WOEBOT

Production.

The Bard of Stratford, the music journalist's poet has been holding forth against production values. For the sake of starting an argument I totally disagree (I'm getting the hang of the tub-thumping rant thing!) I find ANY culture oblivious to production bordering on the worthless. It's an unpopular thing to say I know. One's supposed to extol the virtues of the handmade blind to the quality of presentation. However the best DIY culture is always made to the most thorough standards possible. I believe the romanticisation of low production values is tied in (bogus-ly) to a woefully innacurate notion of "The Primitive" and Third World Culture. Those Third World denizens always take exquisite care in the production of their work.

And while I'm on the subject of thee amateur-ish The Punman is breaking my heart. He's taunting "record fan-boys" (Which I now take as the default term for me. I represent, ya get me! In da house!) that his archives of Deek (yes that's Deek NOT Derek) Bailey-styled pickings are not available for reissue. They sound like they might be the aural equivalent of Luka's blog (Fair?), and while I respect both poets with an intensity bordering on insanity, that may not be such good thing.

Penman also shares with us his mid-Paul Weller review epiphany. Ian, mate, slagging off Paul Weller's records is a creative act on a par with the opening chords of The Stooges "TV Eye". Get over it! Everything that is bad about Music Journalism is it's strength. Maybe I know fuck all (thinks, yep that's true) and certainly it's the prerogative at HIM AT THE TOP OF THE PILE, to indulge in "I'm too worthy" langours. But if it's not a "worthwhile" discipline, thank fuck!

On balance I think Eden is right. Luka's just lucky to be able to get away with it.

Considered Reactions to Peter Shapiro's Fela Kuti piece in The Wire.

Peter Shapiro is The Wire's secret weapon. He must have written more music journalism than any of the hallowed auteurs who occasionally contribute stuff to that mag. He's a hard-worker. However his best asset is his completely unimpeachable taste. Sure I want to read elegantly-written stuff, a nice turn of phrase, little poetic envisionings but in preference give me a nice hot tip. I'd rather a music journalist was fashioning a distinctive sound which he adhered to than a distinctive writing style. Shapiro's also written a nice wee book on Jungle, a very good spotters "Rough Guide" which performs the amazing trick of hardly doubling up any of Reynolds lightning swords of death from Energy Flash. He also did a CD compilation of the Hip-Hop/Jungle continuum on Virgin, which I'm now wishing I picked up. Prolific dude!

Listen to Shapiro from a review of the recent Ze records reissues: "Ze may have been style rag fodder both then and now, but that's only because its vision of the world was/is so seductive: that mythical place where style collides with substance, deconstruction makes a rapprochement with melody and hooks, and groove is embraced by distortion." I have tremendous sympathy with that. Certainly that's the crucial element I have found diminishing in The Wire, and it's heartening to know it's still on the agenda. Doubly important now that Muzik, which was beginning to look EXCELLENT, has gone down the tubes :-(

A perfect example of how sharp Shapiro can be came in his ginormous Fela Kuti Primer in this month's The Wire. Actually for him it was a bit rote and featured a few "Hey Daddy-O" slangings, deeply uncharacteristic in one so economic: "...if that guitar riff isn't based 100 per cent on James Brown, I'll eat the roaches from 100 of Fela's joints." From me that's a bit rich, but you EXPECT personality-obsessed guff here! I've yet to sink to Fat-Freddy-isms. Me, me, me, Ah that's better.... Back to the article, he settled on Roforofo Fight as one of the Fela Records to really check, and I slapped my forehead, (talking to myself) "You goon! THAT'S the best Fela Kuti LP." If you return to that Sunny Ade piece on June 29th I'm going on about "Open and Close" as the apogee. Typical bad research (I own both natch) because Roforofo Fight is amazing for just the same reasons, it's incredibly focused, AND it's horn charts are sorted AND there's a political agenda. It's a 15 minute wave, while so often Fela's stuff is a muddy puddle. Go seek!

Sean Paul takes a bash-ing.

Lukewarm appraisal for Sean Paul at Blissblog. It should be made abundantly clear that Sean Paul (I don't care if he was born in a rusty bucket at Halfway Tree) is the pwetty mass-market face of dancehall. I cannot stand him. I WILL NOT STAND FOR SEAN PAUL!

Firstly it's that "firstname" "firstname" name. Get a proper moniker mate, like "Shagga Blanks" or "Bimmer Plates" or "The Leopard" or "Dastardley Mutley". Then he has the insult to look like a Calvin Klein underwear model (with his clothes on at least). To make dancehall you HAVE to look like an ugly bastard. This is a time-honoured tradition from Yellowman onwards. The dynamic works like this: Ugly man acquires wealth, fame and beautiful girls through a heady combination of over-powering self-belief, gravelly voice and audience pity (I'm not talking about First World-->Third World pity). I feel no pity for Sean Paul. Only spite.

Wayne Wonder, now that's different, one of the Mrs's favourite tracks is Wayne's "I'd die without you", my own personal lovers-rock favorite from 1992. Sounds just like "Word Beez"-era Scritti. Wayne wins respekt through devotion to the cause. As for the other Diwali interlopers, Lumidee! Too late darling. Word on the grapevine is that Elton John is planning to do a take on the riddim!* I've done my own version which is the B-Side to 50 bytes: "In Da Blog", called "Oooh Baby I love you!"

Did anyone see the MTV Base Reggae special the other day. An 'orrible woman in a peaked cap at Tuff Gong with their conspicuously white *new signings*. Are white people allowed to make Reggae? Not if they look like Boyzone, no! And on a fake Reggae bashing tip this from Ozzie Pete. When I get round to it I'll fill you in on my fave dancehall 7"s of the year, maybe even get some mp3 action in there.

No I wouldn't Call it Techno.

Hot on the heels of the Detroit Extravanganza here is one of my favourite comics from 1994.

***CLICK THE IMAGE - AND KEEP ON CLICKING***

Bottom of the Fridge.

First up a big hi to Dan Curtin who dropped me a nice note to say that "Biotic" is one of his tracks, not Kenny Larkin's. Dan is also NOT from Detroit, but I reckon (unlike Mark Ryder, honcho of SubBase too? I'm unsure but...) he's gonna have to reconcile himself to a 313 zip code. I love it when famous people email me! By the way Reynolds said (clears throat) "Amazing Detroit piece!" so he's not mad at me. Why should he be anyway? Back to work now Simon.

Second, Wotcha to Marcus at Rephlex who put out a Future Sounds Compilation (Chicago). I mentioned this already, but GO BUY! I was a bit down on some of the UK Techno crew, which naturally doesn't include the Rephlex stuff, different game going on there. Some of the early stuff (groan) is really nice. I have all those B12s and ARTs and even a few of Slater's early 12's as well as a well-documented Black Dog fetish (all their stuff AMAAAZINNGG). But later on (quite quickly) that scene just doesn't have the same frisson for me, sorry guys. There were too many other splendid things going on.

Great spotter-ish stuff at Eden's. I intend to find a copy of "Heathen Earth", Meme also rates it highly. On the subject of Paul check his GREAT Ragga mix at Bassnation as well as Eden's New Roots mix. Ah what chums we are!

Hello also to the Techno crew Maarten and Marsel, who's site I can't log on to, I'm presuming because it's so mash-up over there.

I've been listening to the Dizzy Rascal LP, squeezing it in here and there (suddenly I'm massively busy with work, how did that happen?) Here is my review:

"It's great! It's slow!"

In my role as (ahem) one of the UK Garage Ambassadors I've made Jay Shorthand and Portuguese Jose (both died-in-the-wool Metallers like myself) swear they'd check it out. Watch that space! I should have mentioned to Tim Skykicking that I have an embargo on ALL slow UK Garage. Sorry, no one else is allowed to write about that!

Finally, my fave track right now? 50 pence "In Da Pub" of course! Why isn't everyone raving about it? I'll bet they like it at Spizzazzz. Been trying to get Luka to team up with me (I need his kid-sterati cred, gotta keep up with these young fellows) to do 50 bytes "In Da Blog". Stay tuned!

29 Detroit Techno 12"s.

This started out innocently enough. That's to say with me combing through my racks for 10 Detroit choons. Then it got out of hand. The mission was to dig up the obscurer records. Not Strings of Life, but slightly less well-known classics. It turned out to be easier than I'd first thought. There were SO many awesome records which came out of Detroit. In the end I just though fuck it. Don't ration like a tinker, bosh it out. GO MAD! So if you're used to reading tidy digestable wee posts from me, apologies.

Detroit now has a slightly tarnished reputation. When I started buying these records it was often a word-of-mouth affair. Hushed tones and all that. Or taking chances, following hunches and trusting one's own ears. Then quite quickly the history was assembled, and as soon as that happens, well people walk away, cock a snook. Or they have a knock. Ascribe things to it which are easily targeted at an edifice. Reynolds, god bless him, had lots of fun for ages puncturing the myths that had accrued around Detroit Techno. I have a sneaking suspicion that he has a fondness for it, references seem to be creeping back in to it in his writing via The Mover (Suburban Knight "Art of Stalking") and 4Hero (well documented Detroit link-up). Did you witness the roasting he got at the hands of Kirk Degiorgio, which quickly revolved around differing perspectives of "The True History of Detroit", go back to his first blog entry. Kirk (with friends like these Detroit doesn't need enemies) made a big play of insider chat that he had heard in Detroit. That Mayday only said he liked Frankie Goes to Hollywood to get a record deal. That they infinitely preferred George Clinton to Cabaret Voltaire. I'm tempted to think that they told Degiorgio what he wanted to hear. All this "Detroit-Techno-is-a-tradition-emerging-from-Jazz-Funk" is nonsense (er that's about 3 Blue Note records, Herbie Hancock's "Nobu" and "Sextant" and Bernie Worrell and Julian Priester's synth work) as opposed to the more balanced view that it's largely an extension of the line that runs from "The Model" to "Planet Rock". For crying our loud! That Detroit took to Visage and The Flock of Seagulls, as opposed to swallowing the standard tradition was what made it interesting. Kirk seems oblivious to the fact that the Detroit crew find him charismatic BECAUSE he's a white european, he seems to factor out himself in the whole situation, like it's plain to see that as an honorary black man he fits with this crew.

While I was backing Reynolds over the Degiorgio tiff, Simon did singlehandedly knife Detroit in the back. The general critical consensus swung towards Ardkore as the tradition to watch as a consequnce. Bravo Reynolds, that's clout! It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. You'd even read Mayday in interviews going: "For fucks sake! The Music Institute was just a club! All this stuff is boring ancient history. Detroit, GET OVER IT!" You'd be hard pushed to fight a case for Detroit-influenced music, essentially because what has spun out of Detroit has been too reverential, and I'm talking here about the whole Luke Slater, Neuropolitique, Degiorgio, B12, Speedy J and Stefan Robbers thing as well as the Wax Doctor, Alex Reese late Moving Shadow thing. There's been too much reduction, not enough addition. The best music which followed the Motor City's lead, The Black Dog, Basic Channel, The Mover has added to it, or has just not taken THAT much on board. It's hardly Detroit's fault is it? It doesn't negate something's value if it's progeny is considerably less worthwhile does it! However, when it comes to Reynolds' critique of Detroit (as opposed to it's effect), I put the book down and look puzzled. Are we really talking about the same thing? Detroit Techno gets labelled delicate, as sporting water-colour synths, is described as being all perfect sleek shiny surfaces, as being devoid of excitement. It just doesn't match what I've heard.

The "other" book on Detroit was Kodwo Eshun's "More Brilliant than the Sun". Which is, of course, perfection incarnate. I guess it's fairer to say that it's an Underground Resistance book. And, despite sound rejoinders like "Dusseldorf was Detroit's Mississippi Delta" it's largely Afro-Astro-Centric, taking Greg Tate's cyber-negritude and amplifying it. I don't have a problem with Kodwo's reading at all. It's supremely imaginative, it's just that it's so polemical it's spotless. So beautifully breathlessly concieved it doesn't take in all Detroit's messy undercurrents. Kodwo doesn't get bogged down in the whole socio-cultural currents tedium either, he leapfrogs between the nodes, Buckminster Fuller to Nick Land. Thats FINE he clearly didn't set out to write a history of Detroit (you know, how boring!), it's just that Detroit's PR problem has become that it's too fantastical, too glacial and too lofty, when truth be told, when the chips are down, its rough-as-fuck BUST-YO-ASS dance music.

So why am I presenting these trax for your attention? Firstly, naturellement, to show off what a trendy young chappy I am, how cognisant and eagle-eyed I am (raises forfinger to chin, raises eyebrows, purses lips). Secondly, and of course less importantly, to try and open up the canon a bit. Make things a bit messier. Devolve attention away from the "classic" records of the Belleville 3 (though they get a look-in of course). Thirdly, there is a MAJOR secret agenda, which will become clearer to readers of my ongoing waffle later this year. On a more pastoral note there are two very good compilations out on Planet E at the moment, Double EP-style, called Detroit Techno Classics (or something) which I can recommend highly. I'm not going to offer this lot up as mp3s, not because I want to underscore the myth, but because in this case it'd be too like ripping off the artists.

1. Dan Curtin: 3rd From The Sun EP.
On Sinewave records. One of those blink and you miss them imprints that also put out a John Beltran 12". This is before Curtin got to make those LPs. If The Belleville 3 were "The First Wave of Techno" and UR and +8 et al were the Second, this along with the Red Planet things is the Third. My attention waned at this point. After this there were KHand, Plastikman, Flexitone things like that and I lost interest. The stand-out track here is "3rd from the Sun" itself: a bubbling 303, infolding drums, super-fast crunching microbreaks and forbidden planet tonalities. Wicked tune.

2. Blake Baxter: When a Thought Becomes You.
There are a few great non-UR records on the UR label. That Suburban Knight one is good. Shoot me down but I'm not THAT big a fan of UR. Some records excepted. This is ace. Blake's "Sexuality" is the bomb, not included in this list because everyone knows it (?). That is one VERY raw tune. Prima facie evidence of Detroit corpulence. Sounds like a miner in a giant baked-bean tin. This is Baxter in Jamie Principle sexual-whispers mode. Just like the stuff K.Alexei perfected on "All for Lee-Sah". A nursery harmony. Electro-paen to his broken heart. Floppy plastic drums. Curdling acid fill gives way to modulating bassic melody. Baxter reclining pensive-prostrate in lovers dreadlocks.

3. Dan Curtin: Space EP.
Metamorphic was Dan Curtin's own label. He put out other peoples stuff too. I know 4Hero loved this record, they licensed some stuff for the Deeper Shade of Techno compilation they put out on Reinforced. Damn I wish I'd bought that. It's too easy to be sniffy about comps. As Kodwo says they're one of the artforms of the 21st century. I've actually got another Detroit feature up my sleeve, 10 great Techno compilations, I'll get round to that sometime. It's easy to tell why Dego and Marc liked this though....breakbeats! On the epic "Envision" congas do battle with too-precise martial drumfills. Colliding multi-tiered breakbeats build impossible t-t-tension. Sinewave drones pair and part. At the end it all gives way to a 33-pitched pile-up, tribes on mars kind of vibe.

4. States of Mind: Elements of Tone.
This was the first release on +8. Richie and Jon were chuffed to bits when Derrick May picked it up. It's almost too quaint. At the start you think "Oh No!" zimmer-techno. Then, however, gourgeous vocal synths soar and a cute push-me-pull-you bassline joins the fray before, arching above the mesh, the most seductive subdued almost inaudible bleep-hook. You sit out the middle eighth early-warp-style break just dying for that refrain. Oooh! As sexy as "We are the Music Makers". The best of these Detroit tracks are just working out their own inner logic.

5. Neal Howard: To be or not to be? (Mayday Mix)
Future sound was a Chicago label. There's plenty of to-ing and fro-ing between the Chicago scene at this point and Detroit. Actually it's a wonder there wasn't more. On reflection there was almost a mutual-appreciation thing going on, rather than anything more solid. This is a first-wave record. Rephlex did a Future Sound compilation. This was a big tune so you can see all the Future Sound Chicago players got to turn their hand to a mix, Terry Baldwin, Bad Boy Bill etc. Mayday's mix is the peach, lopsided and organic sounding with an improbable flowing bleep riff spilling out of the grooves. Think this music is all serious? Well check the super-silly fairground bassline as it wheels around and rolls up the sides. Kevin Saunderson's "Perpetual Motion" also worth a look-in.

6. F.U.S.E: Approach and Identify.
I never did dug Richie Hawtin's later stuff. Jon Aquaviva was a former Disco DJ and he brought loads of flavour and colour to their music. I interviewed them once and Richie sat there clammed up like an insect, "observing me", while Jon rabbited on garrously. You can see where the whole minimalist Plastikman project came from, there's an almost uneven fit between the rushier aspect of this and it's "Futuristic Underground Sonic Experiments" intent.
"Approach and Identify" is a GREAT track, impossibly bassy with BLEEPS floating severed. "Phase I" on the flipside also has it's adherents, nicely chopped up vocal hook. If I was being unkind (here goes), while lovely, this and the States of Mind record date like nothing else i'm putting together here.

7. M-D-EMM: Get Acidic.
Good gosh! Early obscure-ish Transmat action. Features the skills of later Striktly Underground boss, Junglist Londoner Mark Ryder. So in fact absolutely nothing to do with Detroit Techno. This is heathen! It takes a laid-back and arsey angle on (Chicago) Acid. Rough squelches compete to out-demonise one another. This rolls along like Ardkore. I love the "Acid House" whispers, nuff flavour! And those Throbbing-Gristle-spirited whooshes. I'd say play it at my funeral but you'd never know where I'd end up.

8. Paperclip People: Oscillator.
Wha! Who says Detroit is all spick and span synths. For a while Carl Craig was using nothing but breakbeats, as on this banging disco monster. Absolutely rocking! I guess this is the secret sister to "The Climax", which as any spod knows is the record-collectors Detroit Techno Holy Grail. Don't have a copy myself, only the re-issue. The esteemed Dr. Lloyd Beryl owns a copy and my friend Gwen did too. Gwen sold his to James Lavelle for top dollar. And who says Detroit can't and do cheesy and norty sampling like Ardkore can? This is Snap's "I've got the Power" looped up and filtered to distraction. Yeah! And on that Piece record on Planet E he samples Duran Duran's "The Rephlex". Simon LeBon snatched by multi-dimensional monsters. Oooooh!

9. Octave One: I Believe.
Another bit of rare Transmat. One mix of this made it on to the 10 records "Techno 2" compilation, notable for featuring Psyche's "The Elements", which didn't get a conventional release elsewhere (at the time). However it's Magic Juan's mix which is the one you want, not the original. Think Timbaland. It's got a rolling synthsoul bassline, backwards-bossa percussion, and moaning laydee. What basslines these records have! Ardkore's basslines are almost uniformly weedy, despite it's much vaunted connections to Jamaica. It's only post, or during, Darkcore, under the auspicies of an investigation into sonic possibilities that they sort out the lower end. Just in time for the Dred invasion. Damn it's corny, and Damn it's an under-rated virtue, but all these records are so well-produced. Yeah we know the logical conclusion is Deep Dish, but this lot didn't have million pound synthesisers and pro-tools rigs the size of appartments, they just used fairly limited kit elegantly and stylishly. Bringing to mind Holger Czukay's PERFECT four-track recordings of Can. It takes genius to exploit minimal resources. You wouldn't buy a picture you couldn't see would you!

10. Carl Craig: Suspiria.
How the heck Craig wring that plangeant other-wordly sound he got on the Retroactive records from the same machines as everyone else? Retroactive, in case you didn't know is the champion of all Detroit labels. More distinctive than the recognised market-leading brand Transmat/Fragile. There's a looseness and roughness to the Retroactive sound. No edge is sharp. Every texture oscillates and pixelates. Suspiria is octopine many limbed, almost ungainly, but intentionally so. The 21st century ballad of "Wrap me in its arms" on the other side is one of my personal faves. When Sarah Gregory's gaussian blurred vocal stretchs over the dubbed out bass and percussion bridge I struggle to regain composure. That glinting 2 finger refrain. Those vocals utterly unmannered, depressed and exquisite. Not a quiet storm cliche in sight.

11. Carl Craig: Wonders of Wishing.
On another of those blink and you'd miss it labels Eclipse. This got factored into DJ Rap's limpid Journeys By DJ set at the time when Fabio was spinning Innerzone Orchestra's "Bug in the Bassbin" at 45. I heard him do that and it sounded shit. This is nice, it has a lagoon-ous intro then a glitched-out vocal hook which swerves around pitchwise. The bass and drums play catch up.

12. Psyche: A.R.T. EP3
From all my slagging off of Kirk deGiorgio you'd think I wouldn't appreciate his contibutions. Well no. The first batch of records on ART, right up to Elegy's "Tone Poem", were great UK Techno. He also did the world an unrepayable favour by putting this out. Every track of which is stunning, from insane uptight dream disco bebop of "Chicken Noodle Soup" to the come-down bliss "How the West was one." As for the ambient mix of "Neurotic Behaviour", the remix of which came out on the earlier Transmat Psyche EP, well words can't do it justice. Portentous yes! But also unbelievably powerful. Check that swaggering propulsive mid-range weft. I'd say wobble but Finney'd slap a writ on me. Records with this "weight" you just don't hear these days.

13. Suburban Knight: The Groove.
The precursor to his genre-defining classic "The Art of Stalking" (God striking matches) this is more fun if less thrilling. Essentially a step on from Raze's "Jack the groove" I adore it's "Ooh that's Hot" and "House Groove makes you move" snatches. On reflection the moment all those "Yer bad sister" hiccoughs got cleaned out of the Think break then Jungle was nearly dead. Compare the original of Dillinja's "Deep and Deadly Subs" with the remix. Ou est la fromage?. Once again, to return to the matter in hand, check that PREPOSTEROUS bassline, the whole track rides it like an Indian family on top of a train.

14. Sueno Latino: Sueno Latino (Mayday mix)
The King of Treble! From that time circa Rhythim is Rhythim's "The Beginning" (the end surely?) when Derrick was just stupidly overwhelmingly brilliant. ABLAZE! When artists reach effervesant combustion, you've just got to sit back and admire them. They're somehow able to make the simplest uncluttered gestures. Wow! Obviously a key part to the whole E2-E4 micro-history, this is it's apogee. By a long margin. I actually played this to Mr. Reynolds when he came round to my house in (was it?) 1998. He LOVED it! Angels frolicing in the jetstream. I Weep.

15. Kosmic Messenger: Soundscape.
Again on Eclipse. Stacey Pullen was great. His "Ritual Beating System" EP on Fragile is really good. Particularly "Wave the Rave Goodbye" off that. This is another bassline-led tune with trilling bleep riff. I heard Mr.C. play this at a free Rave I went to in Yorkshire in 1993. Mr.C, despite being the incarnation of the super-dodgy "Ebeneezer Goode", always used to play really "purist" Techno. After his set (6 A.M.), me ducking out to my mashed-up car parked in the field to roll joint after joint, I gave him a tape of Krautrock in thanks for the party. Harmonia's first on one side and Popol Vuh's "Seligpreisung" on the other. And he just sneered at me. You know thanks would have been nice. What a twat! If you're reading this Mr.C fak off!

16. Psyance: Motion.
Amazing tune on +8. Clickety-fingers intro then pneumatic bassline drops. Stick out your boom! Ron Allen went Techno-Soul eventually if my shot-to-pieces excuse for a mind serves me right. "EQ" on the flip also brilliant. You don't see these +8 tracks around like you used to.

17. Open House: Seven Day Weekend.
On Nu Groove, the very definition of a New York Label. There is a bit of a NYC/Detroit cross-over. Mark Kinchen and Area 10 records etc. A nice little tune, elegant bassline, and racing cymbals. Can't hold a candle to "Aquatic" though.

18. Reese: Just want another chance.
Kevin's "dark" alter-ego. Incognito also put out Blake Baxter's "Sexuality". Hardly an obscure record, though unlike the Metroplex/KMS/Transmat nexus, which has serviced it's back catalogue extremely well, you can't get the Incognito stuff. For a while it seemed the shops had so many Transmat records they couldn't give 'em away. Still that's no bad thing. That bassline. Hear it in "Deep Deadly Subs" AND Groove Chronicles' "Stone Cold". You can't fault it. A stacatto castanet intro then it OOZES.

19. Reese: Funky Funky Funk.
In which everything, drums and all, is rendered as a stab. This seethes and boils. Alarms shrill and whorl. My copy is not the Fragile release but the Network one. Green and plays inside to the out. In fact I like all the non-authentic issues I have of this stuff, they're more genuine. The original imports of these were so rare about 10 people got them. Though if you get to see the original labels of this Detroit stuff leap at the opportunity. I only have one early original of Rhythim is Rhythim's "Beyond the Dance". It's a quaint handmade-looking drawing of a geometric head with shades on. The one of Carl Craig's "Galaxy" I've seen is exquisite. The temptation with those graphics was to make them sleeker and more corporate, but the originals cottage-industry look undercut the blazenly futuristic sound within very nicely.

20. Octave One: Octivation EP.
On 430 West. I like the track "Nicolette". I wonder if this has anything to do with the SUAD chanteuse. Clean popping bassline, cloudy riffs and swings around a 7-part bleep. Nice!

21. MK: Feel the Fire.
Gwen told me he used to play this in the morning. They'd get up in their freezing flat turn on the 3-bar electric heater slip this on and dance around like loonies. Geddit? I used to play this out ALOT. You could guarantee people would go mental to it. Another nail in the coffin of the "Detroit music is Wimpy" myth. A Black Box sample dancing on a cymbal loop. MOTOR disco bass. That riff becoming insistent. Vocal immediately snaps into full focus before flipping back in rough contrast. Also great here is "Never on a Sunday". A bleeptastic finger-snapping take on Mayday's "Illusion."

22. Underground Resistance: Sonic EP.
Unnaccountably missing from Kodwo's book, presumably factored into the "Revolution for Change" LP, as a stand-alone EP it excels. On a good day my favourite Techno record ever. I'm at the bar talking to my bird. "Orbit" comes on the PA and I start to sweat, my face begins to contort involuntarily. Those spooked-out effortlesly sinister chattering FX give way to a rolling bassline (no more than a sinking and rising pitch) Now I'm stripped to the waist on the dancefloor with a Vicks inhaler in each nostril. Halfway through the track and I'm rubbing myself with a prime cut of beef. Hunt this record down! "Predator" is also out of this world, nay EVEN better!

23. Kenny Larkin: Metropolis.
Kenny was a stand-up comedian on the side. Ha ha. Always struck me as a shame that he failed to deliver beyond the early tracks he did. His one on the first Artificial Intelligence compilation (great music, BORINNGG concept) was also ace. That LP he did for Warp was dreary. "Metropolis" is built on a distorting bass pattern. Actually it sounds very like Wiley's stuff, same eyeball-vein thrombosis effect. "Colony" is a natty bit of Forth World posturing.

24. Reese: Forcefield.
Reese here almost as hot as on "Just want another Chance". Lots of stabs. Repeat after me in Darth Vader styled voice: "Force...Field". AGAIN a bassline track.

25. Constant Ritual: Hardway to Come.
Jeez I'm a saddo. This was a Promo which accompanied the second Network Techno Compilation. Nice wider grooves and fatter production than on the elpee. But Look! I've painted over the label so as to disguise from my brother the fact that I've nicked it off him. Seriously I will not be thanking anyone who tells him! Vice's Jay Denham in ambient mode. All micro tension. Can I say Micro here Phil? Is that OK? Pivoting on one of those characteristic 2 finger bleep riffs. Steamy shunting drums. I played this to my Dad once. He thought it was boring. It's ace!

26. Kenny Larkin: Biotic.
Another bit of Promo action. Makes one soberly reflect on all the great music we mortals never get to hear, which circulates on dub-plaes and white labels. THAT's the real story of Detroit. This is sooo Aquatic, and actually mixes up a treat with that track. Possibly a little before Drexciya, so aqua-pioneering. Drexciya I'd class as Fourth Wave and I've never really dug them, a bit too austere. Not clubby enough for old hotpants here. I do have "Deep Sea Dweller" which is nice, especially "Sea Snake" off that.

27. Morgan Geist: Quadri-Locular.
Which came up in conversation with Dan Setzer, Morgan's buddy, the other day. Yeah he's no spring chicken. I had this for nearly ten years before he scored big-time with Metro Area, which I also rate, particularly the third EP. He's been doing the same shit for years too it appears. "Spillway" off this is beautiful digital disco. Strange! Like Ramsey & Fen's "Love Bug" it's got queer 1930s Charleston overtones.

28. Art Vader EP.
I'm not sure if this is a bootleg. It's got "Tell Alexei" by K.Alexei Shelby, one of his characteristic "moan" tracks: "Tell Alexei how much you love him", nice Steve Poindexter-esque whistles and shekere. That figues K.Alexei was from Chicago too. Art Vader EP also features Mayday's "Wiggin" without the steel drums that spice it up on the "Innovator" Network 6-tracker, which I aint seen on Transmat.

29. Open House: Aquatic.
Another monster Retoactive tune. Somebody PLEASE do a proper reissue of this stuff! Lovely sleeve drawing by Alan Oldham (see Pedro bell and Limonious). Whales innit.

Well that was fun if a little exhausting. Now I know how Marcello feels! Anyway do you get the point? That's to say there is alot more heterogeneity to the music of Detroit than is given justice to in the current critical climate. Detroit-vs-Ardkore. It's not a competition!

Industrial Strength Acid.

Funny and sly open letter from Paul Meme. I'd put the On-U project under some other heading. And Neubauten. And 23 Skidoo. And Joy Division. And Colourbox. And Cabaret Voltaire. As for Lee Perry and Miles Davis! Though granted with CV it becomes a "greyer area", greyer still with Killing Joke.

Paul actually made an interesting point about the bleed from Industrial Music into Acid House. Many of the "Industrial" crew got fed up with the misery and boredom of the scene, and chucked in the towel (or re-visioned themselves, depending on how you view the transformation). 400 Blows, who Paul checks, featured The Moody Boys' Tony Thorpe. Youth was the bass-player in Killing Joke. And Weatherall was a TG disciple etc. Psychic TV (Gen) gave us Jack the Tab. Even the "core-players" went day-glo, Coil's "Love Secret Domain" for instance. In truth even Detroit outfits like Jeff Mills's "Final Cut" were evolving out of that other spin on "Industrial" music, Belgian Hard Beat (Nitzer Ebb et al).

If I was being naughty I'd ascribe this to another of those "Ha Ha look who else is claiming to have invented Techno" asides. Isn't it amazing how so many scenes started throbbing in synch with one-another at the dawn of Acid? How much common ground was created through ecstacy! Of course it wasn't solely to do with the drugs. In the study of the English Language there are similar moments when a whole range of interlocking factors suddenly click into position and produce a monumental reorganisation. "The Great Vowel shift" for one. It'd be a really cool project to do a "Pre-Energy Flash" tome, kind of like the Star Wars prequel, to Reynolds's dance music book. Any publishers up for sending me down a rabbit hole?

Aphex Twin Correction.

"If it's the mix I'm thinking of, it's actually Meat Beat Manifesto. The confusion seems to be down to a mislabelled MP3."

From Phil Wilkins, I've snooped about a bit and he must be right. To my eternal shame. Hope Marcus at Rephlex isn't reading this. I was so delighted when I first ID'd that track. I had a tape of that set Derrick did, and that particular track eluded me for years. Other highlights were Fingers Inc "Can U Feel it?" sped up to +8 with the treble EQ'd in and out, what sounded like a dubplate mix of Mayday's "Phantom", and Interceptor's "Forever" (I'll dig Murk till the day I die). Derrick used to LOVE playing at Pure, folk went totally wild, those parties were infinitely more unhinged than you'd suspect with the sterile reading Techno gets vis-a-vis Ardkore. Maybe everyone was too uptight in London. You know, too concerned with the track listing ;-) That tape got nicked from my car in 1993. I hope the twat who stole it enjoyed it, or died soon after (one or the other, I'm not too picky)

(Only!) Three "Industrial" records I rate.

Coil: The Snow (Aphex Twin Mix)
Which I heard Derrick May spin at Pure.
Bad vibes looped and writ large.
Look whose been rolling around in the muck!

Stereolab with NWW: Simple Headphone Mind
Awesome.
Which Reynolds gave me on tape and I eventually tracked down in its silver pop-art plastic bag.
A must hear for all Krautrock fans.

Throbbing Gristle: Hot on the Heels of Love
Played to me by my friend Famous Record Producer who runs the Earful club.
A bit TOO stern, but great pellucid electro nonethless.

Ooh aren't I the trendy one!

Losing my cool...

Open letter to Jon Eden and Paul Meme.

Quote from an email from Paul Meme:

"I'm saying your critique of industrial music is unfair and unbalanced. You can't raise the spectre of satanic child abuse without engaging with the veracity or rather lack thereof of that phenomenon. You certainly set up a manichean post-Xtian dichotomy where industrial music is at the "bad, dark, evil" end and some sort of "white light" Xtianity is at the other end without engaging in a more intelligent analysis of what is purported to be "evil" and in particular what is purported to be "good".

(excerpted)

I'm quite comfortable with you slagging off crappy exploitative industrial music -- been there, done that, got the t-shirt. You should have seen the anti-exploitation flyers me and John used to send off back in the old days. What I am not comfortable with is having the whole scene, the whole philosophical position, being jammed together as if it were all equally intellectually and spiritually bankrupt, which is not the case, and more especially when you accuse the whole lot of being conducive to "real evil" without thinking through just who is evil and who wreaks the most damage.."

I'm beginning to sense through your (and the excellent Biroco blog) that there is a well-weathered form of discourse in the culture you emerge from of "the rant", brow-beating and one-upmanship. Fired up with a few pints at the Dog and Duck surrounded by fellow "ranters" all having a larf it'd make perfect sense. I can picture the camaraderie and "bonhomie".....

(Apologising for responding irately to Paul's previous and blunter email) Maybe it just doesn't carry online unless you're acquainted with it. As for the content of what I've said well, who cares if we're in agreement? I'm beginning to suspect that while there is a healthy coalesence online with the blogs, a chummy consensus, there is also a danger of homogeneity. That's part of the reason I took k-punk to task. Stylistically superficial in one sense, but a serious issue too. We don't want one HUGE lovey dovey bundle of agreement? Do we? We want difference to be respected!

Thought about the industrial thing long and hard. Paul thinks I'm positing Christianity at one end and Satanism at the other. I think you (Uncarved) spotted that I wasn't. I've no truck with either really. Two sides of the same coin. I don't see a Transendental Positivism (form a queue, no pushing at the back!) having much to do with either. My main problem with that scene is that, and this is the third time I've said it*, it's project revolves around using symbols society construes negatively in a positive manner. But that often it just becomes about "rolling around in the muck."

Vis a vis Satanic Panic. I had no idea you were involved in that Gen Porridge thing. (Eden apparently nearly arrested on the basis of totally unfound allegations) Crikey you guys! I know all about that actually, and from interviews with him believe the rumours were unfounded. In the piece I wrote I was referring to something quite else I'd seen (and gee thanks for bringing it up). It wasn't a TG record sleeve. Also with regards to the experiences of my friend in Glasgow- this is all first-hand stuff, not from the press. From the things up at uncarved (yikes), and Jon's comments on the blog I sense that your not ENTIRELY in disagreement. Paul mentioned anti-exploitation rallies you'd attended etc.

I'd like to be able to be kinder about the music. You're obviously acquainted with the Industrial movement as a CULTURE, as such it's very rich and deep. However, the music seems ancillary to the scene, not even the focal point for gatherings like Talking Stick. Industrial music seems to exist outside the rhizomes that thread most other musics together. Points of entry from other musics are few and far between, stronger threads link it to literature and occult practise. A music which essentially performs a totemic or social function sets my alarm bells ringing. Notwithstanding the fact that music without an attendant culture is empty and flat, I want to hear music which is PRIMARILY a sonic experience. Only bits and pieces of "Industrial" music I've heard have managed to transcend this.

As for lumping it all together, well maybe that is a bit wicked of me. Some contributors have said NWW don't belong in there. However I've heard TG, Whitehouse, Coil, NWW and Current 93 all complain in separate interviews that they were unhappy with being lumped in the "Industrial scene". That's so rich! Refuse entry at the door for paying customers wearing fellow-travellers T-shirts or sporting facial piercing, ponytails, stovepipe hats, penny spex or wispy goatees then! Yeah unfair to tar EVERYTHING with the same brush, but this scene sure as hell clings together. That Keenan book will set the glue like the second tube of Araldite.

Dubya likes Coil you know. He has all their CDs.

Rampant Anglophilia.

This is a picture of The Palace Guard one of those Nuggets-era psych-punk bands from the USA. They had a hit called "Falling Sugar", their one concession to practicality was not wearing Bearskins. One of my grandfathers (the milkman's dad) was a guard, I wonder if he was aware of this lot? Mmm, unlikely. Hard to imagine anything like this happening these days.

Though look at this:

More recent. No wave disco from 1985, the cover only slightly giving the game away (The Communist Party etc). Made ridiculous by patently affected British accents. Strange attractor here Joy Division/New Order not The Beatles.

Anybody got any more fun examples? There must be loads of this stuff! I think it's all dead healthy, the antidote to American Isolationism. Next week French people pretend to be Americans.

Mangled Code.

That whole "I like to exploit the faults within the machine" nonsense that electronic musicians espouse has fast become one of the new interview lowlights. Up there with perennial classics like "I don't like to be pigeon-holed" and "I've got extremely eclectic tastes".

On the other hand, with web-design it must be a comparatively rare notion. Vis a vis the goofy conclusion to that Penman/Production piece, I wanted to draw people's attention to Inglistan which is about as random, decaying and serendipititous as html gets.

RAAAAAAK!

Remember that ridiculous list of hip projections I put together a couple of months ago? I was practically praying that I'd "recoup my investment". Well, that's life isn't it, the more you put in, the more you get back. I've had it in spades, been lucky recipient of some totally fantastic inside tips, makes one feel a little like Delia Smith when she goes (of practically every recipe); "Thanks to Gaston, head chef at Le Caprice for this delightful chilled almond cream soup." Actually I've been hustling people for these jolies bijoux. And what's on the menu? Rock, my little darlings!

There's something deeply self-assuring about checking out Rock. That's what I started out listening to, and to go back to it is extremely validating. As if to say, YEAH, those values you held as a 15-year-old were spot-on. And yep "Dance" music doesn't negate all that stuff (the real agenda at stake with the mildly daft Cobain/Morosey/Sylvian Dizzy Rascal parrallels). Reach for Rock!

Thorns:Thorns

Nick Terry, former Editor of Terrorizer, and Slayer fan hipped me to this. Thorns is the vehicle for Snorre W. Ruch, Death Metal legend from Oslo, Norway. He, notoriously, was the getaway driver for a gang of nasties who murdered one of their competing metallers. Yeah I know some of the "beefs" on the blogs get out of hand, but this is ridikulous! I DO like this record, particularly "Shifting Channels" which is dead sludgy and "Vortex" with it's Penderecki-styled male choir and churning sooper-stoopid riff. Snorre plays "Electrically powered Devices" too, they call them synths in neighbouring Estonia. The lyrics are delivered in classic cobwebbed monster style. It's about a million times more entertaining than the latest Indie Rock toss, and you sense that, even though it's clearly not meant to affect YOU (the diehard crew ONLY), there's something at stake. Or at the stake.

Lightning Bolt:Lightning Bolt

And this came courtesy of Portugal's very own Jose Marmeleira, but I also noticed the charming David Stubbs thumbing them. All their artwork looks like this, a pile up of Bosch and Baselitz. I can identify too the guiding hand of Mary Jane. This isn't death-metal like the other two releases. Jonathon Selzer, another former editor of Terrorizor, has that genre pegged as THE font for interesting Rock of the last 5 years. He may be right. The Strokes-stoked garage-band revival was stymied by being too avowedly retro. Other sources of new Rock? Japan has plenty but it's too hippy and feedback-fixated for me (granted I've only heard some Boredoms, Magical Power Mako and Acid Mothers Temple) and the whole God Speed You Black Emperor!!!/Jackie O Motherfucker wotsit, while cool, is too worthy and too beatnik. Making friends here! Lightning Bolt sound like a supremely cultured metal band. Their spiritual forebears are more Creedence Clearwater Revival than Iron Maiden, though they share with metal those insanely quick arpegiatted riffs (NOT stabs, riffs). You're going to howl at me, but the structure of the LB stuff reminds me of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, particularly those extended, clockwork harpsichord solos. I got pilloried by the massive for this the other night ("11" and that), but it's all ringtones at the end of the day.

Old Man Gloom:Seminar III.

Last, and best of all was this, which I was tipped off about by the aforementioned Selzer, who looks like he may be reneging on the promise of sending me a batch of OMG mp3s (no worries mate, I've bought it now!) This record is utterly brilliant. Once again, like the Thorns fantastically portentous, a refreshing change from the flippant. This lot are from the States, but once again defiantly Metal. While the artwork of the Thorns screams Fincher's "Seven', these svelte sci-fi graphics, gracing sepia-tinted shots of the grand canyon, place it somewhere else iconographically, perhaps Tarsem's "The Cell". The one half-hour track on Seminar III is a slow-burning bad vibe epic peppered with movie samples. The first 5 minutes or so you don't hear anything at all! This crew have carried on where Black Sabbath's first LP left off. I'm going out on a limb here, but this may be as an important record as Tortoise's debut. SLOOOOOW and HEAVY! Highly reccommended.

The curious thing about these records is that, while they're not as instantly gratifying as dat latest garridge 12", I keep finding myself returning to them to listen a little more closely. They're cussed wee bastards, difficult to get a handle on, and that's a high compliment.

Christian Marclay.

What a great image! Marclay's curious. I'd find him really interesting if he wasn't working within the context of the exhibition. He's a bit like Mike "Destroy All Monsters" Kelley in that way. I don't get why putting the iconography of music within the gallery is illuminating. The gallery is like a fridge, it kills all life, makes it possible to analyse. I don't believe that it strips work of meaning per se, alot of artists make interesting work at this junction. It's just that music (emotion, sensation, involvement) isn't served by dessication. If Marclay was making a cold point about the machinations of the music industry then maybe I'd feel his stuff works as gallery art, but it's attraction lies in it's fetishism and record-collecting puns. Still there's loads of really fun things he's done. That floor of records you could walk over (the horror!), dragging that amped-up guitar behind a truck (from David Toop's Hayward Exhibition) and these record-sleeve collages are ace.

Penman--->PCMan

"I mean, thanks guys, to all the tech-heads I know ... who've written in saying, oh, Ian, but it's so simple!, just reconfigure your GIFs on an editing plane like Word and then copy, cut, paste, tie up, shoot up, nod out, and then re-rout your bunny ears thru a klactoveesedstein programme. Not forgetting to tie down your mainframe if there's a small wind blowing from the South. Well, yeah. But WHY SHOULD I?"

Not strictly a musicological observation, but falling within the context of one of my recurrent themes, that's to say plagueing celebrated music theorists (holds own head in hands...just ask Marcello). Noticed what almost looked like a reply from Penman, except for the fact that Julie Birchill and Tony Parsons probably proferred the same advice. He's cast BLOGGER as the enemy in this (semi-) hilarious ongoing fight with anonymous technological forces. In the old days I imagine they'd write their subjective 10,000 word free-flowing surrealist NME reviews on the dewey windows of the staff office, before absconding to the recesses of World's End to shoot amphetamine with the ghosts of Rimbaud and Celine. And yet the presses still ran! Self publishing innit, one does the hard bit too. (Autobiographical note) Did you know my Great-great-grandfather founded the Illustrated London News? Family business for a couple of generations. The first newspaper with pictures! First magazine? How the mighty...etc...etc...

Imagine if the the cheap package holiday that is electronic music encountered the same egotistic intransigence. There would have been no Ardkore if every pimple with a cracked copy of Cubase said: "I REFUSE to co-operate with this, it crashes all the time!" No, that's no fair, he does keep wrestling very publicly with his crackling interface. Maybe one day a real-live bug-in-the-bassbin will perform Burroughs on his text. Then he'll quit grumbling.

Da Stab.

The stab is Dave Tompkins' conceptual invention. He's the US scribe who talks like a twenty-clawed crab walks. Tompkins is almost impossible to understand unless you've shared the same breakfast cereal, swapped hubcaps with him, seen the Reds crush the Bronx Deltas together, beaten him at craps in the park, met his mum, traded Miami Bass 12"s and daytime soap plots. He apes hip-hop's game of popcult simile. It's easy to think he's missing the point; for me it's the SOUND of rapping which makes it soar; the cadence not the content. It's a shame because with his stuff on "the stab" he isolates one of THEE most pungent sonic cliches. There is a piece in the totally classic "Tuba Frenzy" zine (the one with the Richard McGuire cover) in which he goes into it in depth. Er, I guess I got about a third of what he was on about...

DJ Premier would be one of Tompkin's "stab" idols. The way Premier wields those hard-edged concussive riffs on All City's "The Actual" and let's the space between do the work, mmm, that's stabbing. Also the "torque", feedback sounding like a playstation trial-bike, which spills off the stabs of Miami Bass, is key to his stab pantheon. Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio", and it's quavering trebly squall is classed as one of the original stab tracks, and epitomises the snug fit of the very America-centric "Story of the Stab."

The real playground of the stab is Rave. Beltram's "Mentasm" features the stab-de-stabs. In Rave one is confronted by about a billion post-mentasm stab tracks worth mentioning. Interesting here is 4Hero's "Mr.Kirk's Nightmare". I reckon Dego and Mark Mac heard the Mentasm stab through Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio". Looking at Ardkore within the context of Soul and Funk is rarely considered worthwhile, but in this instance it's illuminating. "Scorpio" was hardly a transgressive flavour for SUAD, Danny Breaks and all the other "fast hip-hop" crew. It was famously one of Afrika Bambaata's "slay 'em" tunes, well and truly factored into hip-hop by Queen Latifah and De La Soul's "Mama gave birth to the Soul Children" It's easy to see how it's dissonant stabs could be aligned to Rave. Coffey's riffs were galvanised by Rock. However 4Hero were as much into the minor key riffing of Bob James' "Nautilus" or Roy Ayers' "We live in Brooklyn baby", with their coffee-coloured ambient stabs and Jazz-Funk tuning. That's what they heard in the (Black Sabbath influenced) minor key Mentasm riff. History bears this out. People were generally baffled (and the critics disgusted) by Rave music dovetailing into Jazz-Funk-lite, all that music which followed Good Looking records and EZ Rollers "Rolled into One". We shouldn't have been so surprised, this was what the stab meant to many of the raving crew, minor-key Jazz Funk riffs. Clearly born out by 4Hero's recent trajectory too.

It's been weird hearing this new Beyonce "Crazy" track. For a while it seemed like Timbaland's stabs on Ginuwine's "What's so different", Missy's 3rd LP, and that whole gamut of BBoy's on ecstacy that Reynolds was chronicling a few years back (Jay Z's "Snoopy Track", Memphis Bleek's "Is that your chick", Ludacris's "What's your Fantasy", and Ja Rule's "6ft Underground) were a stateside rebirthing of the ecstacy mentasm stab, the connection underlined by it's synth-etic implementation. It'd be quite easy to get all Jungian and Chomskyian about the primal nature of this stab riff. Weird hearing "Crazy" because that rushy riffy stabby chorus seems like equal parts "Scorpio" and WRK's "Corker" with shades of the maximalism of Sonz of Da Loop Da Loop Era's "Far Out". Bled into the red deliberately, what's on the face of it a scratchy superfly horns/guitar blow-out smudges and blurs in the white heat of feedback. Mmm, thats stabby!

Hey man, take it easy.....

Just got this postcard from David Sylvian. He's down on the beach with all the other bloggers. Dammnit, I'm sure that's Reynolds riding the surf! Sylvian said my hair piece was infested with errors. He always uses Alterna Shampoo and only EVER lets Nicky Clarke near his barnett. Sorry 'bout that David.

5 DJ Premier Classics.

I keep twitching at my lace curtains and filtering the phone-calls but I've yet to be contacted by any high-end record company lawyers. In fact, and please bear this in mind all you badass solicitors, I've sold quite a few records for you folk. The usual rejoinder. Blah blah blah. You know me, in more trouble than Paddington Bear!

Not going to get to wordy about this lot; I'm acquainted with these tracks better sonically than culturally, and I've said quite enough this week. Ya get me! This is a great DJ Premier site if you want to find out more about the all-conquering genius of Premo. Here is my selection of truly wonderful, vaguely obscure, Premier productions. Premier defined the mid-range woomph of hip-hop, and he's done lots of productions for loads of folk. Practically anyone who showed up at D&D Studios with a rhyme sheet got a nice little beat to walk over.

1. Jeru the Damaja: Me, Not the Paper (Remix)
The best Jeru track I've heard. Took me an age to track it down, as it doesn't seem to have an orthodox release. Sheer beauty.

2. OC: My World
Won this on a bid at eBay, then the seller turned out to be two blocks away (Pete at Smallfish!). I like Time's Up too, but I think thats someone else, not Premier.

3. Lady of Rage: Some Shit
This really busts out! She's one sassy lady.

4. Sunnyside: Finsta Bundy
It's unclear whether this is Premo or not. Ego Trip seem to believe it is. Actually the beats are better than the rap, but that sound perfectly captures the sensation of steam rising off summer-hot streets.

5. All City: The Actual
A joint production between Pete Rock and Premo, a rare example of a super-partnership actually working. Check those stabs! The LP is a bit so-so. I found this 12" on my recent NYC jaunt.

Get Well Soon...

...Dizzy.

Not forgetting.

Agony Shorthand
Who has also been talking about Amoeba Records in San Francisco (his local store, the bastard) and Scritti Pollitti. Nice lean posts with some great links, not least to Hyped to Death who are selling the AMAZING Messthetics CD-R series.*

*Do I qualify for a reduction NOW?

Silence.

The music blogs look like they've died a death! We'll let Reynolds off because he's GOT to work on that book. But to be honest ALL the other crew who've rushed into the fray have disappointed. Looks like Kodwo Eshun did a smart thing by holding back. I did send him those records you know, and despite letting him off the hook he swears he's gonna do one. Actually I hope he doesn't, maybe that's the push he needs ;-). Emoticons screw up your sentence structure. Had a good look around the other night (very thorough scan of about 30 blogs) and for my money the only people worth reading are this lot. Take note:

Heronbone
Luka is untouchable. Came in for HEAVY praise from Kodwo Eshun in an email to me. Fancy that!
somedisco
Scott gets better all the time. He sounds more relaxed too. Stuff flows. I was gripped by his recent Tony Wilson piece.
Uncarved
Jon doesn't update too much, but his aesthetic is bang-on.
k-punk
Well you can't knock that shit! I'd like to see Mark talk about a soul record one time though...something warm for a change. Mark's address: Bromley, The Arctic, The World, The Universe.
Everything's Usable
Well I'm not so sure about Cozen's trip, but dammnit he writes with an intensity.

Heard some backchat at ILM about the blogs from my man Jess, and couldn't help but nod to myself. Word at the boards is that blogs are BORRINNG! So if you're a blogger see if you can't find something more meaningful to write about than your own suicidal tendencies or the weather.

...etcetera.

Mmm.

I like The Stones. Which is the equivalent of saying: "I like white bread." One can't get that exited about it, but life without them would be poorer. And maybe you think they are a boil on the bottom of culture, and that the only sensible starting point of culture is P.I.L's "Metal Box" well yadda yadda yadda!

But consider this. The Stones, when they were at their peak (Aftermath->Exile) really mattered in the USA in a way NOTHING which comes out of Britain does anymore. I can quite easily get all nostalgic for that in the same way Tony Blair does. My pal Paul Kennedy (a big shot if you read between the lines) fixes up the Tower chain stateside with UK imports. He harangues all the Tower outlets across America (and that's an independent store didn't you know...one boss!) to stock British records. Man he's got his work cut out! In the early seventies he'd have had a fleet of limos.

I had a copy of Exile which I sold in 1996 when I decimated my collection. I showed up at the M&V with (I think) 31 boxes. Yikes! It was one of a few records which I mildly regretted passing on, others include Little Feat's "Sailin Shoes", The Band "The Band", Earth Wind & Fire "That's the way of the World" and Sonic Youth's "Sister", not obscure stuff, though there was plenty of that that got flushed, but just plain old nice records.

I was visting San Franciso in January 2000 and spent some time in Amoeba records, which is a pretty vaste second-hand store at the end of Haight street by the park. I don't care what people say, that area still has a vibe of excitement and danger. I came across a copy of "Exile on Main Street" for $1.95. Perfect condition, original pressing, lovely thick cardboard sleeve and, what sold it to me (again) was what was written on the sleeve. CIAPPONI. Some guy, and I imagined some working class, no fuckin' nonsense American-Italian dude who liked his pasta, drove a chevvy, went to the disco, looked a bit like an ugly Travolta, had loadsa fuckin bruddas, first name Tony, owned this record. And he'd written his name on it. You think I'm guessing wrong? Well I reckon middle class WASPS don't tend to write on their records, and they don't tend to sell them, they'll stow them away in their oversize appartments. That's the level The Stones got to. Why is Britain now so parochial that it can't produce culture which can cross these divides? You hear this desire to "Break America" being spouted all the time by tawdry greedy saddos. "Breaking America" is not about PR or hard gigging it's about the artists having an encompassing vision*, and nowadays they're such pygmies. Yunnuh! America is an invention! Don't forget that!

I'm now gonna hastle all the West coast bloggers to buy the Dizzy Rascal record....fat chance HE stands stateside. Like Reynolds says it'll be just like The Streets, unless we get lucky (fingers crossed).

*like Dido fer chrissakes!

The Story of The Stones.

1. "She's The Boss" Mick Jagger (1964)

Made a couple of years before he got wrapped up in the travelling circus that was The Rolling Stones. Produced by Jean-Paul Gregorakus the greek ex-pat who was to soar as the owner of the french free-jazz label BYG. The prodigal genius Bill Laswell (aged only 12 here) took the helm for Jagger's merengue-influenced "Pass de Pineapple", a nod and a wink to Harry Belafonte's proto-metal track "Pass dat Coconut". "She's the Boss" is every bit the stone classic, and it's no surprise that when Jagger met Keith Richards in 1965 at a pool party thrown by Reg Presley of The Troggs in the leafy suburb of Richmond, that the two should hit it off so splendidly. Jagger, but a glimmer in the eye of the entertainment industry, nevertheless to Richards (who had just ditched soprano sax for the ukelele) a star! The party has become legend for an impromptu set of folk strumming by one John Hammond, later to gain notoriety as Bob Dylan's muscular accountant,and also of course for the tragic death of Brian Jones. No-one could calculate the influence which the ethnomusicologist Jones, an authority on gagaku, might have had on the evolution of The Stones. Those fine legs on the cover belong to none other than natural blonde and biscuit heiress Jane Asher, who was singlehandedly responsible for turning Mick onto the work of AMM and Pierre Schaeffer.

2. "Goats Head Soup" The Rolling Stones (1965)

The first of the Stone's quickfire trio of albums all released before the fall of 1966, "Steel Wheels" and "Their Satanic Majesties Request" fulfilling the triumvirate. London was swinging with Peter Sellers, Mini-skirts, Carnaby Street Boutiques, David Bailey and the nascent Techno scene. "Goats Head Soup" benefitted from the rock-solid rhythm section of Carlton and Aston Barratt, who Jagger and Richards had met at a shebeen in Brixton with Kristeen Keilor and John Profumo. The Stones steeped in the rare Appalachian, Bluesgrass and Hillbilly 7"s which their accordianist Mick Hucknall picked up from American sailors on barges moored in Grenwich. We all know the classics off this record: "Wild Horses", with it's bewitching harmonica solo from Eric Clapton (later of The Yardbirds and Blodwyn Pig), "Under Cover of the Night" whose steely riff amped the hysteria of a million ponytailed girls and their anthem, possibly THE ANTHEM of the sixties "Dancing in the Street", a duet with the young David Jones (later Bowie) the track later appearing on his Pin-Ups LP and subsequently covered by Motown's Martha Reeves and The Vandellas. These weren't LPs so much as experiences encapsulating the joie de vivre and unfettered sexuality of the times.

3. "Exile on Main Street" (1968)

Aston and Carlton's Visa ran out and they were deported back to Ghana where they later were to appear on The Travelling Willburys "Edikanfo"LP produced by Brian Eno and released on the EG label. The band were at the height of a debauched lifestyle, ritually murdering butterflies in Green Park, the subject of a two hour documentary by french "auteur" Claude Chabrol, gorging themselves endlessly on Mars Bars, driving Rolls Royce's into swimming-pools (a tableau later reinacted by the Joy Division tribute band Oasis on their "Tattva" LP cover), sharing girlfiends with Rod Stewart (and other politicans), and throwing impromptu seances at their holiday homes in Mustique and in the Atlas mountains of Bulgaria. Nothing could come in the way of their barbarous and licentious lifestyle, accordingly, and echoing other earlier Rock follies like Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk", ABBA's "The Arrival" and Ringo Starr's "Just 16" "Exile on Main Street" proved to be their "Sandanista". Stretched over 6 LPs and an accompanying 4-track reel AND an interactive DVD the album set new standards for self-indulgence. Ron Wood, formerly the conductor for Deep Purple, even had his own record which consumers were soon to discard, though which now ironically fetches huge sums at Mod record fares. Ocean Colour Scene amongst it's noted advocates. Amid the massed street choirs and saxaphone solos there lurked a solid R'n'B album. Let us not forget the classics off this LP: "Angie", written by the lovestruck Jagger for Patti, then wife of Dr.John and "19th Nervous Breakdown", penned by their new bass player Bill Wyman for latest amour Jerry Hall, Bryan Ferry of Quiet Sun's ex. All the while production handled by the cheroot-smoking hawaain-shirt attired Steven Stapleton.

4. "Between the Buttons" 1969

...and then THIS. Resplendent in it's crayfish ghoulash cover, painstakingly wrought by the young Keith Floyd. Back to Basics indeed. A lean buzzing rock'n'roll masterpiece. A true classic. Firstly gone is Bill Wyman, over a royalties tustle, fleeing to Majorca where he set up house with Mandy Smith, former flame of Kevin Ayers (now running the Airline Virgin Atlantic) a relationship of such durability in the fickle world of showbiz that it's often compared to that of Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis. And In comes Shuggie Otis. Possibly The Stones most consistent LP, songs seemed to flow into one another in almost operatic spleandour. Richard's bareknuckled polyrhythmic riffing aided by his dalliance with Richard Hell guitarist Bob Quine. Yet once again as the lead track says "It's only Rock'n'Roll (but I like it)". My own personal favourite on this record was the Gram Parsons influenced country singalong "Just Fade Away", originally a cover of a Woody Allen tune, before gaining fame sung by Buddy Holly for a charming TDK advert. "Between the Buttons" proving that The Stones were a true album band while packed to the gills with CLASSIC singles "Tumbling Dice", tearing down the house with it's reggae stylings and "Get off of my cloud" with its theremin solo (often absurdly ignored by more self-conciously outre histories). Jagger and Richards were there at least a year before Lothar and the Hand People, and give me Jagger's theremin over Jonathon Richman's anyday!

5. "Let it Bleed" 1971

After Jagger's terrible motorbike accident in 1970 broke their rhythm the Stones took a year off before recording again, this time in the comfort of record boss Richard Branson's South African manor house. Vocals were handled by a Charlie Watts. An established saxophonist on the London Free Jazz circuit, Watts had played with Mike Figgis and Terry Day in The People Band, gracing their now difficult to find "Karoybin" LP before founding the early Prag Vec with Ian Penman and Ridley Scott. Watt's low croon fitted perfectly with The Stones early disco ballads elevating tracks like "Parachute Woman" and "Who needs Yesterday's papers" from sketchy bar-room jazz into full-blown epics. Jagger is famously credited as playing "Triangle" on this LP, though it's rumoured that he actually handled most of drummer Moe Tucker's parts as well as contributing lyrics to flesh out the record's Fascist/Gastronomic themes.

6. Flowers (1973)

With Flowers The Stones underlined that in spite of their connections with other bands on the scene they were an island unto themselves. A compilation of album-only cuts might have seemed a regressive move, but the re-played re-made takes of "Sweet Black Angel", dedicated to Stokely Carmichael's mother Angela, and"Harlem Shuffle" a version of Chuck Berry's "My Ding a Ling" make it all seem worthwhile. The stunning cover of this LP was put together by underground cartoonist Robert Frank who Richards had met on the set of the Nic Roeg film "Ned Kelly". Frank had been reluctant to do the work, but was swayed by Richard's commitment to The White Panthers.

7. "Beggars Banquet" 1975

Coming out at the same time as David Bowie's Tin Machine project (proto-Branca noise stylings) this LP, named after the hip pub-rock label of the day saw The Stones sense the pre-echoes of punk-rock. The background to the record is complex. John Lennon had asked Jagger to join forces with his band The Small Faces for a TV rock'n'roll documentary provisionally entitled "Rock House", a show which sadly never saw the light of day. Many of the tracks off Beggar's Banquet, "Mother's Little Helper", "Little Red Rooster" and "Loving Cup" were written and recorded for the special, albeit in a folk vein. One of the benefits which their encounter brought was a conversation between Jagger and Lennon in which John informed Mick that playing live was a better experience in the new era of super-amplification. The Stones had avoided playing live since their negative experiences at Reading Festival in 1966. A bold re-invigorated band took the invitation to play Woodstock 2 alongside headliners The Sex Pistols. The appalling outcome is compellingly described in Marcello Carlin's unmissable collection "The Dark Stuff". One of the biker gang hired by Stones groupie Pamela Des Barres as security for the band was trapped inside a speaker stack and was cooked like an egg by the radiating volume, rescued only at the last minute by roadie Noddie Holder. As if in a moment the public's acceptance of Jagger and Richards' Prince-of-Peace-stylings evaporated. A Times leader of the day by the Queen's lepidopterist Sir Luke Davis entitled "Oi, Jagger!" perfectly caught the mood of the day. The versions of the tracks one can hear on some of the circulating bootlegs of that TV special, and those on the subsequent LP versions are starkly different. Producer Steve Albini pushing the sound into ever more corruscated abstraction, Jagger who once again handled the vocal duties, sounds like a puppy being pulled backwards through gorse. The Stones poorest selling LP, but a worthwhile exercise in that in curried them favour with punks like young pretender Elton John and Pink Floyd's Dave Mason.

8. Some Girls (1978)

A disco record, with reggae producer Tony Visconti at the helm. The Stones do disco! Bianca Jagger, Mick's recent bride, it had troubled many observers to notice, appeared to be breaking up the band. Bianca took a strong lead, casting a spell over the recording process, typically riding into the studio daily on a rented pony. She drafted in Australian Post-Punk stalwart the GREAT drummer Dave Mattacks and added the ailing Louis Jordan to the sax line-up. The process of the LP's recording was a legendarily painful labour with minds and tempers stretched by the demands it made on the band. Setting up their portable Rolling Stones studio, housed in an authentic London Double-Decker bus, in Los Angeles's Times Square, right outside the hip nightclub of the day Studio 54, work on the overdubs was slowed to a painful pace. It took engineer Daniel Lanois 3 years to complete the process as a steady stream of celebrities poured through the cramped space soaking up white powder and hospitality. Their number including Bob Dylan, Halston, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsburg, The Residents, The Germs, Nicky Siano and The Fantastic Four. Still with results like the uber-boogie of "Sympathy for the Devil" no-one complained!

9. Spiral Scratch EP (1982)

Back to basics indeed! Adopting the pseudonym of The Buzzcocks The Stones recorded this four track in a bedroom in Manchester with the explicit intention of showing the Punks, by now distinctly running out of steam, how to REALLY rock'n'roll. The concept took on like wildfire. Eventually resulting in the steaming "Singles Going Steady" collection of hits from the hilarious accompanying comedy TV show "Never Mind the Rutles". It took Henry Rollins to point out to the whole world what we should have noticed earlier, "Orgasm Addict" was merely "Satisfaction" pitched up four on a technics deck. See also The Homosexuals for more rapacious secret Stones activity, this time with horn-player Bobby Keyes at the helm.

10. Aftermath (1985)

Aftermath indeed! The Stones' final studio LP when after 20 years together they wisely decided to chuck in the towel. A fond looking-back over two decades of life in the limelight. For the heroic lead track "Under my thumb" Jagger used the Fairlight Oberheim sampler to manipulate the voice of his recently departed friend Peter Tosh into a ghostly duet from beyond the grave. On the exquisite adieu "Let it Bleed" fulsome backing vocals were provided by Captain Beefheart's quartet of bad girls the GTOs (Merry Clayton, Anita Pallenberg, Joanna Lumley and Marianne Faithful) firmly putting pay to the rumour that The Stones were a bunch of macho sexist twerps. Denouements in rock as fine as this are thin on the ground.

Special Thanks to Michelangelo Matos.

Vocal Locals.

Listening to the Mage of Stratford's Reel-to-Reel Garage compilation. Wiley is actually a pretty hot MC in his own right you know. Very angry. Obsessed with having his beats bitten. But what beats! He's really got some crazy heathen bug-eyed cyborg sound.

Thing is Wiley, while great, can't touch Dizzy. Dizzy's voice sounds like a less masculine more winsome more attractive version of Wiley's. All the faults one finds in Wiley's rapping, his sheer bludgeoning beliocosity, his inflexibility, are absent in Dizzy.

Which brought to mind the very similar relationship Lee Perry had with his vocalists. Particularly Junior Byles. Listen to Beat Down Babylon. Byles sounds just like Perry. Only his voice is sweeter and more yielding. Less a strained croon or a mad bark. Actually compared to Wiley Perry is a totally shit MC. Roast Fish and Cornbread (the album Island famously, and I think justly, didnt want to issue) is totally ruined by Perry's idiot ramblings.

And of course the conclusion is that these megalomaniac producers use their alumni to replace their own voices, shape them in their image. Like instruments.

Just chillin' like Bob Dylan.

I feel sorry for all those innovators. One of the things about having ideas first (certainly in music) is that you never earn as much money as those people who are pimping your ideas to ready-assembled crowd a little bit further down the line. In terms of earning cold hard cash you're much smarter not being "ahead of the curve".

The History of Techno!

Check this nice piece by Dan S.e.l.z.e.r one of my New York chums, his name correctly spelt here. Dan's not a writer per se, he runs the Acute subsidiary of the awesome Carpark label, specialising in re-issues. The bits on Cerrone and Patrick Adams are very juicy. Acute have just put out Glen Branca's Ascension. Dan's also working on an authoratitive Arthur Russell discography, so if you have that Flying Hearts flexi disc from Aspen magazine drop him a line and screw it all up.

Thing is though "The History of Techno" as such makes me giggle. Have you noticed how everyone has their "original" Techno moment that they'll swear blind to being it's actual point of inception. Steve Barrow has that squiggly 303 intro on that King Tubby track*, my friend Gwen had This Heat's 24 track loop, Jeff Mill's had that Charivari 12", David Toop had those Lil' Louie Vega mixes of Information Society, Juan Atkins has Kraftwerk's Computer World, that dude Peter Frohmader has the John Carpenter soundtracks, Autechre (yawn) have Bernard Parmegiani, more than many folk think it's Vladimir Ussachevsky, Derrick May thought it was Herbie Hancock's Rain Dance, Kevin Martin thought it was Tod Dockstader, Cabaret Voltaire thought it was the Belleville 3, and Dan thinks it's The Silver Apples (well he doesn't, but that's where his story starts.) It's an endearingly daft pursuit that usually tells you more about the person insisting than anything else. I reckon it was Tubbs's jacket in Miami Vice.

And actually it seems no-one cares any more. That revitalising shag that Techno gave the academy is history now. The quickest way to get an egg down your neck these days is to stand on a chair in the pub and yell at the top of your voice: "John Cage invented Techno!" It's just so passe!

*really busting out with the research today.

On a darker note ;-)

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Satanic Mills.

Unwittingly started a discussion with my cleric's rant at k-punk. Eden reflects on a few of the points brought up and follow his links to even more vile stuff.

Cycled home trying to figure out why I find violence and unacceptable attitood OK in Ragga and HipHop, yet get all flustered about Bank Clerks making pentagrams and lighting candles. It's probably to do with my own background. Church everyday between the age of 7 and 18. I'll admit that music for me probably fills the gap left by religion. Not as a substitute faith, but as a superior practice. I DO admit the bleak and black (culture aspiring to depict the truth or evidencing gothic dread*) but have difficulty stomaching the wilfully perverse and the defilement of my (daft) foundational touchstones**. I did touch on what I believe is the primary tactic of "Industrial" Culture, the alchemaical detournement of sleaze, but often, and now I'm repeating myself, find that the practitioners, despite what they're saying, are more excited by rubbing society's nose in it's own excrement than making the world a better place.

Industrial Dilemma.

Open Letter to k-punk.

Yes I've noticed the creeping reclaimation of those lot. Throbbing Gristle first (and easiest) then Nurse with Wound (integratable first elpee) then Current 93 (such strong links to NWW) then Coil (via Penman and more "palatable" later work Love's Secret Domain onwards). And now Whitehouse.

I still have MAJOR problems with this crew. I'm sure if I was from Portugal, America or the Netherlands then I'd be more open to them than I am as a British native. Many outfits and eras bear similarities. Stapleton's link to Krautrock (didn't he roady for Guru Guru and hang out with Conny Plank as a teenager) isn't just superficial. There is a occult grotesque dimension to Krautrock that gets glossed over. My friend The Black Dog was a Coil fan first and foremost. Likewise, their mythic magick rendering of London and their electronic gnostic creation of "worlds apart" must have struck a chord with him. Throbbing Gristle get props from a whole gamut of people, Basement Jaxx (of all people) were the winners in the hotly contested competition to re-rub "Hot on the heels of Love". Trendy, innit. Everyone squabbling: "I liked them first!"

I shouldn't be so appalled by the stuff this "Industrial" crew produced. Yeah I saw the Butthole Surfers with their nood dancers and medical dissection videos. I've even stumped up ca$h for Horse Rotovator, Scatology, A Chance meeting on an Operating Table and 20 Jazz Funk Greats. But I've always failed to LIKE this music. And actually the reason is, I think, that the aforementioned lot (TBD, TBS and Krautrock) have at heart a positive HOLY vision. I can't get away from the sordid trappings evident in the Industrial lot. The idea should be (and maybe it is) to *transcend* the base materials to suggest a better world, a more kind and generous world. I see this in the humour of The Butthole Surfers or the abstraction of The Black Dog. It's evident in the aspiration, even possibly re-visioned protestantism, of Krautrock. Elsewhere at the dark heart of The Stooges, there is a sheer love for mankind, in Pop's forgiveness for the bikers who anally rape him "Dirt", in our pathos for Iggy's self-mutilation that stems for our love of him "Poor old silly Iggy, bless him poor confused child..." Actually while the Industrial crew maybe "holy" they're certainly black occult. And that's not nice. Yeah, one has to be careful to read Coil's work against John Balance's homosexuality, but you know, I'm not convinced.

It's pathetically easy to be swayed by the effects which EVIL people create. It's easy as a hipster to wear those stigmatising signs. That'd be all very well were it not that this stuff DOES have a real-world corrolory. A friend works for Glasgow City Social Services. One of her ongoing, and miserable, tasks is to try and piece together communities rent apart by ritual murder and ritual abuse, often inflicted on children. These clearly articulate people aren't listening to Girls Aloud. It's a real thing evil. Talking to my friend Jonathon Selzer this weekend about Black Metal in Norway and the attendant culture, in extremis murder. Note all these semi-hilarious stories about old women in Wales being killed by "Vampires", that's someone's Granny.

You might think I'm over-egging it, but in the Industrial (I think they call it the "Fluxus" bin) at the M&V there was, on some limited edition record cover, for ages, the most horrible picture of some naked little girl stretched into some torture device. Nice! Great cover dudes! And actually Mark's (albeit sensitive and objective) discussion of the Professor Adolf McGroot's "All hail the Blessed Sutcliffe", with it's celebration of The Yorkshire Ripper's serial murder of prostitutes, makes me come to the same conclusions. Not how "Bad" and transgressive these people are, but how weak and stupid. Sure it's not fair to colour everyone with the same brush (here goes anyway), but I believe the whole "Industrial" project, neatly tied in a bow by David Keenan in his new book is, if not corrupt in intention, then corrupt in execution.

And you know what. I'll bet that saying what I've said here will be a mite more controversial act than trying to apologise or explain what this scene is up to. Fuck 'em. Fuck the whole lot of 'em.