One of the things I'm going to miss whilst I'm away is going to gigs. So with my impending departure I'm taking as many in as I can. Last night was the Happy Mondays and let me tell you, they are back to their very best.
Bez is often referred to as just Shaun Ryder's mate who merely dances around with maracas. But anyone who has seen them live will know Shaun is the creator of the atmosphere and Bez is the conductor. Bez is the king of behavioural engineering and there aren't many better in my opinion. By the end of the night he had about 1,500 people all doing their own Freaky Dancin. An absolutely brilliant night although I'm aching in some strange places.
As part of my 'think less do more' travel plans I've bought myself a flash new camera to hone my photography skills and a harmonica. I'm determined to use this time as an opportunity to do things I've always wanted to do. Playing music being one of them, not necessarily the harmonica. But my thinking behind the harmonica is that it fits better into my backpack than a cello.
My first task according to my book is to conquer jingle bells. Stay tuned for an update on my harmonica tour of Central and South America.
I'm a big admirer of Damon Albarn, not just because I like his music, but he's always looking to do something different and challenging. Something that makes people think what the f**K is he doing now? I don't know what it is that drives him. Perhaps it's the personal challenge and the desire to prove doubters wrong? Maybe he gets bored quickly and is generally curious and excited about new things? It's probably all of them, but the thing I love, is his unwillingness to compromise.
Blur started out as a manufactured, middle England, art college, 'indy' band. Exploiting a market led by the Stone Roses, Blur unsuccessfully took on Oasis for the title of THE Britpop band of the 90s. Despite this, they were still successful and managed to shed the pretender image. It was Albarn's drive and uncompromising nature that probably annoyed their label but carved out a place for Blur as a credible British band.
Whilst never really officially leaving Blur, he moved on to a new project at arguably the height of their success. The Gorillaz, a virtual, cartoon band, created with designer/comic book artist and creator Jamie Hewlett (who went to art school in my hometown and designed the decor of a club I used to frequent. See blogging is great, you never find the interesting stuff out reading Observer Music Monthly you know) became an iconic brand with two albums, some great videos and an amazing live act where the characters were bought to life using 3D technology based on Pepper's Ghost, an old Victorian illusion based on reflecting and projecting on to mirrors. More recent ventures include ‘The Good the Bad and the Queen’, this was the name of the album not the band, which had no name of course, very Prince and now a Chinese opera again with Jamie Hewlett (the reason for my actual post). Based on a classic Chinese novel, Monkey Journey to the West, launched at the Manchester International Festival last weekend to some rave reviews. It’s not going to be in the UK for a while as far as I’m aware which is a bit gutting, it has to do Paris and Berlin first. But fear not, the BBC has highlights of a documentary on its website that followed the duo throughout the development of the concept.
I'm absolutely loving PYMCA (Photographic Youth Music Culture Archive) at the moment. As well as an excellent image library to use and peruse, it has had two cracking exhibition's on recently. This was England and more recently Pills, Stills and Bellyaches - 20 years of rave. Rave was probably the first musical subculture that influenced me and my circle of friends. Living near Brighton, the South Downs became an area rife with raves (and still is by the looks of things here). As organisers looked for larger spaces to hold bigger gatherings and keep events under the radar, the countryside close to London was perfect.
At the time there wasn't really any interesting subcultures to identify with. It was the point of transition from the 80s to the 90s where not much was really happening. It was unclear who was who and who was into what. Clubs and pubs were pretty uninteresting. There wasn't much live music, they weren't playing the music that certain people wanted to listen to because of its association with drugs and they had strict dress codes to supposedly keep the 'riff-raff' out, but essentially made everyone look the same. I guess you could call it a relatively boring middle England at the time.
This meant rave spilled out into warehouses and open spaces where people were free from the restrictions placed on them by mainstream culture and that's when it really took off. It became a real herd movement I suppose. The obvious illegal element attracted rebellious young people who loved the secrecy surrounding many raves. It was fuelled by unstructured mass gatherings that my generation at least had no experience of. It wasn't just about the music, in fact I prefer more of the genres it inspired rather than rave as it was back then. It was more about the social side of it, it was the feeling and the atmosphere that the music created among huge groups of people and to be honest I don't ever recall there being much trouble at raves.
On top of the music, the atmosphere, going to Sterns, hassling older mates to give us a lift and traipsing about fields, there was the whole interaction between each other that also united our group of friends. We used to spend hours of an evening copying each others tapes and weekends were spent going round the record shops listening to vinyl and getting all the latest flyers that would decorate our bedrooms. Some of which would become quite rare. So much so, people were even buying and trading them, they were a bit of a social currency. You would then have to keep the flyers of the rave and cut front covers out of them for your cassettes. Man, talking about cassettes and flyers makes me feel old.
After emerging from the acid house movement in the 80s, rave culture's association with drug fuelled space cadets with glow sticks and whistles overshadows the influence it has had on a number of other genres such as hardcore, jungle, drum and bass as well as more recognisable bands such as Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, New Order and The Stones Roses. Bands you could arguably say have then gone on to influence the likes of Oasis and Kasabian.
Hello, I'm Carl. An English communications strategist/plannery type, living in Australia.
I use this blog to rant, praise, think about things, log stuff and generally talk to myself. Just like I'm doing now.
