hoi.polloi wrote:I feel like an autistic person with "intense world" syndrome whenever someone has a radio on.
I do too, the same with television. It takes me a minute to slow down my breathing when I turn either of them off. And you're correct about the cacophony of sounds they seem to produce. I should be able to figure out what at least some of it is if I think about it awhile. Maybe later.
Last edited by hoi.polloi on Sat Oct 13, 2012 1:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:Hi, I've edited your post. Remember to quote text the following way: [quote="who said it"]what they said[/quote]
The song Ebeneezer Goode from The Shamen originally, is about as blatant a promotion of narcotics as you could possibly get!
From the Wonky Estate:
"Ebeneezer Goode" is a song by Scottish electronic music group The Shamen, which, after being heavily remixed by The Beatmasters, became their biggest hit when released as a single in September 1992. The band's original version also featured on the vinyl edition of their album Boss Drum. "Ebeneezer Goode" was one of the most controversial UK number-one hits of the 1990s, due to its perceived oblique endorsement of recreational drug use. The song was initially banned by the BBC, and the single was eventually withdrawn after the band were hounded by the British tabloid press.[1]
The song is best known for its chorus, "'Eezer Goode, 'Eezer Goode/He's Ebeneezer Goode", the first part of which is audibly identical to, "E's are good" - 'E' being common slang for the drug ecstasy.[2] The lyrics allude to the advantages of the drug, though with an admonition against excessive use:
“A gentleman of leisure, he's there for your pleasure
But go easy on old 'Eezer, he's the love you could lose
Extraordinary fella, like Mister Punchinella
He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused. ”
The song also contains references to rolling a joint with the lines, "Has anybody got any Veras?" ("Vera Lynns" being rhyming slang for "skins" or rolling papers) and "Got any salmon?" ("salmon and trout" being rhyming slang for "snout" or tobacco) and "I've done a log in my undies" (the act of releasing feces by dancing while on drugs).
Is that just too blatant to be called brainwashing?
This is an American perspective, so forgive me if it is strange, but ...
Early black musicians on radio got a kick out of their references to sex - rockin' and rollin', etc. - and other things that white people would dance to but not understand. If you were 'hip', it meant you might understand the references. 'Are you hip?' could actually mean, 'Do you know what we're talking about here? Do you know what's playing on your radio?'
Black resistance to white culture is important to all humanity because it represents positive humanity's strength in the face of systematic liquidation, slaughter and slavery at the hands of negative humanity. Western music evolved out of the pain and the beauty of African Americans and the poor people. It evolved out of folk. The banjo is a slave instrument, improvised from a need to be mobile and active, but also I think it shows the importance of lightness and joviality in helping humanity survive horrible experiences.
That "lie" - that "promise" - of a "better tomorrow" may not be true for many privileged people, or white people in America who have always lived in a middle class that benefited from the foundation of slavery, but it is true for those who are still struggling to find their way through the horror and emerge into a world that holds promise for children.
I understand that this story has mythical qualities to it, and therefore it is definitely not above question on a site like ours, where everything is looked at in its most fundamental and factual ways. But please try to understand the importance of this promise, which over time, and with no small help from the "mind control" effects of music, actually did start to come true in bits and pieces. Today, people labeled "black" by our society are second-class citizens in America, which is an improvement from no-class "three fifths of a person" non-human non-citizens. It doesn't work the same in many countries, where racism does not take on such mythical, almost preposterous drama as it does in the USA. So I always have a problem explaining this to my foreign friends. I remember warriorhun and other users telling me multi-culturalism is an evil control mechanism. And that may be so, as any tool can be a weapon. But I would ask people trying to understand music in America to consider the beneficial use of this tool before it became weaponized to protect the extremely rich, when it was used to liberate the extremely poor and oppressed.
Of course "race" is a whole other bag of lies that can be torn apart and talked about at length, but the underlying principles of this forum - for truth, justice, egalitarianism and equal rights for all non-psychotic human beings, and fair treatment of the psychotic - they have to do with struggles like the "black" struggle. Without playing "monster" in a drama triangle of monster-victim-rescuer, I still feel white people can own up to some habits that have turned out not so well for humanity: among them, mockery, appropriation, theft and the subtle forms of their worst crimes like outright slavery, complete arrogance, "righteous" senses of Godly superiority and wholesale dispassionate calls for the extermination of different cultures. We should also keep in check our self-loathing and our desperation to deny it, which often manifests itself as the former. You can make up your mind if I've been "mind controlled" by American culture to think this way.
I often listen to FM radio for hours a day while working but its always a college station playing either jazz or classical. For me, this is quite pleasant and conducive to getting work done whereas most popular music seems like an assault on my nervous system. The sensation I get is that every bit of sonic space is crammed with noise and garbage and the music lacks acoustic space or silence. Thus it lacks breath which is integral to all great music of all forms. Whether its Bach, Chuck Berry , Sonny Rollins , Bob Marley or whomever all the great music breathes.
While the best music in any genres seem to create openness and involvement for me emotionally and internally, modern music seems to intentionally invade and annihilate personal space and perspective. As far as rhythm goes, the elimination of real drummers and their replacement with machines robs the music of its soul and natural or organic pulse and again feels like an assault on my senses. So while I am not a fan particularly of say punk music I can appreciate its aesthetic and creation a lot more than most new genres as it has authenticity and humanity. Music used to have motifs, now it has motives...making money and influencing the public.
Just my two cents as a journeyman saxophonist for some 40 years.
hoi.polloi wrote:
I think it might just be the artificialness, the "crammed full of sounds" feeling that annoys me and tires me, really. Like being in a room full of ventilation systems
They really should know better than to use computerised sounds and digital computers to create music, timed to perfection. Unless they are trying to irritate us! Any sound that is too regular does not sound really musical. Like an irritating buzz-saw. The real beauty of "music" is in the slight imperfections and in the human performer element. Music that is played on real instruments, with emotional passion, sounds passionate --- and so this "passion" is attractive to the listener (appealing to the more emotional right hemisphere of the human brain). Some people cannot even stand to listen to digitally recorded (stepped waveform) music and they prefer to listen to old fashioned analogue (smooth waveform) recordings, on something like high speed reel to reel tape, even if there is a little bit of background hiss.
In western musical Solfege (etymology SOL-FA), the 7 notes of the major scale are named like this:
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si.
DOminus "Lord" Absolute
REgina Ceolie "Queen of the Heavens"
MIcrocosmos "Small Universe" (As Above, So Below)
FAta "Fate" Planets (wandering star gods)
SOL "Sun" Sun
LActea "Milk" Milky Way Galaxy
SIder "Stars" All Galaxies
For the "religiously" inclined, some people relate the 7 notes of western musical Solfege to other things involving the "sacred" number 7, such as the 7 sky gods of the 7 days of the week (music of the spheres), the 7 colours in the visible spectrum of the rainbow (the "cool" higher frequency violet down to "warm" red) and the "7 Chakra" said to run down the mid-line of the human body.
Sunday Sun-Orange, Sacral chakra
Moon-day Moon-Blue, Throat chakra
Tuesday - Mardi Mars-Red, Root chakra
Wednesday - Mercredi Mercury- Yellow, Solar plexus chakra
Thursday - Jeudi Jupiter-Violet, Crown chakra
Friday - Vendredi Venus-Green, Heart chakra
Saturday Saturn-Indigo, Third-eye chakra
In a "vibrational universe" (solid matter is an illusion) and everything is down to "frequency" point of view, then the frequency spectrum is seen as continuous from "lower" sound up to the visible light frequencies and above. Our ears and eyes can only "perceive frequencies" in two narrow windows of the frequency spectrum. Sounds outside of our ability to hear them can also be very irritating for us, they may even vibrate our bodies to create a feeling of illness. Vibrations inside the fluid filled human eyeball can even create very unpleasant vision disturbances.
Musical frequencies are based on the Fibonacci ratio.
Notes in the scale of western music are based on natural harmonics that are created by ratios of frequencies.
Ratios found in the first seven numbers of the Fibonacci series (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) are related to key frequencies of musical notes.
Unfortunately, Justin Bieber is real. He lived in Stratford, about a 30 minute drive from my house. I had the really unfortunate experience of being at Fairview Park Mall when him, and his entourage showed up and all of us mere peons were shown the exits so he could shop uninterrupted. I made my way to Sears, desperate to escape the shrills of the hysterical female teenage mob behind me. Caught a glimpse of the pimply-faced, skinny, snap-back hat wearing, prepubescent boy. He seemed rather....ordinary.
Even a real Bieber is not real as he has no existence outside of the role created for him Teen idols are the most disposable and replaceable of all public figures. Their popularity and usefulness can be rather brief but the industry is getting better at preserving their shelf life. They've managed to do so with Britney Spears and they will look to squeeze every bit of revenue out of Bieber. And how dare he have the same initials as Mr Outasight, Mr Dynamite, James Brown?
I recall hearing one longtime industry insider speaking of how he realized the business had really changed when he got hired to assist a session. They told him the song was pretty much complete, they only need him to add a melody and lyrics.
Not a real musician, but a real person. I can probably dig up all of his yearbooks, and assorted crap we have here at the UW/WFU libraries to attest to his actual existence.
Not to be an asshole, but I saw him. Same person in all of the mags, rags and media. Just saying he isn't some fake entity. UNFORTUNATELY.
But his "music" SUCKS.
I was thinking though....how different is he from all of the other recycled boy wonders? Seems like music hit some stagnation in the late 80's when we went from teen heartthrobs like the Osmonds and Shaun Cassidy to what we have now.
I at least have some respect for artists that write their own songs.
Too bad today's youth don't have the opportunity to hear music for music's sake.
Not asshole-ish. I don't see why he would be fake, I guess.
But of course it's still a possibility, even with a lot of evidence, as 9/11 has shown. It would be cool to get some scans and evidence that you have, just for fun. We could always use it to compare to someone who isn't real to show just how much reality there is in someone who actually exists (but whose personality is fake).
His music is "fake" though.. Just something spewed out of a digital sequencer. So what is "he"? Just an actor/dancer, the same as the Spice Girls et al. These are performers not composers.
I just got an idea. As a totally failed (financially) musician, I would nonetheless hope my past, countless hours of dedication to music could be put to good use - for a noble cause, that is.
I happen to have 12 songs which my band "The Social Service" recorded (and actually, totally improvised - minus the last, 12th one) live/unplugged in my studio over the years. They are all the product of jam sessions which started off, typically, as the band was warming up ... with me in the kitchen cooking spaghetti for all - then grabbing the microphone to add some vocals as the (fully human-made) grooves started sounding interesting...
Now, what if I put all twelve of them up in a downloadable file on http://www.septclues.com this week (for a limited time) for all Cluesforum members to download? No one would be forced to pay for them - but I'd suggest to those who can afford it to push the donate button on the bottom of this page and drop, say 12 bucks (or whatever amount of your choice) to help support my daily expenses running this forum and all.
Let me all know whether that's a good idea or not!
Awesome! I am in!
On both counts. Will see what I can find on "The Biebs" here at my local library and university, and take a bite on your music)
My husband would have loved to be a musician, and is quite talented, but as you know Simon, talent and actual musicality have nothing to do with being successful.
CTGal1011 wrote:Awesome! I am in!
On both counts. Will see what I can find on "The Biebs" here at my local library and university, and take a bite on your music)
My husband would have loved to be a musician, and is quite talented, but as you know Simon, talent and actual musicality have nothing to do with being successful.
Thanks CTGal - for your interest in this idea of mine!
I can assure all music lovers that the 12 live tracks are decently recorded (in spite of being sort of kinda raw takes), but don't take my word for it. In any case, I've just uploaded them now - and you can download one or more of them for free - and just pay for the ones that you like! (by clicking the "donate" button at the bottom of this page).
Thank you Simon for posting your music. I just donated and downloading the music now. Feel free to delete this post. Just wanted you to know. The cluesforum and the work of all the amazing people here is so important to me. I'm glad to be awake and admire the others on this forum too!
