quoted 3 lines oh fucking blah - what IS an>oh fucking blah - what IS an
>electronic record? or a dance one? genres are interesting (someone sed this
>earlier)
i think the answer to this question is extremely subjective. one can
only label music based on their own experience of it.
genres are invented by journalists (and now dotcoms) as places to
"hang things"-
not by musicians or record labels that love what they're doing. how
many artist interviews have i read where the artists are unable to
define what to call what they do?????
Perhaps most of you will consider me some sort of sad bandwagon jumper.
i've been intrigued by 'electronic music" since bein a little kid in
the 1960's when my Dad brought home this very weird record by Badings
Raajmakers (some Swedish electronic composer - i still have the very
scratched lp somewhere) which was just a lot of bleep noises to
demonstrate the new "stereo" and had noises switching from speaker to
speaker. Lots of poings bouncing round our living room made me laugh.
He also had a weird penchant for Martin Denny, while my Mom swooned
over Frank Sinatra and Italian opera which to me was like the sound
of chalk on a board. Martin Denny. Xavier Cougat, etc is called
"batchelor pad or lounge music". my dad's probably laughing in his
grave at this. i discovered the poetic genius of bob dylan who my
mother described as that "shreiking cow sound". she didnt like ravi
shankar either, but once woke me up at 2am cause the rolling stones
were on some tv talk show in new york - she respected my passion for
music i liked and encouraged it.
as a kid i listened to WBAI in new york and discovered people like
Cage, Stockhausen, while at the same time growing up and listening to
Motown, Beach Boys, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, British Rock, San
Francisco bands. My Mom was just as happy to see me go off to check
out Andres Segovia or Ravi Shankar as she was to let me go see some
blues band or the Cream at the Fillmore East. i will admit to being
a dj during the disco insanity of the late 70's but earnestly became
a fan of punk and hung out at San Francisco's Mabuhay Gardens - if
one makes amplified music is that suddenly electronic? that would
have been the defintion then. When punk died i embraced hip hop
(around 1980) AND TG, in the nursery, Chris n Cosey, Cabaret
Voltaire, Arthur Russell, Bill Laswell, Sly n Robbie, the Beastie
Boys... (I remember opening with the Cabs sensoria one nite in San
Fran & someone begging me to play something they could dance to like
New Order!), New Order (thanx to arthur baker this could be played
back to back with whodini, nucleus, etc) depeche mode remixes by
adrian sherwood - my love of on-u sound brought me to explore reggae,
dub (certainly electronic noodling here of the finest distortion).
when i immigrated to england due frustration at noone getting house
or yello, or baby fords "oochi koochi", steinski lessons, marrs pump
up the volume or any of the other weird records i was playing in
san fran in the late 80's (i ended up working two bars in the lower
haight where you couldnt dance - just listen which was brilliant -
anything from brian eno to diamanda galas to cheryl lynn!)
in england i embraced all music yet found another series of genre
based worlds erh words: acid house, acid jazz, talkin loud, slo
motion, downtempo, house, garage, 2 step, hiphop, drum n bass, jump
up, hardcore, techno, trance, ambient, radical performance poetry
stuff, and even some indie=alternative in the states whatever...
whatever was good to my ears, that is....
i have always tried to keep my ears open, but i have always liked
what i have liked and respected others opinions on what they like..i
have always despised musical racists - ie, people stuck in a rut only
listening to one thing and excluding all others with the attitude
that the only good music is their music...i know when i went to work
in new york in 94 to help promote cosmic baby's album 'thinking for
myself' i was told that "techno" was a dirty word in the US and meant
13 year olds on drugs and that i shouldnt use that word in referring
to his music when talking to journalists.
i thought "huh"? would i categorize two lone swordsman as techno or
minimal? or idm? or electro? i dont know.
to me it's all music and music that i like. i hate categorizing
music, even tho i wrote an article for hip hop connection in 1989
about artists like money love recording with jazz dudes like roy
ayers, stetsasonic, etc, and for want of a term to hang on it, i
called it "jazz rap" some other clever journalist @ mixmag (where i
was rap editor from 90-92) came up with 'trip hop' a term that
personally makes me cringe (and not because i didnt come up with it)
What is Amon Tobin? drum n bass, techno, downbeat, dark ambient,
organic ambient, jazz? - two from column A one from column B. thank
you.
i couldnt even begin to come up with a label for it or any of the
other artists who record for Ninja tune. How could I even begin to
define what Mike Ladd and the Infesticons means to me? It's
brilliant poetry, the music is indescribable and the live performance
borders on punk of the highest order...I'm in awe of it's brilliance
and that's NOT because i work @ ninja. in the same breathe i lean
towards ntone artists. how can i describe fink, flanger, neotropic,
animals on wheels, hexstatic? their music has become a soundtrack for
me - great background music for sunday lounging. or the fact that i
do my daily walk listening to a tape of funki porcini & 9lazy 9 tunes?
It's good music or rather music - no matter what you call it. But
everyone is gonna like something different. End of rant.
ps: as a relative newbie on this list for 6 months i have learned
more about new artists (and even been prompted to see some just from
reading about them on the list) and in my mind that can only be a
good thing. knowledge is power & the day i stop learning, i'm dead.
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