The honeymoon period

I try to remain ignorant if I can. In particular I've started rarely talking about what music I like with other people as it can sully it somehow. Your love of the music can twisted into the parameters of others' take on it. I realised the other day that most people I know don't have any idea what music I really love and I was pleased with that

Also talking about what music you hate is more fun anyhow

Grand theft auto has a lot to answer for here.

Loads of times you find a wicked tune and then it turns out it was on GTA

I think early 90s US house is a good one for this. Loads of producers that made a couple of tunes then disappeared. And it's not really a well documented scene, in the way that techno or jungle or even hardcore is. You can watch videos on YouTube of old raves, see interviews with the main players. Little of that once you get over to the US side of things. I remember trying to unearth some footage of the Wildpitch parties and drawing a complete blank.

Particularly with the weirder, trippier end of US house I have no idea what they were up to, and I'm happy with that.

the inevitable old dude perspective: this was one of the wonders of record stores. you'd be in there flipping through records and they'd put something on the in-store sound system, usually you had no idea what it was (maybe an advance promo of something not yet released) and just experienced it as pure music, without the influencing baggage of who did it, their pedigree, what label it was on, if it was a remix, etc.

sigh.

Totally get this. It's amazing how an artist spouting bollocks in an interview or biography can sour the way you feel about their music.

I'm especially keen to avoid studio technical talk or hear them bang on about their influences - feels like a magician explaining how the tricks work. You want to retain those sparks, that feeling of being in a secret pact, before all the external analysis and canonisation strips away the mystery - and then suddenly you and the most incredible new music you've ever heard are sitting down the pub on a Friday night, staring at the carpet and not talking to each other.

I'm actually going through a honeymoon period with a band right now, for the first time in ages - since lockdown, I've become completely obsessed with their first three albums and early EPs, and have been playing them nearly daily for 5 months - and am doing my best to avoid reading up on them, because I'm sure more knowledge will break the spell - what do I care if the guitarist hated staying in hotels, or whatever. I scribbled some stuff about them a couple of months back and shared it with a few people online, and instantly regretted it.

On the flipside, I really enjoy fan mythology and folklore. I still want to believe the front cover of 'Unknown Pleasures' shows Ian Curtis' brain scan from when he was hospitalised during an epileptic attack, even though that was just something a friend made up.

Agreed as per last few posts that came in while typing.

Have a circle of mates, acquaintances and people I’ve never met irl trying to identify House tunes we first heard decades ago. Metaphorically, it’s a life’s work, or more precisely multiple lives.

In this regard, the honeymoon period can be indefinite, in that their aura never really degrades. The flip side is in the expression played-out, ie overplayed. It can apply to House or any tune really. The glow fades. It can also apply to tune shopping and that applies to any form of music. Gripping a bunch off the rack, listening to those first few minutes, which could lead to euphoria or plain nah.

I find it with mixes too. Some definitely had their honeymoon period, eg some early DiY mixes can be ropey, others so, so good still that the magic hasn’t cracked. For the ‘ardcore among you, there’s a Kenny Ken and Randall mix that will require some digging which is so ridiculously good that magic will never die, even though we do.

Simon silverdollarcircle said:

I think early 90s US house is a good one for this

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idk about that. it's a sound and scene that is much mythologized.

i.e. My Love Is Underground and that whole end of the deep house revival of the last decade is a full-on homage to early 90s NY/NJ house

and more recently its aesthetic is shot thru much of lo-fi house, in an only partially ironic way

I do take the point that it wasn't captured on video. and it's not a nostalgic youth culture, due to the crowd being older.

but I don't think it's particularly mysterious, you can find everything if you want with pretty minimal effort

martin said:

Totally get this. It's amazing how an artist spouting bollocks in an interview or biography can sour the way you feel about their music.

I'm especially keen to avoid studio technical talk or hear them bang on about their influences - feels like a magician explaining how the tricks work. You want to retain those sparks, that feeling of being in a secret pact, before all the external analysis and canonisation strips away the mystery - and then suddenly you and the most incredible new music you've ever heard are sitting down the pub on a Friday night, staring at the carpet and not talking to each other.

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Oh god seeing photos of coil in the studio and realising that it's just 2 blokes sat round a PC in an attic and not a seance or an Aktionist style ritual with blood and nakes bodies everywhere

Never got over that disappointment

nothing is mysterious anymore unless you want it to remain so

the reissue industry in particular is a scourge in this regard. no stone must go unturned, no matter how unworthy, as long as there's a market for it.

tho otoh it's a check against elitism. the whole culture of cover ups, trainspotting, etc is done and good riddance to it.

trying to remain personally ignorant in order to retain that sense of magic upon discovery is a different matter

personally I can't bring myself to it, because learning about tunes is what leads you to more tunes, the endless search

who played on what, produced what, on what label, played by what DJ, etc

but I did reach a point a few years ago where I no longer wanted to read about music, besides knuts + bolts technical bits of how things were made

used to be I couldn't get enough of the reading about the meaning of things or whatever, and now I can't imagine anything less interesting

idk if other people feel like this or not, but music journalism feels massively irrelevant

I assume that's a combination of me knowing way too much music information, and the actual increasing irrelevancy of music journalism

i.e. when everyone can hear everything why do you need gatekeepers to tell you about things

padraig (u.s.) said:

idk about that. it's a sound and scene that is much mythologized.

i.e. My Love Is Underground and that whole end of the deep house revival of the last decade is a full-on homage to early 90s NY/NJ house

and more recently its aesthetic is shot thru much of lo-fi house, in an only partially ironic way

I do take the point that it wasn't captured on video. and it's not a nostalgic youth culture, due to the crowd being older.

but I don't think it's particularly mysterious, you can find everything if you want with pretty minimal effort

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You can find the records, yes, but it's still unclear and mysterious to me what those clubs were like, how the records were used.

May be it's just living in the UK rather than US. With stuff like jungle, it's very easy in the UK to talk to people who went to those raves, and also actually see footage of them. And revival nights of 94 jungle are still common

Whereas I have no idea what, say, going to Shelter back in the day was like. And I'm very happy with not knowing so please don't tell me!

Simon silverdollarcircle said:

Never got over that disappointment

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the first time I met guys from a famous anarchopunk band at a show I was a bit crestfallen to find they were just, you know, regular punk guys

not that I literally imagined them sitting around in balaclavas all day throwing molotovs at cop cars, but I took that stuff dead seriously

would've been less disillusioned in continental Europe where that kind of culture does (or did in the late 90s, at least) exist to a much greater extent

but still, you know, never meet your heroes

I'm sure we've talked about this before but the Internet for better + worse was the death of artist mystery

either you can find whatever dumb bullshit they Tweet or post on FB or whatever

or, maybe worse, anyone who cultivates mystery now has to do so in a studied way, as an aesthetic choice

this is why the only interesting thing left is, I think, the technical stuff, which will never stop being a practical magic

the literal ability to conjure something into existence

Leaving aside finding out what slightly pathetic people a lot of my former heroes (mythical figures outlined in strobe) are...

I think the best and maybe only reason to understand how the proverbial sausage is made is if you intend to make sausages yourself.

Otherwise, just enjoy the sausage.

Simon silverdollarcircle said:

please don't tell me

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no idea. I'm much too young, born in the wrong city, didn't know anything about house music (dance music in general) til the late 00s really.

one big reason that past isn't mythologized as much is that house continues more or the less same as it always was

you can play most old house records alongside new ones in most settings

house is like the other hardcore (punk) - a set form that for the most part never changes or innovates beyond very narrow boundaries

and as it soon as it gets beyond that form it's no longer that thing

whereas jungle and ardkore revival is as much about celebrating a particular moment in time as much as the music itself

Corpsey said:

if you intend to make sausages yourself

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this is why the technical knowledge is still useful (and interesting)

what equipment did they use, how did they get those particular sounds, how did that person play that particular part

really I just mess about with music but if I ever got more serious about it it'd be nice to know some things

Speaking for myself, even the paltry knowledge of production I amassed during my short-lived attempt at being an EDM superstar slightly ruined things for me.

When listening to electronic music, at least, I hear the grid. I inwardly see blocks being slotted into place.

Perhaps I'm romanticising my old ears, but my old ears (I think) didn't hear the parts so much as the whole.

I guess there's different levels of appreciation. And every gain is a loss.

just enjoy the sausage.

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OK, Corpse.

A few of my mates put out techno-ish records and the actual process of making the music looks mind numbing. I've visited their studio a few times and it looks as bad as a data entry spreadsheet job

Obviously there must be fun bits too but loads of really dull passages of squinting at cells on a screen too

padraig (u.s.) said:

idk about that. it's a sound and scene that is much mythologized.

i.e. My Love Is Underground and that whole end of the deep house revival of the last decade is a full-on homage to early 90s NY/NJ house

and more recently its aesthetic is shot thru much of lo-fi house, in an only partially ironic way

don't think it's particularly mysterious, you can find everything if you want with pretty minimal effort

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If you were there times and venues wise, it has a continuum of its own and for us fogies that were, trust me we’re still tune hunting. MLIU is part of a French continuum who clearly worship at the shrine of certain sound tropes. Think Point G, Silver Network and Brawther, but the recent lofi abortions aren’t even close to the same level of love for creativity. DJ Boring and Ross From Friends are like pebbles under my mattress bedding. Sleepless nights