vinyl purists: you are boring. please stop.

[massrock]

Authenticity!

Rockism!

Tits!

Some of the greatest pioneering DJs were playing stuff off reel-to-reels, doing their own edits, cassettes, drum machines, synths, samplers, effects. There is no such thing as purism in DJing, it just doesn't matter. It's a totally ARTicifial ARTform. Heck, music doesn't even exist, it's an illusion. And doubly so with DJ'd music. It's a recreation from multiple sources.

So, in some ways I agree with zhao, in others I don't.

The controversy is fun though, even if it's also totally artificial.

I liked the mix Martyn did for Skream's show ages ago.

 

[Slothrop]

Ha ha, I was thinking about that. (Edit - the marshall macluhan comment.)

Actually, I have seen quite a bit of vinyl purism in the dubstep scene (watch dubstep forum for a week or so and someone's bound to start a thread about it), and it does my head in a bit. Particularly people who say that digital DJs are 'boring to watch'. I mean, if the most exciting part of your night out is seeing a man put records on a turntable then you're going to the wrong clubs. Also the sound quality argument, as if the fundamental problem with most dubstep nights is the small difference in sound between 320 / lossless / vinyl.

The cult of authenticity in dance music is kind of an interesting one, actually. It says something for the resilience of the idea that having got beyond the idea that synths are soulless and not 'real instruments', people immediately set to constructing the idea that digital synths or software synths are soulless and not 'real instruments' - or that having got past the idea that a live band is 'real' and a DJ is inauthentic, we get the idea that mixing vinyl is 'real' and mixing digitally is inauthentic.

It's quite hard to see a basis for this that's more nuanced the obvious idea that people like to make themselves feel superior by arbitrarily defining what they do to be authentic, or that people feel alarmed that the skills they've worked at developing might become obsolete unless they stick up for them against newfangeld whatever. But it seems deeper and more tenacious than that...

 

[massrock]

Zhao, wrt Martyn you seem to be arguing against artificial notions of authenticity. But then with the sculpture examples you are arguing for conceptual purity or something. I mean the aspects of those works you draw attention to operate essentially on the conceptual level. But, how much is DJing like conceptual art? I suppose it can be, if you want, if that's how you approach it - but I think most of the time with music for dancing to it's more about an immediate connection with the sound. Would you agree? I suppose 'concepts' can easily creep in there, but that's usually after the fact, and if they get involved in the music making it's still not necessarily relevant to the experience of the 'audience'. Do you throw high concepts at your audience before you play? Do you need to ? Oh whatever...

 

[zhao]

Zhao you're a nice guy but it does seem like you start threads, like this in order to stir up nothing but you're own sense of courage in victimhood sometimes, boost your me against the world mentality, which gets a bit testing for everyone else, who are 'against you', when they're not really they're just trying to work out what it is thats going on.
Also this is a forum, it amounts to words read and responded to by a few people, maybe it would be more positive to take your ideas an words into an arena where they can be developed and tested?

If you go to the aids thread where you posited loads of your ideas, very positive ideas, and very hopeful ideas, you cite a video you found on the internet as evidence to back them up when they didn't back them up, they were interesting ideas, and you were kind of evangelical for them, as if they were true, when they were your ideas, that weren't even backed up by the evidence from someone else you cited to back them up. You do this sort of thing alot, it's doesn't come across as a display of intense emotion and strong beliefs, it's comes across as a display of vanity.
I'm sure it's not done with any harm as you are a nice fellow, but it doesn't add up, maybe if you have some strong convictions it would be a good idea to build them and test them outside a forum, where there seems to be a regular pattern to what happens when you do put your ideas forward.

even before reading the above revised and much more constructive criticism (which leaves out the word "troll"), i was going to concede to your accusation of vanity, which i do openly indulge in a bit of, perhaps more than some others. but this does not tarnish my points w/r/t either the roots of modern dance music or the honesty and fitness to purpose (or lack thereof) involved in playing it. your other procedural advice are appreciated and i will keep them in mind. thanks.

 

[zhao]

Zhao, wrt Martyn you seem to be arguing against artificial notions of authenticity. But then with the sculpture examples you are arguing for conceptual purity or something. I mean the aspects of those works you draw attention to operate essentially on the conceptual level. But, how much is DJing like conceptual art? I suppose it can be, if you want, if that's how you approach it - but I think most of the time with music for dancing to it's more about an immediate connection with the sound. Would you agree? I suppose 'concepts' can easily creep in there, but that's usually after the fact, and if they get involved in the music making it's still not necessarily relevant to the experience of the 'audience'. Do you throw high concepts at your audience before you play? Do you need to ? Oh whatever...

my problem with what Martyn said is not that he raised the "honesty" question at all, but that he got it wrong, and falsely attributes honesty to a studio recording which is done "live".

and like i said, no i don't think dance music functions in the same way as art (i don't think those 2 pieces i cited are very "conceptual"... at least not the Tara Donovan), but i do think a certain rigorousness and "honesty" in the process and presentation lends power, elegance, and beauty to any creative work.

 

[zhao]

slothrop: totally.

 

[zhao]

John Fahey maybe?

no... did he use electric guitar at all? i mean that lesser known guy... Sandy Bull (just looked it up).

sorry to have mentioned McLuhan...

 

[massrock]

I don't think English is Martyn's first language though so maybe honesty wasn't quite the right word.

I agree that it would be better if the audio from Marclay's piece came from the tape, but you pretty much need to 'know' that for it to make a difference in perception. Same with how the toothpicks are stuck. So that's why I say those aspects operate at the conceptual level. Electronic music is so ARTificial that most of the time the answers to those questions are built in. Half the instruments don't exist, time is bent, reverberant spaces are invented, volume relationships are distorted. Anything is possible, that's why we love it.

Anyway I do think the DJ (Martyn) was in this case simply expressing a personal preference wrt a particular project. No biggy.

 

[mms]

I don't think English is Martyn's first language though so maybe honesty wasn't quite the right word.

yeah i think you could be right too, overall, regardless of the tools he's done it with, it's a pretty great mix, a bit too 4 / 4 in places, for me techno at it's best is pretty funky, some of the selections are a wee bit dry but it's a good mix, i really like the 2562 track, i bought his album hoping there was more like that but that's the only track in there of that type. He's also not a vinyl purist, i've seen him dj at fwd with a laptop.

 

[massrock]

my problem with what Martyn said is not that he raised the "honesty" question at all, but that he got it wrong, and falsely attributes honesty to a studio recording which is done "live".

and like i said, no i don't think dance music functions in the same way as art (i don't think those 2 pieces i cited are very "conceptual"... at least not the Tara Donovan), but i do think a certain rigorousness and "honesty" in the process and presentation lends power, elegance, and beauty to any creative work.

Yeah, but surely defining parameters such as 'i will just use vinyl and do the mix 'live' with no edits' is one way to achieve that? Forgetting about 'honesty' (whatever that means in this context), it's conceptually neat, and more importantly is presenting things in the way he chooses, which presumably is his choice.

 

[zhao]

I agree that it would be better if the audio from Marclay's piece came from the tape, but you pretty much need to 'know' that for it to make a difference in perception. Same with how the toothpicks are stuck. So that's why I say those aspects operate at the conceptual level. Electronic music is so ARTificial that most of the time the answers to those questions are built in. Half the instruments don't exist, time is bent, reverberant spaces are invented, volume relationships are distorted. Anything is possible, that's why we love it.

and art which requires the viewer to read a page or more of text laid out neatly to the side in order to understand it has its own problems... you are right that electronic music, at least seemingly, does away with many traditional notions of purity and integrity... that's one of the reasons i am of the "whatever works" school.

 

[FairiesWearBoots]

that's one of the reasons i am of the "whatever works" school.

In that case, vinyl mixing worked for Martyn, on this particular mix - that's it surely??

He wasnt baiting digital DJ's as he uses that format himself also

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I don't care about vinyl vs. whatever, which is beyond stupid. however - why many people find Zhao ludicrous, in a nutshell:

the impulse to SHAKE your booty did not come from Japanese Keyboard manufacturers, and it did not come from the precision engineering of the Swiss.

it came from the abject POVERTY of the ghettos, it came from poor black people finding hope where there is no hope, it came from jazz, it came from gospel, it came from the pissed on and the forgotten: the African American experience.

am i an unlikely spokesperson for this? maybe. but the truth is the truth, and i pity those misguided souls who have been led astray from it.

yes, an "unlikely" spokesperson. fetishization, evangelizing, sweeping & reductionary half-truths (that are far less interesting than whatever the real story was, inevitably), it's all there in a few short, sweet sentences. then a few posts down there's a half-serious claim that all techno comes from an Elder Charles Beck song from the 30s. it's like self-parody, but completely unaware.

 

[hint]

i am of the "whatever works" school.

I'm not so sure about that Zhao.

I'm inevitably wrong in coming to this conclusion, but you come across as having very definite ideas about what is and is not acceptable procedure in the field of studio recordings.

 

[zhao]

Padraig, those things needed to be said, in opposition to the falsehood that "Techno came from Euro Synth".

if it was said in an abbreviated, over simplified, truncated, generalized, cliche ridden, less than ideal fashion, especially given the time i had that day, then so be it.

 

[zhao]

one of the real underlying issues is that many seem invested in the idea that racist and neo-colonial attitudes do not or no longer shape world-views in our progressive, educated liberal environment - (see the Black Athena argument i had with Droid concerning whether most Europeans know about the African and Asian roots of Western Civilization) -- and i am ridiculed and get accused of "inventing straw men" when i bring up these issues.

i am no historian or scholar, by any stretch of those words, but i will continue to call what i perceive to be a spade a spade. the "straw men" i "invent" are very much real and alive in the world today, and no amount of ridicule or denial can change that.

Padraig, you are something of an anti-establishment, anti-colonialist anarchist, right? and claim to be a much more advanced thinker than me, which is probably likely, as i have no degree in political science, anthropology, and make no pretense to having expertise in any of these subjects -- so why don't you give better, more interesting, more complete and accurate accounts of the issues that i so incompetently talk about? for the issues themselves are legitimate areas of discussion, no? why don't you do the subjects justice, and show me where my simplistic views are lacking -- instead of time and again attacking my character?

 

[Tentative Andy]

ZHAO: conspiracy or reality?

Does he really exist, or is he merely a script, combining all the best of pompous message-board rubbish, generated to anger and frustrate us?

I think the public deserves to know.

 

[mms]

Padraig, those things needed to be said, in opposition to the falsehood that "Techno came from Euro Synth".

if it was said in an abbreviated, over simplified, truncated, generalized, cliche ridden, less than ideal fashion, especially given the time i had that day, then so be it.

no one said techno came from euro synth at least get the one quote that got you riled
'Wasn't Detroit techno largely inspired by European synth pop/kraftwerk?' right,

instead of wrongly quoting and then saying people are racists, that's a very serious thing to say about something you've misquoted. maybe you ought to try taking people up on their colonial and racist beliefs outside the confines of a friendly message board where people constantly spend their time trying to argue sensibly with you.

 

[zhao]

i did not say anyone on here is racist.

i said many on here would like to believe that racist notions do not shape our reality as much as i think they do.

please do not confuse these obviously different things.

 

[mms]

i did not say anyone on here is racist.

i said many on here would like to believe that racist notions do not shape our reality as much as i think they do.

please do not confuse these obviously different things.

so people are not self aware and are unwittingly racist on this board?

examples please?

is this in comparison to you for example, you wrote on here about black athena etc and you're an unlikely spokesman for the truth behind the 'techno was largely inspired by european synth/ kraftwerk myth?

have you ever thought of doing say an m.a. or writing for a newspaper about these things?