Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (2 page)

Other factors affecting the composition of the final list were these:

The ratio of influence to obscurity: An effort was made to provide a mix of bands such as Television, who are immensely influential but more likely to be a familiar name, with groups like Neu!, who are less influential but may present readers with a better chance for a new discovery.

The popularity of the bands influenced: An influence on a group like U2 weighed more heavily than an influence on a lesser-known group. The reasoning was, first, more popular groups play a larger role in defining the sound of an era, and second, bands like U2 have themselves influenced bands, and thereby spread their own influences facther.

The balance of genres and chapters: In an attempt to touch on as many facets of modern music as possible, it was sometimes necessary to favor a subject who’d been cited less over one that fit into an already well-represented chapter. For instance, Liquid Liquid made it into the small “Minimalist Funk” chapter with only a few citations, while the often-cited groups Joy Division and Killing Joke were shut out of the crowded “British Post-Punk” chapter.

The quality of the responses: Merely citing an artist as an influence was not enough; the commentator had to give a compelling description of how the impact was felt. For instance, while many commentators cited Karlheinz Stockhausen as an inspiration, few could explain in even the simplest terms what they learned from him.

In choosing which quotes to use, I attempted to balance the responses that explicitly address “influence” with those expressing something less concrete – more a matter of inspiration. As I conducted the interviews, it became clear that influence is manifested in more ways than through direct stylistic appropriations, and it is exhibited through more than simply appearances on tribute albums. In fact, the very nature of influence and appropriation proved a fascinating undercurrent in the research of the book. Many of the commentators were able to elucidate their influences in very precise terms – even in some cases to an embarrassing degree, where it seemed they were deflating their own contributions. Others had a much more difficult time characterizing their influences, and a few seemed quite certain they were entirely original. Yet the terms in which the individual commentators described their growth as artists probably has little to do with the quality of their art; they simply represent different ways of processing information. Certainly every creative act is to some degree influenced by others, and is also in some measure original. How those two elements are integrated in an artist’s mind would likely make a terrific subject of some other book.

Early on in this project, I was warned by a music professor, “Never claim someone was the first to do something – it’ll get you into trouble every time.” Sure enough, in this process of delineating the reference points and precursors to modern rock music, I’d repeatedly encounter artists credited with having discovered something completely original and revolutionary, only to dig a little deeper and find an earlier artist doing something similar. This doesn’t mean there is no such thing as originality, but it underscores the constant flow of ideas between artists and art forms that makes the subject of influence such a dynamic issue. A quote from an interview with one of the book’s subjects sums it up well:

Hellos Creed, Chrome:

Everybody inspires everybody else. Nobody has a corner on anything. So I’m not going to be all egoed out and say, “Yeah, we invented this kind of music.” Actually, we’re just one link in a chain. Maybe a rusty, unnoticed link, where the shinier links are on either side. I guess you’re doing a book about the rusty, unnoticed links, you don’t really have to write about the shinier links, because everybody already knows.

KEY TO FEATURES IN THE TEXT

The names of people and groups found in
bold
text are meant to signify cross-references. These artists have separate sections about them located elsewhere in the book.

The discographies are for the most part complete. Certainly all studio releases appear, as do all officially released live albums and retrospectives. Occasionally, EPs that have been tacked on to CD reissues are only noted in the reissue’s commentary. Releases that are both long out of print and thoroughly unimportant are sometimes omitted as well. Names in parentheses before an album title signify either releases made under a name different from the main subject’s name (either as part of a band or occasional solo projects) or releases done as collaboration (indicated by “w/” inside the parentheses)

In the parentheses following an album title are the label information and release date. The original label and year of release come first; the reissue (or most recent reissue) label and year, when applicable, come after the semicolon (a year without a label indicates that the original label also reissued the record).

20
^TH
CENTURY COMPOSERS

There’s long been a clear separation in Western culture between so-called “high art” (characterized by classical music) and low art (as in folk, or popular, music). It’s made for a long-standing love-hate relationship between the two. Pop music fans see classical music as elitist; classical music audiences consider pop unrefined. At the same time, pop looks to classical music for what it can adapt and popularize, in hopes that some of the respect will rub off, and classical music looks to pop for freshness and informality, hoping to uncover and use pop’s secrets to widespread success.

While ideas of high and low are very powerful social constructs, the actual division on a qualitative level is largely artificial and subjective. The differences between a symphony orchestra and a jug band are more about the training, professionalism, and cultural background of their members (and listeners) than about the music’s inherent worth. To a large degree society’s consciousness of “high” versus “low” indicates the insecurity of the middle class, who have traditionally overvalued the aristocratic culture they have striven to join and disparaged the folk culture from which they came. Passing freely between high and low – and often settling in an area somewhere between the two – are rock musicians with classical training, formal composers with their “ears to the street,” and many unprejudiced listeners who simply enjoy a wide variety of musical styles.

This chapter focuses on some of the 20
^th
-century musical personalities who are generally categorized as composers of high art and yet have exerted a sizable influence on recent rock music. Interestingly, all of these musicians were to some degree marginalized in the classical world (usually by choice), a fact that no doubt makes them all the more attractive as cult figures in the rock world.

Some notes on terminology: New explorations in music that would traditionally have been labeled as classical make the word somewhat inaccurate, and perhaps terms such as concert music, art music, and serious music are better (though far from ideal – many rock and jazz musicians also play concerts and consider themselves serious artists). Whatever the reality, all these terms continue to be used to denote a tradition that, for better or worse, is regarded as distinct from popular music.

Some modern music in the high art tradition is called avant-garde, or experimental. These terms are often used interchangeably, but are subtly different: “Avant-garde” is a general term for music on the cutting edge of culture; “experimental” refers specifically to music that is itself an experiment. For example, a piece of aleatory music is experimental because it is based on chance procedures, and therefore will turn out differently each time.

Other terms used here that are interchangeable in general usage, though distinct in more specific ways, include atonal music, serialism, and 12-tone music. Each describes a major trend in 20
^th
-century composition away from traditional tonality. For centuries, Western music has been written around a central note, or tone, and the seven other tones that appear in the note’s scale. Atonal, serial, and twelve-tone music are not centered on a single tone but freely use all twelve notes available in an octave. A further development, microtonal music, rebels against the entire European system of equal temperament (from which both the 8-tone and 12-tone scales derive) and explores (as non-Western music has always done) the infinite number of tones found between the notes on the scale.

Not all developments in art music have directly impacted popular music; for instance, the vast majority of rock (aside from more extreme noise bands) still conforms to keys and traditional tonality. Indeed, it could be said that popular music (including folk, jazz, and rock) has had a much larger impact on art music than the other way around. Still, most major trends are in some way relevant to rock, whether they have trickled down from art music to pop, been soaked up from popular music by classical, or have impacted the entire spectrum of Western music. Key developments have included:

The introduction of industrial sounds and noise: Composers have always incorporated the sounds of their environment into music, and with the advent of the industrial age, a new sonic landscape presented itself. As early as 1915, Luigi Russolo’s treatise “The Art of Noises” (a name later appropriated by a well-known ‘80s industrial pop band) defined a new esthetic where everyday street sounds – engines, sirens, clanging metal – would become music to our ears. Now, decades later, the proliferation of screeching electric guitars and booming drums (not to mention actual samples of these industrial sounds) in rock seems to be a logical end to a century dominated by noise.

The influence of Eastern sounds and philosophies: Traditionally, Western music, high and low, has been programmatic – that is, built along some defined course from beginning to end (as in a song or a symphony). Recent strains of music (including aleatory music and minimalism) have adopted Eastern ideas that focus on exploring indefinite paths to see where they lead rather than arriving at a predetermined destination; they emphasize concept rather than result. The influence of non-Western music has meant a greater use of rhythm (particularly percussion) and repetition (the basis of minimalism). These developments have fed back into popular music through what we call “world music,” while newer drone rock and electronic dance music has adopted the East’s more linear, exploratory approach to composition.

The emergence of electronic music: Recording technology, a 20
^th
-century development, has changed the way we hear music in unimaginable ways. Recordings enable us to experience music from all over the world, and from every time period, repeatedly and inexpensively. This, perhaps more than any other factor, has shaped the way we make, hear, and think about music today. Beyond sound reproduction, electronic technology has also created new tools and techniques for composing music. The invention of tape recordings led to
musique concrète
, or tape music, where prerecorded sounds are manipulated and combined to make new music. The ideas of tape music pioneers such as Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer are now used routinely in pop music through samplers, loops, and DJ turntables. More recently invented instruments such as synthesizers, capable of creating sounds electronically, are now commonplace in popular music as well.

The distinction between high and low music is less relevant than ever: Current composers not only draw from popular music (as composers have done for centuries), they actually work within it: Philip Glass plays in a band, Glenn Branca writes symphonies for electric guitar, John Zorn improvises freely, Cornelius Cardew composes for untrained musicians. On the other side, as popular music searches for new directions, rockers familiar with classical ideas (from the Beatles and Frank Zappa to Sonic Youth and Soul Coughing) allow what they’ve learned to inform their own music. And as new connections are made between long-separated musical traditions, outdated cultural barriers will surely fade away.

ERIK SATIE

Erik Satie, from “What I Am”:

Everyone will tell you that I am not a musician. That is correct. From the beginning of my career I classed myself as a phonometrographer.

Erik Satie was the product of a late 19
^th
-century period that prized virtuosity, but he was an unremarkable pianist and cared little for the showy displays of Romanticism. He was not as well known as contemporaries Debussy and Ravel, yet he was an acknowledged influence on both. A true eccentric, Satie collected umbrellas, and wore one of seven identical gray velvet suits each day (thus earning his nickname “The Velvet Gentleman”). He was a popular figure in cafes of Paris, as idolized by a younger generation of composers as he was reviled by critics. In many ways, Erik Satie was the world’s first alternative music star.

Unlike any composer before him, Satie is significant as much for his approach to music as for his music itself. In this way, he paves a path for the many conceptual composers that have defined 20
^th
-century art music. Though his work was seldom performed during his lifetime – and is only slightly better known today – Satie’s break from traditional ideas of composition influenced modern music styles from
musique concrète
to minimalism, from ambient techno to trip-hop.

Eric Bachmann, Archers of Loaf / Barry Black: