A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions (or random events that changed music)

[Diggedy Derek]

Top thread

Some of these 'meeting someone at a gig' ones are slippery though - meeting new people in public by necessity has a random element to it, and we'll never know what might have happened if they didn't meet that person, and instead met someone else

I'm going to throw in Omar Souleyman's frantic banger "Leh Jani" becoming a massive YouTube hit and kicking of his worldwide career – a track that only ended up that speed because the tape duplication factories in Syria are so dirty, dusty and unreliable so it ended up pitched up ~16%.

[nomos]

There's the legend of the 1977 NYC blackout...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2..._catalyst.html

On July 13, 1977, lightning struck an electricity transmission line in New York City, causing the line’s automatic circuit breaker to kick in. The electricity from the affected line was diverted to another line. This was fairly normal, and everything was fine—until a second bolt of lightning struck. Electric lines started turning themselves off. As more and more lines failed, the whole system faltered. Eventually, the largest power generator in the area, known as Big Allis, shut down.

New York was in the middle of a citywide blackout—with power failing in all five boroughs—and pretty soon, things started to get tense. As Caz recalls, “The stores started to close. Like the local bodegas on each corner—we would hear the gates slamming down. It was like they knew what was happening, they knew what was going on, they was like, ‘We closing up now.’ ”

Caz also believes that the 1977 blackout may have accelerated the growing hip-hop movement, which was just beginning to put down roots in the Bronx. His theory: The looting that occurred during the blackout enabled people who couldn’t afford turntables and mixers to become DJs

[droid]

Ha. yes, thank you both.

Some of these 'meeting someone at a gig' ones are slippery though - meeting new people in public by necessity has a random element to it, and we'll never know what might have happened if they didn't meet that person, and instead met someone else

Yeah, I agree, what's more crucial would be the factors that led up to that gig happening.

[droid]

So much of this stuff is ungoogleable. Ive been combing through bios and books about music for stuff and wishing Id made more notes over the last 15 yrs of reading.

Im convinced there's something juicy to be had from Sun-Ra's undescended testicle.

[nomos]

Im convinced there's something juicy to be had from Sun-Ra's undescended testicle.

Whole worlds!

[Diggedy Derek]

There are several things that might have been crucial in the Sun Ra story – and I suppose the testicle could have been important in more than one way! Firstly, he seems to have had relatively little sexual intimacy in his life, and you could certainly read that as somehow connected with the whole "I did not come from this earth" thing. More prosaically, and I think maybe more importantly, I wonder how much his health issues and that chronic hernia problem might have created a desperate need for escape.

[Diggedy Derek]

Nomos – that DJ/looting one is a cracking theory!

[nomos]

There are several things that might have been crucial in the Sun Ra story – and I suppose the testicle could have been important in more than one way! Firstly, he seems to have had relatively little sexual intimacy in his life, and you could certainly read that as somehow connected with the whole "I did not come from this earth" thing. More prosaically, and I think maybe more importantly, I wonder how much his health issues and that chronic hernia problem might have created a desperate need for escape.

Yup. And isolationism, his army discharge, even reinforcement of his neoplatonist disgust with the physical body and admonitions against Arkestra members having sex. Then there was the insomnia. Lots of time to read and think.

[nomos]

The lightning/blackout story would have made for an excellent Bambaataa video.

[trza]

what about hurricanes or earthquakes?

[Sectionfive]

There's the legend of the 1977 NYC blackout...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2..._catalyst.html

As immortalised here http://boingboing.net/2012/01/17/bra...ly-tree-2.html

What else? Tom Moulton needing a promo cut on Friday evening but the engineer was all out of blank 7' so they put it on a 12' acetate.

[droid]

Nice one. I was just reading about that recently. Some potential with him I think.

[sadmanbarty]

The Dutch genre of bubbling began in 1988 when Moortje, a DJ from Curacao (one of the islands in the Dutch Antilles), accidentally played a track on a dancehall LP at 45 rpm instead of 33 in Club Voltage. Rather than booing and shouting the Dutch equivalent of Oi! It's all gone Pete Tong, mate", the crowd loved what they heard.

Inspired by this moment, Moortje started making beats with sped-up ragga vocal loops, percussion influenced by traditional Antillean tambu music and rave-esque synths.

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2008/nov/24/bubbling

[sadmanbarty]

The riff of 'sweet child of mine' was just a string skipping exercise slash used to warm up, but the band heard it in rehearsal and decided to make a song out of it.

pete thownshend's windmill came from seeing keith richards swinging his arms around to warm up and pete thinking it was a playing technique.

Hendrix burnt his guitar at moneterey to one up the who. the who had gone on before him (decided by a coin toss) and had already done the guitar smashing thing, so hendrix took it a stage further and set his guitar on fire.

Traffic congestion at woodstock meant that many of the artists didn't arrive on time meaning Ritchie havens, the opening act, had to go long. He had done every song in his repertoire but the following acts still hadn't arrived, so he improvised freedom, based on the traditional spiritual 'motherless child'

[sadmanbarty]

miles davis meeting and subsequently marrying betty mabry. She introduced him to the funk of sly stone and james brown as well as the hard rock of hendrix. These influences would come to define his 70's output.