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Even Now Music Can Still Shock


Jason Karloff

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I recently found Ren (thanks to Justin Hawkins). Some of his solo stuff is very shocking.

 

 

I’ll just post that one here, but have a look around his YouTube channel.
 

His Tale trilogy - Jenny’s Tale, Screech’s Tale and Violet’s Tale (in that order) - bring genuine tears to my eyes, no matter how often I hear them.

 

I also love the stuff he does with Chinchilla (someone else I hadn’t heard of until recently), especially the song Chalk Outlines.

 

When you find his band, The Big Push, you get to see the massive breadth of his talent.

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3 hours ago, Jason Karloff said:

https://youtu.be/5XgCfAK-3pA

 

If I was a drummer she would of just made me quit. 

 

Makes Keith Moon look like he was hitting his kit with feather dusters. 

 

Love the moment at 4.06 when she hits the cymbal and a huge chunk of drumstick goes flying. 

 

Never seen anyone destroy a drum kit quite like that. 

 

 

I had a feeling that would be good when I saw it was Sargent House records.

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On 04/02/2023 at 11:11, Jason Karloff said:

https://youtu.be/5XgCfAK-3pA

 

If I was a drummer she would of just made me quit. 

 

Makes Keith Moon look like he was hitting his kit with feather dusters. 

 

Love the moment at 4.06 when she hits the cymbal and a huge chunk of drumstick goes flying. 

 

Never seen anyone destroy a drum kit quite like that. 

 

Oh goodness me! Being shallower than a puddle on a summer's day, I have to admit that I find that watching a good female drummer to be one of the sexiest things out there.. I think I need a cold flannel! 

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There's a young lad in the next village, a drummist. He's 16 or so and a rabid John Bonham fan.

 

He is a sight indeed to watch, makes Bonham look like John Inmam doing the drums. Watching him its as the the god Thor himself has desdended from Valhalla to smash out When the Levee Breaks with sledge hammers for drumsticks 

 

Some of the new upcoming talent is incredible. I guess music is now so widely and freely available that there is limitless inspiration on tap, and training aids and information are all over the web for free whereas previous generations would have relied on finding books or paying a tutor.

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On 04/02/2023 at 17:31, Nail Soup said:

But not shocking as such.

 

Indeed! Being shocked implies having experienced something that is definitely different and puts you outside your comfort zone. Being good at something relatively "normal" isn't really shocking.

This is just a little more shocking:

 

 

As is this!

 

 

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I wouldn't call any of it 'shocking' tbh. Decent drummer on the first vid but she was all about hitting hard, which any drummer can do tbh...

 

Those last 2 vids (above) were just 'lets see how many funny noises we can make....' and on the 1st one 'then sing badly over'.

 

But hey, I'm probably not the angst ridden outsider this is aimed at.....maybe I just like a good tune... ;)

 

Edited by cetera
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1 hour ago, cetera said:

I just like a good tune

Many do!

Though what is a good tune? In western music that means something that is purely (or at least largely) in our major and minor scales (i.e. Ionian and Aeolian modes) - probably because we are conditioned virtually from birth to hear those as "right". Though until about the 1500s neither mode was widely used at all - more likely that a good tune then was in the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian or Mixolydian modes. 

However, if you were brought up with "Persian tuning" where an octave is divided into 24 notes rather our twelve, completely different possibilities for a good tune occur, similarly for those brought up on Chinese or Indian music.

Then there's the sounds used to make that "tune" and the rhythms involved; the more they veer from the widely accepted norm the less folks will like 'em!

However, us angst-ridden outsiders crave novelty... We like it be be different from what the squares dig, daddy-o! Whether that's finely sculpted noise like Gilla Band (who imho sculpt noises with far more skill and creativity than previous noiseniks like Sonic Youth), or weird modal or chromatic stuff with added oddness, like Mr. Parker likes to produce.

Though to be musically shocked is quite difficult, methinks; we're more likely to be shocked by content, such as Throbbing Gristle's beautifully wistful "Hamburger Lady" (😁) or with the benefit of modern sensibilities, old rockers singing about their likings for little girls (e.g Mr Chuck Berry himself, though that also had a "good tune"!). 

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3 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

Indeed! Being shocked implies having experienced something that is definitely different and puts you outside your comfort zone. Being good at something relatively "normal" isn't really shocking.

This is just a little more shocking:

 

 

As is this!

 

 

Both interesting. But what's shocking about them?

 

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On 04/02/2023 at 11:11, Jason Karloff said:

https://youtu.be/5XgCfAK-3pA

 

If I was a drummer she would of just made me quit. 

 

Makes Keith Moon look like he was hitting his kit with feather dusters. 

 

Love the moment at 4.06 when she hits the cymbal and a huge chunk of drumstick goes flying. 

 

Never seen anyone destroy a drum kit quite like that. 

Didn't strike me as too over the top to be honest, certainly not for the genre of music they play.

Chunks of wood fly off drumsticks. It happens, certainly when hitting cymbals at the angle she does.

YMMV, but she's not overplaying, which would really bug me.

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On 06/02/2023 at 00:31, SPHDS said:

That is pretty impressive....
But I will raise you Pau Villareal of The Warning.....!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWg1Wwrm99o
Stick 1 at 01:46

Stick 2 02:07
All whilst not dropping a beat, destroying the kit and belting out vocals.....aged 14
Quite a powerhouse of a band to be fair...

Yeah, probably putting a little too much effort in there. Not all drumsticks are they same though. I know some who prefer lighter sticks that don't last very long at all.

I used to play with a guy in a soul/funk outfit who used to go through a few steps per gig and he dirndl;t play particularly hard at all.

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38 minutes ago, Johncee said:

But what's shocking about them?

As I said in my other post, being musically shocking is quite difficult. My 2 examples were lightly shocking simply by being different. 

Back in 1976 many folks were shocked by the Sex Pistols - simply because, for most people who hadn't heard of the New York Dolls et al they'd never heard such a racket or seen such an attitude.

Similarly, when Elvis, Bill Haley etc rocked up older folks thought it was the end of civilisation.

And Ornette Coleman appalled the "jazz establishment" with his "Shape of Jazz to come".

Never mind what aficionados of classical music thought when Schoenberg ditched melody and key with his twelve tone system!

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4 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

 

I saw Evan Parker doing his "electro-acoustic" thing at the Huddersfield "New Music Festival" about 10 years ago. IIRC there were ten of then on stage - 5 playing recognisable musical instruments and 5 with laptops manipulating the sound in real time. Unfortunately for someone like myself who was heavily into avant garde post-punk electronic bands in the late 70s and early 80s it wasn't particularly new, radical, or shocking at all. At least back then, that kind of sonic manipulation was genuinely hard to do, because of the more primitive nature of the equipment available.

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7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

it wasn't particularly new, radical, or shocking at all

His earlier stuff with Derek Bailey was probably a lot more weird - his nonette and tennette (😁) is possibly more film-y, but evocative all the same.

Though I think I was more freaked out when I first heard The Residents or even Cabaret Voltaire back in the day.

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5 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

His earlier stuff with Derek Bailey was probably a lot more weird - his nonette and tennette (😁) is possibly more film-y, but evocative all the same.

Though I think I was more freaked out when I first heard The Residents or even Cabaret Voltaire back in the day.

 

The performance I went to see was very reminiscent of Cabaret Voltaire's less rhythmical output, but with little of interest to see (no back projected films) and more musical pretension.

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