CrowleyHead
Well-known member
2)
Rewinding even further back to something my brain cannot be relied upon. My dad tells me this story years and years later about how as a child I could not be calmed down as an infant. They would try everything to get me to relax. Mozart. Raffi. Charlie Parker with Strings. A number of attempts and all of them failing. Eventually however, it would prove to be the sounds of James Brown that could get me to calm down and stop crying. He claims then that until I was much more sedate, it would be a constant barrage of James Brown's greatest hits. There's even a great impression of my mother skeptically rocking me along to 'The Chicken' he's done once or twice.
Existentially I don't think modernity exists in music without James Brown. I think he's more vital than Krautrock, Reggae/Dub, Psychedelia, whatever forms of musical innovation from the last 70 years. Think of how everything we like on this forum is in some way intangibly connected to James Brown. We cannot imagine a world without his echoes, his ghosts. Yes I'm associating the dozens of legendary musicians with him himself, but this isn't a Sinatra-like situation where some savant's persona overwhelms the music to the point of irrelevance. James Brown made having the best band in the world is raison d'etre for a good decade or two. Maybe my favorite genre of music in the whole world is built out of the skeletons of these men & women, a Necropolitian Architecture for a way of life.
Now mind you I don't know if Lyn Collins was necessarily one of the James Brown songs my dad would've been able to play for me on that cassette. I DON'T KNOW what was on that cassette and it doesn't matter. I just need James in some way shape or form. The extensions of his will manifesting through his affiliates and compatriots. James isn't a good dude, but he's truly the Greatest Man in the Nietzschean sense for America. The Greatest Entertainer On Earth, as you know. But what I do know that I must've heard is that break we all know and love, and of course Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock was around in my childhood relentlessly. Too many pieces are impossible to ignore here.
Rewinding even further back to something my brain cannot be relied upon. My dad tells me this story years and years later about how as a child I could not be calmed down as an infant. They would try everything to get me to relax. Mozart. Raffi. Charlie Parker with Strings. A number of attempts and all of them failing. Eventually however, it would prove to be the sounds of James Brown that could get me to calm down and stop crying. He claims then that until I was much more sedate, it would be a constant barrage of James Brown's greatest hits. There's even a great impression of my mother skeptically rocking me along to 'The Chicken' he's done once or twice.
Existentially I don't think modernity exists in music without James Brown. I think he's more vital than Krautrock, Reggae/Dub, Psychedelia, whatever forms of musical innovation from the last 70 years. Think of how everything we like on this forum is in some way intangibly connected to James Brown. We cannot imagine a world without his echoes, his ghosts. Yes I'm associating the dozens of legendary musicians with him himself, but this isn't a Sinatra-like situation where some savant's persona overwhelms the music to the point of irrelevance. James Brown made having the best band in the world is raison d'etre for a good decade or two. Maybe my favorite genre of music in the whole world is built out of the skeletons of these men & women, a Necropolitian Architecture for a way of life.
Now mind you I don't know if Lyn Collins was necessarily one of the James Brown songs my dad would've been able to play for me on that cassette. I DON'T KNOW what was on that cassette and it doesn't matter. I just need James in some way shape or form. The extensions of his will manifesting through his affiliates and compatriots. James isn't a good dude, but he's truly the Greatest Man in the Nietzschean sense for America. The Greatest Entertainer On Earth, as you know. But what I do know that I must've heard is that break we all know and love, and of course Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock was around in my childhood relentlessly. Too many pieces are impossible to ignore here.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
You have no enemies. Put down the gun like Riko said.
version
Well-known member
I love that clip of him in Zaire in his 40s where he does the splits twice within seconds of coming on stage.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
3)
Really this should be a section for the "Todd Terry Riff", which for all I know is actually stolen from some Chicago guy I will never respect unless it's Larry Heard/Ron Hardy. Growing up in NYC I heard this all the time but never knew who was responsible for it, or where it came about. It was a sort of ambient sonic meme, not unlike the James Brown samples I described before, or various sound effect triggers. My brain is patterned by punctuation that I've recognized and memorized over the years in order to place them again and again when they re-manifest. Genuine licks or melodic 'hooks' are like sentences and are obviously iconic, the quotation from your favorite poem. Chuck D's voice is an exclamation point. When you see it done, enough times, you understand it's usage and its utility. Semiotics of sound.
What is that riff? Energy. You don't know what the source sound is besides some sort of synthesizer buzz, but that sound communicates the grid, the sensation of witnessing the plasma orb react to your own electricity that briefly makes you feel the power of immediacy. "It Me, I'm The One." It's not the sound that electricity crackling in the air makes, the sound of thunder. Those are the echoes of the mass burning of particles within the air. We had plenty of simulations of the sound of energy prior throughout our lives, trying to nail it and get it right. This isn't the only one even! But it nails it and gets it so right that even before you've heard it finish, your brain is picturing all these images of the Surge Movement that you can convey.
Todd is God, but in a way that's personal to me. Obviously so much of what was important of East Coast house and Techno would emerge out of him. Your Armands, your Frankies, your Beltrams, your Louie & Kennys, your Todds (yes the other Todd). He had a pedigree in freestyle, and he helped out in hip-hop. He made Everything But The Girl pop off in America making a suburban mom down-tempo classic that still goes off. He's still in 2020 on Instagram threatening to pull up and rob DJs for money for stealing from his songs despite being one of the most obvious copyist thieves in dance music. A pure robber baron of the American image, and a legend to boot.
Really this should be a section for the "Todd Terry Riff", which for all I know is actually stolen from some Chicago guy I will never respect unless it's Larry Heard/Ron Hardy. Growing up in NYC I heard this all the time but never knew who was responsible for it, or where it came about. It was a sort of ambient sonic meme, not unlike the James Brown samples I described before, or various sound effect triggers. My brain is patterned by punctuation that I've recognized and memorized over the years in order to place them again and again when they re-manifest. Genuine licks or melodic 'hooks' are like sentences and are obviously iconic, the quotation from your favorite poem. Chuck D's voice is an exclamation point. When you see it done, enough times, you understand it's usage and its utility. Semiotics of sound.
What is that riff? Energy. You don't know what the source sound is besides some sort of synthesizer buzz, but that sound communicates the grid, the sensation of witnessing the plasma orb react to your own electricity that briefly makes you feel the power of immediacy. "It Me, I'm The One." It's not the sound that electricity crackling in the air makes, the sound of thunder. Those are the echoes of the mass burning of particles within the air. We had plenty of simulations of the sound of energy prior throughout our lives, trying to nail it and get it right. This isn't the only one even! But it nails it and gets it so right that even before you've heard it finish, your brain is picturing all these images of the Surge Movement that you can convey.
Todd is God, but in a way that's personal to me. Obviously so much of what was important of East Coast house and Techno would emerge out of him. Your Armands, your Frankies, your Beltrams, your Louie & Kennys, your Todds (yes the other Todd). He had a pedigree in freestyle, and he helped out in hip-hop. He made Everything But The Girl pop off in America making a suburban mom down-tempo classic that still goes off. He's still in 2020 on Instagram threatening to pull up and rob DJs for money for stealing from his songs despite being one of the most obvious copyist thieves in dance music. A pure robber baron of the American image, and a legend to boot.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Superb selection and write up. Been on a Todd Terry kick myself recently. That is simply one of the best records ever made.
luka
Well-known member
Another one that reminds us how ravey New York house is
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Yeah, totally, and I've really come round to Woebot's claim that NY was the true centre of innovation in dance music, as the epicentre moved away from Chicago early on (i think thats what he said anyway) lately been obsessed with nu groove and early strictly rhythm but above all Todd's late 80s stuff still sounds so good to uk hardcore attuned ears.
linebaugh
Well-known member
link?