Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Do You Like Good Music ?

Good black music ?

Milk Crate Breaks has oodles of obscure stuff. I'd tried to buy Gil Scott-Heron's 'Bridges' a year or three back, and it was no longer available, so it was wonderful to discover it here. Not what you'd call militant Gil, and all the better for it IMHO. The man is laid back to the point of horizontality.

(Mea culpa - you can get it as from May 2009 on Amazon UK)

UPDATE - Sgt Troy isn't too pleased with the black music he hears these days. Neither's the great John McWhorter, here on video or here in print.

11 comments:

Capitão Nascimento said...

I didn't have you down as a Gil Scot Heron kinda guy.

I've always thought of the youthful you as more of a Dave Spart type with folky leanings rather than than a funkateer.

Surely you would have considered MR Scott-Heron's stuff (and similar) as oik music at the time?

Not a big fan myself but 'In the Bottle' is a nice tune.

Capitão Nascimento said...

What do you think of this for current (just released) good black music, or mixed race music, or whatever the current term is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qiMl1KQvy0

I think she is not just a pretty face, but a very talented young lady.

Not to everyone's taste I should imagine.

Laban said...

I discovered Gil Scott-Heron in my 20s - via a biker I shared a house with who had a copy of Bridges which was never off the turntable. The whole album has a holiday feel to it and brings back (for me) carefree summer biking days.

Sgt Troy said...

Good black music?

What I am forced to listen to in public places is unmelodic, manufactured, uncultured, schizoid trash.

It is quite literally cultural death

Here's some melody

Goodbye from Roy Harper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIIio5ffi4

Talking Goodbyes how many realise that the Remembrance Day ceremonial is really about the Death of a Nation?

It is a lament; like the Flowers of the Forest.

BTW I noticed a bit of regime propaganda in the Star yesterday, whilst drinking the quite superlative Wye Valley On the Piste, in the local.

Anyway Inspector Knacker of the Yard was quoted as claiming that "neo-nazi nuts" were plotting to "bomb shopping centres" over Xmas.

One does not need to comment upon the absurdity of this assertion. Clearly this is a piece of regime deflection spin. No doubt regime politicos have been subject to a plethora of threats from infuriated members of the public. Broon himself feels obliged to pontificate. Marxist scum on the run. I hope these bastards are starting to feel uneasy, I really do

Anonymous said...

I downloaded 'Bridges' for a trip into town this morning and very nice it is - thanks for the tip! Haven't previously tried much GSH - more of a Herbie Hancock type myself. Black music from the 70s is a gift that seems to keep on giving. Just when I think I've exhausted all the good stuff, I strike a groovy new seam.

Capitão Nascimento said...

more of a Herbie Hancock type myself.

Sunlight album? Good stuff.

As I am in a bit of a lusaphiliac mood, I'll trump your Herbie Handcock with George Duke and Brazilian Love Affair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK5Bhb6KGq8

Brilliant piano solo 5:58 minutes in.

And to complete I'll go with Jazz Carnival by Azymuth. My favourite tune from the Jazzfunk era. Not black, but in keeping with my lusophile theme, a bunch of Brazilian white boys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjEXjy8thGM

I used to get myself very sweaty dancing to this - its got quite a fast tempo and goes on a bit.

I love the way it builds to a climax from 5 to 6 minutes in, the cowbell banging louder and louder, the piano solo getting more and more passionate until finally the Hammond (?) organ bursts in, and, stop.

To start again.

Its gets messy towards the end but a good DJ would segue into something else.

The comments below on youtube are obviously from people with similar memories to me.

Sgt Troy said...

"UPDATE - Sgt Troy isn't too pleased with the black music he hears these days."

OTOH theloonyfromcatford loves it

Capitão Nascimento said...

For some strange reason Capitão Nascimento quite likes theloonyfromcatford.

Capitão Nascimento suspects that one day thelooneyfromcatford will grow out of his extended youthful rebellion and realise that all those awful Daily Mail reading relatives of his are actually OK people.

And, that there isn't much reward in being righteous, and even that, sometimes, the costs can outweigh the benefits.

Eventually most people tire of turning the other cheek, and of excusing others because of historical events, and/or of an ideology that seems to have little relationship to reality.

Capitão Nascimento lives in hope that the soul of thelooneyfromcatford is not lost.

OTOH Capitão Nascimento isn't too pleased with hardly any of the 'music' he hears these days.

Sgt Troy said...

"For some strange reason Capitão Nascimento quite likes theloonyfromcatford."

The time for frivolty is surely long past though.

Reading a comment by an enrichment supporter earlier today, it all apparently comes down to these marvellous ethnic restaurants. Strikes me that this is an indulgence which one might describe as degeneracy, these addled brained liberal brutes seem obsessed by their bellies - or perhaps they just can't come up with something substantative . Samuel Johnson said that a nation is defined by its authors - and this seems a far more noble vision than black "music" or the "national" dish of chicken tikka masala, so proclaimed by the late lamented Robin Cook. CTM was in fact condemned by Surrey Trading Standards because of the high level of harmful colouring ingredients, there's a metaphor there somewhere.

During the week I listened to an interview with Stephen Poliakoff on R3 - he has made a film entitled "Glorious 39" or somesuch. He is apparently rewriting history imputing base actions and motives to the appeasers. The malign factional element which will of course seep into the consciousness as he knows well - Poliakoff made the amazingly arrogant statement that Britain is "defined by anti-fascism" - our previous couple of thousand years of history means little apparently. Unsuprisingly the BBC interviewer toadied him in best style, he thought the appeasers "despicable". Actually the appeasers had some sound common sense on their side, especially after the Germans broke the French front in 1940, for Poliakoff Lord Halifax is very much the villian of the piece of course.

Poliakoff made the further outrageous assertion that the aristocratic appeasers were mainly concerned with the preservation of their country house life; whereas in fact of course the likes of Halifax feared national destruction. By a circuitous route this has of course comes to pass. Poliakoff thought we should have simply chucked ourselves onto the funeral pyre regardless of the fact that we could not save his people, that our guarantee to Poland was quite worthless and indeed that sealing the borders in consequence of war left no escape. He pissed me off basically

Capitão Nascimento said...

The time for frivolty is surely long past though.

Perhaps, but being a permanent MrAngry doesn't suit me. I can only manage occasional flashes of fury, and a world without humour would most definitely not be in harmony with my nature.

or perhaps they just can't come up with something substantative

Nail on head there.

"national" dish of chicken tikka masala

I seem to remember sometime back in the nineties, the official England Football team tune included the line "and we all love vindaloo". Even at the time, when I was fairly unaware and in many respects unconsciously PeeCee, it made me mentally wince.

Regarding this Poliakoff twat: CIF seems to be full of these d*ckheads always trying to rewrite history.

It doesn't work with me, probably because my mum gave birth to me when she was in her mid thirties and she and my dad were old enough to have been in the war. I was brought up on war stories, and the whole crusade against fascism spiel was noticeable by its absence. I have, on the odd occasion, had rants at people for coming out with this crap. My mum and dad's view of the war is reflected in the British war films of the fifties and sixties, so it wasn't something peculiar to them.

I say Fascism schmashism. These people are obsessed.

Maybe it works with other people, brainwashed people maybe, but for me, it just makes me think they have a peculiar fetish, some sort of mental disorder perhaps.

If you want to see Fascism, according Mussolini's definition, you don't need to look any further than the Government.

Its quite possible that the BNP, for example, has people in its hierarchy who think Hitler was a hellofaguy.

But you know, its nearly 65 years since WWII ended. That's like people in 1880 going on about the threat of Napoleon. Or people in 1880, in some minor political party thinking that Napoleon had some good ideas and some other people who opposed that party getting their knickers in a twist over it. Can you see the strangeness of it?

My dad used to often end his war stories with a sigh and by saying, "its all history now". He used to say that back in the 1970's.

Orwell was right, there will never be British Nazis goose stepping anywhere. But that doesn't mean we are defined by anti-fascism - whatever the hell that is.

Its all b*llocks mate.

Sgt Troy said...

"Perhaps, but being a permanent MrAngry doesn't suit me."

I am inclined to think that relentless negativity will attrite, wear down the "anti-fash" over time - their Panglossian notions are predicated upon mindless optimism as well as self-loathing and propagandised ignorance; all part of the mental illness

"Regarding this Poliakoff twat: CIF seems to be full of these d*ckheads always trying to rewrite history.It doesn't work with me "

No, it won't work with you because you have sound groundings. You are the product of an historical development where we all rub along more or less; where "isms" are regarded as foreign; treated with suspicion - best treated as a joke where we can, but which have the potential to be a mortal threat if they get out of hand.

We cannot expect this to continue. The majority of the population knows next to nothing of their history; we are very much living off capital here - it is running down fast. Poliakoff churns out his agitprop aiming to make it the received view. In any case can we honestly expect to maintain our robust, " Its all b*llocks mate." if the population is changed? There will be nothing to hold this rag-bag together, especially in the quite desperate economic circs which are just round the corner

Neather's brief toying with honesty points to another go at Year Zero. We have already slid into "soft totalitarian state" territory

"Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/thought-police-muscle-up-in-britain/story-e6frg6zo-1225700363959