Entertainment For Lively Minds
Things that have ruined rock and roll
Posted by David Hepworth on 29 October 2009 - 8:58am.
In the Lefsetz Letter Hollywood scenemaker Rodney Bingenheimer, talking of the exorbitant $60 price charged to leave your car in the privileged parking area at the U2 concerts in L.A., says "Parking has ruined rock and roll."
What else has ruined rock and roll?
- More from David Hepworth.
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The closure of art schools in the UK...
once the most fertile breeding ground for musicians starting out.
The art schools weren't closed,
they are still there to this day. What changed in the early seventies (?) was the requirement to have two A-levels or five O-levels before starting a three year art degree course. Having said that I couldn't agree with you more. The tax take on Spiggy Topes alone would have paid for the entire art school system in perpetuity.
Rodders …
Take a cab. Call the Beverly Hills Cab Co (1-800-273-6611), or perhaps a more prestigious firm if you absolutely must feel privileged. Or get a lift from one of your innumerable mates.
To return to the question: nothing has yet ruined rock and roll, but some things have had a damn good go at it. Big 'eads, for one.
My Space
Kids today should be out slogging round the country in the back of a van playing grotty pubs and venues with no monitors or soundcheck not sitting upstairs in their bedroom playing on a computer posting MP3 demos made on Garageband and racking up 2,345 "friends"!
absolutely!
I learned more about life in a year mostly on the road with a band than I would have done in any other way.
Many of those things helped equip me for a life away from rock & roll, too.
If you are playing regularly in front of people, it forces an improvement in your playing and performance.
Monitors ? Luxury. Soundchecks ? Waste of time - the whole place will sound entirely different with people in, a simple line check to make sure amps are still working is enough.
Like Henry Rollins said, "Get In The Van!"
You'd have a point
if there were no spotty youngs oiks running around the country in the back of vans playing in horid little venues. That scene still very much exists.
Yes, but there's a lot less of it
I grew up in Glasgow. In the late 70s in Glasgow, there was a 'circuit' of city centre pubs putting bands on, at no cover charge - most nights, and at lunchtime on Saturdays. There must have been a steady core of at least 15, with many other pubs intermittently putting bands on, plus at least another 20 pubs out in the suburbs. Often there were 2 bands playing - not everyone had enough material to play 2 x 45 minutes sets.
In addition to this, a whole host of social clubs, lodges, etc would put bands on.
All you needed to start out was the chutzpah to say "I've got a band, can we play here?". (And a band, of some form.)
If I went out to see a band and they weren't any good, I could easily pop in to get a quick taste of another 3 bands within a few blocks.
Now, I only know of 3 pubs that regularly put bands on without charge. So that removes hundreds of gigging opportunities every month, compared to when I was first getting in a Transit van.
By the early to mid 80s, most clubs would put bands on as part of the evening's entertainment - Maestro's, Panama Jax, Henry Afrika's, etc would have a Mezcal or Midori promo as well as James King & The Lonewolves or Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. Those clubs are all closed, too, as is Night Moves which was a really good mid-sized venue. The 4 Students' Unions would also have bands in their pubs every Friday & Saturday as well as touring bands in the big halls. You could see a local ska band for free before going upstairs to see Win for £2. That level of band booking has pretty much fallen away, too.
So while there are still some bands gigging, I'm certain that there are a lot fewer than there were 30 years ago.
I hope so...
although I am a bit out of touch these days I must admit - getting a seat on the first floor balcony of the Shepherds Bush Empire with a pint of bitter is about as rocknroll as I get these days.
** sorry the "I hope so" was replying to Edleaf's "there's still a scene" comment.
I really, really, really disagree.
MySpace is horrible but fantastic music has been being made in bedrooms, with cheap tech, since the early 80s - it's hardly newfangled - and now it can be spread without recourse to the "old ways". Why should kids slog around the country playing one particular kind of music? To my mind the freezing of rock and roll as a lifestyle and a set of precepts to be followed blindly has ruined it, not keyboards and samplers. What could be more rock and roll than offending your elders? Still, Retro Man, at least I can't accuse you of not being true to your name.
If I might mediate
You both make valid points.
Andrew, great music can be made in bedrooms, of that there's no doubt.
But, I also agree with Retro that if you want to go out and play what you've created in your bedroom (be it synth or guitar based) and entertain people, you have to go out and play those grotty pubs and learn stagecraft. Learn how to engage an audience, because, for me at least, just playing the songs note perfectly is not enough.
Myspace...
Is a weird one - it's had an impact, but I would argue noway near as much as people suggest. yes, it's useful for hosting your mp3s, but out of all the A&Rs I know (who now spend their entire working life on there going slowly insane), I know of one solitary artist they've 'discovered' on there in the last three years.
The bands who are always touted as Myspace success stories (Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys) actually seemed to have done things in a pretty traditional way: Arctic Monkeys endlessly slogged up and down the country gigging and amassing fans, Lily Allen was on a very long development deal at a major. There was a fairly concerted campaign to make them look like cutting edge pioneers of this then-innovative site, but I think they probably got ahead through means that the more 'rockist' posters on the board would recognise.
What could be more rock'n'roll
than offending your elders?
I agree. The trouble is, they don't. They bore their elders. Being so bloody inoffensive, that's what's ruined rock'n'roll. I would love to be offended by some great new movement the way punk offended people who were in their mid 40s then. There's a lot of new music I really don't like, but it doesn't offend, other than in the sense that it's so awful.
"Still, Retro Man, at least I can't accuse you of not being
true to your name" - charming! And this from a Word staff, there was me thinking that since the down arrows had gone we were all back to being nice again!
1. I should have put a "smiley". When I started the sentence "kids today..." I assumed you might imagine the tongue in my cheek.
2. I think David Hepworth was talking about "the lifestyle and set of precepts" that is Rock & Roll, the same sort of precepts that had Bobby Gillespie (alledgedly) refusing to land at Luton Airport because it was not Rock & Roll enough.
3. I never said Kids should slog around playing one type of music, those kids might well have been in the back of a van lugging round keyboards and samplers.
4. I did not say keyboards and samplers ruined rocknroll, most of the awful proliferation of bands on MySpace are attempting guitar based rocknroll music anyway.
5. My name is actually taken from my favourite song not the fact that I am an old punk rocker stuck in his ways who can't get with this new fangled music..errr, well now you might have a point!
P.S. Just kidding about that bit, I actually saw you at a Sparks gig at Shepherds Bush Empire once (you were standing in my favourite spot too!), they are my favourite band - and you don't get many bands twisting the parameters of "Rock & Roll" as they do.
Suicide are more rock & roll than The Pigen Detectives.
I meant that I'd rather people got out and played a lot, whatever kind of music they play (as well as using whatever modern means of publicity & communication are available). Both because it's a fast way to learn to perform better and also a great experience.
I certainly wasn't meaning that they had to go out and try to be The Gun Club or The New York Dolls.
And I think that was in line with Retro Man, too.
Has been being made
Cool! A present perfect continuous passive! De lish!
waistlines and hairlines
in inverse proportion
Skinny jeans are one thing - comfy trousers quite another
"Take a cab?"
It's a night out listening to a beat group, not a society wedding.
Don't you sometimes …
… jump in a cab on a night out, David? I know I do.
I have not been in a cab....
...for over a year (and that was a fare shared with four other people), and if I were to have "jumped in one" last night, for instance, to get home from Upper Street, it would have cost me about £30. And I don't have anyone else to pass that expense on to.
Ask Mr Ellen
to open his petty cash tin :-)
Steady Mr Hep
- we're fresh out of hairshirts
A Cab Driver Speaks
Unfortunately, that was the £30 I was going to renew my subscription with. And it would only have been £20 from Upper Street.
Easy
The Stereophonics
I think they are a symptom...
rather than a cause.
never mind the
parking, Bono has done a lot more to ruin rock n roll.
Bono
has ruined middle age.
"Word" T-Shirt slogan competition...
... we have a Winner!
Things what have ruined rock'n'roll...
I thought that Andy McCluskey's (OMD) comments on the Synth Britannia doc were interesting... in the early 80s electronic musicians were poised to take over the world (well almost, you know what I mean...) They were having hits and the old idea of a guitar, bass and drums outfit seemed hopelessly outmoded. Then there was a sudden return to the old ways... maybe it was Band Aid / Live Aid raising the profile of musicians from the previous generation? Whatever happened the questing futurists of the synth generation, by and large, began to make more traditional music with traditional instruments - perhaps they recognised the appeal of a global market & tailored their music to suit... Heritage became the thing & music got more and more cosy and conservative - OK heritage in the name of raising millions for a very good cause, but heritage nonetheless.
So, in short, my answer is conservatism. A streak writ large through Britpop and still hanging around today - heritage acts, recycled ideas, an eye on the global market, safe, safe, safe.
In terms of visual appeal, what would most people rather watch..
this...
or this?
There was something about the old ways of doing things that remains rather appealing...
No disagreement here.
Hendrix was an innovator too.
I just have a problem with all the pale imitators looking for a safe career path. Hello Lenny Kravitz. Hendrix has become another one on the heritage list. I'm just as guilty - I have the live & studio compilations, jumped up and down with a guitar in my 20s.
The spirit is missing, that's what I'm saying.
I'd rather watch Soft Cell, genuinely.
Down with rockism! Synth Britannia beautifully laid out the courage and madness of the electro acts, and the indolent conservatism of the music press back then too. At the time, the synth brigade just looked and sounded more exciting and heretical than anything we have now. But Punk, then all of two-to-three years old, was already apparently holy writ which must not be countermanded. Rock and roll can be so conservative. I prefer pop. (NB it's not really fair to compare a solo artist with the bloke who stood in the background)
Completely Agree with that
Jimi Hendrix is not universally and unconditionally loved. Same goes for RT and Dylan *runs*.
I wasn't suggesting he *is* universally loved...
I was suggesting that the manner of his stage performance was somewhat more entertaining than staring at a bloke with a bad tache and a skinny tie pressing buttons on a synth. And by the way, I really like Soft Cell's music... 'Bedsitter' is a classic record.
But you wouldn't be looking at Dave Ball...
.. you'd be looking at Marc Almond. If both of them writhed around like Marc did it would have been too much to deal with. I thought Dave's uncanny stillness and admirable tache was a fine visual foil.
PS Edit just watching Synth Britannia on the BBC iPlayer and - has anyone ever seen Marc Almond and Jonathan Ross in the same room?
PS Further edit still watching and has anyone see David Hepworth and Neil Tennant circa 1985 in the same room? (Might need to go away and think about that some more sorry)
Rockism/Rockist
By all logic, 'Rockism' should mean a hatred of rock (c.f. Racism, Ageism) rather than an espousal of a traditional attitude.
I was saying this in 1979 and I'm still saying it now!
I seem to remember the term was coined by Pete Wylie - not a man I'd rely on for semantic advice.
looks like you've been wrong for 30 years then
see Modernism, Stalinism, Theism, orientalism none of which is negative in nature. :)
You probably win though saw Pete Wylie on the telly recently and he looked like a slightly seedy recently divorced cab drive after a month of nights.
yes
its really racism and ageism and sexism that have got it wrong, although language has evolved now and so they are now correct as well.
Really racism should be antiracism i.e. believing in a doctrine that is against other races. Unless it is supposed to mean a belief in the concept of race. Although the concept of race itself is not really a racist idea, though it often leads to racism I guess.
Ageism again should be antiagism or something. Or maybe Youthism is Youngism.
And sexism is a really confused word.
Perhaps a good word to use for many people might be Hateism i.e. a belief system of hate (hating other races, other sexualities, other genders... others basically). It's a nice cover all term.
But we don't really have to worry if those words make etymological sense anyway because we understand what they mean. So that's all we need really in order to discuss stuff. Which is the main point of all language really.
Rockism however is still, I would suggest, struggling to get into the mainstream vocabulary of culture in the same way racism or communism or humanism or whatever has.
So its meaning is still very much up for grabs. So if you want it to work negatively about rock or positively about rock because of your aesthetic preferences you should do your utmost to promote its use in that context.
Me I don't really care for the word and hope it doesn't become a mainstay. But so many ugly words get absorbed that I don't hold out much hope that we will avoid it. Look at the language of politics and management that we all now use without thinking. Yuk!
"Perhaps a good word to use.. might be Hateism"
I think misanthropy might be the word we're looking for here.
i'm gonna up arrow you for that
but I don't think than misanthropy would be the same as the theoretical term of hateism [hatism(?)].
Misanthropy is an equal (and some might say justified) hatred of humans, regardless or creed or colour. The term I suggested was designed to describe someone who loves to hate those different to themselves. They are different to people who just don't like people.
It would not be fair for example to refer to Nick Griffin as misanthropic. It would be besmirching the good name of misanthropes down the ages. He is instead a hatist, covering racism, religious intolerance, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia etc... but apparently loving white christian men and considering them owed the world.
But again Hatism is an ugly and unnecessary word. Swear words will do nicely instead, they are much more expressive, connotative and creative than isms.
Hatism
What you got against hats goosefat? :-)
silly stimpy :-)
In the same way that Marxists are for Karl, and Rockists are for leather trousers and white Les Pauls, Hatists support Borsalinos, and every kind of titfer.
yeah i know
hence the ? but I don't like the e in Hateism, its confusing. And nor do I like hate-ism.
Thankfully I don't really like the word in general.
Actually ironically I am a hat wearer. Have been wearing hats everyday for 15 years now. I have as many hats as my girlfriend has shoes, maybe more.
Although going back to the original ism thing I guess that would make me a Hatist in that I am a follower of the doctrine of hats.
Anyway all these isms are just part of the old trip to jerusalem:
Er..
"The term I suggested was designed to describe someone who loves to hate those different to themselves."
I think the word we're looking for is one you've already used.. xenophobe.
As defined by the OED, (or the Wikipedia page I pasted this lot from..) it can mean a fear of or aversion to, not only persons from other countries, but other cultures, subcultures and subsets of belief systems; in short, anyone who meets any list of criteria about their origin, religion, personal beliefs, habits, language, orientations, or any other criteria.
Basically, anyone different to you.
fair enough
thats takes away the specificity of xenophobe and isn't exactly the common understanding of the word but it sounds like it fits fine.
Dunno if xenophobe is anymore appealing than Hateist though, I mean at least Hateist has the word Hate in it which is pretty engaging, whereas phobe is a pretty unpleasant suffix, especially as a phobia is generally something someone has no control over, wheras a xenophobe or a homophobe is not phobic but generally ignorant and prejudiced.
Xeno, Homo, Arachno, Claustro
I'm not altogether sure that xenophobia and homophobia are necessarily any less 'real' than any other sort of phobia.
We may rightly dislike xeno/homophobes as individuals but are the 'afflictions' any less valid than, say, arachnaphobia or claustrophobia?
One of my daughters is arachnaphobic but, when I suggest she maybe try hypnotherapy to conquer it, her response was along the lines of, "Why would I want to get over it, I hate spiders anyway". I'm not sure that this is any different from a Nick Griffin saying "Why would I want to be cured of my homophobia, I hate gays"
Maybe there's an assumption that xeno and/or homophobia aren't real phobiae but are conditions people choose to have?
Maybe they are, maybe they aren't - do we know that it isn't just ignorance and prejudice?
It reminds me of the NME circa 1979
and makes me shudder
There is a third way though...
...and this is it. The unexpected appearance of Ron Mael's moustache in the midst of the post-hippy wiggorama that was 1974 is still one of the most thrilling, rock n roll things I've ever seen on TOTP.
And he didn't even have to set fire to anything.
We have. Us.
Where is the shout of joy from the bands today? At the discovery of sex, love, human experience?
There seems so little to yearn for. We've become such an immediate and ungrateful lot. We've got it all. Instant communications, instant gratification, upbiquity of music, art, literature.
Quality of life. For most of us even in these recessionary times we have mobile phones, ipods, DVD's, computers, cars as baseline givens. We and our offspring are a cossetted bunch in this corner of the westernised world. Where are the young politiscised activists hammering telecasters?
The music this complacency generates reflects this overall contentment. Instead of Woody Guthrie, Elvis, Johnny Cash, The Clash and their guttural reactions to inequality, sex and social malaise we now have Florence and the Fucking Pointless Machine wailing in the safe background.
That does not nullify the more sophisticated out-pourings of finer feelings, intellectual stances and points of view swathes of true artists have produced. But whether any of that is heart-pumping primal rock and roll is in doubt. All of the above pivots on what we each take rock and roll to be. Opinions will vary. The market goes down as well as up.
Wow. How Sixth Form was that? Feel free to refute all of that, ladies and gents!
"Where are the politicised activists hammering Telecasters?"
In Ipswich, generally at The Steamboat. Just because you don't go out to see the Sixth Formers playing, it doesn't mean they aren't there.
You, Sir
get a +1 for the first mention of The Steamboat I've seen on these hallowed pages
Good on them
My point being, albeit made in a caffeine driven pop-eyed state of urgency, that we don't see these attitudes as an overall movement.
Probably for a lot of reasons. One being we've all channelled ourselves into the niches the mass media provides. You're absolutely right, I don't go seeking these out for myself. I read Word but don't read NME, or whatever else, where I may find out more. I don't deny they're not out there trying hard.
Drinks companies
sponsorship, advertising -- being constantly *sold to* the whole time. That's what's ruined rock and roll. Certainly the live bit of it.
Even in the 80's
this was a problem.
Remember the Bill Hicks routines about George Michael and Debbie Gibson selling soft drinks. Not to mention the riff with the NKOTB:
"Suck Satan's cock!"
"Good boy, Donny..."
Uncle Wheaty's music of choice
Only Joking,Mate. It was an open goal.
I shall be first to his defence...
Praying Mantis, Supertramp and Saxon. What's not to like?
More than
you'll ever know,Patrick.
Nostalgia...
Media...the man...x factor...computer games...complacency...
The decline of the riff.
Stadiums
and the need for hold aloft lighter anthems
Vocoders
I blame Peter Frampton.
Now on every single rap/RnB track in the world.
Frampers may be guilty of many things
but not the introduction of the vocoder. He used a talk box, also favoured by Joe Walsh and Slash amongst others. Turning it up too loud loosens the teeth, so I'm told.
The vocoder is all down to that Jeff Lynne bloke - My Blue Sky and so on.
And it's not even the vocoder to blame anyway…
… it's autotune.
"Turning it up too loud loosens the teeth, so I'm told."
High-energy soundwaves would break down the zinc phosphate cements used in the 1970's and early 1980's to fix crown and brigework in place. We still use a similar system now when we want to get the buggers off. Net result being that prolonged use of the old talkie box = lots of expensive dentistry dropping out and having to be glued back in by exasperated dentist.
brilliant!
You don't learn this kind o'stuff over on Popbitch!
Easy. Radio formats have ruined rock and roll.
Active Rock
Adult Album Alternative
Adult Contemporary
Album Oriented Rock
Alternative Rock
Classic Rock
Ethnic/International
Contemporary Hit Radio
Dance
Hot Adult Contemporary
Lite Adult Contemporary
Modern Rock
Oldies
Rock
Rock AC
Smooth Jazz
Urban
This I can agree with.
Everyone can now live in a cosy little silo and never experience a life-changing surprise ever again. We in the WORD office can be as guilty of this as anyone else. The truth is, there is too much of EVERYTHING, the tyranny of having to choose saps your energy and we all end up retreating in what we know. Things really were much better when there was only one pop radio station and a handful of TV shows, you got what you were given and sometimes you were amazed to the core.
I agree
wholeheartedly, Andrew. Choice is presented as making our lives richer and more meaningful, but all I see and feel is another form of tyranny.
So true Mr Harrison...
I couldn't agree more.
Welcome
to the world of information overload.
One of the great problems of our post-industrial age is the proliferation of choice. And worse yet is the fact that 'choice' has been enshrined as a socio-political mantra. "Choice is good" we are told. And it's a lie. Choice is paralysing, choice leads to inertia and entrenchment.
At least for some people.
Others are transliterate; able to assimilate choice, but in doing so make decisions based on the idea of filtering. There is a retreat into the ghettos of genre, where it is far easier to sit in some kind of comfort.
However, all is not lost. We do still have mass-market media outlets in this country. We still have the BBC. We are almost unique in the western world in having a state-funded provider with enough clout to be able to mix it up, in a Peel fashion. What this means is that channel controllers have to stop being so bloody safe, going for recognisable celebs who will draw a dull-eyed audience (yes, I'm talking about you, Allen Carr, on Radio 2. I don't mind him on TV). I'm talking about more of the likes of Radcliffe and Maconie, more of the likes of Andrew Marr's promising new BBC2 series. Instead of descending to the lowest common denominator, give us quality. Give us a reason to look at the licence fee and tell James Murdoch to stick his largely crummy, crud-laden spew where the sun don't shine.
In short, we need to stand up for those parts of our culture that deliver quality and are fronted by people who are able to sift and choose for us, to help us navigate the tsuanmi of choice that threatens to overwhelm us. People like Charlie Brooker (wasn't Newswipe great?). It's harder for broadcasters to find them, but find them we must other wise we will be condemned to survive on a diet of Simon Cowell approved blandness, Challenge TV and poptastic commercial radio.
Rant over.
Good arguement
Well put.
bands playing venues with parking
has ruined rock and roll, all the gigs I went to as a youth had no parking facilities as I recall - not that I drove then anyway, but we'd walk, get buses, catch trains.
Spending a night in a train station 'cos a show over-ran is rock and roll, sitting in a car jam for an hour waiting to get out of a stadium car park isn't.
Live Aid
It determined - with Queen and Quo's sets - that thereafter rock and roll would look only backwards with a nostalgic sigh for times past rather than relishing those to come.
(Well, maybe. I'm making this drivel up as I go along, to be quite honest.)
Another candidate
...for the Word T-shirt slogan?
What?
"I'm making this drivel up as I go along"??
Not enough songs about parking
Rock bands are too earnest and self-important these days. You wouldn’t get Keane or Muse or whoever doing dumb songs about “making out” in car parks. They’re far too “deep”.
http://open.spotify.com/track/7DeKvj79MKNHpqBmYWPtMa
If they did a song about making out in a car park
the PC brigade would immediately have it banned for encouraging the ruination of youth while criticising the band for failing to live up to its role model requirements. Pah!
Parking & Cabs
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Big Yellow Taxi -
and vice versa
this was a parking lot, now it's a peaceful oasis
Oasis
were never peaceful :-)
Yes they were
It was when those chaps from Burnage joined the band that the trouble started!
1) The Entertainment Licence and 2) The Smoking Ban
1) For making it too costly for pubs to support anything other than solo performers and ...
2) For turning our pubs into poncy wine bars and restaurants
(a little sweeping but you get my drift)
The Smoking Ban?
It has most definitely not turned pubs into poncy wine bars and restaurants. It's just turned smoking pubs into non-smoking pubs, with the result that you can spend an evening in one and return home not stinking like a laboratory beagle, and wake up the next morning with a throat that doesn't feel like the bottom of a parrot's cage.
My local pub, the Salisbury on Green Lanes, has changed a lot over the last decade and a half, but none of that has been due to the smoking ban, mostly preceding it. It's still a loud place full of people shouting at each other and drinking. The jukebox is brilliant too, though that's off the point I know.
Entertainment License - Yes; Smoking Ban - Nah
Nothing poncy about breathing
There are an awful lot of pubs
closing down in rural areas. In the pubs I have frequented, the biggest drinkers were also the smokers. To survive many pubs in my area now more closely resemble restaurants and there is certainly no music available.
Don't get me wrong
I miss the old style boozers. They get harder and harder to find, and I can't abide gastropubs and gassy chilled beer. But the decline of rural pubs is down to a bunch of factors, of which the smoking ban is probably the least influential.
I worked for Bass in the mid 90's and despite being the UK's biggest brewer they were already making plans to get out of beer production and pub ownership. The Beer Orders had put an end to the brewers having a stranglehold on pubs, duty was increasing well ahead of inflation. The real kiler was consumption in pubs falling away year on year as supermarkets became the dominant force, and quailty of beer you could drink at home increased. People's drinking habits changed, and being a corner boozer would no longer guarantee a living.
It left most pubs with a need to find other income streams, and food was the obvious route for many, as margins are high and the facilites were already there. Becoming a music venue was an option for some, but a bit of a niche market as it needed accomodating neighbours, and didn't guarantee extra bar take.
The smoking ban may have been the thing that finally tipped them over the edge, but it's got a lot more to do with the half dozen bottles of ESB that I now keep in the fridge.
the point is this
that the smoking ban has led to half your audience standing outside all night and not watching the bands.
Whether than ban is good or bad in general it has had a great effect of the "scene" and this comes to you from someone in a gigging band who was a smoker till a year a go and then quit.
Also its reduced inter-band support and solidarity as before you play everyone is out having nervous fags and after everyone is having kicking back and getting completely f**ked fags (either victory ones or commiserating ones). Even if you are a none smoker you spend a lot of time out there because that's where everyone else is.
All the above also has an effect on whether people come to paid entry nights... is there a point if you';re going to stand outside most of the night... might as well go to a free entry night and stand outside a pub where bands aren't playing.
And the irony is, the brewers stranglehold was replaced
by an equally tight Pubco stranglehold.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
The new revolution
http://www.fairpint.org.uk/
Absolument
Private Eye has been very good on this lately, it's a vicious and incompetent group of companies involved in the 'tie' that is forcing the pubs out of business now the brewers have lost interest, not the lack of ciggie smoke
At least the brewers had an interest
in keeping the pubs open whilst screwing their landlords - they were in the business of selling beer; the pubcos just see the pubs as an asset which, if the numbers don't work, can be closed and sold off.
Entertainment license
Far be it from me to be an apologist for The Man, but there seems to have been a lot of disinformation about this issue. As I understand it, previously, a venue needed a licence for live music by 3 or more performers (ie the '2 in a room' law), and that would be charged separately by the relevant local authority, according to its own (sometimes exorbitant) tariff. Now, a licence is needed for any number of performers, but this is applied for at the same time as a premises licence (ie one that allows you to sell alcohol) and costs no extra.
And after all, there still seems to be plenty of pubs putting on bands…
Wiggle It Just A Little Bit
If anything there has been a mini resurgence in these parts of pubs putting on open mics and bigger gigs as the landlords look for ways of getting people through the door. Bars (yes, horrible contemporary lifestyle holes) that had dj's last year are trying live music with varying degrees of quality (PA set up & artist) and success this year. There's an open mic every night of the week and then probably a choice of 3 or 4 other gigs in a city of 125000. Those gigs aren't large but they are there for the committed. But we've also had major venue closures and constant venue wobbles due to no one bloody well going to bigger gigs.
Privileged Parking Area ?
I haven't found the original article to get the context, but surely the clue is in the title : Privileged Parking Area.
A privileged person complaining about the cost of his petty privileges is a sign of the death of rock 'n roll ? I think not. Surely more rock 'n roll to park in a side street and then get out and walk.
Anyway, not everywhere is as almost completely free of public transport like Los Angeles, and extrapolating out its peculiar mess of urban sprawl and vehicle fetish to the rest of us is daft.
Me, I blame Ticketmaster.
It's probably semantics
Remember this is in the US. If you go to one of the newer sports stadiums pretty much the only way to get there is to drive. They will often have a privileged parking area which will be huge and immediately surrounding the stadium. It will cost a bit more (normally a few dollars) to park there but it is where most people will park as there will be room for thousands of cars. If you parked in the same place for a ball game you would probably be paying about $10.
Here's the link
http://www.rosebowlstadium.com/RoseBowl_U2-parking.htm
Parking area is described as "limited". General parking is $20. What the difference would be is not described, but you can guess. A shuttle bus is $5. There is even the encouragement of a Car Pool ("Be Green") and the use of Public Transport.
But no. In the words of the immortal BA Robertson :
"I'm happy to be playin' what's that you're sayin'?
There's got to be a limo to take me down the shops."
Thus rock 'n roll is ruined. Aye. Right.
The invention of karoake
and the death of Top Of The Pops.
Joni warned us in 1970...
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot".
In the words of the great man himself...
"...a measure which actually would have alleviated traffic congestion on the outskirts of paradise, something which Joni singularly fails to point out, perhaps because it doesn't quite fit in with her blinkered view of the world. Nevertheless, nice song."
Educate me
who is this great man?
Norfolk's finest
Aha!
Indeed.
Doh!
Sorry added Joni above before I saw your comment.
U2 ruined rock and roll
years ago. and continue to spoil it for the rest of us to this day.
Fnuh
every 'biggest band/performer in the world' ruined rock'n'roll ... the beatles probably get off the hook because they quit touring then split up properly but the rolling stones? elton john? queen? U2?
let's say, 1956, Elvis hits the big time ... nine years later ('65) the Beatles were playing Shea Stadium and eight years after that ('73) Led Zep were breaking records for schlepping around US stadia ... which gives 'rock' a 53 year history and stadium tours have been a typical part of the experience - hence ruining rock and roll - for at least 36 years
so i don't go with the U2/stadium rock/it's the end idea ...
an increasingly sophisticated and fast-acting commodification surely is the true killer ...
Economics
Most rock n roll was created in periods of relative affluence in both the UK and USA - particularly for teenagers, plus the consumption of music had fewer competitors as an adolescent distraction.
... oh, ok, I was lying - it was Bono after all...
Peerages
Why do our '60s rock n' rollers need to be knights of the realm baffles me and seems very silly indeed.
Thatcher!
I once heard Len Brown of the NME on The Tube ranting about how bad the charts were: 'I can't finish without saying the charts under Thatcher have been worse than under any other government'.
I think there is a lot to be laid at Thatcher's door, but the state of the pop charts wasn't really one of them. In fact, I'd argue that because so many young people were on the dole back then, it was a fantastically creative time for pop music.
Red Wedge
And of course, Thatcher begat Red Wedge and the associated tour. For better or worse (and there was a lot of "worse"!) it was the last real politically motivated music movement we've seen.
The Enterprise Allowance Scheme would
pay any enterprising youngster to start a band.
The Tube
It's a great quote - I wish I'd said it. Unfortunately I was never famous enough or gobby enough or attractive enough to appear on The Tube. And, sadly, I've never had the confidence to rant against anything on telly in my entire life. Must have been some other spotty herbert from the Enema. Len
Dads like you and me...
When I was 16 the sight of anyone going and see Buzzcocks or Magazine or even AC/DC above the age of 25 would have been amazing. The thought of going with my dad never even entered my head, that would have been absolutely impossible to consider.
Nowadays rock n' roll gigs are full of paunchy bald old blokes, how can that be sexy?
Us older guys
The gigs I go to, tend to be more mature artists, if not bands I grew up with, people who came to my notice later in life after years of work.
I can't see myself going along to say, Arctic Monkeys and thereby lowering the audience sexiness quotient.
Platinum Seat Insanity has ruined rock'n'roll ...
Official Ticetmaster price: 550 Euro for Macca at the O2 Dublin! I suspect that the people in the row behind will have a clear view to the stage.
Macca will no doubt get a guaranteed fixed price for the gig so I'm guessing this is either the promoter's or Ticketmaster's revenue boosting scheme.
I went to see Roger Waters last year at Earl's Court. The entire first 25 rows or so were held for corporate hospitality.
At a small gig as part of the Belfast Festival last year I saw the Orchestra Baobab and the first three rows were 'reserved' and empty for the entire gig!
I go to a lot of live gigs but I think I feel like calling it a day.
I'm not sure what my point is but it isn't home taping that's killing music. I
TV coverage of festivals
Glastonbury has turned into the Henley regatta since it was on the telly. I haven't been shouted at by a bewildered Catweazel lookalike for years...
Last time I was there, even though it pissed rain, I seemed to spend the time tripping over sodden hampers...
I initially read that as...
'tripping over sodden hamsters'.
Those Top Gear presenters
get everywhere...
never mind ruination, glasters
was urination as i recall.
Mobile phones at gigs
....
So when, exactly, was rock 'n' roll in an unruined state?
This thread reads like a Daily Express editorial meeting. Get hip to the beat, daddy-o.
Singles taken from LP's
The slavish mining of singles from albums.
Obvious example.....'Thriller' by Michael Jackson, though the rot had set in long before then (e.g. The Sex Pistols, The Police).
Ironically 'The King of Pop' (copyright) did more to ensure the demise of the singles chart and the consequent ending of 'Top Of The Pops' than anyone else.
Personally I couldn't give a toss about this.
They could have released every last track from Dare!, The Specials, Park Life, Lexicon Of Love, The Queen Is Dead, London Calling, Do You Like Rock Music? or PSBs' Very as a single and I wouldn't have cared at all. Great songs and great recordings are what they are – they are not diminished by being sent out to earn a crust on their own. You know what's ruined rock and roll? Bad music.
Really?
I think that that's when the penny dropped for me - the labels, perhaps the acts too, were beginning to treat the punters like mugs (maybe bigger mugs)by wringing every last drop from an album thus devaluing both products.
Before then most bands were releasing an album a year with one or two singles taken from it. Many singles weren't on albums at all.
As for 'bad music' - that's subjective, obviously, but whatever terms one uses to define it, I'm pretty sure it's always been there.
Before then albums were often a poorly assembled
grab-bag of two singles and as little filler as could be put out to justify the 32/6.
Really? Maybe I'm more discerning than I thought.
If this became endemic in the mid 80s (aforementioned Pistols and Police aside) most albums I'd bought before then don't fit your 'grab bag' theory - I'm thinking Sparks, Mott, Bowie, Led Zep, Clash, Jam, early REM - one or two singles, new tracks on the b sides, norralorrafilla on the albums. But all from the decimal days - maybe I'm not going back far enough. How many singles did the Beatles, the Who or the Stones tend to release from their albums?
It was the other way round
Rather than releasing singles from albums, artists included their singles on albums after they'd charted. As the name album implies, albums then were collections of songs, whether previously released or new, original or covers. Most of the songs were what would now be called "filler". The first two Beatles albums, for example, both consisted of nearly 50% cover versions of previous hits by others - like Bacharach & David's "Baby It's You" (Shirelles), Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" and Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got A Hold On Me".
Singles were what groups "did", their basic product. Until the mid-to-late Sixties, most albums were not unlike merchandising today - commercial exercises to get the committed fans to part with as much of their cash as possible. And that's why the term "concept album" arose (from about Sgt. Pepper onwards) for albums that were intended to be taken as a whole - like chapters in a novel rather than a collection of short stories.
Although you could argue
that the fully formed album as a cohesive suite of songs, if not a 'concept' per se, was initiated by Frank Sinatra's Capitol albums of the mid-50's onwards.
I'm thinking pre-1966 here :-)
I see
- cheers.
Wrong Andrew
A new single can't be new music if it's been gathering dust on an LP/CD for the best part of the previous year.
In the 50s and 60s such releases were almost like newspapers, hot off the press.
Andrew Harrison is so WRONG and has got the music industry (and music) his pallid generation deserves.
Oh, and no need for a show like 'Top Of The Pops'.
The ease of obtaining music
iTunes, Spotify, downloading, digital....music on demand. I want it now, and I'm not prepared to wait.
I mean, it's great, isn't it? When I was growing up I had to either buy what I wanted - if I could afford it and if it was available - borrow it from someone else, or wait to hear it on the radio. What's not to like about what we've got access to these days?
But I can't help thinking something has been lost. The feeling that these wonderful songs are somehow precious because they are hard to get, rather than available at the click of a button.
It's not really something that's 'ruined' rock and roll, I just feel the odd twinge of regret after a couple of glasses of red.
I know
what you mean.
Also, I know people publish and share playlist - I mean I do. We do, right here on this thread - but it's not quite the same as my mate Tobe buying "Unknown Pleasures", me buying "London Calling" and lending/borrowing so we could tape each other's albums.
Obviously, as a result of this home taping - Tobe and I killed music
Trainers
Rock 'n' roll starts from the feet up. I bet Little Richard has NEVER worn trainers. Converse sneakers are fine, of course. And hip hop has a doctor's note allowing it to wear Adidas.
I'm Enjoying Music More Than Ever....
..As a teenager never had the cash to see many gigs or the bottle to blag my way in so music was always via records.
Looking back now on Liverpool at that time (pre Crucial 3) I know stuff was going on but didn't at the time. Now with the rise of the internet and Myspace I'm getting out more than ever to the gigs playing in the pubs and clubs of Liverpool. I'm seeing bands being able to play outside of the city cos they're building up fan bases before they get there - which is crucial when venues are hedging their bets by insisting on x amount of ticket sales upfront.
I can choose to go to the big arena gigs and take it or leave the experience in the sure knowledge that the gig will be out on DVD if I deem the ticket price too high - stopped going to see one band cos the tickets just kept going up and up.
And before we get all nostalgic for the days of innovation in music - with everything sounding the same just remember that its always been this way. The Beatles produced the Merseybeat copists, as did New Wave, Brit pop etc. Its often only with hindsight that the cream floats to the top.
Video Killed The Radio Star
Has to be MTV. The image is now more important than the sound an artist creates.
I came across this clip yesterday
You just made think of it. Image conciousness nothing new. George:'So in a way I suppose we invented MTV'. Shut up Ringo, don't talk over it!
Florence & The Machine Tonight On 6Music. 17:50ish.
A cover of Candi Staton's You Got The Love was played. This has not just ruined rock and roll but every other form of contemporary art and I will punch any f*cker that disagrees with me.
agree
I was woken this morning by bbc6 playing that turgid mess. why are kasabian also covering the song this year? have these bands really heard that little music they have to cover the same disco song to try and reach out to more suckers.
Bands who only listen to rock music killed rock
This isn't a theory that I invented, but I think one of the reasons that we have landfill indie is that bands grew up on rock and it's not that rich a source of musical nourishment.
The Pigeon Detectives sound like they do because their horizons are bounded by The View and Oasis.
Right - I'm putting the Skatalites on to cheer myself up
Oasis
Yep.
The Beatles were influenced by the war, music hall, The Goons, skiffle, rock 'n' roll, country, classical music, instrumental groups, latin music, blues (missed anything?).
Oasis were influenced by...erm...the Beatles.
And just the once
Having been influenced by them the once, that did for the next 15 f***** years. Imagine if they'd listened to another song?
Showing influences is one thing
Lazy, unimaginative recycling quite another. Yay! jerky, scratchy guitar style post-punk is back with singing like Robert Smith. Yay! early eighties synth-pop is back. Yay! Jesus And The Mary Chain style fuzzy shoe-gazey drone is back. Only not done quite so well as first time around. Come up with your own ideas! I blame Bono too, and Oasis - predictable I know. Radiohead may be loathed by many here but at least they sound like they're in the noughties. Sorry, what was this thread about again?
LiveTicketNationMaster
And all their bastard charges.
($5 fee if you print this message out)
i am waiting for ticketing agencies...
... to employ a Ryanair style online booking system with a mandatory £5 charge for booking online, extra insurance costs that are hard to delete from the order, extra charges for baggage ("A handbag miss? But you didn't pay the appropriate fee of £3.75 online, so your bag incurs a flat 'on the night' charge of £7.75 or you could leave it in this unsecured bin..."), a voluntary carbon offsetting charge for the gig, VIP priority queue charge, unobstructed view premium, and cut price vouchers to offset against food, drink and merchandise purchases within the premises but only on the designated evening, no refunds...
Great ideas!
We'll get right on to it! :-)
Who said rock & roll was ruined?
There is still plenty of great music out there. This year alone has given us the wonderful Humbug from Arctic Monkeys, the intriguing Embryonic from Flaming Lips, the bloody amazing After Robots by BLK JKS, the astonishing Crack In The Skye by Mastodon, the impassioned Dissolver by Iran, the masterful Wilco (The Album) - need I go on? And that's just sticking to the rockier side of the current scene.
So you'll hear no whining from me.
....Is bands themselves
Yep, them. Years ago I too worked in the business and I recall having lunch with someone from EMI who told me that from then on (this was 1992, I think) they, and most of the labels were going to concentrate on boybands - manufactured bands. Why? Because they were fed up with pumping large amounts of time, money and effort into bands that didn't want to work, or who seemed determined to sabotage everything that was put into place for them.
Fat Elvis
A karate-chopping parody doing Blue Suede Shoes. In fact, make that every band that forgot to retire or die in their early thirties.
You're all wrong - Its "Schools of Rock"
I'll give you an example. Guildford has a place called the Academy of Contemporary Music "ACM" where kids go to learn to be Rock Stars. Walk around Guildford at 8am and there they are, all off to school to learn to be Rock Stars. At 8am on a Monday? One - its too early in the day by 8 hours to be "learning" to be a Rock Star. Two - name me a single innovator who learned to be a Rock Star at school? (They may have learned music at school - but then they adapted that knowledge to create). Three - they all look like something out of the Cure as they trudge in to "learn" how to be a "Rock Star". Totally depressing.
And finally. Er...my daughter does an evening class there.
And enjoys it.
Bugger.
So *that's* what they're doing
I walk past that place every day (before 8am though, I'm a working man, you know) and have always wondered what went on there. In the evenings, I often see earnest looking teenagers with guitars on their backs and fringes in their eyes sloping down to that place.
Plus, if you're going to learn to be a rock star (not that I think you can), is the Home Counties really the place to do it? The Stranglers aside, Guildford's pretty much as un-rock n' roll as it's possible to be.
What about The Vapours?
Eh?
Point taken
didn't realise they were Guildfordian
The Vapours?
From Woking I always thought........
Let the magic of Wikipedia
be your guide
Charts (lack of meaningful ones)
I miss the singles charts. I know that the charts are still there but the national singles chart used to mean that the top 10 songs were the ones that had connected with the most people. I have no idea now. I think Lady Gaga is probably popular - but popular to the same extent as Kylie in her prime? I don't know.
Sometimes an unknown, unpromoted indie act would start to sell quite well (denting the top 75) and you would be curious as to why so many people are buying their single. I do not have that as a reference point now because buying a single is not a reliable measure of an act's impact.
There are economic models that measure "soft" things like business confidence, so why not a proper chart that takes on board sales, live shows, media exposure, youtube plays, downloads, radio play. Perhaps the act itself is the charted entity rather than their particular single or album. Anyway, I miss the charts and I am more suspicious than ever of the latest Big Thing.
Nothing
Rock and Roll is not ruined. It is sometimes successful and sometimes not. Sometimes it is a reaction against and sometimes it is reacted against.
I read all the above
and nobody mentioned the real culprits:
KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,
KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,KEANE,
?
I thought he ruined Ipswich
other Candiates
1. The day someone decided (probably himself) that Frank Zappa was a "Genius".
2. King Crimson.
3. Getting rid of Top of Pops.
4. Wristbands.
5. When the coach system at Glastonbury got good and so you didn't have to walk from castle Cary station.
6. KEANE.
7. When young people started getting less "Bohemian" (see earlier comments about Synth Britannia) rock and pop stars use to read JG Ballard books and then write number ones about them I'm not sure Johnny Burrel can read. Look at all the mad erudition in Iron Maiden or Motorhead songs let alone the so called intellectuals.
8. In contradiction to point 7. when we lost "dumbness" from pop and rock it flares up occasionally in things like firestarter but it getting rarer rock and pop are mind and heart.
9. Elvis Costello
10. Keane.
Joan Jett Writes...
Well I love rock and roll, whatever that means. However I was born in 1974 when R&R was 20 years old and it seemed it had all of it's work done by then.
Between 1954 - 1974 music was the only show in town: It moved out of the palours with pianos and became a user-controlled, time-shiftable medium. Previously this was only ever a function of books, but books need you to get involved. You could never hear a book from the next room and get a visceral what was that??!! sensation. So there was a medium (the record), would there be a message to match? And so it came to pass that rock struck to the heart of the post war generation looking for the other, the else, some kind of communal message.
There's no way of going back there. User controlled entertainment is everywhere and combined with the various media there is no essential communal message anymore. Plus what passes for the 'rock' lifestyle, eg money, drugs, sex, can now all be found in the community, if you know where to look. The outraged political activism side of sixties rock still exists online where people who care and on occasion know about things try to get their message accross.
But if I was 14 today I'd love Spotify, and I'd especially love GarageBand and its ilk. When I were young you had to use a Tascam 4 track and that were yer lot.
I think rock and roll is doing what you want. Everything's fine.
This sort of thing.
Dolores O'Riordan and the original members of The Cranberries have announced that they will reunite for the first time in nearly seven years for a live show. The influential Irish band, famous for hits such as Zombie and Linger among many others, have announced their only UK date which will be at The Royal Albert Hall on March 31st 2010.
VIP Lounge Experience
1. Best seats in the stalls
2. Pre-show reception within one of the State Rooms at the RAH.
3. Beer, wine and soft drinks available at the open bar pre-show and during interval
4. Finger food and hot bowl food will be served among the guests
5. Souvenir programme (one per two guests) *
VIP Private Box Experience
1. Canapes and finger food (including dessert canapes)
2. Half bottle of champagne, Half bottle wine (or alternative beer) and Half bottle water per person
3. Service waiter in box
4. Exclusive hire of the box
5. Programme per person**
and the capper :
Private Box experience :
Grand Tier Box (12 people): £2700 (inc VAT)
Loggia Box (8 people): £1800 (inc VAT)
I'd pay that much to get out.
But I'd neck the booze first..
So
you wouldn't linger, then.
Coat on, etc.
Boom, etc..
My GLW went to see The Cranberries back in the early 90's. First twitches of interest, small gig - Pompey Wedgewood rooms. The support? Dodgy. No-one had heard of them and they took the roof off the place, two encores, the second a PROPER encore - crowd literally baying for more, chucking stuff at the roadies trying to clear the stage. Dolores O'Cranberry and blokes eventually take to the stage, faces like smacked arses for, one suspects, not the first time on the tour and are very average.
Mind you, who cracked the USA? He or she who laughs last and all that.
"For our last number, I'd like to ask your help.
The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, just rattle your jewellery."
- John Lennon, 46 years ago on Tuesday.
I suspect nothing has ruined rock and roll
its just age ruining us.
I suspect kids of 14 to 24 still have there own things going on, some will be into mainstream music, some will be into something cool and underground and some will be indifferent, as it was when i was growing up.
We like to think we're a little hipper than previous generations of 40 somethings but I imagine all generations have felt this (though perhaps not in relation to music).
For sure you could have read similar articles in music magazines in the 60's and 70's, all pointing to the younger generation going to H in a handcart and just not caring as much.
its all out their brothers and sisters, its just that most of us can't be bothered these days to go out and see live electroclash (or whatever, im 42 for christ sake) in shoreditch at 2am on a Sunday morning.
art for art's sake
You sir have hit the nail right flat smack on it's bloody huge head..take a bow..take a bow!
But we *are* hipper
And not just hipper than previous generations at our age. We're hipper than the generations that have followed us too. Otherwise how do you explain why the Music Magazine of The Year "(Again!)" is ours rather than theirs? Where are the new Creem, Oz, Trouser Press, Rolling Stone or NME? The "new NME" is, er, the NME. How miserable is that?
I've been struck by this evident truth twice recently, first by Dave Hepworth's column in this month's mag, and then earlier today when I watched a fascinating documentary via a link posted here. When he was 24, Eric Clapton turned to the skills of the veteran Tom Dowd* to produce his breakout solo album. The guest guitarist on that record was Duane Allman (23). Then, thirty years later, when Joe Bonamassa was 23, he also turned to the skills of the more-than-veteran Tom Dowd (then 75) to record his breakout solo album. The guest vocalist on that record was Duane Allman's brother, Gregg (then 52). That's the equivalent of Eric Clapton checking out who the best people to make Layla with would be and turning to the heppest cats of 1940.
Nothing ruined rock and roll particularly. It just got old.
But that's the problem with smashing down barriers and casting new moulds: it can generally only be done once. People are, of course, free to claim that Johnny Marr, the Edge and Jonny Buckland are in every respect the creative equals of Eric Clapton, Duane Allman and Jimmy Page in 1970, but surely in their heart of hearts they must realise that that's like claiming that Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are the equals of Picasso and Matisse.
Over the course of the last decade - an eon in rock terms, or at least it used to be (it's the whole period between "Telstar" and "Silver Machine") - I've come to be more and more convinced of the truth of what Andrew Harrison says somewhere up there: the new music of real, lasting value doesn't have very much to do with electric guitars, or even rock and roll, at all.
Let us rock! Here's Bachman Turner Overdrive....
_______
* He was a real old-timer - five years younger then than Morrissey is now.
well Archie
I think the reason you are hipper (and I'm 28 so I'm not yet in the same boat as most who post here, though I think I'm Kate Mossman's age) than past generations is because people live longer and have more free time and affluence than ever before so they have time and money to be hip... and post retirement they have even more time.
But I would agree more with someone (I forget who) who posted above and said that there has always been hipness throughout history in older people, though not always in terms of music. I think that's an important distinction.
My dad is 85 and he's been pretty hip all his life, and has adapted to an extent to engage with if not embrace every movement that has come along, 50's, 60's, 80's, 90's till now. I think the key is he embraces change and is interested in new things. There have always been a proportion of people who do.
The thing is that affluent middle aged men (and a small proportion of affluent middle aged women) essentially run society practically but also in cultural terms. They run the BBC, they edit the magazines, they buy all the records, as well as running government and business.
So the answer to your question Archie: "how do you explain why the Music Magazine of The Year "(Again!)" is ours rather than theirs?"
Because you run the awards ceremony rather than them. I love the word. I think it really stands out. It also has something to say which is really engaging, partly because it is honest. It says: This magazine is run by a bunch of middle aged men who love music and have worked in magazines/music for years. We have seen it all change and we have something to say because we have been witnesses.
And it is also more open than many places it seems to me to what people in the younger generation genuinely have to say and so of course it hires staff who are outside the above catchment.
But the word staff know they can afford to be niche in their market because they have a market who can pay for it.
Being voted the magazine of the year is good but its hardly rock and roll credibility is it?!?!
goosefat
it was probably wishful thinking that you might bump into Ms Moss and strike up a conversation about shared love of 1998 or whatever but she's 35 I'm afraid :)
protest too much?
i have lots of friends who are in their 30's.
I just assumed her age from her youthful looks and her "relatively recently" on her word profile.
BTW I have no love for 1998. And I don't think its unlikely that a 17 year old and a 22 year old wouldn't have been listening (or not listening) to the same bands.
That said I'll have you know I have been happily not married to the same lady for 9 years and have no plans in switching those attentions to the lovely Ms Mossman, so any conversations about 1998 or otherwise that I might have with her would be purely conversational wish fulfillment rather than anything else...
it's all the same
You get to my age and 28 and 35 are pretty much the same age i.e. quite a lot younger than me! Anyway those were our ages when I married the third love of my life (music and Liverpool FC got their first).
Drum microphones
I remember reading an interview with Steve Winwood talking about the extraordinary promiscuity of the live music culture in the late sixties, with impromptu mixing of different band members, and what a spur it was to creativity. Hendrix, it seems, played with pretty much everyone. Winwood said that scene ended when it became too cumbersome to just turn up somewhere and play, and pinned the blame on miking up drum kits.
interesting point
miking up drums is generally pointless in small rooms but sound technicians always insist on doing it anyway.
I don't think that's the whole story though, although I'm sure miking up drums and stuff has made some changes in small ways on the music scene. Most venues provide a backline for the musicians so it is possible to turn up anywhere and play. And even when no backline is provided everyone will be sharing one drum kit unless you want massive gaps between sets.
The live scene has often become less free and interesting, though many great bands are playing the sort of improvisation and mixing up is lacking in most places now. But some scenes that we all haven't heard of will probably be doing exciting stuff.
1. There's Too Much Of It. 2. Corporatism
My first point:
Everywhere you go you are bombarded with pop/rock/dance music.
Trickling or gushing from speakers in shops. Thudding out of passing cars. Tinnily tinkling out of the phones of strangers. Tsk tsk-ing out of the headphones of strangers on the train or the bus.
As a much younger person, the world was a quieter place and music was a rarer and sought-after commodity of value to those who loved a good tune. Now it's everywhere, in your face and mostly worthless.
Hearing some good music was always a joyful thing back in the day. Now even good music can irritate when it is inappropriate, and it often is these days.
My second point:
In the sixties and seventies and getting into the eighties, the multinational entertainment corporations hadn't yet stuffed music into their industrial mould in order to pump it out like little aural sausages. Towards the end of the eighties and into the nineties the sausage factory came on-line with a vengeance and 'product' was shifted in large and lucrative quantities. Now we're in the noughties and it's all begun to go wrong for them, yet they're still holding on to the music, seemingly intending to take it down the big black plug hole with them. Music will escape their death grip eventually, but the old days of glory are gone for ever. Don't look back, play on.
as someone born in 1981
I have never really known a world without the industrial mould you speak of. But it strikes me that the beginning of the stuffing began probably with recorded music. As soon as you could capture it and make it into a commodity the direction was fixed.
The 60's as far as I understand it was not just the moment where a wonderful counterculture thrived, it was also a time when the idea of personal expression and freedom came to be understood as a marketable commodity, in fact the counterculture leaders often made quiet a tidy profit from selling these ideas to people during the 70's and most definitely in the 80's.
Not that good music wasn't and isn't made from within the Industrial machine of music, sometimes because of that machine, and also there are still some scenes etc... that exist outside it to a certain extent and there always have been.
Anyway Mike_H I completely agree with your first point, the noisiness of the world does make it hard to appreciate the quality hidden within it. And I generally agree with your second point (though with the clarification that the historical imperative of corporatism/commercialism/capitalism/technological development whatever you want to call it, began much earlier than the late 80's and has infected (and also often energised to give it its due) music since way back... in fact probably further back than recording devices now I think of it.
But you are right at the moment the machine is pretty much in control, and whilst it thinks it is assimilating all the new ideas into itself and profiting from it, it is in fact, often, stifling new ideas in favour of churning out what it "knows" will sell. It is a serpent eating its own tail. A self replicating computer virus which once created simply carries out its own logic on and on dispassionately.
I fully agree that there is hope for music now things have began to go wrong for the corporations in the Naughties. The Internet whilst being in some ways the ultimate result of the highly developed technological capitalist experiment is also in some ways the biggest threat to the homogeneous and empty culture it has created. Although the biggest threats to the status quo really come from future environmental catastrophe and the dwindling of the resources on which everything else is based (oil, gas, living space, ecosystems). Perhaps some hope can be drawn from these terrors in that it may be possible to forge new societies that do not bombard us with so much information that we can't think, that allow us to focus on the things than make life worth living etc... simple pleasures, simpler lives. We'll see I guess.
Anyway I clicked the up arrow and then I thought, damn it I wish I could click that again a bunch of times. And then I thought... hang on that's what comments are for!
You are of course correct
You are of course correct that the music industry as we know it was already getting started in the sixties and seventies, but the record label A&R departments were still susceptible to occasional outbreaks of strangeness in a way that todays multinationals aren't.
i totally accept what you say but
its all part of a continuum and follows and internal logic that was set way back. We are at the furthest development of the idea of a music industry. Hopefully things will retreat back and strangeness will return. There are some places good and interesting things are happening.
I'd say Saddle Creek is a pretty exciting and interestingly independent music label and scene.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_Creek
There are probably loads more, I am just in the loop. Similarly bands who have been allowed in as strange are allowed to continue to be so (for example The Flaming Lips.)
Rock 'n' Roll...
... is heard everywhere.
That's what ruined it.
Getting back to the parking thing, though...
...is it not wholly appropriate that the outrageous price of stadium rock parking facilities should reach their tipping point at a U2 show? After all, did not Bono himself prophecy in the days of yore (well, circa 1988, wasn't it?) that "rock'n'roll stops traffic"? well, clearly it now does: none but the wealthiest of motorists will be found anywhere near the vicinity of a U2 show as (a) those going to it won't be able to afford the parking fees and (b) everyone else in town with a car will avoid the area completely that night assuming (unaware as they will be of the localised economic bombshell) that the place will be a logjam of other cars. At $60 a go, not any more it won't.
(tenuous postscript: on the question of Thatcher ruining rock'n'roll, somewhere in the vastness of this thread above... it might be fascinating to some to know that as early as November 1971, University College London ran an anti-Thatcher 'Save our Student Union' benefit gig - featuring, of course, Quintessence - in the wake of the then Education minister Mrs T and her party-pooping student union proposals. Even then, you see, even then...)
Let's Rock!! Yawn.
A bunch of tired old cliches and a loss of potency brought on by repetition ad nauseum and ubiquity, a victim of it's own success - see Dermot O'Leary doing the devil sign on X Factor last night. If there is thriving underground scene, where is it? If it's so well hidden it's invisible it might as well not exist. Everything gets absorbed and becomes mild eventually. But the power can still be found in the originals, happily. Oh well, better get on with the ironing.
Irons...
...are the new heavy metal...
Something I Discovered Recently...
...you can buy ironing water.
Yes, water especially for your iron.
As opposed to water from your tap.
Unbelievable.
Sorry, got a bit off-message there.
As you were, men.
You can't tease us like that
Where from ? How much ?
Can't remember the name of the brand...
... but it's out there.... in your local supermarket.
It's Comfort 'Vaporesse'
and it's actually quite useful if your normal tap water scales the iron up. Lovely fragrances too. Don't know how much it is.
Other ironing waters are available.
I can't believe I've just given advice about ironing water :-)
Makes sense if you live in an hard water area
as it stops your iron clagging up. I used to use 'defrost run-off' from the fridge although, at a push, boiled water will do just as well.
Ironing water
It's only one step on from being able to buy ice cubes, grated cheese and breadcrumbs. These advances represent the final tweaks of human evolution.
You've Convinced Me...
... I'm gonna get me some of that there ironing water the next time I'm downtown and give it a try.
Ah
Irony in rock 'n' roll?
Mark Chapman
'nuff said.
A turning point
Something was lost at a certain point in a similar way to Viz. From the magazine 'Once the kid gets the book from their parent, that's it. It's ruined.'
Lemon Jelly...
...those expensive wellies that Mark Radcliffe wears at Glastonbury, Roger Daltry's trout farm, solo albums, near-eastern gurus, playing guitar solos on top of Buckingham Palace, Phil Collins' gated drum sound, laminates, Tallulah Gosh, festival falafel, sampling bits from records that were already samples, David Cameron liking Echo & The Bunnymen, that record that goes "you had a bad day!", George Bush's iPod, and not realising - vis-a-vis: a) concept albums; b) political statements; and c) appearing on "Wogan" with Amazonian men with plates in their lips - that a little knowledge is a dangerous and infuriating thing.
Oh, and one more thing, above everything else: the very idea of a Fame Academy. The fame academy is death. The fame academy has given us singers who are taught to "visualise their demographic". It has given us singers who write polite songs about how wonderful Patti Smith is, but without a shred of her passion, and who are incapable of even realising that they sound like the aural equivalent of cupcakes because they went to said rock school instead of working in a "Piss Factory".
Oh, and one more "one more" thing. Rock may well be dead, but it will be unzombiefiably superdead if EVER Iggy Pop has a facelift. If he ever succumbs and has that madness and excess ironed free from his face, everything compelling about low culture will no longer exist, and when rock cannot be low, who will either want or need something that can no longer transgress anything?
Bit harsh on
the felafels, I thought. I'm not sure reconstituted chickpea has played quite the role in the decline of rock that you suggest.
But otherwise spot on.
i called round to a friend
last night specifically to listen to music and check out some new/old acts and we ended up just sitting staring at his laptop transferring mp3 files...far more than is necessary for anyone at any given time..it will take me years to get through the 180 gb stuff i've got....BUT...i do like the fact that I have it and that I can reference it..
e.g. reading a book like Rip It up and Start Again with the assistance of blogs and youtube is far more enligtening than reading, say, the NME encyclopedia of rock when you're ten trying to imagine the music (tho that has its charm)
Is there some you do like ?
To expand on Lennylaw's point ('when was it unruined'), I'm guessing that everyone will hate/despise the vast majority of current media, and everyone will like/love a small minority of it. The question is whether there is anything you personally like/love at any given moment/era, and is it new in any way.
As an example, I absolutely hated growing up in the 70s, but you can still name any number of great groups, albums, singles, movies etc. from the 70s.
For my money, the fact that everything I hear lately seems to be a cynical regurgitation of some random combination of previous eras and styles means I can't stop comparing them, usually unfavourably. I'm not sure I subscribe to Brian Eno's interview piece recently where he said he loved the fact everyone can listen to anything from any time, any genre without prejudice, which wasn't possible back in the day.
But then I go and contradict myself and realise all the things I do love were themselves regurgitations (whether it was the blues, garage bands, of whatever), and think maybe it's just got more to do with when you do your growing up and the moment you got the passion. Maybe we're just the same old fogies as our parents, but we just drink more and still go to gigs, moaning on.