Review: "Straight Outta Compton"

The recent biopic of the rise of L.A. gangsta-rappers NWA had me thinking.

If art imitates life, what, then has happened to American society for a group like N.W.A and a song like "F*** Tha Police" to exist?

The film does little to answer the question, as I suspected it would. However it does a good job at least of depicting the symptoms of the problem: the underclass of working poor; the allure of crime as a way to escape the aforementioned underclass, police harassment, limited hope and limited opportunity.

So what does one do to get ahead in such an environment? Get a steady job that doesn't cover all your bills, join a criminal gang, or turn to music. Band member of NWA Easy-E in this case, chose both the latter two.

Easy-E is the only one depicted as having associations with crime on any level. If the rest of the group were involved at any point, it was certainly airbrushed out of this version of the story. There's been plenty of media around to discuss the inconsistencies with this account of the events, so I will not go over them here. But let's just say that the victors write history.  Album sales aside, N.W.A.'s legacy is assured, with or without this film.

N.W.A. started at a time whereby rap was a burgeoning style of music in the 1980s. It was party music, devoid of social commentary. Grandmaster Flash touched on it with his anti-drug single "White Lines (Don't Do It)" earlier in the decade, but LL Cool J and Run DMC weren't in the business of promoting causes. And certainly not the Beastie Boys! Public Enemy started to take a more socially conscious approach with the view to empowering and bettering the inner city urban dwellers, in a similar but ultimately more militant way that James Brown or Stevie Wonder had tried a decade earlier.

With that in mind, N.W.A. tried to create a style of "reality rap" not too dissimilar to South Central LA rapper Ice-T. Rapping about life in Compton meant talking about being harassed by police, hassled by street gangs and trying to find some kind of success in your future. And to do so in the most direct and confronting way.

If "reality rap" was the mission, then an ugly reality requires some ugly music. And it certainly is. Hearing N.W.A. for the first time is something that one tends to remember for a long time: it sure as hell is NOT "easy listening" and nor should it be. There is real danger in this music: it is a danger that is "lived in", first hand. There was a real scare that if you were to cross these guys on a bad day, it wouldn't end well  Then of course was the threat of your parents losing their shit at you for buying the music! Despite this, people of all races and creeds lapped it up, because it is sometimes better to be an observer of the action than to be a participant.

"Straight Outta Compton" reaffirms what we've known about the music industry for years: when confronted with ground-breaking music, record labels would rather play it safe and stick with what they know is going to sell: "When you think you've found the next Bon Jovi, call me" one executive remarks during the band's showcase gig. Another one for the Dick Rowe "Beat groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein" file.

That said, N.W.A. established the template for what we now know as Rap music. A lot of teenagers today seem to be unaware of the significance of N.W.A. and the need for this film, despite really wanting to see it. This film depicts a time whereby Rap wasn't mainstream. It wasn't accessible, and it certainly wasn't dangerous as this is. To be fair, if things were different, the members of N.W.A. could've make rap music a la Run DMC and do a fantastic job at it. However they chose to push it closer reality as they knew it, making pieces of art that are still as confronting and as relevant today, even if some of the in-fighting and diss tracks that were created during the ensuing years make them look cartoonish.

With the band having raging parties and getting letters from the FBI, it always makes me wonder if they knew the controversy that went down in Sydney in 1989 when Triple J started playing "F*** Tha Police" on air. That tale is a story for another time...

This is a film that is as forthright and as confronting as the bands music was. You wouldn't expect any less.

Funkadelic - "First Ya Gotta Shake The Gate" Review

So what do you expect from your favourite iconoclastic band, when they reform after decades to produce a comeback album?

Do you expect them to pick up where they left off, and produce an album that sounds exactly like they did decades ago?

Or, do you expect them to embrace technology and produce something thoroughly contemporary and modern to reflect the sound and the era they now find themselves in?

Or, do you approach it with no pre-conceptions at all from the outset and take the new music as you find it?

Any fan of any band in the situation that Funkadelic find themselves in right now is going to find the third option extremely difficult. We're always going to carry baggage of expectation to the party. We all want a record to be something to be proudly displayed next to their classic works. But is it fair to expect a new album made 33 years after the group's last one to sound like the one they finished with?

If you think it is fair they should sound like something released decades ago, you really haven't considered the nature of the ever-wandering musical troubadour that is George Clinton.

Throughout the entire dual careers of Parliament and Funkadelic, and then his solo career, his sound hasn't been static - it has always changed with the times. Therefore it would be reasonable to expect that the new record would sound quite contemporary, right?

Well, in truth, what you get when you commit to the mammoth 33-track 3-hour plus triple album from Funkadelic is a little of both.

On first listen it is a confused mess of vintage and modern sounds, fused with the characteristic strangeness that marked the classic Funkadelic sound. It borrows heavily on modern hip-hop, with many of the tracks on the first disc sounding like offcuts from a lost Snoop Dog or Dr Dre album. That may not be a bad thing for some - there is nothing inherently wrong with hip-hop in this writer's view. However they seem to take the very worst aspects of hip-hop and ride them into town - leaden grooves that don't swing, reducing women to mere sex objects, horribly pointless usage of the dreaded Autotune function, and a gratuitous overuse of both the n-word and the f-word.

The irony is that Funkadelic heavily influenced Snoop and Dre, and yet Clinton seems to find it a wise thing to compete with them at their level.

There is still a bit of the old school P-Funk groove here, as on "Radio Friendly", but in this instance it appears to use the sound as a way of dismissing its validity; as if to highlight that that the preceding B-Boy/Gangsta style is somehow more artistically legitimate.

It's been mooted that the album has 33 tracks to represent every one of the 33 years that has passed since the release of "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" in 1981. It could also be inspired by the monumental multi-disc studio sets by Prince, such as "Emancipation". Either way, it is like most multi-disc albums and needs an editor. One third of the tracks fall into the 7-minute- plus category, and while P-Funk at their best could hold attention for long stretches in years gone by, most of the long form jams meander in one spot and never develop. The stilted groove the opener "Baby Likes Fonkin' It Up" would be more effective at half its 9:37 length. "Roller Rink" finds a smooth groove but never actually develops or progresses anywhere in the 12 minutes it lasts for. There really isn't any way to justify the inclusion of an irredeemable track like "F****d Up", whose lyrics amount to little more than a repeating of the title for the entirely of its 7:43 running time. "The Mathematics of Love" mines a more gospel-soul feel for an over-long 12-minutes length while churning out some occasionally questionable mathematical metaphors for sex.

George Clinton, throughout his solo career, has always changed his sound in an attempt to remain contemporary. A canny move, favoured by jazz legends like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, it is a clever way to shore up your audience with younger, hipper people as older fans drift off. In some cases he's been successful (see: "If Anybody Gets Funked Up") The difference is that where Miles and Coltrane were ahead of the curve and gaining new fans as they went, "First Ya Gotta Shake The Gate" in parts sounds like a conscious effort not to appease long time Funkadelic fans but to capture a segment of the lucrative hip-hop audience, They're no longer setting the trends, as they were in the 1970s, but rather pandering to existing ones. There is a lot of music to digest here, but like an album such as "Stadium Arcadium" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, itself an overlong multi-disc set, it works for the iPod generation where playlists can be made instantly or an occasional random track played at will. By dropping some tracks and re-sequencing whats left, you can make your own perfect album.

Taken as a whole, it paints a messy picture of some of the worst aspects of modern pop while looking back to some past glories, all framed in a classic P-Funk context. It might break new ground for P-Funk, but next to recent releases by other artists, it doesn't sound all that groundbreaking at all.

As per usual, don't just take my word for it, take a listen yourself below. There is a strong language warning for most of the album, however. Headphones are recommended.

Guide for Parents Managing their Children's Music Tastes

My kids have finally taken possession of their own music tastes. It's been dormant for a long time and it has just exploded with a vengeance in my house. It has manifested itself in the form of playing the latest tracks on Billboards Hit 100 singles, on MY Spotify account, at full volume. Sitting in the lounge room between two bedrooms at opposite ends of the house, you get similar sounding tunes clashing against each other in stereo, and it leaves very little space for me to play what I want to listen to. When I drive the kids to school I routinely get told to play other music more suited to their taste. It appears to be a rejection of and a reaction against any music that I stand for.

This happens in every household where there are children and parents. At some point or other, kids try to rationalise their tastes and define themselves in some way independent of their parents. You probably did it yourself. I know I did, and it drove my parents nuts.

So if you are being driven nuts by your kids and their music, how do you manage it? Here are a few ideas to manage this phenomenon.

1. Don't critique their music taste.

OK, so I don't necessarily like what the kids are playing music you don't like. Big deal. When our parents were loving the Beatles and the Easybeats, our grandparents thought they were the sole reason for the decline of civilisation.

It's at this point that the generation gap can either be contained or exacerbated. Your kids are going to see you as old and outdated and "uncool" by default, so don't give them any ammunition. My childhood listening experiences were often punctuated by my father poking his head in my room and asking "What's this shit, son?" At that point I knew I was onto a good thing. But on the other side, you are making yourself and your ideas on music instantly redundant should you try.

2. You don't have to like it.

In fact, liking some of their music is to place the kiss of death on it for the kids. And is there anything more ridiculous than a 40 year old bopping along with Nicki Minaj?

3. Engage with your kids and their music.

By now, your kids are not looking for your approval with what they're listening to. But they will still need guidance. Engage with kids and find out what they know about the music they like. Find out why they like it and you'll probably learn something about them in the process.

In my view a lot of modern music, specifically Hip-Hop, still presents a negative stereotype towards women and presents violence as normal and acceptable. If you're child is listening to Eminem or NWA or their ilk, it needs to be a discussion point to talk about these issues. Can they tell the difference between art as fiction and reality? It's one thing for people to talk about in their songs, but is it ok to copy those ideas in the real world? There's also plenty of great hip hop that doesn't trade in these ideas, so can you find some?

Adverse criticism will just drive certain listening habits underground. It's probably better to arm kids with knowledge on issues within lyrics as opposed to banning an artist outright.

4. Good Music is ageless and timeless.

There is a reason why Jimi Hendrix's face is still printed on T-shirts nearly 45 years after his death. There's a reason why Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" has just returned towards the top of the US album charts after 41 years. Good music will outlive us all and will always find fresh ears.

I reckon my kids are starting their musical exploration. They're looking for immediate gratification now, and will find the stuff that will stay with them for years to come as they get further into it. They're looking for their Beatles or Pearl Jam - a cultural signifier that will identify them and their generation that will stay with them forever. They haven't found it yet, but they will in time. Within time we will meet in the middle musically, as I have with my father. We don't like the exact same things, but I have found parts of his music that work for me.

5. This is a passing phase.

The Top 40 singles charts are a transient beast. More so now than ever before. Already, I see kids discarding hit singles of 18 months ago as "old" and "unworthy". And let's face it. There's a lot of stuff that my mates and I bought on 7-inch vinyl and cd-single back in the day that we would be embarrassed about now. In 10 years time my kids will be embarrassed to think that they even listened to "The Gummy Bear Song", let alone danced their little backsides off to it.

Out of what they listen to now, the good music will stick, the crap will be consigned to the skip bin of history soon enough.

Have we hit the nail on the head? What other suggestions do you have? Let us know in the comments.

The Musical History of Adelaide Part 3

Here is the final in our series of amazing talent from Adelaide, South Australia.

Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope are NOT the same band as the US psychedelic band of the 1960s. These guys play a kind of noisy, catchy post-grunge with a small degree of feminist leanings in the lyrics. Bassist Kylie Cowling and her partner Craig Lewis have been instrumental in nurturing many bands in the Adelaide area with showcase events like "Show Us Your Riffs" and producing music for other artists in their own studio.



The Superjesus
The Superjesus formed in 1994. They took their name in homage to the many bands who have "Super" and "Jesus" in their name (i.e. Supertramp, Superchunk, Supergrass, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jesus Lizard, Jesus Jones et al). They had a sound that was equal parts Smashing Pumpkins-esque gutteral rumble and sweet songbird pop, thanks to the layers of overdriven guitars throughout their music, with Sarah McLeod's sweet vocals floating over the top. Their lineup was destabilised after founding member Chris Tennant left in 1999, but then Tim Henwood joined and the band went from strength to strength. But then he left and the band laboured on for a final album as a three piece before calling it a day in 2004.



Testeagles
The Testeagles were a band that fused hip-hop, rap, techno and metal into a furious blend. Known for their fiery live performances, they have been plagued with issues with record labels, resulting in most of the music not actually reaching the general public. Their only LP, "Non Comprehendus", issued in 2000, summed up their sound in the most intense, speaker-damaging fashion, riding the wave of Nu-Metal that was current at the time (and they did it better than most of the better known exponents of that style), but were dropped by their label not long after it was issued. They laboured for the next few years, picking up many shows on the Festival circuit and called it a day in 2008.



Groove Terminator
Groove Terminator is a hip-hop DJ and producer who achieved notoriety in the late 1990s-early 2000s with infectious party jams like "Here Comes Another One". He has also mixed a few Ministry of Sound compilations and is still a highly sought after performer on the club circuit.



The Mark Of Cain
The Mark Of Cain formed in 1984 by two brothers, both ex-Army members, John and Kim Scott. It took the band four years to get their first releases out, on Sydney indie label Phantom, and their popularity was at its peak between 1995 and 2002. Their sound is extremely heavy and aggressive, inspired by combat, with songs like "Battlesick" and "Ill At Ease". They are a ferocious live band, and can count among their fans such rock music heavyweights as Black Flag singer Henry Rollins.


The Audreys
The Audreys are a rootsy folk band formed in 2004. Usually consisting of two core members, lead singer Taasha Coates and guitarist Tristan Goodall, the band is often augmented with a number of session musicians and live players for tours. Their albums are highly rated by critics and they have a solid live following.



The Mad Turks from Istanbul
The Mad Turks from Istanbul started as a power-pop band featuring a young Charles Jenkins (now of Charles Jenkins and the Zhivagos) on vocals. They were signed to Greasy Pop records in 1987. After the release of their first record, Cafe Istanbul in 1988, they relocated to Melbourne and renamed themselves The Mad Turks. After the failure of their second album, "Toast" in 1990, the band split up and regrouped in 1992 under the name Icecream Hands, and went on to be far more successful, with the ARIA nominated album "Sweeter Than The Radio" in 1999.



Hilltop Hoods
Hilltop Hoods are a hip-hop collective from the Adelaide suburb of Eden Hills. They formed in 1991 and comprise of MC Suffa, MC Pressure and DJ Debris. They are now one of the most well known, if not THE most well known, Australian rappers, but they haven't had it easy. It took years for Australians to warm to the sound of Australians rapping in their own accent, with most people only accepting rap music performed by Americans (the nation who actually invented the form). Despite this, in 2006 their album "A Hard Road" was one of the best selling locally produced albums that year. Their last three album releases have shot to the top of the local album charts and they have a voracious live following.



This marks the end of our musical trip to Adelaide. We hope you have enjoyed it.

Next stop, we head west to Perth. See you then.

Whatever happened to Hip-Hop?

With the recent release of Eminem's "The Marshall Mathers LP Part 2", I began to ponder "whatever happened to Hip-Hop"?  Upon listening to the aforementioned album, it's clear that hip-hop as a style of music really hasn't evolved or grown much. Indeed, Eminem hasn't changed his music much either for that matter.

So what happened? Probably nothing that any real hip-hop fans would be concerned about. However, for a style of music so innovative, personally I think its a shame that it appears to not have developed past its adolescence.

Hip-Hop is probably the last recent, genuine innovation in popular music. What started out as an underground phenomenon in the ghettos of New York City, has since gone global. It was genuinely innovative due to the fact that it fused existing recordings (usually old funk, soul, disco, and in some cases Krautrock by the likes of Kraftwerk) played on a pair of turntables, upon which the DJ would create a looped musical backdrop for an MC to rhyme over.

The MC spat out fast, breathless, rhythmic lyrics with mind-boggling precision, filled with street-wise references and clever rhyme schemes. Sure Bob Dylan may have attempted it or even defined the stream-of-consciousness narrative of fast flowing verse in the 1960s (see "Subterranean Homesick Blues" for proof, and he may not have even been the first), but on the streets of New York it was turned into an art-form by Afrika Bambaata, Grandmaster Flash, The Sugarhill Gang and The Rocksteady Crew in the early days.

These artists were street-wise but were very pop-music focussed. A tougher and more aggressive, in some cases socially and politically conscious, style was pioneered by RUN DMC and Public Enemy, with rabble rousing messages of hope and fighting the good fight for better services and rights within society. The Beastie Boys introduced frat-boy fun into the mix. And then...

...from the West Coast of the US, from South Central LA, came Ice-T and NWA, with a gritty, portrait-of-daily-life style music, painting a bleak picture of life on the streets: running and dealing drugs, hustling guns, armed robberies, police brutality, gang turf warfare all peppered with gratuitous references to violent killing and sex, with liberal use of profanity. For a while in the late 80s and early 90s, this music seemed genuinely threatening and people in positions of authority were affronted by it. But for once, music was dangerous again, and therefore exciting.

The problem, as I see it, is not that I'm offended by rap music's gratuity, but rather that this blatant shock tactic has become the rule rather than the exception; the standard by which one should make Hip-Hop. From where I sit, Hip-Hop hasn't evolved from what Ice-T did with "Original Gangster" in 1991. Ice-T made a habit of being violent, profane and sexually explicit in his music before everyone else did and now everyone is still doing that, 20-odd years later. It's almost as if it is a style of music in a state of arrested development.

Maybe, of course, that is entirely the point. As a teenager myself in 1990, listening to NWA on headphones for the first time, it did feel quite subversive to be listening to music that your parents would be righteously pissed off at you listening to. I'm sure, now in 2013, teenagers still feel the same about smuggling home a Kanye West album and hearing the shocking revelations and sensational stories within. Maybe that's why it hasn't changed much in 20 years - because the audience gets younger as older fans move on, and a new generation of teenage boys looking for that record guaranteed to piss off the parents discovers the music.

Even now, NWA is still frighteningly stark and pointed, the subjects spoken about by Obie Trice and his D12 posse are exactly the same as the ones sung on NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" in 1988. But what's probably more interesting is how Hip-Hop has been blended with other styles of music: with Rock (Run DMC and Aerosmith, Public Enemy and Anthrax), and with Jazz (US3, Quincy Jones on his "Back On The Block" LP).

Hip-Hop in Australia and the UK has taken a while to take off, not least because early exponents of the style in these regions were slavish imitators of US artists. Notwithstanding The Streets (UK grime MC Mike Skinner whose work was just plain awful, I thought) artists like Britain's Tinie Tempah are making huge inroads with their own unique British flavoured style.

In Australia, the Hip-Hop scene has flourished underground without much mainstream coverage. For years Aussie MCs have suffered from the cultural cringe: with rap seen as an American style, local types rapping in a Aussie drawl was seen as anachronistic. Mind you, through a hell of a lot of hard work, we've seen the likes of The Hilltop Hoods, Bliss 'n' Eso, The Resin Dogs, Drapht and heaps of others become successful on the festival circuit.  It's been a long time coming, mind you. Locally we haven't taken to Australian hip-hop much before 2006 when Hilltop Hoods' "The Nosebleed Section" became a surprise smash, without falling into the same repetitive trap as (U.S.) West Coast hip-hop has.

What's your view on Hip-hop? Is it still fresh and exciting? Or tired, repetitive and staid? Let us know in the comments below.

Cheers

News Roundup

Making for a varied post today, here's some of the most reported news stories this week in the world of music.

The music world is mourning the loss of two of its more recognisable names this week.

Firstly, Slayer guitarist Jeff Danneman died of liver failure at age 49 yesterday. He had been suffering from complications from a spider bite in 2010 and this is believed to be related to that incident.

Here he is in action with the band he formed in 1982, with my favourite track of theirs, "War Ensemble".



Also this week, hip-hop act of the 90s lost one half of their membership, Chris Kelly, aka "Daddy Mac". He dies of a drug overdose, aged 34. I wasn't much of a fan of their work back in the day, but the wearing of their clothes backwards was kinda cool.



The late, great James Brown had a birthday yesterday. Despite the fact he left us in 2006, he is still a legend. The sound he made with Bootsy Collins and the JBs is still one of the most played sounds around TSATF HQ and will be for years to come.

Here's the great man and his band circa 1970 with "Give It Up or Turn It Loose"



The Gaslight Anthem are touring Australia next week and I'm spewing that I have only just found out that they are touring!!! Meaning that all tickets are gone and I can't go unless I want to pay some overprices scalper for tickets. Dammit!

Here's one of my favourite tunes from their latest record "Handwritten", called "Here Comes My Man".



See you tomorrow.