Blushing from Reynolds' descriptions of T.W.A.N.B.O.C. A compliment from the highest quarter. Realise I may have inadvertantly sounded a little down on UK Bounce, hence Simon's suggestion of my "road to Damascus" conversion. Here's my original letter in full in response to his suggestion that So Solid Crew were the new Sex Pistols:
"Isn't it ironic that punk has never had such a low currency culturally. It's not on the lists anymore is it? (maybe post-punk,but surely that's progs coda). For so long it was such a dominating influence- an inescapable year zero all those years, until we lost touch with what it really was about (thanks to Greil Marcus no doubt) I'm sure Eater, 999 and Chelsea were unavoidably part of it-cheap and nasty. Probably more so than The Clash and Buzzcocks (reputations intact).
For your info the tempo of the pirates has dropped right down. It's all crappy Swizz Beatz remakes with bad rapping, heard one track yesterday that made me want to vomit (all these detuned churning lower frequencies)- its funny cos ragga has sounded as repulsive these last couple of years and the pirates are mixing the JA tunes on an equal footing. Its hard to figure out where anything is coming from....
Of course there is the problem that hardly anyone is listening to it. HMV on Oxford Street has quartered their Garage bin... "There's just no demand for it" one employee told me. Does this mean we have to wait 14 years for Rave-punk-mainstream in the form of a seattle-based uk garage combo?
No ideals either just ugly ambition with the bad sonix-It sounds almost as bad as old-school hip-hop.And that's not to criticise it mind. This movement needs a better name too. Ditch the continuity of "rave", "gabba" and "garage" for starters.What about Spunk (speed garage+punk)? Will it catch on?"
I think perhaps the good Mr. Reynolds thought I was trying to shoot down his theory. Far from it, I was trying to suggest that the musical inversion I was hearing was a good thing. "crappy Swizz Beatz remakes"and "repulsive" (in reference to Ragga) were actually compliments, as was the report that one track made me want to vomit (what higher praise can there be?). That the music was headed back underground, and away from the High Street, was also, in my opinion a reason to be cheerful. "As bad as old school- hip-hop", why thats the other original nasty music, and nasty is of course good. Finally "bad sonix" and "bad attitude" were once again supposed to be punky compliments. I really meant it when I said "this was not to criticise it". The "open-letter" was a poetic attempt to reposition the vocab- to try and invert the usual modes of criticism. You know back to Jacques Attali, noise as subversion and all that kit. Oh well.........
As a brief coda it is interesting to note re:UK Bounce that many people were sitting around wondering "Is this Darkcore circa 1992? or Techstep circa 1997?" Everyone was wondering where the twist of darkness at the start on 2002 was taking us. The truth....somewhere completely different.
Posted by Woebot at January 22, 2003 12:46 PM