Greeks

martin

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I've never been one for the old racism, but what is it about Greek people? I genuinely don't get them, the blokes' attitudes towards women are utterly vile, the women are the vainest on the planet, their sense of humour is utter bollocks and most of them wouldn't care if you were a convicted child-killer, as long as you've hit the great god SUCCESS. I state this after about 5 years' observation and having been there (as well as to their colony Cyprus - incidentally, most Greeks think Greek Cypriots are 'monkeys'.)

In fact, apart from maybe Xenakis, can anyone think of one decent musical thing to have come out of Greece?

Maybe the old philosophers and poets were OK, but I can't spend 5 minutes in Athens without praying for the bomb to drop
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Weird that you should say that. I would hate to generalise about any particular race of people in any way but I would say that all of the Greeks I've ever known have been abnormally friendly. Varying from people I know in London to people I've bought excellent Greek psyche sevens from on ebay they have always gone out of their way to be more than nice.
For Greek music check out the Olympians, Bluebirds or Persons in the psychedelic garage type vein and, er, can't think of too many Greek bands in other genres off the top of my head but there must be some.
 

martin

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I don't deny they're friendly, and I don't hate them. I've just never come across a group of people so utterly obsessed with status - if they've bought a new car, you'll never hear the bloody end of it. I'm interested as a lot of people love Greece and Cyprus, yet they're the places I've felt most pissed off and bored.
 
Oh come on.... I met lots of cool people in athens.
You just got to look in the right places.

The majority of people everywhere are pretty unappealing, most english people are small minded, selfish, sexist, racist etc etc.
that's just humans innit?
but cos we live in england we've had the chance too seek out ones we like and associate with them.


i reckon you should be embarrassed reading your post even if it's tongue-in-cheek.
 

martin

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Not remotely tongue-in-cheek. Have you actually spent a fair amount of time with them? There's some mercenary quality in the Greek psyche that takes a while to penetrate
 

D7_bohs

Well-known member
martin said:
There's some mercenary quality in the Greek psyche that takes a while to penetrate

nothing like as unbearable as the automatic condescension hard wired in the English psyche though
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
What about Aphrodite's Child and spin-offs? Vangelis and Demis Roussos? Chrisma/Krisma or do they count as Italian?
 

geto.blast

snap on rims
borderpolice said:
Evangelos O. Papathanassiou is quite popular with some (myselrf not among them), you may know him as Vangelis.

yeah he wrote a pompous track about burning wagons or something... but to quote stalin “The Pope? How many divisions has he got?”

NANA sold over 200 millions rekkids , that s up there with those four british dudes and elvis.

No greek artist can step up to NANA.
 
geto.blast said:
any other huge NxNx singers?

Luigi Nono's pretty big in the neo-classical/experimental world (dunno about his singing tho)...

My name in real life would fit yr premise, but then I'm quite small and I've never sang on record - I do sing idly from time to time tho, and used to in choirs and everything...horrah! I'm working on a karaoke version of an Avril Lavigne song to perform at me local pub...that'll be HUGE, trust me...
 

D84

Well-known member
Gee, Martin... You know, I actually thought the exact same thing about the English when I first visited London.

And yet... I'm still on this board talking to you.

There's some mercenary quality in the Greek psyche that takes a while to penetrate
Didn't the English invent/master Capitalism..?

And yes, some Greeks are shockingly racist and sexist, but like Edward says, you've probably fallen in with the wrong crowd and you could say the same thing about any nationality - except at least in Greece you can find a good meal cheaply and they have a better sense of hygene than the ah.... :)

Someone Greek once told me there's no such thing as a "pure" Greek - it's a mongrel "race" - and there's no such thing as a Greek aristocracy (that's a good thing).

I'd also like to add that there's never really been such a thing as a Greek Empire
(Alexander was Macedonian)

Re Greek musos: how about Fluxion from the Chain Reaction label?

I'm sure there are more Greek musos out there but with anglicized names. Cat Stevens?

I wish I could name them off the top of my head but parochial snobbery isn't a hobby of mine...
 

martin

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simon silverdollar said:
george michael had greek parents didn't he?

Ah yes, but he was fortunate enough to grow up in Burnt Oak, thus negating this psychic trauma. Similarly, despite the handicap of having Irish Catholic parents, a Burnt Oak upbringing saw me do OK in life

I just have to make one short point. Better hygeine? Er, I seem to remember everyone having to dump their used bogroll into plastic bins, surrounded by flies, because the sewers couldn't handle pulped shitrag.
 

dHarry

Well-known member
I didn't want to dignify the racist thrust of this thread with a response, but it's too typical of this board that Xenakis gets mentioned straight off and Mikis Theodorakis doesn't ;)

Zorba The Greek! Bouzoukis! Anthony Quinn! Up there with Ravel's Bolero and Lil Louis' French Kiss for sustained tension. Plus anti-fascist activism...
 
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