padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
besides the one guy it all seems like people who've never read Energy Flash

or have any familiarity at all with the context in which it was written, fighting for hardcore/jungle legitimacy etc

that cherrypicked passage is a bit murkily constructed, but what it's definitely not saying is "actually white people created techno"
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
hard to get too worked up about a minor Twitter controversy

but that reverent attitude is almost the worst disservice to techno (or whatever music) I can imagine

and completely contrary to the actual pioneering spirit of The Electrifying Mojo, Belleville 3, UR, Drexciya, etc
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
The only thing I would change about that passage now is that I think I was little unfair to Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page - who innovated on the electric guitar and definitely took the blues influence in new directions. They weren't blues purists

(In that sense it's even better as an analogy, since the Belleville 3, C.Craig, UR took the Euro influences and did something with them).

The larger section from which it's taken was written to get up the noses of a certain kind of person, so it's gratifying to see that it still does that.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
They weren't blues purists
maybe not, but I was gonna say it made me think of the reams of boring British blues rock from the late 60s

John Mayall, Free, the original Fleetwood Mac, etc

pretty much everything besides The Groundhogs circa Thank Christ For the Bomb
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
I do find with that contingent that it's almost comical, the insistence that Detroit techno had no influence from Europe, that it was this self-sufficient black tradition. There are scores of quotes from Detroit people going about how much they loved Kwerk, Euro synthpop (also Yellow Magic Orchestra). Derrick May raves about Frankie Goes Hollywood and Cabaret Voltaire.

It's how music works - the back and forth. George Clinton's favorite band was The Beatles. He even drew some inspiration from Vanilla Fudge.

Talking of which, although I love the quote about Parliament-Funkadelic and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them amused as much as anyone, I must admit I can't really hear the P-funk element. The way Bernie Worrell used keyboards, the synth-bass on the later P-funk stuff - it feels very different from the Detroit sound. Anything involving Clinton and Boosty and Worrell is much more incontinent and maximalist - this spurting of excess. The Detroit aesthetic is much more restrained and pared-down. There is definitely a greater funk quotient, but it's hard to relate to the tradition of band-based black American music - the jam aesthetic. Groups like the Gap Band seemed to be carrying that on much more than the Detroit people. Detroit is an individual in a room with some machines.
 

luka

Well-known member
sadman barty is not having it






Vimothy

@kllawthulu


Replying to
@pipecock
and
@KirkDegiorgio
1)This tweet doesn’t come out of a genuine concern about race relations. It’s motivated by a cynical, mean spirited and bad faith effort to attain online social currency. You know its a game and it’s not right.
7:22 PM · Jun 27, 2020·Twitter Web App
1
Like












Vimothy

@kllawthulu

·
1h

Replying to
@kllawthulu

@pipecock
and
@KirkDegiorgio
2) You take something, play dumb, do whatever bad faith intellectual and semantic contortions necessary to claim its problematic and then lap up the ensuing orgy of performative outrage it generates.











Vimothy

@kllawthulu

·
1h

3) It’s a cynical and tasteless deployment of real problems that impact people’s lives in profound and harmful ways just for a bit off attention and buzz. Delete this and apologise.
 

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
Talking of which, although I love the quote about Parliament-Funkadelic and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them amused as much as anyone, I must admit I can't really hear the P-funk element. The way Bernie Worrell used keyboards, the synth-bass on the later P-funk stuff - it feels very different from the Detroit sound.
I think I do hear the p funk in Detroit techno. But what confuses me more is the idea that it's the heir to jazz. "Jazz is the teacher" and all that. I really don't hear any jazz in most Detroit techno, except really overtly jazz/techno fusion stuff like galaxy 2 galaxy. The rest of it...I dunno it's a cool thing to say, jazz is the teacher, but is it really true?
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
well it's a bit like jazz in jungle / drum & bass - it's about a certain kind of instrumental texture (electric Rhodes, double bass), and certain kinds of chords and key changes - rather than the actual jazz procedures like improvisation, or everyone taking a turn to solo.

some of the Red Planet releases have the vibe of fusion or someone like George Benson, but i don't think there's much jazz-as-methodology involved. it can't be, because of the way the music is assembled.

likewise Adam F "Circles" - it's "jazzy", but it's not jazz.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
I'm totally open to the possibility that I'm missing something here. I don't have any sense of music theory. But rhythmatically, how is it similar to jazz?

So I'm guessing blissblogger not hearing p funk is because he's expecting a direct lift from Worrell. But it's not about carbon copying. Its a headspace, getting trippy, cosmic. And it's very much there in the chord flavours, sound design, the moods, the syncopations of where the chords and offbeat are placed in the bar. Jazz is the foundation of so much 20th c. music. It's pretty hard to avoid it having some influence. But as for (edit: a lot of) black music of the 70s and 80s it's almost impossible to remove it. So it's the foundation. Therefore the teacher.
 
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blissblogger

Well-known member
If they just listened to the teacher, though, they'd end up producing jazz, surely? Like Wynton Marsalis or Courtney Pine. And clearly, something else has come out as the end-product - in Detroit's case. So they are listening to multiple teachers, or just playing truant.

There's loads of 70s and 80s black music that has nothing to do with jazz. Dancehall. Electro.

I don't hear much jazz in Al Green. The jazz in James Brown is the occasional horn solo; the rhythm fundamentals of the innovation he contributed is if anything anti-jazz. This approaching man-machine energy.

I could go on...
 
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