Party Time! Party Time!

I was at a party the other night, not a particularly cool one. To mask my indifference, to show my disaffection, I spent a lot of time watching futbol on the pub’s big screen. I did eventually get talking to this guy, though, who may or may not be a member of the Hillsong church. Anyway, that detail is just an aside. Speak-shouting, as we were, over the top of some bad DJ – my inner cynic nicely numbed by alcohol, he simply Mr. Nice ‘Teetotaller’ Guy – topic turned to music.

Now, I feel I gave him a pretty good ear-bashing, the type that invariably gets no reply or at best a polite ‘I have to go over hear now’. I don’t know the teachings of Hillsong (is Australian Idol really a subject for preaching?), but it must breed tolerance. Like Jerry Seinfeld attributing his funniness to Scientology, let me just thank Hillsong for this inane blog entry!

Seriously, the guy’s honesty was refreshing. It takes something to sidle up to me, dressed in my finest indie-chic, and proclaim yourself a ‘teeny-bopper’ (his words). A married man, too! ‘S Club 7, Britney, Christina… ,’ he went, on first-name basis no less. Fair ‘nuff. You can like what you like. We then talked about music downloading as a social phenomenon. I pointed out the disparate views from artists. Some, like Radiohead and plenty of indie artists, can encourage the act: to be heard as opposed to simply bought and sold. Not so major labels etcetera, who take the opposing view and shout ‘creative rights! ownership! moneys!’ at all sorts of inopportune moments. This is the only point over which Mr. Nice Guy and me really clashed. What he said was unforgivable but, more importantly, a sign of the black-and-white times we live in.

‘It’s like all the good artists want their music only to be bought, while the bad ones will just give there’s away.’

Oh my. In type, that probably doesn’t look too bad. But the way it was said, with one of those laughs that suggests the speaking of unarguable fact, really grated. Thing is, he doesn’t know better. It’s not his fault. I do wonder whether these ‘good’ artists have no objections to the buying of votes i.e. the buying of cultural capital i.e. Australian Idol.

Here you are, my friend, some super-duper songs redone quite poorly by struggling artists:

Bonnie Prince Billy - The World's Greatest (R. Kelly cover)
Nouvelle Vague - Dancing With Myself (Billy Idol cover)

Sample Credits Don't Pay Our Bills

Come Away With...ESG

I must sound like a broken record going on about this kind of stuff, but…I must sound like a broken record going on about this kind of stuff. I mean, someone has got to say it. At the moment my musical taste is just so sample-driven. Call me a product of the digital age, I don’t care, but I dig the re-appropriation of sounds – old, new, borrowed and blue. Whatever. Except mash-ups which are 98% lame.

Well, on to today’s history lesson: ESG. The four Scroggins sisters - Deborah (bass, vocals), Marie (congas, vocals), Renee (vocals, guitar), and Valerie (drums) – simply have to be amongst the coolest coolsies of all time (please, please, please ignore what has to one of the most unappealing promo pics ever, above). Back in the late ‘70s, when all were teenagers, their mother (add her to the cool list) bought each of her daughters an instrument to keep ‘em away from the trouble of the South Bronx streets.

Somehow, almost certainly not by design, ESG became flag bearers for post-punk, no wave, hip-hop and house music. According to AllMusic, the group's only aspiration was to play their music – simplistic in structure and heavy on rhythm – and sell lots of records. And despite borrowing heavily from their influences, such James Brown and Motown, when it came to originality, the girls had it goin’ on: figuring people would know when they screwed up a cover, the group decided to write their own songs in order to sidestep audience knowledge of when mistakes were being made. Through a mixture of ignorance and bluster, ESG have been responsible for some of the most dance-able and purely enjoyable music out there. Their full-length debut, Come Away With…ESG (1983), is a classic, but the critical admiration never transferred to commercial success. ESG disbanded shortly after that high-point but reformed, to great surprise, in the early ‘90s.

And yet the monetary reward still wasn’t forthcoming. In their absence, their music had become popular amongst hip-hop artists on the look-out for samples. The likes of TLC, the Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys and J Dilla all made use of ESG rhythms and beats, often uncleared, and the Scroggins were left uncredited and out of pocket. The gals (by now middle-aged mamas) addressed the issue in the coolest of ways: by naming a 1993 12” EP Sample Credits Don't Pay Our Bills.

I don’t really know if I’m helping matters by posting mp3s of their work but I see it is as spreading the good word. I’ll be knocking on your door come Sunday. Anyway, this is a victory for the little guys. Check out a couple of tracks from the band, as well as one from indie-rockers Liars which borrows, uh, liberally from ESG’s ‘UFO’.

ESG – Dance
ESG – UFO
Liars - Tumbling Walls Buried Me In The Debris With ESG

What Light?

James Dean, the good Samaritans that they are, have allowed No 'Round The Corner to post another exclusive track from their James Dean CD-R release. Scroll back a few posts for an updated link for 'In The Hospital'. CHEKKIT!

Like a child's broken toy!

I count myself fortunate to have been amongst the all too few to have seen and appreciated the post-hardcore stylings of Newcastle’s The Let-Go!. The band sadly broke up earlier this year, just as they were approaching some semblance of notoriety. A limited edition cassette and as yet released EP may be the only remnants of a brief but blistering existence, yet it is the blurry memories of a slew of late-night gigs that I will cherish mostly.

Fast-forward six months, and three-fifths of The Let-Go are now James Dean. With a new drummer and an altogether stronger sense of unity, the band has honed a more refined sound; still confronting, but with the onus on atmospherics and dynamics rather than the all-out aural attack of previous work. Only a few shows into being James Dean are already proving a caustic célèbre on the local DIY scene.

The first fruit of this new legacy is out now. The James Dean CD-R comes packaged in a delightful handmade cardboard sleeve, limited to 100, and the music contained is just as roughly hewn.

I had the pleasure of sitting in on the band as they recorded the five tracks in the studio a couple of months ago. I was also there on the night of their first show when they received a copy of the first mix, only to come away disappointed and somewhat disenchanted with their recording experience. So on to the drummer Travis' house (affectionately known as Tighes Hill Bakery) they went – where I was inexplicably absent! In one night the band came away with a self-produced product infinitely more satisfying than the one they had spent several hundreds dollars on. The results are spectacular.

With a 7-inch to follow soon, as well as a show with Italy’s hardcore heavyweights La Quiete and a slot at Brisbane’s No Culture Festival, James Dean look likely to forge a reputation as rebels with a very good cause.

James Dean - In The Hospital (mp3)
James Dean - Turn This Iron Handle (mp3)

James Dean @ MySpace