Has Tony Blair Finally Gone Too Far?
Posted by: matthewr on 19 May 2003
Our glorious leader lists Free and King Crimson as his favourite bands. I think I just became a Brownite.
Matthew
Portrait: Rock on, Tony: 'I listen to what the kids play,' says the PM. So why is he still mad about a heavy rock track from 34 years ago, asks Stuart Jeffries
The Guardian
Wednesday May 07, 2003
Gone are the bad old days when we had rubbish prime ministers like Margaret Thatcher who, in all seriousness, chose the Beverley Sisters' version of How Much is That Doggie in the Window as her favourite song. Instead, we are fortunate enough to have a prime minister who is both sexy and cool. Sexy? "He is every woman's favourite shape, 6ft tall, good shoulders, lean hips, weighing just under 13 stone, less than he did 10 years ago," drools Valerie Grove this week in an exclusive interview with Tony Blair for Saga magazine to celebrate his 50th birthday. Cool? "Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly," the PM tells doe-eyed Valerie. "But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music. I listen to what the kids play."
But what exactly does the snake-hipped sexpot dig, rock music-wise? Mark Ellen, who 33 years ago played with the prime minister in the Oxford student band Ugly Rumours, disclosed on Radio 4's Today programme yesterday that Blair still loves Free and King Crimson. Free, you may recall, were a bunch of snake-hipped rockers responsible for such unapologetic stompers as All Right Now. King Crimson were of a different stamp. Their lead guitarist Robert Fripp often used to play live sitting down. Their lyricist Pete Sinfield had Wagnerian pretensions and deployed in verse an analysis of the human psyche that drew heavily on the work of Melanie Klein.
And yet it is one of King Crimson's songs that still weighs heavily on the prime minster. "I saw him not long ago and we spent about 20 minutes talking about the music we listened to at college," said Ellen. "We were talking about 21st Century Schizoid Man, which had an incredible guitar solo in the middle of it."
The track 21st Century Schizoid Man is the first on the 1969 album In the Court of the Crimson King, a record that bears responsibility for launching the progressive rock movement in all its misguided pomp, Tolkienesque noodling and sonata-form mellotron solos.
Sinfield's lyric for 21st Century Schizoid Man has a prophetic tenor that will be familiar to students of Blake and Orwell:
"Cat's foot iron claw/ Neuro-surgeons scream for more/ At paranoia's poison door./ 21st century schizoid man.
Blood rack barbed wire/ Politicians' funeral pyre/ Innocents raped with napalm fire/ 21st century schizoid man.
Death seed blind man's greed/ Poets' starving children bleed/ Nothing he's got he really needs/ 21st century schizoid man.
You can't tell me that the second verse isn't a prophetic critique of war in Iraq, nor that the third isn't a similarly insightful prediction of the paranoid-schizoid politician of the current century who has adopted, just as Klein envisaged, patterns of thought and experience characterised by blame, scapegoating, idealisation, persecution and other distorted perceptions. This much is suggested on Sinfield's website (
www.songsouponsea.com/Promenade/).
Yesterday, Sinfield could not be contacted to provide support for these interpretations, but it should be noted that he is a lyricist who likes to make gnomic political pronouncements. For instance, Sinfield wrote the words to Bucks Fizz's early 80s hit The Land of Make Believe, and recently claimed that the line "Something nasty in your garden, waiting, till it can steal your heart . . ." should be taken as having an anti-Thatcherite message.
But it's the guitar solo in the song that is more important to Blair. It is howling, angular, eerie, and lots of other words that one wouldn't have thought applied to the prime minister. It is also very difficult to play. In a rewarding discussion of the solo in the May 1974 edition of Total Guitar magazine, Robert Fripp was asked how he played the very fast bits. "It's all picked down-up. The basis of the picking technique is to strike down on the on-beat and up on the off-beat. Then one must learn to reverse that. I'll generally use a downstroke on the down-beat except where I wish to accent a phrase in a particular way or create a certain kind of tension by confusing accents, in which case I might begin a run on the upstroke." Right.
Sadly, we couldn't contact Fripp yesterday to get more playing tips to pass on to the premier.
No matter. We can still imagine the Blairs of an evening keeping the flame of progressive rock burning. Euan holds down the chops (rock slang for playing drums). Cherie bawls emotively: "Death seed blind man's greed/ Poets' starving children bleed". Then Tony, tie loosened, legs as wide as his suit trousers will allow, an orgasmic look on his face, makes an appalling hash of the solo to 21st Century Schizoid Man. Cool? Sexy? Perhaps not.
Posted on: 19 May 2003 by Kevin-W
At least he didn't say he liked Sting.
Kevin
Posted on: 19 May 2003 by Not For Me
Fripp
I think I saw Robert Fripp being interviewed about having his the wife "The Toyah" being evicted from the Celebrity Jungle.
Deduct 80 cool points for that Mr Fripp.
He still played it quite cool, keeping his leather jacket on while the rest were in thier stripped down jungle gear.
It is difficult to reconcile a man's work which can extend to some of the hairiest wank ever recorded (KC) to quite cool Frippertronic stuff on God Save the Queen etc.
DS
ITC - Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body
Posted on: 09 June 2003 by matthewr
Phil,
Welcome to the music room.
I can't understand your posts so you'll have to write a little more clearly if you want a reply.
It would of course be terribly churlish and slightly paranoid of me to suggest you another lame troll and ignore you so please do make the effort and allay my fears.
Matthew
Posted on: 09 June 2003 by Pete
Matthew, Fripp still (and always) plays sitting down. Point of fact: Pete Sinfield is writing for the likes of Celine Dion these days. Much that a lot of Crim's early output, as charcaterised by Tolkienesque (in terms of length as well as subject matter) whimsy, is horribly dated and deserves a place in the dustbin, it's preferable to Ms. Dion... (Celine Dion walks into a bar, the barman says, "Why the long face?", b-boom tssss!).
And it could be worse. 21CSM is still a piledriver piece today (never mind the axe, check out the drum part!), which you can't say of "Moonchild", for example (a prime slice of noodle if ever there was one).
Phil, you seem to be suffering from a severe case of snobbishplonkeritis. If you think all "Negro jazz" is of a lower order and plane of existence than , say, either of Shostakovich's "Jazz Suites" that just shows you either don't know the field as well as you think, you're prone to make ludcrously sweeping statements or you have hilariously bad taste. Or perhaps a combination of two or more of those.
Pete.
Posted on: 09 June 2003 by matthewr
Pete -- What do think Fripp would make of someone who loved early Crimm in 1968 but hadn't managed to find anything he felt was equally noteworthy some 30+ years later?
Matthew
PS The I was born in the 1920s and use outmoded and offensive terms like "Negro jazz" schtick is what said lame unfunny troll to me Pete.
Posted on: 09 June 2003 by matthewr
But this:
"I have just come across this contribution of yours to contemporary culture and am moved to
say that you seem to be getting a bit long in the tooth,in line with our glorious PM, to be turned on by such transient and ephemeral bits of 'pop' as you refer to; albeit under a host of different, but equally meaningless, names which I suppose makes you think you are still 'with it'(but in the shadow of younger bone-heads who right now are regarding you as an old fogey). One day you may, with a bit of luck, grow up music which can survive for centuries."
.. was addressed to me and is one long rambling sentence that makes little sense in itself and absolutely none as a reply to my original post and another sentence which, as Hyde pointed out, is complete nonsense.
But as I said you seem to be some kind of lame attemtp at humour / trolling so re-state your point in a form that can be understood or else try to be funnier.
Matthew
Posted on: 09 June 2003 by Pete
Phil, if you continue to show an inability (despite your amazing command of English) to use soemthing as basic and straightforward as quoting we'll just have to assume you're not as bright as you like to think you are.
As Matthew suggests, do try harder...
Pete.
Posted on: 09 June 2003 by fred simon
quote:
Originally posted by P.F.L.Purser:
The point is that whereas in 'my day'(1930's) I could quite enjoy Negro jazz I recognised at the age of 11+ that Mozart's to Shostakovich's contributions were on a different and superior plane.
Negro jazz?! ( ... stunned silence ... )
Uh, Phil ... it's 2003.
Even more important than mere nomenclature, though, is that in 1930 it was even more common than it is today to consider that the group of people Mozart was a member of was superior in
all ways --not just in musical achievement-- to the group of people which includes, say, Louis Armstrong.
And frankly, I don't see much difference between these two reprehensible attitudes; genrism is often born of racism.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by Pete
Phil, whether your attempts to be offensive are deliberate to start with or just a side effect of your "style", they're succeeding.
As to any given piece of jazz against K550, you seem to have missed the point that different music aims at different goals. For example, K550 is rhythmically rather backward when compared to all sorts of polyrhythmic examples not just from jazz but from a large amount of "primitive" tribal music. there's a lot of jazz that's good to dance to, where K550 isn't (and music has always enjoyed a strong relationship with dance, so that really is important to a lot of people). What evidence do you have that, say, Bitches Brew is meant to do the same basic job as Mozart's 40th symphony?
You appear to equate "I don't find as staisfying" with "is a load of meritless crap". Though I might apply that to your arguments, it doesn't work with music.
Pete.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by sideshowbob
"Negro jazz" is a profoundly offensive term and I suggest if you really want a debate, rather than a slanging match, you apologise for using it.
There's no excuse for being offensive. This is nothing to do with being PC, it's basic decency.
As to the (not very substantive) issue, ranking cultural production in this way has always been an idiotic endeavour, much beloved of snobs of all kinds.
-- Ian
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by Pete
quote:
Originally posted by P.F.L.Purser:
Clearly logic is not one of your strong points;
you are again substituting invective for argument.
Ah, but I did no such thing. I pointed out the fact that you come across as being offensive in addition to reasoned argued points on the matter in hand. Just because you can't tell the two apart doesn't mean they're not separate.
quote:
I have never said, or implied, that jazz is a 'load of meritless crap'. On the contrary I found it very satisfying when I was a 'teenager' but even then it did not stop me comparing it with classical music which I was studying at the time.
You have clearly implied that it's alright for kids but doesn't rate comparison in terms of overall merit with classical music once you're no longer a kid. Even if not an implication that it's entirely meritless that certainly appears as an implication that, at best, it's second rate.
quote:
As to dance music, you seem to equate that with jazz. They also danced in Mozart's day but not to his symphonies.
I don't (and didn't) equate jazz with dance music, I pointed out that a lot of jazz is danceable and K550 isn't as a way to illustrate my point that being "on a level with K550" is completely irrelevant unless that is the aim of the piece. Just as it would be foolish to compare a courtly dance in Mozart's Vienna to K550 on the grounds that the basic aim of the piece would be entirely different, as with jazz. "Different" rather than "better", and on a level in the same way that apples are level with oranges: both are fruit.
quote:
Please try to stick to the point if you intend to reply.
Please bother reading the replies and you might see what the point is, and thus how it's been stuck to, before
you do, and try and get up to speed with the quote mechanism: it's really very simple.
Pete.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by Pete
quote:
Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
Pete -- What do think Fripp would make of someone who loved early Crimm in 1968 but hadn't managed to find anything he felt was equally noteworthy some 30+ years later?
ICBW, but from what he's said I gather that he's quite happy for people to stay rooted on certain work from the past they enjoy rather than move on along with him. What he does appear to find excessivley dopey, OTOH, is people rooted in the past who think he should be as well, and who punctuate quiet moments at concerts with such insightful exclamations as "Fractured!", "What about Bill Bruford!" etc. instead of actually listening to what he's doing, or indeed paying any attnetion to the widely publicised material saying that only recent material is to be featured.
It would be very much frowned upon to go to an orchestral performance of a new work and holler out "Beethoven's Ninth!" in between (or even during) the movements. I think he just wishes the same level of courtesy would be applied to his work.
Pete.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by sideshowbob
How on earth do you know the PC lobby has dominated my life-span? You don't have the faintest idea how old I am.
"Negro" is not a word anybody who has any basic respect for others would use in the year 2003. Your appeal to the anti-PC brigade is the kind of simple-minded nonsense that I would expect from somebody who thinks culture can be ranked.
-- Ian
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by sideshowbob
You really are presumptious, aren't you?
FWIW I'm not Scottish, and you have no idea of my racial origins. If I was you, I'd be very careful about using terms like "negro" on a forum where you know nothing about the sensitivities of the people you are patronising.
Presumptious people tend to find their own opinions far more interesting than anybody else's, another reason for thinking you're not really interested in a meaningful discussion. I'll leave you to your facile Mozart v. jazz comparisons, and add some of my own:
- Mozart is better than jazz, because his music has been around for much longer than jazz
- Sufi music is obviously better than Mozart, because that's been around even longer
- Some eastern music is *even older* than sufi music, so that must be the best of all
There, what a useful way to think about culture.
-- Ian
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by Pete
quote:
Originally posted by P.F.L.Purser:
You only find this term offensive because you have been conditioned by the PC lobby which has so far dominated your life-span.
Not only can you still not fathom the quote mechanism, but you seem unaware of how PC actually works.
PC as it is intended to work is not to use a colour or race as a derogotary qualifier where there is no necessary derogotary implication. So a "blackboard" is okay because it's a board that is black and nothing is implied about its worth or otherwise from the colour. But "black sheep of the family" implies that black is bad, even though there is no behavioural difference between black and white sheep. Thus a problem is implied, apropos of nothing, with being black (there are people who've missed the point and object to terms like black coffee, blackboards, whiteboard etc., but just because they've missed the point shouldn't render the basic concept invalid).
Your use of the qualifier "negro" to "jazz" before saying it is on a lesser plane to something else carries an implicit insult. "Jazz" would have sufficed for your point, such as it is, but in specifically marking out "negro jazz" as a particular point you differentiate between "negro jazz" and any other jazz while at the same time denigrating it. You may be too obtuse to realise this and brash enough to wave it aside as "PC madness", but it is so. In fact, you go on to explain...
quote:
The reason I specifically used this term was because in those days all sorts of popular music (such as dance, and any syncopated music, was referred to by those who disliked it as 'jazz'). At that time one had to defend one's tastes by reference to performers/composers like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway to avoid confusion with the vapid contributions from performers like Mantovani!
... and here you go on to grossly insult all non-negro jazz performers of the time as by implication being vapid, and further make the sweeping assumption that any bandleading composers who happened to be black would be of the same order of merit as Duke.
You may not mean to be offensive when you do this, but you have the social graces of a bull in a china shop on evidence so far, and one who appears to think it's everybody else's job to tolerate ham fisted rudeness.
You've managed to offend several people so far. You don't seem to be able to entertain the possibility that rather than people being too easily offended, you're actually offensive (whether deliberately or not).
Pete.
[This message was edited by Pete on TUESDAY 10 June 2003 at 16:23.]
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by Lo Fi Si
Hmmm... Purser, Beverly, a bit abrasive...
You're not John Prescott in disguise are you?
Simon
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by JeremyD
To be compared with this particular purser has to be the worst insult Prescott has received in his life.
--J
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by matthewr
*Sigh*. He's a troll.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by fred simon
quote:
Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
*Sigh*. He's a troll.
Yes he is. But then, calling him a troll is quite a slur against the noble pastime of fishing.
Hey, I love a good argument, but I just don't have the time, energy, or desire to start at square one.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by fred simon
Not to disparage your ... um ... delightful graphic, lilolee, but I'm pretty sure the word troll, when used in this context, is not a reference to a nasty little gnome but, rather, to the practice of dragging a fishing lure through the water, usually from a slow moving boat; i.e., trolling for fish. Or, as in this case, argumentative fish like me.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by herm
That would be trawling, Fred.
I believe the troll image comes from an entirely different area of old-time life - a troll is a nasty mountain spirit who just can't let go. He just has to wreck havoc.
Herman
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by herm
Ban me, Nick. Please do it.
Posted on: 10 June 2003 by matthewr
Fred is quite correct. Troll comes from the fishing technique and refers to the subtle art of winning the confindence of fish/posters with bait/posts before springing the trap. Except nobody bothers with the subtle bit anymore and racist insults appear by the third post.
"The use of the word "trolling" comes from the fishing technique where a baited hook is dragged through the water, in an attempt to attract and catch a fish. Usenet trolling is the act of osting an article, or "troll" (baited hook) in a Usenet newsgroup (the water) with the intention of ttracting the native inhabitants (groupers) and provoking an emotional response (caught!). The phrase was originally coined as "Trolling for flames", where the posters intention was to incite a "flame war", the Usenet intellectual equivalent of a bar fightFrom
http://world.std.com/~Infinity/rightloop/alttrollFAQ.htmPosted on: 10 June 2003 by fred simon
quote:
Originally posted by herm:
That would be _trawling_, Fred.
I believe the _troll_ image comes from an entirely different area of old-time life - a troll is a nasty mountain spirit who just can't let go. He just has to wreck havoc.
Herman
As Matthew points out above, the sense of
trolling I cited is correct. However,
trawling and
trolling are similar; the former is to drag a large net or series of nets through the water to catch large schools of whatever gets in the way, the latter usually means for one fisherman to trail one line with a lure or bait through the water from a slowly moving boat, hoping to attract one fish at a time.
I guess in terms of internet etiquette, there are both trollers and trawlers. But, as nasty as some can be, the term has nothing to do with Nordic gnomes.
Posted on: 11 June 2003 by Pete
quote:
Now can we get back to discussing Fripp, Crimson & Bill Bruford, who's current line up in Earthworks is wonderful.
Didja catch Broof on Late Junction last week? He was, as ever, on good form. Tony Levin notes that Bill does interviews the way he does drum parts, which is never to do answer the same question the same way...
I've only heard the new lineup (Tim Garland replacing Patrick Clahar on sax) on the radio so far, but AFAICT they were good before and they're good now. Saw them live with PC a couple of times, very good on each occasion, and all 3 discs of the acoustic flavour of the band are IMHO well worth getting.
Blue Nights, by the Bruford/Levin/Torn/Botti band is jolly good for some less jazzy, more avnte-rocky sort of noise (as is the "Upper Extremities" studio album) and represents a sort of "which way Crim might have gone" if they'd filtered more towards jazz than D'n'B influences.
Pete.
