Cultural Cowardice

[Mr. Tea]

Led Zep do James Brown-like and reggae-ish things on Houses of the Holy (the admittedly horrid "D'Yer Maker" complete with music-hall joke title)

Yeah, Jones and Bonham were proper soul and motown heads right from the start, so doing Brownoid funk in the mid-70s ('Trampled Underfoot' is easily in their top few songs for my money) was very much a natural progression rather than any sort of bandwagon-jumping.

And it's kind of tangential because I have no idea how popular jazz still was with contemporary black audiences ca. 1970, but there's a ton of jazz influences in early Black Sabbath, especially the first two albums.

I see padraig's already mentioned Bowie's soul/funk phase.

 

[luka]

i still dont understand. what direction does it take the conversation in? what does he want to talk about? i probably wont mind talking about it if i can work out what it is.

 

[pattycakes_]

jesus, step away from a thread at your peril here nowadays. was wanting to reply to some stuff but it's 8 pages back!

good to see this place buzzing again

 

[luka]

jesus, step away from a thread at your peril here nowadays. was wanting to reply to some stuff but it's 8 pages back!

good to see this place buzzing again

reply anyway! im just watching the film 'avatar'
we can let the threads get a bit tangled.

 

[luka]

avatar was good. where's the materialists? let's do materialism now. it's your turn.

 

[pattycakes_]

we can let the threads get a bit tangled.

i actually thought i was in the good taste doesn't exist thread when i posted pages back. luckily it was relevant enough in here too

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

is the argument that art and ideas are made of atoms not out of thought-stuff?

that's part of it - they're made out of both simultaneously, and knowing them is complete without both sides

the other, related thing I was talking about - no human activity is separate of interaction with power structures

think about cultural production - it requires innate talent of some kind, but also requires access to education, time, means of production, channels of distribution

you're ascribing agency to subcultures - OK. they're still made up of people, whose decisions are shaped by their relation to power structures.

a painting, a book, a record - in one way it exists in the ether (thought-stuff) as creation tempered by the creator's influence - but at the same time it exists as the end product of a series of material circumstances

when barty asks "what are the mechanics" I think - what are those circumstances - what tangible conditions influenced these changes

you guys seem more interested in that emotional-psychological gestalt side - which is also important, for sure

I just think they're inseparable

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the final piece - and again I've just been thinking aloud as I go, these aren't polished thoughts - was noticing a pattern in the examples of possible cowardice offered

specifically

largely history of (mostly) white people choosing to exercise their cultural capital, or not, and/or consumers deciding to buy the resulting cultural output, or not

I'm not trying to ascribe motives or call anyone's choices illegitimate - blissblogger's post on tradition of British rockstar fascination with black musics is good

in fact I think cowardice may be the wrong word here b/c it has those implicit connotations - retreat is better b/c it describes an action without necessarily implying motives

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I swear I'm not trying to be abstruse - trying to be clear as I can here

maybe it would actually help if I knew more jargon

I wasn't thinking of Foucault but third is absolutely right that's the name that immediately comes to mind

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

as for where is it supposed to take the conversation, shit, I don't know. I don't think that way. I just try engage and it goes where it goes.

I do think there's really something in exploring cultural bravery in relation to cultural capital and power structures and all that but if people are interested in talking about that, that's cool

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

also my feeling is we should avoid getting bogged down in schoolground debates over which acts are cowardly

ya for sure

just trying to engage with barty's examples

not about whether things are cowardly or not but exploring what makes them so - means of entry to exploring the original topic

(btw the disco thing was undoubtedly stupid but it was something we had to work out and we did and now we're all chums again; the lesson is that Larry Levan unites everyone)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

there's a ton of jazz influences in early Black Sabbath, especially the first two albums

for real? do you know/have links to specifics - shapes, chord progressions, structures? I do know Bill Ward has a jazz background.

not denying it at all, just have listened to those records many times and never heard that. blues of course, Iommi railing those minor pentatonics.

I guess thinking on it that bit in Electric Funeral where it spazzes out is kinda jazz but that's all I can think of off the top.

 

[Mr. Tea]

for real? do you know/have links to specifics - shapes, chord progressions, structures? I do know Bill Ward has a jazz background.

Certainly the first minute here:


I think Ward was the biggest jazz fan (as you say) so maybe you can hear it most strongly in the drums, I dunno.

But also 'The Warning', maybe? I know it's a cover but I don't the original.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

hear it most strongly in the drums, I dunno

for sure the drums, yeah. good look.

 

[luka]

that's part of it - they're made out of both simultaneously, and knowing them is complete without both sides

the other, related thing I was talking about - no human activity is separate of interaction with power structures

think about cultural production - it requires innate talent of some kind, but also requires access to education, time, means of production, channels of distribution

you're ascribing agency to subcultures - OK. they're still made up of people, whose decisions are shaped by their relation to power structures.

a painting, a book, a record - in one way it exists in the ether (thought-stuff) as creation tempered by the creator's influence - but at the same time it exists as the end product of a series of material circumstances

when barty asks "what are the mechanics" I think - what are those circumstances - what tangible conditions influenced these changes

you guys seem more interested in that emotional-psychological gestalt side - which is also important, for sure

I just think they're inseparable

me and barty talk about economics a fair bit. especially 'uni grime.' the university gig circuit which offered a economic lifeline to artists while at the same time changed the nature of the music.

we're very interested in that stuff. i think it's why london tends to operate on a three year generational cycle(or thereabouts) with genres turning over quite quickly.

you should talk about it. im not hostile to that at all.

 

[luka]

my thread about gatekeepers was all about success as a social circle and that the drawbridge tends to come up as a certain number deemed to be sustainable is reached. it hapened with jungle, garage and grime, again, part of why the 3 year cycle exists as the young have no way to break into existing scenes and create their own partly as a response to the lockout.

 

[luka]

i think a lot about this kind of stuff. we can 100% talk more about it. give us what you got? show us your workings and let's get into it.

 

[version]

'uni grime.' the university gig circuit which offered a economic lifeline to artists while at the same time changed the nature of the music.

The episode of Atlanta where they get booked to play the college campus springs to mind.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

especially 'uni grime.' the university gig circuit which offered a economic lifeline to artists while at the same time changed the nature of the music.

ya that seems like a very good example

an obvious one that droid, eden etc could really drop the expert knowledge on would be the interrelation between reggae and its historical structures of production and distribution

one specific example I could mention - defaulting to my strength of knowledge - is Anglo-American hardcore almost dying out in the mid-80s. partly gestalt - the initial explosion of energy succumbing to entropy - but also the first generation aging out and no understanding at that time that hardcore itself would go. so a bunch of the bands that didn't break up went cock rock, or goth, or whatever, so there's a bunch of iconically terrible LPs by legendary bands from that era, and then hardcore came roaring back with a new generation and those terrible records have become a kind of hilarious artifact - fittingly Discharge's fullon glam metal LP is the most iconic of them all - from that era.

one thing is this does tend to require either specialist knowledge or research, but I mean we could investigate them case by case. I don't think dissensus has the deep collective record nerd knowledge it had back in the day but still pretty good.

 

[sadmanbarty]

me and barty talk about economics a fair bit. especially 'uni grime.'

what needs to be done to a music or culture to make it appeal to students?

what had to happen to grime for it to become palatable to louie and sophie?

how is jack law involved?