so, be careful about pointing fingers around when it comes to "appropriation" because it's only a matter of time before somebody walks in the room that actually knows what they're talking about.

if we gave property rights to cultures, lawyers would get rich very fast - because we're all basically the same.

i was just reading an article that assigned the smashing pumpkins' use of pedal tones to an influence from middle eastern music, and i know that is nonsense.

they were no doubt referring to what corgan variously called the "pumpkins chord" or the "hendrix chord", in differing guitar publications through the 90s. corgan was a guitar magazine staple for about five years or so, tossing out bits of tabs all over the place, and providing a running commentary on them. and he did, in fact, use a lot of pedal tones in this period - something he was clear to attribute directly to hendrix. anybody familiar with both guitarists will not have difficulty drawing the influence, in regards to the use of open strings: compare purple haze with silverfuck.

and, where did hendrix get these ideas from? well, these are actually strumming techniques. there might be a very surface similarity between these open chord strumming tactics and sitar music, but it breaks down instantly on any basic analysis. where hendrix picked the idea up was from white country & bluegrass musicians. the song structure of purple haze, minus the tasty solo, is actually a hoe down. get yer jugs out. and pick up yer fiddles.

but, i mean, if you didn't know any better, you might have fucked that up - it's a pentatonic scale on an open string, and middle easterners write pentatonic music using open strings all the time so, duh, right? except that every culture does that, in varying degrees. what would the solo in purple haze sound like on a chinese flute, at half speed? fairly traditional, in fact.

it is true that there were some pretentious rock bands in the late 60s and early 70s - the byrds, led zeppelin and, briefly, the beatles, amongst them - that attempted to integrate an aspect of eastern culture into rock music, with varying and mostly middling results.

i am not a fan of led zeppelin. at all. that's not why; the reason i despise zeppelin is that i think the vocalist was a pretentious twat. i'm a punk, remember. i like genesis and floyd, but zeppelin is in my black list with yes and rush and the doors. there are a few high points, but it's mostly unlistenable trash.

the reason they did this was that they were worried that rock music - an existing form with a history, already, in the 60s - was getting stale and boring. they were trying to shift the direction elsewhere and ultimately open up new audiences in asia. and, this was in fact one of the things that people didn't like about the turn these pretentious bands took, and part of the reason we had a punk rock movement; yes, there was an attempt to integrate middle eastern ideas into rock music in the 70s, but the audience didn't like it, rejected the bands that did it and demanded that rock musicians return to making rock music. and, some of them, did, too; others kind of disappeared, while still others sought larger markets in disco.

however, it is widely understood - and nowhere contested - that the reason that the pentatonic scale is central to rock music is that it evolved from blues, which was itself a combination of celtic and african traditions, which developed in the lower classes of the united states in the early part of the last century (and the tail end of the previous one). as both celtic music (which is ancestral to the structure of a "blues song") and african music (which is ancestral to the polyrhythms in rock music, as well as the vocal tradition) use pentatonic scales, it is not clear which one is the source of the pentatonic scale in blues music, although i might argue that the structural component introduced from the celtic tradition is probably more relevant, in terms of defining tonality. regardless, the most important point is probably that the traditions were compatible precisely because they shared a concept of tonality, which is probably why the combination was successful.

i suppose that a listener from the middle east with little understanding of the history of rock music may be tempted to hear a pentatonic scale and claim it as their own, but this would be a reflection of their own ignorance, as the same concept of tonality has always been dominant in european folk music, both celtic and german (and also slavic). there is a tendency outside the west to equivocate western culture with christianity, which is a poor way to understand the west; the west was in fact colonized by christianity (a jewish religion.), largely against it's will, and is more often defined by western intellectuals as a struggle against the hegemonic influence of christianity, from the collapse of rome to the french revolution and beyond. what people outside of the west equivocate with western music is actually in fact church music, but this never succeeded in displacing the (pagan) folk traditions anywhere in europe. if you really understand the history here, the more pertinent question is actually whether what we call middle eastern music is fundamentally galatian, that is gallic, or celtic, in origin, via a byzantine intermediary. westerners might not realize that it is not under any dispute, at least, that what we call middle eastern music is actually fundamentally greek music, in terms of construction, even if the tonality (probably phoenician in character) was named by the greeks rather than invented by them. pentatonic scales exist in most cultures, and it would be rather presumptuous for any single culture to claim them as their own; what is being mistaken as cultural familiarity is actually cultural uniformity.

one of the components of blues/rock music often misinterpreted as "arabic" or "eastern" would be the use of open strings, which easterners may interpret as "sympathetic notes" or "drones". but, this idea has a long history in western music, where it is called a pedal tone. you can hear it in everything from traditional celtic music to wagnerian opera. there's nothing inherently "eastern" about it, even if easterners might instantly recognize it as familiar.

so, i don't want to deny the similarities - it's not as though they aren't there. but, the process of assigning ideas across cultures, and then claiming "appropriation", is often done in ways that are quite shoddy and quite lacking.

i just want to add a little bit to the point i was making about this record back at the end of august, 2013.

this record was massive in canada. it was a few years later, but i saw this band headline a festival in canada that included foofighters, collective soul and green day as opening acts. on the same night. it was a pop music phenomenon, up here, with multiple high charting singles...

i remember seeing the video for hope on muchmusic over the summer of that year and being smitten by it.

it follows that if you were a teenager in canada in the mid 90s, and you started a rock band in the late 90s or early 00s, then you were probably massively influenced by this disc - and that runs across a large spectrum of music, from the pop bands of the period right to the post-hardcore bands of it.

given the importance of canadian rock music during this period, the influence of the record really cannot be understated.

if you're outside of canada, you may have never heard of it. but, it's an incredibly important disc.

"i makes me feel, like, minus something"

i've spent a lot of my life listening to these varesian or zappaesque montages of heck, and have even created a few of them myself. they're hard to rank, as they are objectively unmusical by design. this one is a little disjointed and messy, but if that's your thing then you might like it.

https://coherentstates.bandcamp.com/album/convicted-felon-adjusted-for-inflation

i saw life in vaccuum at phog a few years ago, just as an excuse to get out of the house. they're kind of moving sideways, in that they have an interesting aesthetic but aren't doing enough with it. if you're going to do this drive like jehu kind of thing, you need to go over the top with it and make it just completely off the wall ridiculous; otherwise, it's just retro, and you're just rehashing a thirty year old sound.

the thing is that these guys aren't boring, though. they just need to go next level.

https://lifeinvacuum.bandcamp.com/album/all-you-can-quit

fuck grammar. solidarity!

i'm actually happy to hear that the lee renaldo, or lou reed, style of vocal delivery is making a bit of a comeback, as it had maybe reached the level of sacred cow for a while, there, and that's never appropriate. kill yr idols. but, what sonic youth did was a little harder than it sounded. i wouldn't skip this...

i doubt that plotkin is mixing their live shows, though.

https://bikethiefs.bandcamp.com/