#i think those two bands had some very 70s influences and they wear it on their sleeves when they make anthemic operatic shit
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tbt - alice nine - subete e
Iâm still in love with everything... Apparently, I just cant hate this world dyed in your colors
happy new year!!
#me posting this song has been waiting a long time but i'm glad i saved it till now#this is actually my favorite alice nine song and is probably my favorite vocal performance from shou#his voice from 2008-2012 really was at its all time best he could really stretch it out in a bowie kind of way and it was gorgeous#i dont know if he damaged his vocal chords over the years. make no mistake he can still really siiing#12 minutes of singing gemini seems impossible but he can still do it no problem it seems#theyre all so cool and hot here i love it lol#this is a real homage to mcr and i say that as a compliment#i think those two bands had some very 70s influences and they wear it on their sleeves when they make anthemic operatic shit#love them both for it#and love saga from alice nine my namesake#happy new year i will be watching the twilight zone marathon w/o my dog and i will be very sad about it#tbt#song rec#j rock#alice nine#a9#visual kei#neo visual kei#new year#shut up kaily#q'd 12/19/2022
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Q&A With Ghostâs Tobias Forge Before The El Paso Show
Swedish heavy rock star Ghost arrives in El Paso, co-headlining alongside Volbeat at 7 p.m. Monday, February 28 at the Don Haskins Center with special guests Twin Temple.
El Paso Inc. caught up with the bandâs frontman, Tobias Forge, who onstage leads the band of nameless ghouls as the evil Papa Emeritus IV. He opened up about Ghostâs upcoming fifth album, âImpera,â his love for âdivorce rockâ and whether heâll ever work with Taylor Swiftâs producer.
Q: Tell us about your love for Blue Ăyster Cult.
I think the BĂC thing was a bit overdone because people early in our career were skeptical. They thought we were copying everything from them because we were doing some kind of 70s rock with tight vocals on it.
Itâs by no means a disagreement with BĂC, Iâm a fan, but they never really meant as much as people think. I really like 70s divorce rock â big grown man rock as opposed to punk rock. ⌠In general, bands like Boston, Foreigner or Genesis are probably higher on that kind of AOR list for me.
Q: Did you call it âdivorce rockâ?
Yeah! Because they were always talking about divorce. They were always talking about love. If you listen to Boston, Journey, Kansas, Toto, itâs always grown men getting divorced. ⌠Itâs always âOh Diane! We spent a few years togetherâŚâ you know?
Thatâs why I call it adult rock. Itâs a good hi-fi system, well produced, with very good vocals. I love that stuff, and Ghost has always been inspired by that, combined with younger extreme rock, punk and metal that has a bit more of a teenage bite to it.
Q: Many metal bands are afraid of getting too catchy, but bands like Ghost and Volbeat often have catchy teeth. Does any of it come from Sweden, where a lot of pop music producers/writers come from?
I am very radio. I had popular youth culture from day one. There were no borders. I was exposed to a lot of music.
My mom was born in the 1940s, so she had all the 60s stuff: Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Neil Young. My brother was a big music lover. I got hard rock and punk rock from him. He was also very fond of pop music.
All of that combined is definitely why Ghost is what it is. Itâs a combination of top 40 rock music from the 80s â and it can range from Nik Kershaw to Survivor. âTotal Eclipse of the Heartâ, âShadow in the Moonlightâ, âOwner of a Lonely Heartâ.
Q: Itâs funny that you mention âTotal Eclipse of the Heartâ because Bonnie Tyler covered a Blue Ăyster Cult song on âGoing Through the Motionsâ.
I think whatâs really polluted the (metal) genre over the last 40 years is that a lot of bands have always played rock to sound like a specific band. In the 70s every band wanted to sound like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple or Black Sabbath, depending on your level of stoner I guess.
Or, if you like makeup, you wanted to look like Kiss or The Sweet. In the 80s, you had your Judas Priest fans, your Maiden fans, your Venom fans, and your Kreator fans.
If you go down to the demo level of bands that never really made it, they sound like a clone of those bands. And if you look at a group photo, theyâre all wearing that groupâs shirts.
Iâve always wanted â even in my old death metal bands â to combine influences. Everything I listened to was there, like melodies. They were hidden, but I could still point to something like, a transition that was taken from Blondie or whateverâŚ
Ghost is a bit more androgynous, and that can be a bit of a red flag for some people.
Q: Have you ever wanted to work with Max Martin, the producer of Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, P!nk, The Weeknd and Coldplay?
That would be great! Weâre kind of in each otherâs orbits. Klas Ahlund (producer), with whom I made two records, is very good friends with him. âŚ
One thing thatâs important to know about songwriters and co-writers is that the ones I work with are the ones I have a relationship with and have worked with before. We work together because we have somethingâŚ
I tried to write with others, but it doesnât work, because if you donât have a spark, then it doesnât work.
Q: Each Ghost record had a different producer until now. What prompted you to return to Klas?
The thing is, you have to keep moving so you donât get stuck in a friendly, comfortable mode. âMelioraâ, the record I made with Klas, was really good, but the recording and the production itself left a few things for improvement. âŚ
When it came time to record âImpera,â the writing and demo had been done in 2020. But in early 2021, the American producer who was supposed to make the record couldnât come because of travel restrictions, and I couldnât go to America.
And because Klas is also a very programmed person, he had a failed project. All of a sudden, he had a few months off, and I was like, âThatâs good, because I donât have a producer, would you like to produce the record?â
El Paso Inc
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THE STEVIE FILES PROUDLY PRESENTS - THE AMAZING ROCK & ROLL ODYSSEY OF STEVEN VAN ZANDT
From The Source to Soulfire via Springsteen and Sam & Dave
Recorded, transcribed, edited, written, produced, mixed and mastered by MIKE SAUNDERS
SIDE TWO (1975-1983)
Track 6: Miami Steve, The Asbury Jukes, Tenth Avenue and Hammersmith
In early 1975, Steven returned to New Jersey from Florida, inappropriately dressed for the winter weather. âI came back with the flowered shirts and the Sam Snead hat and continued wearing them in the snow.â For the next seven years, he was known as Miami Steve. He joined Southside in the Blackberry Booze Band and within weeks theyâd altered and expanded its line-up (adding keyboard player Kevin Kavanaugh from Middletown and bass player Alan Berger from The Dovellsâ backing band), transformed its musical direction, changed its name to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (referencing their mutual hero Little Walterâs band and first single release) and established a successful three-nights-a-week, five-sets-a-night residency at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.
âJust before that, me, Southside, Bruce and Garry went to see Sam & Dave. A life-changing moment. So me and Southside basically decided we were gonna be the white Sam & Dave, with rock guitar. So the horns came in and although we didnât know it, we would change the entire concept of what a bar band sounded like and the respect a bar band would get by making it creative, soul meets rock. âBar bandâ was an insult. âYouâre a bar band,â which means you canât make it in the real music world. After the Jukes, they started using âbar bandâ in reviews and they meant it as a compliment, with Graham Parker and Elvis Costello and Mink DeVille. We changed the way people thought about these things.â
The Miami Horns were a vital component of the new band. Steven composed the horn arrangements, but although heâs always possessed a natural ability to imagine horn parts, he doesnât read or write music (ânever haveâ) and has always required a little help from his friends to transcribe them. âI have people write âem down, to this day. I like that actually. You have to do a lotta things yourself so any excuse I find to collaborate I do it. I find other people will bring something to the party usually. Thatâs why [Iâve] used Eddie Manion for I donât know how many years. He knows how I like to voice things. Once I think of something and create the parts, I get bored if I have to voice every part, exactly right. If I hear a voicing I donât like, I will change it, but I get bored by the mechanics of everything.â
While the Jukes were building their reputation and growing their audience, Bruce invited Steven to hang out at the Born To Run sessions in New York, where he was working on âTenth Avenue Freeze-Out.â David Sanborn and The Brecker Brothers had been hired to play the horn parts, but Steven created a spontaneous new arrangement. Heâs told this anecdote countless times, but I ask him to repeat it because it provides perfect examples of his innate musical talents in action (âI can hear the parts, who knows why?â), the nature of his friendship with Bruce (âI still am the only human being not afraid of himâ), and his no-bullshit attitude (âI didnât know anything about diplomacyâ).
âSo he says, âWhaddya think?â I said, âIt sucks, thatâs what I think!â I didnât know how uptight everybody was. I didnât give a fuck either. The managers and producers were all afraid of him already. He asked me a question, Iâm gonna be honest. Iâm trying to help my friend here, not make points with some fucking record company guy. Moment of silence. âHe just said it sucks, which means we all suck.�� Bruce [says] âAlright then, go in and fucking fix it.â So I did. I went in and sang the [new] parts. I didnât know they were the most famous [session] guys in New York. It wasnât insulting them, the chart was ridiculous. That was my thing, just from the Jukes being around maybe six months.â
âI wasnât really feeling the pressure that Bruce was at the time. I didnât realise his life depended on this album. His first two records hadnât done very well. They wanted to drop him. I donât know how aware I was of any of that. He invited me into the session and Iâm laying on the floor. All I can think is, weâve been hoping to get into recording our whole lives, Iâm listening to this and it sounds fucking terrible. Not just the horn charts, everything. It was the worst period of recording in history. Virtually every record from the 50s and 60s sounded great, virtually every record from the early 70s sounded terrible. Because engineers took over, started close miking, padding the walls. Separation, separation, separation, all the things that make rock ânâ roll suck. The idea was, you isolate everything and make it sound exciting in the mix. Which they managed to do, miraculously, with the Born To Run album. Because it was pieced together in a bizarre way. Bruce made that record 100% out of willpower, he willed that into existence!â
Soon after making his instinctive artistic contribution (and singing backing vocals on âThunder Roadâ), Steven was invited to join the E Street Band. It was a chance to complete the circle, play with his old friend again and settle any unfinished business from three summers earlier, when heâd been sent packing at the Greetings sessions. He made his live debut on the opening night of the Born To Run tour, which ran until New Yearâs Eve. His input and influence over the next decade, onstage and off, would prove invaluable. (Bruce even began playing The Dovellsâ âYou Canât Sit Downâ as an occasional encore). In the fall, the tour took everyone to Europe for the first time, where the culture shock was off the charts. âThere was no hamburgers, no peanut butter. The only place you could get a hamburger in the whole of Europe was the newly-opened first Hard Rock CafĂŠ. There was a line around the block even then.â
Culinary deficiencies aside, Bruce also had to endure the overblown hype surrounding his first UK gigs at Londonâs Hammersmith Odeon, where Columbia had displayed the legend âFinally London Is Ready For Bruce Springsteenâ on every available surface prior to his arrival. â[It was] completely obnoxious,â says Steven. â[Bruce] spent half the time ripping down posters. It was an embarrassing time for him, between that and Time and Newsweek. He didnât like that stuff. You wanna be in charge of your life, thatâs why we get into rock ânâ roll. Suddenly it was slipping out of his control. We made the mistake of playing a place with seats. It just made the show that much harder. But by the end, we got âem outta the seats. We went to Amsterdam, Stockholm, and back to London. The second one was a bit easier.â The experience had a prolonged effect on Bruce. âHe was uptight in those days and would remain so through Darkness into The River, until he asked me to produce the record and we found a way to have some fun.â
Track 7: Epic Records, Steve Popovich and The Stone Pony
Back on the shore, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes continued the Stone Pony residency throughout 1975, gradually consolidating their line-up. For the next three years, between Springsteen commitments, Steven worked as their producer, arranger, manager, part-time guitarist and principal songwriter. In early 1976, after circulating a demo tape, they signed a recording deal with Epic, with assistance from Steve Popovich, the labelâs Vice-President of A&R. âI Donât Want To Go Home,â the song that Steven had kept in his back pocket since his days on the oldies circuit, became the title track of their debut album and their first single. Ben E Kingâs loss was Southsideâs gain.
âI produced [the song] in a way which was appropriate for the Jukes. They didnât have a big background vocal thing going on,â explains Steven. âI was very conscious of being able to try and do most of it live, although I put strings on it, on my very first production! There was no synthesiser in those days that could play strings. Thatâs why I re-cut it [on Soulfire] the original way I pictured it, with the singer and background vocals answering. That idea of writing for someone else is extremely important, critical and essential. It changes the way you write completely, from when you think of writing for yourself, which is extraordinarily complicated and confusing. Itâs not easy, but easier, to write for someone else. Thereâs their identity in your mind at least. Iâm writing them a song. Thatâs a wonderful exercise for songwriters.â I Donât Want To Go Home was released in the summer of 1976 (âIâve never received one penny of royalties, but whatever!â). The Jukes later began their first national tour and made their European debut in 1977.
Recommended by Bruce, Steve Popovich was one of a kind. âThe last of the real music guys in the business. The only other person I can compare him to would be Lance Freed on the publishing side, whoâs unique. Heâs actually into music and songwriting and the things youâre supposed to be into when you have a job description like that. And Frank Barsalona, the only agent who really did his job and would set the standard for everybody to follow. Those three guys, really quite historic. [It was] Popovichâs idea to launch the record with a broadcast from the Stone Pony. Never been done before. Popovich loved the local scene idea and he largely made it happen. It never would have been recognised nationally, I donât think, if it hadnât been for Popovich, who had the vision to say itâs cool if youâre not from New York. Rather than being embarrassed if youâre not from New York, LA or Nashville, itâs actually cool.â
Track 8: Production Credits and Political Awakening
Steven developed his talents as a producer and songwriter with the Jukes in the late 70s, following I Donât Want To Go Home with This Time Itâs For Real and Hearts Of Stone. Successive releases featured greater quantities of his original material, which included âI Played The Fool,â âThis Time Babyâs Gone For Good,â âTake It Insideâ and âSome Things Just Donât Change,â apparently written for another of his heroes, David Ruffin of The Temptations. During this period, he also produced the âSay Goodbye To Hollywoodâ single for Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band and provided production assistance on Darkness On The Edge Of Town. His relationship with the Jukes ended when they left Epic for Mercury in 1979 and he went on to co-produce The River and two comeback albums for Gary US Bonds, Dedication and On The Line. It was an impressive fast-track apprenticeship. Steven had no production experience when he began. He acquired the skills and learned from his mistakes in the studio. âThatâs why all three Jukes albums are different,â he says. âBy the time we did The River, I knew what I wanted to do. I got it all down by then. Thatâs how I tend to do things. I can picture what I want. Jump in, do it, letâs see what happens.â
Steven also kept his promise to himself to bring his musical heroes out of obscurity, initially as guests on the first two Jukes albums. âI did what I could, but I wanted to do so much more,â he admits. âFirst time I get in a studio, got Lee Dorsey out from under a car, where heâs a mechanic. Got Ronnie Spector out of retirement. Second album, we reunited The Coasters, Drifters and Five Satins. Me and Bruce worked with Gary Bonds. We got Ben E King and Chuck Jackson on that record. Those artists had a talent level noticeably above everybody that followed. I wish Iâd been insistent on doing more of them. In those [early] days, you actually had to have talent to make records. You had to be able to sing a song, beginning to end, perfectly in tune, perfectly the right melody, and if you fuck up one word, you gotta do the whole thing again. Couldnât do enough for those people, they were so much fun to produce.â
In addition to his studio accomplishments, Steven played more than 300 shows with Bruce and the E Street Band between 1976 and 1981, primarily on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town and River tours. The majority took place in North America, but the River tour included a European leg that took the band away from home and out of their comfort zone for nine weeks. Much longer than their previous visit in 1975, it was their first significant experience of foreign countries, languages, cultures and political perspectives. They received rave reviews wherever they played, but Steven gradually became aware that not all Europeans viewed the United States in a favourable light.
One particular encounter was pivotal in dramatically reshaping Stevenâs worldview. âA kid asked me, âWhy are you putting missiles in my country?â I said, âIâm not, Iâm a guitar player.â I realised, for the first time in my life, at the age of 30 Iâm embarrassed to say, that Iâm an American. What the fuck does that mean? I managed to grow up in the middle of civil rights, the Vietnam War, demonstrations about every fucking thing and had no interest in any of it. Amazing when you think about it. Redefining tunnel vision. Suddenly, the tunnel is gone. Weâre now successful. Who would have ever figured that would happen, right? Now itâs like, uh-oh, what did I miss, the last 20 years?â
Track 9: Men Without Women, Motown and Mixing In Mono
This revelation accelerated Stevenâs growing political awareness, one of two important developments in 1981 that would change the course of his life forever. The second came when he returned from Europe and was approached by EMI America about making a solo album. Having spent six years producing and writing for others, he welcomed the opportunity to have his own creative outlet, which soon expanded into a separate career. In the fall, he enlisted musicians from the E Street Band and the Asbury Jukes to record most of the material for his debut album, Men Without Women, using his established rock-meets-soul sonic blueprint. Including âLyinâ In A Bed Of Fire,â âPrincess Of Little Italy,â âAngel Eyesâ and âUntil The Good Is Gone,â it remains an undisputed career highlight for Van Zandt devotees, but Steven feels that an outside producer might have helped him make a more commercial record.
âConventional wisdom is you never should produce yourself and I have to say thatâs correct. The only exception I can think of in the history of the business was Prince, who was an extraordinary genius, but other than him, I donât know anybody who successfully produces themselves.â Describing himself as âextremely schizophrenic, Iâm twelve different people, never mind two,â Steven explains how his inner producer failed to control the whims of his inner artist. âWithout knowing it, the artist takes over. I was into this extreme naturalism, no logical reason why. I did the whole album live in one day. Came back the second day, did it again, beginning to end. Couple overdubs, that was it. Thereâs one guitar. The horns arenât doubled. Nothingâs doubled. Bruce did all the harmony on that record but we couldnât use his name. We [did] a similar thing with Born In The USA, where we just recorded live in the studio.â
âI made Bob Clearmountain mix âForeverâ in mono, to try and achieve the perfect Motown record. Itâs never gonna be exact and it shouldnât be exact, why should it be, but I wanted to capture a Smokey Robinson Motown record. The only way I could do that in my mind was to make it completely mono. He was so good in those days. I mean Bobâs still the best, but in those days he was beyond the best. He was something else when it came down to that Neve board that wasnât automated, and heâs feelinâ those faders. I made him do something heâd never done before, which requires a whole different way of thinking. Youâre now thinking depth-wise and vertically, not horizontally.â
âThatâs where my head was at. Can I achieve the emotional communication that my heroes had provided me? My heroes being Motown in general, 10 acts there. Or my heroes at Chess, another 10 acts. Sam Phillips did âRocket 88â for Ike Turner (Jackie Brenston) and âHow Many More Yearsâ for Howlinâ Wolf, three years before Elvis Presley. Unbelievable genius. [Iâm] trying to achieve that level of quality in my own world, in my own little bubble, which has these ridiculously high standards. Iâm absorbing the 50s and 60s and then trying to integrate them in my head and reproduce them in my own way, not the least bit interested in whatâs going on in the 70s or 80s certainly, because it was shit to me, comparatively. An interesting moment here and there. Punk was certainly interesting. But mostly itâs all coming from what I call the renaissance period, â51 to â71, where it all was created. And thatâs true to this day. Thatâs all I was interested in and that was enough for 10 lifetimes. I didnât need another bit of input after 1972.â
Track 10: Little Steven, Little Richard and Bob Dylan
In 1982, after recording with Bruce and Gary US Bonds, Steven completed his album, formed the Disciples of Soul (which included Dino Danelli from The Rascals on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass and Eddie Manion, Mark Pender, Stan Harrison and La Bamba on horns) and played a debut concert at New Yorkâs Peppermint Lounge. Released in October, a month after Nebraska, Men Without Women preceded his first national tour and was credited to his new professional name of Little Steven, which would be used for all future solo activities. âI just wanted separation [from] being the sideman,â he explains. âEach of my personalities required a different name, in order to keep it straight in peopleâs heads and my own head.â The name referenced his early heroes Little Walter, Little Anthony and Little Richard. In his role as an ordained minister, the latter officiated at Stevenâs wedding to Maureen Santoro in New York on New Yearâs Eve. Percy Sledge sang âWhen A Man Loves A Womanâ as they walked down the aisle and the reception included performances from Gary US Bonds, Little Milton, The Chambers Brothers and the wedding band from The Godfather. âLittle Anthony was doing a cruise at the time or he would have been there.â
âAll I can think is, weâve been hoping to get into recording our whole lives, Iâm listening to this and it sounds fucking terrible. Not just the horn charts, everything. It was the worst period of recording in history. Virtually every record from the 50s and 60s sounded great, virtually every record from the early 70s sounded terrible. Because engineers took over, started close miking, padding the walls. Separation, separation, separation, all the things that make rock ânâ roll suck. The idea was, you isolate everything and make it sound exciting in the mix. Which they managed to do, miraculously, with the Born To Run album. Because it was pieced together in a bizarre way. Bruce made that record 100% out of willpower, he willed that into existence!â
Steven toured internationally in 1983, then dropped the horns, adopted a more contemporary rock sound and made his second album, Voice Of America. It was an explicitly political record that featured âSolidarity,â âI Am A Patriot,â âOut Of The Darkness,â âLos Desaparecidosâ and âUndefeated.â Triggered by his River tour experiences in Europe, this radical transformation was completed with a long period of self-education. âI read every book about post World War Two [US] foreign policy. [It was] shocking how often we were on the wrong side. All of these bad things were happening behind the scenes and nobody was talking about them. No political consciousness whatsoever in the country. I decided I have an obligation to say something about this stuff that weâre all paying for with our taxes.â
âBeing conscious of the fact that everybody needs their own identity, I figured who the hell needs another love song from a fucking sideman? Iâll be the political guy. Nobody else is doing it. There were people demonstrating of course. Jackson Browne, John Hall, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, those guys. The Grateful Dead were doing a benefit every week, but rarely did it end up in the work. In general, people werenât putting much politics into the lyrics of their songs.â For artists with commercial aspirations, he concedes, thatâs a smart move. âJefferson Airplane being an exception with âVolunteers.â Big exception, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with Neil Youngâs âOhio.ââ
Steven contends that Bob Dylanâs âSubterranean Homesick Bluesâ introduced the idea of political consciousness in rock ânâ roll. âHis first electric song. Itâs not given enough credit. The first sentence from Bob Dylanâs electric period, âJohnnyâs in the basement mixing up the medicine, Iâm on the pavement thinking about the government.â What? Youâre doing what? Youâre thinking about the government? Excuse me? Who does that? Whoever did that before, in a song, no less? There in that one sentence, Bob Dylan communicated what his entire career was gonna be about, which was having fun with language, with inference, symbolism, metaphor and nonsense lyrics that rhymed. âJohnnyâs in the basement mixing up the medicine,â what does that mean? It means whatever you want it to mean, right? Then âIâm on the pavement thinking about the government.â Holy shit! You mean weâre supposed to figure out the government? That, to me, is the most important sentence in all the history of rock ânâ roll, right there.â
All photos below by Mike Saunders
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Great Albums is back! This week, weâll take a look at one of the greatest electronic albums of all time, Kraftwerkâs The Man-Machine, and try to avoid getting sued by Ralf Huetter! Full transcript for the video can be found below the break. Enjoy!
Growing up, my main genre of choice was 80s synth-pop, and while the deep influence of Kraftwerk is as significant there as it is everywhere else in electronic music, I was one of those people who initially saw them as somewhat "intimidating." Today, moreso than ever, Kraftwerk are held up as one of those more high-brow or cerebral groups with a philosophy that transcends mere pop or dance music, which makes them seem respectable, a kind of âmodel minorityâ in the world of music outside rock. While I donât buy into the judgmental quality of that sort of praise, which damns so many of Kraftwerkâs greatest fans and imitators, I did get the sense, as a child, that these hoity-toity Germans, working with primitive equipment way back in the 1970s, might not be what I was looking for in a new favourite band. That was before I heard The Man-Machine.
While itâs certainly true that Kraftwerk were a highly experimental band in their own time, theyâre one of those acts whose ideas have deeply permeated contemporary music, to the point where their actual work is extremely approachable and listenable to todayâs ears. Of all the fairly early electronic acts, who started making this kind of music before it began to become mainstream in the late 70s, Kraftwerk are almost certainly the ones people nowadays listen to for pleasure the most, and thatâs no accident. While their earlier albums like Trans-Europe Express took more overt inspiration from classical music, The Man-Machine was their first great foray into the arena of pop, which I think is key to why it resonates with people. For evidence of that, look no further than the biggest mainstream hit of Kraftwerkâs career, âThe Model.â
I think itâs easy to see why âThe Model'' became a hit single. Sure, it may not have the most traditional pop song structure, let alone instrumentation, but unlike a lot of what Kraftwerk had done before, itâs got a lot of lyrics and a real sense of narrative. Plus, that narrative we get is about a person and not a machine--a good-looking person, in whom the narrator is sexually interested. Itâs the perfect pop material. Of course, I would be remiss to mention that âThe Modelâ didnât achieve all of its success until the single was re-released in many markets in 1981, and in those few years, the idea of âsynth-popâ advanced significantly in the charts and popular consciousness. By the time âThe Modelâ was a hit, Kraftwerk admirers were already taking over: look no further than Gary Numanâs "Carsâ or OMDâs "Enola Gay,â two synth-pop classics that, it must be said, are still about vehicles!
That aside, though, not everything on The Man-Machine sounds like âThe Modelâ--in fact, itâs surrounded by tracks that have much more in common with Kraftwerkâs earlier LPs. Literally surrounded, in the track listing. I think that adds to this albumâs appeal as an ideal entry point into their catalogue: it has some things that sound familiar, while also preparing you for what else youâll encounter if you choose to probe deeper into the band. The Man-Machine has the least homogeneous profile of any Kraftwerk album. While most of their other classic albums are highly cohesive âsong cyclesâ that almost blend into one long song when you listen to them in full, The Man-Machine doesnât really have those repeated melodies and motifs that tie its tracks together. While many people, especially fans of psychedelic and progressive rock, really like those cohesive albums, I think this change is a welcome one. It gives the individual tracks a bit more room to breathe and express distinctive identities, and makes the album feel a bit more pop, even if the material itself isnât always all that poppy. *The Man-Machine* actually only has six individual tracks; they range in length from the three-minute pop stylings of âThe Modelâ to the urban sprawl of âNeon Lights,â which luxuriates in an almost nine-minute runtime.
Given that the average track length is around six minutes, Iâm almost tempted to think of The Man-Machine as six tiny Kraftwerk albums, or at least, musical ideas that could have been expanded into full LPs in another universe. âNeon Lightsâ and âSpacelabâ feel dreamy and easy-going, with floating melodies that draw from the âcosmic musicâ scene, one of the many emergent styles that began as something uniquely German and spread throughout the world--in this case, becoming an important forerunner to ambient electronic music through acts like Tangerine Dream. Meanwhile, the hard, tick-tocking rhythms of âMetropolisâ and the title track point to the newfound focus on rhythm and the so-called motorik beat that made the music of Neu! so compelling.
The Man-Machine can serve not only as an introduction to Kraftwerk, but also as a sort of crash course in this entire period of electronic music, showcasing some of the most distinctive and influential features of the German scene, as well as the shape of synth-pop to come. Itâs a complex and busy historical moment with huge ramifications for almost all of subsequent electronic music, and The Man-Machine really creates a microcosm of that whole environment. Thereâs also the fact that each side of the record has one track from each of my three broad groups, like an expertly-designed sushi platter or charcuterie board for us to sample from, and they both follow the same formula: a pop appetizer, a cosmic *entree,* and motorik for dessert.
*The Man-Machine* also has what is almost certainly the most iconic cover of any of Kraftwerkâs LPs. This is how lots of us still picture them in our minds, and itâs inspired tons of parodies and riffs over the years. I think all of that acclaim is deserved! Emil Schultâs graphic design for the album was heavily inspired by avant-garde Soviet artists of the 10s and 20s, chiefly El Lissitzky. These visual artists used their art to express their hope for a new world, defined by the promise of technology, and their literally revolutionary philosophy--so what could be a better match for Kraftwerkâs electronic revolution in music? Lissitzky used bright, primary colours, straight lines, and geometric shapes to convey the âbuilt environmentâ of modern cities and man-made architecture, and youâve got all the same sentiment on display here. The use of strong diagonals really draws the eye and lends this image a lot of continued visual interest. Itâs also worth noting the extent to which Kraftwerkâs aesthetics inspired later electronic acts almost as powerfully as their sound. When you picture an electronic band, and get a mental image of stiff and stone-faced musicians behind synthesisers wearing shirts and ties, you can certainly thank Kraftwerk for that, as well.
I also love the title of The Man-Machine! The relationship between people and technology is one of, if not the, most central themes in Kraftwerkâs entire discography, which is full of references to anthropomorphic machines as well as mechanically-mediated humans. The particular choice of the phrase âman-machine,â as opposed to words like âandroid,â has a fun vintage flair to it, which matches the use of early 20th Century visual art quite nicely.
As might be expected from the albumâs stylistic diversity, *The Man-Machine* would prove to be something of a transition point in Kraftwerkâs career. Their 1981 follow-up, Computer World, would return to the song cycle format, but with increasing emphasis on ideas from the pop sphere, championed by percussionist Karl Bartos. By the time of the last classic-lineup Kraftwerk LP, 1986âs Electric Cafe, they had not only amped up the pop, but also incorporated influence from the electronic dance music of the time. Ultimately, Bartos would leave the group, chiefly due to discontent with his treatment by founding members Ralf Huetter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, and their persistent lack of musical productivity.
On a somewhat lighter note, my personal favourite track on this album is its opener, âThe Robots.â Per my typology from earlier, I classified this as a pop-oriented song, and it certainly is an approachable one thatâs proven to be quite popular. But itâs got just enough more experimental touches to keep things quite interesting. From an ominous, dissonant intro, a slightly more pop form, hinting at a verse/chorus structure, soon emerges and contrasts. I love the groove of the rhythm and percussion here, as well as the very heavy vocoder, rich in texture and certainly a Kraftwerk staple.
While the lyrics can be read as sort of light and silly, I like to think that the robots in question might also be dangerous. The track âMetropolisâ seems to reference the seminal 1927 silent film of the same name, which is famous for its portrayal of an evil, mechanical doppelganger. Likewise, the choice to translate the lyrics of the songâs interlude into Russian is likely inspired by another great work of art from this era: the stage play R.U.R.--Rossumâs Universal Robots. Written by Karel Äapek in 1922, itâs the progenitor of the ârobot revolutionâ trope in science fiction, the source of the word ârobotâ for autonomous machines in almost every human language, and one of the first entries in the illustrious career of an author who helped make Czech a true literary language. While the titular robots take time to assure us that theyâre programmed to do what we humans want, should we really trust them...?
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I want to briefly talk bluegrass fashion.
I appreciate and enjoy bluegrass from its roots to its present. I think creative growth over the decades has allowed for incredible and diverse music. Whether itâs disco influenced jamming, rock-bluegrass fusions, or classical music inspiration, thereâs cool stuff to be had anywhere in the timeline. That said, one thing I wish contemporary bluegrass bands did more of was take fashion tips from the first generation bands.
In the 1920s, barn dance type radio programs featuring hillbilly music and rural style entertainment became popular. Some of these radio shows like the WLS National Barn Dance and WSM Grand Ole Opry had stage shows where you could watch the program in person. Costuming and presentation of the performing cast tended to be rough rube depictions, even caricatures, of rural people. George D. Hay, who founded and hosted the Grand Ole Opry, himself named the bands things like âThe Gully Jumpersâ and âThe Possum Hunters.â
But when Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys auditioned and were made members of the Grand Ole Opry in October 1939, Monroe detested this rough presentation that could quickly engender degrading opinions of hillbilly stereotypes. He opted instead to dress in a more classy manner. His band came out in white shirts, ties, jodhpurs, and boots.
This is something Bill Monroe bragged about even as the decades went on. For Monroe, it was important to dress well and in dignity when you got onstage. You respect yourself and you respect audiences when you come out in your best.
By the mid-1940s Bill Monroeâs band had accumulated a number of musical features that today our ears would recognize as bluegrass. Itâs interesting to notice that bandmembers who left Monroe and went on to do their own bluegrass music often... took with them some of Billâs ideas about stage presentation. Flatt & Scruggs, when they left Monroe and started their own band, are sometimes seen in early images wearing jodhpurs.
Early bluegrass bands on occasion might have had an âexceptionâ to the rule. At the very least, you see this in Flatt & Scruggs in the late 1940s and first half of the 1950s. But I believe what they were doing reflected a trend that existed in the broader hillbilly music industry. Iâd like investigate that more later to understand better. Unlike todayâs concerts that involve music and only music, in those times, comedy was a more expected part of a show. White banjo performers, prior to bluegrass, were essentially all comedians; and in ensembles, someone (as Iâve often seen, the bass player) might take a comedy role. So you couldâve gotten a well-dressed band... and then the bassist dressed in comic rube garb.
That said, each first generation bluegrass band ended up creating their own unique presentation. Itâs variation around a theme: dress up nice to respect audiences and put your best foot forward. How you present yourself onstage has impact. Audiences arenât coming out to see some tattered everyday person; theyâre coming out here to listen to music stars.
And so you see bands and acts coordinating their outfits in classy ways like...
(The 1958 screencap above doesnât 100% evoke this, but Iâve noticed Flatt & Scruggs in the mid-50s through mid-60s would often do a 2-2-2 coordination. Everyone would wear hats. The band leaders would wear matching jackets and string ties. Two band members would wear the same collared shirts and the same string ties as the leaders. The last two band members, who were a duet and comedy team, would wear vests or different hats or some other distinguishing marker. Everyoneâs clothes would carry the same overall color theme. Very well-thought out wardrobe presentation.)
SEE? EVERYONE IS DRESSED UP AND LOOKS GOOD.
You can tell theyâre an act. You can tell theyâre professional. You can tell, the second they step up to perform, they mean business. It helps elevate them into STARS.
As new generations took up bluegrass, the social context of how to dress changed. The Folk Revival of the 1960s brought many Northerners, urban people, and hippies into the bluegrass world. I havenât read up as much on this part of bluegrass history, but I believe it was starting here that new bluegrass ensembles quit thinking about dressing up to be onstage. Iâve certainly seen photos of the early bluegrass festivals of the late 60s and 70s, and some second generation bluegrass groups would wear extremely casual things onstage. Other groups would coordinate by wearing the same collared shirt, which meant they were matching, but also (to me) making less of a âstatement.â
It makes sense. First generation bluegrass performers were seeking to dress to impress and get away from crappy hillbilly stereotypes. Later generations of bluegrass performers might not have been from the South or a country lifestyle at all, and would feel more inclined to try to evoke a âworking classâ vibe by wearing everyday or ragged clothing. Today, I feel many bands do this to evoke their own form of an authentic stage presentation.
This means that today, many groups wear rather casual clothing. I feel I see this especially in jamgrass. And for the record, these are all VERY talented, well-known ensembles; Iâm not comparing pros to locals or something.
And theyâre dressed better here than what Iâve seen for bands at concerts.
I think itâs ironic that Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, sought to escape tattered clothing that actual country people wouldnât wear on the fields, let alone onstage... only to have bluegrass musicians half a century later revert to costuming concepts Monroe had rejected. Todayâs clothes of course arenât the torn-up straw hat and single-strapped overalls of the early Opry, but itâs the same idea: dress down to look âcountry.â I donât think thereâs any objective disrespect to bluegrassâs history to dress like that, but I do think thereâs a point that everyday clothes donât make as much of an impression for your band.
Now of course not all groups have gone this route. In any generation of bluegrass, you still see bands that dressed more âtraditionally.â But itâs certainly been a trendâsince at least the 70sâto see bluegrass groups, either at the local or professional level, wearing everyday clothes. Get jeans, maybe some flannel, and youâre good to go. I see it oh-so-often now.
It doesnât resonate as much to me. I get the point of their presentation, trying to evoke a casual non-mainstream working class image, but I feel thereâs other ways you can set a vibe for your ensemble that doesnât come off as lazy, everyday, or unnoticeable.
Iâd be much more interested seeing:
YEAH!!!!! YOU GO RHONDA VINCENT AND THE RAGE!
I think itâs interesting to see this mindset about proper bluegrass performance attire recur in interviews. Iâve watched a number of 2000s and 2010s interviews for first and early second generation bluegrass performers, and one common thing the old-timers complain about is how people donât dress up anymore. They feel it doesnât respect the audience or make a good impression for the ensemble. How you present yourself onstage is half of the performance; it can be an effective means of enhancing a show when you do it well.
And Iâve seen it in conversations with people like Steve Martin, showing how in the 2010s, thereâs still negative âhillbillyâ images to butt against:
INTERVIEWER: Does it bother you that quite possibly the most famous banjo song in pop culture is "Dueling Banjos" from "Deliverance"?
MARTIN:Â It doesn't bother me at all. Actually I might argue with that because another most famous song would be the theme from "The Beverly Hillbillies" or "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," the song from "Bonnie and Clyde." So there are a couple of 'most famous' banjo songs.
INTERVIEWER: But still⌠the theme song from "The Beverly Hillbillies"?
MARTIN:Â It's just something we have to face. And everything changes. That's why I always wear a suit and tie when I play bluegrass.
INTERVIEWER:Â Do you feel like you're helping changing the face of bluegrass?
MARTIN:Â I don't know. That's what I do when I go on stage. I don't make hillbilly jokes or things like that. I'm just playing it as the person I am, not pretending to be anything else. The band I play with, we all dress in suits and ties.
One of my favorite contemporary bands also has one of my favorite wardrobes. What they choose to wear is a huge element of their stage presentation, amplifies their show powerfully, and contributes to the entire vibe of their music product. Good costuming can be part of marketing, and they market themselves spectacularly.
The Dead South almost marries the best of both worlds between âdress upâ and âdress as the everyday man.â Their clothes arenât âformalâ in the sense of suits and ties. Thereâs more casualness to it. At the same time, what they wearâblatantly Southern and Western gear that matches with variation across the bandâisnât something everyday Joe or Janet would put on to go to Walmart. Itâs got a little more of a âperiodâ feel to it while also being modern enough to feel authentic. Altogether, it makes them classy without being formally classy.
Itâs perfect for them. This is a âcontroversiallyâ bluegrass band who knows that, while they play string band music, its creative reach extends beyond what youâd expect of something labeled âbluegrass.â They have called themselves âa rock band without a drummer, a bluegrass band without a fiddler.â Elsewhere, theyâve marketed themselves as âa gold rush vibing four-piece acoustic set from Saskatchewan [that] infuse[s] the genre's traditional trappings with an air of frontier recklessness, whiskey breakfasts and grizzled tin-pan showmanship.â This is a band Iâve always said plays to a âdegenerateâ image, songs filled with cowboy shootouts, barfights, gun-wielding robberies, alcoholic nights, and more.
And doesnât their wardrobe evoke that spotlessly? There is CLASS and INTENTION with how they present themselves, to the point the band almost always stands in that order left-to-right, and has used their unique wardrobe choices for album covers and stage design.
Check out how the stageâs stained glass window lights behind them evoke both images from their songs, and have the tie, beard, skull, string tie theme on them. Every band member stands in front of his respective window.
That is *WAY* cooler, more effective, more impacting, more resonating, more memorable, more vibing, than simply tossing on my latest t-shirt.Â
(And yes, the last photos are from when I went to their concert last year. One of the best concerts Iâve EVER been to, and itâs because they knew how to put on a SHOW.)
Performance entails everything from the sounds you make to the personality you evoke to the clothes you wear. Itâs why I prefer the first generation bluegrass bandsâ approach to âdress wellâ over some modern string band trends. And again, bands like The Dead South show alternate ways you can dress up and rock out.
#long post#that banjo business#thatbanjobusiness#Country Music History#Haddock Deep Dives#General Banjo Business#The Dead South#Bill Monroe#daddy boi billiam#Flatt & Scruggs#bluegrass#first gen bluegrass
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Behind The Album: Load/Reload
Metallicaâs sixth and seventh studio albums were released in June 1996 and November 1997 respectively. The two albums can be taken into consideration as almost a double album as most of the songs on each album were all written around the same time. The records would see the band venture completely away from thrash metal into the realm of hard rock, blues, southern rock, and even country. A majority of Metallicaâs loyal fan base would be completely alienated by the album and the new Metallica image brought out during its promotion. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich once again acted as the primary song writers for the record, which began at Ulrichâs house in California in 1994. They would bring in almost 30 demos to Plant Studios when recording began in 1995, so the decision was made to split it into two separate albums. The artist that influenced the songs on Load included Kyuss, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Primus, ZZ Top, Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Oasis, Alanis Morissette, and Garth Brooks. Lars would have this to say about the criticism towards their new musical direction. âThis album and what we're doing with it â that, to me, is what Metallica are all about: exploring different things. The minute you stop exploring, then just sit down and fucking die.â For this album, Hetfield and Kirk Hammett began to experiment with blues style riffs and guitar styles, while Ulrich began to simplify his drumming style getting rid of the double bass drumming he had utilized on every album to date. Hetfieldâs lyrics abandoned any consideration of politics or society at large, but instead became very personal about his depression and sadness regarding his late mother and Cliff Burton. Other tracks focus on his own depression in dealing with these issues. Metallica was trying to gain a looser vibe with the music on this record, so Hammett for the first time on an album played rhythm guitar. For this record itself, the run time comes in at almost 80 minutes making it the longest LP the band ever produced. They needed to cut out one minute of the âOutlaw Tornâ in order for the cd to play correctly without skipping. The back cover of this album had this explanation on it: âWhen we were doing the final sequencing of the 'LOAD' album, the record company told us that we couldn't go a second past 78:59, or your CD's wouldn't play without potentially skipping. With our 14 songs, we were running about 30 seconds over, and something had to give, so the cool-ass jam at the end of 'Outlaw' got chopped.â
The cover of the album was a photograph created by Andres Serrano that combines bovine blood and his own semen in between two sheets of plexiglass called Semen and blood III. The album does not specifically name the photograph, but instead only refers to the photographer's name. James Hetfield hated the use of this picture as the cover. He would say, âLars and Kirk were very into abstract art, pretending they were gay. I think they knew it bugged me. It was a statement around all that. I love art, but not for the sake of shocking others. I think the cover of Load was just a piss-take around all that. I just went along with the make-up and all of this crazy, stupid crap that they felt they needed to do.â The album also saw Metallica remake its logo, an alternative symbol the ninja star, cut their long hair short, dress in designer clothes, and wear eyeliner. Once again, Hetfield absolutely despised these changes to their brand and image. âLars and Kirk drove on those records. The whole 'We need to reinvent ourselves' topic was up. Image is not an evil thing for me, but if the image is not you, then it doesn't make much sense. I think they were really after a U2 kind of vibe, Bono doing his alter ego. I couldn't get into it. The whole, 'Okay, now in this photoshoot we're going to be '70s glam rockers.' Like, what? I would say half â at least half â the pictures that were to be in the booklet, I yanked out. The whole cover thing, it went against what I was feeling.â The backlash from their fans was significant as they felt completely betrayed by the band's new image. Years would pass before they would gain the trust of the diehard fans once again.
Load would represent a commercial success for the band as it stayed number one on the Billboard 200 chart for four weeks. And in its first week, the band moved 680,000 copies, making for the most successful week in the band's history. The record would go on to be certified as five times platinum selling 5 million copies. The critics were mixed on the album noting the change to hard rock. Rolling Stone liked the record. "The foursome dams the bombast and chugs half-speed ahead, settling into a wholly magnetizing groove that bridges old-school biker rock and the doomier side of post-grunge '90s rock.â Melody Maker was not as enthusiastic about the record saying that there were moments on the album where you needed to ask the question, has Metallica gone soft? AllMusic found the record to be boring, the same song over and over, and poorly played. Lars Ulrich would say this about the mixed reviews towards the album. "With Load, it was disappointing that some people's reaction to the music was biased by how they dealt with the pictures â the hair and all that crap. People have come up to me years afterwards and said, 'I never gave the record a fair chance because I couldn't get beyond Jason Newsted wearing eyeliner.' But 'The Outlaw Torn', some of that shit is pretty fucking awesome."
The follow up album Reload would be released in November 1997 with similar commercial success as it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart selling 436,000 copies in its first week. This would be the last album that Jason Newsted would play on with the band. As noted previously, the original intention was to release the songs as a double album, but then it was decided that doing so many songs might have issues. Kirk Hammett would say this about the recording sessions with producer Bob Rock. âWe were gonna do them both as a double album, but we didn't want to spend that long in the studio. Also, if we did a double album, it would have been a lot more material for people to digest, and some of it might have gotten lost in the shuffle." Reload became the first album that the band featured another singer as Marianne Faithfull lended her vocals to âThe Memory Remains.â Once again, the band used a photograph from Andres Serrano mixing bovine blood and his semen. Critics for the most part liked the album, but they did note that the music seemed to be heavily influenced by southern rock. One of the big takeaways for some critics was the fact that Reload felt like the leftovers from the Load sessions. This also showed in the fact that the record was only certified platinum three times.
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modern au red/milo dump while i try to get myself together to answer asks nd work on ATJ:
(tw for alcohol mentions near the end, also this is an EXTREMELY long post, its so long that even after i split it into categorized sections each section could be its own post)
CLOTHING
milo absolutely has no sense of fashion. i feel like this is basically canon - for the styles at the time, he dresses fairly basic, mostly focused on looking put together for his job (definitely dresses aimed more towards how he would like to be treated by his peers, despite his actual position - then again our best example outside of the expedition is when he's about to deliver what he considers the most important presentation of his life, so who knows, maybe he usually dresses like a slob). aside from that his main concern seems like practicality and comfort. his wardrobe is dominated by earth tones - beiges and greens set with white and greys. all of that taken into account, i can see him dressing like this in a more modern era:
basically- a lot of cardigans, usually collared shirts or comfortable turtlenecks (since he does still occupy a research position at the smithsonian, even if only in title), big ol' coats, khakis and chinos and slightly stiff dress pants complete with ironed creases. i can see him wearing similar clothes outside work, just more comfortable - jeans and knitted shirts, henleys, more turtlenecks, and comfy cardigans over short sleeved shirts. i dont really see him wearing a lot of prints, i think he'd veer more towards solid clothes in lighter colors, but maybe he has a few. hes definitely the kind of guy to think of wearing the single graphic tee he owns as "bold and wild".
im very married to the idea of him wearing converse though. i cant explain it. milo in converse keeps me going in this world
hes kind of broke so i think maybe he got the converse secondhand maybe? or a gift of some kind. aside from the converse i can see him wearing a lot of oxfords and maybe wingtips
i want to see him in a hawaiian shirt so bad. i am losing it at this thought. he buttons it all the way up to his neck like someones awkward dad. milo wears a hawaiian shirt to "let loose". he wears it with like, khakis. or knee length jorts AHHHHDJHDSGJHDSJGh
a tie??? does he wear his hawaiian shirt with a tie???? does he think it makes it look cooler?????????? i am sobbing
red is the COMPLETE opposite. in the canon 1914 setting, red is already very rebellious for an AFAB person of their era- theyre openly a suffragette, they frequently refuse to wear skirts even in public and dress in mens clothes even before they were openly nonbinary, despite not being accepted into the male-dominated research fields and colleges they continue to educate themself with or without help, they purposely aim for an "unfeminine" silhouette when they dress, refuse to wear corsets, etc. (spoiler alert- there's a clear reason they get on so well with audrey in ATJ)
theyre also easily mistaken by people that didnt know them prior to their transition for being just a very small/young cis man- even though they canonically have a very soft "traditionally feminine" face
so basically, in any era theyre set into, red is always gonna aim to be ahead of the curve- both in their personal beliefs and practices and in their fashion. theyre also very androgynous in their clothes, although they tend to aim a bit more masculine (thats partially due to the era though, and having been forced into skirts exclusively for their entire life- i think in a modern setting where its more acceptable for AFABs to dress and act in a less hyperfeminine way, theyd be more okay with a fluidity in their gender presentation).
all that taken into account, i can see them dressing like this:
lots of baggy clothes, especially baggy jackets and shirts. they like loose fitting high waisted pants like JNCO jeans, cargo pants, etc but they arent averse to pencil legs. they rarely ever wear skinny jeans or drainpipes though. messy hair is a lifestyle for them- their haircut is definitely home-done
you know how in BICSTLY they used to have really long hair before they cut it? in a modern au i can see them impulsively doing the cut at like 3am and waking milo up at his door cause they screwed it up and he ends up having to help fix it (even though hes literally no better at cutting hair than them. worse even)
definitely have an undercut bob- bob on top, shaven on the bottom layer. they might end up growing their hair into a mullet at some point if they get bored. probably dyes their hair all the time out of boredom and then regrets it later and has to use dye remover.
lots of ripped tights and fishnets, leggings with big loose crop tops, big hoodies, safety pin jewelry and homemade jewelry. maybe some sticknpokes.
all that said, they still know how to dress in a professional situation. since its a modern au theres really nothing holding them back from the education and career they canonically want but cant get in the 1910s, so i imagine they would work at the smithsonian as well, maybe their father helped them get the job? potentially in that case they might be his assistant- after all, he trusts their opinion on artifacts more than anyone else's.
at work you can still very much see the punk/skater/grunge/goth style but its more understated- turtlenecks, high waisted and looser dress pants, lots of black, slightly unbuttoned collared shirts with a loose overcoat and no tie
since i elaborated on milos shoe taste i may as well elaborate on red's: they definitely wear converse as well, probably newer than milo's since their father is fairly wealthy and they can afford it. they also have a doc martens collection. they have a pair of demonias but they never wear them and milo is really the only person to even know they own them, let alone see them in them. they really dont like to wear heels much, but they own a few just to play around with. they have a bad habit of wearing any laced shoes untied, but they never trip over the laces. they also use lace code- their most-worn Docs have purple laces on the right foot and yellow on the left. some of their Docs have (reclaimed) pink laces.
has an extensive pin collection including feminism pins, anti-racism pins, punk-related pins, skater-related pins, and pop culture pins (80s music, modern music, old movies, etc)
MUSIC TASTE
milo's into a lot of older music- stuff from the 50s is his favorite. really into jazz and ballroom style stuff. his favorite band is queen, i think- he likes the old-fashioned sound, the jazz-chamber-ballroom influences, the diversity of their lyrics, and the complexity between the guitar riffs, the basslines, and freddie's vocal runs as well as the vocal harmonies.
sometimes he hums good old fashioned lover boy to red and they two-step in the living room in their pajamas :pleading:
also very into rush. yes, he is a rush guy :pensive:.
also listens to a surprising amount of lo-fi? he really likes stuff that remixes older music with hip hop and lofi elements, like earl grey. nearly exclusively into instrumental stuff but also very into louie zong. he listens to it while he works a lot.
knows a lotttt of foreign artists, especially niche ones. fuckin LOVES casiopea
red's spotify is a goddamn mess. everything from 2000s emo, to classic 70s punk, to post-punk and new wave, to 90s pop, to rap. they cant be easily classified at all
their favorite bands are oingo boingo, prince, queen (they listen to a lot of their harder-rock music, but milo knows theyre into the ballads too. theyll never tell anyone else though), doja cat, lil nas, fall out boy, and billie eilish.
red recites the intro monologue to lets go crazy very seriously to make milo laugh, sometimes. they get very into it with their facial expressions. sometimes it devolves into a full air guitar/keyboard/drum and wild dancing session. milo does not know how to participate in this but he loves watching them have fun with it. sometimes they pull him off the couch to make him dance with them, though
they are a huge sucker for dark pop, vaporwave, retrowave, EDM, hip hop, emo, punk... etc etc. anything that combines any two or more of those genres in an original or interesting way gets their attention right away
there's a lot of sharing between the two of them- even though their music tastes are so different, they like a lot of the others taste, and theyre always up to listen to whatever their partner is playing.
red is a huge softie, and milo has found them more than once listening to or humming something he was playing for them the other day because it reminded them of him
speaking of which- in the 1914 canon, red can play piano. i think that carries over to a modern au, where they could play piano and by extension keyboard. i like to think they experiment with a lot of instruments but i doubt they ever really mastered any others. maybe theyre okay at drums or bass?
they learned to play and sing teo torriatte for milo, as a surprise. when they first performed it for them, they had everything set up for when he got home from work- the lights were dimmed, they had candles lit around the keyboard, they draped stuff in cloth to make it look pretty, they scattered flower petals around. when milo walked in and saw it all, he almost proposed then and there- the only thing that stopped him was that he would kick himself for the rest of his life if he did that without a ring.
HOBBIES/ACTIVITIES
milo is still an avid chess player in this, but i like to think hes in some kind of groupchat or text or discord server for it. he doesnt necessarily consider any of the others in the chat close friends, but he does know them all by name
he tries to get red into chess but they never really get it
he tells them all about the stuff that goes down in the games and they just. do not understand. but they love listening to him get excited about it anyway
"red you're not gonna BELIEVE this, eddie played an italian game on star today! i thought for sure she would see through it since everyone knows it but she slipped and he beat her in like, 13 moves! i wouldnt have believed it if i hadnt been there!"
"yes sweetie please tell me more" (barely disguised pained expression)
red is a skater and a regular at the skate park by the smithsonian
most regulars there know them by name, they can spot a newbie a mile away
they have a sticker of a broken tv with a skull inside of it on the underside of their board, its become recognized as a symbol of them unofficially
since theyre so regular and have been going there a lot longer than most of the other skaters that frequent the place, a lot of what they say is kind of just accepted as the rules
they have a bad habit of lecturing new kids who show up without knee/elbow pads or helmets at the very least. all the other skaters enforce it too. kids dont end up showing up without protective gear very often after their first visit
they brought a first aid kid and left it there and everyone has kept it stocked pretty well without them having to have much input. its kind of just a communal first aid kit
they once drew the broken tv symbol on the inside of a half-pipe and everyone started calling it red's ramp after that
they also started calling the bowl at the center of the park the Soup Bowl and now thats just accepted as the name. some of the newer kids genuinely thought that it was called that by the park and were shocked when they found out it was just a random nickname red gave it one day
theyve brought milo a few times but hes extremely awkward on his feet and could never really get his balance on a skateboard, and quite frankly red is afraid of what might happen if he tried even a low ramp, so he usually just sits at the rim of the bowl while red skates around
everyone knew he was their boyfriend before they even met him. a few of the regulars called him by name right away. one of them was certain red had brought him before.
but no
they just talk so fuckin much about him that its like they already know him
aside from skateboarding, red is pretty good on rollerskates/blades
they tried to take milo to a roller rink once but it was a disaster and they ended up going home, changing into pajamas, ordering chinese food, and marathoning movies till they fell asleep on the couch together. so not a total loss
theyre both very into movies. red is deep into horror and milo likes indie/art movies and just Cannot handle horror at all, but they both agree on old movies, from the 80s and 90s to like the 30s.
red has shown milo some of the classic horror movies and the niche old ones (from like the 40s) since theyre not difficult to stomach
every so often when red brings up wanting to see a horror movie milo is like "aw babe we can watch that tonight i promise it wont be bad" and he genuinely thinks he can handle it this time
he cant
he never can
it is always a lie
red ends up holding him every time and talking him to sleep, but it thankfully never causes like a major panic attack or anything like that
they love going to museums together, of all kinds. they love art museums. they also go to aquariums and aviaries
sometimes they like to go to other history museums and criticise the veracity or accuracy of exhibits/translations, all in good fun of course. theyre never actually being mean about it
SIDENOTES/UNCATEGORIZED
they both used to work at starbucks, when they were younger and before they worked at the smithsonian. they worked at separate stores 2 blocks from each other.
milo cant stand soda or carbonated drinks, red can and will chug a java monster in order to survive a long workday if they must. milo is constantly concerned for their health and wellbeing
they r both lightweights when it comes to drinking. they can split a six pack and both be falling-over drunk by the end of the night.
given the changes in beauty standards people DEFINITELY think milo is more attractive than they would in 1914. cmon. hes a lil twinky nerd. you think people wont eat that up?
he never really catches onto the flirting much though
did u think i would forget ki/da and the others? youd be wrong.
i simultaneously like the idea of something similar to the movie happening, but also just like... ki/da just being a regular person living on the surface. in either case they r all friends still
in the case of ki/da just being a regular person on the surface- i like the idea of atl/antis just being A Place in this au, maybe its a bit of a closed off country though? like, not many foreigners live there and to get there you basically need to be there as a diplomat or a scholar
maybe ki/da visits DC as a diplomat? she is a princess, after all
red meets audrey online cause they both yell at the same misogynistic asshole on twitter
they exchange discord names in the replies of the tweet and tell the guy not to interrupt them while theyre talking in his replies
i like to think red and milo are selected to go on an academic visit to atl/antis (to learn about the culture, with permission of the king), and audrey ends up as the mechanic on the ship during the visit and theyre like (spiderman pointing meme) at each other
red and audrey have so many inside jokes that they basically speak a different language. milo gets some of the terms from context and pop culture (they use "so very" in real life- as in "wow, that shirt is so very.") but he is hopeless to learn all of it
one of their inside jokes is any variation of "milo hot girl summer" and they REFUSE to explain it to him no matter how much he begs
milo wears that iconique tank top on the ship and they say it literally any time he bends over, picks anything up, reaches for anything, moves, BREATHES. he is bewildered and at this point concerned
(in truth, the joke came from red taking a really blurry picture of him in a short sleeve shirt where he looked pretty cute and captioned it "milo's having a hot girl summer rn" and they just could not stop repeating it once audrey met him IRL)
they have a minecraft world. i do like to believe that every so often vinny finds a way in- theyre never sure how- and griefs the shit out of them by blowing up EVERY. monument.
this post is getting long bc im enraptured by the idea of an atl/antis modern au so im cutting it off here but expect WAY MORE later
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Size does matter
By Lena Corner Taken from I-D Magazine - May 1999, Issue #186Â âSkin & Soulâ
After the rebirth of cool that was White on Blonde, Texas are finally ready to capitalise on their credibility. And for Sharleen Spiteri, this time it's personal...
Armed with a wedge of crisp tenners ready to blow at the bar, it's impossible to deny a slight tinge of disappointment when Sharleen Spiteri's choice of beverage turns out to be a cup of tea. Ask what she's doing at the weekend and she talks excitedly about staying in to await delivery of a new fridge. Getting on a domestic roll, she waxes lyrical about the draught excluders she's just fitted in her new Primrose Hill home. "I think I'm turning into my mum," she concludes.
Sharleen Spiteri may be a woman who stands accused of many things, but domestic obsession isn't one of them. She's been criticised for trying to add credibility to her soul-tinged radio-friendly rock by aligning herself with the likes of Rae and Christian and the Wu-Tang Clan. When she employed Juergen Teller to shoot the cover of Texas' 1997 album White On Blonde, it was said she brought him in an attempt to re-invent herself as a moody, hip and highly marketable frontwoman. Even her choice of boyfriend, Arena Homme Plus editor Ashley Heath, who she's been seeing for years, has been called her svengali figure, a calculated move to position herself within the sphere of all things cool. "I've never ever seen it written where someone's gone, 'Yeah Sharleen's alright, she knows what she's doing'," she says. "But it's like fuck them, who cares? Everyone seems to forget that I used to be a hairdresser, I used to do shoots constantly and teach all over the world. I was very much part of the whole industry before I was ever in a band, then suddenly it got to this point where everyone was saying Texas are trying to re-invent themselves. People want a story though, they want to invent something." When Sharleen first appeared on the cover of i-D back in March'97, readers wrote in to complain: why should we want to feature someone like Spiteri? She was old news: her debut single, I Don't Want a Lover, hit number eight way back in '89. Her records shifted millions and she'd spent far too much time at the top of the charts. In 1997, Texas were one of the most played acts on British radio. Mass market, stadium-sized exposure - how uncool is that? "I don't want to make cool music," she retorts angrily. "What is cool music? It might be cool today but it's not going to be cool tomorrow. People still talk about âI Don't Want A Loverâ and that was ten years ago; to me that's far cooler than writing some fucking stupid song that sold 20 copies. It's like, don't waste my time, pretentious fucks. I'm not interested in being trendy. I went through all that when I was 16. It seems it's more important nowadays to be into the right music, wear the right trainers, sit in the right bars and have the right furniture. It's too much effort, I'm too old and it's too boring." Hence her fad for draught, excluders. There was a time, though, when Sharleen did care what people thought and she'd sit through interviews desperately trying to be liked. Even so, after the third Texas album, Ricks Road, the backlash kicked in. People lost interest, the press wrote her off and Spiteri took it all very personally. The whole experience left her feeling crushed and betrayed, she says. For a while Texas plugged away on the European tour circuit; they went "where the love was". But when the tour ended in '95, Spiteri had had enough and took off to Paris for a year to live with her mate. For a while it was touch and go. But today she's got an Ivor Novello award for 'outstanding body of work' sitting on her mantelpiece and a four million-selling comeback album. Finally she realised it was time to stop caring what people thought. "We really fought to make that album," Sharleen admits. "A lot of people thought Texas had split up - some didn't know we'd ever existed - but we made a record because we believed in our ability to keep it going, we kept our values and rode it through. When people aren't interested, you really have to fight for what you believe in; we did and to come through the other end was the biggest gift anyone could ever have given us. All those people who went out and brought that record was the biggest compliment anyone could ever pay us." At the end 1997, Texas played at the Hogmanay party in Edinburgh. With the castle as a backdrop and a sky exploding with fireworks, the curtain came down on what Sharleen describes as an unbelievable, fantastic year. That moment, playing to a rapturous New Year's audience, marked the end of the White On Blonde era and two days later, still riding on the buzz, she sat down with co-writer Johnny McElhone in her Glasgow recording studio and tried to do it again. The Hush, their fifth album, is the result. "This is the Texas album we've been building up to throughout our entire history," she says. "I really do believe we've nailed it."
Sharleen describes it as sensual, a collection of moods, hence the title. They spent weeks planning the running order; it's a record, she reckons, that will take your imagination to all sorts of different places when you put it on in your bedroom. Namechecked influences remain the classic Texas roll call: "You can hear the Roxy Music influences," she says. "Abba and the Human League all mixed in with The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, AI Green and Ann Peebles." The result is pure, polished summer-tinged pop with Spiteri's syrupy, smooth vocals stronger than ever, delivered lying as usual on her back. For the album's artwork, this time Sharleen chose Gucci campaign photographer Luis Sanchez and headed out to Miami Beach where she languished in the sea for something more seductive than the pared down White On Blonde sleeve. "It was a case of let's go to the other end of the spectrum," she says, "the complete opposite of what Juergen Teller would do. He's very stripped down, very in your face. But because it's called The Hush, we wanted something shiny and glamorous. I've always loved the Roxy Music sleeves, classic late '70s album covers. It was more on that tip." The source of inspiration for one track entitled The Girl actually came from Lauryn Hill. It refers to that rare thing: a woman with money and power, with the conviction to use it exactly the way she wants to. "She's stuck to her guns and I think that's what it's all about," Sharleen says. "I'm so aware a lot of people are quite prepared to sell their soul to get what they want, but I'm not and I don't think Lauryn is either. I look at men's magazines and see all these girls on the cover; you simply cannot get on one unless you're prepared to get your tits out and so many people do. It's inspiring seeing the way Lauryn Hill does it. And then she gets called an awkward bitch for it. It's so difficult if you're a woman and you've got an opinion. It's not considered an opinion, it's a fucking attitude problem and I find that very frustrating." Inevitably Spiteri with her natural, androgynous good looks and flair for throwing together Prada with trainers has had countless offers to strip down and 'do something sexy'. But their idea of sexy, she says, is very different from her own. "Sexy is really all about imagining as opposed to seeing. That's why I love working with Juergen; his whole thing is about catching a real moment, something that you actually would do like sit in the bath. If it's all there in your face you don't even see it. But once you've shown it, you've shown it and you can't go back on it. I think it's laughable - if that's where the male sex are supposed to be at, it's very sad. Why do they have to have everything in pictures to understand how things work?" At school, Sharleen was one of those girls who were approached by the boys - but sadly never for anything she had to offer. "I'm not an archetypal beauty. Everything's a mess, my nose is all bent," she says. "It was always, Sharleen, you know your mate, sort us out a date.' I was like a pimp at school. At the time it was like, 'You bastard', but it was actually a really good way to accept the way I am." In those days, Spiteri was convinced she was going to grow up to be a designer. She gave up her Saturdays to study fashion at Glasgow School Of Art, landing her first-ever discount card for the local art supplies shop. She spent countless nights cutting and embellishing outfits, standing on the kitchen table while her long-suffering mum pinned up her latest creation at two in the morning. It's not surprising then that when Muiccia Prada approached her to model for the Miu Miu line, Spiteri turned her down flat. "You're not going to get me stuck with one designer," she says. "I love clothes too much." Back in '89, sporting tomboy denims and a Siouxie Sioux haircut, Spiteri modelled herself on Patti Smith. She made great music, she wasn't gorgeous and she wasn't blonde something to aspire to. But two years ago at the Q awards, Spiteri's mentor came crashing off her pedestal. "She did this whole thing: 'If these are all the people I've influenced then fuck it'. I thought, 'You rude cow'. PJ Harvey gave her the award - if I'd been presenting it I'd have belted her. To have been doing this for so long and to be so lucky to be doing it, she should frigging know better and she should be glad if she's influenced anyone." Since that moment, Spiteri's stopped playing Smith's music. "All I hear when I put her records on is just a really angry person. It's not good vibes to be giving out, it's like what on earth have you possibly got to be angry about?" To this day, Spiteri remains eternally, sweetly grateful for her ten years in Texas, even those spent wallowing in the European pop wilderness. "I'm always very careful what I wish for," she says. "And I never tell anyone because they'll never come true." Texas, she thinks, was something that was always meant to happen, even though when she was first asked to sing she thought it was a wanky chat up line. She carefully avoids tempting fate; insisting on being the last to walk out on stage and always locking away the first pressing of every Texas record because superstition tells her to. She refuses to court fame for fame's sake. "It's easy to be invisible if you want to be," she says. Once a crazed Biblewielding lunatic forced his way into her dressing room in France. Even though he was ousted before he got to say his piece, it was an incredibly frightening moment for her. At 32, she's thinking about having kids; attention like that isn't what she needs. Chances are, The Hush will do a White On Blonde and sell and sell, especially if Chris Evans takes it on as a personal crusade, as he has before. Next month Texas release the single In Our Lifetime. "The whole sentiment behind it is about finding yourself in a situation that's totally meant for you and taking it," Sharleen says. "You only get one chance, it's that once in a lifetime situation; you've got to grab it with both hands and never let it go." The tale of Texas possibly? The story of the girl who ditched a glittering career in hairdressing to join a band on a whim and who persevered in the face of endless criticism. Spiteri pauses for a moment. "Oh yes," she says. "I've never thought of it like that."
The Texas single, In Our Lifetime, is out on April 19 on Mercury, followed on May 10 by The Hush LP.
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Kasabian's Serge Pizzorno: 'Being pretentious is my number one fear'
Tim Jonze - www.theguardian.com - Photo: Neil Bedford
2 Sep 2019
Heâs the lairy lad rocker who scored one of the best ever goals on TV â in winklepickers. Now he is aiming to be musicâs answer to David Lynch
Serge Pizzorno is looking back at the rise of his band Kasabian and trying to pinpoint when it all became a bit too much.
âYouâd turn up at shows and thereâd be 20-odd trucks there, a catering team, loads of people everywhere,â he says. âAnd youâd think, wow, this is actually a job for a lot of people, and it all rests on these four maniacs!â
This was in 2017: the band had just completed their sixth album, For Crying Out Loud, released to mixed reviews, and all was not well in camp. After 20 years together, Pizzorno was worried the band were getting stuck in a rut. And then there was the personal turmoil: not for songwriter Pizzorno, who had settled into family life in Leicester (he has two boys, Ennio and Lucio), but for Tom Meighan, the bandâs wild-eyed frontman.
Mimicking their idols Noel and Liam Gallagher, Pizzorno wrote the songs while Meighan brought the stage presence, preposterous quotes (âOur songs sound like weâve shit ourselves 10,000 feet in the airâ) and ludicrous tales. Band legend had it that, whenever Meighan became too much to handle, the other members had to take him to the nearest Toys R Us store to calm him down. But following a split from his partner, the relentlessly upbeat singer was struggling. He cried in one interview at the time.
âTomâs still figuring things out, but heâs in a much better place now,â says Pizzorno when we meet for coffee in London. But itâs no wonder they needed time out. âI was worried we would get stale. Sometimes you need to go down the rabbit hole to refresh things.â
The SLP is that rabbit hole. Itâs his initials â his full name is Sergio Lorenzo Pizzorno â and the name of his forthcoming solo album, recorded at his home studio, the Sergery (yes, really). With its guest appearances from Little Simz and Slowthai, and wild eclecticism, itâs reminiscent of Gorillaz â a cartoonish world constructed as an escape from the pressures of being in an enormous band.
Pizzorno sees it less as a new direction and more a return to the way he started off making music. Back then he was using an old Atari and a Midi keyboard; these days heâs been recording on his phone, stealing snippets from 70s Italian horror movies, âweird Polish shitâ, and whatever grabs his attention when heâs out and about.
âIâll be in Tokyo, hear the buzz of the electricity running through the pylons, and be like...â he waves his phone in the air, as if frantically trying to record the sound. âAll my mates will be taking the piss. And even in my own head Iâm thinking, âIâm never gonna use this.â But this time I did.â
Indeed, the buzzing pylons make it into The Wu, an incredibly odd song about wandering through hotel corridors in search of the afterparty. Itâs a case study in Pizzornoâs esoteric influences, from the South African disco label Heads and Lee âScratchâ Perry to the late Nigerian synth wizard William Onyeabor. Elsewhere thereâs Mediterranean house (Nobody Else), mariachi meltdowns (Meanwhile ⌠in the Welcome Break) and, in ((trance)), the kind of joyously anthemic track that wouldnât sound out of place in, well, a Kasabian set.
Did the rest of the band not think: canât we have a couple of these tunes? âItâs probably testament to why weâre still together that they didnât mind,â says Pizzorno. âTom understands that you need to explore what else is out there. Otherwise you become the band everyone expects you to be.â
The irony is that Kasabian have never been the band a lot of people think they are anyway. When they emerged in the early 00s, with electro-influenced rock anthems such as Clubfoot and LSF, they were stereotyped as lairy lad rockers, when in reality they were just as enamoured by hip-hop and acid house.
âOn our first record I would wanna sit people down and go, âNo, no, no â this is where we were fishing for that stuff, Can and Neu! or whoever. But whatever we said, the journalist would just ask us about the Happy Mondays. I soon realised it was best to just keep your mouth shut, because if youâre still able to make albums and art, who cares where it comes from anyway?â
I interviewed the band a few times back then and always found them far kinder and more erudite than they were portrayed (âOn the road carnage with rockâs rowdiest band!â screamed one NME cover line). But itâs fair to say, with their wild tales and boasts, they played up to it.
Was the lad thing a bit of an act? âWe knew that journalists wanted it,â says Pizzorno. âBut at the same time, we did grow up where, if you wanted to be in a band, you had to have your wits about you. If youâre playing in a village pub in Leicester in front of a load of lads that would throw darts at your head for having long hair, you can either go in and be all art school, or you can snap a snooker cue in half and say, âLetâs go!â But then I still wanted to get them in the corner and talk about Jodorowsky afterwards.â
Pizzornoâs lad-rock credentials were no doubt enhanced by two televisual moments: a goal on Soccer AM, in which he improbably flicked the ball up in the air while wearing winklepickers before volleying it into a tiny hoop; and an even better strike during the Soccer Aid charity match that saw him scoop the ball over former England keeper David Seamanâs head and into the top corner of the net. The mention of these acts of sporting glory makes Pizzorno groan: âYouâll work for ages on a piece of music or art that youâre really proud of. But kick a ball through a hole in an inflatable bouncy castle and itâs what you become known for.â
Come on though, which was his favourite goal? âWith the Soccer AM one Iâd been up all night, I was hanging. If I was sober Iâd never have even tried it. But the [Soccer Aid] one ⌠not only is it a great goal, but for five minutes after scoring it, Iâve never been more off my nut in my life. As a pure sledgehammer hit of adrenaline, it was insane. God knows what it would be like to score in a World Cup.â
Less impressive when it comes to lad stereotypes was a cover of Q magazine, on which Meighan and Pizzorno appeared alongside two naked ladies, something that even back in 2011 looked like a relic of a bygone era. Pizzorno groans again, but this time he means it. âThat really kills me,â he says. âIt was sold to us as Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland, a celebration of 60s psychedelia. But we learned an important lesson there â we need to take control over every element.â
Pizzorno says the band have always been more inclusive than people give them credit for. âArt can be the start of something. At [Kasabianâs] gigs you only have to look at the first few rows to see thereâs people from all over the world, with completely different views on how things should be done, but at least weâve got them together.â
Thereâs a song on The SLP that addresses this, the final track Meanwhile ⌠in the Silent Nowhere. âItâs about communication,â says Pizzorno. âPreviously, even if you were rightwing or had extreme views, it felt like there could be some sort of dialogue where you could at least hear each otherâs stories. Now it feels like, âThis is my belief, fuck youâ ... thereâs a danger in us not sitting down and talking face to face.â
What does he think of the current political situation? âItâs like Vegas. Fundamentally, the system is rigged and whatever you implement, the outcome will be the same. Youâre probably talking revolution here but we need someone to come along and start again.â Is Jeremy Corbyn that person? âHeâs the best shot weâve got ... but I think thereâs more. Thereâs someone else out there that can marry spirituality [with politics] and break the system and get us to start again somewhere better.â He laughs: âI think Iâm just waiting for the messiah.â
Right now, Pizzorno has more pressing problems than the overthrow of capitalism: how to be a musician without Meighan by his side. Heâs planned an impressive stage show, with different characters performing each song. It sounds ambitious. âBut in a really minimal way,â he stresses. âNot overblown, the opposite to lasers and screens. It wonât be pretentious. Pretentious is my number one fear.â
Will there be costume changes? âVery subtle ones. There might be a hat. I might be barefoot. Fundamentally, I want it to be like a David Lynch thing, where people feel on edge, as if theyâve entered another world for 50 minutes.â
Pizzorno says he knows he can never compete with Kasabianâs enormous gigs â those gigantic, truck-bearing affairs with catering teams and staff everywhere. âBut the aim is to get to that same euphoric point,â he says, âjust in a whole new way.â
The SLP is out now. The tour starts on 5 September at Glasgow SWG3.
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Rock music isn't dead, but it's barely hanging on
This is true in at least two senses.
Though popular music sales in general have plummeted since their peak around the turn of the millennium, certain genres continue to generate commercial excitement: pop, rap, hip-hop, country. But rock â amplified and often distorted electric guitars, bass, drums, melodic if frequently abrasive lead vocals, with songs usually penned exclusively by the members of the band â barely registers on the charts. There are still important rock musicians making music in a range of styles â Canada's Big Wreck excels at sophisticated progressive hard rock, for example, while the more subdued American band Dawes artfully expands on the soulful songwriting that thrived in California during the 1970s. But these groups often toil in relative obscurity, selling a few thousand records at a time, performing to modest-sized crowds in clubs and theaters.
But there's another sense in which rock is very nearly dead: Just about every rock legend you can think of is going to die within the next decade or so.
Yes, we've lost some already. On top of the icons who died horribly young decades ago â Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, John Lennon â there's the litany of legends felled by illness, drugs, and just plain old age in more recent years: George Harrison, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty.
Those losses have been painful. But it's nothing compared with the tidal wave of obituaries to come. The grief and nostalgia will wash over us all. Yes, the Boomers left alive will take it hardest â these were their heroes and generational compatriots. But rock remained the biggest game in town through the 1990s, which implicates GenXers like myself, no less than plenty of millennials.
All of which means there's going to be an awful lot of mourning going on.
Behold the killing fields that lie before us: Bob Dylan (78 years old); Paul McCartney (77); Paul Simon (77) and Art Garfunkel (77); Carole King (77); Brian Wilson (77); Mick Jagger (76) and Keith Richards (75); Joni Mitchell (75); Jimmy Page (75) and Robert Plant (71); Ray Davies (75); Roger Daltrey (75) and Pete Townshend (74); Roger Waters (75) and David Gilmour (73); Rod Stewart (74); Eric Clapton (74); Debbie Harry (74); Neil Young (73); Van Morrison (73); Bryan Ferry (73); Elton John (72); Don Henley (72); James Taylor (71); Jackson Browne (70); Billy Joel (70); and Bruce Springsteen (69, but turning 70 next month).
A few of these legends might manage to live into their 90s, despite all the ⌠wear and tear to which they've subjected their bodies over the decades. But most of them will not.
This will force us not only to endure their passing, but to confront our own mortality as well.
From the beginning, rock music has been an expression of defiance, an assertion of youthful vitality and excess and libido against the ravages of time and maturity. This impulse sometimes (frequently?) veered into foolishness. Think of the early rock anthem in which the singer proclaimed, "I hope I die before I get old." As a gesture, this was a quintessential statement of rock bravado, but I doubt very much its author (The Who's Pete Townshend) regrets having survived into old age.
It's one thing for a young musician to insist it's better to burn out than to fade away. But does this defiance commit the artist to a life of self-destruction, his authenticity tied to his active courting of annihilation? Only a delusional teenager convinced of his own invincibility, or a nihilist, could embrace such an ideal. For most rock stars, the bravado was an act, or it became one as the months stretched into years and then decades. The defiance tended to become sublimated into art, with the struggle against limits and constraints â the longing to break on through to the other side â merging with creative ambition to produce something of lasting worth. The rock star became another in our civilization's long line of geniuses raging against the dying of the light.
Rock music was always a popular art made and consumed by ordinary, imperfect people. The artists themselves were often self-taught, absorbing influences from anywhere and everywhere, blending styles in new ways, pushing against their limitations as musicians and singers, taking up and assimilating technological innovations as quickly as they appeared. Many aspired to art â in composition, record production, and performance â but to reach it they had to ascend up and out of the muck from which they started.
Before rock emerged from rhythm and blues in the late 1950s, and again since it began its long withdrawing roar in the late 1990s, the norm for popular music has been songwriting and record production conducted on the model of an assembly line. This is usually called the "Brill Building" approach to making music, named after the building in midtown Manhattan where leading music industry offices and studios were located in the pre-rock era. Professional songwriters toiled away in small cubicles, crafting future hits for singers who made records closely overseen by a team of producers and corporate drones. Today, something remarkably similar happens in pop and hip-hop, with song files zipping around the globe to a small number of highly successful songwriters and producers who add hooks and production flourishes in order to generate a team-built product that can only be described as pristine, if soulless, perfection.
This is music created by committee and consensus, actively seeking the largest possible audience as an end in itself. Rock (especially as practiced by the most creatively ambitious bands of the mid-1960s: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and the Beach Boys) shattered this way of doing things, and for a few decades, a new model of the rock auteur prevailed. As critic Steven Hyden recounts in his delightful book Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock, rock bands and individual rock stars were given an enormous amount of creative freedom, and the best of them used every bit of it. They wrote their own music and lyrics, crafted their own arrangements, experimented with wildly ambitious production techniques, and oversaw the design of their album covers, the launching of marketing campaigns, and the conjuring of increasingly theatrical and decadent concert tours.
This doesn't mean there was no corporate oversight or outside influence on rock musicians. Record companies and professional producers and engineers were usually at the helm, making sure to protect their reputations and investments. Yet to an astonishing degree, the artists got their way. Songs and albums were treated by all â the musicians themselves, but also the record companies, critics, and of course the fans â as Statements. For a time, the capitalist juggernaut made possible and sustained the creation of popular art that sometimes achieved a new form of human excellence. That it didn't last shouldn't keep us from appreciating how remarkable it was while it did.
Like all monumental acts of creativity, the artists were driven by an aspiration to transcend their own finitude, to create something of lasting value, something enduring that would live beyond those who created it. That striving for immortality expressed itself in so many ways â in the deafening volume and garish sensory overload of rock concerts, in the death-defying excess of the parties and the drugs, in the adulation of groupies eager to bed the demigods who adorned their bedroom walls, in the unabashed literary aspirations of the singer-songwriters, in mind-blowing experiments with song forms marked by seemingly inhuman rhythmic and harmonic complexity, in the orchestral sweep, ambition, and (yes) frequent pretension of concept albums and rock operas. All of it was a testament to the all-too-human longing to outlast the present â to live on past our finite days. To grasp and never let go of immortality.
It was all a lie, but it was a beautiful one. The rock stars' days are numbered. They are going to die, as will we all. No one gets out alive. When we mourn the passing of the legends and the tragic greatness of what they've left behind for us to enjoy in the time we have left, we will also be mourning for ourselves.
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Holding Court In A Crown {Roger Taylor}
Sequel to And All The Queenâs Men {Roger Taylor}
A/N: 3630 words. Giselle is fun to write and I love her. Another article style, based off of many conversations between @ginghampearlsnsweettea and I. Let me know what you think.
[And All The Queenâs Men âverse masterpost]
HOLDING COURT IN A CROWN - GISELLE TAYLOR in conversation with Vogue UK about her fashion evolution through the decades. (Published June, 1991)
When stepping into the Taylor home, it becomes immediately apparent that this is a home in which public image has always been very important. Gold and Platinum albums alike line the front foyer, shining reminders of the achievements of both artists who reside here. Itâs surprisingly modern, hardwood floors and large windows that allow light to stream in, though the house itself is smaller than one might expect. Giselle herself greets me in the front hall, looking carefully casual in a flattering, warm yellow summer dress, that hits just above her knees, and a pair of matching yellow slip on shoes.
Iâm lead through the house, past closed doors, one of which Iâm told is a personal recording studio, into a open-planned kitchen-dining area. Itâs a strange marriage of two aesthetics, no pun intended, the German-inspired open planned living with the dark counters, appliances, and features that make the space feel a little smaller, though it comes together to make something modern and chic, and perfectly suited to both Giselle and her husbandâs images.
âRogerâs with the girls,â she tells me, referring to her daughters, pouring us both a glass of water in some of the fanciest crystal glasses Iâve ever seen, ânot that he wouldnât jump at the chance to talk about his âfashion choicesâ,â her air quotes, not mine, âbut I thought Iâd spare you the half hour argument about the wine stain, and all the other, sundry fashion choices of mine that he likes to take credit for.â
Giselle herself admits that sheâs always been very fortunate in terms of fashion, âI mean, I look good in everything,â though thereâs an air of self deprecation about it, âActually, Iâve had a certain liberty with my work attire that not a lot of people have, unless youâre in the entertainment industry.â What began with a rented cocktail dress bloomed into one of the most influential fashion timelines of the 70s and 80s.
Beginning her career in an establishment modeled after American prohibition-era speakeasies, Giselle started off wearing cocktail dresses rented from the pub itself. âI actually did start off as a waitress, but for that you just had to provide your own black pants and white top, you know, wait-staff attire.â When the pubâs regular singer leaves, Giselle auditions to be her replacement, âthey were just grateful I could fit into her dress, I could lipsync for all they cared.â Except, as well all know, Giselle can sing, and begun to make a name for herself in the community that frequented the pub.
Pulling out a polaroid of herself and music industry giant Ray Forrester, she shows me the only proof she has of the dress that started it all. Itâs a rather ill-fitting, wine-coloured, sateen slip dress, it looks cheap, and according to Giselle, âit itched like crazy, it was cleaned once a week, and I was just glad that I was the only singer, some of the members of the jazz band had interchangeable costumes.â We both shudder at that, and she puts the photo on the counter.
As soon as she was given some modicum of control over her wardrobe, she took full advantage of it. Without a coherent aesthetic solidified by the release of her first album, Giselle admits she used the tour for Velvet Roses to experiment with both fabrics and styles. I personally have always favoured the midnight blue, velvet bouffant-style dress she wore during her stops in Belfast and Paris, but she goes on to praise the white, silk slip dress she had during her stop in West Berlin.
âSilk! Oh the silk, I dream about that dress sometimes,â she laughs a little, and now that weâve begun to discuss her tour outfits, she leads me upstairs, âat the time it was the most comfortable thing Iâd worn⌠ever; being able to work, to perform in something so luxury? It was a blessing.â
Her closet, at least the closet she stores her tour garments in, is separate from her bedroom, and locked. Sheâs got the key in her pocket, prepared, of course, for the interview, and as we step in I can hear the hum of a dehumidifier, and feel the chill of the air conditioning.
âItâs my one real extravagance.â As she turns on the lights, weâre greeted to the sight of a room, approximately four meters deep and half as wide, lined with railings that are practically stuffed with garment bags of varying sizes, and the end of the little room has a built in area for her jewel toned and bejewelled shoes alike. Three mannequins pose in the ample amount of space in the centre of the room, each wearing one of her most iconic outfits.
Each section of the racks around the side are carefully labelled by year, and it takes only a moment for Giselle to go through the section labelled 1971 before sheâs pulling that same white dress from a garment bag. It still looks pristine, and when she offers for me to feel it, I understand what sheâs saying.
âIâve always tried to keep a very high standard in term of the materials I wear,â it was the first part of her aesthetic identity that was formed. âIâd never really had access to luxury on this scale before; Iâd lived in sweaters and jeans for most of my [university] days; I was one of those girls in the little skirts and beaded tops at clubs- I lived my life in gogo boots every weekend of my first year.â Apparently she still has her favourite pair in the back of her personal closet, but seems hesitant to show me.
When asked what prompted her aesthetic shift, she reveals her passion for luxury stage-wear was only part of the decision. âIâd go on stage in silk pyjamas like Hugh Hefner if I could, but itâs not my brand.â Forrester was a big motivating force behind her solidification as the picture of elegance.
We get to the first of the mannequin dresses now, the fitted, black, off the shoulder cocktail dress, shining with sequins and beads, a perfect frozen reminder of her performance on Top of the Pops. To see it in person, still pristine, I get hit with just a hint of nostalgia, as does Giselle herself it seems. Marvelling at it with arms crossed over her chest, Iâm granted a closer look at what was quite possibly the most iconic outfit of the 1972 lineup on the hit British musical program. The gloves themselves are more intricate than first imagined; what was assumed to just be red glitter is actually hand stitched, red sequins from the tips of the finger all the way to the wrist where it fades to chunky, red glitter, glued on and somehow width standing the test of time, to then dissolve into fine and sparsely scattered red glitter from the mid-forearm to the elbow. The beads and sequins on the dress itself are affixed with barely noticeable, shiny red thread, that gives the dress dimension up close. Giselle cites Gothic Romanticism as an inspiration to add depth to her jazz-bar persona, as well as the theatrics of musical theatre, going so far as to called the dress the âMerry Murderessâ despite the fact that the musical Chicago premiered almost three years after the dressâ initial debut.
Despite this look being regarded as one of her classics, and therefore setting the standard for her public image for the years to come, thereâs no denying that Giselle didnât enjoy experimenting with her outfits.
âIâve never technically worn pants on stage,â as we move further into the room, she begins to pull various garment bags from the racks seemingly at random, âskirts, skorts, shorts - which some might argue are close enough - dresses, and even full jumpsuits, but never actual pants; Iâve always been worried that they were too masculinising for my act.â Moving on to the rack labeled 1975, she pulls out a particularly slim bag, and from it she pulls a pair of shorts made of what looks like liquid gold, but I know is made of velvet, with suspenders to match. It hangs over a sheer, flowing, cream crop-top with bell sleeves.
This outfit is cited as the first time she had deviated from her skirts and dresses, though the outfit itself is still exquisite and has an air of regality. âI was in Phoenix in â74 when I wore this; Iâd had it included in my repertoire for the Hand Held Heart tour in case it became especially hot,  which, being Arizona in the summertime, it was.â Itâs here we start to see the influence of other artists bleed into her work; the occasional feathery flamboyance borrowed from Elton John, the avant-garde pattern and makeup work popularised by David Bow, and of course, the extravagance and glitz of Queenâs Freddie Mercury.
âYou always have to specify that itâs [Freddie Mercury],â sheâs very serious on this point, holding up her iconic, short, incredibly sheer white, long-sleeved fitted dress, marbled with red sequins to protect her modesty. Itâs reminiscent of the red and white shorts Mercury had been known to favour on tours. âThe others, while, yes, they could be well dressed on occasion, [Roger Taylor]âs lime green jeans aside, they never had the flair or audacity that Freddie had to be truly influential.â
After recording a cover of Queenâs Jesus for her third album, Giselle entered into an unofficial partnership with the band, which she tells me included a collaboration with Mercury himself on their costumes.
âIâd spent a long time trying to merge my style and my musical origins with modern aesthetics; I worked very closely with a designer, since itâs not technically my strong suit.â She pauses for a moment, and we make our way to the mannequins again, this time to the second, a floor-length, evening-gown style dress in lilac, capped sleeves, looking as though itâs tie-dyed with blackcurrant glass beads instead of fabric dye. âGetting to collaborate with the band was easy enough; I did talk with [Jim Beach] regarding the use of the song, but he ultimately he ruled that it was up to them, and so once that connection was established, I actually asked Freddie to help me with some tour outfit designs.â
People often assume Giselle is referring to her team contacting Queenâs lawyer, but she goes on record now to explain that itâs not true. âIâm a lawyer, my own lawyer, and I also work for several big-name bands in the music industry today. EMI picked me up halfway through my final year, but I still continued to go to [university], and I did actually intern under (sic) [Beach] while writing my second album. â Iâm assured that she had just regular suits in her personal closet; three, in grey, black, and cream, well fitted, âbut not why youâre hereâ she adds with a self-deprecating smile.
The lavender and blackberry dress was one designed by Mercury himself, the pale lavender representative of elegance and femininity, while the darker blackcurrant is used to bring depth to the dress the same way Giselleâs unwavering, calculated persona brings depth to her performances. It was Mercuryâs idea to interweave the two in the tie-dyed style, keeping Giselleâs traditional aesthetic through the glass beads and the cut of the dress.
As we continue along the timeline, itâs clear to see the effect Mercury had on Giselleâs stage wardrobe, the use of geometric patterns coupled with bold colours, and more glitter and sequins than you can shake a stick at becoming more prominent throughout the late 70s, somehow still managing to keep in line with her traditional aesthetic simultaneously.
âI refuse to wear print.â Sheâs adamant about it when the possibility of wearing a garment like Mercuryâs vest with his cats painted on it comes up. âGeometric doesnât count; the texture in my wardrobe is always going to be,â she pauses for a moment, searching for the right word, fingers brushing through the fur of the fur-cuffs of a long-sleeved purple velvet number, âdiegetic.â She settles on, and itâs clear what she means; patterns on her clothes are always wrought through beads or diamonds or fur or other things attached. âItâs the reason I have it locked, [Lilith Taylor, 7] has left the âindiscriminately grabbing things that feel niceâ stage a few years ago, but Rosie [Rosemary Taylor, 4] is just at the tail end of it. Theyâll have free reign of this place one day,â she looks around at the fashion legacy she has built for herself, she wears an expression of pride, though itâs more focused on her daughters than the clothes themselves, âbut for now I want to keep choking hazards and expensive furs out of danger.â
Around the very end of the 70s to the beginning of the 80s we see a return to form, with the resurgence of her form-fitted cocktail dresses. âThere was a lot of change happening in my life at that time, and as much as I enjoy experimenting with my looks, it helped me feel secure to know I was in what was objectively my strong suit, pun not intended.â Â According to her, sheâd just begun seeing Roger Taylor, and she used her fashion choices to exercise control in her life that she felt she was losing.
âMy private life has always been very private, now here I am with the man who trashes drum kits and throws TVs out window; I was so afraid that every time people took a photo of me, or even looked at me, theyâd think I was compromising my morals or integrity - which Iâm not, and I wasnât then.â She quickly clarifies. âOur personal history is not void because of where we are now, but Roger and I have also changed as people, and weâre allowed to have our feelings change. Iâm honestly a little offended people think I we would have gone through all we did for mere publicity.â
Speaking of Roger, Iâm a little surprised her wedding dress isnât one of those on the mannequins, but I understand her choice, and weâll certainly get to that soon. Her wedding dress sits at the back of one of the racks, carefully distant from any of the year labels. As she removes it from the garment bag, she gives it a softly nostalgic smile, brushing the fabric gently. âThis should really go in my own closet.â Itâs unlike most of her other outfits here, such a pale cream itâs almost white, floor-length and sleeveless with a Roman-inspired cinched waist topped with what I hesitate to even call ruffles, their drapings so loose itâs reminiscent of curled hair rather than a traditional ruffle. The material is so soft and light that even on a hanger it looks a little ethereal. Itâs simple, elegant, and the very sight of it brings joy to her face.
ââ81.â The year is surprising, as is the revelation she shares about how they celebrated their tenth anniversary a few months prior. Putting the dress away, we move to the early eighties, and itâs almost cyclical the way weâre brought back to the âMerry Murderessâ aesthetic with the lineup from her âThe Bend Before The Breakâ tour.Â
âEveryone and their mother seems to have read the article [All The Queenâs Men, Rolling Stone, 1985] and figured out I was in a shaky place at the time; itâs again about having that modicum (sic) of control. Part of me reverted to portraying myself in the way when I felt like I was at the height of control in my relationships and career. Itâs a pretty aesthetic,â she gently pulls a velvet, wine-coloured cocktail dress from the rack, giving it a gentle pat, âit made my stage presence feel good, honestly.â It doesnât sound bitter, but she puts the dress back.Â
Apologising for a moment, she explains the large gap between â82 and â84, with her Finally, Sunlight tour. âAfter coming home from the [The Bend Before The Break] tour, I took some time to myself; I was, of course, still writing, but I couldnât really perform or make any big public appearances after like, July in â83, because I was quite pregnant, and, again, Iâm a private person.â The Finally, Sunlight tour is known for two things, Giselle wearing gold, silver, and copper, in any and every way she could, and the Atlanta Breakdown.
âI wore metallics because Finally, Sunshine is about my baby girls, and they are so precious to me.â As was made clear in the Rolling Stone article, Giselle and Roger lost one of their twin daughters to illness in Autumn of 1984, though Lilith survived, it took a devastating toll on the couple. Moving past that, weâre finally brought to the crown jewel of the collection; her Live Aid dress.
Itâs almost the antithesis to the âMerry Murderessâ, though it shares a similar neckline and off-the-shoulder style. The Live Aid dress, which Giselle calls âQueen Midasâ for reasons Iâll get into later, has a white, crushed velvet bodice with an inbuilt corset, and basque waistline. Beneath the waist is a enough layers of thin and flowing georgette to become completely opaque, like a waterfall from the waistline, the colours fading from a bright, sunshine yellow at the hip, to a rich, sunset orange by the knee, and finally to a smokey, warm-toned charcoal where it brushes the ground, with gold jewels dotted around the bottom and creeping almost to the knee in some sporadic places, reminiscent of embers in a fire. Her gloves are white velvet, and just like with the first of her most iconic outfits, itâs gold sequinned fading to actual glitter and diamonds.Â
âI took a hard look at where I was and what I had achieved, and... whether or not I can help it, I effect people, through my music, my actions, through what I wear, and can be a double edged sword. Sometimes it can hurt, or I can hurt others by saying or doing the wrong thing, but sometimes I find myself wanting for nothing; everything Iâve held close has turned to gold. I wanted to show that, to be able to be a part of something that gives back to the world where itâs given me so much.â
With all her most well-known outfits having been covered, thereâs one more that comes to the top of my head; the jacket of 1980. The tabloids had a field day with her choice of wardrobe as she stepped out of a car with the rest of Queen wearing a salmon and green floral, double breasted suit jacket, with silver buttons and silver stilettos, with sheer, thigh high white socks held up by a garter belt, hair fashionably messy, but makeup pristine. The deviation from her usual pristine image had shocked both paparazzi and public alike, however the daring outfit had quickly been lauded as one of her best, many publications who ran photos even citing it as the entertainment industryâs hottest innovative look of the decade. Even since it has stood the test of time, and has been attributed to the rise of patterned and bold suit jacket purchases by men and women alike, with the outfit have been cited as inspiration for more than one celebrityâs red carpet look.Â
Now, however, something, possibly amusement, possibly annoyance, crosses her face, and she tells me itâs not here. The jacket is Mercuryâs. âWe were on our way to a party being hosted by [Elton John], and Iâd only been with Rog for a few months at this point; so weâre in the back of the limo with the other [members of Queen] and Rogerâs spilled his wine on my nice, white cocktail dress.â It seems like a bittersweet memory, and she reminds me of her earlier comment about the âwine stain argumentâ. âIn hindsight, everything worked out, but at the time I was absolutely livid; very nearly killed him in that backseat. Poor [John Deacon] literally had to drag me off of him. [It] took both him and Freddie to hold me back when Roger got out once we arrived, and they had the driver circle the block again so I could change into Freddieâs jacket, which he so kindly lent to me.â
From her tone, and her following comments about how her husband likes to bring it up, it seems as though itâs a well worn argument of how Roger Taylor enjoys taking credit for the look, though Giselle doesnât seem like she enjoys giving him the satisfaction.
âMy image has always been about how much I can control what people see of me, and to have that control taken away by a careless action, it really hurt. A man like Roger, in the entertainment industry, is never going to face the kind of scrutiny that I do, itâs the reason youâre here at all, talking to me about fashion rather than say, how difficult it is to be a practicing lawyer in the music industry while raising two beautiful daughters. And I still write music on occasion. But people remember what you show them, how you present yourself; my tour wardrobe is a reflection of the persona I let interact with the world, and itâs beautiful, and a legacy that will probably outlive me to some extent.Â
âDo I regret any of my fashion choices? I donât really have the liberty to, do I? And either way, theyâre part of the reason Iâm where I am today; I made a niche for myself that was built initially on my aesthetic, if Iâm being generous, so I suppose Iâll always be grateful to it.â
#roger taylor#roger taylor x oc#roger taylor imagine#bohemian rhapsody#borhap#bo rhap#queen#borhap imagine#the angry lizard writes
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Ghost's Tobias Forge Talks Band's First American Arena Tour and Misconceptions About Satanism
"Youâre going to get the same show in Seattle as if you came to see us in Fargo."
Within nine years of releasing its debut album, Opus Eponymous, hard-rock act Ghost has become prominent among metal fans for its theatrical style. Propelled by its architect Tobias Forge -- the singer, songwriter and creative force behind the band known for its catchy guitar riffs and lush harmonies -- the Swedish outfit can trace a direct lineage to â70s shock rock.
âKiss and Alice Cooper have had an enormous impact on me, ever since I was a tiny tad bigger than an infant. I like Blue Oyster Cult, but they were never as big of an influence as people think they were because they never had the significance for me as Kiss or Alice Cooper had,â says Forge. âItâs more a matter of [Ghost] being melodic rock but with a lot of multi-harmonized vocals that makes it sound like BOC.â
Ghostâs fourth and latest album, 2018âs Prequelle -- of which Forge says, âIâm very pleased with the result... It was, thus far, our best, most accomplished recordâ -- is loosely based on the Black Plague of 14th-century Europe. The singles âRatsâ and âDance Macabreâ held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart for seven and two weeks, respectively, while latest single âFaithâ has reached No. 8. Prequelle has moved 191,000 album equivalent units (according to Nielsen Music), reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and earned Grammy Award nominations for best rock album and best rock song (for âRatsâ) this year. (Ghost previously won best metal performance in 2016, for âCirice.â)
Part of the bandâs appeal is its appearance. Ghostâs other members wear masks concealing their identities and are referred to as Nameless Ghouls. Forge originally assumed the stage persona of Papa Emiritus, a demonic anti-pope, and currently performs as Cardinal Copia. Its âSatanicâ leanings, both lyrically (with song titles like âSatan Prayerâ and âDepth of Satanâs Eyesâ) and visually (Forge wears vestments that feature upside down crosses), also have attracted attention. Forge explains, âFor me, it is very personal and important, but I struggle to define the differences between the pop-cultural Satan and the actual one, if you want to say it that way, because thatâs even harder to define.â
He notes that since the 1960s, Satanism âhas become a fun little thing for 20-somethings to play with. It has very much been embraced as a symbol of liberation, rather than a symbol of actual tyranny and evil.â Noting that itâs âa very complex issueâ that canât be thoroughly covered in a brief interview, he says with a laugh, âThe pop-cultural Satan has an amazing importance for me, and thatâs because Iâm a born rebel and a natural âopposer,â in that I oppose shit.â
When asked if there can be Satan without God, the singer goes deeper, saying, âThe Satan that we are most commonly referring to in the Western world is obviously a product of Christianity. Within the confines and context of Christianity, no. They cannot exist without the other. Thatâs the problem with the entire concept of Satanism because, depending on who youâre talking to -- if youâre talking to a Bible thumper, Satan exists within the bras of women, and Satan exists within the confines of rockânâroll music and drugs and everything that would be considered quote âbadâ and âdangerousâ and âharmful.â And I think that in rock ânâ roll and in pop culture, that is the thing that most people cling to.
âSatan as a symbol or symbolic role model represents liberation and free thought and fun,â he continues, laughing. âIntellectualism as opposed to regression and stupidity. But if youâre talking about Satan as the main peddler and the prime motor for evil -- if I look at the world and I see evil, I think of ISIS and I think thatâs pure evil, and that has nothing to do with a pop-cultural horned-goat half-man called Satan. So you really, really, really have to understand that the âSatanâ that has been embraced by artists in film, music, poetry and art going back centuries was made to scare people.â
Further testament to Ghostâs success is its current supporting slot on Metallicaâs European tour that runs until Aug. 25. That will be followed by its own arena tour that will start in Bakersfield, Calif., on Sept. 13.
âItâs our first consecutive American arena headlining tour, which is an affirmation of a job well done, I guess,â the singer says humbly. âThereâs absolutely nothing wrong with playing theaters -- I love playing theaters as well, which weâve done a lot -- but the one thing about theaters is that they are often seated, and I really, really donât like seats because it disrupts the flow and the energy of the crowd.â
Arenas are his favorite performing, forum because âthe people who are standing in the front on the floor are the ones who cause the energy.â Plus, there are fewer production restrictions, so the band âcan bring the bombs everywhere, and you can do fire, you can do confetti, you can do this and that and the other, and it just looks huge and sounds good.
Forge observes that the upcoming tour will be the first time Ghost has taken identical production to every venue that it will play. âIn the past, even the last American tour we did last fall, where we played all over the place, including The Forum in L.A., we played a lot of theaters, and some nights we didnât use pyro at all,â he explains. âSome nights we couldnât use this gag at all, or couldnât do this, that and the other, just because there were restrictions ⌠If you come and see us â and weâre not playing a lot of the bigger cities on this tour because weâve already played them â youâre going to get the same show in Seattle as if you came to see us in Fargo [N.D.]. And Iâm very proud of that.â
While Forge is excited about the fall tour, heâs already looking forward to entering the studio in January to start making the fifth record. âThere are a lot of things making Prequelle and all the other records Iâm thinking about: Some things Iâm looking to perfect, and some things Iâm looking not to repeat. Some things I think we just missed the mark on. And those are the ambitions I go into with every record and this time as well.â
He adds, âI donât want to rush. I want to go forward and achieve as many things as possible. Iâm always thinking ahead. One day this will all be over, and Iâll have plenty of time to sit and wonder what happened,â he says, laughing.
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MCR History:Â âWe just have no reason to be sad anymoreâ
From February 19, 2011
Mere hours before they take to the stage in Dublinâs O2, bassist Mikey Way and guitarist Frank Iero of New Jersey punk-pop icons My Chemical Romance chatted to State about the inspiration behind their fourth studio album, Danger Days: the True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys. Though the gig itself was far from sold out, there were reports of cues stretching around the corner the night before in anticipationâŚ
State: What was your inspiration for the record? Frank: Well after the last record, we toured two⌠two and a half years straight, and we decided to take an extended break, just living our lives again. And about eight months into that break⌠Mikey: Yeah, thatâs when the itch started. Frank: âŚwe got it together and did a song [a cover of Bob Dylanâs âDesolation Rowâ] for the Watchmen movie soundtrack and it felt good just to be making noise and playing together again. So we decided to get together again. About two or three months after that we convened out in LA, started picking up guitars and playing, and we wrote about 20 or 30 songs. We started to record them, kind of ran out of time, got the mix in the studio and we were kind of unhappy with how it was finally coming about. So we put it all on hold and went back into another studio, met up with Rob Cavallo who did our last record and wrote four brand new songs and liked them way better than the 20 or 30 that we had written before. We just kept going, and slowly but surely this concept started coming about, like a setting kind of thing. Picture it: an apocalyptic event occurs and itâs 2019 â what would the band sound like? There would still be music, there would still be shows â if there were kids still alive â but what would that band be like? We started to pick up instruments that we werenât really familiar with and never really experimented with before â didnât really know how to play â and what youâre hearing is a band sort of excited and, I think, psyched to be creating. Mikey: It was definitely a period of exploration and it was exciting for all of us. We were doing things that we never thought we could do. That was very exciting and very fulfilling. You said you were playing new instruments, what did that involve? Frank: At that point we had become a four-piece again. We needed a backbone. So we started to create loops and beats within the computer but also with synthesizers, Kaoss pads and drum machines⌠Mikey: Theramin⌠farfisa⌠a lot of digital elements. There were a lot of digital instruments that we never thought to use or we never thought fit with My Chemical Romance. We kind of started branching out and any kind of concept we had in our head about what could be on a My Chemical Romance album we were just like, âletâs try absolutely everything!â In terms of the concept, did you write songs to fit that or did the songs just roll out in that way? Frank: They just started to come out in that format. I think, as we started to write, âNa Na Naâ was the first song we wrote second time around and then âVampire Moneyâ and âPlanetary (GO!)â and âSing.â Once we started to get past âSingâ it was like, âalright, this is whatâs coming out. This is the world that we feel it fits into.â All it needed was âI feel like thisâ and weâd experiment that way or somebody would come up with a riff. I think when you start to go like, âthis is the concept , this is what the recordâs gonna beâ and put it into a box, then you have to fill that box, then it ends up being forced and you never end up really happy with it. When it comes organically, thatâs when the magic really happens. Mikey: The songs kind of shape the universe, you know? It was like these little bangs that were creating little pocket universes that the album was living in. You all inhabit different characters on the album, or at least thatâs the presentation, was that a conscious thing? Mikey: We kept any character elements strictly to the video. Itâs not supposed to be anything more than that. The concept itself, was it a case of one person coming in and saying, âI have this great ideaâ or did it just come out? Frank: The inspiration came from a song we had written called âBulletproof Heart.â The lyrics from that song started to create⌠it was basically, if you had to taste-test the world from one song, I guess that was the song to do it from. That was actually written on the first attempt at the record, so we kind of took that song and blew it out of proportion. Mikey: I think, like, âBulletproofâ and âNa Naâ were kind of the points of the nexus of the world. Those were the two that created the vibe, the feeling, the colour, the attitude, the overall sonic arc. You said you did 20 or so songs in the first tranche and didnât like them. Did you keep much of that stuff? Mikey: A couple. A couple we loved so much that we wanted to put them on the album. But the thing is they couldnât exist as they existed on the previous attempt and we had to very much look at them as if we were writing them again. It was almost like we started from square one with a lot of these songs. We had to almost rewrite some of them. The idea of the radio broadcast â was that central to how you wrote the songs? Were you writing âradio songs,â the sort of songs that could sound like they were coming out of your radio one after another? Frank: I think the idea of having a narrator to bring you through the world⌠the idea is to have a pirate radio station emerging from this apocalyptic world. But definitely, I think, at least some of them are crafted pop songs. Thatâs what we do â take the formula for a pop song and kind of twist it and make something ugly beautiful. Mikey: The DJ was kind of a nod to some of our favourite films â thereâs a radio DJ who comes in and guides the viewer/listener in a few different things: The Warriors and Vantage Point and Reservoir Dogs did that really well. Itâs kind of like a tiny bit of the inspiration for that was from that. Was there a musical influence on the actual format, the concept? The one I was thinking of was Deltron 3030. Mikey: I love that album! Actually, come to think of it, thatâs very similar to where Del the Funky Homosapien jumps in and out like a radio DJ, and Damon Albarnâs on that. Yeah I never even thought of that⌠yeah, thatâs a great album. Thereâs more of a power pop vibe than on the last album, sort of a bit more carefree, less serious topics⌠Mikey: Weâre at a more positive point in our lives. Weâre more happy people, have amazing, supportive family and friends around us and we just have no reason to be sad anymore. Weâre just very much into having an amazing time. That kind of carries through in the songs. So thereâs no going back to the⌠Mikey: Yeah, weâre not really sad anymore! But we do like sad things⌠that doesnât mean we wonât ever write sad music. That not to say weâll never write some sad songs, because we love that stuff. Frank: Itâs one of those things where I think, the last record, was about life and death. Itâs like life: you canât have the good times without the bad times, the happy without the sad. So when youâre writing a concept record about life and death, you have to have that. When youâre writing about a gang of laser-gun totinâ crazy kids in a post-apocalyptic world, thereâs not that sad element. The next record, you know, could be about orphans. Hopefully it wonât be so long between releases this time. Mikey: Yeah, thatâs the thing, if it were up to us weâd be in the studio right now recording. The flip side of it all is that itâs really gratifying to go out and play songs for people, which is why weâre out. Theyâre both amazing for their own reasons: touring is amazing and recording is amazing. Theyâre amazing for their own reasons. We wish we could do both. We wish we could clone ourselves, send a set of ourselves home to record and the other set of us to tour! That would be the ultimate goal â Iâm sure weâll work out some day. No plans to go on another two-year tour⌠Frank: Nah, I fucking hope not. Mikey: Hahahahaha. Frank: I think weâll have to be more smart about it. Mikey: Yeah weâll be wiser when it comes to that. We wonât drive ourselves to the point of exhaustion and mental anguish. Weâll do everything smarter this time. I havenât really asked about musical influences. There are some hip-hop⌠well not necessarily hip-hop, but Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rage Against the Machine kind of vibes⌠Mikey: Well weâre huge fans of bands like Rage Against the Machine, and weâre huge fans of hip-hop too, and we kind of never try to paint ourselves into a corner. You know, if it sounds great it should be on the album. I heard a sort of Slash, Van Halen kind of hair rock⌠Mikey: See, thatâs the thing! What you just said, those past three things, itâs all over the place â itâs everywhere. Thereâs no, like, narrow view to this album, no âthis is what it sounds like.â Thereâs elements of so many different bits and pieces of our influences and we were somehow able to cram it all into this one universe, which is what we set out to do. Frank: Just get inspired by everything⌠I was going to say that⌠the last album was, I donât want to say conventional, but more what youâd expect from a big rock concept record, the big â70s rock sound. This time you seem to be all over the place. Frank: I think when youâre younger â we were only a band for, like, six years? We were still a young band and you can wear your influences on your sleeve a little bit more. When youâve been together a bit more, you begin to get inspired by each other and those influences get a little bit more varied and your own musical prowess comes to the forefront. Last question: âVampire Moneyâ is a rip on Twilight, right? Mikey: Sort of! Itâs a rip on anyone repeatedly telling you to do what you donât want to do. It just so happens that that can be the context that people pull out of it. Itâs not necessarily a dig at Twilight, itâs just a dig at a nagging. Itâs a dig at someone nagging at you. I listened to it once â I had to go to the record label to hear the album â and it stuck out completely from the rest of the album and it sounded kinda bitchy, but in a good way. Mikey: Exactly! We wanted to make one of those classic Chuck Berry rock nâ roll jams. Frank: Little Richard. Mikey: Little Richard, yeah. When we were writing the song, thatâs very much what we were feeling at the time.
#i wanted this interview on my blog sue me#there are actually some really good questions#especially about the songs#interview#article#mcr#my chemical romance#danger days#2011#sam stuff
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AMYCUS CARROW is A DEATH EATER in the war, even though HIS official job is as A CURSE BREAKER & HIT MAN. the TWENTY SIX year old PUREBLOOD is known to be PATIENT and RESERVED but also VIOLENT and TWO FACED. some might label them as THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE. fc: ryan goslingÂ
    hey itâs lizzie back at it with being a fucking idiot ( aka i canât write good, wholesome characters that are not james to save my life so even though i love mae... she gotta go :/ iâm sorry!!! ). so bringing back my favorite sociopath but... revamped 2 be darker because was inspired ⼠!!
ANTHEMS:
rail road track - willy moon // blood on my name - the brothers bright // shakin - willy moon // dogs of war - blues saraceno // feel it still - portugal the man.
full playlist: (x) pinterest boards: v1. v2.
BACKGROUND / FAMILY ( bound to change probably ):
Amycus Abigor Carrow is the first born child of the Carrow dynasty. His father named him after the prince of hell, in the hopes that his son would prove himself worthy of the name. Amycus would, but not in the way his father had hoped.
As a child, Amycus was very quiet. Mostly kept to himself and his sister. Never harmed a fly.Â
Amycus was the product of a loveless marriage, based on pureblood politics. His parents couldnât stand each other, and were each otherâs polar opposites. Amycus would later realize that they were doomed from the start.
child abuse tw:// Amycusâ father was a cold business man, and was not very interested in being a father to Amycus. He mostly made excuses to be as far away from the family life as possible.Â
So Amycus was left to his grandfather, a man that put great emphasis on pain ( believing it was the only way that Amycus would learn and become stronger ). Lessons were drilled in with corporal punishment, and the emotional and physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his father would eventually break him down into something colder and darker. Feelings were deemed weak, and had to be firmly repressed - which would leave behind a shell of a boy.Â
Gained a definite rebellious streak during his teenage years, and would do EVERYTHING and anything to fuck with his dad.
Eventually moved out, at the age of 15. Figured either heâd move out or kill his father, and settled on the former.
Remaining summers were spent living at the Hogâs Head Inn.
The Carrow family did not want to air their dirty laundry to the world, so they never formally denounced Amycus. Most other pureblood families know that they had a falling out though.
Alecto is his other half, and they come as a matching set. Without her, he feels incomplete, and sheâs also the only person who truly knows him.Â
MAIN CHANGES FROM THE PREVIOUS AMYCUSâ TIMELINE:
Main thing probably is that he is more refined. More dangerous. Still pretty fucking dumb, but less rough around the edges. Also has more self control which is good for him!!!
Still a brickwall in terms of sharing (always so private), but way more polite? More controlled, less crude. Instead of just grunting in reply, homeboy might try to actually act like a human being. So definitively less gruff.
Also canât just typecast him as â hm this is probably a pretty bad dude â when first meeting him anymore so that's kinda problematic :/ May cause some issues :/
AESTHETIC / VIBES:
old gramophones, blood stained polaroids, broken glasses, bleeding fists, standing in silence for hours, chipped teeth, unwavering loyalty, unhealed scars, getting home at the crack of dawn, red wine, long showers, god complexes, the color of the sunset, messy hair, blood soaked suits, always cheating death, a rebel just for kicks, half smiles, just beating and beating until the world stops, no conscience, half empty wine bottles, impersonal offices, a face that doesnât quite match his demeanor.
HOGWARTS YEARS:
Was a hat stall between Slytherin and surprisingly enough, Hufflepuff. But his sister was sorted into Slytherin, and Amycus wonât go anywhere without his twin.
With the Slytherins, he found a new home, far away from his grandfather.
I would say that he is not exactly book smart, and he got pretty shit grades while at the school. The one subject where he really excelled was charms, but he also did all right in transfigurations and herbology.
Is more muscle than brains, most of the time tbh.
At the age of fifteen, Amycus stopped going back to his family home. He was becoming strong enough (from years of fighting) to challenge his father, and decided to just drop all contact. Today, he only sees his dad at the occasional pureblood party / event, where he ignores him.
torture tw :// Violence breeds violence, and the pain and suffering he had endured at home soon translated into him torturing fellow students.
Did not spend a lot of time in detention, despite all the fighting? Was that prick who got away with a lot because of his angel face. Eventually, teachers caught on though and Amycus got into his fair share of trouble as well ( most definitively became viewed as a Disturbed Child⢠).
During his time at the school, he earned some extra cash from doing odd jobs ( which mostly entailed torturing specific students per request ).
His electives at the school were: alchemy, care of magical creatures and divination. He was in no clubs at the school.
AFTER HOGWARTS:
Became a curse breaker soon after graduating.
First few years were spent abroad, working in tombs for Gringotts, recovering lost artifacts and breaking ancient curses.
Eventually, he made his way back home, and found work for the ministry. He works at the office for the removal of curses, jinxes and hexes, which is a subdivision of the improper use of magic office.
Unfortunately for him, this means that he has to work with a lot of other divisions. He hates it.
His day job as a curse breaker is sort of a disguise for what he considers to be his real job? Heâs sort of a gun ( wand ) for hire, and will kill anyone who needs to be killed, for a price. Though the money really doesnât matter all that much to him?Â
Most of his clients are members of the sacred 28, who always want SOMEONE dead.
Kind of just aligned himself with the Death Eaters because 1. they have a more violent agenda 2. his sister.
Amycus isnât the most invested in the whole pureblood supremacy thing ( though heâd never admit that ), but overall likes Voldemort and what he stands for.
Definitively fears Voldemort, and is quite happy that heâs not directly reporting to him.
Amycus mainly works for the Death Eaters as an information gatherer, which basically is just a nicer way to say that he tortures people until they tell him whatever they know. Heâs disturbingly good at it, and usually works together with his sister.
Currently living in a large townhouse in London, with Alecto.
AS A PERSON:
Doesnât give a single fuck about anyone that isnât himself or his sister.
NEUTRAL EVIL.Â
Doesnât even have a moral compass, just does whatever is best for him. Has no interest in your righteous bullshit.
Looks a lot nicer than he is, which works to his advantage most of the time? Like he just looks like a nerdy, good dude. Couldnât be further from the truth but... thatâs besides the point. His face really doesnât match the way he behaves.
Probably the most private person youâll ever meet? He seldom reveals anything about himself, and when he does, itâs usually not true.
100% petty enough to lie about the smallest, most meaningless details.
SO self disciplined. Always in complete control, and itâs very hard to get a genuine reaction / rise out of him. Also so so so patient, and is happy to wait for whatever his current end game is.
Drinks and smokes heavily, but doesnât personally think that he has a problem.
Mostly just a dumb asshole.
SO COLD.
Thrives off violence and is a total brute tbh.
Pretty good at hiding his death eater ties since he's... paranoid as FUCK. And also very private. Always wears a mask. But some people probably suspect... stuff anyways, if they've like. Spent longer than two hours with him. Listen if Amycus wasn't such a fucking asshole he probably could get away with it (/scooby doo villain voice). But then again, others will probably think he's just cold as shit.
Is a total demon, but looks like an angel. Helps a lot !!!
STYLE / FASHION / APPEARANCE:
This version of Amycus wears glasses, but fucking breaks them ALL THE TIME. The only thing keeping them together is magic.
Wears mostly suits for work ( bc he has to :/ ) but will wear those long black robes on his free time. Think a vampire cape, flying in the wind. Thatâs right, he really is THAT guy.
Will also wear stupid band tshirts a lot when not working.
Keeps his hair short.
Like 70% of his money is probably spent on buying new suits / robes / t shirts because he keeps either getting blood on them, or having them ripped to shreds in a fight.
Looks like heâs wearing the exact same shoes everyday but actually has like... 100 different pairs.
Eyes appear either blue or grey depending on the lighting.
Has some tattoos, and a half sleeve on his right arm, going from his shoulder down to his elbow.
CHARACTER INFLUENCES:
caleb haas ( quantico )- the snark. the assholery. the background. the black sheep.
clay haas ( quantico ) - just the right amount of polished. the style. the general aesthetic. the hair.
angelus ( btvs )- the disregard for human life. the darkness. the occasional brooding. the quips.
holden ford ( mindhunter ) - the scheming. the hidden ambition. the slyness. the resolution.
lucifer morningstar ( lucifer ) - the smile, the general vibe, the quips, the mannerisms, the darkness.
eric northman ( southern vampire mysteries ) - the confidence. the general dumbness. the stubbornness.
demon dean winchester ( supernatural ) - the occasional charm. the being an actual demon-ness. the blood lust. the bad jokes. the weakness for a pretty face.
wolverine ( x men ) - the violence. the moodiness. the hatred. the occasional gruff demeanor.
dexter morgan ( dexter ) - the serial killer vibe. the lust for blood. the violence. the loyalty to his sister. the sociopathy.
takeshi kovac ( altered carbon ) - the violence. the fucked up moral compass. the buried anger. the instinct to fight.
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Bluegrass Basics #1
WHAT IS BLUEGRASS?
I realize that, what with this being a bluegrass blog and all, I should probably start by explaining... this.
If youâve hung out with me in the last year and a half, then youâve been subjected (probably against your will, kicking and screaming) to a Haddock Talks About Bluegrass conversation. Within seconds, you may be bombarded to an inescapable wall of sound as I shriek about G runs, five-strings, and dudes wearing hats named weird stuff like Lester, Burkett, Arthel, Dorris, Junebug, Haskel, and Chi Chi. Understandably, to cope and survive, your mind might have blocked out the worst of the memories... leaving you now with the question, âWell, what is bluegrass? And why does Haddock find it so cool?â
At its simplest, bluegrass is a folk-inspired genre of music originating from the Southern United States that utilizes a core group of acoustic string instruments: guitar, banjo, string bass, mandolin, fiddle, and dobro. However, bluegrass is not a direct preservation of old folk music. Its biggest influences are Scots-Irish fiddle tunes, African-American blues, and gospel music, and in that you can hear a lot of "old" sounds. But bluegrass also began within a commercial setting. Most people date it to the mid-1940sâyes, it's that new!âand it not only integrated new compositions and contemporary songs, but it brought about innovative instrumental techniques that most audiences had never heard before. Since its inception, bluegrass has been a music of unique juxtaposition; it's simultaneously homespun and commercial, simple and technically complex, straddling tradition with truly progressive innovation.
Also. Unlike almost every other genre that exist out there ever, bluegrass can be traced back to and centralized around a *SINGLE* human being. Yeah. Thatâs right. ONE dude essentially started his own motherfucking genre.
Enter: the Father of Bluegrass. Mr. Bill Monroe (1911-1996).Â
This guy.
1. HOW THIS SHIT GOT STARTED
Bill Monroeâs music at the time was considered hillbilly music. (âHillbillyâ was the name of the genre before we changed it to âcountryâ). He was a radio star starting in the 1930s, and by the late 1930s, Bill and his band had become members of a popular, wide-reaching hillbilly music program, the Grand Ole Opry, whose radio signal stretched across the American South. Billâs music wove together several influences: in particular, he combined the sound of old Scots-Irish fiddle tunes with the pitch bends, syncopation, and blue notes of African-American blues. For good measure, he chucked in four-part gospel songs, threw his singing into the high tenor stratosphere, and pushed the music forward with an urgent drive.
And the name of his act? Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys.
Hmhm... something sounds familiar here... something to do with âblueâ and âgrass,â maybe.
Billâs music underwent changes, different personnel, different instruments. Every musicianâs contribution is important and worth noting, but regrettably my post would be too long if I talked about them here. I will, however, mention whatâs often considered the last piece of the puzzle. On December 8, 1945, Bill introduced a new musician he had just hired, a twenty-one year old banjo picker whose style of playing was so unexpected to audiences that you could barely hear the music above the amazed cheers and shouts from the live crowd. People who heard it on the radio talked about the banjo picker all week; some blokes debated about whether one person was playing or several, or if it was even a banjo at all. I know peeps today donât tend to think of banjos as âcoolâ and all, but he was shredding up the instrument like some banjo Jimi Hendrix, as far as they were concerned. It was so exciting. Bill was already a popular performer; under this ensemble he had between then and 1948, he was launched to even more popularity.
Iâm not trying to focus just on the banjo, but my point here is to emphasize how bluegrass did invoke monumentally new ideas.
That 1946-1948 group is what we usually consider the first-ever bluegrass band. They created the initial blueprint by which a unique band style emerged. Now, some standard musical features of the genre got locked in during the 1950s after several seminal Blue Grass Boys bandmates left and formed their own band. But this original groupâs sound started A Movement⢠that trickled down over the decades. New-budding musicians began imitating Billâs sound in their bands. And also, Billâs band had constant turnover, meaning that a ton of people went into the Blue Grass Boys, got influenced by Bill, then left to form their own ensembles, carrying with them the musical ideas theyâd learned from Monroe.
(And by âconstant turnover,â I meanâno jokeâBill had something like 200 official band members over the course of his career.)
^^^ The âClassic Bandâ of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, c. 1947. From left to right: Bill Monroe (mandolin), Chubby Wise (fiddle), Birch Monroe (bass), Lester Flatt (guitar), and Earl Scruggs (banjo). When talking about the classic band, the bassist usually listed is Cedric Rainwater, but here (and legitimately part of the band at the time) is Billâs older brother Birch.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, mainstream country music had to find a way to compete with the new and oh-so-frustratingly-popular rock-and-roll. Mainstream country music strayed away from scratchy fiddles and banjers and moved to smooth, pop-inspired, electric guitars and background orchestration. And if you didnât sound like that, you probably werenât going to be played on mainstream country radio. But there was a notable cluster of acoustic string band musicians who had been left behind... those people and groups who had branched straight off Bill Monroe. By this point, they were distinct enough that their music began to be regularly referred to as... yeah, you guessed it... bluegrass music.
Having been ignored by radio, bluegrass continued through other means, such as festivals that began in the late 60s and 70s. Many musicians brought their own instruments to jam, and to this day, bluegrass is a genre in which itâs common to both pick tunes with friends and family as a social event and go out to see professional performers.
As new generations have entered bluegrass, new ideas and sounds have funneled into it. However, I feel like the theme of combining tradition with innovation remains. For instance, in the 1960s with the Folk Revival, second generation bluegrass musicians simultaneously inserted more several-centuries-old folk songs into the bluegrass repertoire (ex: Fox on the Run), and brought in contemporary rock and pop elements to their bandsâs sounds. And while today you may meet bluegrass purists who want to stick with what they heard in the 40s and 50s, youâll see just as many if not more musicians continue to innovate and expand the genre.
And expand it they will.
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2. WHAT MAKES BLUEGRASS MUSIC BLUEGRASS?
As Iâve said before, bluegrass is a somewhat progressive amalgamation and reformulation of older music styles combined with contemporary music. Bluegrass might have been based in part on ideas from British Isles fiddle tunes and African-American blues, but itâs certainly not regurgitating how people played in decades past. Familiar, old elements combine with new, creative, and original concepts. You keep a healthy dose of both old and new.
Itâs because of bluegrass that the banjo was completely reformulated as an instrument: changed from a comedic prop that was strummed into an intensely-picked solo instrument. Within bluegrass, banjo performance technique has continued to evolve, new ideas and styles building on top of one another. And letâs not forget the other instruments! The first dobro in a bluegrass band went in extremely unique directions compared to what was heard at the time, taking influences from everything down to banjo technique. At the same time, bluegrass has provided the space for styles like the old-time hoedown fiddle in periods of music where fiddle was ignored.
But....... as youâve probably been wondering this entire post.... what does this genre sound like?
^^^ The typical instrument set-up for a bluegrass band. In the back is a string bass. In front, left to right, is a banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and dobro. If youâre not familiar with how to distinguish instruments: basses are plucked and low pitch; banjos sound twangy and play short note values; mandolins are a high-pitched instrument with a mellower sound that often employ tremolo (quickly undulating notes by strumming the strings up and down rapidly); fiddle is... I mean, itâs a violin; guitar is a mellower acoustic instrument that blends sonically with everything; and the dobro (maybe youâve heard it referred to as a âsteel guitarâ or âHawaiian guitarâ) has a... uhhh... itâs a unique hound dog tone I have difficulties describing but is very distinct to hear.
A typical ensemble consists of mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, string bass, and sometimes dobro. On rarer occasions, you may see other instruments like autoharp or harmonica (drums are usually considered horrible, forbidden things, even though... for the record... some high-profile bluegrass bands have used them). Youâll notice bluegrass is a distinctly acoustic string band sound.
There are also, of course, vocals, and in bluegrass, there is notable emphasis on tight two-, three-, and four-part harmony. However, whatâs interesting about bluegrass as versus, say, other strains of country, is that for bluegrass, itâs about the full band and not just the lead singer. Itâs as important to pay attention to the technically-driven solos (âbreaksâ) that the instruments play between sung verses. Many bluegrass pieces are straight out instrumentals, too.
Every instrument has a role or roles it fulfills in a bluegrass band. In the background, instruments may play rhythm or fills. Rhythm keeps the basic beat. Fills are unobtrusive melodic-sounding fragments that hide behind the vocalist(s) singing the main melody. And when thereâs no singing, instruments take turns in the spotlight playing breaks. You can hear any instrument play a break. Itâs to note that breaks are often improvised or semi-improvised, which is half of the fun and skill of watching the musicians perform. Ergo, even if the song itself may or may not have simple chord structures and lyrics, itâs also technically advanced with an expectation that every musician can perform fast-paced solos they improvise on the fly.
Thereâs different types of guitar styles Iâve seen in bluegrass. Iâm not a guitarist, so I donât want to elaborate too far and share incorrect information. However, itâs fair to say that guitar can be anything from a backup rhythm chord strummer to a flat-picked, fast-paced, melodic soloist. There is a VERY distinct guitar fill that happens at the end of lines, phrases, or sections called the G run youâll hear everywhere. Fiddle Iâve also heard a wide variety of styles. On the dobro side, the dobro tends not to be the âHawaiianâ sound you may be familiar with on a steel guitar, but more geared toward quick, technical, bluesy stuff. Bluegrass banjo has several styles, but the most prototypical is the Scruggs style, where the banjo does rapid-fire, ornamented, three-fingered picking in which a melody line is pulled out at the same time youâre also picking background chord notes.
To describe bluegrass vocals, youâll sometimes hear the phrase âhigh lonesomeâ thrown around. I donât hear anywhere as much high lonesome sound in contemporary bands as I do first generation, but the high lonesome sound is a description of piercing, high-range vocals. Bill Monroe would even take songs that were usually played in the key of G and pitch them higher into A or B, pushing his and the ensembleâs vocals into a higher range. I remember listening to Monroe and thinking to myself, âEven though itâs male vocals, why is it so easy for me to sing to?â Because Iâm a fucking mezzosoprano, and thereâs times Monroe hits and holds notes that are at the top of my range. Hot damn.
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Rhythmically, bluegrass tends to be a driving genre of music. A term that gets thrown around a bit is âdrive.â Even on the slow songs, you may hear the instruments push or strain forward. Beat-wise, bluegrass tends to emphasize both a strong downbeat and hit heavy offbeats in a boom-chick style. That last sentence might not have made sense to non-musicians, so Iâll explain...
When we listen to music, we can clap to it. We can also count along to any song as we clap. Music has an innate structure where, when we count, the sound seems organized in groups of two, three, or four. So, when we count to music, weâll count repetitively. One song may be groups of two (youâll count âOne two, one two, one twoâ), groups of three (âOne two three, one two threeâ), or groups of four. Every time you hit the âone,â it sounds bigger. Itâs more emphasized. Itâs restarting the pattern or unit of counting thatâs inherent to the rhythmic structure of music.Â
Now, you can subdivide those numbers between your claps. That means youâd count âOne (and) two (and), one (and) two (and),â where the âandsâ tend to feel smaller and less-emphasized. Those âandsâ are called offbeats. In bluegrass, youâll hear both the numbers and the âandsâ clearly hit. The string bass will play the oneâs and twoâs, while perhaps the mandolin and banjo are emphatically hitting the âandsâ in the background.
There are subgenres within bluegrass. You may hear people refer to newgrass, progressive bluegrass, jamgrass, punkgrass, etc. Put a word in front of it, add the word âgrass,â and it probably exists. Jewgrass exists and itâs awesome. Thereâs fusions, too. The Native Howl is a band that combines thrash metal and bluegrass. Gangstagrass is a band that combines bluegrass with hip hop. Itâs also to note that bluegrass has long since become international, and there are notable communities and bands of bluegrass from everywhere to Japan to the Czech Republic.
3. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GETTING STARTED?Â
Ummhmhmhm I honestly need a separate post to begin sharing videos, bands, periods of bluegrass, and more. Itâs diverse and I love everything from the music coming out in 2020 to the stuff heard in 1947.
I realize that this post skews more toward first generation bluegrass and the starting bands in Ye Olde Days. Because of that, Iâll say this much: the Big Three bands of the early years were Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys. Bill Monroeâs music is âthe originalâ and is based, at least in his mind, the most on the fiddle tunes he grew up with. Flatt & Scruggs skew somewhat more toward a popular culture sound with smoother vocals and instruments like the dobro that other early bluegrass bands did not use. The Stanley Brothers lean the most to mountain old-time music. Every band is wonderful in their own way and I love listening to all.
Iâll leave this post with what was my gateway song into bluegrass. This was the first song I listened to with the intent of experiencing bluegrass, not expecting to like it, but being pleasantly surprised. I fell in love with the song and... well... as youâve seen... Iâm a year and a half into the genre and still charging strong.Â
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I look forward to continuing to learn about bluegrass, refine my understanding of it, and share those discoveries with yâall in my future posts.
#thatbanjobusiness#that banjo business#music#I keep being nervous to post INFORMATIVE posts on these topics being like#'what if I got something wrong???'#bruh [talking to myself]#HOW MANY MOVIES AND VIDEOS AND DOCUMENTARIES AND INTERVIEWS AND BOOKS HAVE YOU GONE THROUGH#SHUT UP YOUR IMPOSTOR SYNDROME TRAP AND ACCEPT YOU KNOW SOME SHIT#besides I can always hide behind 'well I JUST STARTED getting into the music'#which is true#to be clear: I did not grow up with this music#so bear that in mind with all my posts#I am LEARNING and EXPLORING for the first time in my late 20s#Bluegrass Basics#blabbing Haddock#General Banjo Business#Country Music History#Bill Monroe#daddy boi billiam#music history events
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Some Thoughts on Long-Lasting Music Fandom
I've been wanting to write something freeform for this blog that isn't necessarily about movies -- because that was whole reason I started the Weekend Warrior blog in the first place. I got a little more time to do that last year when there weren't too many movie releases. As luck would have it, next week is one of the quietest weeks in many, many months even with what is likely to be one of the biggest movie releases... but again, this is my chance to write about something not movies but something that's very dear to my heart, maybe more than anything else: ROCK MUSIC.
The idea to write this piece came out of a couple hours I spent Friday night on something called "The Alarm Central." I have a feeling that if you were to ask even my closest friends who some of my favorite bands are, some might be able to name one or two, maybe from a T-shirt I might wear, but I'm not sure how many friends would guess that my top band for many years has been The Alarm.
If you don't know who The Alarm are, you're probably very young. Lucky you. The Alarm had their highest acclaim and fame back in the mid-80s with songs like "68 Guns" and "The Stand" and eventually "Rain in the Summertime." When I was a teenager driving around CT from one job to another, my favorite radio station, WLIR, would play The Alarm a *LOT*. They were a mainstay along with U2, Depeche Mode and other bands that I was also inevitably a fan of.
It was a far cry from the Top 40/Beatles stuff I listened to in the mid '70s and the metal/prog rock that I got into in 1979 when I was playing in bands, but The Alarm just had this great spirit to them that really came out when you saw them live. Oddly, I only saw them live twice in the '80s... but that's a story for another time that I'm kind of saving...
The Alarm Central is a relatively new website/app/platform that Alarm frontman Mike Peters and his wife Jules (who also plays keys in The Alarm, but please no Linda McCartney comparisons... Jules actually has a lovely singing voice -- rimshot) put together as an alternative to the YouTube/Facebook platforms that so many bands have flocked to. Actually, The Alarm did and still does have a Facebook presence and last year, when COVID hit, and everything shut down, Mike and Jules started doing a weekly livestream show called "The Big Night In." They started doing it on March 20, 2020 and continued to do it for a few months, resumed in July for a second season.. but anyway, it was a great way to get together with other Alarm fans (or rather, "fams," as the Peters' lovingly call us) to listen to Mike play some songs, tell some stories, enjoy watching Jules poking fun at her famous husband (they've been married for almost as long as the band has been together).
Anyway, I'm getting a little sidetracked, but the point I'm trying to make is that this band and its singer, Mike, have managed to keep their fanbase alive now for 40 years. In fact, this year is the official 40th anniversary. No, they're not the first or only band to make it 40 years... another long-time favorite of mine, Rush, celebrated it a few years back before Neil Peart died -- The Damned also has hit 40 years but it's also gone through so many line-up changes that only the singer has remained that entire time. Another thing that influenced my decision to write this was seeing Edgar Wright's The Sparks Brothers documentary for about the third time, and those guys, brothers Ron and Russell Mael, have been making music together for over *50* years... although as you see in the movie, their popularity and success has fluctuated. Sure, there are some people who heard their first hit "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Two of Us" and are STILL fans.... some fans dropped in and out, maybe went off to do other things for a while, then came back. I'm not sure if the Go-Go fans who discovered the band when they did a duet with Jane Wiedlin stuck around as they started experimenting with opera and other music genres. But then you see the band playing shows in the past five years for HUGE audiences. About ten years ago, they decided to play all (then) 22 of their albums from beginning to end in a series of shows in London... and yeah, people did go to all 22 of those shows.
The other thing that influenced my decision to write this was seeing another documentary, this one at the Tribeca Festival, about the '80s Norwegian group A-Ha, who to many, are probably considered the epitome of one-hit wonders since every single person on the planet knows "Take On Me" but can you name one other song by them? Can you name any of the many albums they made after that first one? It's interesting because in that movie, you also see the band going through some highs and lows but when they play gigs in Europe, like in Germany or their native Norway, they still play to HUGE audiences, and they still have many devout fans. And yes, many of them have stuck with them since the "Take on Me" days but would you happen to know one of these fans personally?
That brings me back to the Alarm. I will fully admit that I wasn't there as a fan/fam through thick and thin... I was already deviating before Mike Peters left the band almost exactly 30 years ago in a very famous concert in Brixton where he let the rest of the band know he was quitting while ON STAGE PERFORMING. I mean, how punk is that? Sounds like something I might do. ;)
I definitely lost track of the band until an episode of VH-1's "Bands Reunited" in the early '00s, maybe 2002 where the band was... I'm sure you you can figure it out. At that time, I had absolutely zero idea that Mike and various members of the band had been doing annual "Gatherings" in their Wales hometown for the fans they built in the '80s who stuck around for all of Mike's solo albums, side projects like Coloursound with Billy Duffy from the Alarm (album #2 comes out in a couple weeks!), and basically through thick and thin.
A few years later, maybe 2004, I saw that The Alarm were playing at the Knitting Factory down near me and I decided to see what they had been up to and surprise, surprise, what I loved about the band in the '80s was still very much intact, even if it was now Mike and a completely different band. But I was happy to see them again, even more thrilled to learn that the Knitting Factory gig was part of a residency and then also learned that Mike/The Alarm had not only made a new album... but they made an entire 5-album box set called In the Poppyfields and holy shit... it didn't seem like there was a bad song in the bunch! (They played some of the songs at that gig, but they also played ALL of my favorites from the '80s, too!) That moment was kind of a revelation for me and even though I've seen The Alarm maybe twice in the '80s, I've probably seen them live maybe 16 or 17 times since that Knitting Factory gig.
If you've spent even a second at one of these shows with the band's fams, then you know why the Alarm is such a popular band with so many infectious and anthemic sing-along-songs, and you know what? I found that from the very first time I saw the band in the mid-80s as well. But a lot of these fams stuck with the band through thick and thin, once Mike left the band and did his own solo thing (I personally have only been getting into his solo stuff VERY recently)... and then when he was back with a new incarnation. Sometimes, Mike would just go out and perform acoustically and the fams love that, too.
So I was thinking how does Mike do it, and how does he keep those "fams" coming back for more? How does he and Jules convince a good number of them (including myself) to shell out something like $160 a year to subscribe to Alarm Central? That certainly seems like a lot of money and believe me, a lot of long-time fans were not happy with that.
But Mike and Jules also created a lot of good will with the amount of time and energy they put into the Big Night In and into Alarm Central... and frankly, into every single thing they do EVER. I've never been to a Gathering in Wales, but I've been to a bunch of them in New York, and they never disappoint. They're always a full day with all sorts of events -- trivia, a QnA, a meet and greet, maybe a solo set, a full band set... there have even been multiple night shows.
That said, I still haven't really gotten into what makes Mike and Jules and The Alarm so popular that they have fans who go all the way back to Mike's *previous* band Seventeen. (I've met a couple of them last night in Alarm Central, which also convinced me to write this.)
I know what I like about the band and Mike and the music, almost all of it, in fact, but I also have a personal connection since both Mike and Jules are cancer survivors. Not only that but they've also created Love Hope Strength, a foundation whose entire existence is to find stem cell and bone marrow donors. Even if you did not know what a big Alarm fan I was before reading this, there's a good chance you realize that I'm a leukemia survivor myself, that I had a stem cell transplant, and I take everything about that seriously, whether it's to raise awareness or to be there for others when they are going through their own transplants, whatever. It's something that's probably as important to me as the very air I breathe*.
*Yes, that actually is an Alarm reference, actually one of Mike Peters' solo songs co-written with Jules that he still plays with the band.
INTERMISSION (Gotta run out to a movie but will be back later to finish this.)
Let me see if I can get back into my train of thought. Oh, yeah, I was getting into the reason why The Alarm and Mike in particular seems to be able to keep his fambase going for 40 years with some truly diehard sticking through thick and thin. I think part of it is that Mike and Jules are just truly nice and good people. I mean, think about it. They didn't need to spend hours each week during a pandemic putting together the Big Night In show to keep everyone entertained and sane. "Music Will Keep Us Together" was the motto of those weekly music and talk shows with a lot of really special guests and announcements. I'm sure that they have a lot of other things to do, like making music (and Mike's done a lot of that during the pandemic) but they are constantly doing things to keep in contact with the fams, including the Alarm Central and very casual weekly pub updates where fams communicate with each other and can share their thoughts with the Peters. They even invited their fambase to come to their hometown for weekly "Staycations" (that just started this week) where the fams can rent out one of a number of special rooms and be able to watch special performances right in Wales. The first night of it was so fun even watching on the Alarm Central and they'll be doing this for the next five months in lieu of touring. And then early next year, the Alarm is touring all over the UK and making up for shows that were delayed and cancelled.
I just want to tell one more thing about Mike's dedication. A week before the first Staycation, he had a bad accident, falling off his bike and breaking his elbow, and yet, that night, he was on Alarm Central in full cast with Jules, and he even pulled out his acoustic guitar and played a song, much to the shock of everyone watching.
But that's enough about The Alarm. You get the idea, but they're not the only ones. I was a pretty big fan of Nirvana and when David Grohl came along with Foo Fighters, I was a hard pass, but 20 years later, I became a pretty diehard fan, and I realized that there's a reason why the Foo Fighters can fill Citifield two nights in a row (50,000 people a night) and that's because you can tell that David is just as dedicated to his fans... and you can also tell from his docs and appearances that he's also a really nice guy.
And I'm sure I've mentioned Tim's Twitter Listening Parties here, and Tim Burgess of the Charlatans is another guy who could be super-busy and doing lots of things but almost every night, he's on Twitter interacting with musical guests and his fans... and he's been doing that diligently since last March, as well. I'm not sure he makes any money doing that, and I don't think he cares. He enjoys it. He knows that those who tune in every night enjoy it, and like Alarm Central, he's created a community around these listening parties.
I feel like I can even bring this analogy over to the world of movies and some of my favorite directors and people who have just done really well over the years by just being nice to their fans. Edgar Wright is one. Guillermo del Toro is another. Both of those guys could just lock themselves in an ivory tower ala Nolan, but they always get out there to talk about their movies and interact with fans whenever possible, and that's something that really means a lot to people.
We're definitely living in different times than the '70s and '80s, and maybe we're living in times when people just want to be nicer to each other. People have been through a lot even pre-COVID, and I'd like to think that all of us are coming out the other side being nicer or more consideration. I'm not 100% sure that's true, but I do think that musicians/bands/artists who can maintain their fanbase for decades through thick and thin really are something special. I think that any band or artist starting out now or who has been around for a few years can learn a lot from the Mikes and Tims and Dave Grohls because you know what? It takes more than talent alone to keep the fans around through every experiment you might decide to do over time.
(As I did with my 30-minute experiments, I'm gonna post this witohut going back and reading over it and doing any error correction. Like I said, this is the kind of free-form writing I like to do when I have something on my mind but don't want to take too much time away from my paid writing.)
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