Who the F*ck is Pete Doherty?

[mayer]

I no different to a 17 year old Libertines fan who's never heard The Sex Pistols?

I just don't think those people exist. I've been to what, half a dozen Libertines gigs and a dozen Babyshambles gigs, and the crowd is definitely both older and more well-informed than you give them credit for.

a 17 year old Libertines fan who's never heard The Sex Pistols?

Or as you hinted at in an earlier post, a 17 year old Sex Pistols fan who's never heard the Dolls, or Ramones, or Modern Lovers?

Do you (does anyone?) think that 90s and 00s music genres are more derivative - and involve more hair-splitting - than 60s/70s/80s ones? Is that a ridiculous/ignorant thing to claim, or is there some truth in it?

Well, I'm not sure. Necessarily derivation will increase in the sense that there's more there to derive from I suppose. But you've described D&B as an nothing more than an "offshoot of house" in a way that Punk wasn't just a retread of rock and roll, and I still can't see that myself. I do think that Punk was original in its way, but certainly not more original than D&B (90s) or the Noise lot (late 90s), or the first two Public Enemy LPs (late 80s), or that darn first Underworld LP I keep banging on about (1993).


Also, some stuff now it is impossible to conceive of existing back then, because of the limitations of technology, influences to borrow from, and ideas. 60 Second Wipeout and Live At Brixton and Sick Slits harness noise in a way that Metal Machine Music only hinted at.

But Metal Machine Music couldn't have existed without that feedbacky intro on "Taxman" (allegedly, though I reckon that the sorts Lou also borrowed from were having fun with feedback live from before that anyway).

Kevin Sheilds said that the Tremelo and Glider EPs were recorded with 1960s equipment, but why did nothing back then sound just like it? Were people less imgaginative then? Why did The Beatles not release a song like "When You Sleep"?


No real argument here, just brainstorming, sorry!

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I just don't think those people exist. I've been to what, half a dozen Libertines gigs and a dozen Babyshambles gigs, and the crowd is definitely both older and more well-informed than you give them credit for.

Oh, I wasn't trying to be patronising - I was just picking up on the 'But it's new music to them' argument from a while back.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Originally an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore and rave scene, it came into existence when people mixed reggae basslines with sped-up hip hop breakbeats and influences from techno.

Wikipedia there. Is that a bollocks definition, or is it essentially right?

I'd forgotten the reggae/ragga/jungle aspect of it. Actually, I'm having trouble conjuring up the sound of D&B in my head right now.

I suppose my point isn't so much 'D&B just sounded like rave/house' (because knowledgeable people tell me otherwise) but 'Why didn't it sound radically different to me?' After all, I gave it the same attention I gave house in 1987, and I knew immediately that house was exciting. So why did I just go 'Meh, more dance shit' to D&B in '94? Different wiring again?

[Johnny Yesno]

Do you (does anyone?) think that 90s and 00s music genres are more derivative - and involve more hair-splitting - than 60s/70s/80s ones? Is that a ridiculous/ignorant thing to claim, or is there some truth in it?

I think that there is still new and refreshing music being made but in parallel to to that there is indeed an awful lot of derivation and hair-splitting going on. I know what you mean about finding stuff when you're younger and thinking it's the most original thing ever, then later finding out it was heavily influenced by someone in the past. On the other hand, it kind of grates when, however original a piece of music you find, someone says "Sounds like Beefheart". I think Beefheart was fucking great but he didn't influence everything. In fact, it also bugs me when people say "Well, all modern music comes from Blues, y'know?". I mean there's some truth in that but it's not the whole story by a long chalk.

[mayer]

Originally an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore and rave scene, it came into existence when people mixed reggae basslines with sped-up hip hop breakbeats and influences from techno.

Wikipedia there. Is that a bollocks definition, or is it essentially right?

Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in America in the 1950s, though elements of rock and roll can be heard in rhythm and blues records as far back as the 1920s. Early rock and roll combined elements of blues, boogie woogie, jazz and rhythm and blues, and is also influenced by traditional Appalachian folk music, gospel and country and western. Going back even further, rock and roll can trace a foundational lineage to the old Five Points district of mid-19th century New York City, the scene of the first fusion of heavily rhythmic African shuffles and sand dances with melody driven European genres, particularly the Irish jig.

EDIT: William Burroughs famously called Rock and Roll "that noisy Jazz stuff", he was certainly "cool" enough to know better, and older men than he did know better, so yeah. Different wiring.

[Johnny Yesno]

Originally an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore and rave scene, it came into existence when people mixed reggae basslines with sped-up hip hop breakbeats and influences from techno.

Wikipedia there. Is that a bollocks definition, or is it essentially right?

I'd forgotten the reggae/ragga/jungle aspect of it. Actually, I'm having trouble conjuring up the sound of D&B in my head right now.

I suppose my point isn't so much 'D&B just sounded like rave/house' (because knowledgeable people tell me otherwise) but 'Why didn't it sound radically different to me?' After all, I gave it the same attention I gave house in 1987, and I knew immediately that house was exciting. So why did I just go 'Meh, more dance shit' to D&B in '94? Different wiring again?

I suppose it depends on what stuff you heard. I think Squarepusher may have sounded radically different to you. Speaking more generally, though, it's the beat that stood out as being different from rave. Rave was very metronomic - d&b sounded fresh with its shuffly rhythms and I think that's what caught people's imagination. But yes, that definition is essentially right IMO.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I just wonder why the randicalness of house seemed really obvious (even to my 13 year old ears), but the radicalness of D&B has to be explained to me.

[slim]

Originally an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore and rave scene, it came into existence when people mixed reggae basslines with sped-up hip hop breakbeats and influences from techno.

Wikipedia there. Is that a bollocks definition, or is it essentially right?

It's a different thing. Drum & Bass was an offshoot, but that doesn't mean it sounds the same.

I suppose my point isn't so much 'D&B just sounded like rave/house' (because knowledgeable people tell me otherwise) but 'Why didn't it sound radically different to me?' After all, I gave it the same attention I gave house in 1987, and I knew immediately that house was exciting. So why did I just go 'Meh, more dance shit' to D&B in '94? Different wiring again?

Because you didn't like it? Or perhaps because you didn't understand the rhythm? I don't know without more information on what aspects of it displeased or bored you.

I just wonder why the randicalness of house seemed really obvious (even to my 13 year old ears), but the radicalness of D&B has to be explained to me.

I think because house was a big enough departure from disco and it's other roots for you to notice, presumably because you knew those genres well, and D&B wasn't.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I think because house was a big enough departure from disco and it's other roots for you to notice, presumably because you knew those genres well, and D&B wasn't.

But that's the point I'm making - that house was a huge departure from its influences (70s electronic stuff and disco), whereas D&B was a more subtle evolution in comparison. Or maybe it's becuse I heard the evolution more closely, so didn't notice it change?

[slim]

But that's the point I'm making - that house was a huge departure from its influences (70s electronic stuff and disco), whereas D&B was a more subtle evolution in comparison. Or maybe it's becuse I heard the evolution more closely, so didn't notice it change?

The thing is, you're talking about degrees of difference and a person's knowledge of genres and the influence that has on their perception of the difference.

All very fluid and most likely different for everyone.

I would say house was a bigger departure in terms of sound (i.e. with the improvement in quality and choice of electronic instruments) but drum & bass was a bigger departure in terms of structure and attitude.

It's true that you can hear the transistion as old "rave" split off into different factions, but the difference at that time, when happy hardcore, hard house, speed garage, drum and bass were finding their feet*, was pronounced, and each one contained songs within them that were very different in distance of style from their siblings and their parents. I thought it was an exciting time.

I just wonder if there is some personal reason why you can't see a marked difference. How intimate are you with dance music from that era? I just can't see how you find drum and bass anything like house. It's slightly similar to rave in terms of breakbeats used, but other than that it's got a lot of stand-out differences, for me at least.


* I realise I'm being a bit generous to myself, given the differing times at which each genre peaked, but the seeds for each sound were sown around the time "rave" started evolving.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I'm halfway through dubnobasswithmyheadman c/o Mayer. I don't know what genre that comes under, but Mayer says it's a completely distinct one - as different to 80s house as The Sex Pistols were to 50s rock 'n' roll.

I'm enjoying it, but I don't get the 'unlike anything before it' thing at all. Bits of it sound like New Order, bits of it sound like The Shamen, bits of it sound like The Orb and all that trippy ambient stuff, bits of it sound like The Art of Noise, and bits of it sound like 80s house. I like all those things so I like this. But the idea that I could hear it in 1994 and think 'Wow, this is incredible - I've never heard anything like it' is completely beyond me. To Mayer, however, the wow factor is immediate and obvious.

So, it's a bit of a mystery really.

[mayer]

I'm halfway through dubnobasswithmyheadman c/o Mayer. I don't know what genre that comes under, but Mayer says it's a completely distinct one - as different to 80s house as The Sex Pistols were to 50s rock 'n' roll.

Half right.

Mayer says it's a completely distinct one

Nah, I don't.

as different to 80s house as The Sex Pistols were to 50s rock 'n' roll

Yes.


I don't think there are really any really "distinct" genres in this absolute sense that you're making out which Punk and Acid House are entitled to but Britpop and whatever dubnobasswithmyheadman is aren't. When I listen to Public Enemy I can hear the MC5 in there, them and Grandmaster Flash and a million other things. All the lines are fuzzy I reckon.

Genres are just a way of finding stuff in shops easier and having broad outlines of what they play in whatever club. Thing is, I can go to a Glam club and hate half of it and love the other half.

More brainstorming.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I just wonder if there is some personal reason why you can't see a marked difference. How intimate are you with dance music from that era?

Not intimate at all - I only heard house/acid stuff because it got into the charts.

And that's partly my point, really - surely if a Radio 1-listening 13 year old recognised that house was a major departure from the norm, then that suggests 90s/00s dance genres were less obviously revolutionary? I mean, I remember when Steve Silk Hurley's Jack Your Body got to number one, lots of DJs said 'Hmm, very strange track' - I can't imagine them doing that with house's offshoots.

I mean, I wasn't especially ignorant of music's past - I'd heard lots of my parents' old 60s records, and I was a big fan of much early/mid 80s stuff. I knew what pre-house 'dance music' sounded like, and I'd definitely heard hip hop. But house did sound fresh - the fact that it often featured sampled talking, rather than singing or rapping, was a simple yet mindblowing difference. I remember taping The Theme from S'Express off the radio and playing it endlessly. It wasn't a case of me 'finally discovering the music of my generation' or anything - it was just a logical continuation of pop being exciting.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Necessarily derivation will increase in the sense that there's more there to derive from I suppose.

I'm thinking of it in terms of colours though - once it was easy to create a genuinely original colour (eg, purple) by mixing together two other colours (red and blue). But after a while, all the colours have been done and all you can create are hair-splitting variations of 'slightly less indigo than the previous purple, but maybe a hint of violet'.

I wonder if there's a finite number of genuinely original sounds that can be made, that's all.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

[dubnobass withmyheadman is]as different to 80s house as The Sex Pistols were to 50s rock 'n' roll

I think the scale of the relationship is different, though. I mean, forget 80s house - think of New Order, and compare Dark and Long with Blue Monday. They obviously sound different in terms of programming and production and general atmos, but they do have lots in common. Our respective mothers probably couldn't tell the difference.

But compare a great 50s rock 'n' roll single with a great Sex Pistols single (eg, Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock vs Pretty Vacant) and the two records come from different planets. Even if you compare Bill Haley's version of RATC with the Pistols' one, the sound is totally and uttterly different. Or at least there's more difference between them than there is between Dark and Long and Blue Monday. A difference that the average punter/mother/13 year old would recognise as being obvious.

[Paul's Boutique]

But Metal Machine Music couldn't have existed without that feedbacky intro on "Taxman" (allegedly, though I reckon that the sorts Lou also borrowed from were having fun with feedback live from before that anyway).

I don't believe that for a minute. Taxman was almost ten years before MMM and tons of freaks had been arsing aound with feedback in the interim.

[Paul's Boutique]

I just wonder why the randicalness of house seemed really obvious (even to my 13 year old ears), but the radicalness of D&B has to be explained to me.

The main difference is the beats. DnB is usually 140-180 beats per minute, whereas House is 80-120 bpm – a considerable difference. Also. DnB tends to sample funk beaks (e.g. James Brown or Lyn Collins), sped up to around double-speed. House, on the other hand, more often uses drum machines and computer-generated beats.  

Artists like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher have pushed DnB to it's logical conclusion, with fractured tempos often pushing 200bpm. This is sometimes called Drill 'N' Bass or Spunk Jazz.

[Johnny Yesno]

I wonder if there's a finite number of genuinely original sounds that can be made, that's all.

This is something I've wondered for at least 15 years and I've still not reached any conclusion. My whole interest in music hinges on this very idea, I think.

[mayer]

I don't believe that for a minute. Taxman was almost ten years before MMM and tons of freaks had been arsing aound with feedback in the interim.

Yer, right, but I was talking about pop being about continous evolution (not towards anything or getting better/worse), just changing and morphing. If no-one had ever used any feedback before I dunno if Lou would've put out a record like that, but from the mid 60s through to MMM loads of artists had played with feedback, and Lou just... well... took out everything else!

Or at least there's more difference between them than there is between Dark and Long and Blue Monday. A difference that the average punter/mother/13 year old would recognise as being obvious.

You may think I'm being awkward, but I just disagree! Dark and Long sounds, to my ears, absolutely nothing like Blue Monday. It has as much in common (electronic beats) with Blue Monday as Anarchy In The UK has with C'Mon Everybody (guitars and yelly vocals). I think the differences are actually more pronounced in the leccy stuff (different tempo, rhythm, vibe, style of vocals, radically different structure, instruments, technology compared with what? Some sub-Rock muddy wall of sound and a snarly voice?)

I think D&L/BM are as different from each other as AITUK/CE, I really do! I'm not trying to be awkward. That's the reason I can't help but talk of us being differently wired. It's not an argument killer, honest, it's just a brick wall I can't seem to negotiate here.

[Mediocre Rich]

But in the early days House was a lot more generic.  For instance Steinski and Double Dee regularly sampled James Brown and Funk Beats.  It was still 'House'.

But then I suppose now House is an industry rather than a 'feeling'<winky smiley nod>

At the end of the day it's pigeon holeing, and one of the great things about the early scene was it's abhorence at the thought of it, the idea that anything goes.  My favourite DJ sets are eclectic.  Look at JDJ Coldcut mix for example, it has the whole gamut from Drum and Base, house, hip hop, trance.  Or the Dirt Chamber session by Liam Howlett, mixing everything from the Sex Pistols to the KLF and the Charlatans.

I think I might put that on now actually.

[Paul's Boutique]

But in the early days House was a lot more generic.  For instance Steinski and Double Dee regularly sampled James Brown and Funk Beats.  It was still 'House'.

Don't want to sound like a genre-pedant (or rap snob), but Double Dee + Steinski are in no way House.

Their career began when they won a competition run by Tommy Boy Records, a famous hip hop label who included artists such as LL Cool J, Afrika Bambaataa and De La Soul in their roster. They remixed a hip hop track by G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid (called Play That Beat), with the original track interspersed with loads of wacky samples and excerts from songs. The follow up (Lesson 2) was based on James Brown (plus other B-Boy staples like Apache) and Lesson 3 was called "The History of Hip Hop". This was about all they released and, in short, it was hip hop rather than house.

The "Cut 'n' paste" genre merged with house music a few years later with bands like M/A/R/R/S and Bomb the Bass.

At the end of the day it's pigeon holeing, and one of the great things about the early scene was it's abhorence at the thought of it, the idea that anything goes.  My favourite DJ sets are eclectic.  Look at JDJ Coldcut mix for example, it has the whole gamut from Drum and Base, house, hip hop, trance.  Or the Dirt Chamber session by Liam Howlett, mixing everything from the Sex Pistols to the KLF and the Charlatans.

I think I might put that on now actually.

Sounds like you may like some of the Andy Votel mixes I was banging on about the other week. I started a thread on it

[Mediocre Rich]

Lesson 1 and 2 etc were still played at 'House' events though.  House wasn't that strictly defined then surely?  I was only a whipper snapper so I can't strictly remember, but it al seemed part of the same thing at the time.  Were Coldcut not thought of as House way back when?  Are you going to Fabric on Friday to see Too Many DJ's?

[Johnny Yesno]

I suppose it depends on what stuff you heard. I think Squarepusher may have sounded radically different to you.

This is why I find it more useful to talk about individual artists than genres. Perhaps Squarepusher is a bad example of D 'n' B. That's probably why I like him - I do tend to get bored when I realise an album is going to stay strictly within a narrow set of rules. I get the most excited when I feel anything could happen. Creativity is definitely stifled by the "Dat ain't da blues!" attitude.

[Johnny Yesno]

Also, some stuff now it is impossible to conceive of existing back then, because of the limitations of technology, influences to borrow from, and ideas. 60 Second Wipeout and Live At Brixton and Sick Slits harness noise in a way that Metal Machine Music only hinted at.

Kevin Sheilds said that the Tremelo and Glider EPs were recorded with 1960s equipment, but why did nothing back then sound just like it? Were people less imgaginative then? Why did The Beatles not release a song like "When You Sleep"?

Recording technology is something that keeps evolving and getting cheaper. When The Beatles were doing their thing it was only bands of their status who could afford to spend the time playing with sound. Now you can do in the home stuff The Beatles could only have dreamed of even with the gear they had access to. For this reason production has become a more and more crucial part of the listening experience and often helps define genres.

As for My Bloody Valentine's music was Shields talking about recording equipment, instrumentation or amplification? I only ask because 1990s instrumentation played through 1990s amplification and recorded onto a 1960s tape machine using a 1960s mixing desk would give totally different results to 1960s instrumentation played through 1960s amplification and recorded onto a digital multitrack using a 1990s desk. On top of that, mastering has changed - compression has come on light years and CD has allowed imroved bass response on cheaper hi-fi allowing artists to make their music bass-centric.

I feel the sound issue is an important one as the palette available to an artist influences how they write.

[alan strang]

On top of that, mastering has changed - compression has come on light years and CD has allowed imroved bass response on cheaper hi-fi allowing artists to make their music bass-centric.

There was a story about how disc manufacturers in the 60s asked The Who to be a bit quieter because they were worried that all those heavy thuds and twangs would cause the singles to jump when played on kids' cheap record players.

Probably apocryphal but it made me laugh.

[mayer]

As for My Bloody Valentine's music was Shields talking about recording equipment, instrumentation or amplification?

I'll look up the interview, but I think it was instrumentation and recording equipment he was talking about. I (vaguely, it's been a while!) remember him muttering about how MBV didn't run things backwards, they just fucked with the ordering of attack and delay to give that impression.


You're right though. If White Light/White Heat got recorded with the same lineup and exactly the same intentions on today's equipment it would be a totally different sounding (and meaning) record.

[Johnny Yesno]

I saw MBV play in Brighton in the early 90s (?) when You Made Me Realise came out. They were great. The drummer was an energetic little bloke. Just thought I'd share that...