[Amerikkka] Question re:music and #ronprogrock

[Justice Platt]

I've been following the #ronprogrock series on G+ pretty assiduously, but I feel like I'm noticing a strange lacuna.  Specifically, the lack of stuff heavily in the psychedelic soul/funk aka black rock category.  In the original Amerikka music thread, one of the big exciting things about the late 60's/early 70's was the play with genre categories, often to the point of irrelevance, and that holds true for lots of other musicians who came out of other traditions as well.  So, is there a story?

(I also kinda wonder about people who came us as country musicians in the same context-Gram Parsons comes and does their thing, but Waylon Jennings does the same back)

[Ron Edwards]

I've been staying more in the really-truly-prog zone for a while, more or less to establish a groove. And there's so much stuff to find and play, it's crazy to try to capture the spectrum in a systematic way. But stay tuned for the next round, I've got some knockouts from black artists in the pipeline. And suggestions are welcome too - the Swamp Dogg album you turned me onto earlier was incredibly good, and I want to tap into your knowledge of that body of music.

[glandis]

Down a different path, I had a "holy shite!" moment on seeing one of youtube's recommendations: Dschinn. Seeing that (unmistakeable) cover, I was suddenly in high school playing D&D with a German exchange student (was his name really Horst, or is that false memory filling in a blank?) who put that album on while we explained the game to him. No idea how "proggy" it is, but german rockers singing about "Freedom" can't be entirely inappropriate to Amerikkka.

[Ron Edwards]

So I was thinking some more about this, and the trouble for me is, all I know are the hits, the well-known black artists. Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ike Turner, Tina Turner, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder. Some other people, you know, the Motown artists in general ... Sam Cooke, I could keep listing, but the point is that these are all people that everyone knows and listens to. Justice, your Swamp Dogg reference blew me away because I should have been listening to this guy all my life, he's exactly on my wave-length, but I was totally ignorant of him. I'm really not interested in the big-names for this project, but in the ... interstices, the stew if you will, from which the genres were (in my opinion) artificially extracted. The only relevant band I really had any clue about was Love, and that's not too obscure for rock scholar types.

Here's an artist I was planning to showcase on G+, as a preview: Madelyne Bell, Doin' Things, which I found through the usual Youtube right-hand-side scrolling. But I don't find that many black artists that way!

So, help me out.

Best, Ron

[Justice Platt]

Wow, vote of confidence indeed.  Thanks for your high opinion.  Looking back at the ronprog posts, I figured I just wasn't in tun with your aesthetic 100%. I listened to many of those records and felt that Maggot Brain would make an excellent follow up without any jarring change in tone.  Not an argument, just a reflection.

Anyhow, some recommendations-I'll keep it low, 'cos I can talk about this stuff for hours.  This is all stuff I feel works well with some of the stuff you've been posting-I'm avoiding stuff that's pure deep funk, for instance, thematically appropriate or not, in favor of triumphant genre-bending with some version of radical thought either implicit or explicit.  Also avoiding the big names, though if you don't know early 70s Funkadelic, you really owe that to yourself.

Black Merda:  This is a comp, but that just illustrates some of the marketing difficulties specific to music aimed at a black audience at the time.  Log story short, the "you experienced it as albums" thing is, if I can be permitted crude racial reductionism, a white thing.  http://youtu.be/LHSFsWZM1Gk

Eugene McDaniels: Couldn't find a full album link, so 1 song, and advice to follow sidebar links-Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse & Outlaw are both great. http://youtu.be/x5VBzoeM80E

Shuggie Otis:  Another no full album link.  Very West Coast.  Inspiration Information & Freedom Flight are personal favorites.  http://youtu.be/avw50zY4fxc

Demon Fuzz: British afrobeat funky stuff.  Still no full album link, but the album is called Afreaka.  'Nuff said.  http://youtu.be/1V0syqbMxbI

Have to go-I long for the days when "one-handed typing" did not mean "I am furiously jostling a baby with the other."  I hope these are helpful, and I have more if you like.

[Ron Edwards]

the "you experienced it as albums" thing is, if I can be permitted crude racial reductionism, a white thing.

Agreed. Easily reduced to the economics of technology, I think - I'm talking about the hi-fi stereo fetish, perhaps the perfect symbol for the Future Shock "we're bein' drowned by technology man" abominably mated with technophile purity, at least until the Jedi came along. Definitely not in the life-style options for most if any black people in the 60s.

Times have changed since, of course, and pretty quickly from the era we're talking about. If memory serves, the last guy I knew who was truly bonkers for his vinyl and the technology it took to extract the perfect sound from it was black (this was in 1986 or so), and his collection was absolutely mainstream 70s rock. Goes to show that categories all have their limitations, so I hear you on that one too.

Off to do some listening!

[Ron Edwards]

Shuggie Otis is incredibly awesome! Why in the hell didn't anyone I ever knew tell me about this music?! My God, all through the 80s, nothing but Bob Marley, all the ding-dong day, plus Michael Jackson - the two albums on any white person's shelf, "Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers" and "Thriller," over & over, every party, along with Ziggy Stardust and The Blues Brothers soundtrack, getting flashbacks now and not liking it much - the blue curacao "Windex" punch-bowl, the toss-up between a heavy grope or an argument about Hegel (can you tell I went to the U of Chicago?) ...

When at any moment someone could have put this on!!

(OK, in fairness, at some of those 1984 parties I discovered real heavy pre-M.C. Hammer rap, too, but still)

[Justice Platt]

Glad you like it.  So much of this stuff seems familiar to me, since I was in high school & college during the golden age of hip-hop (really, that's a thing), that it's cool to see someone else getting that wonderful shock of the new.  If it's any consolation, I got the same feeling at plenty of stuff that's old-ish hat to y'all older heads as well.

[Ron Edwards]

I have just discovered Zamrock! Plus much else for its context.
Amanaz: Africa
YouTube is at last coming to my rescue with its sidebar recommendations.

[Justice Platt]

Thanks for putting me on to this-all I know at all is afrobeat & hilife. You might also look at the Brazilian psych stuff, starting at Os Mutantes.

[glandis]

Just in case I stumbled on something(s) you folks somehow didn't already know and/or search-and-find, psychemusic has a lot of great country/region-specific lists (Amanaz appears here , progarchives can be fun to browse (if I ignore the compulsive genre-fic/xation, and I just found (not really evaluated the music yet) this blog .

Thanks for updating this here - G+ still isn't a consistent part of my web-life!