Psychozoic Hymnal 8 - Not 2
70’s
Richard Thompson
A Brit equivalent to Midwestern rock, Richard Thompson held bands for forty years. The attraction latterly is the guitar work, about which a book could be written—the reverse bends, inverted phrases and so forth. The bands are often the same personnel, expert‐beyond‐you, with an inevitable backbeat and cute moves. No wonder the bands are not credited and have no identity—this professional clockwork is about as unadventurous as it gets. How English, for everyone to respect a class hierarchy. Records and tours are issued like magazines—a legitimate base for artistic production, except implies they may have powder, which they don’t. I am waiting… until Brits stop believing in Empire.
Deep Purple
Whose rock was more of an angular jag, and whose roll was light and accurate tension across a phrase. Which was at first used within a covers band to shape shards of church organ noodle and zig‐zag lead guitar. After three albums that was ditched for hammerhead rock. They were never metal. Rithm was rave by millimetres. They were a clean band, no pop frills. Even if this is a collective hard rock their instruments, through all band changes, were distinctive. What can you expect from journalists working with minimal lyrics? Must be one of the biggest groups ever, but officially claimed as underrated. Lasted fifty years retaining only the drummer.
Yes
Instead of leaning on a bend, Yes interjections were likely to be a scale or arpeggio at double speed. And rithm will drop out at or near a chorus. Song melody often has large leaps and is made of two bar ripples. They soon figured snippets of electric drive and/or burbling bass could carry verse‐sections. Aside from song arrangement, everyone plays at once. So far, so Jazz, except Yes pre‐figured parts against each other, or in unison—solos were for album‐fills. And any time signature offers them linear space. Also, the pre‐figuring allowed attention to timing flexibility. So why are they not primary? Because they’re a rock group that captured the exuberance of a string quartet, but so abandoned the use of drums to explore timing. That’s why, to fan disappointment, they were as useful with the supportive Alan White as, say, Bill Bruford. Formal.
Budgie
Dig through any metal collection and five from the end you’d find a black hole spun from these guys. Budgie were a three‐piece, stayed that way—a music director would have strung these songs but Budgie would have none of that. Prog art‐work and non‐prog humour further dislocated them. No sooner had one of the riffs or tunes, informed by Hendrix pedals, got a grip, than the composition would swing over a note and into something that was half‐length or up‐not‐down. No 7/8s, bone chords, yet tricky as a spilled toolbox. Comfortable in the hard rock, so maybe not for the hymnal, everything they issued burned. J.C. I recall called them ‘cut up’. Rare music that can wail ‘I can’t see my feelings’ while it shows you how bad that is.
Wire
Wire did something that would seem impossible—they created a new form of music composition. Being an arty band, they told us what it was, how it worked—‘Dot Dash’. Though the tunes are great, they were not going to breach the charts often, but musicians listened—you’ll often catch an echo of Wire‐work. The art showed in lyric and melody, as they sang expressionistically about panic or dislocation. J.C. marked their drummer as effective—unusual for an English punk band but, like their world‐interaction, the band passed messages between boxes. By the time of the return (for maybe the fifth time) of ‘Read It and Burn’ they’d conceptualised themselves into musical shape. But still had much to fret about.
80’s
U2
Errrm, they had a good rithm section. A very good rithm section. Which placed them with Dire Straits and… some experimental punk bands and… I struggle. To the derision of many lead guitarists, lead guitarist The Edge chugged and dabbled with effects on top, but represents a seam of largely non‐rock guitar sonics that has been important ever since. In contrast, lead singer Bono used his powerful voice to railroad political slogans. ‘The Fly’ suggested something may crawl from the larve, but what? Somewhere between a British The Guess Who and a public service announcement… clearly, many people could use this.
Husker Du
Driven by the unfairness of life they, unlike the power‐popsters of the day, were never ironic or clever. Out came short songs in standard form and comfortable. Instrumentally their dead‐on rithm section pinned the beat while guitar distorted and fed back so heavily that on many sound systems it was impossible to hear what went on. Their playing backed them from guitar manglers, and the sound despite a late deal shovelled them from mainstream to college radio. An occasional acoustic number exposed them as singer‐songwriters, but likely only two minutes from rage exploding. A sonic original of pop form.
Sonic Youth
People mention this—they started as part of collectives gathered to perform theatre and Western Art Music, chamber pieces, symphonies, and so forth, but using electric guitars (and sometime other home‐made instruments). This offers many possibilities but to avoid cramp needs clear direction and work. They experimented more then is recognised, trying open‐ended harmonic picking, settling on a lyric approach of positivity about confusion, adapting to song structure, exploring rock jams with formal rigour. And picked up the drummer they needed, and the time that took showed they knew what they were at and walked those roads. They never smashed the charts, but were viable for touring and sales, and lasted until personal relationships brought them down. Composition originals for sure, and powerful also. But for all the drama‐in‐structure performance, which they understood from the off, they were about the evolving guitar shape.
Guns ’n Roses
They had a rangy rithm section. As hard rock. J.C. remarked they were an end‐point of the crawl from the producer sterilization of the mid‐70’s. Except they had nothing on top but a devolution from the Stones through Aerosmith and Montrose. J.C. called it as a ‘boring archetype’. As for corporate, only way they could have topped their efforts was if a producer assembled them. Though self‐assembly seized the claim for every company and journalist result. Christgau notes the expertise, which was very Eighties. But no note on the rebel pose which, much as it meant anything may have been ripping jeans for the cameras. No musical genius—depends what you call as rock but a long road from sainthood. Effective—millions of plays and history says so.
Stone Roses
Cute tunes, cute performance and forthright story songs put them over big as pop. Um‐puck rock and wandering roll. The much discussed connection to dance music is to be heard mostly in touches of effects and some arrangement moves with funk‐like rithm figures. J.C. mentioned that, of all the Pop groups of the Eighties, Ride and this group were the two with rock and roll in them. It’s a strong factor in why this group seemed important to audiences, while journalists struggled with if the pop meant something or nothing. The group broke new ground by defying journalistic stories of mental difficulty or personal difference by providing sum of zero product. With only two albums and a single in their career, journalists set for waving a managerial finger at them for failing to capitalise on their brand.
90’s
Nirvana
Not enough has been said about lead singer Kurt Cobain’s “I found this and it works for me like this” songwriting. Somewhere near “Anyeurism” he developed song progressions too, or a form of progression he could stand for. The band brought what they had to the fragments, then practised until it moved, or wouldn’t play at all. But it was always about engaging with the fragments. This gave them angles others did not, and pop. Pop‐wise it was original not once but repeatedly; as rock it was strong but synthetic not organic. Though most comfortable with the electricity, they were more complete without, where the drums could stir the guitars, not pin them.
Radiohead
If you think guitars, drums and songs make rock, Radiohead are rock (so is some Joan Baez). And some think shouting and banging is rock, but I say there’s art in the analysis of numb response to educated and dislocated grievance. But of course the result is beautiful detail, with hyper‐sensitive respect between all, which is a new Steely Dan. As they craft those studio sounds, under which rithm clatters and blurts. While an increasingly self‐aware self‐loathing yearns, sighs… remember, Kraftwerk loved their electronics. Thirty years on and people still don’t seem to know what it meant or means. It was special. And some people will call anything with drums “rock”.
System Of A Down
This was mostly hard rock, not the metal many took it for. The downtuned guitars a feature that backed rock‐rap seizures, or jerked in when distrust became a howl. On top was a cut up of moves; chanting, prog dropouts, double speed moves, and melodic fragments that may have had folk origins but got caught up in the ache and frenzy. Two lanes of plea and declaration to drag the listener in one way or another. Work and thought pulls this into coherent musical tracks with an unlikely pop appeal, if perhaps lacking a dynamic. Too late for the hymnal, verges on the canonical.
Spirit Caravan
They were taglined on posters as a modern Black Sabbath, which may have at the time made sense for an audience, but not much else. A heavy and committed variant of seventies hard rock, think Montrose, so half‐speed drums, they lead unusual with short electric guitar shapes not as intro but integrated (handout, that and dual guitars edge heavy also). Shaped to songs of spiritual ills—also original given their hard rock was of hardcore origin. Perhaps these thoughts were more to be explored than directly expressive. Part of the mapped but unsaluted heavy trails hacked by St. Vitus. Had they arrived thirty years earlier they’d be legend, but at the time were lucky to raise twenty audience, half of who were there for the beer.