roc_abilly
Member
Slane:
The Music Thread
- Thread starter Mowl
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roc_abilly
Member
I always think of Flea being in this film, with the pet rat.
Mowl
Member
Watching Anthony Kiedis morph into Iggy Pop is trending for sure.
The entire international business model these days is reflected in the likes of say Ed Sheeran having a global audience. Billions of people. He is, in effect, a street busker lifted of the high streets and dumped onto the top of the music shite mountain, along with Taylor Swift (I couldn't name even one of her songs for you - Ed Sheeran's too) and watching the bubblegum pop acts strutting on catwalks (there's a huge irony there I doubt any of them actually get) bridging the gap between kid's music and 'adult' music with the distinct differences we once took for granted now faded away and a new voice of 'music for everyone' has taken over both television and radio.
People don't want pop songs, they want the story behind it, the filth, the sleaze, the barely contained pornography of 'Wrecking Ball' type material delivered by girls mimicking Madonna of forty years ago, masturbating on-stage, using mics as dildos, men as women, women as men - that fat fucker (what's his name? He's all over the media at the moment - edit: Sam Smith, I had to look it up) dressed in lingerie and heels, a fat arse and pig-ugly face - and this is supposed to be 'sexy'? This is what's getting the kids going? Jesus fuck, it turns my stomach just looking at the bloke. He looks like the stereotype just out of the closet and proud of it gay clown-show tinged with a sort of Val Martin element of narcissism. I couldn't name one of Smith's songs to save my life. I saw a few photos, that was more than enough thanks.
There's fuck all going on the commercial vein right now bar the LGBTQXYZ crowd stealing the stage to show off their mangled new body parts. It has fuck al to do with music either - it's all about controversy. Of course, older people who remember the punk era said the same back then, but they were wrong: this wasn't a fad - this was a tsunami of change, of destroying the dinosaurs once and for all, and the same is likely true of today. Who knows how it's going to be in ten or twenty years time, but it won't be anything like we expect it. Looking back today to the 80s, the 90s, the noughties? I can't recall any mass movement outside of the clubbing scene throughout those three decades. One has to move with the times (hence PAMF having a variety of alternate line-ups for a variety of different requirements) and find your place in the scene going forward. You can't rest on your laurels these days. You have to keep at it all the time to be relevant. We decided it made more sense to fill every gap we possibly could to get paid and keep the actual music we were making going, and having an audience to sell it to. But in reality, for us there was more money in performances than selling material. Spot the crack in the scene and fill it - like the drummers we did everywhere from the POD to the OMMC to Whelan's, Vicar Street, the National stadium, etc. Get paid for those but play other 'real' shows based on ticket sales and see the difference in income over say six months to a year. Fuck that. It's just not worth breaking your heart over.
But in general what we have to look forward to is an even more diluted form of 'music' designed to shock and capture the imagination in ways we haven't seen before. Ask yourself: how long will it take for hard-core porn to sidle into bed with pure pop? For the everyday market? Madonna did it as far back as the 80s and 90s, and the French classic 'je t'aime moi non plus' came out in the sixties! For fuck's sake - think about that? 1967? A sweat and tobacco-stinking French Marlboro man and his fragile little lady getting it on for the mic?
The problem is that we live in an age where all the great ideas have already been dreamed up, later rehashed, tossed overboard, years pass, they become hip and fashionable again. Imagine a world where pure and unstructured jazz was the single most popular music going? Impossible. Could never happen. Because people don't want to have t think about what they're hearing, to try to assimilate it, appreciate it, even understand it. No, they want thirty second soundbites with all the flashing lights and stretch limousines carrying some anorexic American teenie idol dressed in teddy-bear ears and crotch-less panties. Whores, basically. Loose women in the old sense. But still - at least the girls are having a good time breaking the rules for a change. It used to be Keith Moon throwing tellies out of hotel windows and trashing the place. Now it's girls with shaved pussies sitting spread-eagled on grand pianos with fifteen inch heels on. The blokes? In kinky underwear? Jesus - it really does make me want to puke, actual puke, and lots of it. It's utterly fucking revolting looking at them.
So what's coming next?
It'll be no small thing, that's for sure. I'd imagine there are A&R heads (remember them?) looking out right now for the next big thing. Chequebooks and ink pens at the ready. Checking everywhere from 'Jugs' magazine to Porn Hub trailers and credits. The model is broken, even the way it's broadcast is dead. What's the point of watching Mylie Cyrus on telly? You need to be there, to smell the morning dew on her pubis, to smell her sweat and maybe grab a pair of knickers when she takes them off and flings them into the front rows. Telly, as a music medium - is dead. Videos don't cut it these days. There is no MTV, that too was diluted and left to die three decades ago. There is no music 'business' as such these days. Signing up a band, giving them studio time to get their shit together. Teach them how to dance. How to dress. How to speak (think any interview with Boyzone/B'witched?) Release an album, throw in four or six videos, hype the fuck out of it, and see what happens.
Nothing will - that game's over.
It's been done to death.
It's not about the music at all - it's about capitalizing on the latest trend. Being the first in there to gouge out the cash and run with it. There are few role models for boys - but masses of them for girls. Do Irish kids really want to be like Sam fucking Smith? Look like that? Dress like that? Undress like that?? Fuck no. But the girlies? they've had a bar set for them that's so high they likely view as we did in our time: how does this business work and how do I make it to the top? Or even the middle? How do I get an audience? How do I sell records?
It's got fuck all to do with music or musicians - it's production, auto tune, songs that write themselves as soon as you power up and play the demo on the latest keyboard from Casio, crappy samey dross ear-candy bollocks nothing-shit. Utterly forgettable. Worthless crap.
Anyone going into the business these days is exposed to the same rip-off culture the music business was built on.
Except today's music is entirely disposable.
There's a reason why THIS changed everything:
Mowl
Member
U2's return to the stage, with a recent spinal surgery-struck Larry on the drums. I'm seriously pissed they chose a Dutch guy to fill in for Larry on the upcoming Elvis-splurge Las Vegas free for all. There are several drummers (aside from myself) I would have expected to at least be asked for auditions. Larry's close to Wayne Sheehy, drummer for Cactus World News and Ronnie Wood, Bo Diddley and a few more big international names. Great player, total arsehole though. Arrogant and annoying with it. Still he can play and he and Larry bounced off each other's styles back in the day.
Here's the new track 'Atomic City' recorded last night at the spherical venue, and a documentary I watched last night on National Geographic about how it was built. Massive complex, amazing structural design, it'll be some to see on the opening night. Have a listen, the drums are barely audible, but at least it was Larry giving it some. He had the same type of surgery I had: neck and spine, crushed/trapped nerve serving his right arm (mine was for my left) but effectively we both dealt with the same problem: repetitive strain injury leading to carpal tunnel issues. First the surgery, then a long break from playing at all, then back into schedule of daily practice to get back up to speed. 100% recovery for Larry - and the same for the Mowl.
Except I never got the call.
Bastards.
Anyway - does this song remind you of anything?
Can you the same hook I'm hearing in the vocal?
Here's the new track 'Atomic City' recorded last night at the spherical venue, and a documentary I watched last night on National Geographic about how it was built. Massive complex, amazing structural design, it'll be some to see on the opening night. Have a listen, the drums are barely audible, but at least it was Larry giving it some. He had the same type of surgery I had: neck and spine, crushed/trapped nerve serving his right arm (mine was for my left) but effectively we both dealt with the same problem: repetitive strain injury leading to carpal tunnel issues. First the surgery, then a long break from playing at all, then back into schedule of daily practice to get back up to speed. 100% recovery for Larry - and the same for the Mowl.
Except I never got the call.
Bastards.
Anyway - does this song remind you of anything?
Can you the same hook I'm hearing in the vocal?
Electricity
Member
Electricity
Member
See,
David 
I took the hit for you
I would have actually Liked your post (it's a nice song, bittersweet) but I wouldn't have been able to.
I don't have the React button on almost all threads. And I guess that's the final piece of the jigsaw. C'mon Dave, my old pal, make me (your G.O.A.T. poster) on the same footing as everyone else. Don't make me ban you again.
Mowl
Member
You're coming across like some creepy post middle-aged child molester, Jambo.
I'd be careful there.
What post?
Your Mike and the Mechanics song?
Yes, but your phone offers you a range of emojis - obviously.
Cop on to yourself.
The are no final pieces - and there's no jigsaw either.
That shit's all in your head.
roc_abilly
Member
Lumpy Von Talbot
Member
Mad for playing gambling machines. He always used to be down in Marylebone at a pub whose name I can't recall now but I used to meet a mate in there after work for a few pints and Lemmy would often be in there stooled up to a gambling machine feeding pound coins in one after the other.
I suspect his agents or something were in Marylebone, loads of literary and musical agents around there, but he was quite happy with his pint and his bag of coins and generally left alone.
I suspect his agents or something were in Marylebone, loads of literary and musical agents around there, but he was quite happy with his pint and his bag of coins and generally left alone.
Mowl
Member
He also has a permanent stool in the corner of the Whiskey A-GoGo next to the gambling machine there. His order awaits his arrival in the form of a bottle of Jack Daniel's, an ashtray, a tub of ice, and a stack of shot glasses. House rules are threefold:
Do not bother the legend.
Do not ask for selfies with the legend.
Do not fucking bother the fucking legend.
It's not that complicated.
He was a simple man in so many ways.
Do not bother the legend.
Do not ask for selfies with the legend.
Do not fucking bother the fucking legend.
It's not that complicated.
He was a simple man in so many ways.
Mowl
Member
That whole pussy-assed west coast/LA/hip-hop thing never grabbed me as much as the east coast sound which had teeth of its own and didn't care if you liked it or not - it wasn't about entertainment: it was a movement that liberated the kids in the ghettos to better themselves, take pride in their suffering and endurance to grow balls big enough to bite back.
That's still the same reason many white people still can't get over Public Enemy's early material in the mid/late 80s.
Me? It was manna from heaven for me.
Then meeting them at Trinity College playing an afternoon open-air stage for the Rag Week, which was killer. The best moment? When The Security Of The First World came out dressed in full combat gear from head to toe - and doing their dance moves out back of centre stage. This was militant Afro/American shit, heavy duty material Ireland had never hosted or seen the like of before, at least not in the southern republican sects still thinking that singing 'The Men Behind The Wire' was just a good night out.
Had the Security Of The First World hit the stage with their fake AK47's?
Can you imagine?
That's what made that gig a fucking legend in Irish musical history: the set was announced as part of their Irish visit with evening gigs on bigger theatres. But there weren't any mainstream music press there. There weren't that many students either. But the wonder of it was that they kept it short and sweet enough to make their mark and clear the stage before even ONE media photographer or critic made it to the event.
It's legendary because you had to be there - the media overlooked it, so it was 'ours' - not theirs.
Plus, sticking up black music artists drives most Irish bloggers nuts - they love the music but don't want to know about the culture.
But I remind them as often as I can: every nation and village on this entire planet has its rebel music.
That's still the same reason many white people still can't get over Public Enemy's early material in the mid/late 80s.
Me? It was manna from heaven for me.
Then meeting them at Trinity College playing an afternoon open-air stage for the Rag Week, which was killer. The best moment? When The Security Of The First World came out dressed in full combat gear from head to toe - and doing their dance moves out back of centre stage. This was militant Afro/American shit, heavy duty material Ireland had never hosted or seen the like of before, at least not in the southern republican sects still thinking that singing 'The Men Behind The Wire' was just a good night out.
Had the Security Of The First World hit the stage with their fake AK47's?
Can you imagine?
That's what made that gig a fucking legend in Irish musical history: the set was announced as part of their Irish visit with evening gigs on bigger theatres. But there weren't any mainstream music press there. There weren't that many students either. But the wonder of it was that they kept it short and sweet enough to make their mark and clear the stage before even ONE media photographer or critic made it to the event.
It's legendary because you had to be there - the media overlooked it, so it was 'ours' - not theirs.
Plus, sticking up black music artists drives most Irish bloggers nuts - they love the music but don't want to know about the culture.
But I remind them as often as I can: every nation and village on this entire planet has its rebel music.
Lumpy Von Talbot
Member
Public Enemy were just stunning in their uncompromising intelligence I think. I think they were as revelatory and in your face as punk was when it really broke the new news in 1976. The quality of Public Enemy's output is just fantastic.
Real bolt out of the blue, here's the new Daddy music off the streets. I still find it stunning. The lyrics and attitude. Take it or leave it. Here's the news. I don't follow a lot of the descendants or Public Enemy's influenced stuff because I think Public Enemy opened and closed the conversation and everything else is kind of derivative to my ear. Then again because of my own cultural background I'm aware I wouldn't be the right person to tell.
But I think I know something fundamental and feral when it happens and Public Enemy were just in that rare category.
Spike Lee's use of 'Fight the Power' focused on Rosie Perez as the opener to Do The Right Thing... genius
Real bolt out of the blue, here's the new Daddy music off the streets. I still find it stunning. The lyrics and attitude. Take it or leave it. Here's the news. I don't follow a lot of the descendants or Public Enemy's influenced stuff because I think Public Enemy opened and closed the conversation and everything else is kind of derivative to my ear. Then again because of my own cultural background I'm aware I wouldn't be the right person to tell.
But I think I know something fundamental and feral when it happens and Public Enemy were just in that rare category.
Spike Lee's use of 'Fight the Power' focused on Rosie Perez as the opener to Do The Right Thing... genius