Music and the mind...

[Windmill.]

I am a friend of poppa, and we have been ruminating over holding nights in St. A's, as it is easily accesible and we have the musical background to put on a night.

Coming from a university city like St. A's (name witheld), and having moved to Glasgow 4 years ago, I understand that a lot of people do not embrace change - esp. musically.

However, since moving to Glasgow, I feel that my mind has been opened up to many more genres of music than would have been had I stayed in unnamed city.

The thing is, the more people you meet in life (whether you like them or loathe them), the more cultures you experience and the more you read/see/hear makes you a more interesting, well rounded human being. Imagine living in one culture all your life and not leaving. Your opinions of the world - politics, religion, life in general - will be narrowed by this environment. Take neds for example!

Anyway, my point through this philosophical rambling is that St. A's should embrace nights like Poppa and us guys here are offering.

I am more of a funk/hip-hop kinda guy myself, but GOOD hip-hop. None of this attitudal East coast/west coast mainstream stuff. A funky beat and wee bit of scratchy scratchy! Oh, and James Brown - the Godfather of soul!

I hope this causes as much debate as Poppa did. We look forward to your opinions.

Cheers.

[LeopardSkinQueen]

The city I grew up in (Belfast) is dominated by hip hop/dance nights in all its clubs.

Now, I would not consider myself closeminded about music- I like a very varied amount of things, including Van Morrison, Metallica, Manics, Hole, Nirvana, Aretha Franklin, Clash, Smiths, Dusty Springfield...

But I don't like dance/hip hop. Where I'm from, I am a bit odd. Does this make the other people in my city, who do like these genres of music, close-minded, and me open-minded?

It is a fairly complicated argument, and it just basically, IMHO, end up with a 'like what you like' conclusion. The dominant prefererence of music varies wherever you live. Just because you like what most people like, it doesn't necessarily mean that your mind needs to be opened up to other things or that your cultural horizons need expanding.

Just my ramblings, feel free to ignore

[hr]The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as 'Things just happen. What the hell.'

[Windmill]

You are not alone. My tastes range from Local H, Nirvana, The Clash, The Stranglers, Madness, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Led Zeppelin, DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, James Lavelle, Jimi Hendrix... the mad list goes on!

I love Belfast, but I guess coming from there, you get a bit fed up with the music scene after 18 years there! Same with me and my unnamed city.

Will keep you posted on any progress we have with nights, but it's looking prety good at the moment.

Windmill.

[Emma]

I definitely think there is a need in St Andrews for some quality hip-hop ( by this I mean Spearhead, Wu-Tang Clan, Mos Def, as well as old-skool stuff like NWA..). Did you see Nina Simone when she was in Glasgow recently? I wanted to go but the tickets were completely overpriced. It's normal and healthy to like ridiculously disparate kinds of music, imo. The cd's scattered round my table at the moment include the Pogues, Memphis Minnie, Kool Keith, Ani DiFranco, Tracy Chapman, Muddy Waters and Wu-Tang Clan. Beat that for unrelatedness.

[dj_impulse]

I have 2 pdx 2000s which are four months new and I have an 06 pro. I'm selling my pdx2000s for 200.00 each. Each table comes with a shure m44-7 needle.(cartridge and stylus). I have all original papers, cords, box, etc... The mixer is in near perfect condition.
I spinn trance/house musik so I dont use the crossphader. I just use the volumes. I have pictures of the items if you wish to view. 200.00 for each table and 100.00 for the 06 pro mixer. Both the table and the mixer are made by VESTAX. Email me if your interested. Thanks. gorila_of_destruction@juno.com

[the weight of echoes]

"Interesting, well rounded human being"?! That's a contradiction in terms. An open mind only lets in the cold. Therefore, I like everything.

[The_Farwall]

[s]Unregisted User Windmill. wrote on 17:02, 23rd Nov 2002:the more cultures you experience and the more you read/see/hear makes you a more interesting, well rounded human being. Imagine living in one culture all your life and not leaving. Your opinions of the world - politics, religion, life in general - will be narrowed by this environment. Take neds for example!

Anyway, my point through this philosophical rambling is that St. A's should embrace nights like Poppa and us guys here are offering.

Maybe but your argument clearly doesn't support your conclusion (to put it in the fancy logic type terms that they taught me in 1st year philosophy). You suggest that 'experience' of many cultures makes a person more well rounded, this point may well be true. However, 'experience' does not equal 'embrace'. I could become more well rounded by experienceing a neo-facist culture, but few people would suggest that I should therefore embrace neo-facism. A brief 'experience' would be (and has been) enough to convince me of this fact.
Please don't think for a minute that I'm equating facism and dance music on any other level than that they are 'cultures', seeing as you made you point about such generic 'cultures'.
As a 90's teenager, it's pretty much a forgone conclusion that I have 'experienced' dance music and the culture surrounding it (esp. growing up near Manchester), however, on the evidence that this experience gave me, I came to the decision that I didn't like dance music, have absolutely no intention of 'embracing' it and feel entirely justified in voicing me distaste for it as I did on Poppa's thread. He was asking for people's opinions, I gave him mine.

[hr]
[s]"I wanna do great things/ I don't wanna compromise
I wanna know what love is/ Is it something I do to myself?"
Echobelly - Great Things[/s]

[Windmill]

Firstly, for anyone interested, we are currently in negotiation with a venue in St. Andrews over a night to be held in late february/early march time.

Secondly, Farwall. I am sorry my ideas provoked so much philosophical trauma to you. Maybe take life a little less seriously and you may find it easier, dude.

As for embracing change and what-not, I understand your point, but do you not get where I am coming from in terms of music? I am sure the musci you like has influences from genres you thought you disliked!

As for your experience of 'dance' music in Manchester in the 90's... man!
It sounds like you were turned off by the whole 'madchester' thing. That music was more geared toward acid house, rave and indie. Maybe it was not to your palate, but to say the phrase 'dance' music is to be a little general. It's a bit like saying "I've got a new car" and someone asking "what car"? and you replying "a car". It's not all the same, is what we are trying to say here.

Emma. You sound like a pretty cool dude. I like the eclectic-ness (is that a word?) of your music and hope that you continue to be inspired. I like a lot of that old skool stuff, like NWA, but tend to keep it 'educated' with a Main Source, Tribe Called Quest, J5 and much of the san francisco bay area stuff. Got an acid house remix (it's really bad) of Lou Reed's Walk on the wild side.

Peace yo.

Windmill.

[Windmill]

My ramblings are not preachings. I am only saying what I think.

It's just I think far too many people are being numbed down by the media and especially pop music. It is an awful state of affairs: last year we had a string of manufactured bands topping the charts, who were sold to the public before their music was even out. Add to this the fact that the songs for the bands were written before the bands were even picked, it makes it hard to believe we live in such a crappy consumption-driven society.

Maybe this will cause debate!

Peace yo.

W.

[the weight of echoes]

And the media were very quick to blame hip hop and garage for the rise in gun crime, but no-one thought to blame all these boy and girl bands for the rise in peadophilia.

And there's nothing wrong with manufacturing bands (even non-manufactured "real" bands manufacture themselves or get retrospectively manufactured by their record labels and their fans) it's just that so much of the actual music they make is rubbish. Especially when it's covers. What's the point in that?

[Oli]

The boy/girl bands don't sing about having sex with children.

The boy/girl bands don't carry guns around with them and get arrested for gun-related crime.

[splittter]

[s]Unregisted User Windmill wrote on 13:19, 13th Jan 2003:

Secondly, Farwall. I am sorry my ideas provoked so much philosophical trauma to you. Maybe take life a little less seriously and you may find it easier, dude.


so if you take life less seriously you're allowed to spout useless, ill-formed arguments, and have no-one point that out?

cool

[The_Farwall]

[s]Unregisted User Windmill wrote on 13:19, 13th Jan 2003:
Secondly, Farwall. I am sorry my ideas provoked so much philosophical trauma to you. Maybe take life a little less seriously and you may find it easier, dude.

Trauma!? I was just pointing out the flaw in your prior argument, definitely not trauma. In fact I'm a small, petty man, doing that sort of thing makes me happy.

As for embracing change and what-not, I understand your point, but do you not get where I am coming from in terms of music? I am sure the musci you like has influences from genres you thought you disliked!

To be fair, there are few genres of a music that I actively dislike. As you hint towards, exploring the influences in some of my favourite music has lead to me having a much wider taste. However, in the cases when I discover that some music I like has influences from genres I 'thought I disliked' then that's going to do very little to change my view. I'm not going to dislike an entire genre of music unless I have actually heard some of it, so the fact that some good music is vaguely related to it is hardly going to overcome my opinion that lots of bad music is strongly related to it.

As for your experience of 'dance' music in Manchester in the 90's...

I wasn't really refering to the actual Manchester sound, I was just pointing out that I lived near a musically active city with lots of clubs playing several diverse styles of music. I did this to counter the fact that part of your original point seemed to be based on the fact that people in St Andrews have never experienced dance music just because the isn't an active dance 'scene' in the town. Considering the prominence of dance music over the last 8-10yrs and the wide geographical spread people come to St Andrews from, I think that's highly unlikely.

but to say the phrase 'dance' music is to be a little general.

True, but I'll leave that to you to define what you plan on having played at your events.

Anyway, sorry that you don't seem to be able to pick up on or answer many of the points I keep making, I think my basic orginal point was that I wouldn't support a dance night in St Andrews 'cause I don't like the music. The question was asked, that was my answer. Why this provoked you to try and persuade me otherwise, I don't know, if there's trauma going on here it's not mine.

[hr]
[s]"I wanna do great things/ I don't wanna compromise
I wanna know what love is/ Is it something I do to myself?"
Echobelly - Great Things[/s]

[Blessed Benediction]

...so what would the nights involve musically, would they be cheap & would anyone turn up?

in a 'perfect' world, the answers would be:
1. ebm/techno/darkwave
2. nice & none-too-taxing
3. yes loads of like-minded unfoolish types

however given that it's not perfect what are the answers?


[hr]ignorance is bliss

[Bonnie]

I know the Union is looking for DJs. All of you who are so interested in music and seem to have invested much brainpower to the cause, why don't you share your talents with us?

[Blessed Benediction]

erm i have about 8 hrs of skinny puppy if that'll do?

[hr]watches should have a smiley face on them as it's always time to be happy

[rory]

hey, just thought i'd try and clarify some of the points my pal windmill was making earlier.

apologies if he came across as slightly patronising by offering to educate all you musically deprived St.Andrews students - we'd really just love the chance to play out some of our favourite records, and to see if anyone up your neck of the woods would be at all into it.

farfall - u make some pretty concinving arguments, and obviously it's cool if you're not up for it. i'm not trying to convince you otherwise, but if anything did go ahead (and if i was involved) i could assure you there'd be a fair variety of stuff played - certainly nae just dance. perhaps mibbe not 'good things', (there's better songs on the album anyway!) but i'd encourage you to give us a chance.

[The Non-Educated Delinquent.]

Hey Bonnie, I noticed you said you were looking for Dj's at the union. Could you post your email address, or tell us who to get in touch with at the union/ents committee?

Thanks.

The Non-Educated Delinquent.

[Windmill spins]

Too damn right, I just thought I'd rile up Farwall.

Variety is the stance.

Peace over and out.

Windmill spins.

[Rawsmells of R-soul]

I think the term dance music is probably quite a good one to describe the music that we (or I?) would like to play out though...yes it is a very general term - it could cover a whole host of genres from 70s funk (very danceable no?),pop (and before you object remember that the Beatles, the Kinks, the Clash, the Stranglers, etc were ALL pop at one time and we've probably danced to all of them at some point), disco (its not all cheesy, and it is all designed for the dance floor), punk?, post-punk?, punk-funk?, disco-punk?, reggae, dub, ska?, disco-ska?, reggae-funk?, early 90s house and techno, nu-techno, nu-metal (god forbid!), old-skool hip-hop, gangster rap, bootleg beats, breaks, electro-punk, electro-pop, nu-electro, techno?, post-electro-techno-funk?... its all good and its all gonna get you shakin dat ass at some point in your life, so lets forget the name-dropping, the genre-defining and just have some fun...maybe...i suppose the point is that the term dance music means just that, and that the rest is pretty much unimportant...?