Posts by Russell Brown
-
An extended 'Team', with costume change, from the same Brixton Academy show. Extraordinary stuff.
-
Lorde opened her sold-out Brixton Academy show a few hours ago with 'Glory and Gore':
I was worried about her voice, but it's definitely back in good shape.
The Daily Telegraph's reviewer called her Shepherd's Bush Empire show the night before "mesmerising" and compared her to a young Kate Bush.
The Independent went for "malignantly powerful".
-
John Lee Hooker playing ‘Boom Boom’ on the BBC in 1964. Lean, mean, sexual, politically incorrect. It’s kind of amazing that this sort of thing got broadcast back then.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Original Beats, in reply to Yamis,
and something cool from more recently…
Yeah, that's cool.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Original Beats, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
But there’s a cool remix with a lunch of female MCs subverting the lyrics, flipping around the notion of loyal, or lack thereof.
Still not liking it!
I grew up with dense wordplay and provocative sentiment ...
-
Too late for inclusion in today's blog post ...
Doprah's five-track EP is out.
And Simon Ogston's Skeptics doco Sheen of Gold is released today on DVD. I wrote some of the liner notes.
I need to train those Flying Out people to tell me these things on Thursdays.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Original Beats, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I would also recommend getting your auntie to send you this year’s BBC three-parter Rule Britannia: Music Mischief And Morals In The 18th Century on VHS.
It's an eye-opening insight into the way that, even then, changing musical fashions drove not only British culture but the British economy and even politics. It has the additional virtue of being fronted by the terribly smart and highly appealing Suzy Klein.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Original Beats, in reply to Dastardly Bounder,
Or the understanding that their culture doesnt exist in a bubble. Hendrix playing in England, Led Zeppelin, Punk’s UK roots, electronica’s German roots (a gross over simplification)…
And the Rolling Stones and the Beatles trying to emulate the blues and R&B records that came across the Atlantic, then taking it back to America. Rocksteady/ska/reggae as the weird Jamaican take on American soul and R&B. Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker copying Kraftwerk on 'Planet Rock'. It's one of the most interesting things in Western popular music.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: Original Beats, in reply to Dastardly Bounder,
But so far I’ve not noticed any reference to the Jamaican or English influence on music and popular culture – he notes that EDM is the most popular music in America at the moment (which surprised me) but doesn’t note where that sound arises from other than it being another vapid form of disco rebirth.
Many Americans don't get the connection there. It's as if EDM is seen as something that came out of a void, rather than being the nth echo of a dance music revolution that came out of New York and Chicago and found its form(s) in Europe.
Kool Herc was a Jamaican in New York and some of the basic techniques of dance music came from the Jamaican producers of the late 60s and early 70s. And of course Rihanna grew up listening to reggae ...
-
Legal Beagle: Q&A: John Banks' judicial review, in reply to Matthew Poole,
No, the judge asked for a report on Banks’ suitability for home detention. They’re not the same thing.
I was going to say "that's what it said on Radio NZ" but it occurs to me now that the person who said it was a very excited Graham McCready.