I have spent most of my morning at work listening to Deicide and Cephalic Carnage, on Saturday night I saw Merzbow at ULU, and it got me thinking: why is the UK so rubbish at producing extreme music?
The US and Japan have it nailed down. Who in the UK sounds anywhere near, say, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or even to a lesser extent, something like the Locust? Then of course, you have the other type of extreme with stuff like Sunn 0))).
Japan has the aforementioned Merzbow, Masonna, and bands like Boris who do doom/drone just as well as the Americans. Then they have their 'pop' music with bands like Polysics and Melt Banana. And they do amazing psych with bands like Acid Mother's Temple and Boredoms.
What do we have in the UK? nothing really. We've had fleeting moments of greatness with bands like Throbbing Gristle, but all in the UK is terrible for anything that isn't mainstream pop/indie/rock.
So, why do you think this is?
Napalm Death?
Godflesh?
Jesu?
Final?
Techno Animal?
<3 techno animal!
Nurse With Wound?
hm
1. Less people in the UK anyway
2. Mentalists like Merzbow and so forth have their excitement factor raised because they're not from these shores I've lost count of the times I've exaggerated the appeal of a ridiculous band by prefixing it with 'this norweigan hardcore band' or 'these aborigine marching bands' etc etc
3. $$$
:D
you beat me to it!
.
Electric Wizard?
.
Black Sabbath? Who basically started the whole shit.
.
Fudge Tunnel?
^^^^
Carcass?
Cathedral?
.
Bolt Thrower?
errmmm
pretty sure Whitehouse were around before most of the bands you mentioned..
^
Because its just not British
to get all overexcited like that what, tally-ho.
.
Extreme Noise Terror?
Scorn?
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earache_Records?
:D
Cabaret Voltaire?
Test Dept?
Belle & Sebastian?
Bennet?
Mum's gone to iceland?
Giver her more cash dadda
be a big flash dadda
Did we win?
Good.
Modified Toy Orchestra
Kylie Minoise
Lol Coxhill
DJ Speedranch
Panic DHH
To name but a few...
bit of a genre jag tehre mate?
I would hardly say the first tow are the best examples of the genre..and they were jonny come latelies
Not a genre JAG at all
The way Modified Toy Orchestra create their music is definitely non-conventional, and Kylie Minoise is one of the more extreme artists in this country.
Tortuga
but then
for all these great acts we have Fuck Buttons..
but then
for all Japan's great acts they have Boris..
Polysics sent me a myspace invite!
My claim to fame.
.
maybe it's because you obviously don't engage with uk happenings?
there are SO MANY incredible outsider / weird / gonzo / avant / free / heavy projects going on within these borders.
pointlessly microcosmic example:
YORKSHIRE alone has astral social club, sunroof!, ashtray navigations, bridget hayden, the telescopes, vibracathedral orchestra, mick flower, ocelocelot, turgid animal, blackest rainbow, all those rad chinchilla bands, singing knives, harmonic rooms, termite club and much more besides. and probably other things i don't know about seeing as i've never lived or spent any amount of time there.
just start exploring.
Is the termite club (Leeds, yeah?)
still going??! I used to love that shit back when I lived there in the mid-late 90s.
Vibracathedral orchestra are ace too.
sunroof is ace
telescopes are nottinghamshire, and shit now
Telescopes are Staffordshire
and shit now.
... are they moving across the country,
getting shitter and shitter?
Could be
By the time they reach Northumberland you'dprobably be advised to avoid at all costs.
srsly
I really liked Telescopes when I saw them a couple of months back. That was the first time I'd heard of them though, and I dig Bridget Haydn's stuff generally.
And that's kind of the point.
There are loads of little projects all over the place, but we've yet to produce that's incredibly inventive, extreme, and popular.
I mean, it's not simply a case of these bands just existing, how many of them have had any success?
Take Sunn o))) for example. For the kind of music they make they are MASSIVE. Could a British doom/drone act ever sell out the Royal Festival Hall or the Forum? No. We're just not as good at doing it.
And do we have ANYONE that comes close to say Boredoms for shere 'out there' factor? No. And even if you could name someone, they would play in the back room of a pub to about 3 people. We simply don't produce highly successful left field bands (in relative terms of course).
Don't engage with UK happenings?
I AM the UK happening darling.
Yeah!
Termite club still runs as far as I know.
DOWN I GO?
A number of very good bands have been named,
some of which I know, some of which I don't.
I will give Napalm Death their dues, I have no doubt that when they started out it really was something new and exciting. But to modern ears something like Scum comes across as a bit weak (maybe it's the shoddy production?)
But starting something doesn't necessarily mean you're the best at it, and that's the problem. Where the UK have been very innovative in some respects I just feel the US and Japan have taken these foundations and taken it to a level that the UK can only dream of.
For every band on this list, ther'll be a foreign act that do the same thing but faster, louder, heavier.
So I guess the point is that the UK does produce some good extreme acts, they just can't compete with their international counterparts.
(And some of the bands mentioned don't even count: Electric Wizard and Sabbath are the obvious two. Good bands, but not 'extreme' bands)
Aphex Twin
Boards of Canada
and i'd say the whole prog thing was pretty non-conventional, at least in it's early stages.
Also theres that whole oxford experimental scene
so bands like elapse-o, traktors, divine coils, holiday stabbings and hold my hand I'm dying.
Rape Alarm
Ruptured Spleen!
Ok, I made that up.
WHITEHOUSE
I'm amazed no one mentioned them (unless I missed it)
They did.
You missed it.
A lot of people have missed the point of this thread.
I didn't say the UK doesn't produce extreme bands, so simply giving a big list of bands isn't really answering the point. Nor is it proving the point the the UK produces GOOD extreme music.
You said:
'Why is the UK so rubbish at producing extreme/non-conventional music?'
I haven't just listed bands that I think produce said music and are shit, I think they are all great. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.
The fact that most of the bands I've mentioned are now defunct either tells you
a) There aren't as many good British extreme bands as there were a few years ago
OR
b) I'm hopelessly out of touch.
I dunno but when it comes to combining it with pop elements we seem to do pretty well
see: Cutting Pink With Knives, Fuck Buttons, Rolo Tomassi- all noisy, but all also very fun.
65daysofstatic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't emphasise enough how great this band are, even that many exclamation marks doesn't do them justice.
they are good
though I wouldn't really class them as extreme/non conventinal....
Of course they are.
???
How can they possibly not be?
Read the first post
Look at the artists GG has made references to.
They're not extreme in the same way, no.
How do you define "extreme" though.
my definition of extreme certainly
wouldn't extend to bar chords played over some shitty programming.
Extreme:
"of the greatest possible degree or extent or intensity"
Is that a dictionary definition?
That doesn't sound right. Intensity?
Absolutely
Why doesn't that sound right?
It doesn't have to be intense to be extreme.
People use words outside of what they're supposed to mean so often these days that it's almost impossible to use words accurately 100% of the time, I hate dictionaries.
how he did?
65* are just post-rock
with the odd sub-Warp beat and sub-Phillip Glass piano part. This may be your idea of perfection, but they really aren't extreme.
autechre
johnwiddop basically answered it in one of the first posts
much smaller market so harder for extreme acts to get big and internationally noticeable + foreign acts seem more exciting.
This, inadvertantly, answers my question with an answer that raises another question.
I agree, foreign acts DO seem more exciting. Rightly or wrongly, i'm probably more inclined to check out an extreme band if they're from Japan than if they're from Hull. But why do they 'seem' more interesting?
Also, in terms of there being 'a much smaller market', I can't really agree with that. When the 'big' US and Jap bands come to the UK they play prett sizeable venues, so the market clearly exists, it just seems the market is less interested in home grown talent. Why? Maybe because the stuff the UK is producing simply isn't as good?
maybe
but I think the market thing is still relevant. In the US and Japan more extreme acts can make a living and build up their international profile much more easily than they can in the UK. Therefore when they are ready to tour they can play decent venues. It is hard for UK acts to do the same because only a fraction of those people who attend "big-name" foreign act gigs would bother going to see a less well known act.
yeah
i always wonder about this this as well. im not from the us or uk (so am not biased either way) but the uk really does seem to be musically lacking. there's more exciting, forward-thinking bands from brooklyn than there are in the whole of the uk. as i said, im not from the uk so my views are probably misinformed but i get the feeling it's a result of the sort of tabloid culture in the uk; nme hyping etc. also seems to be a bigger emphasis on 'making it big'? i dunno.
So is your question why aren't uk extreme bands as popular? or you genuinely think they are inferior
fetishism?
No
The same thing happens elsewhere in the world.
The foreign, in the most literal sense of the word, is often perceived as exotic. On a more pragmatic level, the very fact that a band is touring/being distributed in another part of the world gives it some kudos, even if that is misplaced.
Perusing the list of UK bands
I can't help but think most of the suggestions are kind of proving GayGuevara's point.
Besides the whole industrial/United Diaries thing 25 years ago, the UK has been pretty poor at knocking out extreme bands. Yeah, there have been some but but given the wealth of of the UK's music output, it's been pretty sparse.
Nurse With Wound and all the World Serpent Distribution Artists
Coil, Death In June, Current 93
The World Serpent artists ruled in the 90's. Coil and Nurse With Wound have pushed the noise envelope and yet remain listenable- which if you think about it is important cause anybody can get the gear and melt people's faces off, but when an artist is avant garde and still viable substantively than you can still call it art- THEREFORE NOT LAME!
Cutting Pink With Knives?
I'd say they're a pretty good example of non-conventional music a la The Locust.
No way.
I like CPWK, but they're totally different to the Locust. The Locust are way more 'tech'.
...
There's probably some kid on a Japanese music board wondering why Japan can't come up with any bands like Dream Theater. And then he'll probably go on to Social-kansatsu-ken and talk about how the rape of Nanking wasn't all that bad considering.
It's all perspective.
ultraviolence
from Nottingham.
gabba, gsbba
10 MILLION BEATS IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!
support them once
at Sam Fays (then it was hooters, now dont know what it is)
was a top night, though the constant stroboscope and pre-gig er..apertifs nearly caused gazbid to collapse.
* supported
o rly?
interesting
If you don't think Britain can produce anything exciting...
Biffy Clyro's take on Buddy Holly by Weezer. Oh yes.
Infact, Biffy in general.
This is a joke
right?
this thread is
bullshit
No, that's your face.