merlyn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2023 9:27 amIt's certainly an oxymoron to have a punk rock virtuoso.
I suspect we're all in agreement there!
Maybe, but there is a tendency towards people wanting to eat their cake and have it. A band that are kind of punk, but people use the word 'genius' and maybe 'virtuoso' around is Cardiacs. You might have heard of Tantacrul. His composition lecturer recommended Cardiacs to him. They have some traction in academic circles evidently. I've tried a few times but I still find it a ghastly racket. I think punk is essentially anti-music, and it doesn't mix with angular, atonal melodies
merlyn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2023 4:52 pm
Maybe, but there is a tendency towards people wanting to eat their cake and have it. A band that are kind of punk, but people use the word 'genius' and maybe 'virtuoso' around is [Cardiacs].
Whoa! They're great! Thanks for that - best 'new' music I've come across in a fortnight.
But they're not punk, and they not virtuosos. I deeply suspect they're familiar with Zappa, though.
Just having a listen to a track or two and I'm reminded of Suede and Muse.
I don't think I'm musically clever enough to appreciate a lot of it though.
But that happens to me a lot!
The real Cardiacs aficionados like a video of them rehearsing the old stuff. It's a stripped down band, and for me that's a relief as it was sometimes the harmony that gave me a twinge. But this is pretty rackety. I think Tim Smith's punk roots are evident in the faces he pulls. Jibber and Twitch from their rehearsal space, dubbed The Rotten Shed.
It's very linear. A lot of it is doubling what Tim is doing, with the whole band in unison. Tim Smith appears to be most comfortable writing melodies or lines. Pretty weird melodies, but it seems endless lines poured out of him. There isn't any harmony in the conventional sense to speak of. I'm not too keen on the sound of triads played with distortion, and these are more of a rhythmic thing with a grating sound to me than chords as such.
I enjoyed that, and I'm impressed by how fast and tight they are, but I wouldn't call any of them virtuosos. Which is interesting, because each of them is a far better musician than I am. Obviously, 'plays better than awjoe' is not the definition of virtuoso. So, what is? You know what, I'm starting to think that although complete mastery of the instrument (speed, dexterity, nuance, creativity, improvisation, feeling) is necessary to be a virtuoso, that part of the definition is role - if the focal point of the arrangement at any point is your playing - if you take a solo in other words, displaying as many of the above characteristics as are necessary - you're a virtuoso.
Do you think that's more punky? The raw energy of punk with the fiddleyness of prog. Could call it pronk. The Sex Pistols play a Yes song. On acid. On a different planet.
merlyn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:19 pm
Do you think that's more punky? The raw energy of punk with the fiddleyness of prog. Could call it pronk. The Sex Pistols play a Yes song. On acid. On a different planet.
merlyn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:19 pm
Do you think that's more punky? The raw energy of punk with the fiddleyness of prog. Could call it pronk. The Sex Pistols play a Yes song. On acid. On a different planet.
Yes were often on different planets…
When I was very young, Yes, seemed to be liked by grammar school boys, I was from a secondary modern, and I was listening to Bach, The Shadows, The Beatles, and Morton Subotnic.
Hated Yes, still do, the thinking man’s James Last.
