right, finally got a bit of time... thanks for postin this kareem, bigup ahmad, hope he's not in a piss wiv me anyway........

12 tone was something i used to mention off handedly every now and then, dunno if u picked it up from me or came up with it independantly but i'll tell you the source as it came about in my head...

the end of the last live music era 1979 saw Britain's last original music until Jungle 95:-

TWO TONE - London Irish Jamaican crossover it was mainly with "the Specials" being the main representatives and Madness being "the big act" - Madness was all London boys no Jamaicans or Irish but that section of soceity was the source of the vibe... Ska and Punk were what was rockin it in London '79, Punk was what the world saw, the great Rock n Roll swindle., the sex pistols, the end of rock and roll, pure speed freak noise...

the MUSIC was with the ska but the money chose NOT to sell that as the money tends to do (sell the crap and hide the quality, "the public wants what the public gets... that's entertainment", hence the lack of friends on this site)

so the world heard punk
(contd)

 

what do u think of be us bass3 on my profile?
 

delete this and last comment, shoulda put it later...
 

(rub blog contd)

Music History - the 70's - 80's crossover

then the 80's happened, automated faders and midi ushered in the age of the producer in the studio and technics 1200's ushered in the age of the DJ in the dancehall... the evolution of music until this point had gone from four piece 3 chord rock and roll to 8 - 12 piece, horn sections, backing vocals, sophisticated chords, rhythms and melodies... while James Brown and the funk bands were rocking America, the Ska bands were rocking the UK...

BIG bands, for the first time properly since the 20's

the market killed this... where James (R.I.P. - l.o.v.e) used to tour from west coast to east coast and PAY ALL his musicians while making money for the promoter and entertaining the crowds - now the promoter can fill up the club and make it dance and only have to pay ONE DJ - playing James Brown records ironically enough... why would he want to fork out 12 wages on the night?

this was the end of the big band - which had far too short a reign - live music peaked and passed into digital...

in the studio, in the 70's (UNTIL the 70's), the producer NEEDED a band that could PLAY THE SONG... for real... now, in the 80's, he could seperate off the singer from the band (easier to screw for the publishing), build up the riddim with a drum machine, get a session keyboard player to play any amount of variations of the chords - the sound of which could all be changed AFTER the player left the studio (here's your 20 quid, that music's MINE now, fuck off - the birth of the session player)... get a sax player to solo over the whole thing four times (here's YOUR 20 quid) and just use little bits of it using the automated faders... he didnt even bother to WRITE a sax line, he just wants that bit of a sax sound to make the people FEEL like they're listening to music... and now he (the producer) doesn't need to deal with fucking BANDS anymore, the complicated interelation of egos, the bass player's feelings about the musical direction, the drummer's lack of rehearsal, the trumbone player's dispute with the sax, the guitarists ego, etc, etc.... no longer a problem BECAUSE:- the producer MAKES THE MUSIC in the 80's....

And now the heartless bastard Simon Cowell personality become's more powerful as the 80's progress - and this is reflected in the deterioration of musical quality. In the 70's the producer had to be cool enough to deal with the bands, to understand the dynamics - Cowell would've been laughed out of the studio...

In the 70's the producer got the project funded, made sure they (the musicians) were in the right place at the right time and that the singer wasn't on too much or too little cocaine and handed the product to the record company (and oversaw the mix). That was the producer's job, the MUSICIANS MADE THE MUSIC in the 70's.

So 2-tone died and we had 10 years of Duran Duran

(contd)

 

(revolutionation blog continued)

THE END OF THE BRITISH ERA:-

this technology change meant that, for the first time, Britain was behind America in terms of recording technology (we always used to have the best desks, all Bob Marley's best production was UK, the US never even got close)

aside:- why have Britain and America been the leading force in global musical direction for 100 years or so? Because the anglo saxons are the most musically talented? obviously not. Because WE LED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION - America had the marketing and mass production but Britain, historically, had the inovation...

NOW (80's) because the Americans had more MONEY - and music was sound-module based - they got the best sound modules first and the british producer had to make do with some cheapo version 3 years later after all the best sounds had already been rinsed... this put America ahead until the 90's and the birth of the sampler...

the sampler changed things, as a musician in the 90's i didn;'t wanna spend no money on some bogus sound module that's already been rinsed... but THE SAMPLER!!! that was a different prospect... you see once i've got that sampler, and started taking samples (a sampler makes only the sounds you put into it), the keyboards i end up creating are mine mine mine, no one else got that - even if you sampled the same snare, you didn't do it with my dodgy wiring, and it play's differently depending on whether you put it on a white or black key... never mind totally unique mic samples or samples off four track tape... i am THE ONLY person in the world with those sounds...

by 95 these were just about affordable for a ghetto studio and Britain finally showed some musical initiative:-

size="6">JUNGLE!!!!

Tsize="4">HE first time i got interested in "Dance" (i.e. MIDI) music... previously, being acustomed to the atari and the process, any one trance house or hip hop rnb track i heard, i could rebuild the track, including a rough guess at the breaks and arrangement, upon hearing about 5 seconds of it... there was NO real musical content (in terms of complexity, vibe is a different matter)... if i drew it onscreen and you put the right sounds on the midi notes... press play and you've got the track... now with |Jungle, there seemed to be no repeats in the Rhythm at all, this music had almost classical complexity at times...

alas it was short lived, it went worldwide, and london's slow and unbusiness like producers had there 250 white label releases squashed out of the market by a million german "drum and bass" records with glossy sleeves that really didn't get the point at all and the music returned to mechanical repetition...

The original London-Sound was a resurfacing of two tone, the increasingly hectic drug fueled rave music, that by 93 had its tempo increasing with madder and madder breaks, was smoothed by the Roots feel (in the bass) that London has always had since the Windrush brought over loads of West Indians to rebuild the country after the second world war...

Where america looked to black america for musical inspiration, Britain looked to the Jamaicans and Irish, the rebels who never let themselves be slaves...

The vocals, by the time Jungle reached 180 BPM were Ragga, even when the MC was white, because it had a double time dancehall feel to it and dancehall vocals had developed a double time feel to them by this time.... we were also well developed in bashment by that point, 1980, when america was producing it's seminal hip hop and Jamaica ragga, Britain had Smiley Culture, stonebridge park, NW10, at number fuckin ONE on top of the pops singing "police officer don't give me producer" about getting away with driving without tax or insurance//// this after "cockney translation" which is a foundational original crossover between ragga and original UK dancehall (chas and dave, etc. - london piano rap goes back to 19th century)

So Jungle brought two tone back - though noone ever called it this

for the first time, however, there was an asian involvement, and today, in my opinion, Asian Dub Foundation are the main act representing London Jungle...

so what do we call it now? 3 tone?

(contd)

 

(rublive1 blog contd)

THE BIRTH OF UK GARAGE

now this was strictly commercial, whereas jungle had more noble roots in the freerave scene, now the london street producers wanted to make some money!! They took the cut up US garage sound and freed up the bass drum and dutty'd up the bass lines... it now sounded like RnB on speed

the kids on the mics were blacker than the jungle days and it never really got outside London - the DJs were often white... but the MC style was MORE UK and London particularly than Jungle (which was very much a Jamaican DJ style) and the echoes of London original dancehall were very strong, the gadabidagadabida tongue twisters reminded me very much of auctioneers at car auctions as well as chas and dave "flows" - these flows, like the auctioneer bouncing the sound of the mic off the walls and getting in time with the bounce were developed in smaller clubs like the ragga chat style was developed by the MC bouncing with the slower delay of the ubiquitous delay box on a reggae hosting mic

UK hip hop had failed significantly up until this point, to be any good at all, except maybe skinnyman, the british accent just didn't seem to flow, the german's did a more credible immitation of hiphop than us

now we had something original, something with its roots deeply in london - fast enough to fit the natural speedy cockney london talk, in 1999 hip hop was MASSIVE MASSIVE worldwide, now Britain, for the first time since the sex pistols/beatles, had an answer to the american sound - we were better than them, in terms of lyrics skill and production and were ready to take america in 2001, all the tours were planned for october, and then bin ladin fucked it up by blowing up the world trade centres, all the tours got cancelled, the money, which was never big money, went out of it and garage died...

this was probably a good thing cos if it had gone worldwide we would've been swamped by german imitators by now... the MC sound developed the actual spoken london accent and london kids nearly all speak with some trace of the garage MC about them (ask them to say "nine" in the 90's and the oh's and hear the difference)

this new accent flowed better and produced a lot of good results in UK hip hop, same vocal sound, that was never really hip hop anyway cos of the garage and jungle influences of the london producers (now stupidly called "grime") - though this came out of the white MCs cos Black London was still imitating their american heroes (at that time i recorded a lot of excellent black UK hiphop that was fundamentally flawed by the american accent)

(contd)

 

(rublive2 continued)

THE DEATH OF HIP HOP
AND THE REBIRTH OF LIVE MUSIC

Then hip hop died the death of all commercial music as the accountants and lawyers had gathered enough statistics to work out target market audiences, etc, the numbers game, and the MCs started saying what the money wanted them to say - and, as always happens when the money works out how to run tings (see rock and roll) the music disintegrated... this never really affected Britain so badly cos their has been no real music industry in the UK since Simon Cowell and his type killed it

i used to take the piss out of UK rappers saying "i'm only in it for the papes"

papes? what fuckin papes man? if you was innit 4 the paper u shoulda stayed in school and got a job with a bank cos their aint no paper in the UK music scene... anyway...

So now, being a singer with an acoustic guitar was all of a sudden not so desperately unfashionable, infact, with 9/11 and the huge UK peace movement i found i was more in demand live again than in the studio....

then over the course of the huge revolutionation peace movement live raves in 2004 i came in contact with THE PECKHAM SCENE which is where the united vibrations story begins...

Two main bands, an 8 piece super musical outfit of kids still doing their a-levels combined with a couple of slightly older more experienced musical heads that was UNITED VIBRATIONS and a groove based 12 piece band led by an enigmatic 18 year old dread by the name of quake called THE NEW CROSS PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA backing the best lyricist this country has produced for generations, EXCENTRAL TEMPEST (some call her a prophet)

...with all the cool, groove and lyrical complexity of hip hop, yet with a consistently conscious message that only seems to arise from there being no money... with all the street cred and knowledge and youth yet with an advanced musicality...

...AND LIVE... heuston, we have progress

the new cross philharmonic (now defunct) was definately funk based as Quake was obviously a hip hop head and excentral was obviously hip hop and hip hop was created as black america attempted to recreate funk on drum machines (as ragga was created as the Jamaicans tried the same thing with reggae)

United Vibrations definately had the funk but because, in my opinion, of the older heads in the band, there was a definite ska/two tone feel about them... sam on keys, a working class man, knows what the punters like.... in 2004, on the green party tour, it was the ska bands smashing the dance every time, in the british countryside it was ska and folk (folk always used that off beat to mek the feckers move)... in London, United Vibrations originally were Ska and Funk... because of kareem on bass, jamaican blood, despite his classical training (which was necassary to keep up with the advanced jazz men, miles and george), was always a natural skanksta.... and because of doug on drums (back in the day) who was very much a white boy player, was nevertheless technically proficient, energetic and played for the song... who, although he was later accused of lack of groove, precisely for this reason, gave the band that slightly ruff london sound that really put a wave of energy into audiences - the resurgence of two-tone, this was always where that sound came from and this is what should've been big out of London since '79 - if it weren't for that punk bollox and the 80's ... this was two tone -  except  - this definately weren't no Specials tribute band, miles advanced musicality and the kids originality saw to that - this was something ELSE

...back to 79, except with more musical deepness - and this is where we start thinking a new name for the music is required, especially since Kareem's little brother took over on the drums and "Ska Funk" really didn't fit the bill anymore

the two vocalists, Oggy and Courtney, injected respectively an RnB vibe (soul) and a Garage vibe (street) - Oggy straight out of the smoothy garage RnB commercial studios and courtney clearly having done some time toasting on grimier sounds at the raves - these two increased both the cool and the street cred of the band in terms of sound, even when they weren't singing

(cont'd)

 

uk hip hop 002, comment on BE US BASS 3 on my profile pls?
 

(robert ward blog continued - last one)

size="6">12 tone

size="4">the new music will be LIVE and London will be the centre of the musical revolution, america is dead...

the new name, 12 tone, represents the multicultural harmony expressed in 2 tone but without it being a black and white thing (mendoza always used to say, "why do you call your brown freinds black and your pink friends white?")... London is now more multicultural than ever and because of the way it is mixed, probably more than anywhere else in the world, the Jamaican population of london was superseded (in terms of numbers) by a massive influx of Africans in the 90's who are now the black majority... this is reflecting itself in a new london afro-beat sound expressed by the young ones such as united vibrations and the older heads like planetman and the internationalz, +peyoti for president (who run the north london live scene) - planetman until recently was mainly reggae and live jungle with a bit of funk, there are now more african players at his jams hence more african and south american rhthyms and he's even got a bad boy uptempo new ska tune ("jah give me love" on the sunday sessions profilesize="6">size="4">) a bit behind with the ska but still feelin the new wave, peyoti always had the south american flavour cos of the cahon and excellent bass player (and his guitar) but it is really starting to take now...

 the various south americans are in london in force and making music

...away from the african influence there is also a very vibe filled eastern european "turbo folk" flavour tearing up certain nights with the hammer and sickle on, a sound i've not heard since i was in Yugoslavia in 1995 (folk techno).. cos the eastern europeans are the real workers in london now these dances are actually the best, people really let go, codger had to put up a strut to support the upstairs dancefloor when a dj came over from poland, the whole upstairs wooden floor of passing clouds was moving up and down by a matter of inches cos of bouncing dancers...

meanwhile, west london, southhall has a big bangra scene which we only ever get tastes of but the BBC has been good about publicising this, it seems to be a bit of a closed circuit though, at the moment, though this may change...

so it could be 7 tone it could be 100 tone...

why 12?

well, 12 notes in a chromatic scale - the musical implication being that ANY note is acceptable and we're not just dealing with straight old eight note classical modal songwriting or five note pentatonic rock and roll anymore - ANYTHING GOES

12 tribes - the 12 tribes of Israel, which to me represent ALL of humanity, is a statement about multiculturalism....

...the media was making a concerted deliberate propaganda push in 2005 and 2006, the same kind of everyday lie that persuaded the idiots that saddam had weapons of mass destruction. This time they were trying to persuade us that "Multi-Culturalism doesn't work" - we were told it every day for almost a year, with a different illustrative story every single day, in precisely those media outlets that lied to us about Iraq

 - the ones who are trying to fuck us up, the sun, the times, the telegraph, the express, the star, the observer, size="6">size="4">daily mail, the economist, the spectator size="6">size="4">...

This anti-multi-culturalism was mainly a knock on effect from the american media (the times and the sun) setting the news agenda for the 2005 UK general election as Imigration so that people wouldn't vote on the war... all part of the original (goebels invented it) fascist propaganda technique of getting the population to hate the "other" in order to get them to go along with a crazy scheme that they do not profit from that will make their lives worse that they would not normally go along with were it not for all this artificially incited hatred that distracts the population from seeing that it is the warmongers who are wrecking things while stealing your money...

 - this music is a practical disproof of this lie *(like notting hill carnival and brick lane festival) - if the MUSIC works, if we can all get down to that sound, then multiculturalism works, so fuck the liars

later, sorry for my french

peace love and revolution

r...

 

oh rob, i love and miss you. Hope the gig went well tonight....im sure it was fucking amazing..respect to all :)

p.s. rah... i never knew it had this much history, well the '12' bit anyhow. 1+2=3

i can see a pyramid growing
 

and here, cos noone's gonna enter the blog never mind read this far for quite sometime let us discuss united vibrations
 

this bit in the bitter old twisted revolutionation blog

"and now he (the producer) doesn't need to deal with fucking BANDS anymore, the complicated interelation of egos, the bass player's feelings about the musical direction, the drummer's lack of rehearsal, the trumbone player's dispute with the sax, the guitarists ego, etc, etc...."

is obviously a coded dig, thinkin about it now, so instead of apologising...

whatcherfink?

 

wanna record instrumental versions of ...

DAYDREAMER

BLAH

SKA WARS

at THE SPIKE

with

sam on KEYS

yusef on PERCUSION

AND

DOUG ON DRUMS

maybe bleachy on sax, maybe len maybe?



 

but would like to turn your spike rehearshals at least into some proper recording/production/writing sessions... musical direction your choice

production man

that's what counts when you hit 35

(or 80, trevor juggling t used to say, those 16 bit 44k stereo 5minute wavs are your PENSION)
 

i then wanna record VOCAL VERSIONS over those instrumentals with, first, ORIGINAL VOCALISTS VERSIONS, on BLAH and DAYDREAMER, and i would like to lay down the SKA WARS lyric...

that's the E.P.