h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, back to great Brit artists.

Fatboy Slim. Does anyone remember this story?

'On 13 July 2002 Fatboy Slim performed the second of his free, open air concerts on Brighton beach. Despite expecting a crowd of around 60,000 people the event instead attracted an estimated 250,000 who crammed the promenade and beach between Brighton's famous piers. Local police forced the event to end early amid safety concerns, overcrowding, and one death. After the music had finished and the crowd began to dissipate, traffic ensued throughout the Brighton area with many caught in traffic jams until the morning'.

(From, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatboy_Slim)




I quite like this funny, somewhat violent animation, to the music, of 'Praise You' on YouTube. (the most important thing is that it's okay sound quality, on this clip). I *love* this song. It can be read in so may different ways. Atheists and Antiatheists can enjoy it equally.

here it is:-


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_0ZHDrxH8s

Fatboy Slim! You can't have him: he stockpiles Atari STs. What kind of behaviour is that? Also, he collects compressors and...doesn't...even... know...how...they WORK! He's got a producer. What sort of (very) sample based dance "artist" has a producer? He's supposed to *be* a producer and he can't even plug his own gear in, so all he does is steal music off'f other people and hire some underpaid geek to get it to sound nice.



That gig was just down the road from my house at the time and I didn't even know it was there, although I did have some slight apprehension that everyone was walking in the opposite direction from me. I got a kebab.

Everything a_a_e said, with more cowbell.

Fatboy Slim's first album "Better Living Through Chemistry" was actually pretty sweet, but then he disappeared into that nick-something-old-filter-it-and-put-a-big-band-beat-on-it business that wound up with "versions" appearing of Little Less Conversation and I Got Life.

Though I can't help but love Christopher Walken's dance moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs

If you're going to like Praise You, you ought to hear teh source.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg1oh45n5iI

Hey cheers for that Christopher. The source is so much, so much, better.

I think my record collection is about 50/50 UK USA with the odd bit of other stuff. The UK side is all Warp, Plantet Mu, Rephlex, Skam, Pork and other less known labels plus a big fat stack of drum and bass and weird breakbeat stuff. Although not all uk artists on those labels. Quite UK based sort of music though. Which is strange really. Tigerbeat6 is the same type of stuff but US. I also seem to have a oddly large number of Massive Attack and Portishead singles. The US side is all second hand Micheal Jackson 7"s... with a tiny smattering of Motown, soul, funk, disco, hip-hop, intensely rude latin stuff and Gangsta Rap's estranged brother, steve reich esq minimalism. Yummy. Not sure where Tonto are from, but they've got a bugger off synth, as does Tomita. Tomita is Japanese.

I'm not even going to think about mp3s

Props for the Yarborough, C. Do you happen to kno what country she's from?

Let's take stock. Remember in Post 1, I posted a list of great American Artistes. I still defy anyone to find a better British act than any one of these. *That said* I could name any number of British acts and say hand on heart that there are no Americans to compare with them. Musical talent is multidimensional; more than one act can be the best ever. Oftentimes with me the best is whatever I'm listening to right now.

This morning I was listening to Professor Longhair. 'Fess is another example of a great artist who can't sing. For them's as don't know him,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NEqHIIkY-w
You may have come across this in connection with a certain ubiquitous, ball-gown wearing young lady.

You cn't hear him not singing there. Try here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBSN7WOPkQ0
1.12 onwards. He's on fine form.

To sign him up for Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun had to walk across four fields in the Louisiana night to where he was playing in an illegal drinking shack.

Daym, I might have to check out Prof Longhair.



We had a band at our weedding called Professor Nohair and the Wiglifters. They were awesome!

Here's a vidoe of them playing at a gig I was at! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXM3WHJP-5U You can briefly see me in the background!



Gif

Which one's you?

It's a pleasure to introduce someone to something new.

It looks like it'll take less effort to get into Prof Longhair than Proust.

Don't think I've forgotten, you git

Gif

Fatboy Slim did end up being rubbish.

Then so did a lot of people Elvis did and he proabably had more white hot raw energy/charisma/magic than any other musician/singer.

Whatever ideas that made atboy popular have run dry even if he now has more money to pay for more and better skiled producers engineers and people wnat him to use their samples or remix their records.

It is practically inveitable that jus about every artists creative spark gets msothered by their fame.

Mike Skinner put together wiht a loose collective a buunch of songs that were individual snapshots of aspects of modern life. After being successul he parted company with most of his collaborators and released a concept album, which despite having some good moments was sold mostly on the worst track on the bleedin album, because it was a love song. Then he started doing songs about being famous and promptly got lost up his own fundament.

Jarvis Cocker's last Album was as insightful as any of the masterpeices he created with Pulp but who really wants to hear pop songs about the concerns of a middle aged man? Songs about the growing pains and love pangs an ill at ease teenager...there will always be a market for that.

Chuck D has gone the same way as Jarvis not because he has grown up but because his music has and even though he wasnt a youth when "Yo Bum Rush the Show" through to "Fear of a Black Planet" came out those albums dripped not only wiht political anger but more importanly burned with youthul rage.

My avourite Sting album is "The Soul Cages" but I wouldnt put it on or anyone else to listen to, the best Polices?sting songs come rom when they were all full of coke screwing up their lives and fighting with each other.

Once an artists or even a genre loses that impetus to its music there is nothing let but nerdy lourishes and rehashing of past glories left.

The best Queen song is a pastiche of earlier rock-a-billy music, "crazy little thing called love". Rock and metal were zombie music through the late 70's and 80's and only had a breif return to good orm through grunge in the early 90's. Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The oo Fighters much as I like them are essentially tribute bands with multiple personality disorders.

So which is better UK or US music?

Well UK music is far more ecclectic Bjork might be icelandic born and raised but her music is more London than anything Blur ever made. Dizzy Rascal could not have happened in the US nor could T2 his album will break bassline to the masses later in the year. Having said all that US music is simply better by sheer weight of quality artists and music.

THey wont throw up the oddball, the nerdy or the grimey so often as happens over here but look at just about any genre and they have the quality in spades.

"It's Men at work, Down under" Yes, it was good fun, but hugely overplayed in Oz (I was living there in those days): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6oAFlPLGA8


"I love Abraxas - what about the cover of the vynil?? is it not amazing?!!!": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraxas_%28album%29 Great pic/pick!
This one's just as powerful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYFQ_wxdWE8&feature=related


UK band Supertramp were superb in Sydney*: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SBqwE2ZNko

*Most beautiful city in Australia

you always give me good moments.
Thanks again

Some covers are really good. I like one of Bob Marley, Uprising, I can't say why, but I like it, as another of Van Morrison, Veedon Fleece (1974)
The picture reminds me of a character and scenario of a Victorian novel . It has got something misterius, sexy... don't know. I bought the record recently in a "guiri" market in Malaga.

My husband likes Supertramp, I do not so much. My husband is the most flexible person about music I know. He is very patient. He never refuses songs at the first hearing... which I usually do.

Have you checked the Viajazz of this year? I think Chick Corea is coming to town!

***
I think I haven't thank you yet the How Bizarre song, it was cool, so cool that it frozen that thread

Eek! Where did my reply to blicky go?

>>Well UK music is far more ecclectic Bjork might be icelandic born and raised but her music is more London than anything Blur ever made.

Plus have you noticed how sometimes her accent veers into Brixtonian? One hell of an artist, I reckon. Nowadays her music is only tangentially related to Pop.

You're damn right about eclecticism being the UK's greatest strength. With American music, the boundaries bteween genres are more rigid - and of course there'whole s the black/white nonsense. Here, you only have to look at Two Tone. Plus, Joe Strumer - although admittedly he often talked a lot of shit ( Can he say that?) - said that The Clash were a bunch of white boys trying to play Reggae. John Lydon too was a major fan of Jah's own music, which you can hear in his PiL stuff with The Wobble.

Yeah - no two ways about it, all the decent music is black in origin. It gets more insipid the paler it becomes.



Supertramp: I used to know the keyboard player in a rather successful 1980's studenty band. When they were on tour, they found themselves staying in the same Brussels hotel as Supertramp and were invited to join them for dinner. They declined 'for artistic reasons'.

My wife was from the same town as one of them. His mum lived nearby. Word got around that he was visiting. Her mum locked her in her bedroom in case she ran off and became...a Supertramp groupie.

(Not knowing that she had already (ahem) 'been involved with' a member of a New Wave band.)

(Oh...and I also added to my original reply to blicky)

I feel the future may be in Grime. It's not there *yet*, I don't think - but fertile pastures!

>>I'm not even going to think about mp3s

Currently waiting on a shedload of Krautrock to finish torrenting. That's the beauty of 'Pods. You can carry around a huge lot of music with you. It makes it easier to try new things.

'Isn't it strange, the cheapness of potent music?'

It is not ready yet, but people are commenting here about the people who's coming. This is the official site and the people who came last year.

http://www.viajazz.com/

and Bob Dylan also came

257 posts and only one mentioned The Who..Bah!

Yeah that's because they were treading a fine line between being great at producing witty amped upblues music and being meatloaf type over-blown too in love with themselves noodlers and sometimes ended up on the wrong side of the line.

Somthing one colleague once said to me has been my barometer for when a genre or srtist has lost its flame "I dont like that Dizzy Rascal hi music is......ugly....

I now think that when artists spend more time crafting than telling and being inventive they have passed their sell by date for me. The tricky thing is though that record companies too often get people in to craft a bands sound and subsequently suffocate their creativity. Which is what happens a lot in the US.

Leona Lewis is going down a stornm in the US chirpping beautifully crafted and polisehed music that is about as exciting as a beautifully polished and crafted coffee table. Which is all god if you like that sort of thing, but if your're life is in a state of beauty then maybe you need something ugly to get excited about and to light up your life.

There are no real chalengers in urban music right now just the upstat genres of grime, abssline and other related beat driven movements.





I sppose before setting out on a conversation about which is better we ought to have defined some sort of bench marks.

Good music speaks tot he audience it was presented to great music transcends the intended audience in its appeal.

Good music makes people want to dance great music makes people want to be dancers and musicians.

Successful artists encourage people to want to make money out of music great artists make peolpe realise that there is a way that they can tell their story.

Good artists make you remember their names, great artists get name checked in other people's songs.

Lots of discussion of 'influence' but influence of whom?Other musicians?Or a whole generation?