Cratedigging coming up

Because of the taxman I have less money to throw around this month, so I won't be cratedigging this month but instead I've ordered myself Unreleased Dubs 1994-1996 by Remarc and Scientist Launches Dubstep Into Outer Space! by Scientist. These will be more reviews rather just saying what I've discovered, though the unreleased dubs should give a few nice surprises

Japan

Reading Simon Reynold's Retromania (not trying to plug his book, honest!), there's a chapter, with the basic gist looking at how Japan, rather than take on a music style and add their own twist to it, actually it copy the music to a tee. This isn't just the music itself they copy, but the entire subculture, case point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJh6vH6V_to

I mean, on one level, impressive. They've learnt the moves and for people with no jamaican influence on a national level, and I can't imagine there are too many Japanese people with Jamaican heritage knocking about, this is impressive. Hell, those who go the length will speak better patois than me, the one with jamaican family. My main gripes go to culture and musical production.

The problem with copying a culture like this is twofold. 1st, there's a balance problem with actually living a culture and how its represented. Yes, people from other cultures latch on to those that don't inherently relate to their own, that's how cultures spread. But these guys copy a culture meticulously. Could you imagine anybody in this club, coming from a deferential place such as Japan, coping with ruffneck Jamaica? This goes for any culture they manage to copy. This is a personal gripe though, and doesn't matter as much as the fact that the Japanese never add anything to the musical culture they take on.

Take Britain, our history is to take American forms, make it our own, and give it back to the Americans. Metal for example was bastardized RnB, the Americans have since changed it for their own purposes, and a culture for this strand of music has grown over the decades. There would have been those in those days that copied the RnB to a tee, but it's been those kinds of groups and people who take a known form, fuck around with it and make something new. There seems to be no room for this in Japanese culture, which is a shame when you consider that Japan is a nation that with everything else is seen as one of the best for adding its own touches. For technology, adding their own twists to new things, anime that invariably has Western themes told in a Japanese style, so why can't their music scene do this?

The last point links to the musical which affects everyone who just copies without adding their own quirks. The Japanese artists can make the music to a tee...which means by a paradox the music sounds wooden, like they are trying too hard to get everything right. Here's one example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVzFwDoG8D0

This is Sleep Walker's Wind a bought a while back. The singing seems nice, the playing is tight, everything is right...too right. I mean, there's is nothing about this track that, or this band, that's stands out to me, its just a nice, jazz band. As I say the Japanese aren't the only ones who suffer this, but they seem to be the only ones who suffer for carbon copying as a nation

Cratedigging #2

A trip to town today (24/07)saw me pick up a couple of singles i've been hankering for, and a nice surprise:

Ding Dong-Bad Man Forward Badman Pull Up (The Bug and Flowdan Remix)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfxN3zEkBAw&feature=BFa&list=PL3ED0374DEA13BC5F&index=2

Definitely Greensleeves thing to push ragga influenced and bass heavy dubstep, kinda needed when both the underground and mainstream is being dominated by the 'filthy' stuff. Comes with Dub version





Progression- 150BPM/Lost in the Jungle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyvNc7jqSLc

Classic banger from '92 from Ibiza Records

And this editions surprise:

Dance Squad- Yu-A Raggamuffin/ Ganjaman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hflQG5OUsEE

Was actually looking for something else and stumbled across this. the ragga names did the trick

Coming up Next

A taster on what to expect on this blog in the next week or 2:

Japan:- My views on the Japanese taking on Western musics and subcultures

Turkish germans:- Little side project on how the Turks, Germany's biggest minority, have influenced the German music scene

Cratedigging: As I get paid at the end of the month, I take a trip, definitely to Vinyl Exchange, probably Eastern Bloc as well, to see what I come across

Cratedigging

After going for some vinyl in vinyl exchange and realising the vinyl i wanted wasn't up to scratch, I discovered their crate section of £1 vinyl for DnB, worth a listen from dons:

Pascal: Johnny 2003

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34XjG4CJD5k

Roni Size: out of breath ( Roni Size for a pound? Bargin!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttaExv4SIjQ

and yippee I actually found some bassline, in Manchester on vinyl!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKUD_MPk7Ik

video, tacky? a bit

Bands today

This blog has usually looked at underground electronic musics, and usually black-orientated ones (that's my thing) and if memory serves me right I've tapped into a little bit of today's bands. Well today I have another go hacking into bands of today.

The inspiration for this comes from me and a pal starting to jam together, em on bass, him on guitar. I got into bass originally because of post-punk (Joy Division, PiL, Talking Heads etc, look em up), before getting into hip hop, soul, funk and reggae properly (as opposed to being household background music). I eventually moved on from those musics to British urban, for want of a better word, and picked up the decks and getting onto radio for  a time, at the time of writing. My pal on the other hand got majorly into hip hop, before slipping out of that and now bases his guitar playing on blues, old style RnB and Hendrix-esque playing styles.

The point of this background? Not to delve into how these might be looking too much in the past (I've moaned about that already, and Simon Reynolds book Retromania has a stab at that notion as well) but to give a flavour of how these styles might gel together. My pal is the one with the ideas bustling inside him, it would be hard to de-rail him. He wants a raw style, that he argues isn't currently in modern bands. I see a lack of vibe in a lot of modern electronic styles too, music I'd rather listen to at home than a club (garage is the biggest criminal of this, clearly not having a catalyst to take it out of the garage frame altogether). I for one have little interest in modern bands, that's probably more down to taste. As far as my bass playing style goes, I want a groove to it, hence the styles I mentioned. Now it's early days, but essentially a melding of complicated grooving basslines with a raw rhythm guitar could the scenes own catalyst, creating a new vibe for the 2010s.

There was a time where bands did this kind of melding and re-interpretation. Bands like the Stones and Beatles had their own take on RnB (my pals current period) and the psot punk bands mixed the energy of punk with abrasive guitars and funky bass (how I picked up the bass). Nobody these days seems willing to do this. The alternative scene is mainly white dominated, fair enough. The problem is now it's pretty incestuous, there's little exploring outside of 'white' playing styles. There's almost no touching of modern technology, the new taboo that would somehow ruin the authenticity of the music. Strictly guitar-bass-drums on both sides of the Atlantic.

There have been some examples of bands going to the unknown, such as the Reverand of the Reverand and the Makers going for his 'dancehall' album. I'm a bit sceptical of this, sounds like he's trying to do a modern version of doing what the Clash and John Lydon did in their time rather than anything groundbreaking. More importantly, this isn't likely to be incorporating dancehall into his own, but his interpretation of it, and it's unlikely to be a similar result a la the Beatles.

My message for bands of the day, of whatever style, but mainly of indie/alternative fame, break out of doing just the one style, It doesn't have to be black music you look at, but understand that part of the reason people will look back at eras with bands with bigger legacies is because they though outside the box

Reggaeton

This this a while back for a MOBO competition, no expert on the subject but you might learn something, holla on what you think,

It has been in existence for almost two decades now, with a stable and growing audience. Even Carlos Tevez has recently admitted his love for it. But what, exactly, is reggaeton? On first listening, it is easy to pick out familiar themes from this Latin American urban style. Reggaeton adapts styles such as reggae and dancehall, Hip Hop and electronica but then combines it with local South American styles such as salsa, latin pop and cumbia. The dancehall links are perhaps the strongest outside of the Latin ones, indeed, dancehall artists such as Beenie Man and Elephant Man have been known to appear on reggaeton tracks, whether DJs are borrowing their vocals for their latest mix or the artists themselves actively contributing.

For a style that begun in the 1990s in Panama, it has done relatively well. It has become a staple for most Latin American urban dances, as well the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and has even begun to break into North America, Europe and Asia, particularly is there is a sizable Spanish speaking community. This of course raises a seemingly simple question, if reggaeton is that awe-inspiring, why is there so little mention of it in the urban scene?

Language is one obvious factor, Britain possess neither a huge Spanish speaking community, or a population willing to speak a language other than English. In Britain at least, the Caribbean community, especially the Jamaican section, has had a huge influence on the British urban scene, a scene that prides itself on electronic music more than its Latin counterpart, so it’s also partly to do with taste.

Then there is that PR monster that is Hip Hop and R&B, such is the strength of these two urban styles that UK Garage and Grime struggle to get past England in popularity, never mind the rest of the world. What hope does this music, that doesn’t even have English as a first language, have?

Well, amidst all this doom and gloom, there is hope for this commercially fledging style. Internet forums are buzzing, helping the scene to develop and grow. There is even a UK equivalent in the world of forums, keeping that niche audience going against the onslaught that is British and American urban music. Artists such as MC Magico and the Latin Clan combine with local DJs such as DJ Jose Luis and DJ Loco to provide their own tracks, or tap into the musical reservoir that is Latin America.

Presumably North America is having more success, with more Spanish speaking immigrants. As far as the scene in Britain is concerned, the best tactic would probably be to consolidate its position, before leaving its London fort for an all assault on the rest of England, slowly but surely pushing its way up to the Northern frontiers. From the point of view of this writer, I certainly hope this battle plan is taken up. In this day and age of multi-cultural Britain, reggaeton would be a fresh and exciting perspective to take up, and would certainly pump something new into an unsuspecting British urban scene.