Dad3353 Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 Just now, Leonard Smalls said: It is possible! I was once in the house band for a Blues Jam weekend with Dangerous Dave and Jerry Rockstar... Oh, I have no doubts whatever of the Blues aspect; it's the 'nice' I am not used to associating..! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 I can do nice! I once played a melody you know. Just the once, mind. Melodies and tunes are for losers. 🎶 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, Leonard Smalls said: So you likes it sugar-coated as well? 😝 So I'm guessing Brotzmann's out too? Bloody love Brotzmann. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevB Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 That second video, I'd just like to say I've got one of those stand up rectangular lamps with the paper shade. I knew you'd all want to know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, KevB said: That second video, I'd just like to say I've got one of those stand up rectangular lamps with the paper shade. I knew you'd all want to know. I can't imagine why your attention drifted away from the performance and onto inanimate objects around the performance area....? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJpullchord Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 I guess most people are conditioned and shaped by sounds they feel comfortable hearing. Do I like this? No. Neither do I dislike it. However, it is interesting. And that’s more than most. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maude Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 The first clip reminds me of The Fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 On 19/07/2018 at 13:31, EBS_freak said: Bloody love Brotzmann. And with good reason! Here's a whole 1'30" of a surprisingly mellow Brotz... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 26 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said: And with good reason! Here's a whole 1'30" of a surprisingly mellow Brotz... Is this one called Saturday morning instrument window shopping at the music shop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 @EBS_freak Are you planning to rubbish everything you don't like on this thread? Just asking... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bridgehouse Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 1 minute ago, leftybassman392 said: @EBS_freak Are you planning to rubbish everything you don't like on this thread? Just asking... To be fair, it would be a bit hypocritical of him to praise or hype up stuff he didn’t like.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 1 minute ago, Bridgehouse said: To be fair, it would be a bit hypocritical of him to praise or hype up stuff he didn’t like.. Well yes, that's a given TBH. Not really the point I'm making though. This 'everything I don't like in this thread is crap' gig is getting a bit old (IMHO of course). Might be a bit more constructive to spell out what it is about it that makes it crap. Not being able to find the one doesn't make musical expression crap. (Unless of course you think it does, but then at least we'll have something to argue about discuss.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bridgehouse Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 4 minutes ago, leftybassman392 said: Well yes, that's a given TBH. Not really the point I'm making though. This 'everything I don't like in this thread is crap' gig is getting a bit old (IMHO of course). Might be a bit more constructive to spell out what it is about it that makes it crap. Not being able to find the one doesn't make musical expression crap. (Unless of course you think it does, but then at least we'll have something to argue about discuss.) Sorry, I don’t have an answer to that - my flippant-ish comment was merely a direct reply to the idea (or not) of how you comment on dislikes. The problem with saying why you don’t like particular music or songs is waaaaaay to difficult tho - cos it’s a subjective art form. I hate some Jazz. Dunno why. I could try and describe what I don’t like but it always ends up sounding similar to “it’s dischordant non melodic claptrap that... look, it just doesn’t make me feel fuzzy inside,ok?” I could say “it doesn’t sound nice to my ears” but that’s not that different to “it’s rubbish” as it’s all just subjective Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 53 minutes ago, leftybassman392 said: @EBS_freak Are you planning to rubbish everything you don't like on this thread? Just asking... Um... you may have noticed that I started the thread and tone was set out from the start.... However, this thread may be more to your liking - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 22 minutes ago, EBS_freak said: Um... you may have noticed that I started the thread and tone was set out from the start.... Indeed. So this thread is just for people who want to spout off or take the fosters out of music they don't like, is that right? No discussion or debate required. Just an 'I think this stuff is crap' thread. Duly noted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 3 hours ago, EBS_freak said: Is this one called Saturday morning instrument window shopping at the music shop? Perhaps this is more to your taste? There's even some relatively coherent bits... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 I enjoyed it from one minute (ish). Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneakyfish Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 On 15/07/2018 at 12:00, EBS_freak said: I'm not sure if this is meant to be music... or if the guy is seriously possessed and needs an exorcist. There's improvisation and improvisation. Sorry, I just don't get it... and yes, I'll judge you if you like this. On a side note, the guy on upright nailed an impression of me on one. On another side note, I'd love to be witness to him testing out mics in a music shop. Haha! I'd love to hear him testing mic's too! He certainly is 'possessed by the music'. I'd like to hear the bassists other work as well. We all get something different out of sonic experiences. Especially this kind of avant-garde or free-jazz. This sort of thing can really test people and challenge their definitions of art, as it seems to have done for you. It can drive them genuinely insane as well. I personally love it for that, its very punk! His vocalisations are just that. Vocalisations. This doesn't limit him to specific words, harmony or rhythm. It could be considered quite dissonant. But interestingly, I saw a Rick Beato video recently where he discussed the idea of 'immunity to dissonance'. If you hear a dissonance or musical oddity enough you acclimatise to it and it is no longer dissonant or odd to you, just another fascinating harmony. 7/8 is 'odd' time, but we all got used to it. It's not strange anymore. Immunity to dissonance, while utterly alien at first, is central to this performance I feel. I found it was interesting to listen to with my 'soundscape head' on. The beginning brought the image of someone working with wood outdoors to my minds eye. I'll readily concede that it's not musical in the classical sense of the word. It's not Trane, Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra, but it does have a certain something. I once went to an enjoyable free-jazz/avant-garde gig which closely resembled this but used prepared piano, drums, bari-sax and electronics in addition to voice and bass. I found it made a refreshing change from the usual diatonic harmony and evenly divided rhythmic content. When I was younger, I remember feeling the way that you feel about this, but for all Jazz. The music was unpredictable (which I took to be bad at the time) and harmonically beyond my understanding. So, like a typical monkey I interpreted that which was unknown to be bad and avoided it. As I have matured, this has obviously and quite necessarily changed. For me, this performance clearly demonstrated the difference between improvisation in a conventional jazz idiom (where we expect the usual cliches of approach notes, time on the ride cymbal, walking bass, extended harmony etc.) and improvisation in a free setting such as this, where any sound can be interpreted musically. John Cage had alot to say about this. He held that all sounds/silences are musical, it is the listener and their ability to hear the sounds as such which varies. Don't actively listen to it I say, just be part of the thing. This is what I would call "inhabiting a sound-space" or passive attention. Very meditative if you're into that stuff. Similar to when you put on a record while doing some chores. The tune simply accompanies you as you go about, you're neither ignoring nor focusing on it. Performances like this are highly introspective, interpretive and, as with all music like this, requires completely different priorities from the listener. If everybody walks away from the performance with the same thing, then this music has definitely failed. Think about abstract expressionist art. It doesn't ask you to recognise use of forms from reality in the work (in this case the parallel would be use of conventional musical laws in the piece). The point is not to say: 'Look how well they depicted this scene or that tree.' or 'Look how well the bass outlines harmony x or rhythm y'. Nothing so literal. Rather, the purpose is personal, unique from hearing to hearing and often difficult or impossible to convey with words. P.S. The little "Ooo." from Minton at the end made me laugh. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevB Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 On 19/07/2018 at 15:19, EBS_freak said: I can't imagine why your attention drifted away from the performance and onto inanimate objects around the performance area....? See, I knew you'd be intrigued. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneakyfish Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said: @Sneakyfish - you need to check in here more often. Probably the most sensible post in all four pages 😀 Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamg67 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 I think @EBS_freak has a valid enough take on this that it deserves respect, as valid as saying that pretty much any noise is music - if it was, we wouldn't need the word "music", would we? The whole debate is interesting, but also difficult because nothing is defined solidly enough and almost everything is subjective. Are there things that are audio art but are not music? Are there things which people mean to be music, but the consensus would be that it isn't? It's worth asking, and lots of answers are valid. Some of it sounds quite unpleasant to a lot of people, and at the same time other people think it has value as art or music and even seem to think it sounds good - you can't tell them they're wrong. I'm giving away my own biases now, I think. The original YT video does make me wonder if they really mean it to be enjoyed by the listener or if there's an element of different and interesting being assumed to be good on some intellectual level regardless of whether people enjoy listening to it. My personal take on it... well, there's a lot of music and art that I love, but there's a line that gets crossed where I think, you're just going through a process that you think should produce art and then calling whatever comes out the end art anyway, even if it looks or sounds "bad" (or random, which is maybe worse) or doesn't actually get across what you were trying to express to other people. I suppose I think art is about communication, and things like conceptual art break that for me - you shouldn't have to explain what is being expressed. Just because an artist produces something, and puts some expression in it, that doesn't make it art (again, my personal take on it) and just because musicians express something and it sounds interesting doesn't mean it's music. Otherwise, like I said, we can just ditch the word music and use "sound" instead. And, also, possibly more controversially, I do think people can appear to be claiming some kind of artisitic superiority by liking things that are "more artistic". It ends up looking a lot like the emporer's new clothes. Right, I'm off to see if my shed will float... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 1 hour ago, Sneakyfish said: Especially this kind of avant-garde or free-jazz. This sort of thing can really test people and challenge their definitions of art, as it seems to have done for you. It can drive them genuinely insane as well. I personally love it for that, its very punk! Funnily enough I discovered the weirder end of jazz completely by mistake; I was DJing in Leeds in the 80s - mainly funk. And as there was no real means I knew of finding new music I'd buy stuff completely on spec. One day I saw an album cover with a sharp dressed black guy holding a Steinberger bass - it was an import costing £8.99 (this was 1985!!!) but I thought this looks like new funk, I'll play it at the Warehouse tonight! It was Jamaaladeen Tacuma's "Showstopper". I played it before sticking it on the dancefloor - didn't sound straight 4:4, there was weird repetition, there were too many notes, it just wasn't right. So I shoved it in the back of my record collection. A couple of years later I listened to it again, and somehow it just made sense... But it was a slippery slope, I craved more oddness, more dissonance, more crazy. Ornette and his harmolodics weren't enough. Through Shannon-Jackson I discovered Last Exit, Brotzmann, Bill Laswell, Sonny Sharrock, Steve Lacey, Lol Coxhill and the holy grail - Derek Bailey. It was like starting with a fag behind the bike sheds, graduating onto a sneaky spliff, onto white powders, bits of blotting paper, and finally, Free Jazz Improv. All other music sounded dull. After a long visit to the Betty Ford Clinic I was weaned back onto "normal" music, but thanks to this thread I'm hooked again. Cheers! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingrayPete1977 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 6 hours ago, leftybassman392 said: Indeed. So this thread is just for people who want to spout off or take the fosters out of music they don't like, is that right? No discussion or debate required. Just an 'I think this stuff is crap' thread. Duly noted. Is there a limit to the Internet where we must conserve threads by only commenting on or creating constructive topics? The only positive thing I got from the 'performance' was in taking some comfort in being certain they won't be taking any gigs from my band. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 I had the misfortune today of working at a "family fun day". There was a girl singing and playing guitar - many people were saying how nice it was to have lovely music; to my ears it was like nails on a blackboard. She strummed basic chords, her song choice was bland, her singing nasal, occasionally a bit flat and increasingly annoying. But otherwise OK. I mean just about OK. I mean lowest common denominator OK - safe, of no musical interest, boring, kum-by-ah round the campfire OK. I would have preferred to see the folks shaken up a bit, challenged, taken out of their safe zones. But it'll never happen because it's easier not to - people like what they know and know what they like! Perhaps this is why I failed as a music promoter! 😁 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingrayPete1977 Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 There's loads of terrible music some people enjoy Coldplay, Dylan and Cohen spring to mind immediately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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