Music Rock’s Balkanized Route to the Indies
By WILL HERMES Published: October 21, 2007
SURE, the half-naked acrobat suspended by her ankles from the ceiling was remarkable. So was the battered tuba wrapped in red Christmas lights, played by a musician in a black cocktail dress.
Yet the most striking thing about DeVotchKa’s circuslike show at the Spiegeltent at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan in August was the music, a quilt of sounds from the international section of the iTunes store. One could hear mariachi ballads, polkas, horas and Gypsy tunes played on accordion, bouzouki, violins. But those sounds informed songs that also echoed the rhythmic bluster and vocal drama of 1980s alternative-rock acts like the Smiths and Talking Heads. The band’s cross-cultural recipe was made explicit when the young crowd began sloshing its beers to a bouncy, Balkanized version of the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs.”
On any given night in an American rock club you can hear bands like Gogol Bordello, Man Man, Beirut and Balkan Beat Box playing odd-metered songs drawing on the rhythms of Eastern European Gypsy music. You might encounter Antibalas or Vampire Weekend riffing on African sounds, Dengue Fever making psychedelic Cambodian pop or a D.J. like Diplo spinning Brazilian funk. On the recent “Kala,” a contender for the year’s most exciting pop album, the British-Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A., who works from Brooklyn, draws on Indian, African and West Indian sounds. The folk-rocker Devendra Banhart creates fusions with Mexican and Brazilian musicians on his recent CD, “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon.” And the veteran musical adventurer Bjork toured this year with a West African percussion troupe and Chinese pipa virtuoso.
Increasingly the back-to-basics movement that has characterized cutting-edge rock this century, from the blues-based hard rock of the White Stripes to the new wave-postpunk revivalism of Interpol, is giving way to music that looks further afield for its influences. And one result is a clutch of acts, many of them from New York, that are internationalizing rock’s Anglo-American vernacular.
This is not the first time. Artists like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, the Clash and Talking Heads drew polyglot styles into their mix back in the 1980s, often with politics in tow. (Mr. Simon and Mr. Gabriel were exploring African pop during the Apartheid era.) But the impulse has been largely missing from rock’s bag of tricks for a while. And in the case of Beirut and Vampire Weekend, it is producing some of the year’s most buzzed-about new music — music that often feels less studied and less overtly political than that of these groups’ fusion-minded forebears.
Why now? Partly it seems the natural cycle of genres; every back-to-basics art movement dead-ends and requires an infusion of new ideas. And certainly the Internet has made even the most obscure global music easily available.
“Access is key,” said Bill Bragin, director of the Manhattan club Joe’s Pub, which books a large number of international acts. “A blogger or someone says: ‘Check out this cool record by Konono No. 1. It’s really bizarre, super loud Congolese thumb piano music.’ And suddenly all these people are checking them. Also, bands like Antibalas and Balkan Beat Box and Gogol Bordello and Beirut are very good about positioning themselves in the context of youth culture. They’re not pigeonholed as speaking only to the age-30-to-50 world-music crowd.”
You might guess that current global politics have also had a role in spurring the trend. And they have, though not always explicitly. M.I.A. and Bjork both address politics directly on their recent albums. Gogol Bordello and Antibalas, two of melting-pot New York’s fusion-minded veterans, also make politically charged music. Fronted by the Kiev-born Eugene Hutz, Gogol Bordello mixes Slavic and Balkan music with punk rock and plenty of other styles, peppered with lyrics addressing the immigrant experience and “cultural revolution.” Antibalas has revived and advanced Afrobeat, the Africanized funk fusion pioneered by the Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, from whom they have also adopted a strong anti-authoritarian demeanor. Both bands have addictively kinetic new records and are beginning to attract wider attention. (Mr. Hutz recently performed with Madonna at the Live Earth festival, and he and his band have contributed to her forthcoming short film, “Filth and Wisdom.”)
But a new wave of bands is using ethnic styles in less pointed ways. One of last year’s more left-field Internet success stories was the debut by Beirut, a project initiated by Zach Condon, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter who began a love affair with the Balkan brass-band tradition while exploring electronic music at his parents’ home in Albuquerque. Mr. Condon played almost everything on that album, “Gulag Orkestar,” and its arrangements for trumpet, accordion, ukulele, mandolin, violin and percussion conjure the image of a street-corner Gypsy band somewhere in postwar Europe. For the new Beirut record, “The Flying Club Cup,” released this month on the tiny Ba Da Bing label, he employs a full band to play his Eurail rock, which continues to roam.
“I’m going for a style that’s really outdated: 1940s French chanson,” Mr. Condon said over Korean barbecue and beer at a restaurant in his neighborhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I’m really obsessed with Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour and early Serge Gainsbourg.” Mr. Condon, waifish and blue-eyed, was dressed in an old T-shirt with a bedhead hairdo, and it was easy to imagine him ministering to swooning jeunesse back in the day. Yet his dramatic, warbly vocal style also conjures ’80s rock crooners like Morrissey and the Cure’s Robert Smith.
While Mr. Condon, whose ethnic heritage is primarily Irish-English, has been spending time in Paris of late, he admits his approach to international styles is more instinctive than studied. Nick Urata, lead singer of the Denver band DeVotchKa, operates similarly. Speaking from a tour stop in Germany, he noted that while some of his band mates were schooled in Eastern European music, he was not, and in any case stylistic accuracy was not the point. “The ‘authentic’ Gypsy brass-band stuff is great, but it’s better to leave it to the masters,” he said. “We figured we were never going to nail it exactly, so why not just take it into our own realm?”
Vampire Weekend, which came together while its members were students at Columbia and has a debut CD slated for January on the independent label XL, makes its music in the same spirit. It’s noted for using African-flavored rhythms and guitar phrases in its upbeat pop-rock, notably on its signature “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” (myspace.com/vampireweekend), whose title refers in part to a Congolese style. But rather than replicating an “authentic” sound (the song isn’t, in fact, kwassa kwassa), the band is more interested in collage, understandable for a young group weaned on the cut-and-paste aesthetic of hip-hop.
“I was always a big rap fan,” said Ezra Koenig, 23, the group’s singer and guitarist. “I’d go to that Web site The-Breaks.com to find the sample source for a song, and I was always excited when the music came from some weird place.”
Mr. Koenig also noted his affection for older rock acts that experimented with reggae and/or world music. Records like “Remain in Light” by Talking Heads and “Sandinista!” by the Clash were cited as touchstones by nearly all the artists interviewed. Which makes sense: Just as those bands were reacting to punk rock’s creative cul-de-sac in the 1970s and ’80s, many of the current bands are reacting to a modern retro-rock trend that has grown stale. “That was definitely something we didn’t want to do,” Mr. Koenig said. “And one way to do something new was to look at different sources.”
Some groups have gone to greater lengths to tap these sources. Ian Eagleson and Alex Minoff, who played together in the indie-rock band Golden in the late 1990s, formed Extra Golden with local musicians in Kenya, where Mr. Eagleson was working on a doctoral dissertation in ethnomusicology. Their experience has been more challenging than that of many of their peers. For instance there was the time Nairobi police showed up at a party at Mr. Eagleson’s apartment and discovered an uninvited guest had some marijuana cigarettes, an incident that cost the band roughly $10,000 to keep the members out of jail.
Then there was the problem of getting the band’s Kenyan members, some of whom lacked passports, to the United States for a debut tour last year. The process took months and was not complete until an 11th-hour intervention by staff members for Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, who were assisting promoters of the Chicago World Music Festival, where the group was scheduled to play. By way of a thank-you, one of the standouts on the group’s spirited new album, “Hera Ma Nono” — a fluid mix of American rock, New Orleans funk and the guitar-based Kenyan benga style on the indie-rock label Thrill Jockey — is a traditional-style African praise song titled “Obama.”
American pop musicians adopting styles of other nations have often been accused of cultural colonialism or dismissed as dilettantes. In the Web magazine PopMatters (popmatters.com), one critic wondered if Beirut’s music is simply “a tourist’s picture postcard” that devalues its cultural source material. Vampire Weekend, perhaps hoping to pre-empt criticism, cheekily calls its music “Upper West Side Soweto.” But neither group is pretending to be anything but what it is: an indie-rock band with diverse musical appetites.
Yet in an age when an Anglo-Sri Lankan pop act like M.I.A. raps over samples of Brazilian dance music that reshapes American electro-funk, ideas of authenticity and cultural ownership are slippery. And there is something encouraging in the way younger acts like Beirut and Vampire Weekend can draw on world music styles without needing to turn the act into a political statement, an imperative that doesn’t always serve the art in question. It’s also worth noting, as Mr. Bragin points out, that musicians outside the Anglo-American axis of indie rock, like Nação Zumbi and DJ Dolores from Brazil, are busy making cutting-edge fusions. “There’s a lot more dialogue lately,” he said.
A result, in some cases, is a new breed of fusion that keeps its politics implicit and exists in a nether region between genres. That’s a place Jeremy Barnes is happy to be. A former member of the influential ’90s indie-rock band Neutral Milk Hotel (which he notes was strongly influenced by Bulgarian traditional music) and briefly a participant in Beirut, Mr. Barnes now lives in Hungary, where he records neo-traditional music with local musicians and his collaborator, Heather Trost, under the name a Hawk and a Hacksaw.
“Aesthetically I love indie rock,” he said by cellphone from Tura, a small town where he was collaborating with the cymbalon player Unger Balazs. “And I find the world-music industry nauseating. There’s a lot of bad recordings and bad artwork. But when people define us in either of those categories, I cringe.”
“We love Hungarian music and think it’s beautiful, so how can we ignore it?” he added. “You can’t lie to yourself.”
― scott seward, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:07 (eighteen years ago)
hahahaha, see, cuz there was just that long thread about...you get the picture.
― scott seward, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:08 (eighteen years ago)
"The folk-rocker Devendra Banhart creates fusions with Mexican and Brazilian musicians on his recent CD, “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon.”
but he still doesn't have the guts to sound like r.kelly!
― scott seward, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:12 (eighteen years ago)
do you think sasha frere jones dropped to the floor in a dead faint when he read htis article?
― s1ocki, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:17 (eighteen years ago)
UPDATE: there is a trend in indie rock
― deej, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:21 (eighteen years ago)
UPDATE: We are reasonably sure that there is either something happening or not enough happening at this very moment.
― scott seward, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:25 (eighteen years ago)
this is gonna be good
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 22 October 2007 01:27 (eighteen years ago)
this is gonna be good bad
-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, October 22, 2007 1:27 AM
big hoos, what is your own opinion about all this? just curious.
― J0hn D., Monday, 22 October 2007 01:50 (eighteen years ago)
Be nice, y'all.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:08 (eighteen years ago)
Another whirled, another whirled, another whirled world music thread 2007
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:11 (eighteen years ago)
Also, bands like Antibalas and Balkan Beat Box and Gogol Bordello and Beirut are very good about positioning themselves in the context of youth culture. They’re not pigeonholed as speaking only to the age-30-to-50 world-music crowd.”
It's all in the marketing
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)
Wasn't this a clever idea when Momus was doing this in like 1999?
― Display Name, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:16 (eighteen years ago)
Also, don't even get me started with MIA and american electro-funk. No Ade Mainor, no credibility.
― Display Name, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:17 (eighteen years ago)
Rolling 2007 Dancehalllll
Are both rappers and indie-rockers now ignoring dancehall?
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:17 (eighteen years ago)
j0hn big hoos has been cowed into posting ambiguity into generic ilx memes at this pt, but i suspect its just a phase
― deej, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:41 (eighteen years ago)
Everyone in the world constantly radically mixing styles, and ideas from different cultures - Press reaction: BOOORRRINNGGG
Skinny guy with messy hair and bedroom eyes google searching styles of music that people haven't played in a while and then obsessing with it - Press reaction: YAYAYAYAY MORE MORE MORE!!! U RULES!!!
― filthy dylan, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:48 (eighteen years ago)
Now if Arcade Fire would just cover Ivo Papasov...
flthy dylan++
― novaheat, Monday, 22 October 2007 02:56 (eighteen years ago)
Something about this really depresses me.
― Hurting 2, Monday, 22 October 2007 03:06 (eighteen years ago)
I'm listening to some Vampire Weekend now on myspace. It's ok. The guitars are good, the drumming is weak, and the singing sounds like the predictable next thing to come after bands like CYHSY. It's nice to hear some afro-pop influences, but I still can't help but feel like this is the same strain of "I went to private liberal arts college to learn how to start a cool band" indie.
― Hurting 2, Monday, 22 October 2007 03:11 (eighteen years ago)
-- J0hn D., Monday, October 22, 2007 1:50 AM
In short: lolz. Maybe I'm too submerged in whatever Mutant Sounds is posting on a daily basis or something, but cobbling together some bands that shamble in similar ways does not a trend make. But hey, white kids be explorin their roots, and the roots of other people. Awesome. Write on, Will Hermes.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 22 October 2007 03:13 (eighteen years ago)
So far, I prefer it when musicians from another culture give their take on rock (cos ol' rock needs all the help it can get): Gogol Bordello (longtime residents of Brooklyn, but from Ukraine), Os Mutantes (incl current lineup), Ghost, Shonen Knife (early albums), Plastic People, Traffic Sound, Rachid Taha (although Made In Medina was made with damn hippie Steve Hillage and damn jamband Galactic, it worked!)But children of immigrants have also refreshed rock with other inflections: like(and maybe one or two born elsewhere?)Groovski, at least several years ago; haven't heard any recent. Other accomplished mostly-or-all-born-heres (these are rock as in "attitude" yknow rowdy etc,rather than literal genre elements)incl. Tucson's finest(Irish-Polish-Chicana-other-American Mollys), though they don't get together much anymore. Klezmatics and many spin-offs. Forro After Dark (all American?) seem good, but I haven't heard much.
― dow, Monday, 22 October 2007 03:41 (eighteen years ago)
this is the same strain of "I went to private liberal arts college to learn how to start a cool band" indie.
Columbia is a liberal arts college now?
― gabbneb, Monday, 22 October 2007 04:15 (eighteen years ago)
What is a liberal arts college? - kinda like you don't get the Public school/ Comprehensive/ Art school distinctions in the U of K, I'm not totally sure what kind of institution you're pointing at - name some maybe?
― sonofstan, Monday, 22 October 2007 11:31 (eighteen years ago)
I still can't help but feel like this is the same strain of "I went to private liberal arts college to learn how to start a cool band" indie.
-- Hurting 2, Monday, October 22, 2007 4:11 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Link
is there any other kind?
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 22 October 2007 11:34 (eighteen years ago)
xp - term is used to refer to colleges not housed within universities, many of them located in small new england or midwestern towns and some of them single-sex (wimmen), e.g. haverford, vassar, mount holyoke, williams, oberlin, grinnell, carleton
― gabbneb, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:00 (eighteen years ago)
Bands have been doing this polyglot shit at least since Ui, wtf.
― da croupier, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:03 (eighteen years ago)
WHY NOW?
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/indie.jpg
― Mark G, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:03 (eighteen years ago)
What is a liberal arts college?
Generally it refers to a private undergraduate institution that is not part of a larger university (no major research or grad programs) and focuses on "well-rounded education." Usually the term suggests a small, expensive, tucked-away place, and there's a bit of a stereotype of them being places for rich kids who weren't quite Ivy material to *find themselves*.
Columbia is not one, obv.
― Hurting 2, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:04 (eighteen years ago)
post-world
― kamerad, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:09 (eighteen years ago)
this just seems like a flagrant, cheap attempt to ignore the lack of boomshackalacka in the Fiery Furnaces.
― da croupier, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:10 (eighteen years ago)
Looks like I left Global Rhythm at exactly the right moment.
― unperson, Monday, 22 October 2007 15:30 (eighteen years ago)
A blogger or someone says: ‘Check out this cool record by Konono No. 1. It’s really bizarre :(
― dowd, Monday, 22 October 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)
maureen speaks
― s1ocki, Monday, 22 October 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)
Thanks for that ( and to hurting 2) I had that completely wrong -I thought it was places like Columbia
― sonofstan, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 08:44 (eighteen years ago)
Yeasayer: can't decide if they're Martin Denny on ecstasy or Lindsey Buckingham on pineapple daiquiris.
― bendy, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 11:13 (eighteen years ago)
-- kamerad, Monday, 22 October 2007 14:09 (2 days ago)
I like post-world
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 11:46 (eighteen years ago)
I thought it was places like Columbia
Well yeah, I was using the term to deride Columbia kids, b/c I guess they struck me as the same sort of indie fuxors.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 13:25 (eighteen years ago)
(not all Columbia kids, just the ones in Vampire Weekend)
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 13:26 (eighteen years ago)
you think they're indie kids? citing Talking Heads and the Clash and claiming the UWS? their Columbia fans are the least indie crowd imaginable.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 14:00 (eighteen years ago)
if that's your evidence, I rest my case
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 14:05 (eighteen years ago)
i'm just asking questions. because the idea that columbia is an especially 'indie' place is amusing. like, do you know anyone who went there? if you want 'evidence', i could refer to their topsiders, their songs about cape cod, the fact that they started out playing at columbia's boarding-school-kid social clubs. or, you know, their music. this is not the strokes.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)
I'm just not sure why they deserve a different sub-category for openly embracing the signifiers of wealth when their music mostly sounds like the same old indie.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)
I guess I know what you're trying to say though - headier, less stylish, etc.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)
Talking about things in these terms seems to evade the fact that indie bands have been taking this approach since the start of the 1990s, at the very least. It's a part of the aesthetic -- cultivating influences you don't think other people will share, ones you think will sound fresh. The world influences that have come out lately don't strike me as any different in intent from the "record collector" influences you'd get in the 90s from bands like Stereolab, or any of the acts who were interested in exotica records, bossa nova, soundtrack composers, or whatever else. It's not particularly different from talking about your tastes in party conversations: "Oh, actually, these days I'm really interested in early-70s Turkish prog music -- have you heard any of that stuff?"
That's not an insult, either -- it just seems like part of the indie aesthetic these days to go searching around music history, in a kind of studious-observer manner, until you find the pockets of stuff that excite you, and then try to assemble a band that integrates your obscure interests and presents them to an indie mainstream. See also: industry of reissue comps doing the same thing every week.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)
The "interested in French chanson" thing in particular is ... so 1995! The mid-90s were full of Francoise Hardy curiosity and Gainsbourg covers (Dean Wareham and Laetitia Sadier singing "Bonnie and Clyde!") and ye-ye reissues!
― nabisco, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)
it just seems like part of the indie aesthetic these days to go searching around music history, in a kind of studious-observer manner, until you find the pockets of stuff that excite you, and then try to assemble a band that integrates your obscure interests and presents them to an indie mainstream
aka, Dengue Fever's reason for existence. (Don't get me wrong, I love 'em.)
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:38 (eighteen years ago)
I loved that first Vampire Weekend single, but the new one they just put out is less (why because she look) intersting. The b-side is a ska song that I'm pretty sure has the same chord pattern as a Mighty Mighty Bosstones tune.
They kind of sound like Dogs Die in Hot Cars or something.
― Ben Boyerrr, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)
so what do you have to do to be a non-indie band? have too much production? hail from southern california? eat a lot? i suppose paul simon isn't an indie artist because he's too old. or because he wears baseball hats or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Skinnee_J's
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)
the not-thinking-about-things is part of what i like about them too, but it signifies as not very indie to me. i guess i require a certain measure of pretense from that particular meaningless label.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_auditors
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)
it was funny when they opened for animal collective and no one danced or knew how the songs went
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)
Do they have earlier albums or something? I thought they only had those 2 singles.
― Ben Boyerrr, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:06 (eighteen years ago)
x-post re Vampire Weekend
the reason they get that "preppy" agonizing, is that they're an indie pop band who don't have rock signifiers at all -- -- nabisco, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 3:46 PM
No, it's because they have a song called "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and supposedly always wear Oxford shirts and docksiders. Plus they're Columbia grads, and may have gone to prep schools. Btw, there's more hair-splitting discussions of class over on Carl Wilson's Zoilus blog and in his Slate.com response to Sasha Frere-Jones. Is today's American indie-rock more upper class than early '80s American hardcore punk and mid-80s college rock and what are the ramifications (if any)?
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.myspace.com/lhommerun
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)
I do not get Vampire Weekend even a little bit
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)
does their music have... bite?
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)
there is this concept called fun
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)
Dr. Morbius considers the Mekons fun but not Vampire Weekend it appears.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:47 (eighteen years ago)
No, it's because they have a song called "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and supposedly always wear Oxford shirts and docksiders. Plus they're Columbia grads, and may have gone to prep schools.
None of those things are reasons for preppy agonizing: the indie world has LONG been full of Ivy Leaguers in Oxford shirts, but so long as they were making a few noises, no one really worried about it. (I have yet to see anyone fret about Dean Wareham or Rivers Cuomo -- or even the Walkmen, that often -- in these ways.) There is plenty of stuff in their lyrics (which tend to be pretty sharp) that'll raise the issue for people, but I'm willing to bet that if they sounded more like a rock band, nobody would much notice their shoes.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:53 (eighteen years ago)
those ivy leaguers didn't claim ivy league or preppy the way these dudes do.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)
so is ezra koenig jewish?
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 16:57 (eighteen years ago)
slaves to the rhythm!
http://www.geocities.com/thefeeliesweb/images/picgal2/promo80a.gif
― scott seward, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 17:06 (eighteen years ago)
They don't sound like a rock band (that was started by David Byrne's kids)?
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 17:15 (eighteen years ago)
They're pulling off a much better game than "claiming" preppy -- the lyrics on their CD-R manage to pull a Cheever and kinda situate themselves within that world in a wry-observer kind of way, which lets you seem part of something and tear it down at the same time.
It's increasingly annoying to me, though, the way bands are continually described as somehow selling themselves based on whatever it is that the press has latched onto about them, without any distinction made between how they present themselves and how we stereotype them. One of my favorites on this is the multiple blogs and websites I've seen referring to Vampire Weekend as white guys, WASPs, etc. -- despite the fact that, judging by the names, the bulk of the music's content is being provided by a Persian guy and a Jewish guy.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 17:17 (eighteen years ago)
sacha baron cohen?
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.imissthe80s.com/haircut.jpg
― artdamages, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:03 (eighteen years ago)
Only with less dudes and violin instead of saxophone.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:15 (eighteen years ago)
feelies pwn
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)
there's a great band from Mpls called Vampire Hands that is super rhythmic and great
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=36135780
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:23 (eighteen years ago)
maybe vampires are funky i guess
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:25 (eighteen years ago)
as of 1983 they are
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:27 (eighteen years ago)
the count from sesame street had some junk in his trunk
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:34 (eighteen years ago)
I am on the fence about whether to program that Vampire Hands album
― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 21:35 (eighteen years ago)
-- M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 2:34 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link
pause
― Lolpez, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)
e.g. haverford, vassar, mount holyoke, williams, oberlin, grinnell, carleton
they've played at least one of these schools, and will play another soon
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 23:56 (eighteen years ago)
Do they have earlier albums or something? I thought they only had those 2 singles
they have... shows.
http://freshbread.blogs.com/fresh_bread/2007/06/vampire_weekend.html
It seemed the core of the front audience knew every word, knew how to sing backing vocals on "One (Blake's Got A New Face)".
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 23:59 (eighteen years ago)
Being based in New York City sure has helped get them attention (easy enough for NY Times critics to see them, and for Hermes to come down and see them)
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 25 October 2007 03:54 (eighteen years ago)
this vampire weekend sounds pretty good
― tremendoid, Thursday, 25 October 2007 04:50 (eighteen years ago)
oxford comma and cape cod kwassa kwassa are my favorite
― tremendoid, Thursday, 25 October 2007 04:51 (eighteen years ago)
ilm you've done it again :)
― tremendoid, Thursday, 25 October 2007 04:52 (eighteen years ago)
preppy african = the lion sleeps tonight
― Hurting 2, Thursday, 25 October 2007 04:55 (eighteen years ago)
I don't think these guys are bad, but there's still something kind of newborn about their sound. Everything they're trying to do would work better if they were tighter and more integrated.
I'd probably be happy to go see them if I went to school with them, but they're not a band whose records I'd buy.
― Hurting 2, Thursday, 25 October 2007 05:00 (eighteen years ago)
Everything they're trying to do would work better if they were tighter and more integrated.
Does tighter and more integrated mean less of the random tambourine player on stage looseness, or does it mean less overt referencing? I haven't heard them, but the use of integrated raised an eyebrow, and I had to filibuster.
― trashthumb, Friday, 26 October 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)
Are the following 2007 releases mentioned in a Boston newspaper article getting anywhere near the attention (or are they too 'niche' or 'other'):
And there's plenty to choose from, including such recent compilations as "The Roots of Chicha," "Brazil 70: After Tropicalia," "¡Gózalo! Bugalu Tropical," "Thai Pop Spectacular," "Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes," "Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan, Vol. 2," "Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay," and "Sí, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba."
African music - including the crystalline pop of "Authenticité: The Syliphone Years," "Bokoor Beats," and "Belle Epoque 1: Soundiata" - is still a staple of compilations this year, but its ubiquity has been supplanted by other, less-familiar destinations.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 26 October 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)
-- gabbneb, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 12:57 PM (Wednesday, October 24, 2007 12:57 PM) Bookmark Link
Answer: Yes
http://internetvibes.blogspot.com/2006/02/prep-osterous.html
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 03:35 (eighteen years ago)
All of this Riddims Research is getting me pumped for an English class I'm taking next semester called "Parody, Plagiarism and Postcolonialism":
This course examines historical, cultural, and theoretical notions of authorship, originality, singularity, and copyright as they intersect with colonialism, postcolonialism, and globalization as processes of cultural reproduction, replication, and theft.
I wonder if we'll talk about Simple Plan at all. Canada is a postcolonial nation...
From his blog
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 18:54 (eighteen years ago)
Are the following 2007 releases mentioned in a Boston newspaper article getting anywhere near the attention (or are they too 'niche' or 'other'): There is an article in Wax Poetics about the Roots of Chicha release. It focuses on one band on the comp in particular. Sounds like a great release.
― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)
"Oh, actually, these days I'm really interested in early-70s Turkish prog music -- have you heard any of that stuff?"
I knew it! Nabisco is Gruff Rhys.
― marc h., Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:30 (eighteen years ago)
That izod polo shirt stuff on his blog is funny.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 11:23 (eighteen years ago)
what's funny is stuff like you not knowing who mr vegas is whilst running around ilm acting like dj rupture's rss feed
― r|t|c, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 11:52 (eighteen years ago)
I don't know everything. You got me.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)
how you figure you get to play the humble n00b card given the time you spend trying to nudge debate along breaking down white indie barriers? this isn't about vegas particularly but i can't see how you coulda never come across the decade long career of a REALLY popular spanglish dancehall mc who's also been a strong patron of reggaeton and roots and whatever if you'd at all been practising what you preach
sorry if i sound like i'm repeating ethan here but he was right, it's just suspect
― r|t|c, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 13:12 (eighteen years ago)
Are the following 2007 releases mentioned in a Boston newspaper article getting anywhere near the attention
They're all compilations of older material, so it's kind of a weird comparison to be making, unless I have skimmed this thread too quickly.
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 13:21 (eighteen years ago)
I thought some of them were of newer material.
x-post to r/t/c
One does not have to be a fulltime music geek in 2007 to nudge debate along. If you or Ethan want to question my not knowing everything about everything as "suspect" go ahead. I've got a job and a family and not nearly enough time to keep up musically on everything. I have never suggested otherwise. But that does not mean I should not be able to nudge fulltime editors and writers, or offer my take on music. I know what I have done and accomplished-- e-mail me and I can give you the list if it will make you happy and give you a real basis for judging. And by the way, I did finally check out some Mr. Vegas and was impressed. And yes, no one covered his local appearance in DC, although I did write a short online preview for dcist.com that was the only dc media mention of the gig (but I guess you believe that only a more knowledgable dancehall geek can point that out ).
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)
Alright R/t/c here's more of my practicing what I'm preaching:
1980(or was it 79)-Helped get Bad Brains booked at the University of Maryland when they were banned in DC
1981-Helped get Troublefunk booked at U of Md (despite squeamish University folks concerned they would atract the wrong element)
1981 through 1983-University radio station music director--contacted tons of obscure labels and played and bought their stuff, dj'd and brought others on reflective of a wide varity of sounds mentioned here
82 through 85-Co-edited a zine called Thrillseeker that included a Troublefunk interview plus reviews of reggae and afropop and more in addition to American hardcore punk and stuff
Wrote for Option magazine-did lots of reviews and did features on Doug E Fresh, Mad Professor and others
Tons of previews pieces for the Washington City Paper from 1994 to the present. A few years worth of concert reviews for the Washington Post, virtually all on stuff I pitched to them (not stuff that was assigned by an editor).
So there you have it. More recently I've been busy coaching my son's baseball and basketball teams instead of buying Mr. Vegas 7" single Jamaican imports. Although I had seen Mr. Vegas' name around for awhile and probably had a compilation with him on it, I did not really listen to him until recently, and as I mentioned above then highlighted him elsewhere.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)
Steve, nicely played. You laid your cards on the table one by one and only played the Dad Card at the very end.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:55 (eighteen years ago)
seriously
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:04 (eighteen years ago)
Course what would really nail it is if your child were bi-racial.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:14 (eighteen years ago)