Rawness

No takers on Rage Against the Machine huh?

Look up their first album and take a listen. Its not just heavy metal.
 
Gvdadrummasum said:
if you dig this you should check out stuff from their first album when they were totally raw
Click to expand...

True enough Gvda - you're the one who corrupted me with The Black Keys ... thank you :)


Mad About Drums said:
On a more tamed down approach, but still very "raw" in terms of vibes and sounds, there's Black Dub, a band produced and featuring Daniel Lanois :)

I Believe In You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_0zrd2u3uk
Click to expand...

Henri, that's exactly what I'm talking about. We usually associate "raw" with distorted guitars but ...


8Mile said:
... And all the best jazz had it.
Click to expand...

That's what I like most about jazz - the sounds served up without processing. Bop solos almost always go too long for me but I LOVE the sound of jazz drummers, big basses, piano and sax.

And I definitely think the best fusion is raw ... MO, Weather Report, Lifetime ... slick fusion (Carlton, Ritenour, Sanborn) bores me although it makes good background music.


8Mile said:
I can appreciate the perfection but I don't usually get a visceral response to it. There are exceptions, like Steely Dan, etc., but in general, I prefer things a little looser.
Click to expand...

Agree with PFOG - nicely stated. I love Steelies, Floyd, Crimson & Zappa but they are exceptions.


Pocket-full-of-gold said:
As Jimmy Page would say, "tight.....but loose."
Click to expand...

Good quote and an idea worth digging into in this thread. First thought is improvising between the changes ... getting all the most important accents together but otherwise not being too fussy.

It's like the old showbiz saying (source?) to the effect of - get the start and the finish right and the middle is nobody's business.


jafo said:
I've never heard of the Black Keys until this thread. I like thier music, but I think the music industry is so massive and wide spread now, alot of good bands get lost in the haystack.
Click to expand...

True. I only learned of them through DW too. Not mad on all their stuff but I Believe in You is brilliant.


HipshotPercussion said:
When I realized my own professional work "suffered" from a surplus of polish and that I couldn't break that pattern (and, believe me, I tried), I quit.
Click to expand...

Interesting, kind of opposite to 99% of the drumming world :) So you internally couldn't break from being slick or were you pigeon-holed and those were the only gigs you could get at the time?

I equate slickness with formality and looseness with casualness. I've always been a shorts and t-shirt gal :)


Toolate said:
No takers on Rage Against the Machine huh?
Click to expand...

Nah, sorry. I'm over heavy music for the most part. RATM are great - one of the three metal bands I like (love Tool and I don't mind Opeth), but I can only take them one song per sitting before I get "heavied out".
 
8Mile said:
Yeah, I love music raw, too. The White Stripes have brought that back into music over the past 10 years or so. And all the best jazz had it.

I can appreciate the perfection but I don't usually get a visceral response to it. There are exceptions, like Steely Dan, etc., but in general, I prefer things a little looser.
Click to expand...

I'll second that. The White Stripes are/were something to behold. As was Meg :)
I just think less is more always. And click tracks, and pitch correct, this correct and that correct, etc. and all the other gizmos are so evident in the recording process today...stinks. Not that I necessarily enjoy T Bone Burnett's Americana hokey stuff either... I like recordings underproduced and drumming underplayed.
 
larryz said:
I like recordings underproduced and drumming underplayed.
Click to expand...

Haha I relate. I don't know why - maybe listening to too much prog and fusion and hearing too much glossy new pop on the radio. Once you get over the wow factor it can feel a bit oppressive - all that musical rushing around and frantic playing and fussy studio tweaking.

Some urgency and tweaking is cool, but there comes a point where the magic can get lost through trying too hard. To my ears, anyway.
 
I believe it sort of brings a sense of connection.

Sound is visceral, it just says so much in an instant... you feel right away when the sound is not right on something... for example, if you listen to music by Amy Winehouse you get a sense of what a world of sounds it belongs with... or say, Fiona Apple... or Slipknot.

I believe that as artists come along that bring new (or re-bring) trends, sound comes along with it as a natural reaction.

The 80's was about being big, being the top dog... being happy, having the look, strutting your stuff and breaking away from the past... that brought a world of sounds, that were almost "a look".

The 90's was all about honesty, sincerity, being real, not being a showoff... it was also about crossing boundaries and experimenting, that brought other worlds of sound.

This last decade was about technology... about people owning music... artists are facing that there is not that big corporate music industry to aim for (or be angry at) anymore...... popular music and music videos are not the center of the universe anymore... so it's about expression, about craft... about being unique and passionate WITHOUT CYNICISM... someone can play tracks and record songs on their phone...so now, it's about embracing "HISTORIC" sounds... what was old and outdated 20 years ago, is now historic... there is no need for real connection anymore, sounds have become "historic", so artists like Amy Winehouse, Adele, The Killers, White Stripes, Black Eyed Peas, Radiohead and even Contemporary rock bands share this mashed up world of sounds and influences... which comes together with technology...

Being Raw is part of that ever evolving landscape.
 
yes.

rawness is where it's at.

rawness is like meat; some people prefer it more raw than others but very few
eat it totally raw.
 
My take on what's up with rawness is exemplified by the Grateful Dead. I love their early raw stuff. Later in life they got hung up on virtuosity over feel. The perception was that the crowd didn't want to hear mistakes so they stopped taking chances musically. They still had some free flowing improv jams all throughout their career but nothing like the early days when they weren't afraid to take chances.
 
Pollyanna said:
Haha I relate. I don't know why - maybe listening to too much prog and fusion and hearing too much glossy new pop on the radio. Once you get over the wow factor it can feel a bit oppressive - all that musical rushing around and frantic playing and fussy studio tweaking.

Some urgency and tweaking is cool, but there comes a point where the magic can get lost through trying too hard. To my ears, anyway.
Click to expand...

Are you familiar with Dawes?...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtxKFpJ39HM

It's not exactly "raw", but the playing is simple and well-executed. It's all about the song, not the playing.
 
Spectron said:
yes.

rawness is where it's at.

rawness is like meat; some people prefer it more raw than others but very few
eat it totally raw.
Click to expand...

=( I'm a vegetarian. Even so, I don't even kill my music before consumption. Raw is where it's at.
 
EricF said:
Are you familiar with Dawes?...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtxKFpJ39HM

It's not exactly "raw", but the playing is simple and well-executed. It's all about the song, not the playing.
Click to expand...

Thanks Eric, but I must have been giving the wrong impression - I am very happy for players to do cool things ... if the song needs that. Playing your bum off is fine, but overplaying in a song that would be better served by a less ornate part is just a pose IMO and is not interesting to me.


Dr_Watso said:
=( I'm a vegetarian. Even so, I don't even kill my music before consumption. Raw is where it's at.
Click to expand...

I'm a near-veggo - one serve of meal a week. Raw veggies are great (but not cabbage :)
 
Pollyanna said:
Thanks Eric, but I must have been giving the wrong impression - I am very happy for players to do cool things ... if the song needs that. Playing your bum off is fine, but overplaying in a song that would be better served by a less ornate part is just a pose IMO and is not interesting to me.
Click to expand...

I get it, and completely agree. It's all about serving the song appropriately, which (IMO) is a big part of being a skilled musician. There definintely are times where busy/complex/powerful is appropriate.

My example with the Dawes song was one where busy instruments or heavy production tricks would only distract from what is a beautifully simple song.
 
Guillermo said:
I believe it sort of brings a sense of connection.

Sound is visceral, it just says so much in an instant... you feel right away when the sound is not right on something... for example, if you listen to music by Amy Winehouse you get a sense of what a world of sounds it belongs with... or say, Fiona Apple... or Slipknot.

I believe that as artists come along that bring new (or re-bring) trends, sound comes along with it as a natural reaction.

The 80's was about being big, being the top dog... being happy, having the look, strutting your stuff and breaking away from the past... that brought a world of sounds, that were almost "a look".

The 90's was all about honesty, sincerity, being real, not being a showoff... it was also about crossing boundaries and experimenting, that brought other worlds of sound.

This last decade was about technology... about people owning music... artists are facing that there is not that big corporate music industry to aim for (or be angry at) anymore...... popular music and music videos are not the center of the universe anymore... so it's about expression, about craft... about being unique and passionate WITHOUT CYNICISM... someone can play tracks and record songs on their phone...so now, it's about embracing "HISTORIC" sounds... what was old and outdated 20 years ago, is now historic... there is no need for real connection anymore, sounds have become "historic", so artists like Amy Winehouse, Adele, The Killers, White Stripes, Black Eyed Peas, Radiohead and even Contemporary rock bands share this mashed up world of sounds and influences... which comes together with technology...

Being Raw is part of that ever evolving landscape.
Click to expand...

thank you for putting the last 3 decades into perspective. i think you've nailed it. kudos.
 
Pollyanna said:
Interesting, kind of opposite to 99% of the drumming world :) So you internally couldn't break from being slick or were you pigeon-holed and those were the only gigs you could get at the time?
Click to expand...
Actually, I was talking about my writing, not my drumming, and in terms of that my answer to your question would be "Both."

As an artist/writer/producer, I couldn't keep myself from automatically being slick/facile because I'd done it for so long and couldn't shake the pattern. And I was being hired precisely because I was so "professional."

It was no fun staying within the lines, even though I was the guy who'd created the lines, so I stopped writing and returned to music. The more chaos/craziness I could muster, the better. There's a groove to what I do, but it's more along the lines of the Brubeck-Morello relationship than a standard backseat-keep-it-going kind of thing. I play regularly now with a keyboardist who's into trading 8s and 16s with me and comping my solos just the way I comp his.

Feels very good to be free, and our audience really digs it.

Now if I could just get myself to write a TV series that way....
 
Hipshot, it sounds like you've gone from Welcome to the Machine to Solsbury Hill :)

So I went from day to day
Tho' my life was in a rut
"Till I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" he said "Grab your things
I've come to take you home.

I think we as drummers can get so caught up in the mechanical challenges we can underestimate the importance of our own emotions in the equation. Something else gets lost with our creative innocence.
 
Pollyanna said:
I think we as drummers can get so caught up in the mechanical challenges we can underestimate the importance of our own emotions in the equation. Something else gets lost with our creative innocence.
Click to expand...
I find this wonderfully insightful. But would add that in the world I inhabit it's not just drummers. It's pretty much everyone, one way or another.

Thanks for being so brilliant, Polly.
 
HipshotPercussion said:
I find this wonderfully insightful. But would add that in the world I inhabit it's not just drummers. It's pretty much everyone, one way or another.

Thanks for being so brilliant, Polly.
Click to expand...

Thanks Hipshot, far too kind but I take what I can get :) Yep, it's universal for sure.

I was thinking of how people often say that education creates a barrier between children and the way they experience the world. Eons ago I read about how a child will see a bird and have an unfettered experience of what the bird is. Then a well meaning parent will come along and say 'That's a bird" and suddenly the child isn't experiencing the reality of the bird but is trying to attach its form to an abstraction (ie. a word).

I see a TON of those losses in myself and I'm always struggling to get more deeply into the reality of playing (or anything else I do) without all the filters.

Seems that the tools we need to survive in the world are almost antithetical to clear eyed innocence, or at least take us away from deeper connections. Maybe that's why so many inspiring artists were flakes who could barely tie their shoelaces? :)

The other angle that was coming to mind was the Ringo / Meg debate - people are always saying that X drummer would have been better in the Beatles / White Stripes / Stones etc. But they don't think of how those other drummers would have felt if they were locked away with Paul and John controlling them for weeks and months on end.

Chemistry is a complex thing and slick is definitely not always more suitable. I wonder to what extent we can recapture that innocence - how much of the genie it's possible to get back into the bottle ...
 
Good raw

DSC_3245.jpg


Bad raw

rotting-meat-after.jpg



Good slick

vegetarian-dishes.jpg


Bad slick

burgers-2010-prague-013.jpg


:)
 
Finally! This is the thread for me! :) haha this is the music i love. The Black Keys are phenomenal, I'm going to see them in May with another one of my favorite bands, Arctic Monkeys. The have slightly moved away from the raw, energetic genre and into a more Queens of the Stone Age "stoner rock" type deal which i dont mind because their musics moving forward and maturing. They have some modern classics though, some of my favorites:

The View From The Afternoon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeQAZsyucbQ&feature=relmfu

Teddy Picker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2XBoxtcUA&feature=relmfu

Then there are the Libertines, who are about as raw as it gets for me haha.

Don't Look Back Into the Sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYsIESNtUc&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL95B2DF0D47500D63

Up The Bracket
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_g6zNuP_I&feature=relmfu

Hope you enjoy :)

P.S.
Toolate, dont worry, i didn't ignore your posts haha i love Rage. Tom Morello is a guitar God
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top