MrFood wrote:

DrAwkward wrote:Record-scratching is percussion, basically. Percussion with sound collage thrown in.

Has anyone ever performed "Moonlight Sonata" on a snare drum alone and moved you to tears? The snare drum must not be a real instrument, then.

Ok. So, I won't write the turntable off as a valid instrument if you can post three examples of it being used in a way which actually serves a piece of music and not as a fucking novelty whose appeal is similar to watching fat kids stacking cups real fast.

I enjoy the scratching in Portishead's music. I think that there it's used rather tastefully.

MrFood wrote: but I am yet to see a turntable being employed in any way other than how Yngwie Malmsteen plays guitar / fat kids stacking cups / rednecks jumping big piles of dirt.

Okay, then how about dogs on skateboards?

I also think scratching is used well on Radiohead's Everything in it's Right Place and Tom Wait's Real Gone.

MrFood wrote:I'm aware that any object that creates sound can be used in a genuine musical context effectively, but I am yet to see a turntable being employed in any way other than how ... rednecks jumping big piles of dirt.

Who's that? S/he must be incredible.

zom-zom wrote:Turntables are for playing recorded music. They are not musical instruments. Fuck that shit.

Oh boy. That's about the single most ignorant post I've seen in a long time. I got love for you G, but this I can't pass on.

If you're a cat from a NYC project, and you can't get a job because you're black, and you can't loan an 'instrument' from your friends because they can't find jobs because they are also black, you have very little in the way of options. Education was nearly non-existent for black in the late 70's and early 80's (in NYC), which makes finding work very difficult.

Let's compare Rap to Soul Food. Is Soul Food 'food'? Yup. It's discarded food, or parts that whites didn't dare eat - like perhaps a table is to music. So, when you have lemons, you make soul food and music.

To say that rubbing a table isn't music, or to say that a table isn't an instrument is to say that soul food isn't food.

It's an ignorant notion to assert that a table isn't an instrument.

Robert Johnson built a 'guitar' out of nails and wire. He built it on an interior wall of his tiny flat. On the fucking wall. He played his flat for christ sake. And you'd tell me that Robert Johnson wasn't playing an instrument? I'll tell you that he reinvented the guitar because of that. He reshaped MUSIC from 12 nails and 6 lengths of wire.

Tables are instruments. Circuit bending creates instruments.

Harry Partch. He wasn't playing drums because they were originally airplane nose-sections?

Sorry man. You are wrong.

Scratching is in the same vein as Musique concrète. Anything can be used to make music, pots and pans, sheet metal (Einsturzende), toys (Residents, Cocorosie). To say that a turntable made piece isn't music is just plain ignorant.

Duke Ellington said it best. There's only two kinds of music, good and bad.

MrFood wrote:

DrAwkward wrote:Spoken like someone who never saw DJ Still play with Dalek. That dude did shit with turntables and effects pedals i didn't know was possible.

So - still nothing more than spectacle then?

I have seen Dålek, and there was no turntable present, merely a sampler and a fat man. I was still bored to tears nonetheless.

Hardly. When Still was in the band (he's not anymore, and i'm pretty curious as to whether or not i'll still dig Dalek live without him), he was using the turntables as a soundscape device, running the needles through effects pedals and doing all sorts of crazy shit that enhanced the very noise-based backing tracks.

Anyway, judging from this comment and your comment regarding Portishead, i'm wondering if it even pays to post any tracks for you to listen to if you're going to let your personal sense of aesthetics get in the way of whether or not you can tell that the turntable is "serving" the music? Whether or not you think Mike Patton is shit, Kid Koala's scratching on the Lovage record is exquisitely musical in nature.

Richard wrote:

zom-zom wrote:You did not "create" "music".

Turntables are for playing recorded music. They are not musical instruments. Fuck that shit.

[listens to story about walking five miles in the snow to open for Husker Du]

Rapping? That's just people talkin'!

I forgot to mention that yes Mr Graham, I am curious to hear what you've done.

"So - still nothing more than spectacle then? "

Brother, I hear that. I saw this band a while back who ran their guitars through some kind of "pedal" WTF?!?! I was like "Oh, GOTCHA. I see what you're doing, way to be different, dude. So now your guitar sounds WEEEIRD, & I'm supposed to be all freaked out or whatever?"

Please. If I want to see someone grandstanding or trying to shock me, I'll put on one of mys Hoosier Hot Shots 78s. Those guys used a slide whistle -- can you believe that? But at least they knew they were being silly. It's an important distinction.


Mr. Graham[/quote][/i]