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

[droid]

The unusually hot Jamaican summer of 1966 which (by some accounts) led to the slowing down of ska because people couldn't dance to the faster tempo. In comes rocksteady, the foregrounding of bass and the foundation of most of the sonic template of reggae.

Ruddy Redwood famously getting his hands on a mysterious vocal free Paragons tape at Duke Reid's and pressing it to acetate for his sound system, thus inventing the version, dub, & the remix.

 

[mistersloane]

Ruddy Redwood famously getting his hands on a mysterious vocal free Paragons tape at Duke Reid's and pressing it to acetate for his sound system, thus inventing the version, dub, & the remix.

Yeah that's probably the best accident in history.

 

[droid]

Queen's debut performance on TOTP, made possible by the promo for 'Rebel Rebel' not turning up on time.

The Sex Pistols appearing on Bill Grundy's show only because Queen pulled out at the last minute.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The Sex Pistols appearing on Bill Grundy's show only because Queen pulled out at the last minute.

Ooh, I've got a good Pistols one - Malcolm McLaren 'discovering' a young Johnny Rotten because the latter was wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt with "I HATE" crudely scrawled above the name of the band in black marker pen.

Possibly apocryphal but Google Images show the part about the T-shirt is true, at least.

 

[baboon2004]

whoever it was in mid-80s Chicago who started messing around with the settings of an old Roland bass accompaniment synth probably deserves a mention here

 

[Mr. Tea]

whoever it was in mid-80s Chicago who started messing around with the settings of an old Roland bass accompaniment synth probably deserves a mention here

Yes, that's surely the best 'accidental instrument discovery' ever.

 

[PiLhead]

Another Eno one

Roxy are forming around Bryan Ferry, Graham Simpson on bass, and Andy Mackay

Andy M has known Eno for a couple of years (through doing John Cage-ish type events at various colleges, one of which performances Eno witnessed and they got chatting)

however he hasn't seen him for a while

and then runs into him on the Tube

Eno: "I was getting on a train, on the Northern Line, and there was a choice between one carriage and the next. I got in and bumped into Andy Mackay. If I'd got into the other one, I wouldn't have joined Roxy Music, and I probably would have had a completely different life".

 

[Mr. Tea]

Eno: "I was getting on a train, on the Northern Line, and there was a choice between one carriage and the next. I got in and bumped into Andy Mackay. If I'd got into the other one, I wouldn't have joined Roxy Music, and I probably would have had a completely different life".

That's a good one. I like that it involves someone as extraordinary as Brian Eno and something as prosaic as the Northern Line.

 

[droid]

Eno: "I was getting on a train, on the Northern Line, and there was a choice between one carriage and the next. I got in and bumped into Andy Mackay. If I'd got into the other one, I wouldn't have joined Roxy Music, and I probably would have had a completely different life".

Nice. I think Im gonna have to read the Eno bio again.

 

[droid]

Dec 9, 1914. Edison's factory in New Jersey burns down. The only company he can find to manufacture his cabinets is the Wisconsin Chair Company who get the equipment need to manufacture records as part of the deal.

The company goes on to found paramount records and start pressing novelty records in order to promote the cabinets, leading to the label becoming one of the leading producer of race records, and then the premier exponent of delta blues in the 30's - a direct influence on skiffle, which was ground zero for the British invasion and British rock of the 60's & 70's.

 

[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]

Lightning strikes twice

There's the legend of the 1977 NYC blackout...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/...as_the_1977_nyc_wide_blackout_a_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?