
I also totally LOVE the electronic music movement and all of its bastard step children. Autechre, Aphex Twin, Orbital, Boards of Canada…..you can say it’s soulless but I say it’s beautiful & expressive. It gets 100% zero radio play, which makes it an underground.
Matt is a great moderator, like it or not, and he takes a centrist view on all matters of music and personalities.
HOWEVER, I personally know that he doesn’t like and doesn’t listen to rappy hop!!
This is hardly underground, and it’s 16 years old! But just ’cause I thought of it today, what would Iggy not like about this? The Stooges would do an awesome job on this song. All “TV Eye” ‘n’ shit. I can totally picture Iggy bringing the peanut butter on this.
Dave Rinck: Firestarter. If ya’ don’t know, now ya’ know, nuckas! Boorish bores beware!
People who deliver harsh criticism all too often act as if they’ve been attacked when someone disagrees. Usually when someone gives a reason for disagreeing.
It’s always time for more Tina. Always. Muchas gracias Senor Cornelius.
Bruce: wasn’t a lot of punk rock degrading to women as well? Does Roger Waters depict women in a positive light in The Wall? How about the Stones?
Johnny Thunders a positive role model for youth? He can just cruise down to the local school and demonstrate how to shoot heroin.
Chuck D./Public Enemy talk about more social/political issues rather than “hos” in their lyrics. The rap is super creative & rhythmic. Chuck D. is a very intelligent man.
Maybe “gangstas” don’t treat women so well. But did guys from back in our day do much better?
>>Kids only listen to the Beatles because they heard the music as babies??….Empirical data please!!!
Bruce: All my evidence is anecdotal … The people I work with are generally lots younger than me, and they regard Beatles songs with the same affection they have for other stuff their parents and grandparents had around the house. I haven’t met anyone under 35 who really knows the Beatles trivia I can throw out. They know who Yoko is.
I dunno — Pearl Jam’s a ton more important to most of the 25- to 35-year-olds I encounter than the Beatles, and that stuff’s total retro to the kids younger than that.
Listening to Public Enemy nonstop this evening, btw. These guys are great!
Nice post Kristen. The comment that starts at 2:45 says it all for me.
Well, looky here … Chuck D (as in “damn smart guy”) speaks about this very issue:
The man has voiced huge respect for the Beatles over the years. He named an album “Revolverlution” in homage to the group, and he’s said “The Long and Winding Road” is his favorite song.
Here’s what he says about the inspiration behind Public Enemy’s epic “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”:
I could go on. Chuck D has always been very generous in acknowledging the importance of these classic-rock groups.
BTW, I don’t think that Beatles fandom is a yardstick for credibility. But Public Enemy knocked down a lot of color lines in its vision of inclusiveness; Chuck D is a really smart, eclectic intelligence; I think Public Enemy was a kick-ass group; and I think it’s just silly to dismiss what he has to say.
>>I KNOW this is not true Matt…you told me you hate Rap!! 🙂
Bruce: I’m not sure where you got that from, but if you’re serious, you misunderstood me.
I feel inadequate in my knowledge of rap … I never felt like I could master it the way I can perform in a band with a guitar in my hands … I don’t have a deep understanding of the genres or the history, and I’d be grotesque if I tried to emulate it.
But I most assuredly don’t hate it. This whole thread inspired me to revisit Public Enemy after many years, and they are great. I could never do what they did, but it’s terrific. (Oh, and not underground … They’re one of the top-selling acts in history and another perennial on the Rolling Stone hit parade. Definitely a commercial force, but an aesthetically important one with a lot to say.)
I love Danger Mouse:
Oh, I forgot about this one … This is just a brilliant juxtaposition … The quotes from Jay Z’s mom are a play within his play, and then Danger Mouse comes along and frames it all with the riff from “Mother Nature’s Son.”
>>Oh geez, this post has just degenerated into another, I like this, I don’t like that post.
I like degenerates! I have a T-shirt that says so.
Haha, never seen that before. Funny stuff.
this
and this
are on the same record. i’m going to bring that record here and if the mood strikes me, i’ll play it. one thing worth bearing in mind about these sort of tunes is that they’re really not made for home listening. they’re made to be played on sound systems, at dances.
I’d take Public Enemy over Pink Floyd. A Tribe called Quest over The beatles
I like the Ramadanman.
Lou…you voted for George Bush…your opinion doesn’t count!! 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxarN-c-Z6U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeMWCVjco78
As for “whither underground?” … I think it might be putting the egg before the chicken to think an underground of creativity starts with people getting together. It may start with individuals who have a decent idea of what they want to DIY encountering kindred spirits.
With “Ziggy Stardust,” Bowie demonstrated his genius for popularizing what was already making the rounds, just like Kerouac was a popularizer of a thriving underground in NY and SF that had been getting freaky in apartments and cafes since the end of WWII.
Young people are likelier to coalesce ito scenes in part ’cause they have more time to devote to their care and feeding.
Trying to impose it artificially is the difference between grassroots and Astroturf. 🙂
I can’t think of anyone more qualified than Kristen to assess misogyny in our scene.
Matt- you know how much I love you- forgive me- doesn’t the egg usually go before the chicken?
My mom just out and said on the phone last night, “I miss your Afro.”
I’m thinking that plus a bowtie and handlebar moustache might make me a lightning rod for … Something. Maybe actual lightning, especially if I get HUGE wireframe spectacles.
Anybody want to get behind this? I seen it in a magazine!
>>doesn’t the egg usually go before the chicken?
Robin: Ever check out Bowie’s hairdo during the Ziggy period? He’s obviously the chicken!
Won’t your wife be jealous of the other 80s babes?
Got it.
My lovely Jewfro photo post is not showing. Perhaps the Internets have had enough of my smartass humor and want me to get ready for a bike ride.
Matt, you got me so confused with that chicken and egg business that I had to look it up in the “Underground Recipe Book”. What I found shocked me, a photo of Joey Ramone and the quote “All the kids want somethin’ to do”…
not great sound quality, but worth it for the fros and clothes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCed47HdRu8&feature=related
Martha’s Vineyard, holla baaaack!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0
King Crimson! Can’t hear them without thinking of you. I thought when I cleaned up my recreational habits, I might not like them any more. Then I thought when enough time had passed since the 70s, I might be over them. But now I’m thinking I might just always like ’em. Still have every King Crimson vinyl disk you ever advised me to purchase at Blue Meanie, Off the Record, and Chameleon.
Am I the only one who sees the irony in this thread? Don’t you think some of us are romanticizing our own pasts just a little bit? I mean, twenty-five, thirty years ago the bands I was in were not ashamed to admit we were HIGHLY derivative, if not totally unoriginal (at least stylistically.) The music that came out of our little scene was clearly very different from the mainstream, but it reflected a reverence for music of previous generations. In many ways we were more like evangelists than prophets. At the very least I’m speaking for myself and the handful of bands that used to play shows with us.
It’s not fair to compare the “underground” of thirty years ago to the mainstream today. The Injections, Wallflowers, Tell-Tale Hearts, Noise 292, Rockin’ Dogs etc. vs. Justin Bieber and Lil Wayne is a false argument.
The forty-somethings of 2010 are not going to be exposed to our contemporary equivalents, any more than our parents were hanging out at Studio 517, the Skeleton Club and Greenwich Village West. The real radical stuff today is not going on in coffee shops and hipster bars, either. As much as I hate to admit it, if anyone our age is going there, it’s not cool to young people.
This really speaks to me:
Any more irony, and we’d rust! 🙂
I’ll add that I get invited to plenty of events by people in their early 20s … I guess they realize I’ll treat their enthusiasms with respect … But the plain fact is, I don’t have the time or the energy for most of it!
I have my own priorities. I’m grateful that people from other generations seem to appreciate things I do/did, and I like learning about what they’re up to. But it’s not like we have anything to PROVE to each other.
Ray, I agree with 100 percent on summing us up as “derivative”, and really not even derivative if the same stuff. Which is why I think you could sum up our “scene” pretty just for what it was, the sum of its parts. Pretty much like the scene like anywhere else though right? What did the ramones (derivative of the beach boys, etc) have to with blondie or the “art rock” of Television or the Talking Heads, other than that they all meet and played together at CBGBs and then ultimately attracted a lot of other bands like the Dead Boys or the Heartbreakers?
We
I think on the other hand, we had something deeper in common, which was our DIY ethos and will to do it, which I think are the very things that make a “scene” as opposed to just some interesting band. The very fact that we were out there inspired others to join in.
To
Now we’re getting somewhere!
I wonder why it’s so easy to consider that just because some scene/style/movement borrows from the past, or is otherwise somehow derivative, it’s not underground..? Especially if being an anachronism is not a path to mass appeal, and nor does it care to be. If anything I would consider a revisiting of the past to be a shakeup and reconsidering of the present. Does something have to be uniquely innovative to be underground or is it the context within which it exists? Whithin the musical argument — if you come up with some new chords or progressions on the guitar, you’re still playing a guitar…so does that mean underground music can’t be played on traditional instruments, or employ Western scales or a linear sense of time? Following this line then perhaps biotech companies are the real underground because they are at the cutting edge of innovation and discovery, while those who consider pop culture the guiding force for change are calculating the social implications of haircuts or whether the waistlines of pants are best worn around the waist..?
I’m not trying to make an argument that going in a retro direction is somehow more innovative than trying to forge a new sound, but too often the past is expected to be little more than an archeological layer that has to keep it’s place below or above it’s chronological neighbors. Sometimes the weight of all the layers compress to such a point that certain stratas of the past turn into a valuable oil that can be mined from above. Dave Ellison reminded us that neo-classical periods have sprung up again and again throughout human history….the renaissance probably wouldn’t have flourished as it did without a re-examination of the past, and aren’t those who don’t know history ultimately doomed to repeat it anyway?
I shouldn’t worry…new episode of Madmen on tonight, proof positive that some of my fave retro looks are alive and well and now available at Banana Republic.
When I was going to art school (insert joke here) I was frustrated because many of the teachers didn’t possess the academic technical skills I had expected them to, so I gravitated immediately towards the professors who had that ‘outdated’ ability to draw…I thought art school would be like attending the Academie in Paris that I had read about in art history books…and then we submitted paintings for exhibition at the Salon…wrong.
During those years I was often taught by people who had been taught by those who had thrown aside the rules of art, abstract expressionists, op artists, pop artists, earthworks, etc, and I got the sense that many of the teachers I had had been advised that all that old-fashioned stuff about accurately rendering the world around you in 2 or 3 dimensions was utterly passe. I did have some amazing teachers, btw, and get the sense that they were mini-revolutionaries on their own because as students they had bucked the then current trends to mistrust technique and don’t trust any artist over thirty. A couple generations back those abstract expressionists threw aside the rules of academic rendering and technique as a REACTION to the academic training they were still receiving when they were students…they tossed aside something they actually KNEW. Jackson Pollock studied with Thomas Benton, who was a wonderful realist painter. So what I’m saying (I think) is that a simple mistrusting of ‘abilities’, or a proclamation that everything that has gone before has to be dumped before any true innovation can happen is a leaky boat. If that was the case then anybody could (and should) produce 4 and a half minutes of silence that is way better than John Cage’s 4 and a half minutes of silence. If just being angry is a recipe for great new art then that guy you just passed on the street that is screaming at passers-by is among the world’s greatest artists.
Anything that is ‘hip’ is guaranteed not to be ‘hip’ at some point down the line, probably sooner than later. And perhaps it will have a second ‘hip’ life…and if it is embraced down the road by some kids who were barely out of diapers when it was originally ‘hip’ then who’s to say who is hipper, the kids who discovered it later on or the out-of-date bozo who STILL thinks it’s hip even though it hasn’t been hip for years???
I’m hip to that!!
Bachs music was basically thrown away by his children later in life. Thank God Mendelsohn re-discovered old Bach and made him eternally hip again.
I do have more respect for artists that break rules and forge new ground after studying classic, and/or basic technique…more cred.
Will Karen Carpenter ever be un-hip though 🙂
Just saw Gang Green, Jerry’s Kids, the FU’s , DYS and Sapshot at an all ages show in Boston. I was in the pit, and I am hurting.
Slapshot
Is “underground” even a meaningful designation unless some external force is keeping you below the surface?
Certainly San Diego in the late ’70s and early ’80s was suspicious of the punk scene. SDPD were not friendly. (Some things were going on that — as a parent now — I’d be a little sketchy about myself!)
I guess my question is whether “underground” is even the right designation unless you’re encountering organized, official opposition to your activities by people in power.
I have not been questioned by a police officer on aesthetic grounds (i.e., my friends look weird) in about 25 years. Certainly many people of color still feel they’re stopped because of their appearance … But I personally do not feel like anyone’s blocking my freedom of expression or movement. And if not, am I “underground”?
When do we get to the part where we tune up our guitars and go play?
Sorry Lou…got cut off…hope you had fun.
Matt -- you are underground if you question it.
David -- I’m so lazy I don’t even tune anymore.
never have looked at myself or my friends
as middle class
although many are
my lifestyle is a testimony to the stir pot
many ingredients that go in
are from many people places and things
this forum is no exception
thursday nite played at tin can ale house
with a band called hING
i dressed as sharp as gene ammons
yet the music that played out
resembled sonic heaven and hell
lots of twenty something peeps gave
some kind words
and i went home with a full heart and a thin wallet
i dedicate myself to doing things that i must do
and i honor anyone who does the same
to stay in my head is a sin
to live for my heart is to win
music is the healing force of the universe
heal me
Thanks Louis!!
Gee, what a SHOCKER that the kids at the YACHT CLUB would know more about The Beatless than Public Enemy… Just outta curiosity: Get a lotta black kids out there, do ya? Any? EVER?
If I didn’t know better, i’d SWEAR that a few of you learned everything you know about “rap” from Bill O’Reilly! (How WAS that big revival meeting in D.C. yesterday, anyway?!)
Lesha- I thought about going to watch and listen out of curiosity, maybe slip in some snarky comments. But my kid was singing with a choir all morning and I wasn’t up for spending the remainder of a hot day on the mall with angry people.
I like what Dave F. and Louis Damian said. Who cares if you’re underground? Or the ages of who’s playing with you or listening? Art is to connect.
A few weeks ago my kid squealed and reached out for an Etruscan bronze sculpture. I said, “That’s what art means. Someone who died thousands of years ago had a feeling that they put into a piece of metal. So someone they’d never be able to meet could share that feeling.”
However that happens, it’s great when it does. “Cool” has nothing to do with it.
Lou Damian: I’m very eager to see hING in all its glory!
I don’t think it’s profound to say that younger people tend to benefit from time and energy and older people, from patience and experience.
I’m not going to get as torqued about “something to do” as Joey Ramone or I would’ve in our early 20s. Man, do I have a lot to do! Mostly pretty fun stuff — except when it’s not, which is when I’m glad I’m old enough to realize I can get it done and go back to what interests/pleases me more.
I would like an extra six hours each day … And I’d use a couple of them to put a band together if I were near enough to old friends to get them interested. I do miss that.
I think parents should get an extra hour each day- I’m thinking between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. that’s just for us, and a secret extra day between Wednesday and Thursday. I’d use it to beat back the bastard laundry and dishes. There’d be reading and napping too.
I’d love it if Che posted hING video.
Lesha that is so ignorant and judgmental. While most of the families paying full membership are White or Hispanic, most of our money and efforts go to providing inner-city children safe access to water.
Yes, many of these children are BLACK. (Black people can swim, sail, do just about anything they put their minds too..) many others are Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, Mexican, Guatemalan,…we have outreach groups for young women, usually from abusive backgrounds, and some WHITE kids sail there too…some WHITE people are poor too.
The great thing about teaching in such a dynamic and diverse setting is that people are not as COLOR sensitive as idiots like you.
Before this spins out of hand, I agree that kids of African descent can operate yachts.
I’m not going to stop people from going there, but I’d really rather keep race card in the box if it doesn’t apply. I’m glad that your club gives all kinds of kids access to boating, Bruce.
Thanks Matt…and race/gender applies no more to boating than music.
The greatest golfer of all time is black…the greatest single-handed sailor of all time is a woman…and the most famous rapper of all time is white.
Now back to thoughts of music and future Underground.
If you feed the trolls, they’ll keep coming back.
Paul H.- does that kid have any more drum shreds? I think we may want to do some sampling if he’s interested. Not much money, but several ears.
Sound cloud to follow in about 4 weeks.
Enough agism
“Enough agism”
I agree strongly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWW5EhaWBMQ
ya know, rap or hip hop is not really that popular anymore, sales are way down, country music sales are up…. Think Hip Hop is on it’s way out, gonna go back underground really… I love early RAP music , Grandmaster Flash’s The Message is a really great tune, but the more popular RAP got, the worse it became maybe due to major label involement… Same thing happened to GLAM, I love Bowie, T REX, but I really dislike Poison or Warrent or whatever…. Ya know what I think is worse than all of the above… POP PUNK….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcOpNx7ZoEk
Lesha, please don’t go away.
Some of us hope you’ll join in throwing our hands in the air and wave ’em like we just don’t care.
Sometimes it’s expedient for someone else’s argument to say white people can’t genuinely enjoy or express themselves through hip hop. And sometimes it’s expedient to say the opposite.
But, we don’t care. ‘Cause it ain’t about the argument. It’s about tearing the roof of the suckah. Say, ho-oh-oh! And, you don’t stop.
Robin: Make up yer mind: Am I a “troll” or ain’t I? (And what IS that, anyway?)
Did I say the unspeakable, by implying that there might be a racial, as well as generational, explanation for some of “you people’s” aversion to hip-hop? Are we supposed to pretend it’s NOT a predominantly african-american form of expression, one of the few viable outlets for kids who did NOT grow up suburban as we did, and for whom a bunch of amps, guitars, etc. would be economically out of reach? I like it, I DON’T care for what yachting “culture” has traditionally stood for; Excuse me for saying what I think and feel. I do not filter. Ever.
LESHA…I’M the troll because I post about things I’m interested in.
I apologize for such a quick response but I’ve been working with inner-city kids for 14 years and we get non-stop comments about “black” kids sailing…I’m just tired of it.
Blacks can sail…whites can rap…women can do anything….we are all sooo far beyond this discussion I believe.
I was just surprised at the tone of your message…sorry about the harsh response. BTW, I was just saying that musically, my kids tastes in music is as diverse as their backgrounds….They LOVE Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Michael Jackson, Eminem,
Justin Beiber, Reggae, some even like Dylan…they have very little prejudice at a young age.
Tiger Woods is Thai and Black People can’t swim.
Lesha- I wasn’t calling you a troll- sorry if that was unclear. I think you made a valid point. People’s hobbies vary with their ethnic, cultural, geographic, backgrounds. Yachts cost money; which is still associated with ethnicity. A lot of clubs are restricted, or have been until very recently. Even people there on a scholarship are expressing certain cultural values. Yachts are a high-priced luxury for spending a lot of leisure time near expensive real estate. The yacht club is not a hot bed for revolution.
Also, Lesha, I didn’t grow up suburban or with money for any of the equipment you listed and I think you summed up pretty well some of the reasons rap resonated with me and my neighbors.
Apologies in advance if I hit a wrong note here — this is a very volatile subject that deserves much more careful reflection than my day job affords me right now.
But before we up the rhetorical ante any further: This whole thread is studded with potential racial landmines, including casual stereotyping of white guys. I committed two of those infractions myself, and I will take my share of responsibility for that.
The imagery used to dismiss hip-hop got us off in a direction I find distressing. I don’t believe anyone is jumping into this discussion with racist intent, but I can see why temperatures are rising.
I will read these posts as soon as I can.
There is an understandable misconception of Yacht Clubs. Actually “yacht” is a poor word in itself. Most clubs in the Newport and Bristol areas where I work have a long association with small boat sailing, dinghy racing, and kids programs as the backbone. I’ve worked in the industry, and have been on the bay, all my life and don’t know anyone who owns what most people would consider a “Yacht”.
These clubs stem from a centuries old tradition of fisherman, building, working, and even sometimes racing their home-made boats. (And drinking hard at the end of the work day).
We spend way more time with inner-city kids, high-school racing teams, and even Ivy League Collegiate racing, than with any rich adults. I’m sure they come down to sail and race themselves…some have nice old wooden boats for sure…very few are wealthy.
Lou…shame on you for that comment!
Hey Paul, you remember meeting Iggy back of the Bachinal about 1982 (we couldn’t get in, cause it was over 21, and we were miffed), and I said, “Iggy, rock and roll is for kids!”, and he said, “no it’s not”. Enough age-ism! Down with the age-ists.
BTW in Nairobi the underground is KICKING SERIOUS ASS, rock and roll ass that is. And a few of some of those kids that play in those bands HATE rap music and hip-hop (maybe they don’t know they’re black in Kenya?). One time when I asked her about it, our bass player told me she also couldn’t stand traditional African music. She said, “how would you feel if all they though Americans could do was square dance?”
Equating race and music, and/or age and music is sooooo old underground…
Here’s a note from Gary Heffern, still unable to post:
Tamikrest is (in MY opinion), the best band in Africa these days, or any way since Brenda Fosse died. Thanks for posting this Gary, a trip back to the ancestral homeland of the blues. The entire genre of Mali Blues deserves our attention.
I hope that that “down with ageism” stuff is not directed at my comments above. I was merely trying to stem some of the “let’s show these young kids how it’s done” rhetoric. You are all welcome at my quinceañera next Saturday.
Dave R,
Thanks for infusing this blog with some fire once again. This has been a most refreshing thread--full of fun.
Nobody’s weighed in on my question from yesterday: Can you have an “underground” if nobody’s stopping you? Wouldn’t that make it an … Overground?
BTW, square dancing is awesome! We should do much more of it.
Dave Fleminger,
You are absolutely correct. Sometimes, and that was certainly our case twenty-five years ago, the most insurgent thing one can do is look backwards, particularly if that is the opposite of what everyone expects you to do.
I am proud to have been hopelessly out of style in the 1980s.
> Can you have an “underground” if nobody’s stopping you?
Sort of. You’re freely doing stuff, but you don’t have mass commercial marketing.
Lesha: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-internet-troll.htm
“And a few of some of those kids that play in those bands HATE rap music and hip-hop (maybe they don’t know they’re black in Kenya?)…
Equating race and music, and/or age and music is sooooo old underground…”
No one here ever said all kids of African ancestry like rap.
Lesha observed that tastes and lifestyle have demographic correlates and that people’s opinions and interpretations are influenced by their own cultural experiences and the biases that come with them. She observed that happening here. She has a point. It’s a point that may have been made sooner except some of us didn’t want to deal with inflammatory responses. But, a frank discussion about social rebellion, revolution, and how people communicate subversive ideas acknowledges race and ethnicity as a factor. Thank you, Lesha, for insisting on honesty.
The definition of Troll from Urban Dictionary.
1. troll
One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument
You’re not a troll Lesha. There are trolls posting here though.
If the trolls are exposed to the sun, they will turn into stone.
Dave Rinck: OK, that’s a reasonable proposition I can get behind. When I do go out, it’s as a full participant … Otherwise, what’s the point?
However, I have to say I am never, ever bored — it’s been years since I experienced boredom, since there’s way too much interesting stuff to do! That means an event really has to command my attention … And of course, I have to be in the same time zone. 🙂
I am not a patient spectator.
Matt, you’re the king of class three! Hell, you started this blog, my hat’s off to you (babyface).
Now, about that square dancing…
Next event, we’ll raise a barn and square-dance in it.
What do you mean Kristen?
My point is that, three of the best (in my opinion) undergrounds of all time were fronted (to some extent) respectively by a Jew with a bowl haircut (Joey Ramone in NY early 70s), a mexican dude with a bowl haircut (Ray Brandes and SD circa 1984) and a queer with no haircut (Darby Crash in LA late-70s), and to boot, consider that Charlie Harper was in his late 40s when he fronted the U.K. Subs and the whole punk resurgence in London in the early 80s, but no one ever questioned (as far as I know) the cred of these folks on that basis. Underground is a universal state of mind… a distinct lack of concern for $$$, what’s popular, and a dedication to just DO it (babyface).
But anyway, to prove that I am culturally sensitive, I’m writing a rap square dance, which I imagine will inevitably become an anthem for the NEW UNDERGROUND.
three buffalo girls go around the outside
It’s really funny … I’m wracking my brain trying to remember when I last felt “out of place” … It’s been a long time! I often feel impatient, and then I just leave. And if I can’t leave, I just check out. 🙂
I think I’m mostly entertained in my own head.
Matt you are entertaining in my head too
Pete Seeger Square Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg0EtGXOLc4
Eminem Square Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otJdmgbXpOg
Love American Music
Dave R.,no one called you culturally insensitive or tried to argue with your personal taste. You said there was no excuse for hip hop and that those who perform it are too lazy to learn to play instruments.I don’t agree. I have no issue with your not liking it.
See “Scratch” for details on hip hop musicianship.
Matt, you are darn entertaining in my head.
Type 4. Parent w outside job
Ok Robin. Thanks
“Yeah Paul, but do you also detect a notable thinning of the skin out there? I mean, geez, you say you don’t like some kind of musical style in a sarcastic way, and suddenly you get jumped on by a bunch of folks say “hey man, you’re just not culturally sensitive, or you’re just too old to know what’s going on”.” I agree completely, there are a few very thin skinned people on here.
For my part I haven’t really been jumping on anyone, feel free to quote me to the contrary. I’ll be more than happy to apologize to the injured party. Scroll up a little and you’ll see that I took up for you when you decried the age-ist commentary taking place on here. I think Robin dealt nicely above with some of the cultural issues that were raised, the person who raised those issues got called an idiot and ignorant, so, yeah is that one of the thin skinned people you’re referring to, the one responsible for that bit of name calling ?
I will say that I am getting a little fatigued of being asked to share my opinion on what I think is underground, or what music I currently enjoy,or some other question, only to hear the same tirades over and over any time I post something where the vocal has more rhythmic than melodic content. Some of the tirades have gotten a bit nasty and off topic. It’s boring and doesn’t advance the thread. This thread is a good example.It’s approaching 250 replies, 5 or 6 of which have something to do with the topic at hand.
Earlier you stated that this thread was degenerating in to one of those, “I like this, I don’t care for that” affairs. To me that is the very essence of the underground spirit. The best thing about the music scene in the early-mid 80s was sitting around at friends apartments or houses and just listening to records. I have many fond memories of those kind of sessions. Get a bunch of people doing that all the time you get a music scene, if not several. This forum is or could be the perfect place for that sort of exchange. You mentioned earlier in this thread about how I had turned you on to a lot of worthwhile music, hey, it was mutual. Many’s the time we sat at your house listening to records for hours on end. I’m not even just reminiscing though. I’m still wired the same way. It’s the very thing that drove me in to DJing, the desire to share music I truly dig with anyone interested. But let me put it to you this way, suppose every time I came over to your house to listen to records, one of your friends went on long tirades about how Ignorant I was, how poor my tastes in music were, what a shame it was I didn’t like this band or that band (his favorites), how long do you think I’d keep bringing my records over there ?
Respect is a two way street, and a little of it goes a long way.
In the above spirit,
Click on this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JkTG6VNYF0
Never heard of Horace Andy…but very nice!
I also love Carlton…pretty old school though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efy2l2JRriE&feature=related
Nice one.
I played in a band a few years back that played rock-steady, almost exclusively. My only job was skank-guitar…I never really got it, and I had FAR more music training than anyone. Just goes to show you!
Skank, Slanky-Tank…very hard to be IN that groove perfectly.
>Ok Robin. Thanks
Thank you, Dave, for that civil response!
It upped my interest in hearing your music, ideas, etc.
There is usually a trollish response right about here in which we hear about how boring love fests are and how grateful we should all be when someone inflames conflict. I’ll go on record as appreciating a good love fest and finding inflammatory confrontation boring.
It’s easy enough to find a shout match on the web. Genuine conversation’s rarer and better. It happens on Che sometimes. Matt’s a jolly good fellow.
Another from that golden period.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf69KPPcumI
BTW, now that I have a few minutes to ponder this thread: I do believe I expressed myself badly RE artistic expression crossing generations.
The point I intended to make: I feel honored when I am invited to participate in or witness others’ creative efforts, whatever their ages. I don’t feel the pressure I did two decades ago to represent for the sake of it — and for that, I’m grateful! And I definitely don’t feel the need to keep up just to prove I can. (Which is good, ’cause I can’t.)
I’m proud of my years of history, but I don’t think they put me at the head of any lines. If people who’ve rotated the sun fewer times are interested in hearing about my experiences, I’m always glad to share, but I try hard not to overstay my welcome. (I generally think they have a lot of interesting stuff going on themselves, and I try to listen as much as I talk.)
Plus — I won’t deny it — a great deal of my energy has shifted to raising my kids and other pursuits that are not a source of fascination when you’re 22 and having your own mad adventures in the big city!
Is that ageist? I hope not … I sure don’t consider my example a prescription for anybody else’s behavior, whether they’re 25, 45, 65 or 85. I hope some of you are pulling all-nighters with the band in 2083!
I’m just talking about the changes I’ve observed in my own relationship with external stimuli — and in my case, I find this iteration suits me much better than the old model ever did.
PS: My parents will be 80 next year, and they do way wilder stuff than I do. When they visit, I just give ’em the car keys and go to bed!
Rock Steady and Ska aren’t easy at all.
Yeah..two chords, and I can’t hit that beat!! No matter how short I make a skank the drummer complains, “not short enough”!
Don’t even get me started on the “bubble”!
Yeah, you need a good bubbler.
BTW what’s a bubbler?
All together now!
Wow I had to step out and observe this thread for awhile. I learned after my second divorce that one of my problems was that I wasn’t a good listener. I shouted my voice out louder and shook my fist higher thinkinjg that made my point better and that it won my argument. During this thread I booked another show and I helped a friend move from City Hieghts to Santee. I also found time to write more music and I brushed my teeth. I hated Disco and I still hate Hip Hop. Sorry, point of view has not changed. You all have handled the race card game (Sometimes called uno cause it reflects a one sided view no mater which “side” plays it) very well even though it almost got out of hand.(Nice save Matt). I love all of you because you Speak! You Think! You interact and you participate! As for the Underground as I mentioned to Dave before we’ll all part of it soon enough. Great thread Dave!
Haha…a bubbler, at least here in Yankee Land, is a drinking fountain.
The “bubble” Paul and I were mentioning is a “middle”, very rhythmic, voice played on either guitar or keys in Rock-Steady, Ska, Reggae. Listen carefully…it’s all happening in the bubble.
Great thread!!
The bubble says “coo-chank-ooh” or “ooh-ah-ooh” or “ooh-ah-ooh--a-ooh--ooh-ah-ooh-ah”
like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSKQmy8hobo&feature=related
this one has a sick bubble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_ZcP4rwpkc&feature=related
Interesting aside on self-reflection: As a kid, rock records were for sharing … Jazz records were for listening to myself. (Maybe ’cause they were my dad’s collection?)
We listened to a lot of comedy albums by Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen and later, the Firesign Theater. I passed a young guy at my work yesterday who was watching a YouTube post of Lenny Bruce performing in SF. This colleague just started getting into Lenny recently, and it made me happy.
I like all this Interweb stuff and the eclecticism it inspires. I don’t really see it as derivative at all — and I do think it somewhat challenges Robin’s (very reasonable) equation of “underground” with self-distributed. (While I admit that the means of distribution still reside largely with big corporate entities like YouTube, Facebook and Google.)
Commercial publishers of ANY media are crapping the bed, while civilians can become international celebrities on the strength of one viral video. I don’t think it’s meant a significant shift of revenues to those civilians — but the barriers to DIY distribution have plunged.
Share your lyrics here Robin! Just cut’n paste’em in!
Thanks! Songs are in production. I’ll post a link when they’re all done. This will nudge me to keep the process moving.
I need lyrics right now. Let me know if you have some roadhouse blues kinda stuff. Maybe we could write something together…
My best Che memories are of hanging out at each other’s houses listening to music.
If it wasn’t for David Rinck, I would never have heard The Stooges or the New York Dolls.
If it wasn’t for Paul Howland, I would never have heard John Coltrane.
Lou Damian introduced me to Arthur Lee & Love.
Pat Works to the Blues.
haha. Jeff Lucas exposed me to Einsturzende Neubauten.
I love the moment when you say “I hate that” and then you hear a song that changes everything!
Try some Mony Love, Dave. I am going to see Iggy tonight at the house of blues
Paul just turned me on to Horace Andy…never would have found him…Love it!
I’m still on the edge with any Jazz later than Swing…love the early Jazz/Blues, but can’t wrap my head around modern Jazz, except Miles and Coltrane maybe.
Damn, this is pretty good,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ub5dgWDnWQ&feature=related
please feel free to tell me how crappy it is though.
Paul- what was that band from about 10 years ago. Two girls, one-hit wonder, dance music. Their gimmick was they kissed at the end of their one big song???
Thought you might know. tx
Wow. Check out the love around here. Sharing is caring. aw….
Talk about love…TATU. Not relevant to anything at all…just remember seeing them on Leno.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5VHulkjg-g&feature=fvw
>>Damn, this is pretty good
I don’t know how they mixed that low bass note to cut right through even these crappy eMac speakers. Very cool. (I should get some external speakers or throw this machine out a window.)
Probably both.
Bruce, wasn’t that Madona and Briteney?
No….TATU….”Everything you said, everything you said, goin’ through my head”.
One hit wonders who were famous for kissing on stage. I like it ’cause I never would have thought of it.
Matt, I wish I know how they miixed this. The mixdown is awesome.
Skream’s commentary is brilliant. “It’s a Party Masher Upper”. Reloads it right when it drops. Skream’s Rinse FM show “Stella Sessions” was a constant source of info about new and forthcoming tunes when I first got in to dubstep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXkRpNcfgcM&feature=related
Just saw Iggy, GREAt, I had almost forgotten what I had loved.
Just heard Iggy and Lou Skum on my cell phone….how cool is that?
Thanks Lou
Rap music plays role in regime change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLYGQ_PbvUk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUVwZplG1MI&feature=related
more episodes of this are on youtube.
More misogynistic rap music. This guy wants to take girls to the movies !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmJbJs-9ST0
Paul, how do we know WHICH movies he wants to take girls to? It’s not clear.
There is a live Gang War set out there that shows just exactly how degrading to women Johnny Thunders could be.Sounds just like a modern day misogynystic rapper promoting the eternal pimp philosophy.I don’t like it,makes me cringe,but I like the music.
jim ryan said: “As for the Underground, … we’ll all [be] part of it soon enough.” Like, Six-Feet-Underground?!! LOVE IT!
Karen Carpenter exists outside of discussions of hipness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdHyzGXAJPg&feature=player_embedded
that’s so great…:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI9OkO-rMns
Good one, Paul.
Yeah, of course, we should be responsible with what we say and how we say it. Is that part of being underground? No, it’s part of being an adult. Yes, it happened.
An adult? Uh oh…
I’m sorry. I should have asked you to sit down and breathe calmly for a minute first.
>>But these days, I am really thinking about the POWER OF MUSIC, and how it really should be a force for the positive.
When has it really ever been a force of something negative? You can sing about bad things and still have the song and experience of listening to it be something positive. People understand that when they listen to music they’ve grown up with and are comfortable with, but when they hear a style of music that’s less familiar, they’re quicker to be judgmental.
A song doesn’t have to represent the views of the person listening to it to be enjoyable… and it doesn’t even necessarily represent the views of the person who wrote it. Writing lyrics is mostly just about putting words together to make something that sounds good.
IMO, thinking too much about trying to be responsible or have a positive message (or a message about anything, for that matter) is not necessarily good for creativity.
“IMO, thinking too much about trying to be responsible or have a positive message (or a message about anything, for that matter) is not necessarily good for creativity.”
I would agree that being responsible and having a positive message has had little to do with Rock n Roll, music, whatever…
It does seem like all creative people are trying to convey some message, (or illicit some response), through their art though..No??
elicit
Eliciting a response isn’t the same thing as making a point. I don’t think all creative people are trying to convey a message… or even most of them. I’ve never tried to do that with music, ever.
I like roots reggae, and I’m glad that there’s a positive message and all… but it’s the same message over and over and it’s gets pretty boring. Then there’s music with very ugly lyrics (Misfits, Gun Club, etc.) that I like a lot. I can’t explain why… horrible things just make powerful lyrics sometimes. If I thought the singers were actually trying to make a point about these things, I might be turned off to it, I guess.
I don’t like singers “making a point” either, usually. That’s why I like random chaos like Pistols, Fear, etc…although all the shocking anarchy, “ugly lyrics”, might be their point??
Maybe I’m thinking more about visual arts, (painting/sculpture), film,
and literature, poetry….surely there is the intent to convey some message or shared experience??
Beauty makes us feel vulnerable. In a time in which we have become so desensitized by uglification (Lewis Carroll coined that word) perhaps art born of sincerity is revolutionary.
Am I not entirely cynical when I call for the end of the Age Of Irony, when official art is no longer artificial?
If one creates something that encapsulates a personal vision, is that the same as making a point? I can make a point based on an opinion I don’t even believe in, it’s a logical process like debating.
If I create something that shares my vision then I’m sharing an experience…(Vincent Price laugh)…how can you tell which it is?
The presentation?
Prestidigitation?
We could procure an empty lecture hall and see what all this hifallootin sounds like echoing around the room…guitars may indeed help.
The medium is the message.
Or are we past that now? I forgot.
I’d rather think of a ‘medium’ as a conjurer, something that brings us spirits and other intangibles, rather than something between small and large.
you know wearing trousers
below the presumed waistline
is pretty darn comfortable
hip hop is pop music
punk rock is the new folk music
avant garde happened
the cutting edge has softened
same string
like it or not
now then are ya coming over for tea
or are we meeting at twiggs
“The end of the age of irony”? Now there’s a thought. Science is proving that sounds can heal. Is that what it’s all about?
I love the end of the age of irony…if it wasn’t so long it would be a great band name!!
Sound can heal…and Kate Bush wrote about sounds that could kill?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_7IjIp2DZI&feature=related
Twiggs.
Gingerbread hearts.
I’ll treat because Louis Damian made me smile more than once in the past week.
Jewfro frenzy!
And where were the spiders??/
We’re all spiders Lou…
“Jewfro frenzy!”
My sisters and I listened to the album and watched the movie so many times when it came out…Black Judas, tanks, F-15’s.
Poorly cast Mary….
Caiaphas ans Anas were incredible. Always thought Herod could have been played well by Richard Dreyfus.
Best opening song ever!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDzxn66W3uM&feature=related
Speaking of irony and “Jesus Christ Superstar”: Research suggests children learn to differentiate sarcasm and irony at nine or ten.
I was eight when I first saw this film, and I remember being perplexed by Herod’s compliments to Jesus. Why was he being so nice to him? Before the bagels started flying, of course.
Great link, Matt.
Is “classical” the opposite of “underground”?
Is “classical” the opposite of “underground”?
I don’t believe so. Recent New Yorker article on Dvorak shows how “underground” he was…still strongly considered classical (style not period)
But Bruce, isn’t “classical” the opposite of “DIY”? I mean, when the root of “classical” is “class”. Like when people divide themselves into unequal sub-groups, like students and teachers. Or in this case, performers and audiences. Isn’t that separation what we’re principally worried about? What we cyclically hope to destroy?
Wow…we just had some heated discussions with our Professor on this subject in my last Grad class: Philosophical Foundations of Music.
You would love this stuff…all un-answerable but delicious to ponder and argue/debate.
1st -- classical is too broad and vague a term to apply to music unless you are just talking about common practice period for a small portion of 18th and 19th centuries.
2nd- I never felt it was about “class”.
3rd- you hit the nail on the head. The kind of music we are talking about does put an un-natural divide between performer and audience.
I think most music does this though…right?? Is popular music more inclusive??
I have no answers but a million questions.
I’m not thinking of “classical” as a genre of music, but rather in the broad sense that anything “classical” becomes also “classist”, in the sense that it puts a division between those that do and those that don’t, the bourgeoise and the proletariat, teachers and students, i.e. in the musical sense -- performers and audiences. Remember “classic rock”? Classic anything is by its nature seems bound to an ideal, and so inert. Its “success” is judged by how well it reflects that ideal.
Isn’t that the opposite of underground?
There is a spectre haunting this conversation…:)
All people of all classes have always made and shared music…access is an interesting consideration, and “classism” is a worthy topic for discussion.
In Rock, Lou Reed, Iggy, MC5, Dead Boys, Pistols, Clash, etc…were surely thought of as VERY underground, yet, now are looked as as “classic” punk. Interesting dilemma.
There is a spectre haunting this conversation…:)
People of all classes have always made and shared music…access is an interesting consideration, and “classism” is a worthy topic for discussion.
In Rock, Lou Reed, Iggy, MC5, Dead Boys, Pistols, Clash, etc…were surely thought of as VERY underground, yet, now are looked at as “classic” punk. Interesting dilemma.
Some words that I wrote……………
They are afraid that we will wake up
They are afraid that we’ll get a voice
They are afraid that we all will gather
They are afraid that we’ll make a choice
They say we have no future
They say our monies spent
They say we need to give it up
They say that’s the way it is
We are the ageless underground
We are the ones who will make a stand
Don’t tell us that we can’t
When we know damn well we can!
You think that we are mindless
You think that we wouldn’t dare
You think that we live the fast lane
You think that we just don’t care
You think we buy your promise
You think we won’t unite
You think we’ll give up all our freedoms
You think that we have no fight
We are the ageless underground
We are the ones who will make a stand
Don’t tell us that we can’t
When we know damn well we can!
Some words that I wrote……………
They are afraid that we will wake up
They are afraid that we’ll get a voice
They are afraid that we all will gather
They are afraid that we’ll make a choice
They say we have no future
They say our monies spent
They say we need to give it up
They say that’s the way it is
We are the ageless underground
We are the ones who will make a stand
Don’t tell us that we can’t
When we know damn well we can!
You think that we are mindless
You think that we wouldn’t dare
You think that we live the fast lane
You think that we just don’t care
You think we buy your promise
You think we won’t unite
You think we’ll give up all our freedoms
You think that we have no fight
We are the ageless underground
We are the ones who will make a stand
Don’t tell us that we can’t
When we know damn well we can!
“The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball…I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon.” -- Frank Zappa
The bassoon is pretty much my favorite instrument. It’s like a bass and a baboon mixed… bred for its skills in magic.
I once saw a bassoon in a tree
In Africa, it was smiling back at me
Lou Reed, Iggy, MC5, Dead Boys, Pistols, Clash are all available at the store Hot Topic, which in SD is located in the Mission Valley Mall right across from where Sbarros used to be.
That’s right folks, the MALL.
The Mall? Oh no, time for a NEW UNDERGROUND! It’s getting desperate!
David, please stop shouting new underground. Thank you.
Haha….my eardrums!!
I always thought the underground was the tube too.
Will this be catered?
All right, Paul, I’ll quit telling on you to Mom. But, I still call dibs on the middle couch seat for Saturday afternoon martial arts theater.
That’s fine Robin, the middle seat sucks anyway.
Kyle Hall !
http://vimeo.com/7974646
http://vimeo.com/12944673
Oh, and Dorian Concept…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdRP3dQ9QOM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgISHGHuw8w
More Dorian Concept
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Kiw4aoex4&feature=related
Dorian Concept is cool…love the percussion.
Sounds like what Margaret would play on her Kat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWQfsH4jXfk
This article on slowed-down Justin Bieber is pretty entertaining … I love this:
A lot is happening all of a sudden…
…just not here!
Where’s BOogie when you need him/her?
I’ll say it for him. “Buncha self-absorbed has-beens, get over yourselves.” HA!
I don’t know anyone here who is self-absorbed…don’t care about has-been, will-be, whatever…just like to talk about music.
It was a quote, Bruce. Hence the quotation marks. There was another troll, BOogie, on here some time before we were graced with your insight, who also wasn’t self-absorbed. I don’t know if s/he was a Carl Carlton fan, but s/he was one bad mama jamma.
You guys never did figure out who he was?
Nope. BOooooogie?
Hey, Dave, (as the object of Vincent Van Gogh’s affection once said) while I’ve got your ear, what was the song that you referred to waaaay up there? The “one with all the lyrics.” Hehe. As you know, I’m quite the prodigious video poster on fb.
Dave R: By the way, for the next show’s line-up, I thought of some bands that would nicely complement Da Wallflowaz, Da Ansaz, The Rapp’n Dogz and the Tell-Tale Heartz.
How about The/Los Plugz, The Nutronz, and the Cardiac Kidz for starters…?
Cat got your tongue? Dave?
P.S. I said “Cat got your tongue…Dave?” Not “Cat got your tongue Cap’n Yacht Rock.” Air Supply, blech!
I miss BOogie. I’ve tried to e-mail him. He was fun!
Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, all that stuff you old-school Ivy League punkers listen to makes me wanna puke. Garbage, nuthin’ but garbage, straight-up garbage, pure garbage. You’re blind, baby… (…Have you forgotten that when we were brought here they robbed us of our… sorry it’s automatic). “I dig pain” indeed. Booo! [holding nose, followed by two thumbs waaay down] j/k
Taste the fury of Air Supply (Babyface)!
Matt, it was some shit about “Gangster of Love”. Who knows?
“and many of us, by the way we acted, even lost our minds”
Dave R: Yeah, it was the Geto Boys “Gangsta of Love,” the pinnacle of misogyny. No, I was asking Dave E about his post, foo. Lou: Nice follow through! “Here it is, BAM! And you say goddamn, this is the dope jam, but let’s define the term called ‘dope,’ and you thought it meant ‘funky,’ now, nope. Here is the true tale…”
matt johnsonz just when i thought this thread was worn to the ground and twisted beyond redemtion, Step up and be heard! That’s what the new underground is is all about!
Dave R: I’m sure the only thing that resonated with you about that Geto Boys track is the Steve Miller Band sample.
Jim R: Lolz!
oh oh theres a solution
tick tock tick
Dave Rinck: Diplomatically speaking, how is it that the venues comprising the new underground just happen to be (only) three places you’ve played in S.D. in the past year? Adversarily speaking, I’d argue that none of those joints is underground. In fact, given the instant accessibility that exists today via the internet, it’d be fair to say that a new underground is unlikely. Didn’t you learn anything when you, as you so eloquently put it, “choked on [my] nut” during rehearsals in July? Don’t tawk with your mouth full. Or as Deborah Harry would say “…your foot is firmly entrenched where a molar should be.” I say we scrap this thread and start over. Once we’ve reached 400 posts, that is.
Has anyone alerted the Distillery East?
Is this #400?
Well punk rock was introduced to Ramona via the Ramona Mainstage venue courtesy of the Cardiac Kidz. If that isn’t underground…..I thought the underground was a place where your were accepted as you are, allowed to say what you think and not judged by what you wear?
I dunno about underground, but if I were in San Diego, you’d find me at places like the newly-minted 11 (eleven, as in “this one goes to 11”) club, where the Vibrators played last night. Or the Tower Bar. Or Kava Lounge. Just sayin’…
Thanks for the suggestions Matt. I’ve been eyeing the Tower Bar for awhile now myself so, I’ll go forward with that notion. Ramona was so “out of town” I thought I’d take the challenge and do a couple of shows there. (are we at 400 yet?)
Three-sixty-something. It would be a lot higher if I knew how to post videos on here. (smile)
As they say in Australia, “good on ya” Jim!
Sigh…
Does the underground have a position on dinghies, schooners or sloops?
(We know that Lou Reed has given us permission to sail the darkened seas on a great big clipper ship. And in the 1980s, VU bandmate Sterling Morrison worked as captain of a Houston tugboat. So I assume we can actually get on boats.)
Hey! As recently as May 2010, Chuck D said “we’re all in the same boat,” although he didn’t specify what kind of boat we’re in.
If it’s a yacht, is this whole conversation moot??
“A cheap holiday in other peoples misery”
“Does the underground have a position on dinghies, schooners or sloops?”
Yes…but too long winded for this venue…unless a more specific question.
Inspired by my “Heroin” reference, Gary Heffern provides this link:
“Go down to may 25th…the song i did that night was heroin- and the delusions who played with doug yule included my guitar player jim roth who is now in built to spill.”
We all live in a yellow submarine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH7ZiVuxrHE
I’m only 1/4 Jewish…why I only sail little boats.
I’m On A Submarine Mission for you baby.
I believe I saw Sloopy Secondz, the Dinghies and Land Piranha at the La Paloma Theater in 1980 …
P Man with the follow through! A good rhythm section can do that.
Who said that God has no sense of humor. Ever since my 18 year old moved in this weekend, all I get to hear is the Techine9, eminm, and little wayne. How is that for poetic justice? Even though my kids listen to this hip hop rap junk I still haven’t found the redeeming factors of this style of music. (Okay now this response should get us to the big 400). But I do not tell him to turn if off…..I just walk out of the room. Time to play another gig…. Don’t worry folks I’ll walk through this too.
TonyBennet and the Dead Boys. It’s Monday…
My grandparents LOVED Phil Silvers in “Sgt. Bilko’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” I’d leave the room when he started playing the sitar. Damn Borscht Belt psychedelia! All those old people rotting their brains on Manischewitz and cheap punchlines. Trim your ears, Grandpa.
“TonyBennet and the Dead Boys. It’s Monday…”
Sounds like a great Monday!
“Everybody look at me, ’cause I’m on a boat.”
Bwahahahaha!
Kon Tiki
http://www.youtube.com/user/fozil1
The best 2:46 on YouTube. His book, SOUTH, is one of the greatest…and the story behind the filming and still photography is incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdSsAq2FGPc&feature=related
I’m a huge fan of Sam Shackleton who I used to think was a descendant of Ernest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-iNwtKvN8
Werner Herzog’s film Encounters at the End Of The World is pretty great, all about Antarctica
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3leTaf2Txw
.
Great links…Love Herzog almost as much as Shackleton.
Nosferatu, Aguirre, Wrath of God, Fitzcaraldo, Kinski…great stuff.
Why is Antarctic exploration so compelling?? Underground??
BTW, the photography done by Hurly is sooo amazing. He trekked those plates,(and some film), all over Antarctica for almost a year…Shackleton made him break many of them…never forgave him.
Kon-Tiki? Bomb-diggi!
Let’s try this again…attempting to post video here. Daunting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7MUFACozeY
I think I need to say something controversial. Anyone here got any ideas?
That’s hilarious Paul!
But I need something more controversial…
Awesome. Just awesome. Whether you agree with what Biggie was saying or not, you gotta admit he talks real purdy. I have listened to this song pretty consistently since it came out in ’93 or ’94, and I’m still hearing new things. The sheer richness and density of the lyrics alone are unparalleled by anyone to this day. Well, anyone except maybe MF Doom. The song that eats like a book!
For the detractors who are quick to point out the misogyny and violence in these songs as off-putting, I present the time-worn notion that one should listen to these songs as they would watch a movie. It’s not real, it’s entertainment, or (per KRS One) edutainment. Or, as Chuck D. would say, the black CNN.
If one is going to decry the “fake gangsta white-boy yo yo pulling on genitals make some noise everybody put your hands in the air shit” then the same should apply to the fake gangsta white boys with adopted accents who portrayed mafiosos or druglords in films like, say, The Godfather or Scarface. What’s the difference? Unless there is something else that is what is actually unsettling or distasteful about hip-hop. There was waaay more violence in the cartoons that we grew up with.
“We are all sooo far beyond this discussion” he said as he attempted to neatly sweep the issue under the rug. Props to Lesha for being the first to read between the li(n)es, and have the cojones to speak up.
“You’re way too smart and a parent yourself. Have you seen any of the documentaries on PBS/Nova, or heard any Tom Ashbrook programs dealing with women in rap videos….if that doesn’t sicken you….” he said as he played the record backwards for me in Sunday school. SEE, SEE, THEY’RE SATANISTS!
Nothing personal, Bruce! A few posts up is a link that proves, unequivocally, that black folks can pilot a yacht. Yes, I said black folks. “African-Americans” is for you folks who don’t hang out with black folks. In your home. Or theirs.
>>But I need something more controversial…
How’s about this? Based on this history provided by Mr. Howland of the young man’s route to recognition, Justin Bieber is as close to “new underground” as any of us is going to get.
Matt J.- dude I had lunch with Monday and the colleague I was working with yesterday favor “African American.” There’s diversity within diversity, I tell you what.
Biggie’s vocal rhythm was genius.
I prefer “ebon’.” It’s got kind of an “Othello” thing going on.
Matt R.: Aah! Aah! My entire sense of self depends on believing I am somehow emotionally and intellectually deeper than any conventionally attractive, commercially successful person or group or their fans. If I enjoy or respect something most people do, how can I feel better than them?
Please, not the Bieber bomb. Please.
“fake gangsta white boys with adopted accents who portrayed mafiosos or druglords in films like, say, The Godfather or Scarface. What’s the difference?”
I couldn’t agree more…although the latter are actors portraying characters as a job.
As far as “you folks”…that’s quite an interesting assumption.
“black folks can pilot a yacht.” I don’t know about the use of the word yacht, but my wife and I both teach inner-city children how to sail, and eventually teach sailing, to other children. I would imagine, due to my vocation, I am more immersed in black culture than anyone else here??
Robin -- True dat! I’m just saying that I’ve never had a black friend say, in a non-workplace situation (or in any environment where “the mask” was not necessary), “ya’ll African-Americans is crazy!” or “I love my African-American people” or “It’s an African-American thing, you wouldn’t understand” or “Let’s get out of here and go to a club where there’s some African-American people” unless they were being facetious.
That said, I’d have to agree that political correctness has its place, primarily as a road map to save folks who don’t know any better from an ass-whupping.
A whole lot of people in this country are acting really crazy right now because we have a black president, but of course if confronted none would admit that any of the crazy shit they’ve done or said is on account of race. Accusing one of playing the “race card” has only ever benefitted the pigmentally challenged.
On a personal note, I’ve had to adjust to the use of “Hispanic” (rather than “Latino”) in AZ, which Mexican folks in CA find offensive because it elevates the contribution of the Spanish conquistadors, rather than those that were already here (i.e., the oppressed).
One love!
Black people just spontaneously hug me as I walk down the street.
The former are also actors portraying characters in a (quite well-paid) job. That was what I was getting at. Did the Dead Kennedy’s really kill the poor, or lynch their landlord?
I thought Biggie and Puffy were in a yacht in the video? I dunno, a really big boat. I thought we were defending the yacht club?
The point is, you’re not going to become immersed in anyone else’s culture at work, whether it be the yacht club, country club, tennis club or golf club. The usage of the term “inner-city (or urban) kids” is testimony enough. Immersion in another culture is just that, Immersion. Not exposure to. Try moving to the inner-city from the outer limits, or inviting some kids over for a barbeque, or lobster bake, or hayride.
Peace
Tocayo, everybody spontaneously hugs you as you walk down the street. It’s a wonder you’re able to get anywhere!
I like your posts Matt J, but you should FB friend me so we can really talk. We LIVE in the city…ALL the people in our city, for better or worse, are immersed, not just casually exposed. Do you know Providence RI well? It is a very small, incredibly diverse city.
People compare it to SF or Provincetown often…very gay, arty, multi-cultural…we can’t help it if we are white, black, or purple.
Most folks here are just trying to survive in a tough economy in a state that is shrinking from bad government year after year.
BTW, defending yacht clubs?? Around here, a group of people like to go out and race small sailboats and drink beer on Friday nights…pretty benign.
Sounds good, Bruce. I’d love to learn to sail. So today we’ve addressed the violence in hip-hop. Next subject: misogyny. Video hoes is video hoes, plain and simple. Just like groupie hoes. Derogatory, indeed, and quite lucrative for some. If you watch hip-hop videos, you’ll see many of the same gals over and over in different artists videos. By way of example, Karen “Superhead” Steffans parlayed her groupie/video ho status into a major bestselling novel. Tupac (R.I.P.) wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it goes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDA9DMU3sNY
Dave, I didn’t post the Biggie lyrics for the sake of controversy. I think Matt’s take on the matter is pretty spot on. Also, if you notice the translated version takes an awful lot more verbiage to get the same ideas across. Poetry
http://books.google.com/books?id=EtcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=negro+yacht+club&source=bl&ots=RvaSHgHo8M&sig=0OxtHHRy6tgRKlJmOL3utrPR-gs&hl=en&ei=_GiRTPjHH5SmsQPe9YG7Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAQ
@ Paul…I actually like the Biggie lyrics much more than the translation. The translation puts a crude reality on a more suggestive, subtle story. Poetry
Lou…your story is from 1962!! Hardly relevant…equal but seperate?
Download the new P Man Mixtapes here,
http://www.pmandubs.com/2010/09/p-man-back-2-skool-mixtapes.html
Bump these on the boat. No boat havin’ mugs can bump them in the house or car.
For the record, Bruce, when I referred to the “outer limits” (as juxtaposed with “inner city”), I was referring to your mind. And a beautiful mind it is….
was
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=9&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fharlemworldblog.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F02%2F18%2Fhw-pick-the-harlem-yacht-club%2F&ei=_GiRTPjHH5SmsQPe9YG7Ag&usg=AFQjCNGTEbhoDSIOwm9nWhDdlNH6INiKEQ&sig2=ou-V4q5AKHZSaY5oC3xIMw
I am so oblivious to race, you all appear to me as pure beams of white love energy. Which is extremely handy when I have to read street signs in the dark!
I want to talk about how we can all be more Bieberesque. We can call ourselves “the New Bieberians.”
Finally, I would posit that it’s not possible to be immersed in black culture in America without embracing (or at the very least acknowledging the validity of) hip-hop, unless you’re Stanley Crouch. And that self-righteous bastard doesn’t even appreciate bebop!
Hip-hop is a uniquely American invention, like jazz and baseball (we’ll save apple pies and Chevrolets for another day). In fact the album “The Low End Theory,” by A Tribe Called Quest, featured (prominently) none other than Ron Carter on (acoustic, or “stand up”) bass!
I appreciate both Louis Farrakhan and William F. Buckley for their intellect, tho’ I rarely agree with either. It’s quite important to listen to what folks have to say before forming an opinion, which Kristen so aptly called “contempt prior to investigation.”
Dave Rinck, calling for controversy, has been notably absent from this thread as of late. Go get a late pass, homie!
A beautiful mind is a terrible thing. Was.
Where do you find this shit, Lou…amazing stuff.
No more Beiber…no more Beiber…
To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Ej8Te_35g
“Hip-hop is a uniquely American invention, like jazz and baseball”…and Blues, Rock and Roll, Swing, Be Bop, Hard Bop, Funk, Disco….did we invent everything??
I’ve always been embarrassed to admit that I enjoy William F. Buckley…(although I don’t agree with him, smart dude).
A very fine link, indeed, Lou Skum (on the Harlem Model Yacht Club)!
I count myself among Injections fans (as do the Daves, who recently paid you guys a nice tribute), although many, at the time, didn’t want to hear that particular brand of noise. I am, and will always be, quite intolerant of intolerance. Hypocrite that I am (smile).
>True dat! I’m just saying that I’ve never had a black friend say, in a non-workplace situation (or in any environment where “the mask” was not necessary),“ya’ll African-Americans is crazy!” or “I love my African-American people” or “It’s an African-American thing, you wouldn’t understand” or “Let’s get out of here and go to a club where there’s some African-American people” unless they were being facetious.
Nice observation. Nice word mastery. My friends and colleagues wouldn’t either. However, they do use “African American” when describing someone, as in, “Carol’s the African American woman on the right.”
Matthew, you’ve always been a beautiful, strong, purple ray of pure love energy. Because it’s important that, at some point, in discussion about race, someone refer to the potential for purple people. It shows sincerity.
NEW BIERBERIANS
At the risk of stating the obvious, I wasn’t trying to suggest that the translation of the Biggie lyrics was somehow more poetic than the lyrics themselves.
That translation really made me appreciate how condensed the meaning is in slang. Biggie was really poetic. If you listen to the song and look at the lyrics at the same time, it’s pretty impressive how he makes everything fit. He’s rhyming acroos the bar lines and stuff like that quite a bit, but his delivery is so relaxed it makes it seem like he’s not doing anything tricky. Nice trick.
Some interesting stuff here
http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2005/01/stop-bashment-bashing.html
(well, I found it interesting)
“intolerant of intolerance.”….witty 🙂
I thought that we were shuting down this thread after 400 postings? What happened to the days when people ment what they said and said what they ment?
>>What happened to the days when people ment what they said and said what they ment?
Jim: An elephant’s faithful, 100 percent!
This is how we reclaim the underground, man, now that we’re mommies and daddies and firemen and CPAs and stuff: We make our own rules, and then we break ’em!!
It’s like a perpetual-motion machine: “I’M not the boss of me!” We can be in a constant state of rebellion against the bullshit limitations we’re trying to lay on ourselves.
>his delivery is so relaxed it makes it seem like he’s not doing anything tricky. Nice trick.
He was the Nureyev of rap. Every time I listen, my jaw drops.
Paul H., have you read “The Wu-Tang Manual”? RZA translates several of their songs in the book. He also writes some interesting stuff about the music industry. And chess.
It’s an oldie, but if you haven’t seen Black People Love Us, it’s genius.
Fascinating to read the tumult in the site’s Letters section, where a lot of people lose their crap trying to figure out whether it’s a parody of white people by black people (in which case it’s OK) or a parody of white people by white people (in which case it’s BAD).
we embrace the culture by embracing the people
Who in the he’ll is Jason Bieber? You’re just trying to stir up shit Matthew…
Try yoga everyone. It’s good for you. And Btw I prefer the term “American African” when people talk about me.
>You’re just trying to stir up shit Matthew…
per your request, David R.
SO, are you going to be cool and join the BIEBERIANS? Black people love us. We really raise the roof. And get down.
>>we embrace the culture by embracing the people
… Until they get a restraining order! /rimshot
Seriously, Lou nails it in one. That’s dead-on. I go into encounters expecting that if I respect the people, I’ll get some slack on whether I’m pitch-perfect about nomenclature or other signifiers.
Doing your best to address people the way they prefer is a sign of that respect … But it’s not the source.
Respect is over-rated. A little salt and vinegar tastes better with your morning joe.
Oh, PS: If you insist that “DIY” or “underground” only applies to the aesthetics you like and that you hope the majority will never embrace, you’re really describing what I’d call a “clique.”
I’d put that sort of impulse in the same category as Civil War re-enactors or people who go to cat shows.
Okay listen guys, I’m taking precious time out of working my third step to be here, so can we try to be a little more serious?
To be brutally honest, I don’t really care about Justin Timberlake, yachting, or race relations.
Also, I’m bored of “race-culture”. So old underground… Of ethnicity, I can get my fill at La Posta. Beyond the “corn or four” question, I don’t really have much interest in ethno-cultural fiddle faddle anymore. This is post-modernity. Or anyway, la posta-modernity…
Gimme a good wah-wah and some blistering power chords. That’s what gives me a stiffy in the morning.
TMI
WTMI
“WTMI”
No kiddin’, this ain’t adult friend finder.
Saw Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga on MTV last night…reminded me that Donny Osmond and Madonna had already been there, done that.
“To be brutally honest, I don’t really care about Justin Timberlake, yachting, or race relations”. What else is there, really??
Oh, is the purpose of this thread solely to entertain Dave Rinck? Sorry. I got confused. I thought this was where the NEW BIEBERIANS try to make friends with Justin.
Hey, didn’t the disappearance of Boogie coincide with Justin Bieber’s phenomenal success?
>>Hey, didn’t the disappearance of Boogie coincide with Justin Bieber’s phenomenal success?
Robin: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh … ! DAMN. I didn’t connect these dots. That sly old bastard!!
Ok Robin, sorry. Matt, let’s change the name of this blog to the “Bie Underground”. Here’s the splash page:
Here’s the inside story of the vibrant scene that we invented last Thursday online. It never performed any shows, but it defined Justin Timberlake, yachting and race relations for everyone everywhere.
This “Bie Underground” encompassed the varied sounds of the original and definitive Justin Bieber. It brought together at least 30 fans and spawned collaborations and friendships that have lasted 15 minutes. But it produced few artifacts and monuments — mercifully.
Welcome to the Bie Underground!
>>Welcome to the Bie Underground!
I would totally ride that ride.
Okay Matt you’re scaring me…
Jerry!!!
d rinck…
we made a decision to turn the record over and play the other side and care for our recordsand not scatch them up>>>
five years!!!!
starman….
Louis saves the day…!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muMcWMKPEWQ
Discuss: To have relevance, how well does a counterculture need to understand the culture it’s countering?
…and you like Starman Matt?
My brain hurts alot
That’s all we’ve got
He’d like to come and meet us, but he thinks he’ll blow our minds!
>To have relevance, how well does a counterculture need to understand the culture it’s countering?
It can be an oblivious non-participant that counters simply by presenting an alternative. It doesn’t even have to know it’s an alternative.
Can somebody Please help me me get these peanuts back in the bag!
A mime is a terrible thing!
Back in the boat,all of you!
Bobby Lane = funny
Dave R.
Go entertain yourself.
Wait, that doesn’t sound right.
>>It can be an oblivious non-participant that counters simply by presenting an alternative. It doesn’t even have to know it’s an alternative.
Robin: That’s an interesting idea … But wouldn’t that just be a “culture”? I mean, if you’re a “counterculture” or an “underground,” it implies there’s a dominant culture you’re subverting. I guess you could do that without intending to, but I’m not sure you could be either of those things without even being aware there is a dominant culture.
Counter-culture! Yes, I’d just say -- overthrow all culture. It’s just a fossilized way of doing things!
>>overthrow all culture. It’s just a fossilized way of doing things!
Yeah, petri dishes are so petrified…
“overthrow all culture. It’s just a fossilized way of doing things!”
resisting responding to rinck’s random ramblings
Good point, Matt, thank you. You’re at least partly right. Maybe entirely- but I think some counterculture evolves within a dominant culture without consciously countering it. Debussy fell in love with Eastern instruments and started composing for them because it felt right to him. He had no idea how revolutionary and offensive that would seem to the old guard. He wasn’t trying to counter anything. He was just being creative; and it led to a sea change. So, I think counterculture can develop and usurp unintentionally with only the dominant culture perceiving a threat.
In that case, I don’t think it’s a separate culture or a conscious rebellion, but it still qualifies as a counterculture.
Whatchu think?
Paul H:
0:58- that’s funny!
>>In that case, I don’t think it’s a separate culture or a conscious rebellion, but it still qualifies as a counterculture.
Yeah, good point. I don’t think that the intention has to be disruptive or shocking to be a counterculture; I do think you need to know enough about the normative culture to know what parameters you’re pushing, either aggressively or playfully or just in a spirit of happy discovery.
Looking at ourselves back in the day: I think we all were pretty aware of what was hot in popular culture … What the accepted norms were. (And in some cases, we’re only now able to admit guilty pleasure in some of the stuff we declared uncool back then.) We did stuff differently in part because we liked the music, art, whatever it created and in part because we were making a small, local declaration of independence from mainstream culture.
Sometimes counter-culture art is a result of the inability to express using the same medium and skills as popular artists. Education and money figure in as well.
Example: Some garage bands, i.e, Injections, were actually unable to express ourselves musically using the same palette as the bands we were listening to and liked, and the bands we listened to and disliked. Necessity being the mother of invention and the outcome sometimes an original expression.
Now you’re talking Bruce! That’s what this whole to-do started about. With the democratization of the media (i.e. FB, YouTube, CD Baby, Garageband, digital recording), a lot of the barriers to entry have come down.
So why does it all sound so incoherent now? Too much freedom?
Dave, please, please say you are joking. Please.
Question:”So why does it all sound so incoherent now?”
Answer: “FB, YouTube, CD Baby, Garageband, digital recording”
The barriers to entry created a lot of underground.
Good points, Matt. I’ll think about that for awhile. I think our difference is probably subtle. I think your threshold for defining awareness of the dominant culture may be at a level I could call oblivious. Again, whatchu think?
Fun brain food either way. You’ve raised an interesting point. If you’re going to define things as dominant culture, separate culture, or counter-culture, there must be dividing lines, which are harder to draw than you might think. Jumpy little guys.
>”a motley collection of misfits is listening… and a light goes on…the poets are done studying rules of verse…The kids are loosing their minds! Hey ho, let’s go!”
>So why does it all sound so incoherent now? Too much freedom?
I’m guessing you’re joking, or this is about your need to have other people supplement your salt and vinegar cravings, or both. But, just in case you don’t see the irony, just in case it is the 3rd alternative, please review 0:58 in the Howland above. Dave, this is straight out of the cranky old man script first recorded in the West by Aristotle. Please switch on your irony monitor before someone says, “It sounds incoherent to you because you’re OLD now, dude,” or “What the hell kind of self-styled leader of the NEW UNDERGROUND rants about kids today having too much freedom?” Statements about how the new music is incoherent or kids needs to be more restricted often precede more dangerous mid-life crisis symptoms like shallow, reckless, regrettable romances, or luxury purchases far beyond your means. I’m just trying to look out for you here, Dave. I don’t care if you like this crazy noise the kids insist on calling music. But, if you keep asking why, you’re going to keep getting answers.
>>Sometimes counter-culture art is a result of the inability to express using the same medium and skills as popular artists. Education and money figure in as well.
Bruce: Absolutely true, and the results can be just fantastic.
The breathtaking drop in the price of digital tools for creation and distribution evens that playing field a bit, which is good news for anybody who likes to see creativity bloom. But of course, there are still people making a whole lot more with a whole lot less.
Will there ever be another songwriter/singer/musician/movie star/rock star like this again??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueUOTImKp0k
>>Will there ever be another songwriter/singer/musician/movie star/rock star like this again??
Bruce: I’m not sure, but that may be akin to asking whether there’ll ever be another inventor/journalist/printer/ politician/fireman/optometrist/librarian/insurance salesman/diplomat/soldier like Benjamin Franklin.
Even leaving aside whether there are any performers who fit that bill post-Bowie: The history of human endeavor has tended toward greater specialization as technology gets more sophisticated and more people command increasingly arcane skills. (And in the case of the media, novelty wears off; you’re not going to have another Beatles because commercial media is ready for the next Beatles, and the next, and the next. You can’t be first if someone did it already.)
Nobody today could be top of his field in all the areas Franklin mastered, and (even if you think Bowie was tops in all the fields you listed) it could be argued that that sort of generalist won’t come our way again.
“You can’t be first if someone did it already.”…..hmmmm….haven’t people made that very argument throughout history though?? And then comes something like Nirvana, or Eminem, whatever…and there is something that seems absolutely new again.
I like anything that puts Bowie and Franklin in the same sentence :)….THAT might be a first!
My question, specifically, is do you believe in the apparent dumbing down of society/culture??…or is that too simplistic?? Perhaps it’s just change.
>>Hence, CHE Underground….were our parents doing this at our ages?? I think not!
I dunno, Bruce. A lot of the parents of our participants sound like they were pretty eclectic/subversive themselves. This old thread and others surfaced a lot of interesting stories … Indeed, we seem to have many free thinkers in our family trees!
I’ll grant you that we’ve also shaken our heads in wonder at all our parents let us get away with because they didn’t know better … But I’m not going to pat myself too hard on the back until my kids reach middle age and (maybe) tell me what they were getting away with!
David Klowden?
You are Facebook friends with my aunt?
>>And then comes something like Nirvana, or Eminem, whatever…and there is something that seems absolutely new again.
Bruce: I was actually going to cite Eminem as somebody who’s arguably filled the roles you ascribe Bowie … But I deleted that ’cause I didn’t want to get into the weeds!
I’m not saying someone can’t innovate to the extent of earlier innovators — just that innovating in the same way as your predecessors is an oxymoron. If you’re doing it the same way, you’re not innovating.
Dumbing down? Not to sound too Thomas Friedman, I think that the amazing growth of communications technology has raised global access to other cultures/subcultures. People all over the world are able to see and hear for themselves what’s going on practically everywhere they can imagine. Plus, I think the average spectator understands much better how media is made and manipulated than ever before.
On the other hand … At the high end of the socioeconomic scale, yes, wonderful works of labor-intensive splendor have become much harder to commission and execute. (Viz. my parquet floor example many, many posts ago or the fine boats you cite.) There are indeed some heights of classical culture that would be hard to re-create today — but I think the aggregate is a win for the majority of thinking critters on the planet.
No patting on back, but I was thinking more along the lines that our parents, as a generation, did not have the ability or access to instantly share information and keep up with popular culture in the way that we do now.
It also seems that we, Che participants, are somehow child-like…
>>I was thinking more along the lines that our parents, as a generation, did not have the ability or access to instantly share information and keep up with popular culture in the way that we do now.
Bingo! And I’d argue that’s not a symptom of dumbing-down. 🙂
“I think the aggregate is a win”. This reminds me of the premise that technology never increases or decreases -- (Franz Boas, Leaky?..can’t remember, but I know I read about the idea from an anthropologist).
The internal combustion engine gave us incredible freedom, and enslaved us…antibiotics cured many diseases, and created new resilient diseases. The idea being that technology only changes…doesn’t grow.
“Bingo! And I’d argue that’s not a symptom of dumbing-down.”
I don’t know….what are we doing with all this amazing amounts of information?? Building better parquet floors or boats??
Certainly we are spending more time on the computer and watching TV. Is that a symptom of dumbing-down, or just laziness??
yawn
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/human_rights_quarterly/v018/18.4metzl.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=nap12572&part=a20016f7dddd00054
http://socstrp.org/issues/PDF/4.1.5.pdf
Now returning to the work window.
>>yawn
Lou: Yeah, I was just thinking this is getting a little protracted! 🙂 Would someone like to pick another fight?
>>http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/human_rights_quarterly/v018/18.4metzl.html
Robin: Oh, ouch! That sucks.
An aggregate win for the world, surely.
I’m just not sure one could make a strong case for this being a “golden age” of art.
In my day, we didn’t do this pop-n-lock nonsense and try to pass it off as dancing; we did minuets and quadrilles. That was real dancing! I’ve got extensive academic documentation to prove it was superior, dammit. Refer to Item 5, page 26 for a discussion of rhythmic precision. The only valid aspects of comparison are the good things about the old dances that we lost in developing this new crap. Anyone who brings up anything good about the new stuff just doesn’t know what they’re missing; they’re uneducated. Ign’ant. The fact that I can only see what’s been lost and don’t understand the appeal of the new is only because I am smart and refined and a damn fine quadrille dancer who deserves more respect for my art. If I refer to “all” of the new stuff as incomprehensible and inferior, it is only coincidence that I am speaking like cranky geezers from time immemorial.
There can’t possibly be anything in between. Cranky geezers can’t possibly be making some valid points while being obstinately deaf to others, unwilling to admit age snuck up on them and closed their minds a little when they weren’t looking.
Now, step it up on that harpsichord and lute, I’ve got m’ dancin’ shoes on and I feel saucy.
>Oh, ouch! That sucks.
I posted it because the larger point is that technology changes have nearly eliminated the problem, supporting your point about the benefits of that change. Not to say I think it’s an unequivocal good. But many benefits have been established.
In my opinion, Bowie is better than Bieber. Just my two cents…
Do you attribute the difference to Justin Bieber having too much freedom to be as good as Bowie?
I’m sitting here with Lou Damien, and we’re strumming G-D-Dsus4-D-sus4-D-C9-G/B-Amin7. One of the most recognizable and beautiful riffs in all of rock and roll. And I’m just transported. “Ziggy played guitar…” simply breathtaking.
>>In my opinion, Bowie is better than Bieber. Just my two cents…
(Psssssst … I think so, too. My point is about what’s “DIY,” not what I like better.)
Read about Bowie’s early years … He demonstrated an almost Bieberesque level of personal initiative. If he’d had YouTube and the rest of the current arsenal of distribution tools, Bowie would probably have done pretty well for himself!
Oooh! I get it. I get it now, Dave:
1. I’m bored. Entertain me.
2. Here’s something controversial to discuss for my entertainment (include criticism of a broad category of artists or audience members).
3. All disagreement with statements made in Step 2 will be dismissed as attacks or as not entertaining enough.
4. lather, rinse, repeat
That’s no way to entice Justin Bieber in here, muchacho.
Thanks for the mixed tapes and impressive YouTube clip, Paul H.
back to ziggy….
this is great music for 1972
now if we let the children use it
the children are gonna boogie
according to starman
childs
liam gallager
jermaine dupri
wyclef jean
eminem
snoop dogg
joey mc intyre
geri halliwell
notorious big
rob thomas
were all born in 72
and mississippi fred mc dowell died the same year
there are two kinds of music
yours…
and mine
rap music is kinda like elevator music
Didn’t Eno do music for elevators?
oops, airports. film. I love I’ll come running to tie your shoe, maybe PE could sample it, and Robin could strut her stuff.
The real question is, will there ever again be a song-and-dance man like Gene Kelly?
Lou, where’d you find that picture of me? I had no idea that was floating around the Web!
Eno’s kind of a whippersnapper for the quadrille, but who denies a command performance? Especially when she’s feeling saucy.
Two kinds- yours and mine? Isn’t the point to share when you can? Two kinds- what I’ve already heard, and what I’m looking forward to discovering.
A long time ago, a friend and I were talking about the distinctions between classical and pop music. He said he didn’t think that’s a meaningful distinction any more. The line that interests him is between effort made to sincerely express and listen versus effort made solely to grasp for attention and wealth. I’d said there are blurry areas even there. Dickens’ novels are so long because periodicals paid for the installments by the page. But, I generally agree with my buddy.
Matt R., are you really prepared for the consequences of bringing JUSTIN BIEBER and Michael Jackson onto the same thread?
Things are taking off here in San Diego. Again! The underground is alive and well. Lots of good rapfree times ahead!
>>Things are taking off here in San Diego. Again!
Thank Bieber this day has finally arrived! I’m sure all the people living there for the past 25 years have been counting down the days. (Possibly with a piece of chalk on the pastel stucco walls of their homes.)
Fun fact: Twenty-five years equals 9,125 chalk marks. They probably needed a few sticks.
On a far more serious note …
Will we ever again see a silent-comedy star/director/producer/screenwriter of Chaplin’s stature? I fret that none of today’s slapstick vaudevillians measure up to the artistry of the Little Tramp, and even the best rely on spoken dialogue. Where’s the CRAFT?
Sylvias Mother is such a cool song…thanks Louis.
Looove Chaplin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkdtS8OFlA
Great vid Bobby Lane!
>>Things are taking off here in San Diego. Again!
I wonder if all those kids sneaking out to hear Thurmus and Grizzly Bear knew they were supposed to be marking time with chalk and waiting for the proper go-ahead?
How was the DJ set, Paul?
No set. Just doing some prep for future ones. Reinstalling drivers, trying to figure out why my laptop won’t show a context menu when I right click, fun stuff like that. (See “why do DJs cut dubplates?” https://cheunderground.site/?p=4139 here)
when i werked in a record store
thats when i discovered what i really like
and i really dig 1972
there is no such thing as
doing things yourself anymore
really
we are all prompted by something
that was introduced in the sixties
the seventies are full of it….
>>we are all prompted by something
that was introduced in the sixties
Lou: I was introduced in the ’60s …
For that matter, we were probably all prompted by someone playing a mean Delta Blues song the first time.
Oh yeah Bruce. I know I was!
And now you’re on to something brother! All that pentatonic TNT that those griots smuggled in from West Africa a couple of centuries ago, and which seemed to so gloriously and so dependably, despite all the amputations, explode into a delicious day-glo fury every decade or so. A kid sittin’ in the shade strummin’ to the sound that the drivers, boy could he play guitar! whaaaa happened? I know it’s only rock and roll, but I did like it dammit! Has the motor finally cooled down on the Mali backbeat after its long wild and fun fun fun joyride through the last century? Or is it just sagging down along with waistlines of pants into a Bierberian pop plop, hey ho, hey ho’s… what’s up?
Roll over Bieber and tell Eminem the news, it’s been a long time since I had the pleasure of doing that stroll, and I wanna get it back!
Naah….It’s still all pentatonic, except Jazz. Must be something else??
Maybe it’s just millenial burn-out?
Anyway…
We’ve prepared a fabulous new underground for you to enjoy. Study poetry now, these skills will be needed soon.
Hey Bruce, do YOU remember rock and roll radio?
I remember radio…never really a big listener though. When I was building boats in the ’80’s the only station we got in NW Connecticut was a “classic” rock station. It was cool ’cause I missed a lot of classic rock…listening to all that Punk and “New Wave” stuff ya know.
Now I listen to NPR and BBC a lot…love talk radio.
I also occasionally listen to the oldies station…Da-Doo-Ron-Ron…love the ’50’s!
“in the ’80′s”…meant the ’90s.
Really diggin’ the music of the late ’30s and early 40s now too.
I never get tired of that stuff!
We need change and we need it fast!
Change never changes
>>Change never changes
Forever changes, but rust never sleeps.
>I never get tired of that stuff!
We need change and we need it fast!
Oh, thank you! Thank you. That is awesome.
You say that everything sounds the same, then you go buy them. There’s no excuses my friend, let’s push things forward.
One logistical question:
If we’re going to travel back in time, is there really any hurry? If I understand the rules, we’re going to get there at the same time whenever we start … Right?
I’ll pack an overnight bag … Meet you at August 17, 1983! (Can I get BlackBerry reception there? I’ve got Verizon.)
Mm- I had a double shift at work that day. Can we make it the 22nd? If not, I’ll just join in late. What location? I always liked the OB pier. If I leave the BlackBerry behind, can I keep my current romance and income?
>>Statements about how the new music is incoherent or kids needs to be more restricted often precede more dangerous mid-life crisis symptoms like shallow, reckless, regrettable romances, or luxury purchases far beyond your means.
I could have swore I saw Dave Rinck on a yacht with Kim Kardashian!
Big louisdamien: I like your,… um,… filibuster.
>>>Statements about how the new music is incoherent or kids needs to be more restricted often precede more dangerous mid-life crisis symptoms like shallow, reckless, regrettable romances, or luxury purchases far beyond your means.
There’s good band name ” ____ and the Shallow, Reckless, Regrettable Romances “
So, the tabloids aren’t just abusing Photo Shop, Dave Rinck really is Kim’s new boy toy? According to Us Weekly, they were drinking Cristal out of the bottle and slurring out “Let’s Dance” at the tops of their lungs while they cruised Martha’s Vineyard.
I like how you think, Paul.
Hey, I injured my left hand over-practicing a chord that includes 1st string 8th fret, 6th string 3rd fret. I think the tendon in my left index finger is inflamed. Anything besides ice and aspirin for that?
I’m an advocate of the “Beer Can” method. Your left hand on the guitar should look somewhat similar to the way it does when it’s holding a can of beer, nice and rounded. Not always possible for certain chords. Make sure you’re not pressing down any harder than necessary on the fretboard. Press less and less until you start to get buzzing, then press slightly more. Now, remember how hard you are pressing. Don’t press more than that when you play. It’s easy to forget and go back to pressing too hard when you’re tired so try and be well rested when you play. Also stretching exercises can be great help. I think there are some good ones in this book.
The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart
Madeline Bruser
Sometimes rest is the only thing that will help.
Thank you! Thank you!
I definitely use too much pressure when I’m trying something new and hard. I physically can’t get my wrist at the correct angle for this- at least not yet. But I can ease up on the fretboard.
>>I definitely use too much pressure when I’m trying something new and hard.
If we were all in junior high school, I’d be having such fun with that sentence!! Happily, I’m far too mature to chuckle at such things.
My PT prescribes 200 mg of B6 for four or five days for carpal tunnel/inflammation/etc…
Tried it and it does help!
Well, one thing’s become clear, the NEW UNDERGROUND (sorry Paul) is gonna be just as contentious as the old one was. Man, I can’t wait! And be there or be square (babyface). It’s open season on tradition.
Now if I can just get Kim to give me back my yoga mat…
never mind the yoga
heres the………..
Baby’s got back
>If we were all in junior high school, I’d be having such fun with that sentence!! Happily, I’m far too mature to chuckle at such things.
Oh, boohoo- that was a gift I picked out special for you, Matt.
I’ll be sure to let you know when I’ve gotten better at squeezing the fretboard.
Please…all guitarists, keyboard players, and computer junkies…at least Google B6!!
This is almost 10 years old. I don’t really follow hip hop closely these days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pADgllloQg4&feature=related
You know, I love the Ronettes
Dave R. Glad you posted about something you like on here. I’ve been wondering why the “Guitars are Better” camp hasn’t been providing much recent evidence to that effect on here. I’m sure that there is plenty of good guitar oriented music around these days. I don’t really follow that sort of thing closely, but High on Fire (who emerged from the ashes of the mighty Sleep) and Queens of the Stone Age are a couple of recent bands that have showed up on my radar recently. (Sorry for the lack of freshness, as I said, these are just things that popped up on my radar, and really, I shouldn’t be doing your job for you anyway guitar lovers).
I don’t find today’s world of music to be a boring mess of incomprehensibility, but rather a cornucopia of goodness. Well, the whole cornucopia ain’t good but there’s tons of really good stuff on offer for all tastes. I reckon the 94 per cent crap 6 per cent good stuff ratio still roughly holds.
I don’t see what the fuss is about. Hear a record you like, take note of the label it’s on. Read periodicals pertaining to your area of interest. Talk with other enthusiasts. It does take a little work, same as always. But that’s completely necessary if you don’t want to be spoon fed a bunch of garbage. That being said, there are so many more resources now than there were 25 years ago. blogs, youtube, myspace, soundcloud, ustream, facebook etc. I’m sure many of the people posting on here remember the days of mail order catalogs, maybe one good record store in town and reading reviews of things and not having the benefit of hearing them without going out to a show, borrowing the record from a friend, or waiting until the band in question loaded themselves in to a van and came to your town to play. There’s really no excuse for acting like there’s no good music around these days. with all the resources available now I can only surmise that it must be laziness that makes people think that way.
On a similar note I was a little surprised earlier on this thread to see a couple of people loudly proclaiming to not know about a certain artist who has really been a big mover and shaker in the late part of the last century and right on in to this one. Hint, they got these new things called search engines.
I certainly don’t have any ill will toward people who chose to use guitars as their form of expression, it’s just that for me it started feeling a little old fashioned standing around and playing them sometime around 97, 98. I’m quite sure I could find good guitar based bands all day long and post them on here, but hey, it’s just not my thing anymore. Guitar lovers, do some homework. Post some good stuff on here. Jeez, it ain’t exactly underground (new or old) to just sit around and wait for it to be served up on a silver platter now is it.
In other news, Vast Aire and Jestone Art have a pretty succinct discussion here at 7:56 and straight through to the end of the video about what is underground and what isn’t (without even using the term).
Oh, and Dave R, no offense taken at your use of all caps on new underground. I realize that you have to build your brand somehow.
I love you so much.
Oh I’m not really wedded to guitar, though I still enjoy trying to figure it out. Sax has really been my bag for many years. I’m the instrument-less bands just as much. I completely understand the concept of instruments as old fashioned, though I really don’t care about how people manufacture the sound.
But this is what I mean by incomprehensive, nobody needed search engines to find Bowie back in 72′, and really it was as multi-media as it gets. Guitars yes, but so much more, more than music in fact. Nobody needed YouTube in 1979 either. And I also agree, the garbage to ratio rate is pretty much the same, in fact I think your being a bit rosy-eyed on the past, it was probably more like 99.9% to .01% then too. And this is all what I mean by too much freedom. Don’t like this, just switch the channel. Wanna be a musician? Just load up Garageband and let it rip.But where’s the firestorm? The inspiration. Yes, plenty to listen too, but this stuff just doesn’t make me loose sleep baby, and stay away from bed.
Yes, music still exists, yes there is a whole culture around hip hop and rap, but where goeth the backbeat? Where are all of Chuck Berry’s children now? Grown up and retired? We have all the media now in our hands, we wanted the airwaves, and we got’em, so now what are we gonna do with’em? And I think of Dean Moriarty, sigh…
Phil Spector’s serving a life sentence nowadays. A great American treasure, and they got him locked up. Man, what would he do with dubstep?
Really the only band out there that matters these days is the Cardiac Kidz. I gotta get my CD back from Kim.
Oh yeah, and when we talk about the NEW media and all the glorious (ahem) new vistas it’s opened up for us, let’s be sure to mention Kareoke and Guitar Hero in the same breath.
We need danger!
Underground?
Press Eject and Hand Me the Tape.
I’m so happy that “posit” and “to wit” have been used on this thread.
A couple years ago when a kid helping me load groceries into my car asked how I was, I answered, “Right now I’m sad that the music of my rebellious youth is on a grocery store P.A.”
I like Dengue Fever -Kmer-English/surf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1oFAD-uu5M&feature=related
for all you stringers
one werd:
Buckethead
BUCKETHEAD
bckthd
BUCK-ET_HEAD
now bucket
head is not reely that new
but
darius jones is
DARIUS JONES
drs jns
DAR-I-US-JONES
i guess some time in nov
we are all gonna have to meet and settle this dizzcuzz
shun
PMan, the end of the golden age of pop music? Is that what’s happened? I gonna go out on a limb here and say maybe that’s it. Music today is truly a “cornucopia of goodness”, but it’s true that the pop format gave us a template to work with, and maybe I do miss from a “what does it sound like” point of view. But I don’t think it’s really the sound that is bothering me, or that I find incoherent.
On the themes, I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that the field is so wide open these days, but’s where’s the inspiration? Ziggy Stardust, like Nevermind the Bullocks (or hell, for that matter, like “On The Road”), was a pretty damm good listen (or read) in and of itself. But in my opinion, these were all far greater because of the magnitude of the firestorms that these works let loose. It’s tough today to listen to an album like the Ramones eponymous first, or the VU, and not to just sort of sigh at the enormity of the inspiration they generated. And I don’t think this is just a sound question, because all of these works inspired so much more, a look, a haircut, an attitude, okay dare I say -- an ethos!
Can we say “punk rock ethos”, or “beat ethos”? Is this what I’m finding that “too much freedom” has resulted in? Is this better?
Not new or unexamined questions. Just in case you are actually interested and not enjoying your grumpy old man impulse to grouse about how your youth was superior to these punk-ass kids:
http://www.bullnotbull.com/archive/fourth-turning-2.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/pdf/millennial_generation.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=OvnMhV9iQrkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=American+millennial+youth+culture&hl=en&ei=qPybTLPZOcL58AaWtrmhAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
“Making love with his ego,
Ziggy sucked up into his mind-
like a leper messiah.
When the kids had killed the man
I had to break up the band.”
Hey! I’m saying something ludicrous now!!! This, right here, is completely ridiculous, right on the face of it!! Out here, right in front of the Internet!!! Can anybody, rhetorically speaking, tell me what is so absurd about what I’m saying? And here’s a gross generalization, three ad hominems and a mischaracterization!! Oh, wait — TWO gross generalizations!! We’ve got to fix this!!! Man overboard!! M’aidez! Everybody into the tiny car — don’t forget the air horns!!!
Ziggy played for time,
jiving us
that we were voodoo
“I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through”
Turn and face the strain
Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Blaming everything on the “grumpy old man impulse” is just plain stupid.
Art appreciation is more complex than that.
Oh, and re the rappers…
see “Notorious”
“8 Mile”
The Wu-Tang Manual
anything about 50 Cent’s life
just for a start
Tough lives still inform music.
Dave…Dave…
Did you wake up one morning with a resurgence of energy? Did it inspire you to do something new and excitingwith the second half of your life? And when you tried to put your toes back in the water, did you find yourself disoriented by all of the changes? A little frustrated? And some other feelings you can’t quite make yourself put into words because that would involve acknowledging the dreaded inevitable? What you’re trying to figure out isn’t really what’s wrong with kids today. Pop culture, media marketing, and other people aren’t any bigger obstacles now than they were 25 years ago. Either seriously try to understand these crazy kids or decide not to, have some fun telling them to get off your lawn, and go do something that feeds your soul.
Rap and hip-hop are 30 years old! Imagine 30 years of punk!! How boring can you get…Punk started in ’77 and was over by ’79-80.
As mentioned above, there’s nothing wrong with kids today…they are just being fed by 50 year olds, and the profits go to 60 and 70 year olds. Kids are alright…music industry sucks.
being a junkie or an alcoholic
has nothing to do with
great music
the reason it’s great music
is because you allow it
to go inside you
inside your soul
the very interior
of your being
your spiritual side
there are those who suffer
from emotional things
that do not allow them to take
something as simple as music
into their hearts
somewhere there are kidz
pretending to be in 1988
cuz
2010
sucks
Robin, if it’s been written about before, why did you have such a hard time understanding it? But thanks for sharing.
And yeah I agree Bruce, the grumpy old man thing is so silly, I don’t pay any attention to it either. If anything, I’m easier to please now than I was when I was a kid. Again, too much freedom…
BTW I’m totally willing to note that there is a hip hop or rap underground and it’s what a lot of kids like these days, but so what? ? I’m not at all grumpy about that, they can do whatever they feel like, I know I did. And?
Look up Rai music on google, genuine Algerian underground, this is the real deal. And since it emigrated to France in the 90s, it’s included a lot of great Arab rappers, that I quite enjoy (and coincidentally, it’s greatest songs were actually produced by the same man that produced Ziggy Stardust). This music actually has lots of ethos, but then I’m not an Algerian, so I can only look on in awe. When say I miss ethos, I mean, I miss having it.
Oh yeah, hey Lou I walked into Lestats yesterday, and the guys behind the counter were, believe it or not, discussing 1972 being a watershed year for music. Did you tell them that?
Oh and Bruce, I just noted your comment that the kids are alright. Who cares about kids? What is with this ageism? How did this whole thing move into “what kids are doing”? It’s a question about “what musicians are doing”, regardless of how old they are. I mean I can see Robin not understanding this (she’s somehow obsessed with ageism), but you?
Ageism is sooooo old underground. Get over it.
>Robin, if it’s been written about before, why did you have such a hard time understanding it?
I’m sorry, what is it I’m having a hard time understanding.
Dave, acknowledging that your age affects your worldview and sometimes results in generational communication gaps isn’t ageism. Refusing to acknowledge that influence on your perspective, calling all new music incoherent without addressing the age and perspective differences between you and the artists you’re criticizing, insisting your taste is determined only by some objective standard for assessing music and backing up your argument with criticizing the fashion value of baggy pants, is.
That first sentence should end with a question mark.
oops, here’s the Mr. Lif video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLtlZHaHrMw
(Sorry for using youtube so much on here, I’ve been dumbed down by television and computers)
If this is you dumbed down…
Proposal is edited. G’night, Paul.
Actually, we so need Andy Rooney to join this movement! The man’s still got the spirit we need:
Wait… that guy’s Andy Rooney? Oh! I’m sorry, Dave R., I thought that was you. I was having a hard time telling you apart and got confused. My previous comments were for Andy, not you. Please excuse.
Dammit, it’s too late, now. Even though work’s done, I have to stay up until I’ve gotten my kid to school.
So, when I saw your posts, Matt, I was so punchy, I lost my breath and almost fell out of the chair laughing.
When you say “we” need Andy in “this movement,” I assume you mean the NEW UNDERGROUND. You have to have heard of Justin to be a NEW BIEBERIAN, right?
I’m taking this opportunity to brush up on my art appreciation skills with Andy:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1988367_1988362_1988378,00.html
I like when he says artists should have to produce something he can understand before they get a “license” to produce something he doesn’t.
Justin Bieber looks just like Ron Swart in the 80’s. Could it be Ron’s aging well and having a mid-life rebirth?
I call “Know-Nothing Boobs” for a band name!
Oo, good one.
Paul, I’m still chewing over your comment on the end of the golden age of pop music. Is this what happened? In my mind’s ear, I’m hearing a meltdown of the whole pentatonic (I-IV-V) song structure that served us so well and for so long. And in it’s place rises loops and beats and things I don’t even know how to describe. Instruments? Optional. Sort of archaic devices, but go ahead if you wanna. Songwriting is replaced by sampling. Is this the sound of the end of the golden age of pop?
Yeah, and I definitely agree that there is a rap and hip hop underground. I wish I liked that music better, cause I like to go check it out. Dammit, this is the first time in a long while that my ears have failed me, but I just don’t dig the sound. That said, that Algerian stuff I do love, but it can really just be tourism for me, since I’m not a repressed Megrehbi living in a bidonville outside of Paris, or being chased by Al Queda in Oran.
Now I’m gonna risk running another thought out here, that it’s really at the point where the underground crosses into the mainstream that is really exciting. Bruce said, punk rock really only lasted a couple of years (we can debate the precise ones), but I’d argue that it was around for decades before ’77, and has been there for decades since. It was ’77-’79 (or so) that were really A BLAST, cause there was a huge clash of cultures as punk came and punched its way onto center stage (okay an overstatement, but it was on the cover of Time magazine). I obviously wasn’t around then, but I think the beats had a similar moment when Kerouac became a sort of overnight star.
So maybe I’ve been wasting everyone’s time with this “wither go underground stuff”. Sorry. Maybe what I meant to say is, what’s going to happen next? Any good cultural car crashes coming up that I can go rubber neck on?
There a fabulous cultural car crashes all around you, Dave. You just don’t seem to like the ones you’ve found so far. And the reasons you give are about them not being familiar enough. You could make your own. Or keep looking. Or see if you’re willing to take a second listen to something.
Why are you only looking to rubberneck?
Familiar enough? Just a sec, I’ve been standing in on high life bands in West Africa, Kito bands in Zim, Zouk bands in Kinshasa, and all that Rai, for 15 years dear. I think you’re speeding down the wrong street again (after you made a wrong turn on the ageism issue). Second listen? What? Are you serious here? Come on… Make my own? ummm ok. Anyway, I’m giving myself a fee pass on a lot of this, since I just moved home from spending a third of my life in Africa. But I’ll get on that car crash right away. Nov 04, Lestats, be there or be square.
Yeah, for sure I wanna add those beat and tuning fixers to the “too much freedom” list! And anyone with a amazon.com account can be rap or punk to go nowadays, so
P, that tune at the bottom sounds hugely great to me. It’s hard for me to imagine that the car crash happening now is not the sound of the conventions of songwriting being smashed to pieces. Intros? Instruments? Verses, choruses and bridges? All optional.
>>Familiar enough? Just a sec, I’ve been standing in on high life bands in West Africa, Kito bands in Zim, Zouk bands in Kinshasa, and all that Rai, for 15 years
Dave: I’m going to cut that sentence right there (before you made your own wrong turn into Patronization Alley) and stick to the interesting bit.
Here’s the frustrating part for me … You HAVE spent many years doing all sorts of amazing things and soaking up a whole world of awesome aesthetic experiences most of us don’t know about. You could be sharing those the way Paul Howland and others are sharing the stuff they like!
I don’t know shit from shit about any of it, and I’d be hanging on your every word … I know your posts on everything from peri-peri chicken to reports from the streets of Liberia and Port au Prince have been magic.
In this thread, by contrast, it seems like you’re just kind of going around in circles complaining about American popular culture that isn’t even current! You don’t like gangsta rap, and you like Bowie and Iggy. OK. Got it.
Now, why the hell aren’t you sharing all this amazing stuff you’ve learned over the past decades and seeing how that can get us moving??
In defense of tuning fixers. They’re instruments sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3piv9EFZU8
This tune has chord changes, verses, choruses. None of that stuff is in jeopardy as far as I can tell.
“Now, why the hell aren’t you sharing all this amazing stuff you’ve learned over the past decades and seeing how that can get us moving??”
indeed
Uh oh, I’m probably going to be called closed-minded, but I don’t like any of that African music, expect Rai. Even that, well it’s just not my culture, it’s really pretty specific to Northwest Africa and France.
But! You are going to get an update on the state of the underground in Ougadougou when I get to Burkina next week. Stay tuned…
Yes, Dave, I’m serious. I’m also seriously saying the patronizing tone doesn’t strengthen your points.
This isn’t a contest or a trial, Dave.
From your initial post, you have been asking for something to follow, something to entertain you, indicating that it has an emotional urgency much deeper than flipping on a radio and hoping for something pleasant in the background. Then, you are contemptuous of all offerings and all explanations for why you’re not liking anything new. You seem to be in an unhappy loop. I’m postiing because I hope if you take a step back, you can figure out the path to what you want. At the moment, I’m grooving on the path I’m on. If I find later that I want to check in here for directions, I hope someone might care enough to share a sense of urgency about my personal aesthetic needs. And I will try not to dismiss efforts to help, even if they initially sound like cat claws on a chalkboard. (Paul H.- you’ll be my first stop, of course. And that probably will get the job done.)
You’re mourning the loss of pentatonic progressions and what you believe are essential song elements. You’re in good company. Even if you weren’t, you’re the sole sovereign over Dave Rinck’s musical taste. However, if you are wanting something new, a car crash, by definition, goes outside your comfort zone. Underground material by definition is breaking a boundary. Try listening a few times to things you don’t like at first and ask yourself why someone would. Every now and then you may change your mind. It feels good. (Thank you, Clay, for the funky flute music.)
It’s not ageism for me to say you’ve gotten older. That’s a fact. I’m saying you might find what you are looking for, what you say you can’t find on your own, what you ask other people to help you find, if you look in some places you have been resisting, if you question the authority of some of the opinions and expectations you’ve developed over the years.
I’m saying underground often comes from people who are younger than we are now and may require some more effort to appreciate than it used to.
You want something and seem distressed about not having it, then use phrases like “something I can get in line behind,” and “rubbernecking.” So, yes, I am asking what part of what you want so much can’t you make for yourself? If you have been playing this long, with access to international input, and you have a gig scheduled, what, exactly, do you want that you can’t make yourself? If you can do this yourself, then why do you keep saying you’re bored and asking other people to fix it? If you can’t do it yourself, clarify for yourself and the people you are asking, what it is and how you plan to get it.
Dear Robin, go back and read my comments again. I’m not at all mourning the end of traditional songwriting, I’m embracing it. And the only type of music I don’t like to hear is rap, but I fully agree that there’s a rap underground, and that at some point it was pretty vital stuff, but even Paul seems to be saying that it’s lost it vitality at some point. Anyway, I’m not resisting anything. And I didn’t like the way rap sounded when it first started, and I don’t like it now, so that has nothing to do with age. And the facts show that age has nothing to do with underground. Ever heard of Malcolm McClaren? Andy Warhol? Charlie Harper? Ornette Coleman? The PMan? C’mon, the age thing is sooo old underground, it’s been a red herring since it was introduced 500 posts ago. As for doing it myself, well… we’ll just let that one answer itself. I can’t promise anything, but I think you’ll all have a good time at Lestats on Nov. 04. At the very least, a chance to get out and see good friends again.
So now, from what I’ve seen here, it looks like I was right all long. There is no firestorm going, just a lot of glowing embers. Any that might burst into flame?
I do wish I could offer you all something more from my long Africa sojourn, but aside from Brenda Fossie and Cheb Khalid (pretty regional food indeed), I ended up empty-handed. There’s almost definitely more musicians per capita over there, but not much in the way of firestorms. The kids in Nairobi are ga-ga over the Red Hot Chile Peppers and Coldplay. Mali Blues is gorgeous stuff, but it’s pretty much some old guys sitting under a tree around Djenne or Segou, like it’s been for 300 years.
Too much freedom… you guys are convincing me.
I’ma exercise my freedom to return to the firestorm I see.
I guess it works like Platform 9 and 3 quarters.
Paul, many years ago you pulled out an old record that I thought was uncool. I snickered. Your response was something along the lines of, “Shut up and listen for a minute.” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been grateful.
“There is no firestorm going, just a lot of glowing embers. Any that might burst into flame? ”
Something always bursts eventually David. There will always be another Hendrix, John Lydon, Miles, Kurt Cobain…right around the corner…it’s just been a while since we’ve had our minds blown!
“It’s just been a while since we’ve had our minds blown” I agree… so much do I agree…
>>So now, from what I’ve seen here, it looks like I was right all long.
Well, that’s a shock! 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8txhtB2e5M
>>Mali Blues is gorgeous stuff, but it’s pretty much some old guys sitting under a tree
Dave: Thank goodness age is just a red herring in this discussion, huh? 🙂
free your mind and your ass will blow it up!
gosh
have to admit
learned about all that white noise from the kidz in la mesa
abandoned a whole culture put my arms around ac-dc and ditto jeans
then all of a sudden stoners were getting
mohawks
the sugar hill gang busted out
it was the end of the world
1979
the pentagon scale
stop hiding behind that building
come out and play
play*play*play
while we still have time….
>”then all of a sudden stoners were getting
mohawks
the sugar hill gang busted out
it was the end of the world
1979 ”
I just love that.
Sorry I missed you the other night Cousin Louis!!
>free your mind and your ass will blow it up!
indeed
Curse you, Dave Rinck- now I kind of like this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtzIWPeun7c
So, to recap our authoritative history of the underground to date:
1. All sorts of cool, important, cutting-edge things happened before we were born.
2. Then by amazing coincidence, everything got progressively cooler and more cutting edge from the moment most of us were born in the mid-’60s until we hit 20-something in the ’80s.
3. And then, just as mysteriously, everything got boring and derivative and not cool.
Bottom line: The very coolest stuff in the history of underground culture to date happened to have coincided with our own adolescence! And since age is merely a red herring, this is an absolute, immutable truth.
My next question: Why does the sun go out every time I put my hands over my eyes??
Matt, that’s only in the old underground. In the era of NEW BIEBERIANS, the sun stays on. And when you put toys under the blankie, you don’t need to cry. They’re still there.
Matt, dammit you made me think with your comment on old bluesmen, they in my opinion, seem to define the notion that ageism is irrelevant. Now my point on that was that the blues tradition in West Africa (or in the missisippi delta) is not really “dynamic”, ratther it’s a rich vein, and has been for centuries. There sure was a lot of dynamism though when some guys plunged a guitar chord jack in there and mainlined it, like the Rolling Stones did about 1960s, or when those cats like Muddy Waters out at Sun Studios did before them. What a up blast.
>>The mid-60’s are viewed as ONE of the most historically significant periods in American culture.
… By people who were born or grew up during that period.
Sure, it was exciting and turbulent — but jeez, I think the end of the Cold War; the technology/communications boom of the ’90s and ’00s; the turbulent, polarized party politics of this era; the first non-white-guy president in the history of this country; the gay-rights movement; terror tactics that have changed the definition of international conflict; the massive shifts in global economic power; and yes, plenty of new artistic expressions … And many, many more examples suggest that this is a more significant period in American culture.
On a historical scale, all of these developments are likely to dwarf the real significance of the ’60s and early ’70s, which were actually kind of status quo as far as the real redistribution of global military and economic power and the means of artistic production.
In 500 years, people will likely say the ’60s and ’70s were basically an extension of the WWII era (with groovier hairstyles) and that the real tectonic changes started in the late ’80s.
Personally, I think the patronization here is projecting one’s own adolescence as a historically unprecedented moment of artistic achievement that no one since has been able to achieve.
The ’60s and ’70s had plenty of important bits, and I myself obviously feel a kinship with those bits — but I also recognize that has a lot to do with my own relationship to them.
PS: I’ve talked to about a dozen 20-somethings in my office to test out the theory that Gen Y is all up on the Beatles … I picked music fans who are knowledgeable about music old and new. None of them had ever heard of Brian Epstein, and most of them haven’t heard the more arcane two-thirds of the Beatles’ oeuvre.
>”On a historical scale, all of these developments are likely to dwarf the real significance of the ’60s and early ’70s”
Are you serious?? You really think that techno advances and the end of the Berlin Wall compare to… Worlds at War? Genocide of 10 Million Jews? The Depression, Jim Crow, Civil Rights? The Exodus of millions of people from Europe to America?
I think that’s crazy…you’d have to get one person other than your insane side-kick robin to agree with that assumption.
No one here is saying their period of adolescence was THE only rich artistic time at all. We’ve also recognized seminal periods when we weren’t even alive! The birth of Blues, swing, jazz, rock n roll…I wasn’t around for any of that. I also think that Le Six represents a turning point in modern music, and that the latter half of the 18th C. was an extremely prolific time for great music.
You guys that are obsessed with grumpy old men should look in the mirror at desperate old people trying to justify why 30 years of holding your nuts and saying “Yo” is enough for you intellectually.
>>Are you serious?? You really think that techno advances and the end of the Berlin Wall compare to… Worlds at War? Genocide of 10 Million Jews? The Depression, Jim Crow, Civil Rights? The Exodus of millions of people from Europe to America?
Bruce: Jeepers creepers! I didn’t know that all those things happened in the ’60s and ’70s! I believe (except for the civil-rights movement, which really started in the ’50s), all that stuff happened between the turn of the century and … Oh, about 1960.
I thought the ’60s and ’70s were a period where some significant stuff happened — civil-rights legislation, our first real international debacle with Vietnam — but most of it was a continuation of enormous changes that began with the Industrial Revolution and continued through WWII. (Unless WWII actually happened in the ’60s and ’70s, as you seem to suggest in your last post.)
in no particular order:
irrigation of the Nile River plains
Industrial Revolution
Renaissance
Moving out of caves into built structures
invention of the grand piano
Declaration of Independence
the first trans-Atlantic voyage
moveable printing press
None of these can compare to the revolutionary changes resulting from,”na-na-na-na na-na-na-na hey hey hey goodbye.”
PS: You also seem to have confused me with Batman — and Robin seemed like a very nice young man. (Ad hominems are soooooo old underground, Bruce.)
But matt, your timeline seems way off. I wasn’t even really around for punk, much less ziggy and glam or the beats, or sun records, and dubstep sorta came after us. Buy I am proud of my small role in our little chapter…
Scroll up…I was referring to the 30s and 40s, the generation that made the boomers, as well as the 60s and 70s, the boomers themselves.
Again you don’t need to condescend.
The point being…some historical periods are more…exciting…than others. Whether you were alive or not.
I don’t think that the murder of 2.5 million Vietnamese can be equated with the World Trade Center…I don’t think the advancement in cell phone technology can be equated to LANDING ON THE MOON…and I don’t think that Justin Beiber will hold the same place in history as Jimi Hendrix.
Asking 20 somethings if they’ve heard of Brian Epstein is as obscure as asking 50 somethings if they know Errol Garner…ridiculous. Ask 20 somethings if they’ve ever heard Dark Side Of The Moon…now wait fifty years and ask 20 somethings if they listen to biggy small.
Oh yeah, and let’s take our hats off to Scott Joplin at some point -- a major influence on the wallflowers decades later (see “paradise on 4th ave.”).
>”Our parents grew up with the depression, world wars, holocausts.
Do you think the mid-90′s or mid-2000′s will take a place in history as significant as these prior generations??”
What I was referring to…
Yeah, those go outside the limits of American culture, because I like a broader context.
My least favorite thing about post-WWII America is the resultant cult of adolescence. Adolescence is defined as something you try to retain indefinitely instead of as a phase of developing from a child into an adult. It’s presented by people who want to sell stuff to a demographic with time and money to spare as defining excitement, self-expression, independence, romance. I doubt people in the 1940s debated which generation had the coolest adolescence.
I’m proud of it, too, Dave — very proud! And I’m proud of what all of have accomplished since … Look at all the amazing adventures you’ve had, just to name one.
What I am saying is if thing stopped seeming fresh after your early 20s — whatever age you are now, 25 or 45 or 85! — it’s equally important to look at what’s changed about your relationship with the culture as what’s changed with the culture itself.
That’s not ageism, that’s just a process of renewal that I think is worthwhile even if it’s not always comfortable.
The Wallflowers always knocked me out ’cause you kept reinventing and bringing in people (Arturo, Aaron et al.) outside our little world. You’ve had more than that lifetime’s experience learning stuff none of us will ever have a chance to see or hear first-hand. Is there REALLY nothing there you can bring to the party the way the Wallflowers brought funk and jazz and horns and madness to our lives in 1983?
Exactly
>>Scroll up…I was referring to the 30s and 40s, the generation that made the boomers, as well as the 60s and 70s, the boomers themselves. Again you don’t need to condescend.
Bruce: Scroll up yourself … You quoted me specifically about the ’60s and ’70s, which I do believe were built on the much larger seismic changes of earlier decades.
Was the Rwandan genocide as big as Vietnam? Probably to the Rwandans.
Suggestion: If you don’t want condescension, don’t call people names like “insane sidekick” or suggest they go do dishes instead of participating.
No… I was referring to our parents generation as well as ours.
Teaming up on David Rinck, because he has legitimate questions, is as bullying as anything you’ll find on CHE.
Again, you don’t like name-calling but clearly don’t lift a finger if people make death-threats.
CHE is basically two people now, Matt, in total agreement on all things, and condescending to anyone who might have a different view.
Now we are to believe that all periods of time are the same, no flourishes of art and culture, no historical high points or low points…hmmmm…very existential. I can actually get behind that.
>”Was the Rwandan genocide as big as Vietnam? Probably to the Rwandans.”
That’s ludicrous…like saying an individuals tragedy is the same as a national tragedy. Again, very existential…some truth to it but we were talking about something else and you know it.
Dave Rinck is a grown man, Bruce, and a smart one, and a good friend to many of us of many years’ standing.
He wrote this thread because he knew it would be provocative, and I posted it knowing the same thing, and he’s perfectly able of taking care of himself.
Treating him like a five-year-old is condescending. Let the man answer the questions.
I’d like someone to answer the questions, since most of the interesting questions are avoided and the only premise that runs through the entire thread is if you don’t like rap you’re old!!
Rap is old…and David and I keep giving examples of music from many periods of time that we like whether or not we were even alive. The only period we haven’t commented on, for obvious reasons, is the future.
No one is treating anyone like a five year old…but to watch how you two enjoy teaming up on people is sickening. If David is a good friend I can only imagine how you treat people you genuinely dislike.
Now..let the other half answer. Wait for it….
brb, dishes
With due respect to all parties, I don’t see anyone monopolizing this site or demanding that we all agree upon the answers to Rinck’s questions.
The dominant ideas in this thread are from Rinck, Howland, Perrault and Johnson. My diplomatic nature has caused me to sit most of this out, but let’s face it: the debate became unhealthy when it ventured into the territory of name calling and personal attack. Robin and Matt don’t frame the issues, nor do they control the tone of the blog. They are mere contributors, the same as we all are.
Here’s something to consider: perhaps many of us here are looking for patterns and historical trends, and attempting to make generalizations about popular culture and its impact without enough perspective. None of us know how it will all pan out.
The technological and social changes that resulted from World War I are mind-blowing, and yet most people today view that period as quaint in comparison with our own. The farther we get from the sixties, the less revolutionary they seem.
The truth is, many of the cultural changes that took place in the sixties and seventies have not had a lasting impact. Yes, the Civil Rights movement and Women’s liberation have had enormous cultural ramifications, but they didn’t occur overnight. In fact, most historians look at the two World Wars and their aftermath as the real catalyst for both revolutions. What lessons, for example, were learned from the Vietnam War? We’ve now been in Afghanistan longer. And as much as I hate to admit it, the Reagan years erased much of the social and economic impact of the sixties.
It is disingenous to compare isolated pop groups or artists from different decades and draw conclusions about the health and well being of art. I say the longer view we take the more meaningful our arguments will be. Future historians will probably not draw such fine distinctions between 1979 and 1999 as we do.
>”the debate became unhealthy when it ventured into the territory of name calling and personal attack”…totally agree.
Telling people that because they sail boats they don’t know about black people or telling someone that they can’t “understand” rap because the are too old are personal attacks.
>”The farther we get from the sixties, the less revolutionary they seem”…agreed, again. Does this mean it was less revolutionary?
I still have a hard time comparing what I saw on TV every night as a young boy…Major cities on fire, assassinations, civil rights marches, body-bags coming home from ‘nam, and the actual first time a human landed on a foreign plant/moon, with the events of the last ten years. There have been some monumental events, but I would think most people would agree the sixties were more turbulent than the first decade of the 2000’s.
I feel the same way about the 1930s and 40s. I just don’t see how anyone can compare these periods to our relatively quiet present.
>”Future historians will probably not draw such fine distinctions between 1979 and 1999 as we do” …I don’t think there will be much to say at all, artistically, about this period.
>>Telling people that because they sail boats they don’t know about black people or telling someone that they can’t “understand” rap because the are too old are personal attacks.
Bruce: Remember who stepped in immediately to take issue with that characterization? Golly, who was that … ? Oh, right — I did!
I don’t give two craps about whether you like rap. I do think that going after a 20-year-old commercial version of that particular form is anachronistic and disingenuous, but it doesn’t make the critiquer any older than the rest of us!
>>Telling people that because they sail boats they don’t know about black people or telling someone that they can’t “understand” rap because the are too old are personal attacks.
Bruce, I never mentioned names. Personal attacks are personal attacks.
>>I still have a hard time comparing what I saw on TV every night as a young boy…Major cities on fire, assassinations, civil rights marches, body-bags coming home from ‘nam, and the actual first time a human landed on a foreign plant/moon, with the events of the last ten years. There have been some monumental events, but I would think most people would agree the sixties were more turbulent than the first decade of the 2000′s.
Once again, Bruce, I think future historians will not neatly separate decades the way we do when we are living in them. Many of those who watched the twin towers fall, the epidemic of school shootings, etc. weren’t alive in the 1960s so they have no basis for comparison. Likewise, my father, having fought in the D-Day invasion at Normandy and survived the Great Depression, thought the changes in the sixties were silly, immature and superficial.
One thing I’m sure we’d all agree upon is that there have been incredible advances in technology which have revolutionized the way people communicate and in general have access to information. A discussion such as this, between parties spread out across the globe, would not have been possible even twenty years ago.
I think the reason many generations feel their own is special us because they had direct experience of it. But with some perspective, we can see that this has occured many times, the beats, the lost generation, punk, many. I think the bigger question is what’s up now, and I don’t see anything here to make me believe this is a watershed time in cultural history -- despite the “conquest of the media”. Too much freedom, no Ziggy.
Bring it on!
Well, I think it’s funny that the folk here that seem to know the subject actually agree that rap is as old as punk. Those were different times too…
Dave: Let me play along with this “too much freedom” slogan of yours. It’s got four catchy syllables, and there is an element of truth I can detect: As I wrote waaaaaaaay up above, I don’t know how you can have an underground unless some sort of force is holding you down.
But how do you do that in a pluralistic society where the barriers to communication keep dropping? I presume you’re not hoping for government repression — so what exactly do you have in mind?
I personally have found creative juice by imposing some limitations on myself — specifically, making the Amazons all-acoustic forced certain kinds of interesting artistic choices … But again, I’d like to hear your solution.
Too much freedom is when everybody and their brother can go out and cut a CD, and there’s still nothing worth changing your haircut over.
>>Too much freedom is when everybody and their brother can go out and cut a CD, and there’s still nothing worth changing your haircut over.
And to fix this, we … Limit access to the tools of distribution? The U.S.S.R. had some amazing samizdat publications — but I think totalitarianism is kind of a severe solution for a lack of tunes you like. (I was in Poland in ’87, and trying to find a photocopier to copy some writing … Whew! The only one I could locate was in a locked room at the university, and you had to check out the key, and they counted the sheets of paper.)
Okay, I’ll bite (again). I still don’t understand how empowering people who previously had little to no access to the system is a bad thing? I love the fact that anyone with a little bit of money can record, produce and release his own music, as well as publish his own ideas on the Internet.
>>Okay, I’ll bite (again). I still don’t understand how empowering people who previously had little to no access to the system is a bad thing? I love the fact that anyone with a little bit of money can record, produce and release his own music, as well as publish his own ideas on the Internet.
Ray, Dave, et al.: Do you guys remember this one CD from a year or so ago? The musicians were scattered all over California, and one of the guys was in Nairobi! And they got together on e-mail and composed some songs by swapping MP3s, and then they got together for a few days and recorded an album and cut their own CD and put the stuff up on the Web? Craziest damn thing — back in the day, no self-respecting band could collaborate across continents and self-release an album unless you were Pink Floyd or something.
What was the name … The Blues Magoos? Blues Traveler? Oh, right: the Blues Gangsters! 🙂
Is this the kind of folderol you want to limit, Dave?
I think, (and I could totally be wrong here), that Dave is suggesting, somehow, that an increase in the technology of making music has not necessarily increased its quality??
Please correct me if I’m way off base…just trying to understand your “freedom” thing.
>”Nevertheless, I can speak to my own experience. I have never been black”…that in itself put a major smile on my face! (As opposed to those of us that have been black? :))
>”From where I sit now, the mid-1940s through the late ’80s were a fairly continuous stretch. National boundaries were the same, personal technology didn’t change an awful lot, access to media was the same, and world geopolitics were dominated by two superpowers. That was the world we were born into — and I think that most of the real action that created all of it had happened by 1947.”
I agree with all of this, while continuing to believe that the birth of rock and roll and all that went with it has to be seen as being historically significant.
>”because lately it all sounds the same to me me…”
That’s an attack waiting to happen…probably your age again…couldn’t be ANYTHING else…:)
Don’t get me started on that smirking fool Jewel!!
Matt made an interesting observation waaaaay up there somewhere…we might not see another Bowie anymore than we’re likely see another Benjamin Franklin….times change.
Read Aeschylus, The Oresteia Trilogy, for the best account of Agamemnon, Paris, Helen, etc….
I don’t know what to tell you …
Just out of the tiny, statistically unrepresentative sample of our peers who’ve posted to this thread, a good percentage are hearing things that sound new and cool to them.
I, me, myself am perhaps not quite that voracious for new aural stimuli … My wife teases me for sticking to a relatively small set of records that mean a lot to me — but I enjoy learning about new stuff, and plenty of recent work Paul Howland (to name one) has shared here is fresh and aesthetically rewarding. I’d also include recent work by our own peers on this blog among new sounds I enjoy.
Nearly 700 posts into this thread, I’m simply not experiencing the same malaise Dave Rinck has expressed. The level of creative churn seems pretty cool to me … There’s always been crap, and there’s always been good stuff, and there’s always been innovation — resulting in innovative good stuff as well as innovative crap. (I think innovation’s generally noble, but it’s not always good!)
So perhaps I’m not equipped to help address a solution because I’m still not seeing a problem!
Hence, it’s probably best if I leave this thread to those who do see urgency here. 🙂
Yeah Bruce, I’m probably just showing my age quoting Joey Ramone from 1978… hahaha here they come, bring’em on, the ageist clique!
But ok, now I realize that the problem is that I never explained myself. What I mean is that the great stuff in art is great because it INSPIRES people, which in my mind, means that it empowers people to believe they can do things they previously thought were not possible. Here’s the Dave Wallflower axiom on the greatness of art --
Great works promise freedom
That is, great works promise delivery from oppression, repression (both inner and outer), and even just from plain old boredom. and since we’re talking about pretty specifically about underground music here, I believe its chief concerns are freedom from classisisms of all sorts. One of my very very favorite lines from punk rock was “it’s 1977 and we are going mad, it’s 1977 and we’ve seen to many ads, it’s 1977 and we’re gonna show them all -- that apathy’s a dra-aaa-aaa-ag”!
Today we just have too much freedom, there’s nothing to be worried about enough to be inspired by being promised delivery from it. Thus today’s human condition is that we are incapable of being inspired. That’s what I meant. Sorry I didn’t just come out and say it earlier. That was all I meant.
I’m not voracious for new stimuli either…I’m usually traveling backwards to find all the things I’ve missed along the way.
I won’t be posting or lurking on this thread any more.
Bye
did someone need a horn???
now for a little history
ornette coleman was mobbed and beat up in texas
they even threw his tenor over a hill
moved to los angeles bought a plastic saxophone
and played music with his own structure known as harmolodics
on invitation played the most coveted club in new york for weeks
every so called jazz musician in ny was there
this new thing divided the genre
ornette had to quit due to the stress of the old establishment
cecil taylor had his hands broken by the mafia
eric dolphy was left to die in a berlin hospital
albert ayler was drowned in the hudson river
all of this over music that has no lyrics
this all happened in the sixties
we pay a great price to be free
there is no such thing as too much of it
see what can happen when you bring underground music to the surface
namaste
Good night. Will the last one out please turn out the lights?
“As the Lady said: `I said Live It or Live With It!`”
You have violated Robot’s Rules of Order, and will be asked to leave The Future immediately
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i love ending a long set
…..with a ballad
Let’s sing another song boys…this one has grown old and bitter.
“Oh his fingernails, I see they’re broken…his ships are all on fire…etc”
The Weirdos used to have a song called “Destroy All Music”. I’d be into one called “Destroy All Musical Conventions”.
Let’s imagine a new sound that is beyond all that have come before it, led by a really charismatic figure that galvanizes the world into an ecstatic state of true fury (babyface), and inspires everyone to just kick off their blues and freedom-glutted incoherancy and just go crazy!
crowning of NEW UNDERGROUND to take place nov 4 at lestats
crowning of NEWER UNDERGROUND to take place nov 5 at lestats
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
execution at dawn
We are sooooooo far from done. Just check out the peeps out there, they want it, they are hungry.