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Squid Tempest
Squid Tempest
8761 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 10:22
suave harv wrote:
Ziggypop wrote:

Now I can understand your comments. I was just making it known that I enjoyed the gig for what it was and it was exactly what I expected.


No problem Ziggy, I appreciate your post. Mine came across a bit judgemental when I read it this morning, I hope you realise I was not having a pop.

I've seen Copey many times over the years, and knew the gig would be an 'experimental' thing, so I didn't even entertain attending it, as it's so not my thing. It would be for the 'Burst Couch' crowd, who like that sort of stuff. Whaatever I might think about 'sonic collage' it's everyone's option to enjoy what they want. Some people like pot-holing, I don't get that either, but hey, do as you will and harm none and all that.

Off on a bit of a tangent, I think you can go round in circles with this stuff. People who like left field stuff being called elitist, and people who don't being labeled narrow minded (I see it's happened again to me on this thread, oh well, I should just keep my trap shut I suppose), but I know where I stand on this type of stuff. No-one will ever convince me that this type of art-noise will reach the emotional heights (or lows) of a well crafted piece of proper music.

See, when I go to a gig I don't want to be 'challenged'. I want to be entertained. I have enough challenges in real life thanks. I don't want my 'perception of music challenged' by a wall of noise. I want to be inspired and uplifted, or moved in some human way. Failing all that, the urge to dance will do!

Remember that first Jesus And Mary Chain album? That's as far as I go with noise. It worked well there, because there were perfect pop tunes underneath (listen to the Headless Heroes doing Just Like Honey if you can find it, sublime!). Take away the tune and it's just noise, and for that I can go to any foundry or quarry or engine room. Put it on a stage and you might well be making a statement, and yea, you can call it art if you want, or 'sonic soundscape', that's a good one. But music? Naaah.

That's me Mr popular again. I'll get me coat.


To some extent I agree with you that this could go round in circles, I really don't think we need to set this up as an "us against them" thing, noiseniks v tunesmiths. As you point out yourself (JAMC bit), there are degrees of noise.

I like a good choon as much as the next person, but to actively avoid listening to "challenging" music is surely like wrapping yourself in a warm cozy blanket of "normal" sounds and never exploring different musical avenues? In order for music to truly open minds and do something different, it needs to have something different about it, and some bands achieve this by pushing the noise boundaries.

Presumably it is safe to assume that you don't have any Sunn O))) in your collection? This is a case in point. Their music is a long way from tuneful, but the thunder-drone noise they make is like a psychic wake-up call.

Anyhow, I suspect I'm not going to convince you to rush out and buy C.C.C.C's box set of extreme electronic sonic mayhem, so prehaps I'd better leave it at that!
suave harv
suave harv
704 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 11:07
Squid Tempest wrote:

I like a good choon as much as the next person, but to actively avoid listening to "challenging" music is surely like wrapping yourself in a warm cozy blanket of "normal" sounds and never exploring different musical avenues? In order for music to truly open minds and do something different, it needs to have something different about it, and some bands achieve this by pushing the noise boundaries.!


I don't get this 'opening minds' thing. Is it drug related? What's it mean? I've seen it mentioned so many times. Can someone PLEASE explain how listening to tuneless, constant noise 'opens your mind'. Explain the process, please!

Do I need my mind opening to different music? Well, I bloody love finding new music, if that what it means, (insert obscure examples of my CD collection here).

Squid Tempest wrote:
Presumably it is safe to assume that you don't have any Sunn O))) in your collection? This is a case in point. Their music is a long way from tuneful, but the thunder-drone noise they make is like a psychic wake-up call.

Anyhow, I suspect I'm not going to convince you to rush out and buy C.C.C.C's box set of extreme electronic sonic mayhem, so prehaps I'd better leave it at that.!


Help me again, what's a psychic wake up call?

See, you must understand that most people, when they listen to 'sonic collage' would think 'that's not real music'. If people want to appear arty, they'll say "hmmm, I like what they're doing" (I know a few like that), but 99% of humans would say it wasn't 'music'.
Now I know the majority isn't always right (the Sun is the biggest selling rag, I know), but like modern art (yea, I also think it's pants), it's only the self selected few that profess to know the secret key to enjoying this sort of stuff. You can understand how that comes across as annoying can't you Squid? It's like the christians saying "you might not love god but god loves you". You're saying "this stuff is great but you won't open your mind, you stay safe. . "

It's not staying 'safe'. It's knowing what you like and calling something as you see it. There's so much wonderful real music out there, why on earth people feel the need to make 'anti-music' and pretend it's real music is beyond me. I'll defend your right to do it, but if you're going to call it worthy music I'll always be around to be mr unpopular by saying it's not music.
Squid Tempest
Squid Tempest
8761 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 11:21
suave harv wrote:
Squid Tempest wrote:

I like a good choon as much as the next person, but to actively avoid listening to "challenging" music is surely like wrapping yourself in a warm cozy blanket of "normal" sounds and never exploring different musical avenues? In order for music to truly open minds and do something different, it needs to have something different about it, and some bands achieve this by pushing the noise boundaries.!


I don't get this 'opening minds' thing. Is it drug related? What's it mean? I've seen it mentioned so many times. Can someone PLEASE explain how listening to tuneless, constant noise 'opens your mind'. Explain the process, please!

Do I need my mind opening to different music? Well, I bloody love finding new music, if that what it means, (insert obscure examples of my CD collection here).

Squid Tempest wrote:
Presumably it is safe to assume that you don't have any Sunn O))) in your collection? This is a case in point. Their music is a long way from tuneful, but the thunder-drone noise they make is like a psychic wake-up call.

Anyhow, I suspect I'm not going to convince you to rush out and buy C.C.C.C's box set of extreme electronic sonic mayhem, so prehaps I'd better leave it at that.!


Help me again, what's a psychic wake up call?

See, you must understand that most people, when they listen to 'sonic collage' would think 'that's not real music'. If people want to appear arty, they'll say "hmmm, I like what they're doing" (I know a few like that), but 99% of humans would say it wasn't 'music'.
Now I know the majority isn't always right (the Sun is the biggest selling rag, I know), but like modern art (yea, I also think it's pants), it's only the self selected few that profess to know the secret key to enjoying this sort of stuff. You can understand how that comes across as annoying can't you Squid? It's like the christians saying "you might not love god but god loves you". You're saying "this stuff is great but you won't open your mind, you stay safe. . "

It's not staying 'safe'. It's knowing what you like and calling something as you see it. There's so much wonderful real music out there, why on earth people feel the need to make 'anti-music' and pretend it's real music is beyond me. I'll defend your right to do it, but if you're going to call it worthy music I'll always be around to be mr unpopular by saying it's not music.


To me any music that doesn't affect me on a deep level isn't really art. The "psychic" thing refers to that directly. Music has an affect on my brain, inducing certain states of consciousness. I suppose looking at it like that, I think I can understand what you're getting at. Would I be right in thinking that you listen to music to tap your toes to and sing along with, and not much more than that? To me, music goes far further than that. That isn't to say that I don't enjoy a good dance or singalong, but that isn't the most important thing in music for me. No, it isn't necessarily to do with drugs, more to do with affecting a state of mind, call it a "trance" state if you will, although for me that doesn't really explain it all. Have you never felt a transcendant sensation when listening to music?

Now we've got some of the kerfuffle out the way, this is actually a really interesting discussion (to me anyway)!
suave harv
suave harv
704 posts

Edited Sep 23, 2009, 11:57
Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 11:53
Squid Tempest wrote:

Have you never felt a transcendant sensation when listening to music?

Now we've got some of the kerfuffle out the way, this is actually a really interesting discussion (to me anyway)!


I'm not here to make kerfuffle either, I'm pleased you can see that (some can't).

I can understand what you mean. Certainly music has different 'depths' to me. Different music puts me on different levels, there's sing along and there's more emotional stuff. Nick Drake can send you to a different place to Little Richard, yet I'm a massive fan of both.
I've been reading about different scales and the old Greek system of musical 'modes' recently, where they'd play certain scales to troops before they went to war, and certain types when they got back. The latter being soothing, the former agressive. But all these modes (for modes read 'moods'), were based on tunes, and notes and their relationship to each other.
And this is how music is created, notes and rhythm, going back to the earliest three note bone flute. Now we use a twelve step octave to creat music . . but I'm going away from your question.
Music moves me most when I play it. Listening can't put me in the same zone as when I play it, and it's certainly not every time I play I feel it, but when I'm in 'the zone' it's like nothing else and quite undescribable. You ebb and flow with the rhythm and your mind feels somehow connected to the sound. You *thrill* inside, I can't explain it any other way. But for that to happen the music would have to have rhythm and melody. I just couldn't do it if I was making 'a noise'. There'd be no form, nothing to attach my emotions to, there'd be no link, nothing tangable to grasp. The more complicated the piece, the more intense the feeling.

So just listening to noise, would be a very soul-less and empty experience for me. And if I were surrounded by people nodding pretending they are 'getting it', I'd just get annoyed with the whole scene. I'd want to shake them and shout "what are you listening to!!!" That's why I stay away from that stuff.

And I only come here because I got into Cope in the nineties because someone said "he writes songs about stone circles" and I bought Peggy Suicide. So I drop in and often find myself in a virtual room full of the people I'd like to shake in my imaginary art-noise gig.

But yea, it's interesting.
Squid Tempest
Squid Tempest
8761 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 12:03
suave harv wrote:
So just listening to noise, would be a very soul-less and empty experience for me. And if I were surrounded by people nodding pretending they are 'getting it', I'd just get annoyed with the whole scene. I'd want to shake them and shout "what are you listening to!!!" That's why I stay away from that stuff.


Perhaps your mistake is thinking that people are "pretending" to get it! I'd be pretty pissed off if you accused me of pretending to get it when I was enjoying the sensation of being blown away on waves of noise.

Interesting what you say about the greek modes. I didn't know that.
suave harv
suave harv
704 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 12:14
Squid Tempest wrote:

Perhaps your mistake is thinking that people are "pretending" to get it! I'd be pretty pissed off if you accused me of pretending to get it when I was enjoying the sensation of being blown away on waves of noise.


Heh heh! That's why I stay away!

I don't go to see kareoke club acts either. But that's more a punching impulse than a shaking one.

Squid Tempest wrote:

Interesting what you say about the greek modes. I didn't know that.


I'm only getting into it myself. I was teaching someone to play Holst's 'Jupiter' and couldn't understand why a certain note sounded out of key when it was in key, I went back to my text books and read it up - I think it has to do with these modes, certain tunes use certain degrees of the scale.

It's like we use major and minor now. Even five year olds can tell the difference between a sad chord and a happy one. Fascinating!
Hunter T Wolfe
Hunter T Wolfe
1701 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 12:27
The thing is, this debate has being going on forever, but what people class as 'noise' and 'music' changes all the time, and I think very few people would class what they listen to as 'just noise,' even if to the sceptical critic it might seem that way.

Everything from Elvis and Little Richard to The Beatles and The Stones to The Sex Pistols to LFO to Girls Aloud has been dismissed as 'just noise' by people who genuinely couldn't find any redeeming musical or melodic value to it. People famously rioted at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring because of its supposedly primitive and atonal qualities. No doubt critics at the time thought that people who liked it were just pretending to do so in order to look cool.

I'm not saying that the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome doesn't exist; I'm sure there are people who force themselves to enjoy something just because they think they should. I'm sure I've done the same thing on occasion, and not just with stuff that seems an atonal, arrhythmic bloody racket- the same can be said for listening to pop music that you secretly suspect is saccharine, predictable and bland as owt, but your mate whose opinion you usually respect is telling you its a work of genius if given a chance.

And sometimes this perseverance can pay off- you may find yourself loving a piece of music that normally you wouldn't have given the time of day to, and eventually through repeated listens you find it's something extremely rewarding and spiritually nourishing. That's my definition of 'challenging' music- not something that you have to force yourself to enjoy each time, but something that, though initially daunting, does eventually reveal depths and qualities that enrich your soul. If it doesn't, then don't bother.

I'd consider myself a pop kid first and foremost, and I think that melodic, structured, well-crafted songwriting can be the best thing ever. Sometimes it can be a boring load of toss, though. And I often find myself enjoying unstructured, noisy improvised music, especially live- in fact, it usually has to be live, when sometimes, through the chaos, the musicians hit on something magical and unique that's worth sticking around through the rubbish bits for. But you do have to be open to it- and all I mean by that is that you listen optimistically, not defensively thinking 'these people are just taking the piss, well I'm not gonna be fooled.'

Finally, noise and atonality can be the spice that lifts melody up to a new level. You cited Psychocandy, which is a great example. I'd also mention certain records by Sonic Youth, John Coltrane, the Velvet Underground, even Neil Young. Hell, that's kind of what seperates rock music from Pat Boone and Fabian isn't it- a bit of noise and energy and punkness to give the tunes some edge. It's up to each individual's taste how far they want to go, though!
Squid Tempest
Squid Tempest
8761 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 12:35
That was an interesting and well written post Mr Wolfe. Some very good points there, particularly what you said about how people's perception of what is noise evolves with time.

It is an interesting subject this. I'm quite keen to explore it, as I'm sure my family would be interested to know why I regularly subject them to such a godawful racket!
machineryelf
3679 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 13:08
''it's only the self selected few that profess to know the secret key to enjoying this sort of stuff.''

i think it's more the fact that very few people are willing to invest the time and effort into getting to the stage where it makes sense

it is pointless listening to a 30 sec soundbyte of merzbow et al and expecting it to make sense. I would think that unless you were a bit odd making the leap from say Jehovahkill to SunnO))) without going through a few reference points inbetween would be nigh on impossible but to dismiss it as noise woud be the same dismissing Suicide as a bit samey or Hawkwind for playing less chords than Quo

There is always some kind of plan behind these things, inevitably some times it will be just to make a mad racket, but usually th point is to evoke a mood be it some strange ambience, or trance like aura, or the simple chord change dragged out over time. A simple change from 7th to root sounds great when strummed whoosh it changes from unresolved to resolved, play the same change as a ten minute drone and the whole emphasis chnges you have no clear cut point it justs starts as hanging then finishes leaving you happy that something has changed for the better
It the same thing that you do to greek soldiers

I always consider it a happy accident that one of the first records I bought was T Dreams Zeit. It was the cheapest but was still a sizeable chunk of my pocket and I was going to get my moneys worth, after an initial WTF i stuck at it , more I suspect through not wanting to look stupid until i realised that it was beginning to make some sort of sense and I've been hooked ever since and gradually built up to the point where I can listen to what appears to most to be a recording of a fridge and still get enjoyment from it

and it must be said that it's not for everyone, it's music , I can't stand Bob Dylan, his voice drives me mad, I loathe the Black Crowes, I can take or leave Cream but think that the supposedly pale copy that is Mountain are one of early 70s rocks pinnacles, each to his own and all that

and I fully agree with you that there are some out there that just listen to something extreme just to make a point,they don't care so much about the music as the reaction, personally i feel they should be filed in the same box as people who like Burzum or don't like the Beatles i.e deserving of a clip round the ear and stop being such a knob

btw ref ''psychic wake-up call.'' I know what you mean, it's the point where the music takes you elsewhere be it a medative state of mind or that rush you get from Sly & the Stone when you know you can't dance but you gotta shake your booty, where nothing else matters. It's the point that most of us are here for, because good music takes you to where in my case anyway you get only get otherwise through good sex or a good family, a peace uncorrupted by anything else
suave harv
suave harv
704 posts

Re: Black Sheep @ the Bristol Festival
Sep 23, 2009, 13:15
Hunter T Wolfe wrote:

Everything from Elvis and Little Richard to The Beatles and The Stones to The Sex Pistols to LFO to Girls Aloud has been dismissed as 'just noise' by people who genuinely couldn't find any redeeming musical or melodic value to it.


The people that called that music 'just noise' would be wrong. It's music because it's got a tune and a beat and whilst some might not consider it *good* music, music it indeed is.

We have to call things by names, otherwise we can't talk to each other. I could call my tent a house, but you'd be mistaken in thinking I own a house. I'd be lying to you. I could call my skateboard a car, but it's still a skateboard.

I'll put my cards on the table here. We have a system of writing music, it involves treble and bass clefs (amongst others), minims, crotchets, quavers, all that stuff. Now all the people you quote, from Stravinsky to Elvis, make music and you can sit down and you can write the melody on a piece of paper. Written music. THAT'S WHAT MUSIC IS!!!!!!! (pant!)

It's like a language. If I write MGjhglkj,g,jg,kjgkjgkjhgJh,gjhg and tell you it's the English language, you will say "no it's not".
So I say "yea, but I'm challenging what your perceptions of the English language, I see poetry in MGjhglkj,g,jg,kjgkjgkjhgJh,gjhg - I think it's great".

And I might well do, that's up to me, but it's not English. It can't be, can it?

Just like a drone of noise without beat or melody isn't music. It can't be written as music, so why call it music? You can call it a nice noise that moves you, but music?

The instances you state Hunter, are all "organised sequences of sounds arranged melodically, harmonically and rhythmically". That's the definition of music, three things. Harmony, rhythm and melody.

Those three aspects aren't rules or constraints to be broken, they are wonderful tools nature has given us to make great art. When you take all those three things out the equasion it stops being music. Just like when you take bread, butter and ham away from a ham sandwich, you don't have a ham sandwich anymore.

You can sit there staring at your empty plate saying "this is my left field experimental version of a ham sandwich" if you want. But don't expect me to agree you've got a sarnie there!
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