The balearic beardo beach hippie album canon

i think desultory basically equals "moody cosmic" in this case, but maybe tim could clarify

dude max, i have to disagree with you there. how much of the stuff mentioned in this thread comes from LA? the 70s rock scene may be the major contributor, but honestly i think what makes it so amazing is to take a typical example, Studio, come from a completely different geographical and climate perspective. it seems to me more escapist, the tropical element. and while it works perfectly and could be very well meant for enjoyment in desert beach oases, i dunno if LA is the epicenter of creation you are making it out to be.

i did fall in love with this music in LA though, and I understand your connection. i went down last weekend and i miss the sunshine and the blue skies.

"lack a plan, purpose or enthusiasm"

I don't know, I reckon "lack of enthusiasm" kinda fits, maybe if you read it more as "lack of energy/drive". Sometimes this sort of music holds itself at arms lengths from "fun" and physical release, and also feels wistful and and sad about that. Like when you're at a party and you've drunk too much or you've had a bad pill and you think "I really want to dance right now, I love the idea of dancing, but nothing on earth is gonna get me off this couch right now..." That point of relaxation where you become supremely supine.

So in this context "desultory" for me means a certain gesture or allusion towards a party that cannot work itself up to inhabiting a full-blown party mindset (else, wouldn't we just play straight disco etc?) because inaction is sufficiently satiating.

Compare/contrast with the disco-punk revivalism of a few years ago, which had a precisely opposite relationship to disco - it was too pent-up, couldn't relax enough to just go with the flow, let alone lie down on the sand.

xp jimmy i meant mostly just the 70s cosmic american crosby-phillips-young-buckingham-nicks axis, the overlap btw. that 70s thread & the balearic thread basically--i mean i dont know that id call studio beardo beach hippies anyway--beardo beach maybe, but the hippie bit of what tim is asking makes me think of the 70s

i have a difft set of theories about why swedes are so good at balearica but i have to leave work now

haha studio is a little metropolitan, listening to buckingham nicks on the drive to vegas was pretty epic i must admit

That point of relaxation where you become supremely supine.

^^ not to make light of addiction, but i wonder if a lot of these LA cats tended to make good 'desultory' shit because a lot of them were into heroin in a big way

I got to admit that I sort of wish that Disco had become more of a big thing in Laurel Canyon.

Maybe it was just too insular back in the late 70s, not much from outside seemed to make a dent.

But then I really like the idea of Yacht Disco, so maybe thats just my thing.

Smacked out studio musicians playing lazy music with superb chops. Yup.

Its entirely possible that I've listened to Gaucho more than is healthy for any one person though.

yeah I think the important thing to stress here is that we're dealing with a continuum here that (I think Max correctly suggests) has one foot planted in "americana" and one foot planted in "balearica". And these aren't mutually exclusive terms but I think they define the state of play, in which all sorts of varying articulations can occur. Max's bio stuff seems to fit the americana end, definitely, though I'm hardly one to judge.

Another way to put the above is that this continuum stretches from a very rooted sense of geography at one end to a very internationalist, escapist idealized vision at the other. One thing I like about the term "yacht rock" is the fact that it implies a sense of placelessness - quite obviously, yachts aren't tied to the land, they can go anywhere. Yacht rock and balearic are different things, but they share that impulse I think, and that sense of upper-middle-class "global village" syncretic fusionism that I think really begins in the 80s (though there's a few 70s antecedents).

And the music that I think defines the core of the continuum-canon I'm trying to sketch out is the stuff that sets the two polar impulses off against each other, dialectically as it were - one difference between The Band and Fleetwood Mac for me is that the former seem totally, er, geographical, whereas Fleetwood Mac seem both "of a place" and "internationalist", they turn their geographical particularism into a universal. But you could run it the other way: maybe Studio and other Swedish bands are the anti-Fleetwood Mac, in that they turn an apparent geographical universalism (in their music) into a byword for "Sweden".

The covers of DJ Harvey's (bootlegged?) Sonic Disco DJ mix series are pretty telling:

http://img02.shop-pro.jp/PA01009/066/product/1612857.jpg

http://www.zona.ws/uploads/posts/1165495829_dj_harvey__sonic_disco_2.jpg

the jack nitzsche solo stuff that came out a few years back called "three piece suite" is def in this category. surprised i haven't heard much talk about it on ilm, maybe i missed a thread

The narrative that I'd like to hear in a mix of this stuff is roughly:

Yacht sets sail in the Bermudas in the late 70s loaded to the gills with models and playboys, blow and champagne.

Finds a mysterious hole in the fabric of space time, and is mysteriously shunted forward into 1988, right off the coast of Ibiza.

Sort of going from international waters into deep space and then back to the beach.

Alright, I'm only sharing this because I really like everyone in this thread.

If I was going to do that mix, I'd start with this song.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/5010660562548279/

Recorded in California but from an band from Illinois.

The Ship - The Ship, The Order

WTF I don't see any connection between any of these things. But the first thing that came to mind for me was Summer Breeze (Seals and Crofts) which is mellow and smooth but also creepy and weird, to me anyway

http://www.101apparel.com/_2008SUMMER/t-shirts/balearic_kelly.jpg

haha we got people making balearic t- shirts now !!!

So where does a band like High Llamas fit in this conversation?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410AEFRBZSL._SS500_.jpg

JD feels your pain

Another way to put the above is that this continuum stretches from a very rooted sense of geography at one end to a very internationalist, escapist idealized vision at the other. One thing I like about the term "yacht rock" is the fact that it implies a sense of placelessness - quite obviously, yachts aren't tied to the land, they can go anywhere. Yacht rock and balearic are different things, but they share that impulse I think, and that sense of upper-middle-class "global village" syncretic fusionism that I think really begins in the 80s (though there's a few 70s antecedents).

^^ this is a dope idea that helps put into place some things ive been thinking abt balearica.

what interests me most though--and i think u point toward this, or are saying it in a slightly different way--is the interplay btw the placenessless/rootlessness of the stuff (in the specific sense of, lets say, lacking definite coordinates) vs. the serious dependence on, i dont know how to put this, but, like, geographical zone? or something? by which i mean: beaches, obviously. or, you know, The Beach. i dont know if that makes sense! but im into the way that balearica taps into a this cosmopolitan/internationalist fantasy of never being tied down, whether its boating around on ur yacht or jetting from island to island for beach parties--while still being totally dependent on a very specific *kind* of place, i.e., The Beach. so its sort of internationalist in a very narrow sense--the music doesnt imply the frozen tundra or, like, the desert, or uh, stonehenge, or whatever. (i think btw that this dual sense of rootlessness/rootedness is intrinsic to the idea of the ocean and the beach and sailing in general--complete and utter freedom to go wherever you want, as long as that place is a port, and i think that the fact that balearica taps into the same feeling is part of why its so successful at evoking those ideas/places/practices)

what is interesting to me (as a geographical literalist who only wants to interpret musical production around the framework of climate zone) is how swedes and brits and dudes from the bay area, none of whom have proper beaches, are cranking out the best 'balearica' around. but i guess the answer to that is sort of apparent--if balearica requires a certain placelessness (and i think thats true in particular of the 'nu'-balearica of the last 3-4 years) it is probably advantageous to have no beach-y tropical art forms around that will influence and make specific your far more 'general' Beach music.

i am not sure that i believe any of what i am saying about why artists from some places are making certain specific types of music but i enjoy doing it as a thought experiment, and i have to say that it seems particularly 'right' to do so when talking about so much of this--its weirdly difficult to have a conversation about studio, say, without talking about how theyre from sweden

good beach music from germany too

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/Boney_M._-_Oceans_Of_Fantasy_%281979%29.jpg

I think that for me this music is almost purely escapism, I've only been to LA a couple of times and they were two very short visits.

As someone who lives a fantasy life through music the reverse slumming of listening to music that was explicitly upper class can be sort of freeing.

That and I live in the center of the North America and coastal beaches are in short supply here.

Its interesting that you choose the Band as an example of specifically regional music Tim, seeing as they were a Canadian band making music heavily indebted to a rural and mostly Southern experience. The Dead were similarly very far away from the Ozarks from which they derived so much of their sound. But yes, Fleetwood Mac took that a step farther (UK band making music that was sort of a cosmopolitan synthesis of blues and country and arguably some soul). Almost all of these Californian bands who went so stylishly rural in the 70s had very little to do with the experiences made reference to in their music. Except for some very specific cases like Gene Clark or Gram Parsons.

I feel that the yacht sound was more honest, it at least sounded like California, like privilege and wealth.

Its interesting that you choose the Band as an example of specifically regional music Tim, seeing as they were a Canadian band making music heavily indebted to a rural and mostly Southern experience. The Dead were similarly very far away from the Ozarks from which they derived so much of their sound. But yes, Fleetwood Mac took that a step farther (UK band making music that was sort of a cosmopolitan synthesis of blues and country and arguably some soul). Almost all of these Californian bands who went so stylishly rural in the 70s had very little to do with the experiences made reference to in their music. Except for some very specific cases like Gene Clark or Gram Parsons.

i was actually going to mention this! cause the thing about "cosmic american music" or "americana" is that at the level of "AMERICA" is way totally rootless/placeless--i mean thats why its called "americana" instead of "country western" or "appalachian" or wvr! except that--tim is from stupid australia, so at a global level "americana" is pretty specific and geographically limited.

ha you know what fits into this thread? brightblack morning light.

hippie-ass-rootless-american-beardo-codeine-funk

they are from the south! though they do live in the desert now. and are happy to be rooted there.

i do like the idea that they made their new album using only solar power. they are funny hippies.

in that arthur interview i just read, brightblack dude goes on about how he doesn't like people using phony southern accents when they sing.

i know! they're from rural louisiana (or at least the dude is) and then they started making music smokin a ton of weed in huntingdon county and then moved down to the desert! rootless!

haha the dude has a major LA accent

uh LA there means louisiana

Brightblack's first album really made me wonder why no one picked it up and remixed it.

Maybe its just too stoned and too slow, but I was listening to a lot of dubstep and disco when it came out so it made sense to me.

is it sort of hard for anyone else to link balearic and beardo so easily? kind of like sonny crockett hanging out with chong or something?

i guess i'm still thinking of beardo as that harvey "mad dog chronicles" and led zepellin but that thread is kind of all over the place...

http://www.8ballrecords.it/database/database_public/img/GERRY-RAFFERTY-CITY-TO-CITY.jpg

also this:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51B91V046XL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

which i think was actually recorded at a desultory beach party. liner notes:

So here we were --
singing for a small crowd that
stood so far away
we couldn't see their faces clearly,
so -- not worrying about it --
playing pretty much for ourselves,
having some fun in Florida --
performing in a tiki hut (!) --
mandarin orange slices with almonds,
fresh fish,
a big condo all to ourselves with a
washing machine in the very building --
The Rough Squirrels and I enjoyed this gig and on a
return engagement decided to get a tape machine rolling --
these are some of the highlights --
purely for your pleasure --
Here's your Pizza!

P.S. The real words to the first line of
the first verse of "Samson and Delilah" are
"I'm-uh ease your mind an' tell you
where to find the best salon."
The second verse is supposed to start with
"Donna's gonna graduate an' Katy's
got a date -- Alright!"

does bob welch fit here, or is that too slick? fleetwood mac connection tho

also, some nilsson. possibly all nilsson. definitely this nilsson:

xpost. welch totally fits. check this track? slick, and wonderful
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Let-Me-Fall/dp/B0017QQAE6

and this one is totally driving, bearded rock

"tim is from stupid australia"

Yeah we have no clue. Even our one big country singer is called Keith URBAN.

sorry i seem to have dragged this thread into "max has fantasies about sweden and los angeles"

stuff from the 70s thread that does NOT fit this: the beau brummels & the byrds

maybe some rick roberts solo stuff? burrito bros probably not. maybe firefall

siah and max's points about the imaginariness of americana are interesting. I guess you could say that americana is like a fascimile of realness where balearica is like a photocopy of a photocopy on an order of infinite regress. Which I imagine is what siah is getting at when he commends the "honesty" of "yacht rock". It's the honesty of faking so real u are beyond fake.

what beardo's listen when it's raining and they can't get to the beach:

http://www.whiskeyexperience.co.nz/music/images/m/Martyn,%20John%20-%20Bless%20The%20Weather.jpg

apostrophe catastrophe

Haven't read this thread all the way through, but would "In The Skies" by Peter Green qualify?

i don't want to come off all mike taylor about this, but let's try to keep one foot firmly rooted in reality. i've lived most of my life within sight of the ocean. in fact right now i live close enough that i can hear the waves on the beach. the "geographical literalist" argument makes no sense to me. practically nobody here listens to this kind of music. surfers listen to jam bands (like dave matthews, jack johnson or tortoise), indie rock (modest mouse, ratatat), rap music (conscious or not), new punk and AOR reggae (marley family offshoots). if they listen to 70s music its likely to be stones, sabbath or bowie rather than freak-folky obscurity.

jokes bruv

lol tho vahid one of my posts above had "i should stop before vahid jumps on me for just making shit up" but i edited it out