that "what if pink floyd were funky" questions reminds me: i was listening to talking heads last night, and i realized i'd never really noticed what a funky rhythm section chris & tina were! not just on the tom tom club-era "speaking in toungues", half of which i think wouldn't sound out of place on a cameo record if the drums were just turned up a notch in the mix... but also "77" came up on the ipod after "speaking", and.... damn, i mean granted there are lots of non-funky, spazzy new wave rythms on there, but i heard lots of syncopated, cool little danceable drum/bass grooves as well, with sharp little mutated, ever-so-slightly JB-ish guitar riffs...
so am i crazy, or were the heads actually pretty funky?
ps. they also invented looped rhythm samples
― messiahwannabe, Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:37 (seventeen years ago)
Of course Talking Heads were funky! Tina = one of my favourite bass players ever. Chris = NOT one of my favourite drummers ever.
― Tom D., Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:40 (seventeen years ago)
I somehow doubt they invented looped rhythm samples. What about Can, didn't they do that?
― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:43 (seventeen years ago)
the beatles.
― banriquit, Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:44 (seventeen years ago)
I think you'll find it was Pierre Schaeffer
― Tom D., Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:47 (seventeen years ago)
doesn't sound very poptimistic...
― banriquit, Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:48 (seventeen years ago)
Oh I don't know, some catchy stuff in there
― Tom D., Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:50 (seventeen years ago)
"I somehow doubt they invented looped rhythm samples. What about Can, didn't they do that?"
well, i'm sure someone somewhere took a rhythm of some sort, looped it, and played against it, before them. hell, maybe can looped the whole rhythm section before the heads and eno did - i've only heard a handful of their albums, so maybe i missed that. but to the best of my knowledge, remain in light was the first album where they used nothing but loops of the drums & bass for the entirety of each song.
i am willing to stand down on this issue if someone has better info than me.
"Of course Talking Heads were funky! Tina = one of my favourite bass players ever. Chris = NOT one of my favourite drummers ever."
so you didn't even like chris' drumming on remain in light? that album has GREAT drums!
i guess i always realized they had that (funk) influence, like they mentioned it in interviews and stuff. but i always used to think it was more that they *liked* funk than that they actually *played* it. part of that's probably cause fear of music was my introduction to them, and pretty much my fave album of theirs for many years. so listening to a rip of GTA's bounce fm, and then speaking in tongues soon afterwards, kinda highlighted the similarities between the heads and 80's era funk... whereas i kinda HATED bounceFM-y stuff back in the 80's when SIT came out, so i didn't really notice the similarities (or blocked them out maybe)
― messiahwannabe, Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:57 (seventeen years ago)
remain in light was the first album where they used nothing but loops of the drums & bass for the entirety of each song
Is this right? I don't know if I believe this.
― Tom D., Thursday, 12 June 2008 09:59 (seventeen years ago)
Miles Davis.
Not sure if I believe the loop talk about Remain In Light either.
― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 12 June 2008 10:15 (seventeen years ago)
Pretty sure I remember reading that the drumming on Can's Halleluhwah is a tape loop. Either that or it's an impressively tricky rhythm to sustain over 15 mins. And yeah, I'm guessing the Beatles did this too at some point (Tomorrow Never Knows?).
― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 12 June 2008 10:29 (seventeen years ago)
Pretty sure I remember reading that the drumming on Can's Halleluhwah is a tape loop. Either that or it's an impressively tricky rhythm to sustain over 15 mins.
That's no tape loop. It's Jaki, 15 minutes is easy to him. The end section of "Mother Sky sounds like a loop to me but can't think of any other times they did it.
― Tom D., Thursday, 12 June 2008 10:33 (seventeen years ago)
hmmm, you know that "they invented looped rhythms" thing was a kind of throw-away one liner, i guess i wouldn't really be surprised if someone else did it first. i'm listening to tomorrow never knows as i type this, and yes, it does sound awfully loopy. and the beatles *were* definitely messing around with the tape recorders for that number too....
"remain in light was the first album where they used nothing but loops of the drums & bass for the entirety of each song
Is this right? I don't know if I believe this."
this is definitely true, they mentioned it in interviews, and if you listen to the song track by track, it's quite obvious once you're looking for it. put it on and check!
the loops are really fantastic as well.
― messiahwannabe, Thursday, 12 June 2008 14:31 (seventeen years ago)
you know, i was thinking about this the other day, too - how did the talking heads keep their record deal? they were on a major label, right? and it seems in retrospect they had relatively prompt, regular releases, with a reasonable amount of press etc yet they didn't really have big hits off of any of their first *4* albums, right (ok, a top 30 here and there, but even those seemed few and far between)
i wonder if an artsy, quirky band like that, but signed to a major, would get that kind of continued support in the face of relatively slow sales these days...
― messiahwannabe, Thursday, 12 June 2008 14:37 (seventeen years ago)
By keeping costs low and having a fairly exact sales target.
This means they know how many LPs to press and not have lots of overrun/unsold stock.
― Mark G, Thursday, 12 June 2008 14:44 (seventeen years ago)