Third rail monsters
Leggevo l’altro giorno su Instagram un account figo di old school e mi son tornati in mente i writer che ascoltavano fusion, hard rock, etc – Seen, Dondi, Lee: c’erano tanti treni famosi dedicati ad artisti rock (vedi qui di seguito Seen con i Black Sabbath e la serie leggendaria Children of the grave parts 1, 2 and 3 di Dondi). E Vulcan, per dire, ci raccontava del suo gruppo di biker credo nel Bronx. Così mi ero messo in mente di fare un tributo alle crew di NY di fine anni ’70 provando a mescolare i generi musicali con tanto hard rock. L’intuizione era giusta: leggete qui in fondo i quote dei grandi maestri.
In realtà il rock era molto nemico della disco, verso il ’77 c’erano manifestazioni anche grossine di rocker contro al movimento disco. Forse anche perché era legato agli ispanici e alla sottocultura gay. Ma poi perché in buona parte era musica un po’ di merda. Però i producer chiedevano spesso agli artisti rock famosi, anche per contratto, almeno un pezzo disco in ogni album: così pullulavano esperimenti crossover disco rock più o meno riusciti. Allora ho provato a fare un mix con una base disco funk e dentro un po’ di hard rock e crossover disco funk. Roba che farà certamente storcere le orecchie ai puristi, ma che ho provato a fare nello spirito del cazzo me ne sbatte. Questo primo volume ha diversi pezzi molto commerciali e tamarri, anche qualche pezzata bella frocia. Anche se la disco era considerata roba vomitevole, troppo floscia e commerciale sia per i rocker sia per i b-boy, secondo me bene o male si ascoltava, anche perché disco vuol dire tutto e niente. Vedi DJ Hollywood qui:
For the most part, he gets left out of the story because many of his contemporaries, like Afrika Bambaataa and Kool Herc, have dismissed him as having been “disco.” “Can you believe that? Disco?” he asks me, apparently annoyed at the idea. “What the fuck is that? So, okay, I’m disco, aight, aight,” he says, “I’m the disco nigga that made all of you niggas in hip-hop do what this nigga in disco was doin’.”
Vedi per dire il mix di Andy Smith che esplora le radici disco dell’hip hop. O Pete DJ Jones: “Disco music is hip-hop music!”. O Nu Sounds che mixava disco (ascolta qui), o Fantasia (un sound di Brooklyn) che diceva:
FANTASIA had an incredible sound system. We had combined with our good DJ friend, Norman, aka Black Arrow. I would smack the crowd with funky records, R&B, and a little disco. I didn’t play any fluffy disco records. Or watered down commercial stuff like the Bee Gees. The African American experience during the disco era was TOTALLY different from which you might have seen in Saturday Night Fever. I was playing Bongo Rock, Apache, Drummer’s Beat, Give It Up, Turn It Loose, The Mexican, Let’s Dance, Crown Heights Affair cuts, It’s Just Begunetc. All the records that later became B-Boy classics before the term Hip Hop manifested itself in late 70’s.
Poi ne ho fatti altri, il secondo è più duro e puro: niente crossover disco e gruppi classici dell’hard rock, che nel 77/78 era praticamente al canto del cigno. Il quarto è incazzato nero, mazzate per dieci minuti e poi tanto funkettone, la prima parte è bella acida. Il volume 5 è molto bellino.
Forse ne farò uno reggae disco, c’era anche tutta quella fascinazione dei rocker per la Giamaica. Poi uno forse con la roba nuova che stava uscendo: nell’underground il rock in discoteca si suonava, non era il rock classico, era la scena New Wave che abbiamo esplorato con Vanni in tanti mix e di cui parla qui il New York Times. Vedi il treno dedicato da Quik RTW ai bianchissimi rocker Talking Heads.
L’idea era di provare a rappresentare un writer meno appiattito sulla figura classica Herc/Rocksteady/Bambaataa/Flash, più libero e tante volte anche molto più bianco.
Come periodo, siamo nel 1978, un bel po’ dopo a quando Herc suonava i break hard rock mescolandoli con il funk (la roba che si ascolta sugli Ultimate Break and Beats per intenderci, o nella serie Funk rock express di Vanni). Di punti di contatto tra rock e writing ce ne erano parecchi. Nel link di Mixcloud ci sono segnalate due o tre interviste con i Rolling Thunder Writers, dove raccontano le influenze dello skating e della psichedelia californiana. Link in pieni anni ’80 li trovate invece qui. La serie è dedicata a crew come la loro e a tanti writer che avevano reso la scena leggendaria in quel periodo.
I had quit my work at IBM in 1981, and was truly a sick and deluded man in regard to the intricacies of being able to exist as an oppressed Afro-American in the USA. I hated everything except women and rock-n-roll.
Il volume 2 è molto bellino, disco funk e rock duro.
Il volume 3 è l’interpretazione di Vanni, anche lui grande amante di quel periodo.
Il volume 4 parte molto incazzoso, è tutto abbastanza veloce e funky.
Il 5 mi è venuto bene: parte col funk rock simpatico poi diventa funky che si può ascoltare con le ragazze e chiude con due canzoni latin e due rock morbide più un pezzone fusion finale.
La foto della copertina è di https://www.instagram.com/se_nyc1983/
La polemica che conferma un po’ questa idea di mixtape, vista su Instagram da Terror161, la trovate qui su Genius. Ecco le quote dei grandi maestri:
PHASE 2: Fact … there is no way in the world that aerosol [graffiti] culture was spawned from hip-hop … it was going on years before that. Aerosol culture was there before anyone even conceived of a thing called hip-hop. Many [graffiti] writers never listened to rap, many writers were more partial to headbanging than head-spinning and a huge amount of rappers, breakers [dancers], and so-called “hiphoppers” couldn’t tell you the first thing about [graffiti] writing.
FUZZ ONE: Graffiti came first, before everything else.… Before 1978, the graffiti soundtrack was more Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, [Bachman Turner Overdrive], the Eagles, and Lynryd Skynyrd.
LADY PINK: Many of the white people who write graffiti listen to rock’n’roll and don’t know anything about hiphop.
Nel volume 6 ci ho messo del latin, jazz fusion e hard & heavy con il funk.
Fighissimi, se siete arrivati fino a qui vi lascio in omaggio il link per il set di Bruce Davidson con la subway di NYC nel 1980 per Magnum, è quello il mood cui ci siamo ispirati!!!
MACHINE TRANSLATED ENGLISH FOLLOWS
I was reading the other day on Instagram about a cool old school account and I was reminded of writers who listened to fusion, hard rock, etc. – Seen, Dondi, Lee: there were so many famous trains dedicated to rock artists (see below Seen with Black Sabbath and Dondi’s legendary Children of the grave parts 1, 2 and 3 series). And Vulcan, to say, was telling us about his biker group I think in the Bronx. So I had it in my mind to do a tribute to the NY crews of the late 1970s by trying to mix musical genres with lots of hard rock. The hunch was right: read the quotes from the great masters at the bottom here.
Actually rock was very much the enemy of disco, around ’77 there were even gross demonstrations of rockers against the disco movement. Maybe also because it was related to Hispanics and the gay subculture. But then because a lot of it was kind of shitty music. However, producers often asked famous rock artists, even by contract, for at least one disco track on each album: so disco rock crossover experiments that were more or less successful were swarming. So I tried to make a mix with a disco funk base and some hard rock and disco funk crossover in it. Stuff that will certainly make purists’ ears twitch, but which I tried to do in the spirit of fuck me. This first volume has several very commercial and tamaracky tunes, even some pretty faggy bits. Although disco was considered vomitous stuff, too floppy and commercial for both rockers and b-boys, in my opinion it was good or bad to listen to, also because disco means everything and nothing. See DJ Hollywood here:
For the most part, he gets left out of the story because many of his contemporaries, like Afrika Bambaataa and Kool Herc, have dismissed him as having been “disco.” “Can you believe that? Disco?” he asks me, apparently bored at the idea. “What the fuck is that? So, okay, I’m disco, aight, aight,” he says, “I’m the disco nigga that made all of you niggas in hip-hop do what this nigga in disco was doin’.”
See for say Andy Smith’s mix exploring the disco roots of hip hop. Or Pete DJ Jones: “Disco music is hip-hop music!” Or Nu Sounds mixing disco (listen here), or Fantasia (a Brooklyn sound) saying:
FANTASIA had an incredible sound system. We had combined with our good DJ friend, Norman, aka Black Arrow. I would smack the crowd with funky records, R&B, and a little disco. I didn’t play any fluffy disco records. Or watered down commercial stuff like the Bee Gees. The African American experience during the disco era was TOTALLY different from which you might have seen in Saturday Night Fever. I was playing Bongo Rock, Apache, Drummer’s Beat, Give It Up, Turn It Loose, The Mexican, Let’s Dance, Crown Heights Affair cuts, It’s Just Begunetc. All the records that later became B-Boy classics before the term Hip Hop manifested itself in the late 70’s.
Then I did others, the second one is harder and purer: no disco crossover and classic hard rock bands, which in 77/78 was pretty much at its swan song. The fourth one is pissed off black, banging for ten minutes and then lots of funk, the first part is nice and sour. Volume 5 is very nice.
Maybe I’ll do a reggae disco one, there was also that whole rocker fascination with Jamaica. Then one maybe with the new stuff that was coming out: in the underground disco rock was being played, it wasn’t classic rock, it was the New Wave scene that we explored with Vanni in so many mixes and that the New York Times talks about here. See the train dedicated by Quik RTW to the very white rockers Talking Heads.
The idea was to try to represent a writer less flattened on the classic Herc/Rocksteady/Bambaataa/Flash figure, freer and many times also much whiter.
As a period, this is 1978, quite a bit later to when Herc was playing hard rock breaks mixing them with funk (the stuff you hear on Ultimate Break and Beats for instance, or in Vanni’s Funk rock express series). Of points of contact between rock and writing there were quite a few. The Mixcloud link points us to two or three interviews with the Rolling Thunder Writers, where they talk about the influences of skating and California psychedelia. Links in the mid-80s can be found here instead. The series is dedicated to crews like theirs and the many writers who had made the scene legendary during that period.
I had quit my work at IBM in 1981, and was truly a sick and disappointed man in regard to the intricacies of being able to exist as an oppressed Afro-American in the USA. I hated everything except women and rock-n-roll.
Volume 2 is very nice, disco funk and hard rock.
Volume 3 is Vanni’s interpretation, also a great lover of that period.
Volume 4 starts off very pissed off, it’s all quite fast and funky.
Volume 5 came out well for me: it starts with nice funk rock then it gets funky that you can listen to with the girls and closes with two Latin and two soft rock songs plus a final fusion piece.
The cover photo is from https://www.instagram.com/se_nyc1983/
The controversy that somewhat confirms this mixtape idea, seen on Instagram by Terror161, can be found here on Genius. Here are the quotes from the great masters:
PHASE 2: Fact … there is no way in the world that aerosol [graffiti] culture was spawned from hip-hop … it was going on years before that. Aerosol culture was there before anyone even conceived of a thing called hip-hop. Many [graffiti] writers never listened to rap, many writers were more partial to headbanging than head-spinning and a huge amount of rappers, breakers [dancers], and so-called “hiphoppers” couldn’t tell you the first thing about [graffiti] writing.
FUZZ ONE: Graffiti came first, before everything else…. Before 1978, the graffiti soundtrack was more Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, [Bachman Turner Overdrive], the Eagles, and Lynryd Skynyrd.
LADY PINK: Many of the white people who write graffiti listen to rock’n’roll and don’t know anything about hiphop.
In volume 6 I put in some Latin, jazz fusion, and hard & heavy with funk.
Very cool, if you’ve made it this far I’ll leave you the link to Bruce Davidson’s set with the NYC subway in 1980 for Magnum, that’s the mood we were inspired by!!!
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elvandalo4 gennaio 2019 alle 10:41 am
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