You talk a great deal, but where is your bass?
The first one I really remember was Trip Hop. That's what was getting thrown around. Pick up any Trip Hop Compilation that you may have picked up during the middle to late nineties. What do you think? Can you listen from start to finish?
Remember when record stores had Trip Hop sections? Did you ever ask "Hey, Where's your Trip Hop?" Did you feel like a total shitheel?
Well, you SHOULD have!
Look, I bought this one record about three months ago. It's by Martina Topley-Bird. It's called Quixotic. It's on Sanctuary, which is a really good label. This record is pretty representative of what Sanctuary's all about.
Topley-Bird. She was the chick doing back up for Tricky. Awhile ago. Then, she went solo and put this record out. I was surprised to find out that a.) she had a solo project and b.) the record store (Jah-Jah Records) had it.
(Because, ultimately, we have that same shit--musicwise--as you do over there. . . It's just that we don't know where and when to look for it.)
The record store, they have this policy designed to get Taiwanese people into different kinds of music. Since most of their sales are all contingent on Taiwan's Top 20--which totally sucks, but Beck and The White Stripes and Green Day and Eminem, among others, occasionally break in--their back shelves tend to get a little dusty. There's one store that, more or less, specifically caters to foreigners, but that's just the exception that proves the rule. . .
But anyway, what this policy basically amounts to is the promoting of bands that get no airplay and are just under- or non-exposed in Taiwan. They do it in the form of a record review. A record review in Chinese. Now sometimes Asian distributors will do this, and save the store the trouble. They'll design a slipcase for the disc (which may very well be a U.S. release, or a U.K. release, or sometimes even Japan) and shrink wrap it. There's usually a healthy amoung of name-dropping with all of the other groups affiliated with the band you're reading about.
But some things they just can't translate, and so they have to let the English stand. This goes for bands as well as genres. . . So maybe you're looking at this record review (in Chinese) and the English text will amount to (it's always in caps) "BLING-BLING BLOWJOB SEXY - HOUSE - OL' DIRTY BASTARD - AC/DC - GENESIS - NEW WAVE."
Fucking hilarious! Especially when you're reading that on the back of a Stooges record.
So imagine my delight when I read "STONER ROCK - R&B - HEAVY METAL" on the back of Martina Topley-Bird's Quixotic (which I'm still trying to con you into buying). "'STONER ROCK!' Bwa-ha-ha-ha!"
FWOOSH!
That was the first time I saw the words "Stoner Rock" in print.
"THIS IS NOT ABOUT IMAGE THIS IS NOT ABOUT FASHION THIS IS NOT ABOUT MONEY THIS IS NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST
THIS IS ABOUT SEX, DRUGS AND HEAVY ASS ROCK AND FUCKIN' ROLL THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND WITH ITS HONEST PASSION, CREATIVITY AND SOUL
THIS IS A HEAVY ROCK RE-EVOLUTION THAT STARTS WHERE ROCK WAS BEFORE GLAM METAL, POST GRUNGE WANNABES AND RAP METAL FUCKED EVERYTHING UP
PUNK, GRUNGE DOOM AND SLUDGE KEPT THE FIRE BURNING IN THE 'DARK YEARS' AND NOW COMBINE WITH A FUZZED OUT 70'S PSYCHEDELIC GROOVE TO CREATE A NEW AND INTENSE ROCK 'N' ROLL VIBE"
That's what I read about two minutes ago, off of StonerRock.com.. As if that didn't sound like it came from the same crock of shit that sells Constellation records to repentant Public Image Limited fans the whole world over.
That fact is, I'm as disconnected with American popular culture moreso than I was before. So much so that I experienced a healthy dose of culture-shock when I returned for a visit.
What in the hell is Stoner Rock all about? When did this become the thing to say? Who says it? Is it thrown around in the media? Do you hear Stoner Rock on the radio? Do kids at the mall listen to Stoner Rock? Can Jehovah's Witnesses be down with Stoner Rock? If you don't smoke pot at a Stoner Rock concert do they call you a pussy?
Or is this all just another way of saying the mainstream rock acts are finally getting back into good drugs?
What's going on?