Wax Poetics

Woebot

Well-known member
has anyone else come across this magazine?

i've been picking it up but feel pretty ambivalently about it.

ok so it has a pretty clear remit, and one shouldnt necessarily attack things that have a clear remit. its sort of like attacking the wire innit? however so tightly conflated are a love of soul/funk/hiphop/brazilian_music/ smattering_of_reggae (the "warm canon") equated with obsessive record collecting that i half want stick my hand up and be counted as dissenter and half want to scream with irritation. all these fucking anecdotes about going back to old black dudes houses, and finding "mint condition" funk seven inches in boxes buried beneath superceded household goods. they're entertaining first time round but......

i am guilty of finding the whole "crate-digging" ethos as inscribed in templates of wax so horrifically tedious. maybe more than that the encoded charicactural stereotype is just not one i'll buy into namely: the sturdily masculine, distinctly gruesome, detente foundered on "respect for hip-hop" that unites black and white in sycophancy. and what are they not celebrating? they're not celebrating anything made after 1980 unless its Hip-Hop and then after the mid-nineties theyre not going to root for anything unless its "post-Premier" so Madlib gets ridiculous props (can we not all agree that the MF Doom LP is EXTREMELY MEDIOCRE?) you'll never find even the most grudging thing about modern HipHop, or modern Dancehall etc. its a very silly position. the least "wax poetical" thing i've seen in there was Phil Sherbernes oddball Turntabalist piece (big up yerself Phil)

however, griping aside, and complaining about it is so screamingly obvious, perhaps better to just submit grudgingly, there is some cool stuff in there. the depths of obscurity plumbed (often leading up to a tableau of meeting "said underground legend" in a cafe, ok i couldnt resist one more jab) are pretty impressive. and the mingering mike thing was cool wunnit. google "mingering mike"
 

hint

party record with a siren
I bought the first 3 or 4 and initially it seemed to be The Future - long articles about interesting topics and artists, rather than a few paragraphs about whatever the promo companies were hassling the journos to cover that month. it was about music rather than releases if you see what I mean.

the interview with scotty hard was great - finding out that these crews would turn up at the studio with an old funk track on vinyl, give it to the engineer and say "make a beat from that".

but it quickly became very dry:

wax poetics: so what can you tell me about this record? *holds up super rare 1972 7"*
old producer guy: well... geez... I don't remember much. the bassist was a nice guy.
wax poetics: that's great. how about this one? *holds up never-released 1971 7" promo*
old producer guy: err... not sure I remember that one.... sounds alright... think we had beef stew that day.

and so on.

the final straw for me was the interview with premier. I thought "great - perhaps they're going to really talk to him and find something interesting to write about". instead they just ended up with a bunch of tired old primo soundbites:

"kids today need to know their hip hop history"
"I used to skip lunch to buy 12"s - no-one does that anymore"
"It used to be all about the DJ. now it's all about the MC"

so I stopped buying it.

like you say - I imagine it's a great read for those who see crate digging as something noble and romantic, but I've never been that way inclined. perhaps it was unreasonable of me to expect to like the mag more than I did.
 
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dubplatestyle

Well-known member
the "mingering mike" thing was kind of amazing. tho until i read the article i never would have guessed he was a grown man. (not trying to be offenseive...i did they same thing as a kid, and i'm just amazed at the tenacity of the man to continue on for so long.)
 

Chef Napalm

Lost in the Supermarket
WOEBOT said:
the least "wax poetical" thing i've seen in there was Phil Sherbernes oddball Turntabalist piece (big up yerself Phil)
Yes... I remember him mentioning it in his blog, but I don't remember reading it. Can't find it on-line anywhere. Anybody got a link?
 
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