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How did I get here? 30+ years of music (pt 2)
19 Jan 2008, 22:47
By the late '90s, I discovered my own personal taste for Brazilian music, but that was a lone quest that moved slowly. At most, it spawned some community activity with '60s soundtrack and modern shibuya-kei type stuff. It explains my collection of Pizzicato Five if nothing more. However, all the Western big-beat/lounge hybrids bored me to tears.
At the same time, I had begun to rethink my past with electro. This was something that emerged in 1982, but had disappeared mostly by 1985. In Florida, some guys like Dynamix II and Maggotron kept it going until 1990 or so, but by then, it was largely morphed by them and abandoned by others. Detroit, however, kept it alive. Having moved from there, I was left out. It was time to investigate.
Quickly diving in, I found Underground Resistance, Drexciya, AUX 88, and Dopplereffekt, who all suggested that Electronic music was kept quality with a natural, unforced evolution, and I continued to dig through the world of new school Electro. I began to look overseas, especially Germany and Holland to find Electronome and I-F, but that's when I stumbled on something very different. Acts such as Chicks on Speed, DJ Hell, Kitbuilders, and maybe most importantly, Miss Kittin & The Hacker all suggested that the synth-pop of 1982 such as Yazoo and The Human League was being revisited and merged with some of the Planet Rock fallout. Closer to home, I found Le Car morph into ADULT. doing something very similar. Now I wasn't exactly a fan of synth-pop in the early '80s, but this was more than a little intriguing. I started collecting this music for context, and arrogantly made a silent proclamation that the 2000s would be a revival of '80s New Wave at large.
As I wrapped up my lingering interest in '90s indie pop, groups like Ladytron and Figurine began to spring up in that scene which mirrored the Electronic scene. My friend and I went to an indie store in 2001. He bought The Strokes Is This It, and I bought Adult.'s Resuscitation. I felt like he revisited the late '70s/early '80s Power Pop/New Wave, and I was revisiting the Electro/Synth-Pop hybrid of 1982. Our enthusiasm for these albums made us feel as if all the indie-twee of the '90s was now irrelevant.
I began to look online for any inkling of this vision I had. The last days of Disco, the last days of Punk, the early days of the New Wave/Hip-Hop overlap. The fashion of it all; the substance of it all. I figured someone, somewhere else would anticipate the same ideology. The phrase "ElectroDiscoPunk" kept looping in my mind. I stumbled on Fischerspooner, and their theatrics and fashion sense did allude to what I was thinking at that time. I spent more time listening to Kraftwerk and The Cars first album than anything, searching for like minds. That's when I heard the term electroclash. I didn't really hear much music marketed under that moniker that I liked, but I still was moved by the idealism of it. I joined the ElectroClash Yahoo group, found several people from the NYC area that had immense interest in Disco, Electro, and Punk, but also found a bunch of middle America Goth-too-lates pretending ElectroClash was the new Goth. Worse, many of these groups barely constituted a "performance art" stage show set to prefab MC-303 type rhythm boxes. In short, I was never a fan of Avenue D nor Peaches due to this, and I knew it was time to narrow my search (especially as Ghetto-Tech was equally as disinteresting to me as I already went through my 2 Live Crew phase in the late '80s).
I formed the electrodiscopunk Yahoo group, to which I guess popularized the term online, and began digging very deep. Obviously on the Proto-Punk front it's not difficult to find the seed planted in your brain that The Velvet Underground as much as the more instantly digestible Ramones, which no doubt leads to both Television and The Modern Lovers. The paths that lead from there are innumerable (Garage Rock, Kraut, Glam, etc., etc.), and as I grew on a personal level, I certainly acquired my taste and connection to this music, despite having more of a Hip-Hop/Black music foundation (my continued lone quest for Brazilian music filled this niche).
I dove into the '77 Punk canon at large, but really, it was members of the group from NYC who hipped me to much of the italo Disco, Space Disco, post punk, no wave, and original '80s Electro Punk movements that really developed my tastes (especially Jeff & Jane Hudson and Drinking Electricity). Quickly, the allure of Miss Kittin wore off as sites like TigerSushi relaunched acts such as Gina X Performance. Thanks to Acute Records founder Dan Selzer, I really learned about so many obscure Post-Punk acts, and my taste for White avant-garde music grew more than I ever expected from the day Smells Like Teen Spirit changed my little Floridian world. But then again, much of this world came off as totally academic for me. I needed to prioritize my interests musically.
This is when Brazilian music went from a simple bossa nova to mpb interest to diving into the entire catalogs of Novos Baianos and Wilson Simonal. The issue is very simple: I enjoy sweet melodies, Jazz chords, and syncopated rhythms combined en total. Brazilian music fulfills every role at once. But I can often dive into music that only highlights one or two aspects at once, which explains my fifteen year love affair with Hip-Hop, or my current fascination with Power Pop such as 20/20 and Phil Seymour.
But I fell off. If in 2003 I might have been at the center of some supposedly cutting edge musical trend, but come 2006, this '80s nostalgia confused me; Hip-Hop and Punk fans in the '80s were NOT fans of Madonna and later period Michal Jackson. Seemingly disposable trends peddled by bloggers such as the so-called Baile Funk (which using as a noun isn't even proper Portuguese, much less an actual genre), and embracing yet further British Electronic micro-trends such as Dubstep just seemed to be spinning wheels to nowhere, similar to what taking an interest in Jungle was in 1994/1995. Back then, I was left with very, very few classic songs after the trend passed. I haven't the energy to chase trends if not moved viscerally by them, and thus, I seem to retract from youth culture.
This is how one "gets old". Prepare yourself for a similar trap.
At the same time, I had begun to rethink my past with electro. This was something that emerged in 1982, but had disappeared mostly by 1985. In Florida, some guys like Dynamix II and Maggotron kept it going until 1990 or so, but by then, it was largely morphed by them and abandoned by others. Detroit, however, kept it alive. Having moved from there, I was left out. It was time to investigate.
Quickly diving in, I found Underground Resistance, Drexciya, AUX 88, and Dopplereffekt, who all suggested that Electronic music was kept quality with a natural, unforced evolution, and I continued to dig through the world of new school Electro. I began to look overseas, especially Germany and Holland to find Electronome and I-F, but that's when I stumbled on something very different. Acts such as Chicks on Speed, DJ Hell, Kitbuilders, and maybe most importantly, Miss Kittin & The Hacker all suggested that the synth-pop of 1982 such as Yazoo and The Human League was being revisited and merged with some of the Planet Rock fallout. Closer to home, I found Le Car morph into ADULT. doing something very similar. Now I wasn't exactly a fan of synth-pop in the early '80s, but this was more than a little intriguing. I started collecting this music for context, and arrogantly made a silent proclamation that the 2000s would be a revival of '80s New Wave at large.
As I wrapped up my lingering interest in '90s indie pop, groups like Ladytron and Figurine began to spring up in that scene which mirrored the Electronic scene. My friend and I went to an indie store in 2001. He bought The Strokes Is This It, and I bought Adult.'s Resuscitation. I felt like he revisited the late '70s/early '80s Power Pop/New Wave, and I was revisiting the Electro/Synth-Pop hybrid of 1982. Our enthusiasm for these albums made us feel as if all the indie-twee of the '90s was now irrelevant.
I began to look online for any inkling of this vision I had. The last days of Disco, the last days of Punk, the early days of the New Wave/Hip-Hop overlap. The fashion of it all; the substance of it all. I figured someone, somewhere else would anticipate the same ideology. The phrase "ElectroDiscoPunk" kept looping in my mind. I stumbled on Fischerspooner, and their theatrics and fashion sense did allude to what I was thinking at that time. I spent more time listening to Kraftwerk and The Cars first album than anything, searching for like minds. That's when I heard the term electroclash. I didn't really hear much music marketed under that moniker that I liked, but I still was moved by the idealism of it. I joined the ElectroClash Yahoo group, found several people from the NYC area that had immense interest in Disco, Electro, and Punk, but also found a bunch of middle America Goth-too-lates pretending ElectroClash was the new Goth. Worse, many of these groups barely constituted a "performance art" stage show set to prefab MC-303 type rhythm boxes. In short, I was never a fan of Avenue D nor Peaches due to this, and I knew it was time to narrow my search (especially as Ghetto-Tech was equally as disinteresting to me as I already went through my 2 Live Crew phase in the late '80s).
I formed the electrodiscopunk Yahoo group, to which I guess popularized the term online, and began digging very deep. Obviously on the Proto-Punk front it's not difficult to find the seed planted in your brain that The Velvet Underground as much as the more instantly digestible Ramones, which no doubt leads to both Television and The Modern Lovers. The paths that lead from there are innumerable (Garage Rock, Kraut, Glam, etc., etc.), and as I grew on a personal level, I certainly acquired my taste and connection to this music, despite having more of a Hip-Hop/Black music foundation (my continued lone quest for Brazilian music filled this niche).
I dove into the '77 Punk canon at large, but really, it was members of the group from NYC who hipped me to much of the italo Disco, Space Disco, post punk, no wave, and original '80s Electro Punk movements that really developed my tastes (especially Jeff & Jane Hudson and Drinking Electricity). Quickly, the allure of Miss Kittin wore off as sites like TigerSushi relaunched acts such as Gina X Performance. Thanks to Acute Records founder Dan Selzer, I really learned about so many obscure Post-Punk acts, and my taste for White avant-garde music grew more than I ever expected from the day Smells Like Teen Spirit changed my little Floridian world. But then again, much of this world came off as totally academic for me. I needed to prioritize my interests musically.
This is when Brazilian music went from a simple bossa nova to mpb interest to diving into the entire catalogs of Novos Baianos and Wilson Simonal. The issue is very simple: I enjoy sweet melodies, Jazz chords, and syncopated rhythms combined en total. Brazilian music fulfills every role at once. But I can often dive into music that only highlights one or two aspects at once, which explains my fifteen year love affair with Hip-Hop, or my current fascination with Power Pop such as 20/20 and Phil Seymour.
But I fell off. If in 2003 I might have been at the center of some supposedly cutting edge musical trend, but come 2006, this '80s nostalgia confused me; Hip-Hop and Punk fans in the '80s were NOT fans of Madonna and later period Michal Jackson. Seemingly disposable trends peddled by bloggers such as the so-called Baile Funk (which using as a noun isn't even proper Portuguese, much less an actual genre), and embracing yet further British Electronic micro-trends such as Dubstep just seemed to be spinning wheels to nowhere, similar to what taking an interest in Jungle was in 1994/1995. Back then, I was left with very, very few classic songs after the trend passed. I haven't the energy to chase trends if not moved viscerally by them, and thus, I seem to retract from youth culture.
This is how one "gets old". Prepare yourself for a similar trap.
