thombo

thombo

@thombo

high-intensity soulful whiteboy

i miss websites

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thombo
@thombo
lynnedrum
@lynnedrum
lys
@lys

i have great respect for a number of these genres here, especially gabber, chip, and jazz. something being on here doesn't make it bad. and ultimately, whoever likes whatever is fine by me. however, some of you have entered my post to defend electroswing, and so i will tell you how i feel. please do not take it personally.

i have unending, red-hot, riotous contempt for the stain on history that is electroswing. it bastardizes house music and jazz, two essential traditions of Black joy and creativity, down to their most vapid textural elements, and repackages them for white audiences. it is an aesthetic mush-soup with no redeeming qualities beyond keeping its makers and consumers from bothering others. it is music for straight kinksters, or instagram polyamory influencers, or people who somehow manage to be snobby about circus arts. it is, as one commenter put it "steampunk [...] and not the good kind."

you will take your love of this thing and keep it far away from me as possible. stow it with your meme mashups and pirate metal. begone.

edit: for the love of God stop telling me you like Caravan Palace, they're fucking bad and you are not helping your case.

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in reply to @lys's post:

amelyssan
@amelyssan

i went with ame to a brass band show down here last month and when they started playing some louis armstrong my jaw dropped from the lushness and density of the harmony, like it does every time i hear a good brass band or big band in person

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lys
@lys

it is one of the rarest and most precious things in the history of all music that Louis Armstrong could be such a transformative, world-shifting genius -- in not one, but two, instruments. he remade what it was to sing or play trumpet for everybody. his stuff rules. big band rules. jazz is the best shit on the planet.

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Inumo
@Inumo

Okay clarification, higher standards for "1920s jazz revival" music (e.g. Postmodern Jukebox covers). I also firmly believe that there could exist a hybrid genre of Jazz/Swing Music and Electronic that results in something cool & quality, but nobody has done it successfully yet.

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Codarobo
@Codarobo

I have respect for Serbian artist Gramophonedzie’s seminal “Why Don’t You” (one of the very first breakout hits of electroswing that I’m aware of) and essentially nothing else. I heard this for the first time at the Detroit Techno festival, Movement, dropped by Carl Craig of all people, on the main stage in I think 2010. It went really hard at the time. I have not heard a single other good electroswing song ever

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modulusshift
@modulusshift

You know what, I'll bite, what's the crash course on 1920's jazz in particular, because being honest I've always been more of a 30's and later jazz guy myself. What do I need to dig up, give me that crackly vinyl (or shellac I suppose) goodness?

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lys
@lys

hell yes hell yes hell yes

recommend for the Original Dixieland Jass Band; any claim about them being the "original" or the first to make jazz records is specious to me, but they were an early working band with some important records.

you're also definitely going to want to listen to The Wolverines, who were an influential territory band in the '20s midwest. bix biederbecke is an essential figure in that band, he arguably invented the jazz ballad, but like everybody is important in these bands.

also of huge, great, important note: King Oliver, Sydney Bechet, Clarence Williams, so many others.

on the late great phil schapp's website, you can find the "traditions in swing" show, which often is more '30s but absolutely touches the '20s. free radio broadcasts with an educational bent, so worth your time: https://www.philschaapjazz.com/sections/traditions-in-swing

note that once you start digging you are going to find bands with racist names, either imposed by white promoters or adopted by the bands themselves; this was how you got work back in those days.

FALL IN WITH THE PACK -- AND DIG THE SHELLAC!!!

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Horza
@Horza

Whilst I have enjoyed listening to Caravan Palace I think I can understand what you're saying about it being... shallow?

I think my main takeaway here is to go listen to some of that stuff you suggested to modulusshift and expand my horizons XD

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