Did Steve Miller invent Boards of Canada?

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I heard "Fly Like an Eagle" on KQ the other day...damn...that synth beginning sounds a fuck of a lot like Boards of Canada...I wonder if Steve and them have some of the same models of synths or something? Its that same sort of fuzzy underwater sounding synth tones.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

"Fly Like An Eagle In Your Mind"

― Space Gourmand (Haberdager), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 19:31 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks for sullying a band I like by associating them with one of the worst songs in the history of popular music. I do believe Steve Miller invented the Spin Doctors.

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

Fly Like an Eagle is a great song! Boards of Canada aren't so precious they can't hang w/the Gangster of Love!!!

Also, seriously, listen to the intro! I swear they have some of the same synths!

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

I'll give you this. Steve Miller may have invented The Knife with Abracadabra. The video is something too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw0rIoWRmZY&search=steve%20miller

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

Steve Miller should be nailed to the boards of Canada.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 19 September 2006 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

I always figured that old show "In Search Of" hosted by Leonard Nimoy was the origin of Boards of Canada. There is bunches of incidental music in that show that sounds not unlike B.O.C. (Warp version) and when you put it as a backdrop to a documentary about Yetis or the lost world of Atlantis, it seems about dead on.

"I swear they have some of the same synths!"

It's all about the Moog.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 00:13 (nineteen years ago)

Bryan Ferry invented Boards of Canada.

just listen to Sultanesque - the b-Side to Love Is The Drug....

― Jack Battery-Pack (Jack Battery-Pack), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 05:46 (nineteen years ago)

steve miller >>>> BoC

― the art ensemble of chicago house (vahid), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 05:53 (nineteen years ago)

BoC = full of secret coded messages about how Steve Miller regrets having written 'The Joker'

― Space Gourmand (Haberdager), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 05:59 (nineteen years ago)

They both speak pretty openly of the pompatus of love, I know that much.

― Tiki Theater Xymposium (Bent Over at the Arclight), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 10:57 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks for sullying a band I like by associating them with one of the worst songs in the history of popular music.

hey, '1969' was pretty cool though.

― EARLY-90S MAN (Enrique), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 10:59 (nineteen years ago)

Matt OTM. The second I read the thread title, the similarities in gauzy synth usage unfurled in my mind.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

Gnarls Barkley = poor man's TV on the Radio? haha

― and PappaWheelie, author of Have You Ever Been Poxy Fuled? (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

Steve Miller, no. but Tonto's Expanding Head Band did. cf: "Ferryboat" (1972).

― Ghost Bear Junior High Attendance Party (Ghost Bear Junior High Attenda), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 13:44 (nineteen years ago)

Boards Of Canada have always evoked the early to mid-70s for me. I attribute it to their very warm analog synth sounds and the production of their records.

BOC could be used as incidental music in weird, grainy nature shows, and as noted above, in documentaries about phenomena. Didn't their name come from the National Film Board, the Canadian government-funded outfit that made some of the weirdest programming in television history? Very arty, very skewed.

Anyhow, their whole aesthetic ties in to the era in which Steve Miller was experimenting with analog synths. It's a great call.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

seriously I challenge the Steve Haters on this thread to actually LISTEN to the beginning of Fly Like an Eagle (which is a GREAT song - EPMD knew it and so do I) instead of just writing off the comparison cuz Steve is not cool or whatever.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

indeed, the middle and end should be listened to, as well...

― hank (hank s), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

xpost
steve miller's awesome and i know exactly what you're saying.

PS you know what else has a trippy ahead-of-it's-time intro? "sweet emotion" by aerosmith, that's what.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't Biz Markie sample Fly like an Eagle before EPMD? I think it was on one of those mi-80's breaks comps, probably for the same reason Aerosmith's Walk this Way was (which Run DMC used to refer to as 'the Toys in the Attic break').

― and PappaWheelie, author of Have You Ever Been Poxy Fuled? (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't Biz Markie sample Fly like an Eagle before EPMD?

yep I think yr right...I can hear the song in my head but I can't remember the title. I think TJ Swann was involved.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

It was "Nobody Beats the Biz"

― BrianB (BrianB), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

steve miller poos clouds all over boards of canada.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:47 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.discogs.com/release/88050

(damn, x-posk)

― and PappaWheelie, author of Have You Ever Been Poxy Fuled? (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

off topic: Was TJ Swann the first sort of R&B/hiphop dude?...I guess maybe Orange Juice Jones was first, but TJ seems to be the first sort of new model dude that merged R&B singing with hip-hop flows....he sort of filled the same slot in Juice Crew that Mo B Dick did at No Limit....I wonder if TJ ever had an album.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:53 (nineteen years ago)

the problem with the 90s is that we thought we could do away with the stuff that came after the freaky synth intros

― katie quirk (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

haha stevie knew the shit was only good for 30 seconds, then the stoners in the back rows start to get bored

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

everytime I get together with my brother (late 30s, ex-Deadhead, garage rock aficionado) we always end up talking about Steve Miller! I still can't stand "The Joker". Or "big jetliner" or whatever that other one is. I don't think he even owns any Steve Miller, it's wierd.

― geoff (gcannon), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

Is he one of these guys with like 4 "lost classic" psych albums from between 67-70? I bet he is.

― geoff (gcannon), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know but man I used to be drinkin' like a gallon of TJ Swann

― and PappaWheelie, author of Have You Ever Been Poxy Fuled? (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

steve miller poos clouds all over boards of canada.

Aawwww...
Mm, yeh. That's durely different. From claiming that BoC does piss rainbows all their own also.

― tiit (tiit), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

Is he one of these guys with like 4 "lost classic" psych albums from between 67-70? I bet he is.
-- geoff (gffcnn...), September 20th, 2006. (gcannon)

hahaha OF COURSE!...yep he's got a few from like 68-71 that are supposed to be "ace" psych jazz rock excursions....Also: Boz Skaggs and him were best friends from high school college and Boz was actually in the early version of the Steve Miller Band.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

A friend of mine "accidentally" bought a "Best of" album on Capitol records, back in the day. (1978)

Bluddy dull, mate.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

A friend of mine, absolutely on purpose, once asked me to buy him a copy of Miller's 'Sailor' LP, if I should ever find one. And I did. A coupla dozen years ago. And said friend still happily keeps the Sailor, apparently.

― tiit (tiit), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

oz Skaggs and him were best friends from high school college and Boz was actually in the early version of the Steve Miller Band.

Baby's into running around
Hanging with the crowd
Putting your business in the street talking out loud
Saying you bought her this and that
And how much you done spent
I swear she must believe it's all heaven sent
Hey boy you better bring the chick around
To the sad truth the dirty lowdown

(Who I wonder who) taught her how to talk like that
(Who I wonder who) gave her that big idea

Nothing you can't handle nothing you ain't got
Put the money on the table and drive it off the lot
Turn on that ole lovelight and turn a maybe to a yes
Same old schoolboy game got you into this mess
Hey son better get back to town
Face the sad old truth the dirty lowdown

(Who I wonder who) put those ideas in your head
(Who I wonder who) yeah
Come on back down little son
Dig the low low low low lowdown

You ain't got to be so bad got to be so cold
This dog eat dog existence sure is getting old
Got to have a Jones for this Jones for that
This running with the Joneses boy
Just ain't where it's at
You gonna come back around
To the sad sad truth the dirty lowdown

(Who I wonder who) got you thinking like that boy
(Who I wonder who)
(Who I wonder who said who I wonder who)
Oh look out for that lowdown
That dirty dirty dirty dirty lowdown
(Who I wonder who ohh ohh)

― and PappaWheelie, author of Have You Ever Been Poxy Fuled? (PappaWheelie 2), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:17 (nineteen years ago)

Styx often makes me think of BoC, e.g. the very beginning of "Babe." "The Beach at Redpoint" (?) always reminds me of Yes, in a weird way. However, BoC never remind me of BOC.

Anyway, I always assumed this was because BoC sample most of their sounds from 70s NFB documentaries (and b/c everyone was using those sounds in the 70s). Don't they? (To be honest, I often also think of the old science documentaries we watched in high school.)

The synths in FLaE rule and I see what you're talking about, yeah.

― Sundar (sundar), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:38 (nineteen years ago)

9x post: stoners getting bored????

― dave q (listerine), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

good point! amend that to "drunks"

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

I would really like for Stormy Diamond to come on this thread and talk about the synth-y psych of "Wild Mountain Honey". I can't find the thread where he did so previously.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:50 (nineteen years ago)

Children of the Future does maybe belong on the 'Nominations for Worst Psychedelic Album' thread tho, gotta say.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:52 (nineteen years ago)

the early albums aren't "lost". they were popular records and stayed in print for years. it's just that with the joker and fly like an eagle he became HUGELY popular and pretty much inescapable and the earlier stuff gets lost in the shuffle (they are great records though). which is why a lot of people can't bear to hear swingtown or jungle love cuzza klassik rok radio overload. i still love it all.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:55 (nineteen years ago)

DON'T LISTEN TO TIM HE IZ CRAZY

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:56 (nineteen years ago)

Well the funny thing about this is that BoC's sound treatments -- like all the out-of-phase effects and wobbly pitch shifts -- are totally designed to replicate the sense of watching those films on old, stretched-out, ganked-up filmstrips. Which makes the stuff particularly evocative for people of the right age to have grown up watching exhausted filmstrips at the very very end of their days (mid-80s, at least where I lived) -- but I've had conversations with BoC fans who are just barely younger than me, and they have absolutely no experience of this at all; they grew up in a VHS world. I have no idea whether this makes the experience of listening to BoC better or worse or just different for them.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, i remember watching amoebas and shit with that tripped out space synth music in science class, that was pretty cool

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

see this thread would have been better if i coulda done the youtube thing like on the newfangled board. but still, listen and see how totally OTM i was!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwJGN-T4kaM&feature=related

― cheddar burress (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 24 August 2009 17:06 (sixteen years ago)

Sounds quite Robert Wyatt to me, not BoC

― You are Rebels! You are all yankees (country matters), Monday, 24 August 2009 17:10 (sixteen years ago)

that's funny you say that because not a lot of people know that boz scaggs played in later period lineup of soft machine!

― cheddar burress (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 24 August 2009 17:12 (sixteen years ago)

lol I was actually tossing up whether to say Robert Wyatt or Soft Machine! It reminds me a bit of Out-Bloody-Rageous as well as solo Wyatt

― You are Rebels! You are all yankees (country matters), Monday, 24 August 2009 17:13 (sixteen years ago)

actually though if paul weller can play with wyatt why not boz scaggs?

― cheddar burress (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 24 August 2009 17:14 (sixteen years ago)

Damn, that song is really quite nice right up until he starts singing (@ 1:25). It's a personal taste thing, just can't stand that kind of voice. But yeah, I can hear BoC there, sure.

― Lostandfound, Monday, 24 August 2009 17:35 (sixteen years ago)

three years pass...

bump, still love this intro

― unfinest DN (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 3 June 2013 22:09 (thirteen years ago)

otm

― Murder in the Rue McClanahan (jaymc), Tuesday, 4 June 2013 02:33 (thirteen years ago)

SMB Greatest Hits was one of the 1st cds I bought, and dumbass early 20s me sold it.
I don't even remember where I saw it, but there was some doc that played some of the demos for Fly Like and Eagle and/or The Joker. They were so good, funky and psychedelic to the fullest. I need to find those.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 4 June 2013 03:21 (thirteen years ago)

Tell you what, Children of the Future is half a great album at least. I still jam "In my First Mind"!

― Drugs A. Money, Tuesday, 4 June 2013 07:47 (thirteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bByv4El2oRo

Boards of Canada sounding music all over this episode.

― earlnash, Tuesday, 4 June 2013 23:13 (thirteen years ago)

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