andrews27 wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2008 at 11:22pm:


_________________

Ha. Lots may of thought this was an older brand of dog food like Kibbles and Bits, or perhaps they might of determined "frick and frack" was the hippies version of the snack Fiddle Faddle.


Ian

Ian Billen wrote on Dec 1^st, 2008 at 12:59pm:


Growing up the 70s I rarely heard anything worth wild on the radio.

I DJ on Saturday nights at a local club, playing 50s and 60s rock and roll/soul to 150+ mainly under 30s, who religiously support the gig, dance like maniacs, and tell all their friends about.  The club never isn't packed.  We never play the hits, or rarely play the hits, because they have too much weird association to them via movies, commercials, whatever.  But we also never fail to play the Stones, and the Stones never fail to slay.  I have several under 20 fans of the Replacement Party, my radio show specializing in weird-ass rock and roll and other shit.  But my audience at the Admiral and on the Replacement Party is the vast minority.  People born in the late 80s or whatever, why are they gonna for the most part care about something happened 20 years before they were born?  A few are gonna study history and learn about "good stuff", but many more are gonna take their culture as it comes.

"Kids these days and their crap music" is what people who've lost it say.  You may not relate (I don't relate to a lot, even a lot of underground stuff) but don't pretend that you understand what it sounds like to someone 20+ years younger than you.  Remember the kids in the old flicks saying their parents just don't "get" what rock and roll means?  That is you, and this is now.

corgi37 wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2008 at 2:28am:


In the past few weeks I have The Breeders, The Melvins and Smashing Pumpkins. It's like 1994 all over again.

Frick and Frack, it must be remembered, were the subject of a repeated non-sequitur gag on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In show, though of course they made no appearance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frick_and_Frack

Many people believe, erroneously, that "Frick" was a reference to tyrannical Pittsburgh steel and coal baron Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919).  But I always say, "Fruck that Frick!"

Seems like your head is pretty frucking freductive, not to mention half frull, considering you can illustrate with songs on one side and mere names on the other.  You gonna put up a bunch of one hit wonders (which is where the pop action almost always is) against big stars of the day?  Unfair to modernity, says I, and thence shall cite MIA's Paper Planes and, oh, Rehab as evidence that all hast not gone straight to hell.  And declare pubically there is less worst wild things in this world than Kanye.

Nasty Habits wrote on Dec 5^th, 2008 at 7:59am:


Well, that was the point of the mathematical exercise: that this relative junk was more accomplished and memorable than the output of Today's Newest Hitmakers.  The equation is merely an unbalanced sketch because I can only remember the names of the most annoying stuff I hear in this decade (viz. "Papazao").  

I purposely reserved the big guns for this moment.  Compare Today's Newest Hitmakers, or even those from 1985-2000, to 1970s Steely Dan, Bowie, Springsteen, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, Patti Smith, the Clash and all punk rock...and all one is left holding is wishful thinking, and the need to perpetuate one's critical faculties by bringing artists of the Declining Ages into the pop discourse by the default criteria of their being All That's Left.  It's what the estimable Robert Christgau and the execrable Milo Miles had to do with Marshall Mathers to keep getting paid and broadcast occasionally on NPR.  It's rather like celebrating the final Roman emperors, such as the epicene Heliogabalus and the infant Romulus Augustus.

Peace-out, gangsta!  Which posse ya gonna remembah when ya 64?

Hey! i'm a young rolling stone fan but i must admit alot of the young people are kinda stupid about the  beatles and the stones for instance  when keith fell out of the tree i told my friend about it and she said keith richards isn't he in the beatles? so yeah alot of them can be quite dumb but not all of them i actually do my musical background search but i don't know about the rest of em'

silver rainbow wrote on Dec 5^th, 2008 at 6:27pm:


Silver R, I hold no brief against young people, being a teacher.  What I despise is the loss of pop craftsmanship among the elders that write for today's recording artists.  And the producers, and the execs....  May we all know better pop and better times.

andrews27 wrote on Dec 5^th, 2008 at 6:37pm:


I've been on an Eminemp3 kick this week and have been jazzed at how well his, um, oeuvre holds up - it delivers laughs and insight into the culture-at-large through the admittedly limited perspective of narcissism that is at the heart of his discourse.  As far as the lack of melody in his spite and ire, I don't agree at all.  I would cite, say, Renagade, from Jay-Z's Blueprint, on which Mr. M raps like a demon, as melodic infusion into the beat driven id spew.  But if you don't hear melody bolstering lyrical murder there, ask yourself (this is a discussion, not a gambit, so your honest response is welcome) if that's the song or your ears.

And I agree with you that Mr. Christgau delivering pronouncements on, say, Vampire Weekend is ridiculous, and that making new releases 'canonical' A plusses in the same sense that Countdown to Ecstasy is an A+ is absurd.  The Dean was on it in the 70s and 80s, when popular music was being made for his demographic.  My point is that there is a ton of music out there not being pitched to or most importantly made for 39 me or 49 you or 6whatever Rob the C-goo.  And pretending that there is still some kind of center from which one can discuss the pop music of 2008 is nuts. I don't think consensus can be made about this stuff and there's not still some kind of "industry" that can deliver a marketplace rather than the crazed chaos of MySpace pages and online downloading free-for-all.  Maybe that has to do with a decline in quality of stuff - it can't catch everyone's ear anymore.  Or maybe things fall apart and the center can't hold.  Or maybe the center was always just an illusion.  

Has there ever been a time when the older generation hasn't said "the music of the youth of today is nonsense"?  Jazz is an abomination in the face of "serious music", BeBop haters, rock and roll dissers who preferred Mantovani for melody and beauty, Robert Crumb and other Yazoo blues fans railing against the Rolling Stones, Jann Wenner hating on punk, Bob Dylan vs. everybody, Keith Richards vs. rap - this is stuff we should be extremely suspicious of lest we become cranky old men with ossified eardrums.  So, yeah, I could list a bunch of personal faves from the last 18 years that for me have some heavy juice and continue to please me when I stick them in the matrix, and I could ultimately admit that none of it will ever be Let It Bleed, but so what? Does that say more about Let It Bleed or me?  What the hell is good as MacBeth or Moby Dick?  The slope been slipping for centuries, apparently.

Given my druthers I live at the Goodwill hoping for a big fat stack of unsoiled records, preferably 45s, to come out, because so much of my relevant culture comes through the Goodwill, and hell yeah you got to dig for it, not to mention push some other mofo out the way so you can get to it first.  I carry that into my day-to-day, so maybe looking in the alley for my kicks is just what comes natural.   I stepped out a long time ago, and will gladly admit to responding to stimuli biologically rather than sociologically.  My culture is mine own - if it dovetails with the mass-mind than yee haw, join my party, but I'll keep going my own way for another ten years at least, thanks.  Has not served me terribly thus far.  To quote Mr. Idiot Wind, "Every inch of pleasure got an edge of pain, pay for your ticket and don't complain."

We fired our canons 'til the barrel melted down, let's grab an alligator and pull another round.