Journal sielwolf's Journal: Happy Chipmunk | Sad Chipmunk (Updated) 6
Well I had to go uptown and get some music to hold me over during Xmas break as the best music store in Cleveland is still an hour's drive away from my parents' house. I could order some stuff online... but I'm a browser. I like to surf the store's collection (even if it is stuff I've gone over a thousand times before). What I was initially looking for was the GZA's Legend of a Liquid Sword that came out to day. But to no avail. I might get it at Best Buy later on since it is only 9.99 there.
But I wanted something I just can't get everywhere. Something that I can stock up when I have to go into my three weeks of hibernation/post-semester meltdown. I was looking for something a little different from the IDM, rock, and hip-hop routes I had been hitting quite a bit recently.
I decided to shift gears to Dieselboy projectHuman. What interested me was that it was a compilation of classic D&B tunes but with some remixing from some hot DJs. Now don't go saying that I'm a hypocrite on the mixtape thing. First off all these tracks are non-LP. So there is no structure that this mix is destroying. In truth Dieselboy is bringing order (a unified mix) to chaos (18 independent singles). Also the construtivist nature of real DJ work (like turntablism) makes this more than a Kay Slay Mixtape. This isn't just a Top 40 Now! This is what I call Shitty! compilation. There is actual deconstruction, rebuilding, originality involved in the remix. So, ha!
Anyway, I've been peripherally interested in Dieselboy. I'm more of a UK D&B fan (Dillinja, Elementz of Noize, DJ SS). Actually my deeper interest is in jungle and then hard-step/tech-step (which projectHuman has many elements of). Now what is jungle? Well most agree that jungle "was" and drum & bass "is". But more to the point jungle comes from the UK dub/dancehall tradition. In truth it was like an anti-hip hop where instead of focusing on the MC, the DJ became more and more important. Now what I see as true jungle uses real breaks at 140+ BPM along with syrupy bass. How is that different than D&B? Simple, a true "break" is a live instrumentation cut from an album. If I go out and loop the break from "Apache" at 200 BPM, that is jungle. If I just program my SP-1200 to throw out a Casio tick at that rate, its D&B. Actually I always see jungle being close to that dancehall tradition. So if the breakage, sampling isn't within two degrees of Channel One, you lose that jungle label. So jungle is "under" the D&B umbrella, with a lot of other stuff out there. Actually isn't Two-step considered D&B? At least in motiv? And the point of two-step was to kill that beat down to heartbeat pace.
Dieselboy gives you what you want on this album: if your looking for some D&B with a bit of aggression. It is not "Attack of the High-hats!". There are the deep grooves and hellscape samples. In the classic D&B tradition, the MC exists, but is kept to a minimum (Styles of Beyond "subculture" et al). It is interestig, like a good club set. But projectHuman doesn't focus on a concept as well as I had hoped. I can't expect much: it is a comp. There is some movie trailer sampling at the beginning, end, and in the middle that seem to try to unify it but it sounds like little more than a theme that you can remember a show ("Oh that's the time that DJ Dildo kept on throwing in those Scooby Doo 'yoinks!'. Fucking Genius!"). With this in hand, I still wasn't satisfied that I had crossed enough genres.
So I gravitated over to the Blues and got myself R.L. Burnside's Mississippi Hill Country Blues. Man, I love R.L. Saw him at the Pittsburgh Blues Festival a couple of years back. Dude fucking slayed it. Hard to believe an octogenarian with a finger slide and an electric guitar can rock harder than 99% of the acts out there. But he does! Straight up kills! R.L. is like Johnny Cash: they're more rock and roll than acts that are classically in the genre. They speak from that American Traditional vein that is the root of most of the modern music we listen too (Jazz, Blues, Funk, Ragtime, Doo-wop, Rock and Roll, hip hop, R&B, Country, Folk). It all comes from the three immutable topics of human existence: love, murder, and God. It is all prole music, all from the roots of people ignored up until 100 years ago (and not really given a break now). This isn't your academia technique. This is deep and spiritual. And the closer to the iron, the closer the music is to this 19th century origin, the more interesting I find it.
That's why Cash is breathtakingly interesting while most country-pop is just disposible noise: he knows where the music is from. He isn't going to sugarcoat it or pretend its something else. Same with R.L.
I went for Mississippi Hill Country Blues for two reasons: it was from '84 and it is just R.L. and an acoustic guitar. No electrification, no drums. It is a more personal take on all the R.L./Americana classics ("Miss Maybelle", "Shake 'em on Down", "Rolling and Tumbling"). But I also like to hear his voice before... well. Let's just say that R.L. is getting up there. Like Johnny Cash he can still pound it in, but their voices are starting to fail them a bit.
It is interesting that Epitaph is now releasing R.L.'s stuff (an attempt to save their emo-plagued roster with some credibility?). Punk rock began as a deevolution from the pomp-rock of the 70's to the raw tradition, the same one that R.L. plays out. Take it back to the concept, the jam. Fuck shiney outfits and three LP concept albums. Sadly most third generation punks have now just done to punk rock what the Bay City Rollers did to that great '50's shit: kill it with meandering pointlessness. They seem to think a polished turd is better than a rough diamond.
I guess there'll aways be that conflict between music that makes your heart race and that which makes you think. The best music will always incorporate both to some extent. Now I'd like to sidetrack here to talk about the Rolling Stones (since this was a topic that came up peripherally on the Okayplayer boards). The gripe against the Rolling Stones was that they took/stole Black music (Mos Def "Rock n' Roll": "You may dig on the Rolling Stones/But they ain't come up with that shit on their own"). Of course this is a stupid argument and in many ways a paper tiger. This all comes from the root that most people who listen to the Stones don't give a shit who wrote the songs (or wrongly assume that Stones wrote them). One problem is that the Stone's catalog is a majority of songs that they wrote. So then they do some covers on Am Traditional songs and people get in a tizzy? I hate to say it friend but no one owns those songs. Like "Gallis Pole": an old saxon jam from waaaaay back in the day that's been covered by Leadbelly and Zeppelin. It isn't owned by anyone. What makes me think of this is that R.L. covers a lot of the same territory.
So the Stones get shit even though they constantly make references to the roots of Traditional and have paid homage to them many times (Example: they, one of the biggest bands on Earth, get awe-struck when playing with B.B. King).
I feel this is all scattershot going back to the Elvis Presley-ing of music. Where uncredited black musicians wrote songs for white artists. Ok, that was shit. But then the Stones didn't partake in this part of American history (especially since they are, surprise to some, Brits). And even Elvis was just some dude who loved the music and was actually talented. So he didn't write some of his songs. What, blame him? Of course we don't know the unseen management who made these decisions so why not?
Problem is that people have this idea of ethno-ownership. That Our People own Our People's Music. Although many seem to forget that most Traditional is owned by All People. Now it was a raw deal that dudes got paid 35 bucks for a song that would go triple platinum. Fine, but don't blame the guy who bought the song, performed it, and got famous. The general gripe is that usually the white artist would get played (due to his race) when the black artist would not. Well I'm sorry but the world was much cruder back then. And so why is the solution to xenophobia more xenophobia? This is what I've never got.
Here's my take. Yeah, there was a lot of bad shit, but don't blame the musicians (who had about as much control of their situation as the anonymous authors). Instead, celebrate the guys who changed the system (Sam Cooke being one... and a personal fave) and make sure that sort of stuff doesn't happen again. I mean, look at today: Dr Dre produced, what, two tracks on the Eminem Show but gets Executive Producer cred. Oh shit! I guess he's only going to rake in about a half of a bajillion dollars on that one.
The crux of the argument is that the "raw and untamed" Traditional music was reduced and commodified for mass consumption via artists like Elvis Presley.
But is that any different than now? Hasn't it always been that the innovation is then adapted by an early adopter for the majority? Wait? Isn't that defusion theory? Didn't I write a damn journal entry on this???
No. The bigger issue is that more than just an innovation line was crossed, but a racial one. Where the predator was of one group and the prey of another. The conclusion everyone seems to come to and not say is "they did it for that reason alone... intentionally". *snicker* Jesus. The only reason why they did it was this: greed. And then the beauty of it was that they could ethically (for them) justify it this way: "Well white folks don't like seeing coloreds..." Simple Piranha's Logic.
Problem is that people have been shown to be "very" receptive to anybody who brings something to the table. But there is no strong argument against a manager who says "it's not me... its everyone else who hates you!"
So an excuse from the past has now come back to plague us as some sort of "fact". Shit, in the end the music is still just that. In a million years we could all be dead from atomic annihilation except for one girl who finds a wind up turntable and an Elivs LP. And if she likes it, what is the rationale? The politics of the recording industry affect everything... except the music. The music lives and dies on its own merits.
Can you dislike an album for personal reasons? Shit yeah! I don't like Puff Daddy's shit because the dude is a tool. Is "All About the Benjamins" hot? Sure! And I'm not about to buy a Screwdriver album. But then you must accept the fact that most music people enjoy for non-personal/political/sociological reasons and thus aren't accountable for the afront of it might cause you.
No matter how hard you try, people will still enjoy Elvis because the dude could sing. You can't change the past. Now if you want to do something, how about perfecting the damn future? Musicians' rights are pretty terrible right now. There are about a thousand different things a pro-active person could do. Well its either that or just continue with from-the-craddle indignation. Purile Childishness.
Like Benzino who thinks his crappy battle rhymes against Eminem are on par with Malcolm X and MLK Jr. Yeah, trading dis tracks with a superior MC is right up there to standing up to "real" violence and Jim Crow. The humanist in me won't accept that. Actual calculatable physical injury is never equivilent to any infinite number of perceived wrongs/slights. I'm sorry but the dude needs to get his head de-lodged from his ass. Then we can begin the non-surgical procedure of me putting my foot up in it. Get that bitch some FootAction.
Dieselboy projectHuman ***1/2
R.L. Burnside Mississippi Hill Country Blues ****
Just a cool picture from a Fat Possum Records sampler. R.L.'s the cat on the left with the
my first thought (Score:2)
see? this random rant of yours is about music, but it still contains all of the elements of other great sielwolf rants.
i always thought of jungle as sped up hip hop / breakbeat type beats and drum and bass as sped up split time beats. what i mean is that many elements in a 180 bpm dnb piece are only moving at a relaxed 90 bpm hip hop speed. sometimes jungle is sped up enough that somewhat split time patterns emerge, but the effect is different than a beat that was planned as split time from its creation. thinking about it your definition seems to apply, but that's not what makes the difference to me. to me a different genre should be distinguishable without seeing how the track was created. (i know, dnb rhythms are often obviously machine fabricated as opposed to sample based.) but what do i know?
i have never liked the rolling stones or elvis very much except for a couple songs. i understand that they brought things to popular music that hadn't been there before, but that doesn't mean that i have to enjoy the sounds they make. that's ok. most people wouldn't like listening to drukqs by aphex twin.
about compilations - they can be ok, but it is a challenge to create some sort of flow between the tracks. you need a theme or it's not good for repeated listening. so to me your gripe with mix tapes is more an obstacle to overcome than a reason to avoid it entirely. same thing when i did a radio show on my college station. sometimes i'd pick a theme, or sometimes i'd do things like pick a sample and see how many songs i could play that used the same sample, or always play a song that shared a sample with the previous song. that was fun. but generally i listen to cds all the way through and avoid the pesky random play button.
Re:my first thought (Score:2)
Think I'm putting too much into these JEs.
DSL BY (Score:2)
I've also got another live set thats dark and devious, but the MC's won't shut the fuck up, in fact they won't even let eachother talk. Ragga THIS.
I'll take a look into R.L. (he's got soul!)
Good good goodness re: Ethno-ownership. However I need to own Tag switching, IP sec, and IPv6 by tommorrow.
I really recommend you hit up some Atmosphere. It pimps more than Jay-Z(not that thats hard).
To actually SEE Rules Burnside (Score:2)
Robert Johnson (Score:1)
Re:Robert Johnson (Score:2)