Sunday, May 27, 2007

Seven Ages Of Rock: Art Rock

Art Rock apparently started in the 60s with Pink Floyd in England and The Velvet Underground in the States.

Who took the baton in the 70s and ran with it? Bowie, Roxy and Genesis!!! That's who!

(Nobody else).

This selective categorising shit is doing my head in.

Still, we did get to hear Roger Waters' logic behind The Wall stage show where the Floyd were bricked up. It was because the lads' audience were beginning to FREAK him out by behaving like this...





Yes, like this...



Pretty damned scary, eh?

20 comments:

  1. I'm going to sample Waters' scream from that show and use it in a song. At least I'll be getting some use from that programme. Nevermind, it's punk episode next week.

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  2. Dave Gilmour once got some toilet paper printed with Roger Water's face printed on it.
    I don't think RW would have used it as he spends so much of his time up there himself.

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  3. Enough Floyd and Genesis to last a lifetime.
    And if we had to have Roxy I would have liked more of the other Brian.

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  4. I finally got round to watching last week's (Hendrix) nonsense. It was if all of the entries from Pseud's corner had been invited to a party.
    I suggest that if you like the music (and I find it hard to imagine anyone liking anything post 1970) then put a CD or MP3 on, rather than listen to this verbal wanking.
    love, peace and Ducks on a Pond

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  5. Istvanski - I've just looked at the line-up for the rest of the series. No pub rock? I am mortified.

    Murph - I think Roger should have bricked himself in for good.

    Kaz - Why why why were Floyd and Genesis categorised as "Art Rock"? They were PROG rock. PROG was one of the so-called 7 ages of rock. Does art rock mean having a light show? What a load of bollocks!

    Vicus - Trouble is I'll watch any documentary on the telly connected with pop music. The talking heads give me something to shout at.

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  6. I had a sort of Syd Barrett moment while watching that prog on Saturday. Somehow, the cable box seamlessly segued from Pink Floyd's 'theatrical' show at Earls Court to Mark Kermode waxing lyrical about Spacek and Sheen's on-screen chemistry in Terence Mallick's Badlands. For all of three minutes I thought this was some obscure reference to the 'drama' of the big Earls Court Floyd Show in 1978/9. I didn't realise until they went to a commercial break that I was in fact without realising watching 50 films to see before you die. I'm still not quite sure how it all happened. I didn't know cable boxes could do that.

    Pub rock will no doubt be included in the punk episode next week.

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  7. What the hell was Art Rock? I was around at the time (and paying attention big time) and I don't remember anyone ever using such a phrase. We had glitter. We had prog rock. We had the San Francisco sound. We had folk rock. But of art rock there was nary a whisper.

    Besides, didn't Pete Townsend start the Who at art school? But that'd mess up the neat categories that had him slotted into the first programme.

    Come to think of it, Eric Clapton and John Lennon went to art school as well. Sort of.

    It was great seeing Bowie at Hammersmith after all the nonsense had finished, though.

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  8. This "Seven Ages" nonsense is doing my head in. How can you talk about "ages" when most of it was happening at the same time?. Velvet Underground and Hendrix? Same time. Velvet Underground and Hendrix and Led Zep/Sabbath? Same time. Punk? Well, wasn't that influenced by the Velvet Underground etc.? Stadium Rock? First stadium concerts? Wasn't that the Beatles? "Alternative"? Wasn't that originally the MC5 etc.? It all happened at the bloody same time, didn't it, and then somebody hit shuffle/repeat?

    What on earth are they talking about with this "seven ages" nonsense?

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  9. I will watch the whole series I'm sure but it is an intensely irritating and contrived piece of work. A bit lie Roger Waters really. Dave Gilmore was a hottie though.

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  10. Romo - That sounds horrific. I do anything to avoid Mark Kermode. He does tend to follow me around - the Kermode lookalike Scientology rockabillies were in town again a few weeks ago.

    Mark - I can't see anyone watching this series taking it seriously. Most of the bands I like from punk were a lot more arty than Genesis and later Floyd, too.

    Bob - On the website they've got the dates of the Ages and they do overlap. Apparently heavy metal is the longest running age and died in 1991. And blues based rock ended in 1970! Yes, completely wiped out, just like the dinosaurs.

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  11. Realdoc - I can't wait for the stadium rock programme. U2, The Police, 80s Dire Straits, 80s Broooooooce!

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  12. Pink Floyd are all looking rather portly these days; especially Gilmour.

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  13. Mark Gamon said...

    What the hell was Art Rock?

    and I cannot but agree. Laurie Anderson and David Byrne spring to mind but any rock band openly calling itself 'art rock' is asking for the kiss of death.

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  14. Billy - That's what you get for having a sedentary stage show. Look at Iggy Pop for the other extreme.

    Dick - I would have thought art rock would be more avant-garde than Genesis or Pink Floyd.

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  15. One of the most irritating spectacles in rock had to be Peter Bloody Gabriel mincing around the stage in his painfully contrived 'wacky' costumes. The prawn.

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  16. When I saw Genesis in the late 70s Phil Collins was rushing around stage in a flasher mac. That was my equal worst gig (with REM).

    Still preferable to Gabriel's get-ups.

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  17. Didn't the Seven Ages of Rock invent the term 'art rock'? Rock? From art? Don't they mean art-school rock in which case it would be the 194,00 ages of Rock - ie: a contrived nonsense but good for footage nostalgia. I was expecting this week to be much more interesting and exciting than it was. No doubt I will pour scorn on the punk episode next week. The Stiff Records doc will be hard to beat.

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  18. Talking of prawns.... what about the cocktail that was the Sensational Alex Harvey Band?

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  19. Romo - Pub rock documentaries are always better than punk ones. I'd rather watch the Kursaal Flyers doc a hundred times than the new one on Joe Strummer once.

    Arabella - He may have been a prawn but Alex was King Prawn!

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  20. Sweet and Sour Prawn.

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