Racists and rock festivals

mos dan said:

And after the undertones of the Jay-Z and Noel thing

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He's just jealous of the way I roll.

Is the BNP's one called Love Music Love Racism?

*books Cradle Of Filth for next Dirty Canvas*

mos dan said:

FWIW I think you could argue that rock's hatred/contempt/fear of hip-hop stems in part from resentment at its success; the fact that since the 80s black musicians - thinking more of america, but it applies here - have succeeded in dominating the charts. Albeit of course the usual caveats about middle aged white men still pulling the strings apply.

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I think it's also to do with fierce tribalism - wrongheaded ideas about somebody else invading "your" turf. Different "values", all that shit. People in a student union bar slagging each other off for the band t-shirts they are wearing cos they form such a crucial part of their identities...

Reading festival in the late 80s/early 90s was awash with conflict between say, rockers and Inspiral Carpet fans. There was also a general culture of chucking things at the stage... plus ca change.

funny, I was back in fron of the Police and authorities organising this east end street festival again and their message has slightly modified

'no rap...and no heavy metal'.

the rap thing kept coming up repeatedly though and even the Council's arts officer (who's job it is to promote cultutal activity in Tower Hamlets) was of the view that anything involving rap should be avoided at all costs

john eden said:

I think it's also to do with fierce tribalism - wrongheaded ideas about somebody else invading "your" turf. Different "values", all that shit. People in a student union bar slagging each other off for the band t-shirts they are wearing cos they form such a crucial part of their identities...

Reading festival in the late 80s/early 90s was awash with conflict between say, rockers and Inspiral Carpet fans. There was also a general culture of chucking things at the stage... plus ca change.

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This is spot on. On personal level I actually think it's right and proper to take a stand against things on musical or cultural grounds. Different when it encounters a mob mentality of course but that's always the flip-side of collectivity.

Once at a rock/indie club I chucked some beer at a mate and he was deeply offended. I had to explain that in rock circles this was understood to be a manly expression of ROCK affection. You do that in a rave and people get all funny about it. Bloody conservatives.

mos dan said:

if football fans were to do the same they'd be banned for life. it's odd that acts of violence against a performer are okay in music. and if anything there's more of a defensive/protective group mentality among football fans.

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It's odd that the security at that festival seemed to tolerate that behaviour with resigned amusement. Maybe they just knew that there were too many people and it would be impossible to determine who was chucking things. I don't think throwing things at the stage is acceptable at all, unless maybe you've been personally provoked by someone on it. Behave like that in a club venue, heck even raise your voice at someone these days, and you'll probably get yanked out.

I think one of the best DJ sets I ever saw was Alec Empire headlining the Beastie Boys ‘Hello Nasty’ tour at Brixton Academy. What made it so beautiful was the stark contrast of his set, which immediately took place after some Technics DJ competition style wankery. I remember him coming on and playing some terribly fierce noise record that wound up the Hip-Hop purists. Anyhow too cut a long story short they started hurling bottles at him, it was at this point I saw one of the greatest DJ moments of my life. He casually plugged the headphones into the mic line-in and started using it to cuss the crowd, whilst simultaneously mixing more noise music and ducking the steady slew of bottle showers. The sound of his voice was amazing and his ability to dodge whatever was thrown was quite frankly Kung Fu. I remember standing near Nic Endo who at the time was filming everything. Anyhow I had a major epiphany during that set.

bun-u said:

funny, I was back in fron of the Police and authorities organising this east end street festival again and their message has slightly modified

'no rap...and no heavy metal'.

the rap thing kept coming up repeatedly though and even the Council's arts officer (who's job it is to promote cultutal activity in Tower Hamlets) was of the view that anything involving rap should be avoided at all costs

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i hate to say it but every free festival ive been at with a local urban music stage has ended up in a ruck

mos dan said:

'Rise' and the fall of anti-racism

http://www.boriswatch.co.uk/2008/06/15/rise-and-fall-of-anti-racism/



FWIW I think you could argue that rock's hatred/contempt/fear of hip-hop stems in part from resentment at its success; the fact that since the 80s black musicians - thinking more of america, but it applies here - have succeeded in dominating the charts. Albeit of course the usual caveats about middle aged white men still pulling the strings apply.

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I think a lot of rock/metal fans see themselves as operating outside of the mainstream, or in opposition to it- hence hilarious ''you laugh at me because i'm different, i laugh at you because YOU'RE ALL THE SAME'' t-shirts and a general attitude of hatred and contempt towards pop stars and, yes, hip-hop stars (of a certain kind). To be honest I think there are quite a few hip-hop acts that wouldn't get bottled at Reading and maybe not even at Download- The Roots, Jurassic 5 etc.

50 Cent got bottled at least partly because of the image he projects of himself (gangster, obsessed with making money, shooting people, treating women like shit etc.) seeming to come into conflict with how rock fans see themselves (anti-establishment, anti-profit etc etc.) Funnily enough I can't imagine Jay-Z getting bottled at Reading (maybe because of the Linkin Park connection?), though.

Tribalism is definitely another element- 50 Cent also got bottled because he seemingly represents mainstream pop culture. I remember going to Deconstruction years ago (a ''punk'' festival, where most of the acts sounded like New Found Glory i.e. not remotely punk at all) and Lost Prophets got showered in piss bottles because they were perceived as not being ''punk'' and therefore not belonging there.

On the other hand, sometimes I think people are just perceived as being shit. I remember having a good chuckle at Good Charlotte getting bottled at another Reading, and you'd have thought they would go down a storm, wouldn't you? I suppose they are perceived, again, as an MTV version of punk i.e. fake and corporate. But it must partly have been down to the fact that people think they are shit.

As for racism- I don't think that's necessarily a huge motivating factor behind this. There's bound to be a minority of idiots in a festival crowd that big and that volatile, especially at a festival dedicated to music that is, at times, massively aggressive and committed causing offence. The person who threw that banana was probably a teenager with a pea for a brain.

Some people just hate rap music, it rubs them the wrong way. They don't like the attitude in it, they don't like the posturing, they don't understand it... I don't think Noel Gallagher was being racist with the whole Jay-Z thing, I just think he's musically small minded.

ascoltare said:

I think one of the best DJ sets I ever saw was Alec Empire headlining the Beastie Boys ‘Hello Nasty’ tour at Brixton Academy. What made it so beautiful was the stark contrast of his set, which immediately took place after some Technics DJ competition style wankery. I remember him coming on and playing some terribly fierce noise record that wound up the Hip-Hop purists. Anyhow too cut a long story short they started hurling bottles at him, it was at this point I saw one of the greatest DJ moments of my life. He casually plugged the headphones into the mic line-in and started using it to cuss the crowd, whilst simultaneously mixing more noise music and ducking the steady slew of bottle showers. The sound of his voice was amazing and his ability to dodge whatever was thrown was quite frankly Kung Fu. I remember standing near Nic Endo who at the time was filming everything. Anyhow I had a major epiphany during that set.

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sorry, but if they were at a beasties gig in the first place, they weren't hip-hop purists

stelfox said:

sorry, but if they were at a beasties gig in the first place, they weren't hip-hop purists

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yeah possibly. although at the time i remember the audience had significantly changed once the the beasties departed and the technics dj display sets took precedent. i couldn't really think of an adequate way to describe these imperialistic beat head monkeys. i still don't understand how alec empire managed to muscle his way through such a debacle. i like to think it was inspired genius executed by the promoter.

am i the only one who thinks shit like this is super meta absurd/retarded because rock music is so obviously of african american origin?

like ignorant techno shit heads i've encountered who say "i don't like african music". what? the place where the drum was invented, you don't like their music?

zhao said:

am i the only one who thinks shit like this is super meta absurd/retarded because rock music is so obviously of african american origin?

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But people don't really give a shit about its origins. Music has separated along predominantly racial lines down the years and telling a crowd of metal fans that they and Bizzle have shared roots is about as productive as telling a crowd of African-Americans they should be into Babyshambles because they're playing black music.

And simply not liking something hardly makes you 'ignorant', for God's sake.

nice panda Mr T

ascoltare said:

yeah possibly. although at the time i remember the audience had significantly changed once the the beasties departed and the technics dj display sets took precedent. i couldn't really think of an adequate way to describe these imperialistic beat head monkeys. i still don't understand how alec empire managed to muscle his way through such a debacle. i like to think it was inspired genius executed by the promoter.

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alec was on the beasties label at the time - atari teenage riot anyway so it's not a huge step to see him support them.

it's not really as simple as saying rock music is of african american origin so therefore people that don't like hip hop are fools or whatever at all is it?
it's evident that that isn't particularly true, rock music is a combination of many things from lots of different backgrounds, not just the blues, also the history of rock and rocks subcultural formation is huge and pluralistic so telling someone that they should like something because many years ago it adopted stylistic traits of something african american music is weird.