From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V7 #8 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Saturday, January 10 2004 Volume 07 : Number 008 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [idealcopy] Mark wrote [Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Mark wrote Ari wrote > Can't se e how Radiohead could be grouped with any of these other > bands.................A I really enjoyed Mark's post. There's a really core point here, I think. Radiohead's self-proclaimed major influences when they were starting were British post-punk, the Pixies, the Smiths, and Dinosaur Jr; they've covered Can (The Thief) and Magazine (Shot by Both Sides, inevitably) live. From that, it'd be hard to label them as a prog act; but their music is at times very tricksy. Weren't Wire labelled "Punk Floyd" at the time (probably cause they were on Harvest)? A lot of Floyd's lyrical concerns were not too dissimilar from what the artier end of post-punk aimed straight for a few years later. (It seems, to me, to make more sense to think of Floyd as two bands: with Syd Barrett, and without.) Hypercomplex musical structures are everywhere: through experimental electronic stuff, or the fully-fledged revival of shoegaze as electronica going on via Ulrich Schnauss, Boards of Canada, Posthuman, and friends (which I love: this is scaring the hell out of me, as I've always heard the propaganda about shoegaze mostly being boring toss and never bothered investigating it), or d'n'b, or the inventiveness of some of the R'n'B records that get in the charts (Missy Elliott, this means you...). So what the hell *is* prog these days? It looks like you get labelled prog if you're either a) excessively musicianly in a showy way (bad thing) or b) smart, particularly in an abstract/intellectual sense (good thing, IMO, although opinions vary). You seem to be able to get away with b) if you _play_ dumb: the Pixies knew exactly what they were doing, McLusky for one are the same now (and it seems Franz Ferdinand are aiming for that niche too); but if you have the gall to play up that side of your character, then watch out. The shock factor musically doesn't seem to be there any more: anything sounding like '70s prog just sounds very dated to me. That's something I think punk is directly responsible for: severing the link between intellectual and musical complexity, which to me seems to be what Mark was getting at with the comparison of Krautrock and BritProg (please correct me if I'm wrong). You'd have to try damn hard to get away with the same level of pretension ELP managed, thank God. I've not noticed a goat aroma around my gy!be albums (they're a one-trick pony, but it's a trick which *really* works for me). - - Andrew - -- email: andrew@lexical.org.uk http://www.lexical.org.uk/ Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/ DJ, CUR1350 - http://www.cur1350.co.uk/ http://www.lexical.org.uk/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 18:25:38 +1100 (EST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Phillip=20Blakeney?= Subject: [idealcopy] Internet the death of record shops? Robert wrote: "speaking of going-out-of-business...isn't it alarming how many record stores are going under...independent as well as chain-stores.... very sad....the internet may well be the death of record shops.... in my opinion nothing can take the place of spending hours alone searching for old vinyl and cds....". I wonder whether it's the second hand stores that are going under- they still seem to be going ok in Australia. For old blokes like me (us??) the 'thrill of the chase' for old vinyl gets satisfied both at Ebay AND at record stores. Record stores are still better because there is no postage cost and nothing beats being able to FEEL the goods. Second hand record stores that cater for collectors seem to be quite busy but stores that just have loads of records regardless of collectablility are more in trouble. Whilst the product in the former is often more expensive, in the latter it gets very tiresome wading through the crap to find the hidden underpriced gem. As for shops catering to the new music buyer, THEY seem to be in trouble over here as well. Phillip from Australia (waiting, waiting, waiting for March............) - --------------------------------- Yahoo! Personals - - New people, new possibilities. FREE for a limited time! ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V7 #8 *****************************