the absence of falsetto from punk rock

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is it total? or is my memory failing?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:22 (twenty-two years ago)

poly styrene does a chick-falsetto in "oh! bondage!", but i mean d00ds w.the balls to fly, you know?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:23 (twenty-two years ago)

anti-falsetto rhetoric always totally bugged me ever since ray lowry attacked chris cross in an nme review in like 1613 on the grounds that his testicles must have fallen off: use other pre-teen insults plz

(i mean lowry wz a fkn elvis fan for fk's sake!!)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:25 (twenty-two years ago)

chris cross is hellalame obv but not for where his best vocal range lay or his "manliness"

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

The nearest I can think of (and it's not very near at all) is Jane's Addiction.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:28 (twenty-two years ago)

"police & thieves" by the clash!

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Jello Biafra. (OK he wasn't 'good' enough to do a real one, but still)

― dave q, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:30 (twenty-two years ago)

There MUST be some US-punk Bee Gees parodies from the late 70s, they were the all-purpose 'easy target' then

― dave q, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:31 (twenty-two years ago)

duh! like, YMA SUMAC doode!

― captain doom-e, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:31 (twenty-two years ago)

i except there's lots, btw

yma sumac is a girl doom-e

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

no she's not. she was the amazon princesss warrior who could kick dave q's arse (meaning she is more than a girl) and released one final psych-punk rock album from, like, '71, kickstarting punk-rock, obviously.

― doom-e, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i guess "proper" falsettoing was unacceptable cause of its prog-significance but yeah there's that clash one (where they just have those fals. "oh yeah"s as token rather embarrassed recognition of the orig's sweetness (like i guess lots of non-uk punk rock fans i didn't hear the orig til years later than the clash version, i remember tho julie burchill in the nme scoffing at "joni-voiced" jr murvin, i guess in saying the clash version beat his or whatever - but yeah another punk falsettoer is IIRC johnny moped on the 1st cut on his album, it's "punk"falsetto tho (= strangulated screeching)

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:39 (twenty-two years ago)

(I knew if I hung out here long enough I'd finally get beat up by Yma Sumac!!!)

― dave q, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:41 (twenty-two years ago)

doomie dooms i don't understand what you are saying about yma sumac, are you calling her a punk rock bee gees parodist?

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:41 (twenty-two years ago)

tis was a message out of order, duane.

― captain doom-e, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Have you heard her rock album btw? it's pretty nuts, that's the closest i've heard her be to the bbe gees or punk rock i suppose.

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:44 (twenty-two years ago)

the clash aren't punk duane!! (sorry v.slow on that one) < / long-standing mark s contrarian stance which is nevertheless correct but go to another thread for dissent plz > >

jnr murvin has such a fkn beautiful voice

mark e.smith does one now and then

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:45 (twenty-two years ago)

oops i missed yr post where you said, etc

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

haha yes it's all about "oh no! they might think i'm jon anderson!! OH NO!!"

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah they aren't punk by MY def'n either mark, i was coming at it from a punkist orthodoxist pov

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:47 (twenty-two years ago)

(& "sorry i missed" etc was still talking to doomie re: yma sumac rock album)

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

oh no i admitted the existence of "my version of what punk rock is", people might think i'm a rock critic

― duane, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:51 (twenty-two years ago)

mark s ignored my comment because his FEARFULNESS of the sun-goddess had gotten the better of him!

― captain doom-e, Friday, 20 June 2003 09:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i ignored it bcz I AM THE SUN GODDESS but i am being magnanimous today

anyway, yes by all means mention ladypunXorz but the issue is more guypunx fear of their inner choirboy

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 09:56 (twenty-two years ago)

well, that's easy - it's got to be the clash.

― captain doom-e, Friday, 20 June 2003 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

(boring possible exp., in the US at the time 'high' vocals were so inextricably associated with AOR/metal/stadium rock that maybe it was seen as 'the enemy', ie Steve Perry or Lou Gramm, UK equiv = R Plant ["I don't even need to hear Led Zep, just looking at their album covers makes me want to throw up!" etc - Paul Simonon, a 'punk' not a punk but that's what's maybe important here?])

― dave q, Friday, 20 June 2003 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Ari Up to thread!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:13 (twenty-two years ago)

stewart you must be able to come with some more boys though!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:14 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, how about Johnny Moped on "Little Queenie"?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

... or Pete Shelley on "Everybody's Happy Nowadays"?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

TV Personalities squeak in both Part Time Punks and Bill Grundy.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:22 (twenty-two years ago)

.... or Steve Ignorant of Cr@ss on a couple of bits of "Big A Little A"?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:22 (twenty-two years ago)

David Byrne and David Thomas used to come out with some pretty odd high-pitched noises at times too!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:23 (twenty-two years ago)

John Lydon and Jah Wobble on Fodderstompf....

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Buzzcocks - 'Everybody's Happy Nowadays'

tangentially related, maybe...

Dexy's - 'Thankfully Not Living In Yorkshire...' etc
Smiths - 'Miserable Lie'

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:27 (twenty-two years ago)

• PiL were conceived as an anti-rock/anti-punk operation, so yes but no, i think
• byrne/thomas not punk either, surely?
• dexy's/smiths DEF clearly don't count!!

interesting that "everybody's happy nowadays" was fiercely attacked on release as a kind of betrayal of something/everything by eg tony parsons

what's the date of "big a little a"? (anything after 1979 = themepark punk)

johnny moped seems to be the man: is this why he got kicked out of history?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:37 (twenty-two years ago)

richard hell?

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:52 (twenty-two years ago)

ooo OOO ooo ooo...
"Ca Plane Pour Moi"

― Chris Clark (Chris Clark), Friday, 20 June 2003 10:56 (twenty-two years ago)

"interesting that "everybody's happy nowadays" was fiercely attacked on release as a kind of betrayal of something/everything by eg tony parsons"

Fuck Tony Parsons!

"what's the date of "big a little a"?"

1980

"(anything after 1979 = themepark punk)"

Uh, broadly true but not without exceptions (of which "Big A Little A" is not one)

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:00 (twenty-two years ago)

mark, OH MARK, i've got one - serge gainsbourg - lemon incest! does that count in the mark s machine?

― captain doom-e, Friday, 20 June 2003 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, I missed:

"byrne/thomas not punk either, surely?"

How so?

Talking Heads were very much part of the '77 NY CBGB's punk scene.

As regards David Thomas, even if we were to discount Pere Ubu (who were arguably post punk before punk had even happened) there's still Rocket From The Tombs....

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:05 (twenty-two years ago)

ubu/heads passed through punk obv but did the davids commit any falsetto during said passage?

doom-e who sings on lemon incest? not gainsbourg surely? (i only have it on tape)

agreed obv re FUCK TONY PARSONS but i guess i was wondering if the Reigning Orthodoxy at the Time was angrily indicating a a terrible heretical act in re style of this buzzcox release (beyond mere content) (it is possibly my alltime favourite buzzcocks song but i LIKE falsetto so FUCK ME)

(crass were sort of committed to rescuing Ortho-Punk from the prison of itself, no?)

(at this point be it noted i am actually more interested in seeing how the presence of male falsetto signals or structures the boundaries of Punk Orthodoxy vs Punk Heresy than actually shooting down counter-examples... ) (i mean, i think my blank-slate thread-title thesis is pretty much totally demolished...)

(so keep it coming ie)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:14 (twenty-two years ago)

What about the cover of Queen's 'The Game', where they imagine themselves to look like the Vibrators

― dave q, Friday, 20 June 2003 11:19 (twenty-two years ago)

so mark yer thesis is (re ball dropping/feminine traits=falsetto) that punk is grown up man music?

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Post punk before punk even happened/finished is a kind of interesting area, it's come to mind before. This Heat/Swell Maps, mostly, if the SM could sing they'd have had falsetto I'm sure (and actually they probably did, I don't remember any). Why are the Clash not punk, anyway?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:24 (twenty-two years ago)

if you have to ask, lady...

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:28 (twenty-two years ago)

EHN = not really falsetto, just the very very very top of Shelley's range?

Of course the follow-up was Harmony In My Head - sung in manly/gruff stylee by Diggle!

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:33 (twenty-two years ago)

not that i want to reduce it to biology, but even though my balls had dropped by 77 i was an adolescent. a suburban one.

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:34 (twenty-two years ago)

"i was wondering if the Reigning Orthodoxy at the Time was angrily indicating a a terrible heretical act in re style of this buzzcox release (beyond mere content)"

Good question - I can only say that it never ocurred to me at the time that the reason Everbody's Happy.... got a few lousy reviews was to do with style / content rather than the key Pete Shelley was singing in.

"(crass were sort of committed to rescuing Ortho-Punk from the prison of itself, no?)"

Uh, oh dear, that would need a whole thread all of it's own which would end up with most of the participants wanting to punch most of the other particpants (except most of them wouldn't actually punch anyone because they're, like, pacifists maaaaan!).... let's just say that Cr@ss had their own agenda and leave it at that for now, shall we?

"ubu/heads passed through punk obv but did the davids commit any falsetto during said passage?"

Ubu / RFTT - hard to specify an individual track off the top of my head but I'm sure he did
Talking Heads '77, track 11 - "Pulled Up"

Can someone PLEASE explain to me how to make text go italic / bold????

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:35 (twenty-two years ago)

haha brilliant technical-conceptual one-two gag by the 'cocks only now uncovered by the massed branes of ilm!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, thanks for calling me "lady" Mark

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"EHN = not really falsetto, just the very very very top of Shelley's range?"

I don't know what the technical definition of falsetto is Dr. C, but I'd certainly say that PS sings that chorus in a different register (is that the right word?) to the one he normally sings in, as opposed to just higher up in the register he normally sings in.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:37 (twenty-two years ago)

the pop-punk that Spin & all o' dem write about every month lately is stuffed to the gills with falsetto! esp. that band the All-American Rejects with their "help me find a way to carry on again" which is the first song in a while that I've felt guilty about liking, it's just so relentlessly dumb but super-catchy

search also: the rest of the so-called pop-punk revival

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:38 (twenty-two years ago)

discuss: new punk *not* the same as old punk?

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:45 (twenty-two years ago)

oh god please please no!

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:46 (twenty-two years ago)

"discuss: new punk *not* the same as old punk?"

What's to discuss?

Margarine in "not the same as real butter" shockah!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:48 (twenty-two years ago)

haha oh no!! i just realised my two world-historical karaoke perfs = me doing the low and the high voice (in scary falsetto)
in aqua's lollipop and wheatus's teenage dirtbag!! OH NO!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I never studied those, should've kept going w/history I guess

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:51 (twenty-two years ago)

(actually mark s, don't want to cause too much trouble, but could you or someone else nice and kind maybe point us new people towards a rough/working version of your definition of punk, on- or off-line, i'd love to read something like that, and it would clear up a lot of misunderstanding on this kind of thread, thanks!) (not that it isn't also fun to line up the punk-ducks for you to shoot down, of course, "no! not them!" "DEFINITELY not them!" etc etc, that's fun too!)

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:52 (twenty-two years ago)

".... could you or someone else nice and kind maybe point us new people towards a rough/working version of your definition of punk"

LOL! On this board alone there are as many different views about this as there are people who are prepared to participate.

Only mine has the benefit of being 100% correct 'though.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:56 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah i know but i want to know mark s's!

also yours of course, please print it here for us, thanks! :-)

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

did i ever done it a NON-duckshoot way on ilm? (sorry i'm not being snarky or difficult, i just clean forgot - i am really bad at remembering what i did on ilm and what i just thought i'd like to do)

(this doesn't even mention the clash, i don't think)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

stewart is right only where he says "mine" in the last line he is rather confusingly referring to me not him

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Were the Clash too selfconciously "punk", but not doing anything w/that knowledge (like I dunno Subway Sect/Swell Maps did)?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

wow, thanks mark s, that's great. will digest speedily. (hope i don't get a stomach ache.)

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

(dr c's "teach mark s a lesson" was sandinista! which i went out and bought under strict orders!! so i am going to try and gather my clash/strummer thts con AND pro there i think)

(sorry andrew for wriggling out of it but this wz always like a big, live, divisive, make-or-break issue for me back in year zero, even if i mainly play it for laughs today... )

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh it's not like I really mind, it'd just be an easier way to pin you down (though why do I want to do that anyway?), I don't even LIKE the Clash very much. Just interested. Do not do more than wriggle for my sake.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

well to be honest it interests me now too (i mean now in the light of countless ilm args and ideas, not now in the light of this thread), but i want to work it out PROPERLY and not just throw my usual readymade jokes at it...

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, Jello Biafra = falsetto + lisp (!)

I recently found out from my dad that he saw Yma Sumac live once.

― hstencil, Friday, 20 June 2003 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Pete, until I finally get 'round to writing the definitive history of punk (which I'm not actually planning to do until my mate Alex Ogg has finished doing his version so that I can sneakily rip off everything he's written), if you're really interested you can get some idea of my (aka "the correct") definition of punk to be getting on with here how do you, personally, distinguish between genres [ugh] of punk / post-punk / new wave / etc.? and to an extent here What is the shape of punk to come?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Queen 'Sheer Heart Attack'

― ss, Friday, 20 June 2003 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Boston "More than a Feeling", then

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Three One G Queen Tribute to thread!

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 12:59 (twenty-two years ago)

*(dr c's "teach mark s a lesson" was sandinista! which i went out and bought under strict orders!! so i am going to try and gather my clash/strummer thts con AND pro there i think)*

I'm looking forward to this!! It was thrown into the thread for several reasons :

1)to try to get clarity on the sinkah v the clash position
2)was a triple LP in 1980 the punkest thing they could've done?
3) it's magnificent/magnificently flawed/magnificently misguided/bonkers* (*pick one) and deserves analysis versus their 1976 selves.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 20 June 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

haha clarity!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 June 2003 13:13 (twenty-two years ago)

What about falsetto in any rock not conciously "feminine" (Byrds, Beatles, Beach Boys) (well, young, "unformed" or something) or backed up by intimiations of fearsome MASCULINITY (Led Zeppelin), or shut up Andrew

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 June 2003 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Margarine in "not the same as real butter" shockah!

=> 'I Can't Believe It's Not Punk!'

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 20 June 2003 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

"What about falsetto in any rock not conciously "feminine"...."

Tiny Tim to thread!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 20 June 2003 14:11 (twenty-two years ago)

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