Saturday, April 24, 2010

Actually thinking about breaks, there is of course the magnificent 20-minute plus “Break song” by Vanilla Fudge, which I urge upon you, but which doesn’t seem to exist anywhere on the internet. Though this is pretty magnificent example of the Fudge doing there hysterical yet heavy, raucous and overwrought, Purple-soul thing, James Brown and Jimmy Hendrix in a cosmic blender. And that is of course, A Riff Of Note.

Equally, much as I love “In a Gadda…” it pales in comparison to the twenty minute “Butterfy Bleu”, surely one of the weirdest splices of hard rock, prog, ambient, Clangers-style slide guitar and musique concrete robo scat funk known to man (though I’ll be overjoyed if you can introduce me to some other contenders*) and which surely must have finished off their career. Insanely it's all

And still re surprising breaks, this, while it’s quite consciously the antithesis of the other two bands mentioned above (though there is certainly a shared love of Motown going on) has some wicked and unexpected drum work in the closing minutes.
*Cue list of forty three superior examples of exactly that from the compendious Unkle Woebot.

6 comments:

Seb said...

Two questions:

1) Would Steely Dan's "Reelin' In the Years" qualify as a riff, or does its flighty dexterity make it more of a lick?

2) Sleep's "Dopesmoker" - the reducto ad absurdum knuckle-dragger of riffs, or does its molasses pacing drag it into the more amoebic realm of "vibe"?

A good conversation to have, though. Recently, a friend & I were debating if one of modern pop/rock's biggest failings was its lack of discernable, hummable, memorable riffs.

Matthew Ingram said...

ha! lol. sampled gadda on my new lp actually!

http://www.buzzhumor.com/videos/28180/More_Cowbell

Rossikovsky said...

I'm kind of going off-topic here, but you know when a supposedly minor artist orbits the fringes of your consciousness for like, decades, and when you actually decide to casually check them out, for completeness's sake, they turn out to be ABSOLUTE FUCKING GODS?

I've just had that experience with Terry Reid. Namely with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8vBn65wTR0&feature=related

Sorry, but I just had to share.

carl said...

I see you've joined in Unkle Woebot, then it's a battle on Two Fronts!!

carl said...

actually the guys in my local record and video exchange pressed the terry reid album Dean is on on me after we had our Stormcock moment..i listened to it, really liked it, put it on the itunes and subsequently lost it somewhere, then couldn't remember who it was by etc...so thanks for helping me out there..
and re the minor figure turns out to be brilliant, it happens all the time...

Rossikovsky said...

Cheers Carl.

Now as for killer riffs, how about Slade's half forgotten 80's comeback hit "We'll Bring The House Down"?

I remember my entire class at school would spontaneously break into the chorus during lessons, which would really quite frighten the teachers.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyTmszwi8E