People talk alot of shite!

It's about a fiver in the bargain basement of MVE.

(pause)

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, my name's Dickie Henderson, are your cars parked nicely, goodnight.

i reckon some of those reviews are alright. nicely written.

Subtext of these reviews: "thank heavens for some proper, educated WHITE people to come and do this hip hop thing. So much more sophisticated than these hideous coloured fellows..."

hahahaha...damn straight! I wholeheartedly agree!

On a related...have a look at this "opinion piece" I had published in last month Leeds music magazine Sandman:

"Did anyone see the piece in the Guardian a few weeks ago about Bloc Party? The gist was, they’re the first successful UK rock band to have a black singer since Thin Lizzy. The writer vaguely touched upon the idea of cultural stereotypes, and how it’s still very unusual to associate someone black with guitar-driven music – which is of course a massive irony, as anyone paying attention will know popular music per se is mainly derived from black culture. The Stones robbed the blues artists. Ask Chuck D what he thinks about Elvis. Ask some (perhaps bitter?) rappers what they think about Eminem.
Saw this documentary about the Two Tone movement a few months ago. There were interviews with the likes of Suggs, Pauline Black and The Beat’s Rankin’ Roger. It made me feel proud, but also quite sad and disappointed. Proud for obvious reasons – this was shit-hot, grass roots, vibrant, relevant, edgy danceable UK music, with impeccable style. And it was actually about something – not just angst, romanticism or nostalgia. And disappointed? Well…
Why are things so segregated nowadays? Rankin’ Roger said his band reformed recently to try and bring together today’s disparate youth culture tribes. As someone who lived through the dark, late ‘70s days of “Love Thy Neighbour”, and was there for the necessary advent of Rock Against Racism, his opinion is pertinent, and he believes that racism has skipped a generation - scratch the surface and there’s still plenty of it around.
There is simply nothing like Two Tone happening at the moment. Provisionally, the prevailing attitude within indie music has always been quite liberal, especially in the more politically aware, more genuinely independent 1980s. Explicit politics now seems to have been sucked out of mainstream alternative music: this is a related point (but another article in itself). The hardcore punk scene has always been a pedestal of political awareness – but the audience is predominantly white. And witnessing the stick 50 Cent got from Green Day fans at Leeds Festival last year, I couldn’t help but think: why are you abusing this guy, when you wouldn’t abuse the Roots, say? Is it because he dares to display his wealth, with his gold tour bus? Is he a “chav”? We don’t understand his vulgar culture and that makes him OK to hate? Remember, black popular culture has always been concerned with being proud, looking good, making money and showing out. Culture borne of oppression tends to have these qualities. Culture borne of privilege tends to be ashamed of the fact.
I do worry, as despite the tribalism that’s always existed here, every now and again a new movement comes along that does genuinely unite people. And I can’t really see it happening at the moment – grime could possibly do it if it gets less aggressive (and if any of your little brothers bother to listen to it). This Guardian piece was sloppy, but a very pertinent point was made about the current indie trend for Good Old Merrie England and all things Britpop. The “quaint old English tea party, lovely game of cricket” aesthetic is not speaking to second generation black and Asian kids, whose experience of living in the UK is a little different…"

White, skinny, scared, covert "indie" racism....fear of blacks and those in sportswear...telling ya, it's fuckin RIFE round here...

The gist was, they’re the first successful UK rock band to have a black singer since Thin Lizzy.

Click to expand...

Skunk Anansie to thread.

The writer vaguely touched upon the idea of cultural stereotypes, and how it’s still very unusual to associate someone black with guitar-driven music

Click to expand...

The ghost of Jimi Hendrix to thread.

Noah Baby Food said:

hahahaha...damn straight! I wholeheartedly agree!

On a related...have a look at this "opinion piece" I had published in last month Leeds music magazine Sandman:

"Did anyone see the piece in the Guardian a few weeks ago about Bloc Party? The gist was, they’re the first successful UK rock band to have a black singer since Thin Lizzy.

Click to expand...

God that pisses me off.

Why is it that any Irish musician/writer/actor/athlete etc who becomes even vaguely successful automatically becomes a citizen of the UK or the 'British isles' ?

yeah i hate thin lizzy and have no desire to "claim" them or whatever,but you're right,its a really annoying habit thats prevalent all across the british media...

its not unusual to associate black people with guitar driven music!!!!!

jesus fcking christ i'm so fed up with divisive fucking stereotypes, bullshit, covert racisim snobbery and fear parading as analysis, things are much better from the ground where i stand
and cloudead are incredibly annoying too.

mms...not sure what to make of that. what do you think of my article? i'm not sure whether that was critical or not...

...i was saying there is a massive division in youth/music culture at the moment, some really lame stereotypes, especially where I live, and it's fuckin depressing. can't tell whether you're cussing my article or agree with it...

Noah Baby Food said:

mms...not sure what to make of that. what do you think of my article? i'm not sure
whether that was critical or not...

...i was saying there is a massive division in youth/music culture at the moment, some really lame stereotypes, especially where I live, and it's fuckin depressing. can't tell whether you're cussing my article or agree with it...

Click to expand...

your article was fine, but quite honestly those divisions dont exist within my circles and social life to a great degree, and cloudead and the bloc party have fuck all to do with anything, i know those things exist in other places though,
people put up all sorts of levels of what is cool or uncool when they are young, i know when my sister lived in ipswich there was loads of that bullshit going on. Open mindedness and individuality being about a slim line of purchasing choices, pubs and piercings, a smug close minded, nowheresville, vacuum packed in a smalltown, but those things happen along lots of different lines.

but the more those things are perpetuated, exploited and marketed, the more differences are created the more stupid smallminded and dead end peoples lives, friendships and experiences get, so fuck all that cos it's worthless.
on the reading thing i think 50 cent is a bit of a big man and those reading people wanted to test his mettle a bit, he was on at the wrong time and yep he is associated with hollywood hip hop, r and b etc, but that is more to do with youth tribes, the lines those things work along are complicated and odd, taste is group decision.

I know, it's retarded. The mag I wrote it for is a free thing distributed in Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Hull and other places, with a predominantly "indie" readership. I've written a lot of stuff for "indie-type" mags in Leeds, trying to get the readers to maybe take a chance and listen to grime, ghetto tech, or even just to question their ideas. Feel like I'm wasting my breath sometimes but hey. Leeds is so segregated musically it's infuriating - was a recent piece in the London Evening Standard calling it the "most musically backwards city in the UK". There's loads going on round here but crowds don't tend to want to hear anything unfamiliar...

Noah Baby Food said:

I know, it's retarded. The mag I wrote it for is a free thing distributed in Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Hull and other places, with a predominantly "indie" readership. I've written a lot of stuff for "indie-type" mags in Leeds, trying to get the readers to maybe take a chance and listen to grime, ghetto tech, or even just to question their ideas. Feel like I'm wasting my breath sometimes but hey. Leeds is so segregated musically it's infuriating - was a recent piece in the London Evening Standard calling it the "most musically backwards city in the UK". There's loads going on round here but crowds don't tend to want to hear anything unfamiliar...

Click to expand...

just write about stuff you really love with real enthusiasim and you'll be fine i think, people not wanting to hear anything unfamiliar is the way alot of things are, or alot of people seem to need it fed to them the right way with full blanket thumbs up from the machines they read , the places they go and their peers, etc else they attach little value to it.

seen! brrrap.

haha my negative review is suspiciously absent!

Ask Chuck D what he thinks about Elvis.

Click to expand...

I'll rather ask BB King, Bo Diddley ("my white brother"), Ike Turner ("Rocket 88" might or might not be the first Rock&Roll record ), Howlin' Wolf ("he started from the blues, he made his pull from the blues"), Little Richard etc about Elvis.

The "Elvis stole black music"-line from Chuck D did make some good headlines,
but Chuck later backtracked saying he used "Elvis" in figurative speech.

A speech made decades after the fact and from a "safe position";
I consider a Public Enemy commenting on Elvis to his fans
as predictable as Chris Martin of Coldplay "attacking" record label shareholders.
They are both just cosying up to their own herd.

Elvis and early Rock'n'Roll is much more complex than "Elvis stole it" -
and Chuck D knows this (if he is this great librarian).

A binary choice is given "Elvis: putting his hand in the black mans pocket
or gospel-loving whitethrash made good?"
- the one thing which always goes down well with Americans, "good or evil"
you are either for us or against us etc . When the world is complex - give the people a binary choice
to make it simple for them: and make one part really "evil" so it's easy to choose.

So easy that in fact you are not making your own judgement - you just think you are.

I don't really care what Chuck D thinks about Elvis or even about
Elvis himself.

But it makes more sense to listen to the older statesmen of gospel, blues
and rock on Elvis. From what I've seen and read it's almost universally good
- not in some sort of "Duran Duran"-revisionst way - but because the man was unique and a
force for good.

Taking history lessons on Elvis and the birth of rock from Chuck D is like
listening to the fools on "I love 1982" go on about how great Michael Jackson
was then - when they weren't even born at the time.

(for the record: I've got twice as many records by Public Enemy as by Elvis: two is the magic number).

Ness Rowlah said:

A binary choice is given "Elvis: putting his hand in the black mans pocket
or gospel-loving whitethrash made good?"
- the one thing which always goes down well with Americans, "good or evil"
you are either for us or against us etc . When the world is complex - give the people a binary choice
to make it simple for them: and make one part really "evil" so it's easy to choose.

Click to expand...

Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. Ewan McGregor told me last night, just after Hayden Christensen said "If you're not with me, you're my enemy."

Anyway, great call Ness. The race thing seems to come up a fair amount on here, and obviously it can only be approached in massive generalisations...

Anyway, I don't find those cLOUDDEAD reviews any less waffly or shite than what I've read in the Wire in recent years or NME in the early 90s. Aren't those supposed to be great publications?

Which is to say most of those reviews looked to be rubbish, but there were some I found helpful.