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- Music Weekly: Motown special
This week there's nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide as we devote our podcast to the joys of Motown, commonly known as The Best Music Ever Written.
Steve Levine, producer of the Beach Boys and Culture Club among others, is our guest and he demonstrates the recording techniques that produced the distinctive Motown sound. We're talking overdubs, string sections and even the echo in the studio ... basically, a real treat for the geeks.
Alexis Petridis, Dorian Lynskey and Ben Beaumont-Thomas are all in the studio to share their thoughts and Singles Club also features a Motown love-in with classic tracks from Marvin Gaye, the Temptations and Smokey Robinson all up for discussion.
Normal service resumes next week. In the meantime, why not find us on Twitter or Facebook?
You can hear more from Steve Levine and the secrets behind the Motown sound at this Guardian Extra eventПереслать - Richard Hawley – The River (exclusive stream)
A seven-minute instrumental inspired by a whisky distillery? Only in Richard Hawley's hands could this work ...
While his former bandmates in Pulp get ready for next year's reunion shows, Richard Hawley has been embarking on a big project of his own. He's been making an EP based around a recent visit to the Glenfiddich whisky distillery in Dufftown, Scotland – which kind of takes the "singer gets inspired by alcohol" thing to a whole new level.
What seven-and-a-half-minute-long instrumental The River (a Guardian exclusive) has to do with fermentation and distillation we don't quite know, but we can tell you it's a thing of astounding beauty. As abstract shards of noise hover gloomily over delicately plucked harp and little else, it's almost miraculous that something so vapour thin, so formless, can hold your attention the way it does.
Click here to download another new track, In A Barrel, and apply for tickets to an exclusive gig. The River will be available to download from the Glenfiddich site on Monday 15th November.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: motorbike songs
Last week was all about comebacks. Now we make a slight return to the topic of bicycles, but this time with an added engine
Ladies and gentlemen of the RR jury, I present to you the case for the defence in the matter of "readers recommend comeback songs" v "a few grumps".
Assailed from various sides for its subjectivity, this apparent weakness was in fact the topic's strength. It was a subject to which everyone could contribute and bring their own specialist knowledge to bear:
THE JUDGE: Order! Order in court! If the jury cannot stop debating the merits of a Tom Jones cover album I will have to suspend proceedings!
THE JURY: Fine by us!
THE JUDGE: Don't make me do it!
THE JURY: Do it! Do it!
THE JUDGE: You'll regret this in the long run ...!
THE GAVEL BANGS
Your A-list this week (with accompanying column discussing the choices): Mama Said Knock You Out – LL Cool J; Chan Chan – Buena Vista Social Club; Losing Sleep – Edwyn Collins; The Electrician – The Walker Brothers; Machine Gun – Portishead; Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart – Gene Pitney and Marc Almond; Manifesto – Roxy Music; If I Can Dream – Elvis Presley; Bama Lama Bama Loo – Little Richard; What's Love Got to Do with It – Tina Turner.
Now to the B-list:
Moe Tucker – Fired Up
Love this, and it was going A-list until I checked and found it was anything but a comeback track. Nice try though.
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Into a Swan
Grinding, industrial electro-rock with a dash of tabla. An artist maintaining her voice, but successfully updating it too.
Art Pepper – Lost Life
The background is in Nilpferd's post but the music is wonderful. Controlled, but still emotional, slow as if each note is bleeding slowly out into space.
PJ Harvey – When Under Ether
I think I brought this track on to the podcast once, and it continues to haunt. Again, the original nom from bethnoir is worth reading.
Pete Rock and CL Smooth – Appreciate
Steenbeck's justi is, as ever, passionarte and eloquent. For me it's as much about the breaks, the way they move in and out of each other, but either way it's a great track.
Dion Dimucci – Yo Frankie
Bearhunter on the nom and it's like the doo-wop star came back 40 years later as Billy Joel.
Roy Orbison – You Got It
This was certainly a comeback all right, back at the top of the charts and all over the radio for the last 18 months of his life. I struggle to put a finger on quite what had been done to his sound to make it so palatable to a modern audience. Did Tom Petty have his finger on the popular pulse at the time? Or was it just nostalgia?
Jacques Brel – Voir Un Ami Pleurer
"A complicated mix of comeback and farewell," is how Tatanka Yotanka put it and that makes the whole thing poignant before you've even got to listening to this tearjerker.
Arcesia – Butterfly Mind
A bit like Dion, only 20 years earlier, Pairubu tells the story of the crooner-cum-guru. Prepare yourself for some overwhelming vocals.
Jimmy Smith – Root Down
How funky do you want? Surely no funkier than this? Again, an artist apparently out of time, pulls himself centre stage once more with one stroke of genius (and those ascending chords).
This week, it's payback time. We've all agreed in retrospect (haven't we? Haven't we?!?!) that bicycles was a smashing theme, but how much better is a bike if you stick an engine on it? We shall soon find out. Usual stipulations for this sort of topic apply – the song doesn't have to be solely about a motorbike, but if it features incidentally you need to explain why it's worth considering for selection.
I'll be on the thread on Friday to answer any questions.
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill and the Collabo.
The rulebook:
DO post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO NOT post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.
DO NOT dump lists of nominations – if you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.
Finally, no biting, burping, bugling, feuding or fuguing.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Behind the music: Who's the guy with the silly wigs on The X Factor?
Want to know how hard you have to work to make it in pop? The X Factor's Savan Kotecha spent years sneaking into music conferences, stalking Babyface and sleeping on RedOne's floor
There's a guy on The X Factor who has sold over 50m records. I'm not talking about Simon Cowell or Louis Walsh, but the vocal coach Savan Kotecha, a Texan who's penned hits for pop stars including Britney, JLS, Alexandra Burke and Usher. So what is he doing coaching Wagner and Katie Waissel on the British talent show?
"I really should be called vocal producer and not vocal coach," says Kotecha. "When I'm in the studio with Usher, Celine (Dion) and X Factor or American Idol winners I teach them the song. Not necessarily Leona (Lewis), cause she's just a natural singer. But to give her edge, you have to work that swagger." Since The X Factor has followed American Idol's lead by selling the contestants' performances on iTunes, bringing in Kotecha made sense. "We're making records here," he continues. "So I tell them: 'If you're not getting the emotion, let me give you a visual – cause you're an actor as well, you're on stage, you're a performer.' We do that a lot with Aidan, Matt – and Katie, especially. That's what pop music is about. If you have no swagger and no emotion it just becomes flat." And Kotecha loves pop music. "New Kids On the Block is the beginning of my music history, as pathetic as that sounds," he laughs.
At the age of 15 Kotecha decided music would be his profession. His traditional Indian family didn't exactly welcome this idea, but their disapproval gave him even more motivation to prove himself. He started writing songs in his bedroom and sending out hundreds of demo tapes to people he'd found in a book with music industry contacts.
One of the few replies he got came from Jive Records, whose A&R man wanted one of his songs for a new boyband he was working with. Kotecha declined. He said he wanted to be an artist himself and that a guy in Nashville had promised to make him a star – all he had to do was pay him some money. Besides, his mother said he had to stand by his word, as he had promised the song to this Nashville guy. Nine months later, the boyband – Backstreet Boys – become a huge success, selling millions of records. And, as the A&R man had predicted, Kotecha had not become a star.
Kotecha says he doesn't regret following his mother's advice, as the song had been a fluke and, being just 17 years old, he wouldn't have been able to follow it up. But he did take a valuable lesson from the incident. "I realised the guy (from Jive) was right: I wasn't going to be an artist," he says. "No one was going to put this face on their wall. But I loved writing songs, so that's what I focused on."
After Kotecha graduated from high school, his dad gave him two years to pursue his dream of becoming a professional songwriter – after that he'd have to go to college. So, Kotecha went to work on it. He went to SXSW, heading for the city's Four Seasons hotel, equipped with a bag of different clothes. "I'd give a tape to anyone with a seminar tag," he says. "When I was thrown out, I'd go around the corner, change clothes and go back in again. I'd do it three to four times before they caught on."
When he heard a rumour that Babyface, one of his songwriting heroes, was on holiday in Austin, Kotecha wrote a passionate letter to the songwriter, then visited the city, knocking on every door, and putting a copy of the letter and a demo tape on every car in the area where Babyface was supposed to be staying. He never received a response from the hitmaker, but plenty of people called to thank him for the music.
"Whatever I could do, I did," says Kotecha. "I had something to prove, not only to myself but to my family. That's why, working on The X Factor, I know what it's like to want something so bad." Months after the two-year deadline his dad had set, he finally landed a publishing deal with BMG, who sent him to Sweden to write. "Max Martin (songwriter for Britney and Backstreet Boys) was one of my heroes, so I knew if I worked my way up over there, I'd get to him."
The first writer Kotecha met in Stockholm was another struggling young songwriter going by the stage name RedOne, who immediately invited him to stay in his studio flat – literally a studio – in the suburbs. It was supposed to be for a month, but Kotecha ended up sleeping on his floor, under the mixing desk, for six months. He stayed in Sweden for six years, marrying a Swedish girl.
After scoring a No 1 in the US with American Idol winner Carrie Underwood, he bought a place in LA, and in 2008 he finally reached his goal of working with Max Martin, as they co-wrote Britney's If U Seek Amy. "One thing I learned from Max is to spend time on a song," says Kotecha. "We spent two weeks on If U Seek Amy. That's how he got so good. That's what the Swedes do. The Americans tend to do 'false positives', saying: 'It's a smash!' No, it's not a smash. Let's make it into one, or at least try. That's one of the key things I learned from the Cheiron guys (the Swedish songwriting/production hit factory of the late 90s that was Max Martin's launch pad): Work at it, work at it, work at it. Make it a hit on purpose.
"In the old days, Max Martin and the Cheiron guys didn't care about the content of the lyrics; they cared about how it sounded," he adds. "I'm trying to make it sound good, but also mean something. Sometimes they're silly concepts, but I'd rather write that than 'I love you'."
Kotecha's idea for The Club Is Alive came to him while watching The Sound of Music, as he was preparing to work with Flo Rida. But when he showed the idea to the hip-hop artist the response was less than lukewarm: "Nah, I ain't gonna sing that," he said. "That Sound of Music shit is whack." Steve Mac, however, thought it would be great for JLS. "I had two Marmite No 1s this year," says Kotecha. "That one and Alexandra Burke's Start Without You."
So, why would a songwriter at the height of his career put it all on hold to work on The X Factor? He says the kids on the show remind him of how excited he used to get. This has helped reinvigorate his passion for the music business. "Those were good times to me," smiles Kotecha. "When RedOne (who eventually had his big break writing for and producing Lady Gaga) and I get together, we talk about those times."
The wigs Kotecha wears on the show have their origin in the practical jokes he and RedOne used to play in the studio. "Dannii (Minogue) would tell you that I did a session with her in Stockholm, back in the day, dressed as Santa Claus. It's to relax everyone by being the idiot in the room, so that they don't feel so self-conscious to sing in front of this stranger."
So, does he see any of the current X Factor contestants reaching the pop stardom of some of the stars he's written hits for? He refuses to pick a favourite. He even predicts Wagner will have a career (though he says he may sell more T-shirts than records, on tour) – if he could only get him to practice, instead of falling asleep in the canteen.
Simon Cowell has also recruited Kotecha to do A&R for his Syco record label. That job, and spending the last two years in "the Max Martin school of songwriting", has made him more ruthless about his own songs. "I don't have Max's gift of how to make something great phenomenal yet, but I'm learning how to make something good great, at least," says Kotecha. "Max says you have to constantly 'kill your babies'. You may have a part that's really good, but it's not amazing. You might love that part, but it doesn't work. So you have to kill the baby. He's tough. You get nervous playing him songs."
Another reason Kotecha accepted the job on the X Factor was to invest in his future. "If you're an A+ business mind today, the last company you're going to run is a music business, because there's no money in it," he says. "So we have to adjust." To illustrate his point he mentions seeing Henrik Korpi, one of the songwriters he was trying to get to a decade ago, now working at Toni & Guy.
Whatever happens, there's little chance Kotecha will give up songwriting. "I'll always write songs. It's not what I do – it's who I am," he concludes. And why shouldn't he? As a man who only allows himself seven days off a year, I'm sure he'll be able to squeeze it all in.
• This article was amended on 12 November 2010. The original version referred to Toni & Guy as Tony & Guy and to the Sounds of Music. These errors have now been corrected.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - 50 great moments in jazz: Stan Tracey's Under Milk Wood and the rise in British jazz
By the 60s, British jazz no longer sounded like an American clone. Among the works that took the genre to new heights, Stan Tracey's Under Milk Wood still reigns supreme
When Wynton Marsalis appeared at a Barbican tribute concert to the late Sir John Dankworth in June, it felt like a symbolic convergence of creative forces – those of jazz's American homeland, and of its many and varied descendants in Europe.Jazz arrived early in Britain, when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band – the white New Orleans group that cut the first jazz records in 1917 – played a London residency, inspiring local players to follow in their footsteps. But throughout the 20s and 30s British jazz (and that of continental Europe) was widely sidelined as a poor imitation of the real thing, with Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt one of the few undisputed international stars.
The Barbican concert attended by Marsalis provided spectacular snapshots of British big-band history from the 30s to the present. It showed there was a lot more to early British jazz than had been previously credited – but it was octogenarian London pianist Stan Tracey and his atmospheric tenor-sax partner Bobby Wellins who furnished one of the highlights of that night with a reprise of their classic 1965 original, Starless and Bible Black (see clip above).
Tracey's roots were in Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington, but he was one of a crop of creative British players inspired by the bebop revolution of the 40s (including saxophonists Ronnie Scott and John Dankworth) who were discovering their own sound. By the 60s, some of that generation – and a younger one close on its heels – began to shift British jazz from skilful imitation to genuine independence by replacing respectful covers with original material. The British DJ Gilles Peterson (with his Impressed series of reissues) and a raft of small indie labels have extensively documented this development now, and the 60s and 70s saw the UK jazz scene on a remarkable roll, with Dankworth, pianist Michael Garrick, bandleader/composers Mike Westbrook, Mike Gibbs and the South African Chris McGregor, and many others generating new music that no longer sounded like a clone of an American model.
Among these, Stan Tracey's Under Milk Wood still seems particularly emblematic. Sonny Rollins, who often worked with Tracey in his years as house pianist at Ronnie Scott's in the 60s, once asked: "Does anybody here know how good he really is?" It took a long time for that question to be answered in the affirmative, with the disillusioned pianist almost quitting the business in the next decade, before being rediscovered by a younger generation of players who pulled him back to the bandstand.
As a teenager Tracey had been an accordion entertainer for the military during the second world war, then a sideman with the famous Ted Heath jazz/dance band, then a Monk-esque pianist with an increasingly quirky compositional ear. But it was his six years as house pianist at Ronnie Scott's, backing the biggest stars in jazz from Rollins to Stan Getz, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Anita O'Day, Wes Montgomery and many more, that really fired his imagination. The thrill of those encounters, and the musical ideas they sparked night after night, set him composing prolifically – often on the night bus home after the gigs. Under Milk Wood was an evocative collection of sparky themes inspired by the Dylan Thomas radio play (it's sometimes performed with a narrator reading the parts). And thanks to Tracey's sparing piano and Wellins's softly hooting sax, the rippling tone-poem Starless and Bible Black is widely acclaimed as one of the great jazz performances.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Theophilus London – Flying Overseas (featuring Solange Knowles and Devonté Hynes)
The Brooklyn MC has released this single before, but it was always missing a vital ingredient ... Beyoncé's little sister
Brooklyn rapper Theophilus London is currently battling it out on our world famous 2010 Buzz Graph – he's also battled with our own Paul Lester, but that's all water under the bridge, right Theo?Now, frankly, the fact that he's yet to release an album isn't helping his cause. Flying Overseas first appeared on the I Want You mixtape in April, but it missed one vital ingredient: Solange Knowles. Beyoncé's little sister adds her velvet croon to an already incredibly smooth slow jam about a Brooklyn kid dreaming about flying somewhere exotic. Production and backing vocals are provided by Dev Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion, whose move from Test Icicles to collaborating with Van Dyke Parks and Diana Vickers is something to behold. You can download Flying Overseas for free by clicking on the player above.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Bands How to do band reunions
When bands split now they enter the revolving-door afterlife familiar to superheroes and soap villians – it's only a matter of time before they're back
My first reunion gig was the Velvet Underground in 1993. At the time, bands didn't reunite much: legendary bands certainly didn't. And after the gig I glumly wished they hadn't. It wasn't just the well-lit lager'n'hot dogs ambience of Wembley Arena. Or the sole "new track", something called Coyote, which involved Lou Reed doing wolf noises. Ultimately, it was the massed lighter-waving during Heroin that made me write reunions off as a bad idea.
It's been hard to sustain that feeling: either I'm less snobbish these days or reunions are just a lot more common. Pulp's announcement this week of a series of gigs next year with their definitive mid-90s line-up was met with delight but not any particular shock. When bands split now they enter the revolving-door afterlife familiar to superheroes and soap villains – it's only a matter of time before they're back. Not that all reunions work. Here's my five-point plan for any band thinking of getting the old gang back together.
First, present it as unfinished business. Take That are the most successful reuniters of our times because they've sold each revival as a new chapter, not an unnecessary sequel. Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams's Shame is probably the most indulgent piece of self-mythologising to hit the top five since The Ballad Of John And Yoko, but they know the story is as important right now as the music.
Second, understand what you mean to people. Barlow and company's initial return was so triumphant because they knew their fans remembered them as a lost first love and made music that was bittersweet and grownup: the pop equivalent of an old flame friending you on Facebook. If, like the Spice Girls, they had jumped into a reunion pretending nothing had changed it would have been a disaster.
You should also be clear about what kind of reunion it's going to be. The Velvets disappointed me partly because I expected more improvisation and risk-taking from them, and I got a canter through the hits. My Bloody Valentine played nothing but old material, too, but it was obvious that's what they'd be doing (and loud enough not to matter). Serial reformers Wire treat every comeback as a fresh phase of their project, setting themselves fascinating new challenges each time.
Not everyone can be Wire, but you can at least make your return an event. This is where Pulp – like Blur before them – are scoring well, suggesting a handful of special-occasion gigs rather than a wholesale return to action. Festivals like All Tomorrows Parties thrive on credible reunions, helping them feel like a considered artistic decision not a crass cash-in.
And finally, don't jump the gun. Bands stop because they get sick of each other or an audience gets sick of them: those conditions take time to heal – the best part of a decade in most successful reunion cases.
Even if you check all these boxes you might find lingering opposition to the idea. When bands get back together they can kill the romance of a group by overwriting precious memories. Reunions can also imply that an individual's artistic growth since a band split isn't worth very much: it's noticeable that Damon Albarn has been very keen to counter that notion by positioning the revived Blur as simply another project, rather than any kind of homecoming. And finally, revivals add to a conservative streak in pop culture, the sense you get when scanning music magazine racks that the past is more worth celebrating than the now.
For all that, the new economics of pop make reunions a tempting proposal. The Economist recently revealed that the music industry – as opposed to the recording industry – has experienced a fairly good recession, thanks to ever-increasing live revenues. Reunited bands can make a lot more than they did first time round – especially as critically acclaimed acts have credibility to cash in. This year's US festival darlings Pavement have been playing to crowds larger and more enthusiastic than they ever got during the 1990s, and while Pulp were a big draw in their time, their Hits collection – traditionally the capstone to a successful career – didn't even make the Top 40. No wonder they want a chance to get their legacy right.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Jon Savage on song: Bobby Jameson rages against the Vietnam war
This garage-punk classic is a vehement statement against a war that, by early 1966, was spiralling out of control
A fanfare of slow, church organ chords – straight out of a horror film – resolves into a brutal Bo Diddley beat. A few blasts of harmonica carry the riff, and then a full-throated voice begins to testify. It's a stitch-up he's complaining about, and we're not talking pop-art clothes: "Senators the congress and the politician man, well they all got me in the mess I'm in/ Said I got a call from Uncle Sam, said 'send that boy to Vietnam.'"
This is a horror movie, only for real, and the singer is really pissed off because he knows what he's facing: "President Johnson gonna call him up/ Tell him that my life is getting rough/ The district attorney and the lawyer man, well they can't help me now, no one can." The song is called Vietnam and it's such a ferocious, funky blues that you could be forgiven for thinking that the singer was black: but he wasn't.
When Vietnam was recorded, in late 1965 or early 1966, Bobby Jameson was a young performer trying to break in to the LA music industry. He had connections: in 1964 he recorded a couple of early Rolling Stones' songs, All I Want Is My Baby and Each and Every Day of the Year. In his autobiography, Keith Richards calls him "PJ Proby's valet".
In 1965 Jameson recorded an album called Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest. This was a bizarre episode typical of the period: a singer called Chris Ducey had recorded an album that was cancelled at the last minute. Producer Marshall Leib – a former member of the Teddy Bears, Phil Spector's first group – drafted in Jameson to record songs that matched the titles already printed on the sleeve under the name Chris Lucey.
After recording a couple of 45s with Frank Zappa, Jameson found himself in a studio working with the Leaves – a local band who had released a couple of killer singles, Too Many People and their cover of Hey Joe. What they concocted was an all-time garage-punk classic – a vehement statement against a war that, by early 1966, was already spiralling out of control.
Unlike today's conflicts Vietnam was largely a conscription war. The draft really began in earnest during 1966: that year the number of American servicemen in Vietnam more than doubled, from around 125,000 to near 400,000. And it was selective: deferments were granted to college students in particular, leaving the poor and working-class much more liable to serve.
From late 1965 on, Vietnam divided America: in one corner, gung-ho patriots; in the other, the young men who were actually eligible to fight. These tensions were played out in the pop charts, with huge protest and anti-protest hits such as Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction and Sgt Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Berets (both US No 1s).
It was a hugely emotive issue, and you can hear the gamut of responses on the extraordinary new Bear Family box set, Next Stop Is Vietnam. The war and the divide that it created gave late-60s American youth culture a huge kick that explains some of the more outlandish manifestations, such as Woodstock – where Country Joe McDonald sang I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag.
In the pantheon of protest, Bobby Jameson's Vietnam is not well-known but it is both early and extremely effective – with its deep level bass rumble and totally committed vocal. It comes off as a blast of – if not exactly blue-collar, then at least suburban – rage to suit the garage bands' customary origins. (They're called garage bands because they had a garage to rehearse in, all right?).
The draft devastated a micro-generation of musicians. Histories of garage bands usually recount the disappearance of one or two members off to south-east Asia. The most notorious story is that of the Misunderstood, a top-notch psych group whose singer Rick Brown was drafted and went AWOL in the far east, returning to the US in 1979 to receive a pardon from President Carter's administration.
Jameson's howl of rage was released on a 45 and went nowhere. However, the session was filmed by director Robert Cohen for Mondo Hollywood. Cohen wrote that Jameson "became part of MONDO by fulfilling one or more of the three required criteria: 1. Be typically Hollywood (ie trying to live-out a dream self-image in the LA area) 2. Or be very WEIRD, or 3. Be both 1. and 2."
Vietnam is the highlight of a patchy film in which genuine culture participators such as Vito Paulekas (who also recorded with Zappa) jostle against irritating attention seekers. It's fascinating to see Jameson working with an integrated band – a rarity in Los Angeles at that time – and, as he loses himself in the song's abrasive noise, you can feel the madness of the times.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Ask the indie professor: Is it strictly a man's world on tour?
It's not easy being exiled in guyville. Women face special challenges in a male-dominated and sexually charged profession
"Why do you presume all bands and their tour drivers are dudes in your article? Don't us women do those jobs too?! " From Rebecca Jade via Twitter.
This is an excellent point and one I often consider when writing about music. Gender is one of the many issues explored in rock'n'roll performances. It's a place where roles are transposed, accentuated, blurred and collapsed. However, this exploration is an expression and critique of existing cultural roles for men and women. It challenges us to discuss these issues and the contrasting behind-the-scenes realities and practicalities of the music industry.
Thus, my previous article on touring was not so much a presumption, more an observation. The truth is that females are the minority on tours. Thus, when you are talking about patterns of behaviour, male is the normative. That is not an evaluation, just a fact. There are challenges that come from being a female in a male-dominated profession. Not just any profession, but one that is sexually charged as well. It means that a woman on tour has got a different set of challenges to deal with.
The most fundamental one is that she is basically exiled in guyville, a female visitor to the boys' club (which as we know can be fun as a tourist, but hard as an ex-patriot). Masculine cultural norms are constantly displayed in vans, tour buses and venues. Thus, to avoid criticism, women keep the female stuff to themselves (I'm violating this principle right now). Female professionals are vigilant about not reinforcing gender stereotypes. This means women often conform their behaviour to masculine stereotypes and circumscribe "feminine" behaviour. If a female professional does anything that conforms to a female stereotype, she is pilloried. Take something as simple as preparing to go on stage. Western assumption is that attention to looks and presentation is a female characteristic. Therefore, a female artist's need or desire for some privacy and time to attend to her looks before going on stage is viewed as an irritant and liability. However, in some genres such as goth or death metal, male performers need and often take more time to put on makeup and clothing than their female counterparts. If the male artist does so, he is teased that he took longer to get ready than "a girl".
Ultimately, there is just more pressure on females. The reason for this is that being a minority means your behaviour is not assessed in the same fashion as your male counterparts. If a guy in a band has a conflict with a male colleague, he'll just put it down to the colleague being an ass. But if he has a conflict with a female musician, you'll hear him boldly state: "I'm never working with a woman again." This is the essence of sexism or racism. Instead of judging the behaviour of an individual, it is instead taken as indicative of the behaviour of a class of people. Often when you talk about gender, there is a section of the population who invariably look at this as men v women. The more accurate depiction would be that this is against all of us. Gender roles circumscribe the range of human potential into categories and every person, male and female, is limited by gender stereotypes. It's one of the reasons that musical spectacle is a domain where the arbitrariness of these gender conventions get to be transgressed.
It can be lonely being the only female on tour in a male-dominated industry. On those rare occasions when the band gets hotel rooms, the solo female will get her own room which is an advantage for privacy, but a disadvantage for camaraderie. Sometimes she is forgotten and not included in the day's activities or meals. She wakes up to find she has been left behind. The shared interests of male tour companions means the female is often left out. However, things can change. So the more women, or any other minority, that participate, perform, crew, tour and succeed set in motion changes in the culture of music.
PS: The only female bus drivers I've ever found have been the ones that drove me to school.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Listen to Beady Eye's Bring the Light
If you loved Oasis but hated that Noel chap who kept chucking guitar solos everywhere, here's your dream band ...
Oasis are back! Sorry, Oasis are clearly not back. What I meant to say was that Liam, Gem, Andy and some other guy who used to be in Oasis are back. As Beady Eye. We also want to make it clear that there are no prizes for guessing which band they sound like.
It's a bit lazy to make the tired "Liam's been listening to a lot of dubstep, then" gag whenever an Oasis, sorry, Beady Eye track appears. Especially as:
1) You know full well Liam won't have been listening to dubstep
2) Do you really want to hear a Liam Gallagher dubstep record? I mean, really?
All you can hope for from Beady Eye is rock'n'roll so primal and thrilling that you're too busy pouring beer over your head to notice the cliches. That was how Oasis worked so why not try it again?
Bring the Light sounds like the Kinks' David Watts as played by Status Quo, with Liam howling "Baby c'mawn" over and over. It has more energy than most Oasis records of the last decade but is it enough to make Noel come "crawling back very fucking soon"? We'll let you decide ...
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Niki and the Dove – Mother Protect
Ever wondered what the Knife would sound like on Eurovision? This trio's pop experiments are as close as you're likely to get ...
Just as Florence has no machine and Marina is lacking in diamonds, so Niki and the Dove isn't a woman and her pet bird. Instead, they're a Swedish trio fronted by singer-songwriter Malin Dahlström who, according to Popjustice.com, sound like "the Knife at Eurovision". It's a pretty accurate description that takes the experimentalism of the Knife and Fever Ray and adds unexpected moments of pure pop. While previous single, DJ, Ease My Mind, was more immediate, Mother Protect contains its fair share of incredible moments, specifically what sounds like a panpipe solo around the two-minute mark and a thunderous mid-section break that features Malin singing "You can't keep me down I am done, I am furious" as if the world is ending.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Joel Tenenbaum: a year on from being sued for $4.5m
Last month, the RIAA shut down the peer-to-peer site Limewire. I was sued by the same organisation for sharing 30 songs online – 12 months on, my battle with them continues
It's been over a year since I sat in a courtroom awaiting a verdict. With me were friends, my mother, spectators, two criminal defence lawyers volunteering their time, and the Harvard law professor who had taken on my cause as his own, Charles Nesson.
I had been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sharing music on Kazaa, specifically 30 songs carrying a potential penalty of $4.5m. The two hours it took for the jury to return a verdict were nothing compared to the five years I'd been waiting. The verdict was that I had to pay $675,000. Both sides made procedural motions to preserve things for appeal and everyone went home. I took away a certain sense of closure. I went back to my physics research; I'd taken a week off from my full-time job.
Back in the real world my research collaborator thought our results were promising and I mined away at data like a good postgraduate physics student. I went back to my regular weekends of reading, sailing, and friends and alcohol. Meanwhile, another log had been thrown on the fire.
The birth of a new injuction motion came out of an incident a week after the trial. I was with my friend Alex preparing for a night out when I got a text message from Debbie, one of the pro bono students working on my case. It said: "ZOMG, go to Pirate Bay :)"
I went to the computer and looked up the infamous Swedish site where users share files through bit torrents.
"Alex, look at this!"
He came into the room and looked at the screen. "Ha, I guess you caught their attention, man."
The front page of the site was just a graphic of me, arms crossed in a picture I recognised from the Boston Herald, and in large font, "DJ JOEL: The $675,000 Mixtape" with an ironic endorsement, "Approved by" followed by the RIAA logo. There was a link to a torrent of the 30 songs I was sued for, encouraging site visitors to download the same songs in an act of civil disobedience. The torrent link had a number of comments, the gist of which could be summarised by comments such as: "$22,500 per song?!? Suck my balls, RIAA! Come get me," and "thats some of the shittiest music ive ever seen on the internet."
I started smiling, and replied to Debbie: "OMG, THIS IS AWESOME!"
When I got home, I posted it to my Facebook. Debbie tweeted it to our webpage, saying only that it was "interesting". I looked at it the next day in amusement, but really thought nothing more of it until three weeks later when the RIAA filed the injunction motion. It said that I was "promoting" the same kind of behaviour I had been engaged in, and asked that I be prohibited from doing so. The court hadn't filed an answer. Judge Gertner surprisingly hadn't in the entire month even entered the verdict following the initial fine of $675,000.
Entering a verdict signifies nothing more than the judge putting her official stamp on the jury's decision, which in turn allows appeals to be lodged. I assumed this would be done quickly as a matter of fact, but the trial had ended in July and it was already months later. So both the injunction and the verdict were both unanswered calls off a high cliff.
Finally, on a Monday in early December another text arrived from Debbie: "Gertner ruled." I called up Debbie, who was at this point finishing her last year as a law and business student at Harvard, and asked her what it meant. It meant that the $675,000 award was stamped as approved by the judge, and she had also ruled on the injunction application, which demanded that I stop "promoting" piracy. The order read: "Although plaintiffs are entitled to statutory damages, they have no right to silence defendant's criticism of the statutory regime under which he is obligated to pay those damages."
It turns out I no longer had to give a nudge nudge wink wink when I told people: "Of course, you shouldn't download!"
And so this order was representative of the legal results we'd received from the case: absurdly disproportionate remedies interspersed with bits of sanity. Though they'd succeeded in fining me, the RIAA hadn't yet found a way to circumvent the constitutional rights to free speech of the people it sued. And therein lies the potential to restore balance. Just as a huge organisation like the RIAA has every advantage in a legal system where every word and piece of evidence can be censored on technicality, we have the advantage in a world of transparency and free speech.
Of course, I don't mean to say that this inevitably had to be some sort of war. I seem to be held up as a news pundit, as the counterpoint to copyright, but such claims are neither my resume nor my motive. At this point, I've already offered more than $5,000 to buy my life back, to not be called into court again, to not be forced to monitor my every action for future interrogation, to not have my friends and family subpoenaed again, but the RIAA declined.
My motive has been resolution, part of the reason I so eagerly agree to appear in panel discussions, guest lectures, legal conferences and journalist recounts of the case. Some of these, such as the Reaching Acc[h]ord symposium at St John's University, have been hosted with the deliberate goal of mediating the conflict between the Big Four record companies and their ideas of commerce, and the digital generation's ideas of free sharing. Yet, to all events and opportunities the RIAA, EMI, Sony, UMG and Warner Records decline invitation.
Epilogue: Judge Gertner has since ruled on a motion we submitted to reduce the amount of the award. The fine is now $67,500 for sharing 30 songs. The RIAA has appealed because, apparently, $2,250 a song is still too little.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Scene and heard: Odd Future
This LA rap group combine N*E*R*D's minimalism with lyrics that are surreal, ugly and NSFW. Just don't call them horrorcore
The past few Scene and heard blogs have thrown their net wide, visiting India, Colombia and South Africa in search of new sounds. For this week's instalment, we return to the entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles, where an extended family of suburban skate kids are busy reinventing hip-hop in their own image.
Odd Future, or to give them their full name, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, are a dozen or so teenagers, calling themselves things such as Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genius and Hodgy Beats. Hailing from the Crenshaw district of LA, they're suburban rather than ghetto kids, but no hint of a comfortable upbringing has made it into the music, which is dark as hell and has little to do with any prevalent hip-hop trends.
The raps are seedy, surreal and ugly, featuring tales of illicit sex, drugs and splatter violence. The beats are often cold and experimental, alien-sounding synths and just off clap. The music defies categorisation, but think in the region of Neptunes-style minimalism meets the dank, dystopian sound of Cannibal Ox. They've taken the web by storm: since hitting the blogs back in the summer, they've chalked up interviews in the Wire and LA Times, plus namechecks on MTV and in Rolling Stone.
Probably the best entry point is Earl, the break-out track by 16-year-old MC Earl Sweatshirt. A discombobulated lyrical splurge of xxx-rated sex talk and decomposing bodies, it boasts an extremely grisly video in which members of Odd Future knock back a cocktail of soda, weed, pills and cough mixture before hitting the LA streets. There are kids vomiting blood, bodies tumbling off skateboards leaving gory smears along the sidewalk, and in one particularly stomach-churning scene, someone removing their own fingernail with pliers. It's been pointed out that Earl recalls the "horrorcore" sound pioneered by 90s rap group Gravediggaz, although it's worth noting its maker would have been clawing his way out the womb the year that 6 Feet Deep came out. The group make it clear they are not fond of the tag: Tyler the Creator ends his new track, Sandwitches (link NSFW) by snarling: "We don't make fucking horrorcore, fuckin' idiots – listen to the music before you put it in a box."
There's no cashing in yet: right now, Odd Future are doing business they way they always have, playing occasional LA shows (and their first London show last week) and releasing tracks, mixes and even full albums, such as Domo Genius's Rolling Papers, for free on their Tumblr. With fans including Wu-Tang Clan's GZA and the photographer Larry Clark, their continued rise seems likely. One possible glitch comes with the mysterious absence of Earl Sweatshirt, not in attendance for Odd Future's recent LA Times interview. The group remain tight-lipped as to why, and a "Free Earl!" post on their Tumblr leads you to fear the worst, although a comment on the LA Times piece goes some way to setting your mind at rest: apparently he's just been grounded by his mum.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Pulp's reunion proves they are in a different class
Jarvis Cocker stood behind me at a Blur gig last summer looking puzzled. Could he have predicted the joyous reception of Pulp's reunion?
News: Pulp reform for festival datesLast year, like many people who were 15 in 1995, I went to see one of Blur's reunion dates at Hyde Park in London. So did Jarvis Cocker, who stood behind me for the entirety of their set with a look on his face that can only be described as quizzical. At the time I wondered if his trousers were too tight, or if he was just confused over why Damon Albarn and co had chosen to play Trimm Trabb. Now I think he was probably just trying to decide whether he fancied a piece of the pie too.
Cocker had previously told Teletext – which was a very Jarvis thing to do – that Pulp had "no plans to get together", so I was delighted to find out this morning he decided otherwise and that his group will re-form for gigs next year, including Barcelona's Primavera Sound and London's Wireless. I write this while many fans are tweeting things such as "Omg! Pulp!", all of which feels like vindication
for a band who, even when they headlined Glastonbury in 1995, always felt out of step with the world – they only got the big gig because John Squire couldn't ride a bicycle properly.
But then Pulp being out of step was always part of the band's appeal. There were few more important groups to me when I was growing up, and, I imagine, to those like me – people who were rubbish at sport, who gravitated towards cigarettes, clothes and music, and who developed infatuations with NME and charity shops. Their songs were snappy, their lyrics were smart, and they were performed by genuine outsiders too (photos of a knock-kneed Cocker playing celebrity five-a-side in Select magazine proved that). With the possible exception of a few years at the start of Belle & Sebastian's career, Pulp were perhaps the last time British guitar music has managed to be world-beating, while at the same time sounding like it couldn't have come from anywhere else.
Much of this was to do with the stories Pulp told. Growing up in my native Doncaster meant it was only £2 on the bus to Sheffield Sex City, where you could see the window ledge where Cocker fell off trying to impress a girl, or catch a glimpse of keyboard player Candida Doyle drinking cider in The Leadmill. The bedsits and charity shops that their songs depicted spoke volumes to a South Yorkshire teenager who found little on television, let alone on the radio, that said anything about his life. In a Britpop scene that was ultimately macho, Pulp stood up for the working class, the intelligent and the weirdo. I'd like to thank them for making my youth bearable in the same way I'd also like to thank Mark & Lard and Flumps.
Does it matter that the rush of goodwill towards the band this morning means Pulp aren't outsiders any more? After all, wasn't this the band who asked us to pick a side in their Mis-Shapes video? Whose biggest hit, Common People, was as much a freak call-to-arms as it was the best song of the 90s? I'd like to think that it meant that we won, that it's OK to be strange, to be different and to stand out for the crowd. There hasn't been a band since who have embodied that with the same success as Pulp, but perhaps their legacy is more than just a handful of great records; whenever I visit Doncaster now I am jealous that young men in NHS glasses rarely have to run for their life from men in white shirts and fuzzy moustaches like I once did.
Next year I hope to watch Pulp headline Hyde Park. The only thing that could make me happier is if the members of Kenickie were to be stood behind me – looking quizzical of course.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Orange Juice – Coals to Newcastle: exclusive stream
Listen to highlights from Coals to Newcastle, a new six-disc anthology of the influential Glasgow band
Last week, the Guardian's chief pop music critic, Alexis Petridis, gave Orange Juice's Coals to Newcastle a four-star review, saying the band "dragged rock music further from its primal macho roots than anyone before had ever dared". Today, we have 18 tracks from the new six-disc release, including a new version of Lovesick and songs from the band's Peel session.
Tracklist:
Rip It Up (LP version)
Blue Boy
Three Cheers for Our Side (Peel session version)
What Presence?!
Bridge
Felicity (LP version)
Breakfast Time (Rip It Up Version)
The Day I Went Down to Texas
Lovesick (Postcard version)
Scaremonger
Consolation Prize (LP version)
Holiday Hymn (Peel session version)
Flesh of My Flesh (single version)
Poor Old Soul (Part One)
A Sad Lament
I Guess I'm Just a Little Too Sensitive
Blokes On 45 (Peel session version)
In a Nutshell (LP version)guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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