(1)
Lester Grimes doesn't know why Herc uses two record players to play songs at the same time.
For him, if the music on the record player had nothing to do with Blues, it probably wouldn't interest him any more. It's just the way Herc plays the record that attracts him - Herc's fingers are gently rubbing back and forth on the record, carefully aligning the groove where the stylus is to be aligned. While the other turntable was spinning to a dance-like rhythm, Herc used his monitors to capture the passages he needed on the other record, but Lester and the others couldn't hear it. When the time is right, snap it! Herc released his fingers while switching the volume of the two turntables. A Kool & The Gang's "Jungle Boogie" fits seamlessly into the climax of James Brown's "Get Up." It's a little weird for Lester to see that Herc doesn't need to change records to get the two songs together.
At this time, in West Bronx, New York, where Lester and Herc live, because of the decline of traditional blues music specializing in blacks, bars where bands and artists perform live are no longer the mainstream entertainment trend, and are replaced by It's a disco where people don't sit still and listen to music, but instead dance with Funk and Disco played by a loud and sophisticated sound system. In this transition, DJs who are good at manipulating turntables to switch songs naturally become stars. In 1972, Anthony Holloway, nicknamed DJ Hollywood, first saw and learned the "mixing" technique of records. As long as he can operate it, he can switch between songs without any blockage. The DJ, who can control the record while reciting rhymes through the microphone, may have only vaguely felt that such a performance would excite him. He didn't realize he was becoming an artist as a DJ.
Although the disco is noisy and indulgent, it's still not that free-spirited. Around 1973, in order to dance in a disco, the first requirement was that you must be at least eighteen years old. Secondly, you must also dress for formal occasions, at least look rich enough. In short, a disco is a place for adults to consume entertainment. It is clear, however, that teens are the real audience for this emerging entertainment, despite their pockets. DJs and party organizers are finding ways to move dance music from the discotheque to the home or the street. Herc is such a home DJ.
DJ Kool Herc, formerly known as Clive Campbell. On August 11, 1973, his sister Cindy Campbell was throwing a birthday party. In their apartment at 1520 Sedgewick, Herc's dual phono sound system finally came in handy. They rented the rec room in the basement of the apartment, made some handwritten flyers saying "DJ Kool Herc's Party", and waited for their classmates and friends to file in. In the cramped family basement, Herc turned on his record player in front of the eager black teenagers. Most of these young people don't like listening to the racist scrutiny of mainstream radio stations such as WBLS, or the serious dance music played by DJs in Bronx discos. So Herc picked the funk music that he liked too. James Brown's "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose," Booker T. & the MG's' "Melting Polt"...these songs are raw and brutish, with strong bass beats and the psychedelic vibe of vintage synths that make these black Teenagers can't stop. Especially in the climax of the song, when the drum beats, every child imagines that he is James Brown, twirling and dancing to the rhythm. In response to such a strong demand for climactic passages, Herc invented a new DJ technique based on the original "mixing" technique. He let the two record players play the same record, and repeatedly switched their climax sections, so that the original climax section, which was only a few tens of seconds, was completely extended to the length of a song, and then replaced with a new song. This technique requires the DJ to pay more attention to the turn of the record, so Herc can't talk or sing while operating the turntable like DJ Hollywood. He opted for a division, with a singer named Coke La Rock rapping lyrics to Herc's accompaniment. The two became a duo, and for the first time ever, this DJ+MC duo started acting as a band.
Thus, on August 11, 1973, the 1520 Sedgwick apartment in the Bronx, New York, became the birthday and birthplace of hip-hop music.
The Bronx has always been a populated area of African-American and Latino populations in the United States, with loose security and frequent violent incidents, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, when gangs ruled the streets and ruled by separatism. Here, too, blacks did the opposite of white segregation. The night Richie reunited with Lester, Herc was throwing a party in the apartment, and if it wasn't for the gangster to scare him with a gun, maybe Richie could witness the birth of a musical history. Intimidation and robberies are also the things that black DJs fear most at parties, whether the gig is outside or in a club. Clive Campbell was nicknamed "Hercules" (Herc is short for Hercules) because he was born burly and strong, and most gangsters were reluctant to provoke him. But DJs who don't look that good aren't so good. Joseph Saddler, the DJ nicknamed "Grandmaster Flash," is figuring out how to improve his DJing skills while avoiding the gang.
Saddler believes that the biggest flaw in Herc's DJing is that he can't completely accurately capture the beginning of the climax of the song, and there will inevitably be some delays when switching records. By chance, Saddler discovered that scratching the record back and forth while turning on the volume of the turntable was easier to catch the beginning of the passage than by visual and monitoring to find the groove of the record where the climax was, and such scratching also made the turntable sound. The unique electric current sound, after careful practice, the excitement of this sound is no less than the sound effect of a real musical instrument - "scratching technology" was invented. Like his nickname "The Flash," Saddler cuts and scratches records surprisingly fast. He made it the first time a DJ could actually use a turntable as an instrument. While his fingers "ravaged" one record after another, the DJ's musicianship became more and more prominent.
Saddler's "The Flash and the Furious Five" became one of the first influential groups in hip-hop music. It took them a few years to sign from the playground of 63rd Middle School in the South Bronx to the legendary black music label Sugar Mountain, working with rock bands like Blondie, Queen and The Clash. In 1980, Blondie's album "Autoamerican" included a song called "Rapture", you can hear the rare Rap passage of frontman Debbie Harry, this song comes from "The Flash and the Furious Five". One of the MCs, Keith Wiggins, nicknamed "Cowboy", later coined the term "Hip-hop".
"The Flash" and friends, left with Blondie frontman Debbie Ha
These are later stories. In the winter of 1973, "The Flash" was just a 15-year-old DJ kid, and the playground of 63 Middle School was barely his territory. It wasn't long before a club owner and party organizer named Ray Chandler opened the door to him and the band, and "The Flash" began performing at the Black Gate club. The club is less harassed by other gangster groups because it regularly pays protection fees to a gang called the Casanovas. On top of "Casanova", the larger underworld organization is the "Spade Gang". This organization started in the 1960s, ran rampant in the Bronx neighborhood, and expanded to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in the 1980s, and it is still one of the most feared African-American underworld in the United States. In the early 1970s, several big gangs, such as "Gang of Spades", "Savage Skeleton" and "Savage Herdsmen", divided the entire underground world of the Bronx, especially for entertainment venues such as discotheques and party scenes in the area. With added control, DJs and singers cannot communicate, let alone support each other, which greatly hindered the spread of early Hip-hop music. Also, these DJs, MCs, and breakdance kids tend to be competitive and have friction with each other, which in turn provides a detrimental quality to gangster control.
Back in 1964, British movie star Stanley Baker made a movie with the background of "Angola-Zulu War", the title of which was "Zulu". The 19th-century Zulu indigenous army in the film thwarted the invasion of the well-armed British Empire at the Battle of Isandwana. Nearly 40 years later, Peter Jackson used it as an inspiration to create the "Battle of Helm's Deep" in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In the United States, the film did not receive a license for distribution on DVDs and videotapes until 1991, and it failed to earn any decent box office that year. However, an inexplicably burly "Gang of Spades" member named Kevin Donovan watched the film and felt an inexplicable excitement.
Kevin Donavan grew up in the Bronx River District, a region with a thriving disco and party culture and a major jurisdiction for the "Gang of Spades." Fierce-faced and quite black "Godfather" Donavan makes other gang members intimidated, but his hobby is not fighting or drug trafficking. Donavan is an excellent DJ and party organizer. As a DJ, he is good at cutting out paragraphs suitable for dancing from various styles of music, not just limited to Funk or Disco. As a member of the "Gang of Spades", he often has to navigate the intricate gang boundaries of the Bronx. The gangster, who is obsessed with music and parties, is very unhappy with the fact that gangs are fragmenting the music scene. He differentiated from the "Gang of Spades" as an independent organization, not involved in violence, vendetta and other crimes, but committed to promoting DJ events and dance parties throughout the Bronx. This organization with a gangster background is more likely to get involved in the DJ circle with chaotic forces and violence than ordinary teams. Donavan picked a name for the organization from the "Zulu" that made him feel hot - "Zulu Nation". He himself changed his name to "Afrika Bambaat" after a trip to Africa.
The Bronx's young DJs, party-goers, and break-dance teens, hearing names like "Zulu Nation" and Bambata, traveled from far and wide to the Bronx River to see their gigs. They have no regard for the dangers of crossing the gang's sphere of influence. And Bambata saw that dance music did have the power of a Zulu warrior—they could replace the feuding gangsters and violence of the Bronx with the division of DJs, MCs, and break dancers.
As a result, in the mid-1970s, three top DJs emerged in New York to focus the early Hip-hop scene on the West, South, and East Bronx music forces. The three DJs are "Hercules", "The Flash" and "Africa Bambata". Rap and dance parties blared through the night in various areas, DJs competed against each other's DJ skills, break dancers competed for gorgeous dance steps, and graffiti artists tried to paint beautiful flyers and streets for their party circles graffiti. New York was buzzing, party-goers and cutting-edge art speculators flocked to the parks of the Bronx to listen to these unprecedented music, and ripped tapes and records were taken everywhere to play. At this time, these black teenagers with large portable tape recorders were already more arrogant than gangsters. Rap music does not rely on radio and record companies. Like a chariot full of Zulu warriors, it proudly shuttles throughout New York City.
The record player swirled, the footsteps of the break dance jumped high, the microphone spit out black lotuses, and the "Hip-Hop Nation" was born.
(2)
This song by The Nasty Bits in this episode has a name and a name, and it is one of the representative works of "prototype punk" by Genzheng Miaohong.
The original song of "What Love Is" wasn't from a New York band. On April 14, 1974, just as Television was standing on the CBGB stage for the third time, Patti Smith was about to be inspired and Lenny turned their duo soundtrack poetry reading combination into a wild horse-like punk band. That Easter mid-spring, there was some movement in Cleveland, Ohio, more than 700 kilometers away. The big steel-industrial capital is anything but New York for its openness and fury, and its prodigal sons are unknown. If the virtual The Nasty Bits sang "What Love Is" by Rocket from the Tombs in today's TV series, I'm afraid no one would remember that there was a little bit of punk flames here.
Rocket from the Tombs hasn't officially released a single work during the team formation period of about a year. If you listen to their "album" that has been dug out 15 years later, you will want to pinch if you can't finish listening to one song. Dropped - as if the strings on the bass and guitar were never tightened, and the drummer had a hard time hitting any beat. There's nothing ear-pleasing in there. At their scene, beer bottles must also be smashed.
After a year of mixing, Rocket from the Tombs quietly disbanded, splitting into two bands. Lead singer David Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner formed a band called Pere Ubu, and the rest formed the Dead Boys. Surprisingly, the former is actually a post-punk band. At this time, there are still many years before the Sex Pistols sang in Manchester City (June 4, 1976), and the British sons and daughters under them formed Joy Division and The Smiths respectively and ignited the black wave of post-punk for many years. Compared with his performance in Rocket from the Tombs, Pere Ubu's David Thomas sang clear and compact, with a neurotic texture that was not yet awakened by post-punk at that time. It sounded a bit like Yang Haisong, the godfather of post-punk in my country. While David Thomas has worked diligently to run the Pere Ubu flag to this day, he is rarely recognized as one of the pioneers of post-punk rock. Railroad Cleveland didn't take Rocket from the Tombs or Pere Ubu any further.
Peter Laughner, the guitarist of these two bands, passed away at the age of 24, more anxious than Jim Morrison, who fell in the bathtub. Like many young underground rockers of that era, he adored Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, but on the other hand he liked blues or folk greats like Robert Johnson or Woody Guthrie - "Lou Reed is my Woody
Guthrie, enough amphetamines, I can be a new Lou Reed! "He could play the guitar like the pickups were full of amphetamines, and when he put it down, he started another job with the grace of a writer and music critic. After he died, he also ate music from his pen. The famous music critic Lester Bangs wrote a eulogy called "Peter Laughner is Dead" in his memory.
Laughner was addicted to drugs and died as a result, and he fantasized about an amphetamine-sustained mania in the form of idol Lou Reed In Lester Bangs' memories, the last time he saw him was on the streets of New York, with sunglasses and leather jackets, and a red T-shirt with holes in it. He was full of despair like a black hole. Maybe it was because of Lou Reed that he was eager to touch the underground of New York. Soft and hot punk loam, but burnt himself to the ground. At CBGB, Laughner desperately climbed on stage to jam with Patti Smith's band, but was kicked down by Lenny Kaye. Sad punk is like a bohemian youth who is desperately following the old hippies, he wants to learn from their wandering, poetry, music and drugs, he wants to be them, but the old hippie says to him in turn, "You're too decadent, we can't hang out with you anymore. <
Picture 10>
The Velvet Underground detonated plastic explosives in Warhol's apartment more than ten years ago. More than ten years later, the black smoke helped ignite the roaring wildfires in some people's guitars and microphones, and also burned some people crazy about indulgent explosions of infatuation.
Lester Bangs and Peter Laughner met through Creem magazine. This publication, known as "the only rock magazine in America" in the 1970s and 1980s, was inspiring and influential. Lester joined the magazine editorial board for writing a feature interview with Alice Cooper. Although a friend died because of his infatuation with Lou Reed, Lester also responded with strong recognition and sincerity to the Velvet Underground. He believed that the band was irreplaceable for pioneering the modernity of rock music. The spiky stance of MC5, The Stooges, etc. is already a sound that is ahead of its time, and should no longer be wrapped in the hard rock and garage rock of the 60s in their framework. In May 1971, "Creem" magazine opened the door, and the word "Punk Rock" was used in rock music for the first time.
View more about Vinyl reviews
