Creatures of the night

[koganbot]

Over at the Jukebox the subject of funky house somehow came up on a Jay Reatard thread, and so here's my addition to a conversation between martinskidmore and chuckeddy:

Martin, I'm nowhere near being someone who creates or consumes the codes surrounding "funky house," but it sure seems to be coding something more than just "fun dance music" – I hear stylishness, and the adventure and mystery of the night, and not just anyone's night (no mere boshing Cascadas here), but a discerning listener's poignant and risky night.

Not that it shouldn't, since something that's "just fun" usually isn't all that fun, but I don't know of much that's trying to be nothing more than fun anyway.

I read you more as being fed up with rock's tired and stodgy results, but that's not a knock on rock's ambitions, is it? I do see where one can argue that rock's old ambitions have now become a cover for what's actually defensive and unimaginative, but that's not a result that's written into either the ambitions or drawing on the not-so-recent past for one's vocabulary.

(The adventure and mystery of the night is a role that rock once laid claim to - the electric excitement of the electric guitar! - and rock's night-time adventure is something that Marshall Jefferson in Chicago and the techno guys in Detroit were consciously emulating, right?)

[Also, check Chuck's comparison between electronic dance and metal: "there is a kind of rock these days that's as obsessed with new strange innovative sounds as the most extreme kinds of electronic dance music or whatever, and it's called metal. But just like in dance music, supposed metal innovations now seem to happen in almost indiscernible increments, within a more and more conscribed perimeter, so you need to be an expert with a microscope to even notice them."]

[I suspect "conscribed" is a hybrid of "prescribed" and "constricted."]

Comments

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Well, with the caveat that only the asterisked first three or four of these (three of which are way-the-hell-out-there dada prog weirdness, and the fourth of which was recorded 35 years ago) probably have anything like a shot at my top ten based on how much I return to them and like them (and Last Vegas and Rufus Huff don't have a shot either, by the way), and with the other caveats that these get more and more marginal as you go down the list (so a few of these I will ultimately get rid of in the long run I'm sure), and with the last caveat that I left some (old school hard rock style) metal and (non-Nashville) country rock on the list despite your request, here's some that I actually filed on my shelf rather than selling to a used record store:

*Uz Jsme Doma – Cod-Liver Oil (Skoda ’08) (Timelag is okay for obscure Czech bands as far as I'm concerned)
*Jono El Grande – Neo Dada (Rune Grammofon)
*Death – …For The Whole World To See (Drag City reissue EP) [This probably shouldn't count, since it was recorded in the '70s, but it wasn't released until this year, and it's got a lot of press, including a full page by Mike Rubin in the Times, and I suspect it will make a number of critics' top tens, so I'm considering it.)
*Faust – C’est Com…Com…Complique (Bureau)

Liechtenstein – Survival Strategies In The Modern World (Slumberland EP) (Raincoats/Kleenex type post post-punks from uh, Europe I guess)
Dirty Little Rabbits – Simon (The End EP) (Bjorky pop goth metal that's really not that far from Liechtenstein when you get down to it)
Angus Khan – Black Leather Soul (Nickel and Dime) (metallic biker boogie)
Diagonal – Diagonal (Rise Above) (more prog)
Bear In Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes) (post-Radiohead/Notwist art crap, but kind of beautiful)!
White Wizzard – High Speed GTO (Earache EP) (just reviwed this in the Voice last week -- it's metal, but more early '80s style metal, which most people don't consider metal anymore anyway)
The Bottle Rockets – Lean Forward (Bloodshot) (alt-country rock)
Mike & The Ravens – No Place For Pretty (Zoho Roots) (weirdly artsy boogie)
Meercaz – Meercaz (Gulcher)
Frozen Bears – 2000 (Frozen Bears)
Alice Donut – Ten Glorious Animals (Alternative Tentacles)
King Khan & BBQ Show – Invisible Girl (In The Red)
Status Quo – In Search Of The Fourth Chord (Eagle)
Drivin N’ Cryin’ – Great American Bubble Factory (Vintage Earth Music)
Health – Get Color (Lovepump United) (fuzzy indie I may well be vastly overrating but it sounded good the first couple times I tried)
The Leftovers – Eager To Please (Crappy) (indie powerpop)
Blackberry Smoke – Little Piece Of Dixie (BamaJam) (boogie with some country in it)
Sinner – Crash And Burn (Candlelight USA) (more old school metal)
Buckwheat Zydeco – Lay Your Burden Down (Alligator) (zydeco boogie rock)
Sarah Borges And the Broken Singles – The Stars Are Out (Sugar Hill)
Steadlür – Everything Is Nothing (Roadrunner) (hair-metal meets pop punk)
Os Mutantes – Haih Or Baraúna (Anti-) (Brazilian tropicalia rock comeback)
Firebird -- Grand Union (Rise Above) (old school hard rock/metal)
Cross Canadian Ragweed – Happiness And All The Other Things (Universal) (country rock)
(Various) – Endless Bummer (Blackheart) (covers of '80s new wave and punk novelty hits mostly)
Cheap Trick – The Latest (cheaptrick.com)
Slaraffenland – We’re On Your Side (Hometapes) (more post Radiohead/Notwist art drip from Holland or someplace, but pretty lovely; see Bear In Heaven up above -- I hope this doesn't mean I actually like Radiohead; more likely these two albums are part of some other movement I know nothing about)
Ian Gillan – One Eye To Morocco (Eagle Rock) (Deep Purple dude goes world music smooth jazz whatever)
Edguy – Tinnitus Sanctus (Nuclear Blast) (old school metal)
The Reds – Early Nothing (Tarock) (post punk art metal)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Again, I just want to be clear that I don't necessarily recommend all of the above albums; certainly don't suggest that anybody go out and spend actual money on them. I'm just saying I heard something that caught my jaded ears as interesting on all of them -- maybe just a couple smart and catchy songs, in some cases (Drivin & Cryin and Cross Canadian Ragweed are pretty spotty actually), or an overall sound that I feel like I might want to return to and investigate more, if I have time someday. Which I probably won't, in many cases, but what the heck. (My habit lately has been to get rid of lots of marginal stuff a year later, when I finally decide that it had its shot and I'll never return to it and I need to clear space. But I'd still predict most of these will stick around here for a while; I'm actually getting choosier in my old age, believe it or not!) (At very least, I'd say all of these have some palpable semblance of a beat, and singers who don't put me to sleep or make me gag, at least not yet. Even the two I'm calling "post Radiohead prog" give up something rhythmically and melodically that pulls me in. Actually they might be more post-Gentle Giant or Soft Machine prog, for all know, but I kind of like the idea of preferring bands influenced by Radiohead to Radiohead themselves. I was always like that about Frank Zappa-influenced bands, too.)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Ha, just noticed that Health have been added as a Singles Jukebox song (and I have no idea what my opinion about that particular track is, at least not yet).

A few more not-bad (and maybe even good) 2009 rock albums:

Tim Carroll – All Kinds Of Pain (Gulcher)
UFO – The Visitor (SPV)
The Pinx – Look What You Made Me Do (The Pinx)
The Backsliders – Thank You (The Backsliders EP)
The Aggrolites – The Aggrolites IV (Hellcat)
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs – La Luz Del Ritmo (Nacional)
The Answer – Everyday Demons (The End)
Dead Man – Euphoria (Crusher)
Living Things – Habeas Corpus (Jive/Zomba)
Cross Stitched Eyes – Coranach (Alternative Tentacles EP)
Talk Normal – Secret Cog (Menlo Park Recordings EP)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

And (getting more and more marginal, maybe, but still -- I actually totally imagine you liking Fires Of Rome and/or Gene Dante, actually.) (Maybe the Pinx or Backsliders or Steadlur or Mike & the Ravens, too. Or maybe not):

Okie Dokie – Okie Dokie (Aago EP)
Fires Of Rome – You Kingdom You (The Hours)
Crocodiles – Summer Of Hate (Fat Possum)
Gene Dante and the Future Starlets – The Romantic Lead (Omnirox Entertainment)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

"I actually could totally imagine you liking...", I meant. (And please ignore the second "actually." As usual with livejournal, my proofreading skills have disappeared into the shitter on this thread. "Check spelling and preview" really shouldn't scare me, but it still does for some reason.)

Okie Dokie and Talk Normal are artsy noise-core bands, by the way. It would be way beyond annoying to endure to an entire album by either, but somehow 5 songs in 10 minutes or whatever seems novel enough. Ditto Cross-Stitched Eyes' crusty early '80s (as in Void or early Die Kreuzen say)-style thrash-core. Meercaz and Frozen Bears are really noisy too, and their albums are short ones, but there's something more personable about them I haven't quite pinpointed yet.

Gene Dante is glam revisionism, Aggrolietes are ska revisionism, the Answer are classic rock revisionism, Crocodiles are Jesus and Mary Chain revisionism, Tim Carrol is Velvety Stoogey country singer-songwriting, the Pinx and Fires of Rome are hard rock bands disguised as indie bands. And so on and so forth.