Article Response: King Of The Boots

The bootleg thing seems to fail at all levels; you can't dance to them, you get what sounds like a fairly average indie saddo clientele (rather than the public who actually should be getting it - were there any black faces there?) and aesthetically it is already a dead end.

The main reason I dislike it, however, is that it is yet another form of sneering at pop music from a distinctly indie perspective (rather than from genuine street level), scarcely an advancement from Pop Will Eat Itself, let alone Kool Herc. A bad photocopy of proper pop music to make it acceptable to Gavin and Emma. Something less than the real thing for people too weighed down with dialectic or just plain prejudiced to enjoy the weird allure of "Genie In A Bottle" IN ITSELF, without having to have it diluted with the Strokes, like pop Ribena.

And why is it so essential to be able to identify all the "breaks" used? Why cannot we just surrender to the captivating power of music IN ITSELF? Why do the works have to be exposed? That's why the Avalanches work - yes, you can recognise some of what they use, but their architecture is seamless and its impact emotional. The use of "Tammy" in "A Different Feeling" can make you cry. The work of a genuine wit like Cow Cube can make you laugh. You're never going to laugh, cry or shag to DJ Frenchbloke. Really we're just back in the land of "oh, look how subversive we are! We're ripping off Kylie!" whereas any sentient human being would happily stick with the magic of the original.

If - and only if - it engages with the pop world properly (e.g. if the Sugababes thing comes out properly and gets to number one), can we accept that this sort of thing has a future. And it can only survive as pop, not a commentary on pop. As things stand the bootleg scene is full of Stiff Little Fingers - what we need are the Wires and Joy Divisions to make themselves known.

Again I say: why the NEED to have pop "minutae" (sic) exposed?

Bootlegs don't mess with my tastes or expectations; they sound exactly like what they are, i.e. two records played at the same time. So what?

Why does Kylie have to be made "UNPOP"?

As regards why people "need" to do this sort of stuff - well, if the need is simply a case of having a laugh whacking these things together and getting punters to pogo/whatever to them, then fine - have some fun. It's the cultural pretensions which I find tiresome.

I disagree with some of Pete's conclusions and will get to work on my own piece soon, concentrating on the tracks-as-tracks rather than on the scene. But what I do agree with is that most of the people making these things do love pop as pop - and certainly Pete and I do - and they love it enough to want to join in with it, mess about with it. It seems to me Marcello that it's you who've got the 'indie' attitude, albeit in reverse - wanting to keep pop separate and inviolate, distrusting any attempts to take it out of its mass-market context. And I should say that I recognise this tendency because it's exactly what I've been doing all this time - a critical overprotectiveness towards pop. One reason I love bootlegs so much is that they're offering me a way out of that which still lets me love pop, in pure or cocktail form (and the cocktail metaphor is WAY more apt than the ribena one, especially since by your own admission the Strokes are just as much pop as Christina is).

If nothing else bootlegs are interesting cos they give practical form to some fairly arid debates we've been having about pop, and because in our various reactions to them we're getting a much better idea of where we're all coming from in re. pop music.

My view is that pop does enough to mix things up, fuck things about, as a self-reliant entity - in its "rock" form, pretty damn successfully for the last half-century - without the need for all these manifestos. Consider the rhythm track to "Genie in a Bottle" which could have been bodily lifted from Durutti's "Lips That Would Kiss." Consider also how much more sense the KLF made (yes, we're back to that mantra again) being number one in the charts in '91 than having a double-spread in the NME in '87.

And why, pray tell (and this question has NOT been satisfactorily answered as yet) does pop need to be taken out of its mass-market context at all? Isn't that, er, its point?

As I have already said, I have no objection whatsoever to people doing these bootlegs and other people enjoying them. But can we just drop the pretence that this is anything new or radical, that this is the new punk - it isn't. Real radicalism doesn't sprint into the arena, announcing itself with loudhailers.

Yes of course pop does all of this stuff anyway - that's what FT's always said. What I don't understand Marcello is why you're so keen to draw the line and say, in effect - it does all this stuff anyway why do we need more of it? We always need more of it. You're saying "So what's new?" and that's a very good question - but I'd say back to you, "Why don't your objections apply to, say, Grandmaster Flash in '81?".

OK, why does pop benefit from being taken out of a mass-market context? Well it's not necessarily pop that's benefitting yet - though as you say, that might come when the Sugababes go top ten - at the moment it's the new, indie contexts it's invading that can benefit from the injection of pop. (Actually of course bootlegs are already happening in a mass context, getting regular daytime radio play on a station reaching 10 million or so people daily.)

Cultural composition of audience is a big and v.interesting qn and deserves a new thread.

But like I intimated in my original post, these ARE early days (or the last days, depending which way you look at it), so I'm waiting for the artisans to come along and make this stuff really interesting.

(maybe the equivalent of DJ Scud/Bloodklaat Gangsta Youth but without Wire writers contextualising them?)

The fact that bootlegs - having been restricted to the dancefloor for so long - do not necessarily have to be danceable is an important and necessary freedom, but that doesn't change the fact that ninety percent of bootlegs are still created for dancing.

Why important and necessary?

What made KOTB such a great night out was that you could see all these different strands and directions waiting to come out but that right then and there all the same people wanted to dance to all of them. In six months time better records will be being made BUT the people who want to dance to Grange Hill vs Nelly will not tolerate Osymiso's beatless flights of pop fantasy and his fans will be bored by Tom Middleton's dance-with-a-hint-of-bootleg tracks, and so on. Whereas the club was at that early scene-stage where everyone likes everything because there's not much of it about. And that's always exciting, I guess.

Because the emotional power (or more simply, the "feelgood factor") of a lot of this stuff is not dependent on how easily you can dance to it. To use The Avalanches again, is it necessary to preference "Extra Kings" over "Two Hearts In 3/4 Time", or vice versa? I don't think so. I (obviously, being me) prefer the stuff you can dance to, but I think demanding that all bootlegs be danceable is little different to demanding that all music generally be danceable.

Tom Middleton - hmm, a bit like tagging Dave Edmunds' Rockpile as "new wave," no? Then again he helped pave the way for all this carry on with "Roobarb and Custard" way back when. Although with his Global Communications hat on (esp. "14:31") he could also reduce one to tears.

I don't think it coincidental that people are simultaneously rediscovering vintage old skool rave, and it would be good if some of the genuinely illegal excitement which that generated in '90-92 could burn again in this new (?) context. There's a directness (again, like early punk/hiphop), a certain type of workable aesthetic monochrome which could possibly give this movement a point.

But then again one freely admits that if one were asked to name 20 decent punk records in February 1977, one would be struggling.

As usual Tom has pulled out all the threads I did not quite pin down. It was an enjoyable night and it did feel full of potential. I agree that it is not doing a lot more that Pop Will Eat Itself, KLF, Negativland - but then like any scene you need a critical mass of instigators and people interested in this stuff to make it come together. That appears to be the case at the moment (via XFM, the Breezeblock) and I am happy to do that as well because I do genuinely find the records good and the ideas interesting.

I think we should be wary about catagorising this as an indie phenomenon as well - dance snobs, trainspotters are much more scathing about pop than indie ones have been for a long time.

I have just realised I'm in Hamburg on the 7th - fuckery. Maybe I'll be back in London in time. I took my laptop to the last one (appropriate huh) so I can arrive fully suited up to this!

I don't understand this: does this mean the public in general, or a specific public (a black public?)? Why 'should' they be getting it -- does this mean it should be directed at them, or that the bootleg thing would only be validated if a certain group of people 'got it'? Is 'indie' exclusively white? What is wrong with being an indie saddo?

sneering at pop music from a distinctly indie perspective (rather than from genuine street level)

Is there something more intrinsically genuine about 'street level'? Or do you mean that this is an indie perspective which pretends to be street level? Are we only allowed to sneer at pop music from one level rather than the other?

I have to admit, I don't really understand Marcello's agenda.

I also have to admit that I think the bootleg thing -- as a scene or a phenomenon -- is a bit tedious. Some of the songs I've heard have been quite good (How far back does this go -- the Stardust / Madonna remix?) and all, but why does it have to be a sodding NEW THING?

I also have to admit that I thought that Pete's article was interesting precisely because it asked that sort of question -- are the people here to dance or to compile lists of what had been mixed into what, spot breaks etc? Am I (pete) enjoying this because I feel part of some thing exciting which might be big or because of some intrinsic thing about bootlegs?

Go figure.

My point exactly.

So where's your argument, Alex?

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What Mr. Carlin is actually getting @, I have no idea.

It's as old as the concept of cover versions (eg old as the idea of songs themselves, old as the hills) but there is clearly something new going on in the way these songs are being made and distributed and talked about that is refreshing. Pop and indie are both best when they acknowledge each other and react. They've been so cloistered recently, it's kind of cute to see them flirting and teasing again.

It's great. "just breath and stop" riff from MJ "for real and give it what you got". Oh yes indeed I like it.

Hip hop not indie. Much more important.

I don't recall saying anything about the "making and distribution aspect (sic)" on this thread.

Don't quite know what you're getting at re. availability. "Adventures" came out on Sugarhill, distributed by PRT, and therefore available pretty well everywhere in '81 (just missed the top 75 in fact). mp3/vinyl/whatever - you look at the statue, not the tools used to make it. And if the statues stink I say so.

And even if pop doesn't NEED indie, what's to say that indie won't have anything interesting to say about pop?

Marcello replies - no there isn't.

Re. indie and pop - traffic is from indie to pop YES EXACTLY i.e. the pop scene (=the charts) is absorbing the good bits of the underground as part of its novelty-driven innovation. The underground in turn magpies ideas from pop and messes about with them, perhaps creating more ideas which pop can then swipe back.

And bootlegs aren't indie either, in the genre sense - they're just part of whats happening in the underground at the moment. They don't sound indie.

Tom's theory as I understand it:-

INDIE <= POP.

INDIE plays around with elements.

Rejigged elements => POP.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear, but when I talk about "indie" I'm talking specifically about whitey guitar Camden Falcon "indie." Electronica et al = whole different ball game.

Also, the Mjackson/Windowlicker boot is incredible because it finds the pop in aphex twin.

Windowlicker - #16 in UK charts => Aphex Twin found pop in himself. MJ not necessary.

But isn't that type of indie (aside from the Strokes [#something on the charts, found their own pop, etc.]) almost wholly absent from this stuff anyway? It seems mostly recombined hip hop, electronica and pop.

POP has to sell in order to exist. To do this it needs to balance comfort and novelty. Examples: Novelty = "Baby One More Time". Comfort = "Oops I Did It Again" (this is speaking strictly about the records not the total package). Where does pop get the novelty from? From anywhere it can. This includes the non-mainstream, often by direct absorbtion, sometimes by influence.

The non-mainstream meanwhile can draw ideas from pop, and is in my and Fritz' view much healthier when it does so (I'm not saying the pop/unpop relationship is an equal one, just that pop benefits too). Sometimes those ideas are good enough and immediate enough too for pop to swipe them back.

It was?

Tom: I'd argue that the "underground" (better yet: subaltern, but certainly not narrowly "indie" which does indeed exclude hip-hop &c, anyway...) the underground is always very broad and "twisted" as nitsuh sez in many directions, and it reinfuses the mainstream when a particular direction jibes with cultural movement -- so in this sense, & as ppl have said, negativland &c. have been doing this for ages & of course there were the britney vs. eminiem thangs floating over napster for year-1.5 years earlier & thus we can say that this is already an emergent pop phenomina, & now ask why this particular "twist" is important and called for.

Negativland / John Oswald etc. - now HERE are people "sneering at" or "commenting on" pop, if you like, and to disagree with Tim F its the lack of this kind of metacontext that makes me like the current wave more. Also of course there's no longer any kind of political context - Negativland concerned themselves with fighting copyright law, bootleggers are taking advantage of a - possibly small - window during which copyright has effectively been smashed open.

Who's gonna pay when the Novelty's gone?

I don't accept any of the terms being used in this thread, the definitions of pop or indie or street level or authenticity based on the ethnic make up of the audience.

I don't accept that cut'n'shunt is a scene either.

So I though the article was great but I don't think the author was writing it as a scene either. It wasn't like a report back from the CBGBs in 1975, Roxy in 1976, the Electric Circus in 1977, the Batcave 1980, Washington DC 1984, Splash 1 1985, Detroit 1986, Hacienda, Seattle etc etc etc... fill in the gaps before during and after.

Its even not enough of a phenomenon yet to place any of the critisisms on it (its not popular? well give it time fer crissakes), its pretty interesting and I do like some of these tracks, and an event celebrating them is interesting enough to be going on with.

I like a stroke of genius just fine too. And I like the two source tracks just fine as well, I totally reject the notion that it wasn't a marriage of equals or that its got anything to do with different scenes giving legitimacy to others. I like 'Smells..', and I like 'Booty...' and I don't like Soulwaxs 'Smells like Booty' even though its well done - its just not an interesting collision.

Most of all I just like the idea of folks f**king around in Cool Edit Pro and making something that sounds great. I've even been having a load of fun myself colliding 'Dance to the Music' with 'Transmission' and seeing if it works (if it does I haven't managed it yet). I patched in clips from Lee and Nancy's 'Jackson' and laid them on top of an Outkast track (oh go on guess which one!) and nearly got something worthwhile too. I am not aware of the need to stick to the formula one indie and once dance track. (can we have a fantasy bootleg thread?)

All of which is my way of saying, whats the problem here? Explain it to me again... I don't care about what other folks think is cool or acceptable, just that I am enjoying listening to this stuff. Am I wrong?

Max Martin, yes?

(Actually the other bootleg makers aren't "just mixing tracks together" - Tom's dissection of "One Minute Cat" suggests to me that the talent you have to possess to make good bootlegs is an ear for a track's possibilities, imagining Missy as torch singer and The Cure as a lounge act from just the original material. There is implied commentary going on here, even if it's inadvertant and localised to the specific songs)

The reason I mentioned Rockwilder/Pink track before is that if mainstream hip hop producers get on board then this is clearly not just an indie/non-pop/shame-avoiding exercise. As it is I can't imagine being a bootleg maker if you still felt ashamed about liking pop. You'd have to listen to the tunes a hell of a lot to figure out which ones go well together.

This is where I say that "Point of No Return" was and is a great song. Oh it's true.

Rolling Stones 1963-1964: took American soul-pop songs and added hard- blues licks and vocals to make the music acceptable to the Stones' angry bohemian selves. In so doing they made some of the greatest music ever. And can't "make music acceptable to themselves" be rephrased as "heard something in the original music that wasn't there, or was only there as potential" (this is an argument that Greil Marcus made in Creem, "heard what the music reached for and what it only implied")? In other words, heard in it the potential to express themselves, express something that had never been expressed before. I cite this as an example (or counterexample) because I think that there is a line of descent from the Rolling Stones to precious modern-day "indie" and "electronic dance" bohemias (I don't think they're so different), and I don't trust those bohemias to make music nearly as vital as their sources (or music as good as "Point of No Return" or "...Baby One More Time," for that matter). But I'm not saying that those bohemias can't make vital music, so my question would be: under what conditions do they make vital music? Under what conditions do they make lame music?

By the way, a year before "Have You See Your Mother Baby (Standing in the Shadows of Love)," the Stones had already filched the main riff from the 4 Tops' "The Same Old Song" and turned it into "Under My Thumb (With a Very Different Feeling Now that You're Gone)."

By the way, Stars on 45 hit single (I don't remember its title) way back when was the first cover version of a bootleg mix.

hehe

here's my set for those who wanna hear:

part one (intro)

part two

part three

part four

part five

part six

part seven

part eight

not everyone will get it...

so how's the Superchunk coming along frenchbloke? gotta start work on mine soon ;)