Woebot on funky house

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nomadologist

Guest
noel emits said:
I think I kind of agree with dubversion here. Funky house from what I can tell just seems to encompass lots of things I really don't like in music. That doesn't mean I'm against fun and exuberance and licks for the ladies. I'm prepared to change my mind if someone can send me some decent pills and cocaine for the weekend.
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send me your address and a money order for $350 dollars. i'll hook you up.

and i'll hook everyone else up for free if they lighten up and understand that, when it comes to big picture thinking and contextualizing your own obsessions, grime and dubstep are very very obscure. so obscure, in fact, that 99.9999999999% people outside of the U.K.--hell, outside of London--have no idea what it is.

house has been around since the glory days in Chicago/Detroit, it's here to stay, and everyone's heard it even if they couldn't identify it by name.

woebot is right, it seems to me.

from an american perspective, people from the U.K. seem to get awfully pious about grime and dubstep (i'm basing this from what i've noticed on the internet, of course), which only detracts from its appeal and any gritty "cred"--in the U.S., grime and dubstep are seen as sort of whimpier degraded forms of hip-hop, though admittedly that's not right either.

maybe "minimal" guys aren't rabid devotees, but i appreciate how they seem to care most about music on that abstract level of sonics, they seem content to go make it and do their drugs and have an experience that doesn't need any further justification, and doesn't have to make some bid to "greatness."
 
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Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Tyro said:
When you were ahem 'raving' were you so mashed up on 'disco biscuits' that you had no
understanding of what it was that you were listening to? Did you not get so exited by what you heard that you had to find out what it was called and who made it.Did you not want to buy it and discuss it with your friends to find out if there were more pieces of music that contained the same magical elements?In truth people have been obsessively dicussing the meaning of various music scenes way back before the 'golden age of rave'.Not just chin strokers and public schoolboys but a huge number of blue collar workers,living for the weekend and cutting up the dancefloor.Not only doing it to death,but also dicussing it to death!

By the way as you have made 125 posts on this forum are you a public schoolboy,a chin stroker or both? :rolleyes:
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Course mate, yes, I am a music obsessive, I like to document it, have written about it in print and on the web, I think about it too much, have scary levels of useless knowledge etc etc. People have been obsessively discussing music for ever, I agree with you. The point I was making (in a provocative and vitriolic way admittedly) was that all this malarkey can go too far and it becomes a bit "emperor's new clothes", know what I mean? We are talking about people going out and listening to a variety of different records in a club, which is (was) kinda standard. Just think it's funny how when certain respected blogger types say stuff many followers line up to agree. It DOES remind of The Emperor's New Clothes, soz. You gotta admit some of the discussions here get pretty funny and very self-important sometimes. Sometimes it takes a cheeky little scamp like me to shout "errr...IT'S JUST RAVING!".

There's nothing wrong with being either a "chinstroker" or a public schoolboy is there...just kicking in with the vitriol again. Although being a "public schoolboy stroker" is a different matter.

I would describe myself as a post-structuralist hauntologically-slanted mighty warrior.
 
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Tyro

The Kandy Tangerine Man
I would describe myself as a post-structuralist hauntologically-slanted mighty warrior.[/QUOTE]


I just had to look at a blog to find out what Hauntology means.You are such a cheeky devil! :D
Friday night is almost here.Can someone finally show me the way to the dancefloor?
 
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Tactics

BBP!
I said this once (and still believe it)

Noah Baby Food said:
I've read all this and I have to laugh really. I'm going to make myself unpopular here, but here goes (I always read this forum but rarely post anymore anyway, too much intellectual one-upmanship to be dealing with sometimes). There is SO MUCH navel gazing and theorising going on it's crazy
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it got ignored

I'm taking it as one of the subtle charms of the forum now :D

stelfox makes some consistent posts

nomadologist...at times your posts do come across with a kinda high and mighty superiority that I just ain't feelin...obviously my opinion doesn't count for nothing and doesn't matter but I'd thought just air that out...lol

carry on...lol
 
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Eric

Mr Moraigero
Yeah, I am also not with the theorizing but whatever, it's not done for me so fuck it

At base I am just a partygoer with a short attention span, thus wanting new sounds all the time and sponging off those here with more connections/free time to spend on this stuff (thanks!)

but I don't see that the theorizing gets us very far in understanding what is good, or even what we are looking for in music. beyond `i like this, and theory x, therefore this is part of x' is there really much happening? maybe I just dont get aesthetics in general.

anyway surely it is more fun to empty your mind to funky house than to create complex mental spiderwebs to dubstep?
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
Noah Baby Food said:
There is SO MUCH navel gazing and theorising going on it's crazy, and so much overimportance placed on the opinions of 'bloggers'.
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people respond to what woebot says, b/c

(1) he's got a massive readership, i.e., people actually read his blog, esp. people who frequent dissensus (he started dissensus)

(2) he's got his ear to the ground of london -- and so people like me who care about what goes on in london check woebot's reports -- i.e., woebot for me is like "our man" in london -- if he gets abducted or assassinated, we'll replace him with someone else

(3) the piece on funky house was entertaining, effectively written, timely and relevant

Noah Baby Food said:
What are we saying here about "funky house"? A scene where DJs play different styles of house-type records to an 'urban crowd'. I think there is a word for this, I think it's called "raving". When I started going out to raves in 1990 when I was 16 (yep, another 'old cunt'), before all the genres got defined and the 'cultural commentators' started earning a living out of divide-and-rule and picking the music to shreds, DJs played all different sorts of dance music, breaky stuff, acid stuff, fast hip-hop, garage, Italo, whatever. And the crowd didn't encompass many chin-strokers or public schoolboys. Thinking about it, I probably agree with Stelfox's last post there . . . .
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agreed. which is why "funky house," as discussed so far, is interesting, b/c it seems to be a reclamation of house in total by its original uk constituency, as stelfox says, rather than the development of a new modern sound that others can rip-off and big-up and sell as new clothes

i.e., there's nothing new to sell here other than a scene and a general djing approach -- things that cannot be replicated so easily elsewhere

Noah Baby Food said:
Most people don't read music blogs or fetishise Simon Reynolds or whatever, and don't know or care about a genre, they go raving at the weekend, enjoy the music and don't stress about what exactly it is they've been listening to
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who cares what most people do

and at least in my case, i always wanted to know what i was listening to back in the day

but were i to go to a funky house night, i probably wouldn't care as much;)

Noah Baby Food said:
The whole rave thing survived the late 80s and most of the 90s without being debated to death on the internet.
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yeah, but it was debated among friends, debated in music mags, and, if nothing else, debated in the head of any thoughtful punter

Noah Baby Food said:
My younger bro and his mates for example - they're mid-20s and will go out to a techno night, an electro night, a jungle night, whatever. They'll get off it on drugs and dance. Or they might stay in and listen to the bloody Arctic Monkeys or Neil Young or Johnny Cash or whatever.[/QUOTE;81950]

hip hip hooray

Noah Baby Food said:
Let's not theorise it to death, "funky house" is just RAVING.
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what does raving mean?

Noah Baby Food said:
Everything hasn't always got to mean something. You suck the sexiness and excitement out of life with such an approach. Go outside and have a breath of fresh air!
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i prefer to stay inside and have a sickly pallor

actually, if you want to hit good house music nights in nyc =

(1) wednesday nights in basement of APT -- yes, i was shocked to learn that this place could actually have vibe -- on wednesdays it does, honestly -- very cool crowd -- though the music is perhaps a bit too reverential

(2) wednesday nights at sin sin -- soulgasm -- this is like the bronx b-boy house constituency -- fabulous dancing -- music is on the old skool new york tip, and so you might say it's a bit too beholden to the past
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R

Ronan

Member
Can't read Woebot's post because his server is overloading...but some thoughts on this thread:

Am I the only one who is immediately distrustful when someone uses the name "microhouse" these days? It never caught on offline and I just think of Digital Disco or those really old comps when someone says it now.

But semantics aside I have to say the idea of "minimal house", "microhouse", "minimal", or whatever you want to call the genre being somehow pristine and devoid of pleasure is pretty ludicrous. I think the crucial thing about "minimal" (shortest option) is that it's about the least descriptive term imaginable. Basically anything released on a German label, and any deep electronic house is now branded "minimal".

But much of the stuff under this umbrella is wildly different, I mean you have really hard techno coming out on "minimal" labels, and really retro Detroit style stuff, or newer sounding electroey stuff on other labels, Cajual/Relief styles on other labels again. At this point the so called "minimal" labels are just mining different points in house/techno history quite erratically. I know when I DJ at a club there'll be a really different bag of records to if I play a radio show and amn't compelled to make people dance, in fact I can do utterly different radio shows every week, there's so many different styles out there. (tho I guess only "utterly different" to people in the loop, perhaps)

I do think a lot of the minimal stuff that is praised online tends to be the housier, deeper stuff, which maybe seems a little pristine or joyless, but then you could by that rationale criticise all house and techno ever made apart from the original Trax stuff, and whatever crossover records you like in the "funky house" bracket!

The thing is, I think it's a mistake to interpret this music simply on the sounds or feelings of the tracks and not the reactions they invoke. There are THOUSANDS of house and techno tracks that are miserable and joyless, in fact SO MUCH dance music is actually quite miserable, but when it's played in a room full of people it becomes "pleasure centric". I mean, at countless points in its history dance music has been scary or aggressive or "not fun" and people go out and have fun to it.

I think actually this is a big attraction with good house or techno, minimal or otherwise, it can be sad or reflective but as a shared experience it can also be really euphoric. isn't this kinda one major element of really great house/techno? for me anyhow...

Not that I'm denying the power of "funky house", I do often feel it is a bit sad that house and techno are so middle class and gentrified, especially when I listen to old chicago stuff and it sounds so raw, but I'm not sure current funky house is a return to the days of early house in terms of the quality of the music, even if the audience may be similar.

Also have to take issue with Dominic's (via his agreement with the failing to load post) assertion that "there is no longer a (compelling) aesthetic justification for djs to hone-in on a particular sound or play the 'newest latest greatest' genre-- which is what dubstep and "serious" techno djs do"

I don't know about dubstep, but I think the fact that there are massive swathes of people who define themselves as fans of said genre, in the case of "minimal", is a pretty good aesthetic justification. You know, a scene of people really wanting this music? Seems the only important justification. Is it popular? Is it a subculture? Not really much need for justification if a DJ can plough the furrow of a particular sound and people are really feeling it. Plus after 6 or 7 years of listening to house/techno, I can't remember a time when purism and actual mass appeal were as tied together, as they seem to be with minimal house.

For me that's a good thing.
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
Ronan said:
Also have to take issue with Dominic's (via his agreement with the failing to load post) assertion . . . .
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that's my gloss

not sure if woebot would draw such lesson from the "end" of the hardcore continuum

Ronan said:
that "there is no longer a (compelling) aesthetic justification for djs to hone-in on a ]particular sound or play the 'newest latest greatest' genre-- which is what dubstep and "serious" techno djs "

I don't know about dubstep, but I think the fact that there are massive swathes of people who define themselves as fans of said genre, in the case of "minimal", is a pretty good aesthetic justification. You know, a scene of people really wanting this music? Seems the only important justification. Is it popular? Is it a subculture? Not really much need for justification if a DJ can plough the furrow of a particular sound and people are really feeling it. Plus after 6 or 7 years of listening to house/techno, I can't remember a time when purism and actual mass appeal were as tied together, as they seem to be with minimal house.
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popularity is no justification for a practice

the justification for "hardcore" djing, i always thought, was the development of new sounds and experiences. only by radicalizing rhythm, only by pursuing bpms, only by relentlessly running against the constraints of form, could dance music move forward.

progress and intensity -- these were the justifications

however, once all the sonic alleys have been mapped, to remain in an alley is a dead-end. it's boring and monotonous.

perhaps minimal techno is much more varied and diverse than i give it credit for -- however, every now and again i find myself at a party with a techno dj, and i get bored very fast. no offense

the same thing goes for grime and nothing but grime

or deep house and nothing but deep house

however, drop a seriously bad grime rhythm in a house set, and now you're on it

i'm not calling for forced diplo eclecticism. rather, i want eclecticism that gels, that feels rooted in a musical tradition, that comes from somewhere, that is in-formed

i want a return to old skool djing

the "larry levan" approach

djing that takes dancers on a journey

djing that's imaginative

djing that reveals the thread

not simply rehearsing records from the 5 leading dubstep labels, the 5 leading minimal techno labels -- oh, i'm a dubstep dj, and i play strictly dubstep

if honing-in on a sound isn't taking music forward, then the only other possible aesthetic justifications are (1) intensity of the experience or (2) NICEness -- errr, i'm getting out of my depth, aren't i?

i'm begging to get slammed for "theorizing" -- and theorizing poorly at that
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
by way of example

last time i was at a big party -- 4th ward or whatever, on scholes in bushwick -- one of the guys from !!! was djing. he played nothing but early chicago house and what i took to be "space disco" old and new. he didn't mix records, but was a master manipulator of volume and frequencies. the crowd was seriously getting off on the near-religious intensity of the room, yours truly included. but never would i justify this experience as "progress." nothing new under the sun going on here. it was simply intense. a wonderful drug that the crowd wanted more and more of

but how often would i want this experience? not too often, and you'd need a very good sound system in any case

eclectic djing, however, i could do with on most nights out, b/c that's where something's being said, where the dots get connected and re-connected. movement, not stasis

make sense?
 
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Tyro

The Kandy Tangerine Man
dominic said:
i'm not calling for forced diplo eclecticism. rather, i want eclecticism that gels, that feels rooted in a musical tradition, that comes from somewhere, that is in-formed

i want a return to old skool djing

the "larry levan" approach

djing that takes dancers on a journey

djing that's imaginative

djing that reveals the thread

not simply rehearsing records from the 5 leading dubstep labels, the 5 leading minimal techno labels -- oh, i'm a dubstep dj, and i play strictly dubstep

if honing-in on a sound isn't taking music forward, then the only other possible aesthetic justifications are (1) intensity of the experience or (2) NICEness -- errr, i'm getting out of my depth, aren't i?

i'm begging to get slammed for "theorizing" -- and theorizing poorly at that
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I'm with you 100% on this! FORWARD THINKING>>


http://www.myspace.com/thekandytangerineman
 
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