WOEBOT

Beatnik/AvantYob Addenda.

1. Brother/Sister thing
One of the first things that got left out of the original diatribe. The strange yin/yang thing going on with the Beatniks and AvantYobs. It seems every Beatnik has their AvantYob counterpart. The Clash vs The Pistols. The Beatles vs The Stones. The MC5 vs The Stooges. John Cale vs Lou Reed (tension!). The Streets vs Roll Deep. Madlib vs Diamond D. Porquoi?

2. Beatniks who think they're AvantYobs
Nothing I find more grating. Remember that whole Harder !Louder! Faster! thing? It was a Skam/VVM bundle put together as an AvantYob offering. Geez that made me cringe. I think it goes back to my description of myself being a Beatnik with his face pressed against the window. I wouldn't have the chutzpah to call myself an AvantYob. Reynolds insists he is one. It's possible to tie a knot in a piece of string and pull it so tight that you can't feel the knot is there, but trust me it is, ya get me. Perhaps it is possible, vis a vis the ultimate form of slumming it, when suddenly you find you're no longer a bohemian, you're a bum, as described by Dylan in "Like a Rolling Stone", or as pictured by Richard E Grant* in Withnail and I (Don't worry I won't start talking films! This aint like those other blogs written by normal people who have proper lives) But clearly to have an AvantYob record on your hipster-wishlist on the basis of a written reccomendation makes you a died-in-the wool beatnik. Heard it down the dance or on the pirates? Well maybe thats a different story.....Despite picking up Ardkore since 1991, I've begun to wonder how close I've become to those Robert Crumb/Terry Zwigoff Blues 78 collectors. At least I haven't started lamenting the absence of any other fulfilling music.

3. Roots Reggae as Conundrum
Here's a rum one. This is the "beat-scenius" 10 years of Joe the former TV Salesman, Osbourne the Electrical engineer and Keith the Dentist (that's one for the real afficionados out there to puzzzle out) making concious tracks. The cynic might say that Kingston sussed "foreign's" taste, and this is kind of upheld towards the end in Lloyd Bradley's Bass Culture tome, but it sure as hell is about 78% of the whole picture.

4. Detroit vs Chicago
Detroit Techno - Beatnik. Chicago House - AvantYob

5. The Rolling Stones
AvantYobs right up till last year and Mick Jagger's charming (not) little auto-biog film and solo LP.

6. France
All French people are Beatniks.

7. KLF
Greatest recent Beatniks. Burning a million pounds: "Eh Jimi we lost money on that one." You heard that gag here first.

8.Women
Not many women are AvantYobs. Despite Reynold's assertions, its a hell of a lot easier to be a girl and a Beatnik. Easy on me ladies now!

9.The Idnik TM
Not to be confused with the totalising Yobnik. The Idnik is a "mouse-breeder" in touch with his inner yob. Currently exemplified by MC Pitman and DJ Rupture.

*Thanks Tobes.

Posted by Woebot at February 13, 2003 12:08 PM