i've been called worse things, i'll accept that
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:14 (seven years ago) link
hey, opinions formed while high as fuck are opinions too, you know
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:20 (seven years ago) link
especially opinions about fear of music and remain in light
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:26 (seven years ago) link
Would not be good listening if you're paranoid-when-high.
― Eazy, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:29 (seven years ago) link
Eazy OTM, "Drugs" is a bad trip
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:38 (seven years ago) link
Lost my shape!Trying to act casual!
― Eazy, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:43 (seven years ago) link
they only have one genuinely bad album and that album is True Stories.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:44 (seven years ago) link
and it's puzzlin' evidence either way
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:54 (seven years ago) link
so wrong Turrican, most of the time you are OTM. not even close on this one.
― Bee OK, Saturday, 9 September 2017 01:11 (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I am profoundly disturbed by this post.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 21:16 (seven years ago) link
Good!
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 21:46 (seven years ago) link
But yeah, I have tried a lot with this band - particularly since their so-called "peak" years (1977-1980) fall within one of my favourite periods of time for music ever. There is the occasional song I like here and there, but I find a lot of their material a little on the tedious side. I'm often left with the impression that they're a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal, with some superficial "African" elements sprinkled on top and a thoroughly annoying vocalist bulldozing his way through it all, and I can tolerate seal-bark Andy Partridge just fine. Perhaps this description is a little harsh, but that's the impression that I get. The post-Remain in Light particularly comes across to me as quite bland.
It is, of course, undetstandable why there are fans of Remain in Light that haven't taken to their other albums - it sticks out like a sore thumb in their discography.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 21:58 (seven years ago) link
*understandable
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:00 (seven years ago) link
their entire discography is sore thumbs
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:00 (seven years ago) link
I'm often left with the impression that they're a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal
Yeah, there's so many of these types around isn't there?
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:01 (seven years ago) link
I think you can chart a pretty clear progression - you can see what ideas they're playing with and where they're going with them - from the beginning to the end, but none of their albums really sound like each other. Each one is in many ways a departure from the one before it.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:01 (seven years ago) link
a white funk band for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal
ad hominem bullshit
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:02 (seven years ago) link
What century is it again?
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:02 (seven years ago) link
Remove Bookmark from this Thread
― sleeve, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:02 (seven years ago) link
Do I wish I got more out of this stuff than I do? You bet I do. Particularly since folks like Shakey and McBoing-Boing like 'em.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:04 (seven years ago) link
truly insane argument by Turrican, especially considering Tina Weymouth is in the band - one of the funkiest bass players ever.
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:10 (seven years ago) link
I don't think of TH in terms of funk tbh. I don't think they are ever really "funky" in the conventional 70s-funk-by-black-artists sense. They borrow (liberally) elements from funk but I don't think they ever really get there, or even intended to get there. I think of them more like CAN - interested in building a musical vocabulary that deliberately excises certain things (some of which they were explicit about cf. Byrne's comments about "the blues", major key melodies, etc.) in favor of trying to incorporate genres and instrumentation and approaches that were not normally the province of white America (tropicalia, afrobeat, Brian Eno lol). Somewhere around the end of Speaking in Tongues-era Byrne very clearly *does* turn back towards America and then there's brief period of warped Americana/True Stories/Little Creatures which pulls in these other things like country and zydeco while mashing them together with their previous interests. And from then on Byrne is just in full polyglot cut-up pastiche mode through Naked and into his solo career.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:15 (seven years ago) link
these goddam byrnebros
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:17 (seven years ago) link
superficial "African" elements
feel like this is a deliberate misreading as well, since it's not like their tactic was to just threw a ngoni solo on top of standard American pop song. Esp w/Remain in Light they are clearly borrowing compositional/structural ideas - building songs around circular multi-part vocal melodies, or long droning vamps that just alternate around a single tonal center or two-note riff.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 22:20 (seven years ago) link
I don't think of TH in terms of funk tbh. I don't think they are ever really "funky" in the conventional 70s-funk-by-black-artists sense. They borrow (liberally) elements from funk but I don't think they ever really get there, or even intended to get there. I think of them more like CAN
Kind of agree with this, they were definitely funky, but on their own terms - like Can - and not in some lame 'white funk band' way that Turrican seems to imagine they were.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 23:09 (seven years ago) link
yeah there is an immense gulf in approach between, say, the Average White Band and Talking Heads
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 23:22 (seven years ago) link
there's this great japanese record called "fine time, a tribute to new wave" where a guy named yasuyuki okamura does "burning down the house". what's great about is not just the performance itself, but the fact that okamura is clearly singing it phonetically. the lyrics sound even better when they're sung by someone to whom they're literally, not just figuratively, meaningless. better than byrne!
i searched to see if it was on youtube, but i only found a version of talking heads' version apparently transcoded from a 32k realaudio file. it has 306 views.
― bob lefse (rushomancy), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 02:29 (seven years ago) link
xxpost:
Yes, I didn't expect that description to go down well, but unfortunately - because, like I say, I wish I got more out of their music than I do - it's exactly what I hear.
I don't see Can as a funk band at all.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 06:02 (seven years ago) link
One of the great things about TH is that on the whole they appreciated without appropriating music outside their immediate worldview. So when they dabbled with funk and African rhythms, it felt like they'd worked out what made that music great on a nucleic rather than superficial level. They 'got' it. Byrne never tried to make his vocals and lyrics 'funky', it was all in the groove, and even then, even when they were working with members of Funkadelic, it was never a note-for-note rip off of that music or a piss-take. You could tell they'd been listening to disco and funk and afrobeat, but weren't setting out to mimic it.
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 09:02 (seven years ago) link
So, no, I would never call them a 'funk' band, always a new wave band, even though their very earliest stuff had a certain amount of funky drive to it.
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 09:04 (seven years ago) link
v otm
― here's how **takes sip of duck urine** economics works (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 09:15 (seven years ago) link
In this case, I think it's irrelevant how they intended to or were setting out to sound, more how they actually do - and for the most part, I hear white funk.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 10:33 (seven years ago) link
Wild Cherry was doing white funk in case you need a reference point
― Rob Lowe fresco bar (m bison), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 10:41 (seven years ago) link
OK, so you listen to Talking Heads and you hear white funk. Are you sure you're listening to Talking Heads and are you sure you know what funk is?
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 10:54 (seven years ago) link
Why am I even asking the question?
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 10:55 (seven years ago) link
Am I right? Am I wrong?
― Gulley Jimson (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 11:10 (seven years ago) link
My God, what have you done?
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 11:13 (seven years ago) link
big fan of the average white byrne
― plp will eat itself (NickB), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 11:50 (seven years ago) link
Indeed, why are you even asking the question when you know the answers are "yes" and "yes"?
Yes, Wild Cherry did white funk and so what? Yes and Genesis were both prog bands yet their approaches are different. It happens.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:13 (seven years ago) link
AWB seem clearly to be aiming for some pastiche of "authentic" black funk, for better or worse. Talking Heads are attempting to filter the idea of funk through some notionally white filter with its attendant up tight neuroticism. Not saying this is better or worse. But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.
― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:20 (seven years ago) link
it's about as insightful as calling new order a disco band tbh
― plp will eat itself (NickB), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:27 (seven years ago) link
If only it was that obvious.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:29 (seven years ago) link
AWB seem clearly to be aiming for some pastiche of "authentic" black funk, for better or worse. Talking Heads are attempting to filter the idea of funk through some notionally white filter with its attendant up tight neuroticism. Not saying this is better or worse. But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 12:20 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 12:20 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yup!
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:44 (seven years ago) link
But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.
Especially if someone is also going to say that Weymouth is one of the funkiest bass players ever. xp
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:45 (seven years ago) link
Byrne described the full touring band in their SMS mode a 'disco funk revue' which is fair enough, but calling them a 'funk band' seems reductive or slightly off. Funky band, yes, sure. Even the Smiths could be funky. But I guess this is all semantic. Turrican, have you seen Stop Making Sense? Ironically that's the film that made TH make sense to me.
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:48 (seven years ago) link
What genre label wouldn't be reductive?
― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 12:52 (seven years ago) link
Stop Making Sense also features Parliament/Funkadelic's Bernie Worrell on keyboards, so it gets blurry. Simulacra Funk.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 14:25 (seven years ago) link
TH having their own take on funk/disco/afrobeat because they listened closely is true and obvious and the only way to conflate that with superficial bland "white funk" is maybe due to too many indie bands since trying to do the same thing or just plain deafness sorry. Also, I don't know anyone who loves Remain In Light who isn't also into all sorts of r'n'b genres. At least I hope I don't.
― gospodin simmel, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 14:52 (seven years ago) link
A very large portion of their catalog doesn't really relate to funk at all. Not sure how you connect 77 or MSABAF to white funk.
― Moodles, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 14:57 (seven years ago) link
Yeah, I was going to say while TH didn't really appropriate the music that they were listening to, plenty of bands (like Arcade Fire) have made careers from appropriating TH, as well as others. That TH track that samples Francis Bebey and sounds a bit ABBA-ish for example; TH used samples and loved disco but they wouldn't have done something like that. They were quite methodical about it too - like with I Zimbra, the closest thing they came to sounding like afrobeat, using a Dadaist poem as the lyrics etc...
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:00 (seven years ago) link
TH used samples? Where?
― Moodles, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:01 (seven years ago) link