TS: "Rockit" Vs. "Axel F"

Seriously? I'd kill to have a couple wildcards like these (or "Theme from Mission: Impossible" or "Children" or whatever).

Anyway, "Rock-it" by a long shot. Listened to it for the first time in ages last weekend, shocked by how awesome it was.

Was there ever a better opening montage of any TV show ever? God I bet I still know every shot of that opening sequence by heart....

hahahahaha, which was displayed by, um, playing a one-finger new wave synth melody over and over?

Was there ever a better opening montage of any TV show ever? God I bet I still know every shot of that opening sequence by heart...

The one for "Hawaii 5-O" is definitely right up there.

this happens with me too.

When I come to a fork like this, I have to do a mental coin toss, and the result on this one is.......Rockit. No, Axel F. No, Rockit.

Damnit.

Well, if you were a kid around that time it was hard to resist the influence of Rockit. It sounded so futuristic! Plus: scratching & a video with dancing robots! There was nothing else like it on that broad of a level. It's not like elementary-school aged kids in the US were familiar with Kraftwerk or real hip-hop at that point.

this thread needs a link to this: evolution control committee - fock it

but I came here to ask for trainspotter help because google's failing me. my dimming memory tells me that the guitar blast DST scratches with is a Led Zeppelin sample. or... a Van Halen sample? who remembers, and bonus points if the exact song can be named.

"Axel F" = Earth
"Rockit" = Jupiter

http://www.livephysics.com/images/stories/simulations/astronomy/solar_systems02.jpg

but I came here to ask for trainspotter help because google's failing me. my dimming memory tells me that the guitar blast DST scratches with is a Led Zeppelin sample. or... a Van Halen sample? who remembers, and bonus points if the exact song can be named.

― Milton Parker, Monday, November 24, 2008 3:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Highway to Hell?

that's pretty compelling, chances are good that's it! I remember some mid-eighties interview where they admitted the source, before the lawsuits that discouraged that kind of honesty, but whatever it was, it doesn't seem to be online.

the 'rocket' video is nightmarish. don't remember it being that disturbing.

but I came here to ask for trainspotter help because google's failing me. my dimming memory tells me that the guitar blast DST scratches with is a Led Zeppelin sample. or... a Van Halen sample?

Don't know about any guitars, but David Toop claims in Rap Attack that in the beginning of "Rockit" D.ST is scratching a recording of Balinese gamelan.

maybe somewhere in there, but for most of the track I think it's the outro of Fab 5 Freddy / Beside's "Change The Beat"

@ 3:37

Been listening to the rest of 'Future Shock' for the first time in... well since it came out, and the whole record sounds great, forgot how rich and fragmented the whole thing is, tons of world music samples all over the place cut into pieces. 'Sound System' also sounds a lot better than it did to me at the time, less like a clone and more like an exaggerated version of all the chopped up things I like about 'Future Shock', and much much closer to the weirder sampling records I was more unguardedly mad about at the time like Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Esperanto'

DAE BAOW BAOW chicka chickAAAAH

I'm going to go try to figure out how to play both of these songs on the piano at the same time because I feel like they are different parts of something really important to the progress of humanity.

maybe somewhere in there, but for most of the track I think it's the outro of Fab 5 Freddy / Beside's "Change The Beat"

@ 3:37

One of my many old school hip-hop thread diversions form ilx past has a long diatribe (surprise, surprise) about the inner circle of Celluloid Records, and it's connections to this song, and it's use of Change the Beat in Rockit. Sorry I'm too lazy to dig it up, but some counterpoints made by former Celluloid employee was more notable than my usual bait/rant.

Been listening to the rest of 'Future Shock' for the first time in... well since it came out, and the whole record sounds great, forgot how rich and fragmented the whole thing is, tons of world music samples all over the place cut into pieces. 'Sound System' also sounds a lot better than it did to me at the time, less like a clone and more like an exaggerated version of all the chopped up things I like about 'Future Shock', and much much closer to the weirder sampling records I was more unguardedly mad about at the time like Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Esperanto'

One of the chapters of this "book" I'm writing (supposedly about Miami music, and supposedly to be finished one day) deals with Hip-Hop going downtown in Manhattan (as so many Hip-Hop history books do, if only in fragments)...and the "world music" influence is greatly played up in this near polished chapter of mine.

I's tough to deny that Bambatta's first big gig (and Rock Steady, for that matter) came from opening for Bow Wow Wow, who was trying to indulge the world music thing.

This connection was made with Malcolm Mclaren's meeting of formner Tubes cast member Michael Holman at the Canal Zone art space. Of course, Mclaren, along with Kool Lady Blue and Celluloid, brought Hip-Hop overseas, which followed Fab 5 Freddy (with the aid of Glen O'Brien and Lee Quinones) bringing Hip-Hop downtown in the first place.

Etc.

I'm drunk in the afternoon, so might as well rant online.

if you can dig it up, I'd read it, I'm working on an audio overview myself of how hiphop canonized certain sound fragments via scratching. 'Change The Beat' is a perfect example, only deep music fans know the song but anyone who was alive in the 80's knows that one second sample 'ffrrrresh'

& yeah the world music aspect on Future Shock / Sound System is the most striking thing that didn't remember about them first time around. Early sampling records often specifically went for world collage (Czukay, Byrne / Eno, Zazou & Biyake, Jon Hassell), and Laswell played on Bush of Ghosts so this is a direct extension, but I'd forgotten how in line with those records these were. 'Junku' with the gated throat-singing & Kalimba & 808's & scratching, it all works so well it doesn't even seem like a fusion record. 1983 was right at the cusp of when World Music took off as a genre with recognizable 80's production quirks regardless of region, and these records are interestingly prescient there.

& also, Hank Shocklee obviously heard things like 'Metal Beat'. Comparing the Yes / Trevor Horn "Leave It" samples to the chorus of 'Fight the Power', it's not the same vocal stab but it's the same idea

Shocklee = hero, hands down

I met him once.

I went to a friend's "party", at subtonic.

It was literally, friend, bartender, 2nd DJ, and me. That night, the place WREAKED of vomit. I was there for support...to support my drinking habit, as much as my friend.

While 2nd DJ was playing, the remaining three of us got into a big debate about the "goals" of Shocklee. Friend said "noise", I said "layered James Brown", bartender kinda nodded to my way of thinking.

The debate got heated.

And no joke, NO JOKE, Shocklee enteres the room, in the middle of this.

And I was too drunk to be cool.

I made it a point to keep calling him "Mr. Boxley". ASked him about minute deatails only an asspie like myself would: "did you feel you had a leg up on Eric B and Marley with the incorporation on Less Than Zero?"

"Tell me about the post-session for Rebel in the LI park!"

"This place wreaks of vomit, yet, good sir, please tell me what size shoes you wear!"

Etc

He was not amused. My only time in life I was star struck.

I point out all the time that techincally, Change the Beat appears on more records/tv ads.etc than Funky Drummer, and might even come close to the muber of songs that sample Amen.

Okay, that last point was a stretch.

"Fr-fr-fresh"....Who did it?

great thread!

'celluloid the early years - so why is it fresh' , 94.9 MB, 7 minutes remaining