Whats it like on the outside looking in?

N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
dubble-u-c said:
Well on the west coast there was jeno, thomas and garth with the Wicked Crew who were English immigrants who brought the rave culture here. They would have people like Dj Pierre play at their party quite often and a few Chicago Dj's moved to SF because house and rave music were accepted here in the early 90's.

I was hearing hardcore and early jungle on bay area mainstream stations at that time as well because the program directors in of the large urban stations in the US were open minded.
There were also several raves in the early 90's in SF.

Also it can't be underestimated the influence that the homosexual population in SF had on it's embrace of house music and dance music in general.
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Nice. I suppose what I was talking about was a bit later on, like 93-94. I wasn't even thinking about Rave proper or Acid, just rave/techno in the wider sense. I think in terms of House in the UK the audiences started to drift apart from the more 'ravey' elements around '92, with House becoming more of a dressed up in the club sort of thing, although you still had pockets of underground House people doing warehouse parties and so on.
 
R

ripley

Well-known member
Also, don't mean to sound condescending (as the starter of this thread said) but I sometimes feel like brits don't really have a sense of how unbelievably huge America is. This affects what pop is in terms of what gets promoted into pop culture and recycled into subcultures. Even if more people in America, numerically speaking, were into jungle than were those in England, it wouldn't be popular in the way it was there, it doesn't have the cultural critical mass here, there is simply so much other stuff that is more popular among more people.

Haven't thought beyond that, but maybe what that means is that while there are lots of local scenes that were into this or that electronic music, what "popular" means here may be a massively more industrial product, in a way. Not in terms of how it sounds, or anything, but in terms of mass production for a mass audience.
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
in general, i think uk dj's are a lot more SERIOUS about separating the wheat from the chaff than are americans -- to the point where their attitude can be rather censorious

for example, and staying within classic house/rave music, there are certain records i've always liked that i know brits will sneer at = alison limerick "where love lives," n-joi "anthem," inner city "good life" -- either b/c they were simply too commercially massive or too piano-keyboard-y (anything that verges on happy hardcore or anticipates that sound)

and in recent years as i've started to collect more disco, i get the same sniffing remarks concerning certain records -- usually b/c this wouldn't have ever gotten played at the hacienda or some such or, more to the point, it sounds too gay (even though all disco was at the time gay???)

((((but i usually bear in mind the criticisms of my brit friends, and tend not to play anything that they've dissed in private before others at a party))))

HOWEVER, i have my own standards for what's good and bad, and i don't hesitate to apply my standards to other people's records -- and with brits, what i don't like is usually because the records are too boring or conform too much to type or they aren't taking aesthetic risks in their dj sets

AND YET, there are entire dance scenes in the UK -- like 2-step garage -- that were dismissed by u.s. dance audience precisely b/c they were seen as too commercial too cheesy too pop too much in bad taste

AND AT SAME TIME, i've heard more than my share of deadly boring british and european djs over the years -- and just as many crap american djs . . . .

so maybe it's simply a matter of matching the right djs for the right rooms -- which is a bit of a cop-out answer

so i should i start naming good american djs??? -- merely a rhetorical question of course
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
i should also add that as uk music has become more insular, it's become more and more questionable for americans to adopt it -- i.e., even if the music is hardcore, the gesture of appropriation is viewed as lightweight and too desperately hipster

which, again, is what made the 90s so great -- that sense of simultaneity and of common property across the ocean
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
and not sure when this occurred, but i've been told by reliable sources that david morales was shelled with beer bottles at the hacienda -- and that he hasn't been back to manchester since

and say what you will about the later morales, from say 89 to 91 he and frankie knuckles were the premier house production team
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
yeah i never got 2-step garage outside of dj Zinc. most of it sounds like music for pre-teen girls on too much caffeine. even precedents of grime/dubstep like Wookie, even with interesting beat patterns, the music just sounds cheesy with the R'n'B diva type vocals.
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
dominic said:
there are certain records i've always liked that i know brits will sneer at = alison limerick "where love lives," n-joi "anthem," inner city "good life"
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Depends who you talk too. No sneering here, or from most people who genuinely love dance music. This sort of attitude often comes down scene factionalism, hipster revisionism, or just clueless prejudice..
dominic said:
and in recent years as i've started to collect more disco, i get the same sniffing remarks concerning certain records -- usually b/c this wouldn't have ever gotten played at the hacienda or some such or, more to the point, it sounds too gay (even though all disco was at the time gay???)
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Same again. Add in elements of homophobia, latent racism and not wanting to be seen to have missed something. Again, just depends who you talk to.
dominic said:
AND YET, there are entire dance scenes in the UK -- like 2-step garage -- that were dismissed by u.s. dance audience precisely b/c they were seen as too commercial too cheesy too pop too much in bad taste
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Is it because it's too pop? The US has never bought into UK flavors of soul / r&b / hip-hop in a big way.
dominic said:
so i should i start naming good american djs??? -- merely a rhetorical question of course
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Well yeah!
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
dominic said:
and not sure when this occurred, but i've been told by reliable sources that david morales was shelled with beer bottles at the hacienda -- and that he hasn't been back to manchester since

and say what you will about the later morales, from say 89 to 91 he and frankie knuckles were the premier house production team
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Maybe, but the guy looks like a tit. Hold tight Manchester. ;)
 
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N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
dominic said:
i should also add that as uk music has become more insular, it's become more and more questionable for americans to adopt it -- i.e., even if the music is hardcore, the gesture of appropriation is viewed as lightweight and too desperately hipster
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Also it's going to be harder to find hipster consensus - don't want to be ridiculed for getting into the wrong thing. There's more micro scenes in the US as well I think - even with the internet it can be hard to get a clear picture of them from across the pond. You have to go out of your way to explore them and very few others will know what you are talking about so they might assume it's willful obscurantism or something. I think that's the same as what you are talking about.
 
D

dubble-u-c

Dorkus Maximus
dominic said:
i
AND YET, there are entire dance scenes in the UK -- like 2-step garage -- that were dismissed by u.s. dance audience precisely b/c they were seen as too commercial too cheesy too pop too much in bad taste


so i should i start naming good american djs??? -- merely a rhetorical question of course
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well that wasn't true of this american. i love/ loved 2 step garage and a lot of my friends did as well.

there was a small but supportive scene in SF for 2 step in SF at it's height. a few of my friends produced a bit of it as well.
 
D

dubble-u-c

Dorkus Maximus
ripley said:
Also, don't mean to sound condescending (as the starter of this thread said) but I sometimes feel like brits don't really have a sense of how unbelievably huge America is. This affects what pop is in terms of what gets promoted into pop culture and recycled into subcultures. Even if more people in America, numerically speaking, were into jungle than were those in England, it wouldn't be popular in the way it was there, it doesn't have the cultural critical mass here, there is simply so much other stuff that is more popular among more people.

Haven't thought beyond that, but maybe what that means is that while there are lots of local scenes that were into this or that electronic music, what "popular" means here may be a massively more industrial product, in a way. Not in terms of how it sounds, or anything, but in terms of mass production for a mass audience.
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Yes i think this may be true as well. The landmass and size of population of the US has a great affect on culture here and there are diff criteria for what is considered popular and "big".
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
oh don't get me wrong. i liked 2-step at the time, and i'm friendly with greg poole, who did a lot to push it in new york city

but i knew lots of americans into house/techno/jungle who never got on board with uk garage. i can't even say that i got on board, aside from cherry-picking the bigger 2-step hits -- which was part of the problem -- uk garage never had the distribution networks stateside

basically, uk garage has always been a uk thing

techno to my mind is still a thriving scene in the u.s. -- not a massive scene, and not one that i'm particularly a fan of -- but techno and electro have legs to stand on in the u.s., which uk garage and its offshoots seem not to have

it's like there's the rave cluster of sounds -- house, techno, jungle, electro -- music that has some connection to early 90s rave, even if such scene long dead -- and then's the uk garage
 
N

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
ripley said:
Haven't thought beyond that, but maybe what that means is that while there are lots of local scenes that were into this or that electronic music, what "popular" means here may be a massively more industrial product, in a way. Not in terms of how it sounds, or anything, but in terms of mass production for a mass audience.
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Obviously I can see there are differences in scale. I do think in the UK the landscape is more densely packed so in a way there's as much (more?) to navigate culturally. If popular means chart hits then it's still only big US R&B and mass appeal 'indie' rock bands. Everything else is marginal.

I do get what you are saying about not achieving a critical mass of parts per million sufficient to coalesce into a scene. Wow that's a mixed scientific metaphor.
 
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Z

ZOMBY®

Wild Horses
zhao said:
yeah i never got 2-step garage outside of dj Zinc. most of it sounds like music for pre-teen girls on too much caffeine. even precedents of grime/dubstep like Wookie, even with interesting beat patterns, the music just sounds cheesy with the R'n'B diva type vocals.
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El-b,Zed Bias,Wookie,Phuturistix,Ed Case,Sticky... 'Gabriel' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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