Category Archives: link

LINK: Barrage Rock!

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There’s a story in today’s NY Times about some guys who get together in a garage in Queens (NY) and podcast their takes on recent rock news. They also have guests. This week: CJ Ramone. Other weeks? Steve Albini and the guy who directed the movie Riot on the Dance Floor, about that New Jersey club, City Gardens, that everybody says was legendary.

These guys are in their 40s, by the way. And one of them has an actual bar in his garage, where his wife lets him hang out so he doesn’t hang out with his friends in their house. And probably ruin their kids. I don’t know. It’s a fun story well worth reading.

Which reminds me that the Remnants  have talked about doing their own podcast. I think we think it would mostly be music. But I suspect there will be talking. I have some ideas for features:

Remnants Telephone. One Remnant plays a song, then the other Remnants in turn each play a song with some connection to the preceding song. After the four songs are played, each Remnant in turn says why he chose his song and its relation to the preceding song. Conversation ensues.

This Day In Rock. Each Remnant, or one Remnant, tells a story about something that happened in history on that date, and conversation ensues.

Song of the Week. Tom plays and explains his song. Conversation ensues.

Prick up your ears. One Remnant plays a contemporary song, a find, a discovery, others listen, conversation ensues.

Outro. Four (or five, if Tom is in) songs, without comment or conversation, one each by a Remnant.

Fade to black.

In subsequent episodes we start with clips from the Outro and comments by Remnants and we hope eventually listeners and commenters about the songs. And so the snake eats its tail. And we eat our tale.

But maybe you have other ideas? Like what does Moyer think about Graveyard now? Some of us have bated breath. Some of us have abated caring.

See you on the radio!

Rubble Kings: a movie

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Gene and I lived in New York in the late 70s, and I can say I was shaped by the decay and civil breakdown of that time. Ford to City Drop Dead made loyalists of us all. I’m reading Garth Risk Hallberg’s massive novel, City on Fire, which takes place in New York in 1977. So far–I’m only 250 pages in–the punk scene is his focus, but in those years, in the Bronx, another Do It Yourself movement was taking shape. Today we call it Hip Hop.

This bit about a movie called Rubble Kings makes the case that the gang summit in The Warriors was a real event, and the peace that followed (in the real world) is what created the culture that helped Hip Hop grow.

I don’t know about that history, I was downtown, but what I do know is that the music coming out of the South Bronx was as captivating as that percolating in the East Village. Here’s a trailer for the movie Rubble Kings, which surely looks like its worth a peak.

Why We Like David Bowie.

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I don’t know what this links to. I hope it gets you to an MTV interview with Bowie about Black artists on the channel. He does a great job of being firm and being gracious. (It looks like you have to copy the link and paste it into your browser. It is worth it.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/arts/music/how-david-bowie-used-his-stardom-and-race-to-challenge-mtv.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=arts/music&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Music&pgtype=article

Back To School, The Amen Break

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My friend Julie sent me this post from Open Culture about the Amen Break.

What is the Amen Break? It started out as a drum break on a b-side of a 45 by a R&B band called the Winstons, performed by GC Coleman. The a-side won a grammy for best R+B song that year. The b-side became the most sampled six seconds in music history. The link above has the whole story, and it’s long and worth it, I think.

At least that’s the sell here. The video is fun and scholarly about sampling. The influence of the Amen Break is more on hip hop, it seems, and UK street styles that have too many qualifying names to remember, but have to do with drum and bass.

I’m sympathetic to Mr. Reynold’s analysis about current copyright law, but he doesn’t do a great job of selling that part of the story. But who cares?

For me, the cool idea is that a drummer in a band in 1969 created a sound that crawled through all of our culture, and became classic. And we know it.

Here’s the original of Color Him Father, which is awfully sweet.

 

LINK: Casio MT-40 and sleng teng riddim

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casiomt40magshotSeems this simple Casio keyboard contained a preset rhythm track that, some claimed was derived from Eddie Cochran’s Somethin’ Else, or maybe the Sex Pistol’s Anarchy in the UK.

The writer tracks down the musician (a reggae fan) who created it, in 1981, as a rock track, and puts together a long and twisted history of how this single preset ended up being used in hundreds of reggae tunes.

And, it turns out, it was based on a rock song from the 70s, but not Anarchy in the UK. Which one?

LINK: Besides Steve Moyer, Who Is Buying CDs?

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These are Australians, but they count. Read it here.

Two of the Australians have a band called the Arcadian, which is a bad name for Googling (there are lots of them), but when I finally found them they’re kind of a stock hardcore band. But they get excited about a record by a band called Frenzel Rhomb, an Australian punky band from the 90s that does-but-doesn’t-overdo the pop punk cuteness on this tune from 1996.

Here’s another one. Good rhythm section.