25. April 2014
EDM Is It…
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| Anthony Bourdain |
By Walter Price
“Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do.” – Dave Grohl
The first things that should to be said is that I really don’t have anything against EDM except the facts it usually drones on and it isn’t all that interesting to me. I love Rock N’ Roll. I even love Rock with electronics. Moog enhanced sounds of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Beach Boys and Kraftwerk come to mind. Then there are a slew of electronic crutched artists that have floated my sonic boat over the decades. Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Ultravox, The Killers, Lovers Electric and now that I think about it, this list could actually continue for some length.
The wares of this newer wave of geeky hipsters with keyboards, of the computer variety, haven’t found their way into my style of rockin’. EDM, for the most part, is a soulless trend and I could find it acceptable if it went the way of the Thylacine.
Recently there has been a small but increasing backlash burbling up in the music world. An audible call to arms for music lovers to stand up for the ‘classic’ sounds of physical instruments to be played and for concerts to be put on by a collective who have sweated out tunes in a crappy rehearsal room and not by a person in a basement guzzling OJ and tripping out on whatever is the hottest mind bending chemical going.
Anthony Bourdain, chef, author, TV guy, Hunter S. Thompson by-product and a man who carries a torch for the CBGB heyday of NYC when bands like the Ramones, Dead Boys and Talking Heads ruled the underbelly of rock, recently took to his CNN show Parts Unknown to let fly his thoughts on the EDM phenomenon. (VIDEO)
“Come ye lords and princelings of douchedom, Hear my clarion call. Anointeth thyself with gel and heavenly body spray. Maketh the sign of the devil horns with thine hands. Let there be high fiving and the hugging of many bros, for this is the kingdom and the power.”
Bourdain also offered up a couple more than fair questions “Are we just old? Or are we non-douchey?”…
The chef isn’t the only one voicing his opinion on the matter. Just a few days ago at Coachella Arcade Fire’s Win Butler let loose with “shout out to all the bands playing instruments this weekend”.
In which the extremely goofy Deadmau5 took to Twitter saying “arcade fire needs to settle down. some dudes devote their lives to instruments, others to electronic composition by cpu, dafuqs yer problem?”
“Dafugs”? It could be that their isn’t a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood in the texture of the sounds you and your community of electro composers/tinkerers are producing. Brainwashing Molly induced dimwits that think this is the new way to disco. But then again, maybe it is.
Even the intentions of this fantastic blog you’re currently reading have been called into question by Nomadaccess Accessdenied on the CRB Freaks page.
Even the intentions of this fantastic blog you’re currently reading have been called into question by Nomadaccess Accessdenied on the CRB Freaks page.
“What no EDM? oh come on now real artists making real music? surely you jest!”
Time will tell but for my soul, I need, I want and more importantly I thrive on the glorious sounds of a unified group of players bashing away on instruments that I can see and feel deep inside.
Maybe one day the fans of EDM will look back on this phase of their lives and wonder why they spent hundred of pounds, dollars or euros going to see a person with a laptop pumping their hands in the air like they just don’t care and ask themselves “What the hell man?!”. Or perhaps, no one will even remember this period at all. I know I have tried to forget about my love of Dead or Alive.
What is certain is we can all agree to disagree, opinions are like assholes, Elvis with the pelvis, chillin’ like Dylan, The Beatles with their Yeah Yeah Yeahs, study study schools your buddy & I Love Rock N’ Roll and there is nothing wrong with that….
“Music, Rock and Roll music especially, is such a generational thing. Each generation must have their own music, I had my own in my generation, you have yours, everyone I know has their own generation.” – Ronnie James Dio