theo parrish s/d

No I'm not giving the guy credit, I just genuinely am telling you there's not really a bombardment of coverage for him, I haven't seen the website but for instance, if U2 are playing somewhere here there are ads on the radio etc.

You don't need a bombardment, you just need to narrowcast to the people who are interested. Dude has 386,714 myspace friends. How underground can you be with 20 million youtube plays on a single video? If you search through his videos on youtube his 3 minute pop singles have 4-7 million views each.

That is part of what I find interesting about this guy. How does his promotion machine work? How many people work for him? How many people rate him as the one token dance artist they will show up for, how many of them bring their friends? I am not interested in the music at all, but I think the way he markets himself and runs his business is really fascinating.

A friend of mine worked with the sort of Clear Channel mega-promoters in Dublin and had to work at a Tiesto gig, and he said it was like a ninth circle of hell in terms of fans literally chewing their faces off and having to go to first aid.

Or rolling around on the ground breaking bones by kicking walls etc.

Part of me finds this depressing but the other part of me thinks that Throbbing Gristle couldn't get this kind of reaction. How do you you channel that kind of energy?

whites are a beastly race with an insect mentality; it is natural for them to engage in such nasty displays of mass groveling

j/k

i don't know; but as a start if you want to channel that kind of energy, don't make music that's deliberately designed to put the majority of people right off?

there's this idea of "the long tail", right? where you can make a lot more money selling product to tiny groups of 10 or 50 consumers than you can trying to market something to 1000s. it's how things like ebay stores or amazon.com end up way more profitable than independent bookstores.

i wonder if certain musicians don't deliberately go after that kind of thing. like maybe there's a sort of mental calculus involved in choosing to be black dice instead of blink 182. like maybe you'd want to trade off the chance at hugeness for cultivating a small core of ultra-devoted fans who feel like they've "figured something out" by being involved in your scene.

based on ppl ive met (v few tbh) in the u.s. who liked his music i dont think they're 'tokenists.' they are electronic music fans, and they like lots of different mostly 'questionable' (from my perspective) artists but i dont think they really treat tiesto as 'that one dance artist i like' or something

xpost

like everything else on this thread, very old territory here, covered way back when people were accusing theo of releasing stuff in small numbers and bootlegging his own records to deliberately create hype among the record-collector / music cognoscenti scum. more recently, dj harvey got accused of the same IIRC.

yeah my experience matches deej's. every time i go into the local record store lately i am amazed and shocked that i am not the only person in the dance section - i now live in a rather white part of southern california where there are very few places to dance at night. contrast to when i lived in the bay area, a much more diverse area with a lot more nightlife, but i was the only person ever in the dance aisle.

but then i look and see what people are buying and it tends to be stuff i really don't like: hard new d'n'b like dieselboy, tiesto, dj irene, global underground comps, buddha bar, those weird comps with cartoon pin-up chicks on the cover (didn't spencer chow collect those?), etc etc

that stuff and the fabric mixes were the only dance cds that were ever sent to the college radio station i worked for

then there are hipster dudes in huge print t-shirts and fluorescent sunglasses buying ed banger vinyl. apparently there is a scene around that too, here.

there was a hercules & love affair here last night, i wish i'd gone to scope out the crowd (i just moved back last night and i wonder how it's changed) but i didn't go because - true story - after watching some videos of their live show i figured out that the super-hot dancer lady was a man.

i couldn't figure out which would be worse / better: going to the show and trying to not look at him/her, or trying to explain to my wife that it's okay because in reality i'm actually staring at a man.

who buys all the hed kandi stuff? i wish i had worked in a music store @ one pt so i could play anthropologist. those comps have great shit on them! max that lovebirds song i told u about last night is on one of those

i mean vahid you could try to not be weird and homophobic about it

or... trans-ophobic.

LGBTQphobic

tiestophobic

ill stop

it was beavis & rupaul all over again

don't think i'm not trying, max!

if someone plays this in a set do u presume the dj may be gay?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to9EgOoYrt8

i don't think so. that was a big hit in britain. rocky & diesel!

does my admission deserve its own tuomas-esque thread of self-discovery: y/n?

well what we're not telling you is that the hot singer from h&la is actually... pipecock

after shaving his neck beard

http://b0.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00122/06/60/122420660_l.jpg
FULL CIRCLE

is that our boy thomas w/ theo

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=1027158&albumID=0&imageID=1163190

lol @ first comment

i think the funniest thing about this thread ... i finally got around to listening to this newish theo album and the worst part of the way pipecock talks about the record is that hes really not doing it justice ... its really good, but he seems entirely unable to make it sound interesting or vibrant

like, i want to hear people talk about it and what they like about it! why is that so wrong?

xpost yeah i was going to say the same thing about mike's breakdown of the basic channel sound. like, i can't imagine anybody wanting to pick up a basic channel record on the recommendation that "they took the 808/909 detroit drum programming and ran minimal synth/dub influences through todd terry's sampler".

i'm jealous because i don't have any pictures w/ famous people. i met the dudes from the hague once (legowelt, orgue electronique and bangkok impact) but i didn't have the presence of mind to get a picture with them. actually, i think someone did take a pic but i never got a picture. danny wolfers had the most hilarious dry sense of humour, he probably insulted himself about 10 times in a 20-minute conversation.

I must have done something right, you shut up after I explained myself.

** insert dot gif punchline here **

http://kscakes.com.nyud.net:8080/LolCats/Uploads/Saved/your-wish-has-been-granted.jpg

i have a picture of myself with the RZA and one with krs one and those are the only famous people pics i have

ive got one with gorilla zoe

"Again I think this is real, but the sense of disenchantment is caused as much by an underlying contempt for the material as it is the by the disappearance of spiritual - that is, if we didn't identify value solely or primarily with the spiritual (or "soul", or "genius", or "self-expression") then we wouldn't crash so hard when these spectral presences turn out to be chimeric stand-ins for material things.

-- Tim F"

you still have no proof of this. in fact, i think your belief in this is way less based in reality than my view that something that cannot be determined is.

"actually mike that is not at all what i'm getting at!

i was wondering whether the music of theo parrish could inspire such a reaction from a crowd that size. there certainly seems to be something about the type of music that lends itself to that sort of ecstatic crowd spectacle and response.

i am not that interested in what tiesto is doing, although i am certain that theo parrish and jeff mills could jump around like a monkey too, and i'd hardly think less of them for doing so. i am more interested in the crowd dynamic, of 10,000 europeans (it looks like that anyway) pumping their fists in the air together to techno music.

that seems very antithetical to the sound of theo parrish or the sound of jeff mills. but is that just prejudice? could "the bells" do that? or "ebonics"? how about "condor to mallorca"? what about an ugly edit?

-- moonship journey to baja, Saturday, 26 July 2008 05:30 (Yesterday) Link"

the shit i have seen theo parrish do is much more interesting than this. ditto with jeff mills. how is this Tiesto video different from seeing a stadium rock band saying "put your hands in the air"? it really isn't.

"what packaging and promotion? I've never seen an ad or a blurb for Tiesto in my entire life, yet he sold out a 10,000 capacity venue in Dublin quicker than any artist has ever done.

there is no packaging and promotion, just nothing! it's mystifying."

you just arent looking in the right places. it is there.

"this is kind of insane......isn't Tiesto actually one of the more successful dance DJs in the US anyway?

-- Ronan"

with mainstream white audiences who otherwise like "pop" music......

"Anyway, pipecock, just so you know I wasn't implying that parties in detroit are like that, I was implying that parties of detroit fanatics outside detroit quite often are..."

that is just another form of people misinterpreting a culture. they may like good music, but if they don't want to get down and dirty then they need to fuck off.

"For me the hinge of this is that I feel that to enjoy dance music, and most importantly to enjoy NEW forms of dance music as they emerge, you have to TRY to enjoy them.

I can quite happily say that I don't enjoy french nu-rave electro because I've been to a lot of parties, listened to a lot of the music, and genuinely tried to have a good time."

i only wish that i could live in a bubble where i never got to experience or hear the music i dont like. unfortunately, that is almost all i get to see. and man, does it suck. that nu-rave crap makes the hipster kids go bananas, it makes me walk out the door.

"I'm happy doing this because I don't believe that what has gone before is a good predictor of what may happen in the future."

now that is an extremely interesting viewpoint, one that i am not sure anyone would agree with.

"That's why I place no value in an Aristotelian approach to "working out" what makes good music. Surprise and innovation is always possible, change is always possible. So if your entire framework for approaching music is based on history, you negate the possibility of change. For example you really enjoy disco you could infer that it's live musicians and gay new york culture that create great music, and therefore shut yourself off from ever enjoying techno."

but of course that is not what happened for me, nor for the culture that created techno music. people seem so willing to assign some kind of closedmindedness to it when in all actuality that culture is what consistantly birthed the hot new shit. and it still is, only on a much smaller scale now compared to 20 years ago.

"So while a shared culture can create a scene and create great music, if LISTENERS adopt too dogmatic an adherence to one cultural interpretation of what's good, they shut themselves off to a huge amount of possible great music and fun/inspiring/emotional nights out in clubs."

but the deep house and techno nights fulfill a much wider spectrum of emotions simply because they encompass such a wide range of sounds. comparing what gets played in a typical mnml deejay's set to what theo parrish plays, how can you say that theo's approach limits anything in any way? it doesnt make sense. in fact i think the argument for SOUL music is that non-soul music excludes a huge amount of possible great music and fun/inspiring/emotional nights out in clubs.

"And despite not having any skills in that area myself, I'd hazard a guess that one of the things that can cause stagnation in artists is this exact same dynamic (e.g. Masters at Work)."

my own theory of MAW sucking is quite different in fact, i think their problem is that they were not content making "only" dance music. they want people to view them as legitimate musicians outside of the culture from which they came, so they hire on all these latin musicians and whatnot to impress people who dont understand shit anyway. and they fail on almost all levels! my favorite MAW track from the past couple of years was "Kiss" because it was simple and banging. though i do like louie's "cerca de mi" as well, that is one of the few exceptions for their newer style of music.

"I'm not sure that's the exact same thing as "subjectivity" but to frame it in terms of positive cliches, you could say that what the two have in common is having an "open mind" and "listening without prejudice". I'd really prefer not to have to rule out 90% of what's out there because it was made in the wrong city, with the wrong equipment and most importantly by the wrong sort of people with the wrong ideas about music.

-- Jacobw"

but that isn't how it is done. the ruling out comes after hearing the music, the pattern it takes happens to fall along those lines for a large group of people. for some (say, a bunch of the usual posters on deephousepage) it seems like they do take a hard line viewpoint like that. but i think their attitude is worthless anyway, and not founded on the principles that made Larry Levan such a captivating deejay in the first place even though all of those guys would say that they are followers of him.

i think it is funny that i get labeled a purist despite the fact that i say anything goes, as long as it is funky and has soul. the eclecticism and mixing style of people like Hardy, Levan, Humphries, etc are what made the music interesting, not some strict adherance to a set genre. theo parrish is unquestionably following in their footsteps, much moreso than many who claim to be doing the same. these are the kinds of artists i am interested in. how is that dogmatic in any way? Shake and Theo play almost none of the same records, but i think they are both very similar in what they do. they GET IT. they know what it takes to be an interesting deejay. "pusists" in techno and house do not like what they do. but what they do captures the original feeling and intent, and THAT is what counts.

"i think the funniest thing about this thread ... i finally got around to listening to this newish theo album and the worst part of the way pipecock talks about the record is that hes really not doing it justice ... its really good, but he seems entirely unable to make it sound interesting or vibrant

like, i want to hear people talk about it and what they like about it! why is that so wrong?

-- deej"

i am against record reviews like that. in fact, i would say almost every one that was done like that ended up being disappointing to me. i prefer someone to just say what it is that they are doing and i base what i want to listen to on that. for examples, i saw a review about the black keys where it basically boiled down to "white guys playing raw black music produced by Danger Mouse" and that sold me. someone could wax poetic about what makes it so great for 3 pages and i wouldnt even give a shit.

can i also state here that i fucking hate lester bangs? is that alright with the ILM crowd? that shit is how not to write about music 101.

let me expand a bit....

when it comes to movie reviews, i don't read them until AFTER i see a movie. and what i do is learn the taste of the reviewer by comparing my thoughts on the film to theirs after seeing it, and thus i form a mental profile of them. when a movie in a genre that i trust their word on comes out, i look at the headline of the review to see if it is positive or negative. that is all i use to judge whether i am going to see it or not. they could describe it however they wanted, and it wouldnt change shit. discussing art for me comes down to knowing the taste of the person who is talking about it, and seeing if they say "good or bad". end of story. if you want to know how vibrant the record is, there is only ONE way to do that: LISTEN TO THE RECORD.

you are fucking bizarre dude

why are you posting on a message board??

i mean really if "discussing art" is just the exchange of "good/bad" between people whose taste you trust why do you waste your time crafting these intricately irrational multi-sentence responses to tim and vahid?

also honestly i dont want to be all that mean but you sound like the least fun person on the planet

with mainstream white audiences who otherwise like "pop" music......

based on purely anecdotal evidence this isnt true at ALL, tiesto fans that i meet tend to be rockist in the exact same ways that you are, just replacing a snobby attitude toward euro-house with a snobby attitude toward top 40 pop

seriously tho if this is true:

someone could wax poetic about what makes it so great for 3 pages and i wouldnt even give a shit.

why are you here? isnt ilm just a lot of waxing poetic about what makes music great??

like i wonder if maybe the reason people call you closed-minded is because you never change your mind about shit because you dont want to listen to other people?