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Kim! You and me! Discussing philosophy! On Looper's Delight!? Let's do the time warp again! Kim Flint wrote: > So far as I can tell, Hendrix didn't have much (or any) influence on loop > based music. I beg to differ, beseech to disagree, and henceforth proffer an alternative perspective. > Did Hendrix influence hip-hop? Hendrix was a big influence on George Clinton (particularly the earlier Funkadelic material). It'd be hard to imagine hip-hop as we know it today without Clinton. You should also consider that Hendrix was a big proponent of the idea of music as raw sound, often divorced from the idea of melody, harmony, or rhythm. Are you familiar with his version of the Star Spangled Banner from Woodstock? Or the beginnings of "Electric Ladyland" and "Axis: Bold As Love"? You can hear the seeds of ambient, industrial, and loads of other modern, abstract styles in there. There's a very strong case to be made for Hendrix and Hip-hop being two different stages along a continuum of music that deals at least as much with timbre and sonic character as it does with melody and harmony. And Jimi's music was being called "noise" almost 20 years before Public Enemy came along. > kraftwerk, house, and > numerous other electronic dance spin-offs? Listen to Mitch Mitchell's drumming in the breaks between verses on the song "Fire." It sounds like a totally contemporary drum & bass rhythm. I'll also mention the ambient and industrial connections again, because it's important enough to bear repeating. > The various tape loop and > soundscape/ambient pioneers? Oh my. He was a HUGE influence on your own personal favorite bespectacled British prog-rock guitar loop icon. (I think Fripp once described King Crimson as being his way of wondering what Hendrix would sound like playing Bartok). Mr. Torn certainly seems to have absorbed a lot from Hendrix; his covers of "Voodoo Child" and "Up From The Skies" are two obvious examples, and I'm sure I've heard him talk about this influence at length in much greater detail. > or Dub? Kim, my dear fellow, have you actually checked how profoundly flipped out the production work is on those original Hendrix studio albums? I'm no dub expert by any means, but I would be VERY surprised if Lee Perry hadn't listened to his fair share of Hendrix in his formative years. > He played rock > music, which mostly avoided/derided loops and samples for decades while >the > ideas developed elsewhere. What about Can? Or the Fripp/Eno collaborations? Or (don't kill me, Kim!) Frippertronics? Or David Byrne and Eno BUILDING their own sampler for "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts"? Or Michael Gira running a footswitch-controlled tape deck into a bass amp during Swans gigs in the early '80s? Or all the New Wave music that used sampled drum sounds -- almost always looped on a drum machine? > From my perspective, Hendrix is just another over-nostalgized baby boomer > icon that I'm tired of hearing about. I don't blame you, Kim. I can understand where you're coming from. I do think it's important to actually try to set aside the hype and listen to the guy, though (which you have done, as you say). You don't have to dig his stuff, but I do think it's worth taking a good long look at some of the less immediately apparent seeds of influence. Or at least, so it seems to me... Damn, Kim, I forgot to include a raving, psychopathic, libelous mis-diagnosis of gear technicalities! Next time, I guess... Luv, Andre LaFosse | Disruption Theory | http://www.altruistmusic.com ================================================================ "A spectacular collision of manifold musical thoughts and patterns... To call Disruption Theory a futuristic album would be an understatement." (20th Century Guitar Magazine, February 2001) "His six-stringer is pumped up with energy, creating a firestorm of pyrotechnics and burning sounds, but with a sensitivity to weirdness and experimentation. Disruption Theory reveals the difference it makes when a player knows what he is doing. Here is one that deserves the title 'unique'." (Expose Magazine, October 2000) "Fripp and Zappa, step aside." (MOJO Magazine, May 2000) =========================================================