Let's talk about (musical) genre fusionisms

noisewreck

noisewreck

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SouthSIDE Glen said:
Here's an idea that just popped into my head. Anybody interested in the idea of starting an "alternative to vanilla music programming" (it would need a better name than that ;) ) thread in the Prime Time forum here where folks can meet to share sources (Internet radio stations, lesser-known record labels, specific syndicated radio shows or podcasts, etc.) and/or share specific artists or releases of particular personal interest as not being the same old Clear Channel/college radio pablum?
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This was a great idea from SSG and I would like to kick things off and see where this would lead us. Something that has been interesting me for a while are genre crossovers and fusionisms: bands/artists/composers that take a musical genre and perhaps either push it to its limits or mix'n'match with something else, be it influence or flat out mashups.

Two obvious examples of this that come to my mind are George Gershwin and Astor Piazzolla. One fused blues with classical music, while the other did the same for tango. However, I don't want to be stuck in the "classicalization" of genres.

So, if you know of any groups or individuals that do this kind of stuff (be it pro or semi-pro, CDs, MySpace, Soundclick, all sources are fair game) that float your boat, please post your recommendations. Fusions of any styles/genres with anything else are all welcome.

For example, lately I've been listening to a lot of:

  • Ozric Tentacles. Great fusion of rock, with heavy influences of eastern (especially Indian) music, mixed with new-ageish trance-y pshychedelia.
  • Eustachian. Experimental Metal/Noise/Hardcore.
  • Refuzer. Gabber/Darkstep/Drum and Bass.
  • COOH. Heavy Metal/Drum and Bass (he's OK, can get somewhat boring, but creates some interesting sounds that can be inspiring for other stuff).
  • Stratovarius. Prog rock with very heavy Baroque influence.
  • Juno Reactor. Mainly Goa Trance, but does a lot of collaborations with people that do African tribal music.

So, as you can tell, I have a tendency to lean towards hard stuff and electronica, although I'd love to listen to some unusual stuff that's not necessarily along those lines... sort of to keep SSG's original post's spirit, where we share our ideas, expand our horizons and get out of our "shells".

So, any Bluegrass/RnB? :)
Country-Punk?

Let's see where this goes :)
 
This isn't quite what I had in mind, but I'll run with it.

I'm not so sure if you'd call this fusion of styles a la Gershwin, but more of unusual use of traditional styles and rhythms for more unconventional themes would be much of what Tom Waits has done here and there over time, probably epitomized best in the album "Rain Dogs". Latin and Caribbean dance rhythms combined with New Orleans funeral marches and urban blues, all powering urban blue collar street themes and lyrics.

A much more - ummm, some would call "lame" version, but I'll take my lumps for it anyway - would be what Harold Wheeler does as musical director for "Dancing With The Stars" (American version), and is one reason why I actually sometimes like that show. Wheeler pulls songs from every genre and decade, from old war standards to classic rock to modern R&B and everything in-between, and arranges tome to match the tempo and needs of the dance style. Ever hear Police's "Roxanne" or Bowie's "Heroes" arranged as tangos? How about The Romantics "What I Like About You" done up as a waltz? There have been a hundred better examples even better, but I can't think of them now when I want to :(.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
This isn't quite what I had in mind, but I'll run with it.
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I know, but you inspired me to start this thread :) Figured this would be a good way to prompt a discussion that is somewhat off the beaten path.

I'd love to see more threads that sprout exploration, expansion and introduction.

Maybe a thread called "Golden Finds: Must Listen".

Sorry if I ruined your idea :o
 
Nah, nothing is ruined anywhere, George, not to worry. I was just positioning myself so that if this thread succeeds, I get credit for involvement, but if it dies, it's all on you ;) :D (JUST KIDDING! :) )

It's hard for me to think a lot in terms of genre-fication, because it seems to me that the majority of music out there (once one gets under the surface and away from ClearChannel radio) can fall into multiple categories or has such incestuous roots that it's hard to categorize. Is Kiss a rock band or a Vaudeville act? I think it's equal parts both. And how about Lyle Lovett? A country artist from Texas or a big band jazz leader?

While we're in Texas, though, there's another good example of cross-genrefication with one of my favorites; the recently deceased Clarence Gatemouth Brown. If Lyle Lovett is country jazz, the "the Gate" gives us Tex-Mex blues meets jazz combo.

Head west to L.A. and you'll find a guy named Rick Holmstrom. For those who think that blues music is a dead end, look Rick up as someone who had brought it into the 21st century with the album "Hydraulic Groove". Imagine Chris Isaac taking wicked country blues guitar and song style to the West Coast, giving it just a small pinch of surf music sound, and producing some some Robert Cray-like originals as if it were a hip-hop album, complete with fly-in samples old-but-new syncopations.

And speaking of bringing the blues into the 21st century, I can't pass up a hometown southsider who's made it big on the national stage (multiple W.C.Handy awards, heritage awards, etc.); Fruteland Jackson.

Fruteland has been keeping the blues alive and relevant by going back to it's deep roots and putting a modern spin on them in a way that's just plain eerie at times. Imagine pure, turn of the (last) century railroad chain gang holla' blues, with the only instrumentation being a bass drum downbeat and chain gang hand claps on the upbeat to the rhythm of driving in the railroad spikes with sledge hammers, while Fruteland leads the all mail chorus in a lament about working 9 to 5 on a go-nowhere office job, having a "pay day loan so SBC don't cut off my phone", and that (despite the sound of the song) he "never picked any cotton or split no rails/I traded in my hammer for a hundred e-mails". The name of the song, of course: "Blues 2.0". It's an absolutely brilliant update of the blues, making it brand new by making it extremely old.

Did I hear someone say they wanted a Japanese Jew who plays a virtuoso Hawaiian ukulele? Don't we all? Don't laugh, Jacob Shimabukuro can do things with ukulele you'd not believe. Check out the jazz transforms he uses in his version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which rocks out in the middle and ends sounding exactly like a music box that needs winding. I wish half the guitar players out there could do with guitar what this guy does with uke.

But I think the genre-buster that takes the cake for this e-mail would be a guy named Wes Cunningham. His being born in the Philippines and raised in Texas probably has a lot to do with it. But check out the song "So It Goes". It has your typical teen angst "She F*cking Hates Me" theme, but it has the feel of a children's lullaby, which is quite disconcerting when you are tempted to rock your baby to sleep with the lyrics "Go away, you're a loser" ;). But it's the music arrangement that is almost indescribable; a lullaby with a relentless, too-strong snare that dominates everything*, with musical elements that include everything from Spanish-style horn to Hawaiian/Tiny Bubbles-style pedal steel to Latino urban rap.

*This song/album was self-recorded and hand-shopped to Warner Bros. Its a fine example of home recording success, but I don't care how you slice it, that snare is just waaaaay too much, and a classic newb home rec'r mistake, IMHO.

G.
 
Cool recommendations Glen. I think of all those names mentioned the only one that sounds familiar is Wes Cunningham, and even then, I haven't really paid much attention to him. Time for me to go and do some fun listening.

Thanks for the recommendation on Jesse Cook too Richard, I'll check him out. LOVE spanish guitar (Paco de Lucia being my all time hero when it comes fo Flamenco)... Maybe I'll get my wife to shake her booty to it for me :D
 
How about "Do You Want My Job" by Little Village: Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner go Carribean protest folk with this pina colada mixed with toxic waste.

"Ain't That Peculiar" by Chocolate Genius: New York sucks all the joy and life out of Motown with acoustic dirge. Marvin Gaye on a valium bender never sounded cooler.

G.
 
i think for a true new genre to break out, something outstanding needs to be discovered and/or happen/ or simultaneously both

such as when the electric guitar was invented, or even maybe a new planet, etc., and when it happens it'll just happen, and we'll know it when it does
 
I'm not so sure that were talking about new genres here, but more about cross-breeding of genres,

And damnit, George, you got me started, it's all your fault :p:o. One more of my favorites to add before I forget it: C. J. Chenier, the son of zydeco legend Clifton Chenier. Check out his "Too Much Fun" album for a classic example of someone sitting solidly at the crossroads of 20th Century America. On the surface it's pure and true Creole/Cajun zydeco, complete with washboards and accordians and the occasional slip of French in the lyrics, but it doesn't take long to figure out - as in much modern zydeco - that there's evocations and sprinkles of everything from classic band jazz to 50's Happy Days drive-in milk shakes and poodle skirt rock to cry-in-your-beer country to Calypso, and more. The beauty of a lot of this zydeco melting pot is that it's often difficult to separate one genre from the other. Is that song rock, country, jazz, folk or French creole? Often times the answer is surprisingly, "all of the above". It's like one of those optical illusions where you're looking either at a flower vase or two faces looking at each other or both, depending on how you look at it.

An interesting sub-story there a cover song that is on there called "Man Smart, Woman Smarter". If I stopped here and asked the readers who did that song first (without cheating by looking it up on Bing or Google ;)), I'll bet you we'd get a fair distribution of responses including C.J. Chenier, Harry Belafonte, Robert Palmer, the Carpenters and the Grateful Dead and possibly others. That's kind of a major example of crossing genres in reverse (or is it inside out? :) ) It's also a great barroom riddle; ask your mates what song those five artists have in common and watch them scoff that the Dead and the Dead Carpenter have anything in common ;).

G.
 
cantthinkofname said:
i think for a true new genre to break out, something outstanding needs to be discovered and/or happen/ or simultaneously both

such as when the electric guitar was invented, or even maybe a new planet, etc., and when it happens it'll just happen, and we'll know it when it does
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Ask the Brits about this. I think they are the most guilty of comming up with genre names and sub-genre names for everything. Ever heard of skullstep? :D
 
(Snaps forhead) How could I forget? Lords of Acid "Voodoo U". Probably their most "rockish" albums mixing rock, industrial and techno. Whadda buncha sick puppies :D Gotta love their kinky sense of humor.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Did I hear someone say they wanted a Japanese Jew who plays a virtuoso Hawaiian ukulele? Don't we all? Don't laugh, Jacob Shimabukuro can do things with ukulele you'd not believe. Check out the jazz transforms he uses in his version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which rocks out in the middle and ends sounding exactly like a music box that needs winding. I wish half the guitar players out there could do with guitar what this guy does with uke.
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Just checked his website. Awesome musicianship! Hehe, he's got a music player on the "media" page... right now it's playing "Orange World"... do I hear some hints of bluegrass and texan line-dancing? :D

cool stuff!

And it is unfortunate that great musicianship isn't a prerequisite to "make it big" in this biz. This guy deserves a platinum.

And then there is him playing flamenco on the uke! This guy is friggin scary :D
 
noisewreck said:
And it is unfortunate that great musicianship isn't a prerequisite to "make it big" in this biz. This guy deserves a platinum.
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He was in town here a couple of years ago, playing a date at my old alma mater, The Oldtown School of Folk Music. I didn't see it myself, I only heard about it after the fact on the radio. He was playing warmup for someone else who was headlining; I think it may have been Louden Wainright, but I don't remember for certain. Anyway, as is often the case at these concerts, the majority of the audience had never heard of Shimabukuro, they were there solely for the headliner. The critic who reported on the concert said that at the end of Shimabukuro's set there was a standing ovation, and that when the headliner came on he was almost booed off the stage by the crowd who wanted more Shimabukuro.

Jake (it's easier to type than his last name :) ) is the official musician for the state of Hawaii, or something like that; it probably says on his website, but any public "fame" he has in this country is unfortunately strictly underground as far a I can tell.

But yeah, this guy doesn't care about "genres"; he covers the gamut from flamenco and Hawaiian native folk to classical to bluegrass and rock, and just about anything else you can think of, and usually manages to throw some new twist in there. Virtuoso has to be the word for this guy, but even more, he's *fun* to listen to. Check out and see if the song "Grandma's Groove" is on the website and tell me that that song doesn't at least get your foot moving and put a smile on your face about 2/3rds of the way through when he just opens up on all cylinders.

The best way to show this guy to someone else is to not tell them that it's a ukulele, just to say, "Listen to this guy". The response almost always is, "Wow, this guy is a really incredible guitarist, fantastic. But the engineer messed up because his guitar doesn't sound quite right." Then you jut look at them and tell them, "It's not a guitar, it's a little ol' ukulele" and just watch the look of shock and disbelief cross their face as they pick their jaws off the floor ;).

G.
 
Let's keep talking about "fusionisms", as this is fun and informative stuff. Very interesting stuff from you, George; and Richie, Jessie Cook kind of makes me want to open up a hipster hookah bar in Marrakesh (sp?) :D.

I'd like to open it up a little bit also by including where you guys go to find the stuff beyond the Billboard 200, including the crossover stuff. I'll start off with a couple of my own offerings from my orbit, as well as a question for all readers:

As most of you guys know, I like a wide variety of stuff from all over the world (Yothu Yindi, anybody?), but I have made almost a sub-hobby of sorts out of diving deeper into the US catalog and exploring the evolution of American-routed music from ragtime to hip hop. The interconnections between artists and supposed "genres" simply fascinate me, and the huge ocean of great music that the average radio listener has never heard because of the homogenization of radio seems almost limitless.

Two of my favorite sources these days for this kind of stuff:

"American Routes" by Nick Spitzer. This is a public radio program, an hour a week, out of New Orleans hosted by Spitzer who's a folklorist and professor of American Studies and communication, and knows more about music past and present than three of me could ever hope to know. He himself is a national resource. Each show usually has a theme, whether it's a certain topic (politics, seasons, money, etc.), a certain artist, a certain geography, or a certain genre of music, and he covers it all, from the beginning of recording to 2009. Often many interviews with seminal music makers that get into the music, and not the usual entertainment magazine questions. If you don't have an APR or NPR station near you, programs can be streamed from their website.

One of the coolest radio stations in the country, IMHO, is my second offering here: "The Whip", WWHP-FM [insert whip sound effect here], out of Farmer City (not kidding), IL. Their slogan is "Somewhere between Memphis and Chicago", which not only describes their location, but is a slick analog of what their music is like; somewhere between rural and big city, and including both. They describe it as "playing the best in blues, bluegrass, alternative and traditional country, rock, gospel and American Roots music", but I'd put an emphasis on the word "alternative". 90% of the stuff they play I'll bet you 95% of the people reading this have never heard of, let alone heard, before, but it some really great stuff. And once again, streaming available via the web.

It'll bust a lot of your genre beliefs to hell while you're at it. Country metal, anyone? How about gospel swing? Alternative bluegrass? It's all there if you look for or wait for it.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
George, you mentioned Gershwin earlier. Did you see this genre-bending news story out today?

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-brian-wilson8-2009oct08,0,2518188.story

G.
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Hey that's pretty cool! Would be interesting to see the outcome.

So... where do I go to listen to or buy stuff... Well, my favorite store in LA is Amoeba Music, simply because they have quite a bit of "underground" selection, although admittedly my favorite section in that store is the Industrial/Goth/Experimental section, where I've spent hours perusing through stuff. Having said that, I'll stroll through some of the other isles and grab stuff if it looks interesting. This was the only store I could pick up Pendulum's "Hold Your Colour" CD. One of the best Drum and Bass acts in the world, and a true testament of what's possible in a home studio when 3 talented people put their heads together.

Other then that, I listen to a lot of XM radio while driving (and I drive a lot) and Pandora.com.
 
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