Hammerin' Hank Rollins on djs, rave, and modern rock

[der nister]

I think Henry needs to accept his own challenge, put out some new tunes.

[youtube]<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AyRDDOpKaLM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AyRDDOpKaLM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[Deebank]

Oh yes! Rave, it's the hippest new groove kids!

Has Hank been in a bunker for 18 years?

Otherwise he's right on the money. A mate of mine used to make 'rave' tunes in exactly the way he describes!

[lividlunch]

Rollins talks like an idiot and is a lousy excuse for a TV personality nowadays, but he's got a point. Also this clip is very old. I mean he's talking about Creed for crying out loud, that hasn't even been on the radio for over a decade. The rave stuff still isn't on the radio. You have to seek out that "Euro music shit".

[Insouciant Western People]

Ironic that a man who can't sing a tuneful note and writes some pretty awful lyrics at times is lambasting the makers of electronic music for being talentless, and 'not real musicians'.

Particularly because he first rose to prominence in a band and scene that fiercely championed the DIY ethic and deliberately positioned himself in opposition to the establishment. Some of what he says is indistinguishable from the kind of dullard muso bleating that characterised the worst excesses of the 'disco sucks' movement.

[Piggly Wiggly]

He sounds thoroughly ignorant, and every bit as out of touch as has been suggested upthread.

[Charlie O.]

Also ironic given his apparently lucrative career as a guy who just goes out on stage with a microphone and rants. I do like some of his music and writing - a little of it - but I've never thought he was particularly good at stand-up, or "spoken word" or whatever he's calling this, and don't understand why anybody would want to pay to see him do it.

[Deebank]

Rollins is absolutely on the mark about how much techno was churned out in this way. Get Soundforge Acid. Loop some drums - James Brown is good for this. Shuffle them on a bit to make them sound slightly different. Do the same with a bassline sample. Stick on a few chords if necessary and a add some vocal or dialiogue samples. Do a bit of arranging in Acid and Bob's yer uncle - dancefloor anthem. Fatboy Slim come on down!

Not always a bad thing of course, I'm all for technology making creativity easier. It wasn't the technology that was bad, just the way it was used... Although Hank seems to be blaming ProTools and Autotuner, this goes way back to the early 90s.

[der nister]

Less of a blowhard here, great story about meeting James Brown:


[youtube]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Xn1UdYsKOcI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Xn1UdYsKOcI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[The Modernist]

Ironic that a man who can't sing a tuneful note and writes some pretty awful lyrics at times is lambasting the makers of electronic music for being talentless, and 'not real musicians'.

Particularly because he first rose to prominence in a band and scene that fiercely championed the DIY ethic and deliberately positioned himself in opposition to the establishment. Some of what he says is indistinguishable from the kind of dullard muso bleating that characterised the worst excesses of the 'disco sucks' movement.

Absolutely right.

[bobzilla77]

Dude likes guitars better than boop-beep-boop? What else is new? Hardcore punkers in the 80s were some of the most limited people I've ever met in terms of accepting other music. More rules about what's "okay to like" than you can shake a stick at. Not clued in? Hint: it's not okay to like hardly ANYTHING.

It must be said though that Henry's Infinite Zero label reissued many, many out-of-print canonical records during the 90s... Entertainment!, Black Monk Time, Duty Now For The Future... I ran into Henry at an art exhibit last week & mentioned how much I liked the label, and he seemed very pleased.

[Charlie O.]

It must be said though that Henry's Infinite Zero label reissued many, many out-of-print canonical records during the 90s... Entertainment!, Black Monk Time, Duty Now For The Future... I ran into Henry at an art exhibit last week & mentioned how much I liked the label, and he seemed very pleased.

Not to mention Trouble Funk, Flipper, and Matthew Shipp! Truly a great label, I wish they'd carried on.

He also published a book of Roky Erickson's lyrics and writings, as well as buying Roky some new teeth. An okay guy, really.

[lividlunch]

Rollins is absolutely on the mark about how much techno was churned out in this way. Get Soundforge Acid. Loop some drums - James Brown is good for this. Shuffle them on a bit to make them sound slightly different. Do the same with a bassline sample. Stick on a few chords if necessary and a add some vocal or dialiogue samples. Do a bit of arranging in Acid and Bob's yer uncle - dancefloor anthem. Fatboy Slim come on down!

Not always a bad thing of course, I'm all for technology making creativity easier. It wasn't the technology that was bad, just the way it was used... Although Hank seems to be blaming ProTools and Autotuner, this goes way back to the early 90s.

Yeah, I'll piggyback on this. Who cares if Acid is so easy that a five-year-old could figure it out? It's fun! It's a limited palette, surely, but it doesn't mean it's a totally uncreative enterprise. I wouldn't want to make a record using that as my sole tool, but still... fun to mess around with.