tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71278556026618542552024-03-14T02:10:10.526+00:00A Selective History of Popular MusicWith Damien Peter Hake and Dr Gary BlonionsDr Gary Blonionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01649786396688324988noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-3576739307321148542009-03-23T20:16:00.003+00:002009-03-23T20:21:16.017+00:00Gay Rabbi<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/Scfu1gqs6sI/AAAAAAAAADA/y8qOYyfLmM4/s1600-h/GayRabbi.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 308px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/Scfu1gqs6sI/AAAAAAAAADA/y8qOYyfLmM4/s320/GayRabbi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316480488203676354" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Genre:</span> irreverent homophobic offensipop<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Era:</span> 2000s - present<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Country of origin:</span> UK<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>In November 2001, with <i>My Vegan Holiday</i> riding high after a year of touring and the release of their album <i>The Mung Bean Sessions</i>, lead singer Nathan Fretch decided that he needed a change. He promptly parked a caravan behind a derelict Little Chef on a dual carriageway just outside Nantwich with a Bontempi organ, a crate of Tennent’s Super and a dozen copies of <i>Vegetarian Wives</i> and, just six weeks later, Fretch’s alter-ego <i style="">Gay Rabbi</i> was born.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">Gay Rabbi </span></i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">is a piquant, simmering bouillabaisse of pop. With two albums under his hempen belt – the 2002 debut <i>Hot Fudge Mystery</i> and 2007’s <i>Chutney Farm</i>, both hotly condemned by the relevant authorities – Fretch has boldly taken the crumpled melodies and effervescent, rogery guitars that we have come to expect from <i>My Vegan Holiday</i> and paired them with an alarmingly hyperactive brass section to provide a delightful harmonic soufflé over which he drapes his zeitgeist-defying brand of insouciant anti-semitic homophobia.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>Whilst it is true that</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> <i><span style="">Gay Rabbi</span></i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> has barely troubled the UK charts – the best selling of his singles, <i>Homo Bar Mitzvah</i>, peaked at a flaccid #126 – this lack of domestic pop success has been no bar to notoriety: Uli Falmstein of <i style="">Jew Pop Weekly </i>described <i style="">Gay Rabbi</i> as "an abomination to both God and my ears", and Kerrity Gradge of <i style="">Music Casserole</i> said of it that "even Hitler would not have done this". Indeed, only Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, writing in the <i>Sharia Music Express</i>, has spoken positively of Fretch’s side project, provocatively naming <i style="">Chutney Farm</i> as his "album of the year".<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:11;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family:arial;">Fretch is unrepentant, however, and says that he intends to continue to use </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Gay Rabbi</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> as a way of unwinding from the pressures of leading </span><i style="font-family: arial;">My Vegan Holiday</i><span style="font-family:arial;"> in their joylessly sincere musical crusade to convince people to eat less meat. "Of course the vegan issue is of utmost importance to me," he says, "I just like to make jokes about Jews and queers now and then."</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <hr /><a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=%22%20+%20data:post.url%20+%20%22&title=%22%20+%20data:post.title" target="_blank"><img alt="Digg this" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a>Dr Gary Blonionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01649786396688324988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-43505847713898287562009-03-11T12:58:00.004+00:002009-03-11T19:35:48.209+00:00Rasta Obliterator<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgSj4ruKFI/AAAAAAAAAC4/0lu6Z0xElpE/s1600-h/RastaObliterator.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 262px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgSj4ruKFI/AAAAAAAAAC4/0lu6Z0xElpE/s320/RastaObliterator.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312016168203987026" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Genre:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> criminal reggae</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Era:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> 1970s</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Country of origin:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Jamaica</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. The man who actually committed the crime, however, was far more fortunate, using the confusion that surrounded the wrongful arrest and subsequent escape to flee to his native Jamaica, where he used the proceeds from the robbery to build a recording studio and set up the group </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Rasta Obliterator</span><span style="font-family:arial;">. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Levi Ratchet initially started </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Rasta Obliterator</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> as a front for his various criminal activities – what he referred to as "arm robry", "peddlin ganja" and the delightfully vague "a lickle runnin an shootin" – but as time went on he realised that making music was safer and more lucrative than crime, and so he floated his crime empire on the Jamaican stock market (RudeBoyCrimeCorp: RBC) and turned his full attention to </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Rasta Obliterator</span><span style="font-family:arial;">. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Of course, it should be noted that </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Rasta Obliterator</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> was not the only group to emerge from the reggae crime subculture – </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Prince Ruffian & The Homiciders</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Papa Shank</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Natty Paedo</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> all contributed to both Jamaica’s music charts and its crime rate – but it was one of the most successful. Albums such as </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Jah Machine Gun</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Wanted, Dread Or Alive</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> dominated the Jamaican charts in the mid-70s, and even reached charts as far away as Europe (though Polish-Jamaican artist Barrington Kraszewski had already laid the groundwork in the Eastern Bloc with his 1974 album </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Stasi Hotsteppin’</span><span style="font-family:arial;">). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ultimately, Levi Ratchet was unable to escape the legacy of his chequered past, and in 1978 he was murdered by a hitman who put cyanide in his cannabis – a process known in Jamaica as a Kingston Cough – an event immortalised by </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >The Kneecappers</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> in their 1979 hit </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Bad Ganja Mek You Sick</span><span style="font-family:arial;">. Then, to add insult to injury/death, in a grim twist of irony the board of RudeBoyCrimeCorp plc merged the company with Global Pharmabiotics, changed its name to CrimePharm, then TechnoBioCom, then ZeneBioLogica, and became a major manufacturer of medicinal cannabis substitutes. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">On Levi Ratchet’s grave the following words appear: "Life is reggae, reggae is life. Steal any flowers an rude boy come mess you up an ting". They seem somehow appropriate.</span></span><br /><br /><hr style="font-family: arial;"><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a> <a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=%22%20+%20data:post.url%20+%20%22&title=%22%20+%20data:post.title" target="_blank"><img alt="Digg this" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif" border="0" /></a> <a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a>Dr Gary Blonionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01649786396688324988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-13528336925002053402009-03-03T12:10:00.004+00:002009-03-11T18:50:59.822+00:00Prussian Perverts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgID7stX0I/AAAAAAAAACw/1P3-3bDubyM/s1600-h/Album3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 290px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgID7stX0I/AAAAAAAAACw/1P3-3bDubyM/s320/Album3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312004624141344578" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Genre:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> sexdance, europerve</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Era: </span><span style="font-family:arial;">1990s</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Country of Origin:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Germany</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Prussian Perverts</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> began life in Dresden in 1990 as </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Mickey Sex Mouse</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, one of the more prominent of the countless bands that formed in the wave of liberative euphoria that washed across the country after David Hasselhoff took a break from filming </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Baywatch </span><span style="font-family:arial;">to tear down the Berlin Wall and kill Communism. Despite a residence in Dresden’s Ministry of Sound (the former Stasi phone-tapping bureau) they saw little initial success until 1991, when the threat of legal action from the Disney Corporation forced them to change their name. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The name change proved to be a blessing: one month after the letter from Disney’s lawyers, Gerhard Bunt of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Fourth Reich Rekords</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> received a demo tape from the newly minted </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Prussian Perverts</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and he signed the band immediately. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">They didn’t look back. No mulleted East German clubber jemmied off his glands on disco marmalade in Dresden’s sadly now defunct</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" > Blitzkrieg Klub </span><span style="font-family:arial;">can have failed to miss </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Prussian Perverts</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and their aural-erotic disco monuments. With the sonically enormous club assault </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >U Make Me Perve</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and the needlessly offensive </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Sexdance Hitler</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, in which the Nazi leader’s Nuremberg speech is sampled over a grindingly urgent soundcrunch of rhythmic sexual noises and highly charged electrobliss, the band provided the soundtrack for an entire liberated generation (though it should be noted that the generation in question is now suffering from ear damage, memory loss and severe paranoid episodes). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The success was not to last, however. Despite strong opposition from weird, sex-starved loners, the late 90s saw the introduction of draconian public decency laws in Germany, and in 1997 </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Prussian Perverts</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> were banned from performing in public after a concert that </span> </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Der Däly Mäl </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">described as “grossly, mesmerisingly indecent”. They were dropped by <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Fourth Reich Rekords</span> soon after.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ten years on they enjoy a weekly residency at Amsterdam’s </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Den Kokkenkluub</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> brothel, where they provide a lumpy, filth-sodden soundtrack for countless acts of unspeakable depravity. Deep down, this is probably all they ever wanted.</span><br /></span><br /><hr /><a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=%22%20+%20data:post.url%20+%20%22&title=%22%20+%20data:post.title" target="_blank"><img alt="Digg this" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a>Dr Gary Blonionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01649786396688324988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-73879524779798742642009-02-23T11:13:00.005+00:002009-03-11T13:18:14.655+00:00Tosser<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IuU44OZl-dg/Sbe59yGmusI/AAAAAAAAABA/OZ5wR5Ifips/s1600-h/tosser.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 310px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IuU44OZl-dg/Sbe59yGmusI/AAAAAAAAABA/OZ5wR5Ifips/s320/tosser.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311918756579424962" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Genre:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Guitar terror</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Era:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2007</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Country of Origin:</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> unknown</span></span><br /><br /><p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Initially bursting forth from the internet in April of 2007, the corrosive guitar mess of <i style="">Tosser</i> was seemingly discovered by disaffected youth trawling underground alternatives to mySpace.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Such sites as <i style="">acne.com</i> and <i style="">farkmestoopid.com</i> prided themselves on their ability to not only discover, but to shape elements at the very bleeding, hacked edge of so-called <i style="">youth culture</i>.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >With the benefit of my media hindsight, it was inevitable of course, that <i style="">Tosser</i>’s guitar terrorism would appear from this amateur source. Their agenda ostensibly derived from upsetting established rock mores with singles constructed Tonka-like from heaving chunks of riffery and drum battalions.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >This desire to shock and dismay, battering senile audiences with weapons-grade mp3-only releases such as <i style="">Face in Smithereens</i> and <i style="">Gunt Missile </i>drew comparisons with certain other populist entertainers. Mostly by dint of the group’s female singer and her refusal to appear in any circumstances without her signature black-bag-masked face.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >The most startling ramification of their self-declared <i style="">first and last</i> live performance in the Summer of that year, was the free-issuing to every audience member attending the gig in a long-disused gas storage chamber in Volgograd, of a bar-coded commemorative T shirt.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >The irony being that the bar code had been fiendishly designed to function internationally, and resulted in fans being arrested across Europe when leaving shops – on a charge of shoplifting <i style="">themselves.</i></span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Within two months of their appearance, <i style="">nu-media</i> speculation as to the identity of the voluptuous but faceless vocalist was vindicated when <i style="">Tosser</i> was revealed to be a vanity project for Harmonie Carpenter, well-known media-whore<i style=""> it</i>-daughter of shock-headed film auteur Gaspar Carpenter.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Harmonie was widely known prior to the revelation of her involvement with the band – having been photographed on several occasions by paparazzi, brazenly inviting upskirt photographs of her evil areas to increase her friend count on FaceBook. Said photographs appeared on a range of websites, and subsequently on Carpenter’s own personally-issued Christmas cards of 2007.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Shortly afterwards Harmonie married her yoga coach in a beach-held civil service at a secret location in the North of England. Photographs of the whole sorry affair reveal her face to be black-bagged yet again, with her sad undergarments exposed in every single shot.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Soon the band split. The other members’ identities never became public.</span></p><br /><hr /><a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=%22%20+%20data:post.url%20+%20%22&title=%22%20+%20data:post.title" target="_blank"><img alt="Digg this" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a>Damien Peter Hakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16720058204652316751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-81912503647130261612009-02-19T14:59:00.003+00:002009-03-10T16:56:41.657+00:00"Twinkling" Mary Kelly<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IuU44OZl-dg/SbabudHXGJI/AAAAAAAAAA4/qIpXejKA03A/s1600-h/tmk+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 319px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IuU44OZl-dg/SbabudHXGJI/AAAAAAAAAA4/qIpXejKA03A/s320/tmk+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311604032921868434" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Genre:</span> ghastly folk<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Era:</span> 2003<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Country of Origin:</span> UK<br /><br />A gauche and guileless 16 year old when she plopped into the consciousness of a public desperate to be entertained by a musical act virtually identical to Charlotte Church, but without the singing, Mary Kelly was instantly clasped to the breast of <i style="">The Brighton Demographic</i>.</span> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" > With her <em><span style="font-style: normal;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';" >naïve ways and trademark moon-faced Cornishness, she found sudden and undeservedly huge success the moment her hideous pre-release debut single was play-listed for incessant rotation on both BBC Radio and UK MTv channels.</span></em></span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><em><span style="font-style: normal;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" > This was a first for both outlets, as Mary Kelly’s chosen oeuvre was the flinchingly narrow </span></em><em><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >folk harp pop </span></em><em><span style="font-style: normal;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >– named imaginatively due to its reliance on folk harp instrumentalism and electro-breakbeats.</span></em></p> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><em><span style="font-style: normal;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" > </span></em><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >This single, <i style="">Magical Steeples,</i> achieved commercial but little critical success, entering the UK top forty at number forty, and remaining concretely in situ for a total of 7 whole days – weathering gales of tabloid scrutiny and the fawning adoration of biscuit-addled pensioners and homosexual clubbers.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >In fact it is almost solely due to the power of both pink and blue-rinsed pounds that <i style="">Magical Steeples </i>achieved the tedious success that it did, and why Kelly’s publishers, <i style="">Dad’s Farm Music</i>, considered the release of a follow up album to capitalise on the public’s seeming ability to buy just about anything.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" > Proposed further recordings were sadly scuppered however, when Kelly became hopelessly smitten with Gargill Haversam, a surly boy of fifteen local to her small village. She assumed his circle of interest, and those song manuscripts published of the never-to-be-recorded album indicate a proposed change of direction, to incorporate vocals and a conceptual lyrical theme dedicated to <i style="">Warhammer 40K. </i></span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >In the last of her promotional photographs, published before her retirement from music with a stated interest to “drink more cider lol”, Kelly appears in striped tights and a motorcycle-style leatherette jacket, looking off-camera towards where, reportedly, Haversam was making “fanny-licking faces”.</span></p> <p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" >Subsequently, Kelly has failed to trouble the media. Her “twinkling” seemingly dulled for good.</span></p><p class="EC_MsoNoSpacing"><span style=";font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10;" ><br /></span></p> <hr /><a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=%22%20+%20data:post.url%20+%20%22&title=%22%20+%20data:post.title" target="_blank"><img alt="Digg this" src="http://digg.com/img/badges/91x17-digg-button.gif" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a>Damien Peter Hakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16720058204652316751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-60828854758663423292009-02-05T08:25:00.010+00:002009-03-11T18:50:32.721+00:00Barnslaughter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgH8-etHeI/AAAAAAAAACo/yaAYdKwx9cE/s1600-h/Barnslaughter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 286px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgH8-etHeI/AAAAAAAAACo/yaAYdKwx9cE/s320/Barnslaughter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312004504628829666" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbE2OT2NarI/AAAAAAAAABw/HMntuNX4UeU/s1600-h/Barnslaughter.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 1px; height: 1px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbE2OT2NarI/AAAAAAAAABw/HMntuNX4UeU/s320/Barnslaughter.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310085055120239282" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbE1wSTTtkI/AAAAAAAAABo/TNZTNsNnbFU/s1600-h/Barnslaughter.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 1px; height: 1px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbE1wSTTtkI/AAAAAAAAABo/TNZTNsNnbFU/s200/Barnslaughter.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310084539309340226" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Genre:</span> death folk</span><p style="font-family: arial;"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Era:</span> 1970s-1980s<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><span style="font-weight: bold;">Country of Origin:</span> UK</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">1972 was the year that saw the rise of the genre known as “death folk”, and no band typified its farmyard nihilism quite like <i>Barnslaughter</i>. Indeed, their 1971 debut album <i>Ploughman Of Death</i> is considered by some to have given rise to the entire genre, and punishing songs like <i style="">Satanic Harvest</i> and <i style="">Barley Suicide</i> defined the movement, reflecting the emotions of literally dozens of disillusioned Wiltshire teenagers for whom <i>The Archers</i> no longer held any meaning.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">Barnslaughter</span></i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> dominated the 1970s, releasing four albums over a hectic eight year period – <i>Tractor Eviscerator</i>, <i>Blood Dairy</i>, <i>Disembowelled By Pitchfork</i> and the politically charged <i>Cannibal Common Agricultural Policy Killer </i>– but in 1979 banjo player and songwriter Syd Piggot died of an overdose of hayfever remedy, becoming yet another depressing statistic of an increasingly self-destructive folk scene that had already claimed the lives of <i>The Gloucester Old Spots</i>, <i>Neil Haystack</i> and two members of <i style="">Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Tim</i>, and the group decided to embark in a new direction. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">That direction was white supremacy. From the alarming retail-oriented race hate of 1982’s <i>Hell By Date</i> to the frighteningly delusional 1986 concept album <i>Satan’s Grocer</i>, in the 1980s <i>Barnslaughter</i> turned their considerable musical talents almost exclusively towards persuading people not to shop at Handeep Patel’s grocery shop in the band’s home village of Monkflint Giddle.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" >The change of direction proved to be catastrophic; <i>Barnslaughter</i>’s new-found white supremacist leanings drove away their fans, and eventually, after 1988’s <i>Aryan Shopping</i> failed to chart, the band split and went their separate ways. Today only singer Phil Rurral remains active in the music industry, running the staggeringly unpopular pressure group Musicians Against Blacks And Queers from a maisonette in Trowbridge.<br /><br /></span><hr style="height: 3px;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a></span>Dr Gary Blonionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01649786396688324988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7127855602661854255.post-82157423992109939662009-01-30T11:23:00.011+00:002009-03-11T18:50:01.141+00:00Blang!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgH0sxrwbI/AAAAAAAAACg/NWlm3EcJw4M/s1600-h/Blang%21.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 306px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cx9gIIgDss4/SbgH0sxrwbI/AAAAAAAAACg/NWlm3EcJw4M/s320/Blang%21.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312004362437640626" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Genre:</span> cybernoise</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Era:</span> 1990s – present<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Country of Origin:</span> UK</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" >Supposedly named after the imaginary sound made by hardened pieces of vomit falling onto a metal drum, Johnny Bistle and Mike Dreff’s <i>Blang!</i> are one of the more divisive groups to have come out of the Isle of Wight in recent years. The duo met in 1990 at a mutual friend’s wedding (the friend is now divorced), and set themselves up as an “antidote to harmony” after discovering that they shared a mistrust of chords, in particular G Major.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" >The pair are no strangers to controversy. Their 1993 debut album, <i>Click:Blang!</i>, was banned in Warwick for violating mediaeval decency bylaws, and the release of 1996’s <i>Eyeball Picnic</i> was picketed by the RNIB for being recorded at frequencies designed only to be heard by the eyes; indeed, it was only with the 2001 release of <i>Tinnitus Bullets</i>, a violently bleak noisescape consisting largely of distorted recordings of an angry wasp trapped in a photocopier making copies of a piece of A4 paper with a skull drawn on it, that <i>Blang! </i>dented mainstream consciousness. The album enjoyed a brief stint in the charts, peaking at #12, and the single <i>Ear Shrapnel</i> was used in a television advertisement for Müllerice.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="font-family:Arial;">Blang!</span></i></span><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" >’s discordant noiseflashes have been described as “baffling, stomach-churning horribleness” (Jjared Fwytt, <i>Music Or Die</i>), “like being raped” (Sooxy Gange, <i>Hot Pop!</i>) and “just shit” (Pope John Paul II, <i>Catholicism Today</i>), and it appears that, for now at least, this will be their legacy: in 2005 Bistle was arrested in Oslo for what Norwegian newspapers described as a “decibel-related atrocity” and he is currently serving a six year prison sentence on a fjord-based prison ship.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" ><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" >Sadly, the band’s future remains uncertain. </span><br /><br /><hr /><a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit"> <img src="http://www.reddit.com/static/spreddit7.gif" alt="Submit to Reddit" border="0" /> </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://aselectivehistoryofpopularmusic.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/art/music-art" title="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory"><img src="http://www.blogcatalog.com/images/buttons/blogcatalog5.gif" alt="Music Art Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory" style="border: 0pt none ;" /> </a> <a href="http://www.blogtoplist.com/music/" title="Music"><br /><img src="http://www.blogtoplist.com/tracker.php?u=75997" alt="Music" border="0" /></a>Dr Gary Blonionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01649786396688324988noreply@blogger.com0