Vulfpeck - Are we just gonna pretend this is not a thing?
SPlDEY
Vegas 3,375 Posts
SPlDEY said:
I do wonder if vulfpeck's strangely obsessive fans use their music as a gateway to the stuff that vulf are often pastiching or if there's some superfan mindgardens where this is all happening for the first time. That sounds more critical of the band than it is, though, I really like their stuff, the musicianship is pretty unfuckwithable and they wear their influences on their sleeve and are not secretive or quiet about them to said fans. They try to get the (living) musicians they are into on to stage or tracking sessions with them, which is cool.
The dudes practically worship Bernard Purdie and nerd out about drum recording techniques and minimalist arrangement so the only question is why I hadn't listened to them before recently since they are apparently 5th dimensional versions of me with far better chops and multi-instrumental skill.
Begs the question why havn't we talked about them on the strut before?
- spidey
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To be frank I still can't get down with the stevie-covering but the above tracks are getting a lot of play with me now. Great attention to musicianship and production while still bedroom-tracking (and live-videoing) everything. It's pretty much what I'd be trying to do if I had a band again...
Online and RW colliding. Matrix glitching.
I like the anecdote about the silent spotify album funding their free tour.
But yo, I know they ain't topping the Nth Power (with Nigel Hall).
- spidey
As someone who falls between those two poles--I think and care a great deal about music, but have never been compelled to roll my own--allow me to offer the minority opinion: Every lick of this shit needs to be put in a giant sack labelled "CHOPS!," taken out behind Guitar Center, and fed into a fucking wood-chipper, New-Balances-first.
The sheer uterus-withering sterility of this whole strain of talent-rich, idea-poor, and fiber-free YouTube nu-funk makes my lips pucker, and not in the good way. It has nothing to say to the contemporary culture that surrounds it, it doesn't hold a candle to the bygone culture that inspired it, and it doesn't express anything about its makers or ask anything of its listeners beyond "Hey, wanna see my record collection?"
In the approximate words of fellow hater Miles Davis, I would always rather listen to inferior music that is of its own time than listen to superior music that belongs to another time. That so many of my beautifully intolerant record-nerd brethren have found room in their heart for such Berklee College jam-session runoff is, to me, a real sadness.
Wherever Philippe Lehman is, I hope he's getting his liver eaten out daily for his role in all this.
Bruh, do you even party?
- spidey
Totally sympathetic to that feeling. I hold it myself with regards to a LOT of other cultural pastiches, film, even with other genres of music. Like I first said when I brought them up, it's definitely a guilty pleasure. As a drummer, seeing a dude with Nate Smith's or Michael Bland's abilities in these tracks is inspiring. They have all the white-funk jam-band risk factors but for whatever reason fall on the right side of acceptable to me.
Of course, new bands in a literally fifty year old genre are never going to compare to the originals - hence my curiosity about their fans, are they like... jam band nerds who's only concept of funk music is through this? I don't know. It'd put a foul taste in my ears if so. I'd like to think I've listened to enough "inferior music that is of its own time" to offset the very occasional competent retro pastiche.
My ass is not brunt. But I tolerate no Philippe Lehman impugning! What French record vulture will this board talk shit on next, Simon Soussan? Oh wait...
This is the positive take-home for me. Nice to see them getting some shine.
This is also very accurate. It's like a computer is doing it. But I can't hatt the musicianship. I mean, they sure make less mistakes than me.
Wow, life is sure full of non black-and-white issues, isn't it?
.………
I’d be happy for them to use their skill and sound for something a bit different than just covers too, but what is the band of-it’s-time music now? Everything rock has been done, nothing new there that won’t be compared to bands/sounds past... live reggaeton?
I’m not gonna argue with James on that, but while I’m never going to buy any of their recorded output, I think I’d lose my shit to this after a few tequilas in a hot, sweaty club. Live music is always great, and these guys have obviously got “the sound” right IMO.
So yeah as I said I totally get that revulsion. I have it with QT movies.
The real thing, coming from the real time and place, with genuine zeitgeist mixed in, is always going to be stronger in an ineffable way. "Realness" or authenticity. That said, just as I can enjoy music that samples stuff I'd also enjoy listening to in its original form, I can enjoy barely-modified twists on the music if it's got Something - musicianship, a deep understanding of the genres it's drawing from, etc. It's true most White Funk doesn't cut the mustard, but I continue to enjoy a portion of the funk recorded after '82, including this decade.
Not a fan of the Beck-esque non sequitur lyrics though.
But yeah, fuck Quentin Tarantino for his obvious hatred of women, which he has managed to brylcreem into a greasy appreciation-shaped non-appreciation that has somehow buffaloed all kinds of folks that should really know better. One might say that in this slickness and in his unwillingness or inability to engage with the heart and complexity of his source material and subsequent over-reliance on technicality, repertoire, and tonal facsimile, he's like the film-world Vulfpeck.
I kid/exaggerate (or part-way, anyway--fuck QT, for real). The questions about what then is acceptable and what "of its time" means in 2018 are fair ones. I'm gonna keep thinking about that.
(Confidential to His Fretlessness, La Jimster: One, the free-book box nearest my home has had moldering within it for like two months now a moisture-swollen copy of the memoir My Boy, by one Philomena Lynott. I went to maybe put it out of its misery today, but poof, it was gone. Two, I accidentally heard some of that Hiatus Kaiyote on honest-to-goodness terrestrial radio the other day--credit/blame to Vocalo FM--and man, no disrespect to riders including but undoubtedly not limited to yourself and Theo Parrish, but that kind of post-Esthero time-signature-salad stuff is not my type of hype. Signed, Man Who Paid Retail For A FOLEY Record Back In The Nineteen Nineties)
Homey, if he can't hear what's good about Vulfpeck or Hiatus Kaiyote. His ears may be broke g.
- D
If I can get clinical about this:
I hate the bass solo, but the part's fine
I really don't like the straight/whiteness of the rhythm guitar clang, there's no south in it
Both key parts are perfect
Drums are good
So that combination of factors lands this song out of jam band guys with "fonk" in the band name territory and into "I kinda really like this, but feel a bit dirty because I'm not listening to rufus thomas wattstax performance again instead" territory.
I keep listening they keep get funkier!
- spidey