the shamen: c/d

Also I think at the time I was perfectly capable of finding girls with dreadlocks wearing Doc Martens with thick stripey leggins attractive so...

So we’re saying because Oor Willie had cheekbones like geometry and eyes like Sin, he was too attractive to be a grebo?

I did GIS ‘grebo haircut’ and it kept showing me photos of Jesus Jones, and, erm, Skrillex? So I am no closer to enlightenment ha ha ha!

I cannot believe, in a music journalism climate that was obsessed with genreficaion that there could be *such* a distinct - and successful - sound that had no name?

NV OTM, grebo was Gaye Bykers On Acid and the pre-drum-machine version of PWEI

i heard JJ soundcheck one time. they were just playing the sampler parts and it sounded incredible. then they all joined in and it was just awful. they should have sacked the band and just toured the akai s1000.

anecdote of the day

OK, so what does “grebo” mean to you, because it sounds very different from what is described in that wiki / stuff I read years ago in the music press?

It is quite ludicrous that I could care less about this after so long, so can only apologise for being such a pedant about something so trivial. I will blame it on a love of historical accuracy (and extreme pedantry).

I concede that in a 'spot the Grebo' ID parade Will Sin might well have been frequently fingered as a Grebo, but there were very slight semantic differences such as the fact that WS would almost certainly never have been seen dead in the kind of shorts a Grebo might have worn. On a much deeper level it would have been a philosophical difference. Will was enlightened. He was a prophet of the E-culture, a new Utopian and hence several rungs up the "evolutionary" ladder from the Grebos.

Of course, many Grebos went on to embrace the E-culture, either genuinely or cynically, but to have still chosen to be a Grebo in say 1991 seems like a very Luddite like choice. Why on earth would anyone want to go to that party when THIS party was possible?

But in all honesty, I can totally see why you might think he was.

He was a lovely man. The weekend he died there was a wake for him in Glasgow's School of Art. Several hundred people turned out for it and the amount of love in that hall was almost overwhelming.

I watched THX-1138 recently without knowing that’s where the “my time is yours” sample from Omega Amigo came from, and fell down a bit off a Shamen rabbit hole afterwards. Agree that ‘Omega’ really holds up. And yeah, no way would Will wear those fucking awful grebo shorts! An important distinction.

I'm sorry, Stirmonster - like, this is difficult, that I'm just talking about records and videos and genres, while you're talking about friends and people you loved. I meant no insult to your friend at all. They seem like they were geuinely *lovely* people (which is a big part of my re-attraction to this music, right now.)

I thought there had to be a lot more to the word, where I would say "oh, it seems like it's this genre" and someone's response could be "he would violently assault you for assigning him to that genre!" - like, I'm trying to say something like "song X has a bit of a Baggy beat" and someone reacts as if I'd said "musician X was a right Chav!"

And your responses are showing me a bit that a Grebo was a type of person, rather than a genre of music, that Grebo music only became so because 'Grebos' listened to it? Rather than 'Grebo' Music having any genre-hallmarks, like 'combination of hard rock riffs, samples and dance beats'. I'm still no clearer as to what Grebos were, other than: unenlightened/uneducated, wore bad shorts, erm... the opposite of art students?

I guess there is no term for the type of music I'm thinking about, even though it *sounds* quite similar and shares sonic hallmarks - because it wasn't a 'scene' as such, it was 3+ unconnected bands sharing certain stylistic hallmarks, who all happened to have *massive* hits in the States at around the same time.

I mean, I'm both taking the piss out of, but at the same time *marvelling* at the 'it is so much what it is' performance of the videos?

But the idea of a young man, standing on top of a mountain, reaching out his hand and unironically proclaiming "I need your love, sex, intelligence" - there is something incredibly charming and appealing about the total lack of irony in this declaration of 'I love you for your mind'.

(And even moreso, when countered with the performance of Mr C, who basically *is* a living insinuation, a human wink-wink-nudge-nudge, and every word that seems to come out of his mouth is cockney double-speak - but the contrast between Mr C's quicksilver clever-clever-ness, and Colin's complete unironic sincerity makes the latter seem more believable?)

I need to stop thinking about this so much.

Please don’t, this thread is one of the more interesting ones on ILM

^

Are you sure? Coz I totally feel like I'm just monologuing here about my latest ~musical crush~.

The genre thing is so perplexing to me (I fully admit, I just don't *think* in genre, it's not an instinctive way of conceiving music, for me. I am forever hearing/seeing things in things that seem to me like they should go together, but it turns out they don't.)

Another cute interview with Will / Colin, where they're talking about what *they* are into at the time, and they're namedropping Meat Beat Manifesto, as something they love. At the time, in like 1991/92, I never would have associated The Shamen with MBM, because MBM were, to me, - along with Renegade Soundwave - music that I encountered being played at a Goth / Industrial / EBM nightclub. They were ~on the cusp of Industrial~ in the same way that music like Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb were, but in a more kind of acid house-y, kind of dubby way?

But now, with the ears of 2020, I go back and listen to MBM's Satyricon, and I feel like "holy hell, this isn't industrial at all - this is kinda techno, kinda dub, with weird zombie samples over the top that made them superficially fit in with Skinny Puppy and Ministry - but listening to it now, I can hear, YES, this is what The Shamen were clearly attempting to do, in the period that I (rather dismissingly) refer to as sounding kind Jesus Jones-y. While JJ were very much trying to do a "kind of MBM ~throw everything in a blender~ sampledelica, but with a standard Rawk Band a la The Wonder Stuff or Ned's Atomic Dustbin playing on top". The Grebo label for JJ comes from the Rawk Band element, but the element I'm interested in, is the Meat Beat Manifesto Sampledelica which shows up in The Shamen around the Gorbachev era onwards.

It's so strange, how one's pre-conceptions about 'what genre this belongs to' can influence *what one hears*.

(Also, I'm going to listen to a lot more Meat Beat Manifesto, because they are scratching that itch.)

(Also, I'm going to listen to a lot more Meat Beat Manifesto, because they are scratching that itch.)

RESULT

part of the "JJ = Grebo" thing could be cos they were on Food alongside Crazyhead, who were definitely part of the Grebo scene, and so the 2 bands would have probably played a few gigs together.

No need to apologise!

Meat Beat Manifesto massively crossed over into the rave scene with "Radio Babylon" and a host of follow up 12" singles. RSW likewise with "The Phantom" and "Ozone Breakdown" and then a host of relases after that.

Here is a 1991 TV advert that was broadcast across the STV region in a late night slot for a 2 date Shamen Synergy show at Livingston Forum. Note MBM supported both nights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmUiuy6se5A

Progeny, not Synergy. I guess Progeny was Synergy V2.0

OK also, I think I'm getting to the bottom of the oiled-up Jason Statham thing, too? Bear with me, this is kinda involved.

I started trying to listen to their very first album, Drop, and it's hilarious, it's all tremolo guitars and 12-strings and droney psych bits, it honestly sounds like The Telescopes and the videos look like the stuff they'd project on the walls at Sonic Cathedral? And there's Colin in his black turtleneck and his VU leather jacket and his John Lennon specs and beatnik love beads, and let's not kid about - you, sir, YOU were a Dirty Dronerock Boy!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bDRc5tPdHLE/hqdefault.jpg

Fie! I have been FULED into thinking you are a shamanic psychonaut raver; you own diodes, admit it.

Anyway, so one of the singles from their dirty dronerock sonic cathedrals psych era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHLKFiqaPTQ

Knature of a Girl - like 87/88 was the height of the Feminist Sex Wars. And their explanation was: The subject of the song concerns how female sexuality can be distorted and abused in the name of the feminine ideal. But their onstage projections during the song contained images of strippers (you can see a little tiny clip in the video, girls in bustiers walking about with whips - very ~of its time~).

They faced the same criticism that Jane's Addiction faced, as we discussed on the other thread - we know you are *trying* to depict this free, groovy, psychedelic sexuality for all, but, since you are cis *men*, you cannot use these images of ~exploitation of women~, even to make a point about it, without falling into the trap of ~participating in that exploitation~? They switched the videos of actual ~sexy ladies with whips~ with far more explicit *drawings* of dominatrixes with whips, and they were confused as to why that was seen as artistic, and clearly fine, while videos of the live women, had not? Poor Colin.

In the end, we threw all that lot out because basically British audiences were too thick to understand what we were trying to do.

Colin, Colin, Colin. Sigh. It's about positioning. It's not that the British audiences were too thick, it's more that you were too ignorant to understand how power dynamics work. I *know* you were trying to make a groovy point about ~Male Supremacy~ warping female sexuality, but if you are coming from the 'up' side of a power dynamic, there is no 'outside' to power. You are still participating in the system, and by using ~pictures of naked chicks~ you are still reaping the benefits of the system you are trying to criticise.

But I am *QUITE* sure that someone in their party must have made the exact same point that was made on the Jane's Addiction thread - why does it always have to be naked girls? Why can't you show your groovy, free sexual expression by using naked boys as go-go dancers and not just girls?

BANG! VIDEO FOR THE NEXT ALBUM HAS AN OILED-UP, NAKED JASON STATHAM AS A GO-GO DANCER.

(And lots of the videos and live appearances for Ebeneezer Goode had girls in latex catsuits, and boys in latex catsuits, and Mr C in a Codpiece. Like, OK, sure, yes, we are making a point about our groovy, free sexuality by including the boys in it too. I will allow it.)

wow, those Progeny / Synergy V2.0 shows look absolutely mindblowing.

Why was I stuck on a farm in Upstate NY. Why.

Right, Meat Beat Manifesto have an album on Spotify called In Dub... and if that's an acid house sampledelic take on Tappa Zukie then I'm gonna die of happiness.

my brother was at the first night at that Livingston gig, I'd moved down south by then but was super jealous!
just asked him what he can remember of it

"Orbital still had the trademark lights on their heads.
Also on the bill were Homeboy Hippy and a Funki Dredd of Total Confusion fame. Chooooon.
At some point Mr C was dancing in the crowd beside me, wiggling his fingers in time to the beat while trying to chat someone up."

This thread is fantastic not least because I’m revisiting/unconsidered tween assumptions. I never gave much time to the greebo/crusty distinction, they were all on a spectrum that led straight to the Levellers in my mind, compared to the clearly distinct e-utopian Shaman end of things. Shared haircuts regardless.

I'm just going to leave this right here:

https://soundcloud.com/shamen1/strange-days-dream

I'm genuinely marvelling. Everything makes so much more sense now. Like, crusty hippie-dom is completely the wrong angle to view their psychedelia through. I had too much to dream last night! I love them so much.

As others have pointed out, the Shamen were not grebos. Not remotely. The original line-up were more like mods - kitted out in blazers, polo-necks, tailored trousers etc. They were always clothes horses. The bit about the on-stage back-projections of naked women is a bit misleading. They were going for a retro-futurist thing - the music was proto-shoegaze psychedelia, but less 60s-influenced and more precise than the bands in that vein they were sharing stages with in those days. The films covered a lot of different material - old industrial and educational films etc or just abstract collages (this is dodgy memory territory btw). The naked women thing was brought up in press interviews at the time, but what it was, in my memory, were antique stag films showing semi-naked women exercising with a ball and that kind of thing. Not really titillating at all, certainly compared than many music videos of the time, which may have been the point. Mostly it was a minor part of a pretty cool light show they had as part of their well-staged indie act. They put more into it that the other bands at the time who were playing those small venues.

Oh man, I do not want to revisit the Great Feminist Sex Wars again, I still have scars from the first and the second times.

I spent a lot of time in proto-shoegaze-psychedelia, in the US about 1985-1998, and in the UK post-1998. It's something that was deeply attractive to me, and was a very native environment for me for a long time (though I grew very disillusioned with it, for similar reasons - that I very much viewed Acid House as a true heir of the psychedelic tradition, while my uber-mod and dronerock friends totally turned their noses up at it.) The problem is, that retro-futurism often leads to retro-fetishism, which included some very retrogressive ideas. Sexism was *rife* in many of the neo-mod and neo-psych scenes I inhabited, because retro sex roles were part of what some people *liked* about retro culture. I really struggled with that, even as I loved a lot of the sexy 60s imagery.

I'm not saying The Shamen as people, or their videos were part of that. I'm just saying, that was the inherent background radiation of the scene.

(In fact, the actual lyrics of the song - which BTW I like a lot! - did show a pushing back against neo-psych sexism. They were not troglodytes, they seemed pretty enlightened.)

But when dealing with the -isms of dominant culture, positionality *matters*. You just have to accept that some tropes, some words, some usages, are *not the same for you* as they are for the persons on the non-dominant end of the power gradient. It's different for me to self-describe as 'queer' than it is for someone to yell 'queer!' at me out a car window, or even for my married, heterosexual boss to say, 'oh, Branwell is one of those queers'.

You can't reclaim other people's oppression?

Like, honestly, if Jane's Addiction or Christian Death did interviews, justifying their uses of the N-word as "well, actually we're using the word to make an anti-racist point about the position of Black people within society" - do you honestly think that Dan is going to change his position from "hell to the NO" to "OK, well, that's perfectly alright then"?

I do feel the same way about a 100% cis male group trying to reclaim or make a statement about the sexism of nudie-girl imagery, by... using nudie-girl imagery. They are GOING to get pushback, they SHOULD get pushback, and they DID get pushback. (Whether it's fair that a bunch of Scottish Art School boys got pushback and not Whitesnake... well, actually Whitesnake and their ilk *did* get pushback, but pushback will always be harder against people who represent themselves as 'progressive' than against people who are clear they are completely retrograde. That's for another thread.) And Colin trying to represent that pushback as being 'British audiences are too thick!" - well, that's kind of an arrogant statement to make, clearly Colin is ~more of an expert on teh feminisms~ than I am, laddie.

(I will forgive him his arrogance, it's an absolute character flaw, but I find a touch of arrogance really sexy in an otherwise kinda nerdy shy-boy. See also: Hütter, OMG, he *is* a Scottish Hütter. Help me)

I dunno, it feels like a bit of a shame and a distraction - and I only brought it up, because I *do* think that that experience does account for the naked Jason Stathams and the presentation of sexuality in their later video work.

(Sorry, I went on a massive video binge last night - and I do feel like this was a band, to whom imagery and videos and visuals are super-important, not a distraction at all. The visuals are a strong part of what they are doing. Again, like Kraftwerk.)

The actual lyrics for Knature of a Girl are fantasic, I do genuinely love them. I read them as "my girl is complicated, she has a kinda complicated sexuality, and I am *HERE* for it!"

(Hmmm, so you like complicated lovers, huh? I got some complications for ya, babe... in my pants) HA HEM. nothing to see here.

The ambiguity of the chorus is really interesting. "She plays the strangest games / but she aims to lose / that's why I love her" is operating on this double-level.

On one level, there's the obvious double-entendre - heightened by the images of dominatrixes - that the 'strange games' he is *here* for are some kind of Love Slave Bondage Games - that 'she aims to lose' indicates that she's actually the sub in the scenario. But any kind of non-superficial understanding of kink posits that the sub is (or should be, in ethical kink) the person who, although superficially 'losing', is actually the person who is in control of the scenario and exactly what happens in it. (Or, even the other way round, if the titular Girl is the dominatrix, she's 'losing' by actually being the person in *service* of the scenario that is the sub's fantasy? I love how this is unclear and the meaning is left slippery!)

But the really fascinating thing about the lyrics to me, is that that wink-wink-nudge-nudge smutty reading is actually the *superficial* one. The deeper reading, supported by Colin saying that it's actually about "how female sexuality can be distorted and abused in the name of the feminine ideal" - is that the love-slave-bondage-games are actually just a metaphor for the societal subordination of women. (This is hardly an original thought - the entire novel, Normal People, goes into this in great, and somewhat tedious, kink-shamey depth.) But Colin's doing it in a very non-kink-shamey way. "She plays the strangest games - but she aims to lose" has this undercurrent of "aiming to lose is a way of refusing to play the game". The gender binary, trying to conform to misogynist standards, the madonna/whore dichotomy, all of these things are No-Win Games. There is no chance of "win" so deliberately aiming to lose is the only rational way out of the game.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk on the Shamen's early lyrical imagery. Tomorrow's lecture will be on the inverse correlation of the quality of the Shamen song as evidenced by the goodness or naffness of Colin's hairstyle in the accompanying video ::bows and exits thread::

I guess even uptight mods loosen up sometimes. I used to go and see The Prime Movers who had emerged from garage / psych revivalists The Prisoners and they would also be wearing baggy long-sleeve t-shirts. Fantastic live band mind.

https://www.discogs.com/The-Prime-Movers-Earth-Church/master/298752

There seem to be nearly as many Prime Movers as there have been Creatures and Misfits, as I thought you were talking about the Prime Movers, the power-pop band that mutated into Dread Zeppelin - ha!

Also, I have decided that this song

I walk so tall ascending I stand so high
Earth below me revolving above the sky

I can move move move any mountain
I can move move move any mountain
I can move move move any mountain

Is basically the same as this song

Ich bin 6 meter gross und alles ist wichtig
Ich bin 9 meter gross und alles ist mehr als wichtig
Ich bin 12 meter gross und alles ist unvorstellbar

Ich bin das ganze chinesische Volk
und Yü-Gung kann Berge versetzen

Drugs can make you tall enough to move mountains, kids!!!

WS would almost certainly never have been seen dead in the kind of shorts a Grebo might have worn.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishpoliticalarchive/33776332146/in/photostream/

William! Those trousers.

Ah-hah! I finally found that interview from which the above quotes are from. Apparently a video which was meant to be shown during one song only, was shown for the whole show...

Instead, a drunken projectionist showed the film through an entire gig in Manchester, much to the disgust of many women present, who saw it as pointless and gratuitous.

“But even when we used that part of the visuals properly, we were still getting lots of girls coming up to us afterwards, asking us why we used it. The point just wasn’t getting through,” says Sinnott.

I don't know, man, if the people whose sexuality you are trying to address are complaining about the way you are addressing it, maybe you could... listen? Take note? Not turn the thing being objected to, up to 11? There's a lot more in the interview, of the interviewer going, basically, you know that people trip to your shows, don't you think you have a bit of a responsibility to be careful what kind of imagery you use? Interesting.

Also, apparently Colin is from Cults. (He is still adorable.)

"We’re into psychedelic experiences and certain sexual practices," said The Shamen’s singer Colin Angus.

::breaks ILX's 4th wall and looks pointedly at camera::

Anyway, today I am really enjoying Hempton Manor. I wish I could get my brain off this one track, but here we are.

Oxygen Restriction presumably isn't about being a bit out of breath from dancing.

I actually haven't a clue what it's about. I like oxygen.

If you're not into certain sexual practices you're into them all, or none. I always say.

Oh, that's very tedious. :(

The "Colin is from Cults" link should have a trigger warning, ;-)

I was originally commissioned to put together the music for that Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. They then sacked me without telling me as someone up high decided they needed someone more famous to do it (Mylo) and they then basically re-used a ton of my work i had submitted, inc. using "Move Any Mountain".

Ah well, hopefully i'll get the commission to do the music for Scotland's independence rave and can use it again then.

Oh no I'm sorry. That sucks that they stole your work - but I'm still glad that they got played.

LOL @ Scotland Independence Rave - Colin lives in London now, so surely he'll be trapped on the wrong side of the border when they re-erect Hadrian's Wall!

(Still disappointed about the Oxygen Restriction thing, I was hoping it would be something a lot more fun.)

Which is the more tedious I ask you, silly (but accurate) pedantry or bands making vague pretentious allusions in interviews to doing some undefined weird sex stuff.

Oh that's what's tedious, I see. :)

it looks like Colin filmed it off his TV - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDXwev39GuY

Surely silly (but accurate) pedantry is never tedious?

I dunno, I quite like bands making vague pretentious allusions to ~werid sex stuff~? At least I do, if I find them really attractive? Presenting themselves as sexual objects is definitely part of the games that pop stars play.

Oxygen restriction
Oxygen restriction

Oxygen restriction, life celebration
Love accumulation, no distraction
New destination
Oxygen restriction, love saturation
Effect a transformation
We can change this situation

Oxygen restriction
Oxygen restriction

Oxygen restriction, X-Communication
You me identification, total integration
Love recreation
Oxygen restriction, quiet revolution
Evolution is the prime motion
In our elevation, to the next situation

Oxygen restriction, no simulation
Check it out this is the real deal
The only way to feel
Reject all limitations
Oxygen restriction, slow down
Deceleration, sex-time dilation
Good vibration, all across the nation
Oxygen restriction, oxygen restriction

Oxygen restriction, life celebration
Love accumulation, no distraction
New destination

I think it is what it seems to be. How disappointing, it's a kink I really don't share. ;_;

X-posts, aw, that's almost enough to make me ~want to be Scottish~? ::wipes a tear::

OMG, Daniel Kessler's Brother reviews the Shamen's video compilation and spends the entire review talking about their clothes and haircuts, because that is EXACTLY what I want in a video review. Genius!

This video just got posted to one of my FB groups and is a track (and band) I had completely forgotten about but for the video alone probably fits in this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdIFKmhM5hg

OMG what is this teletubbies meets Stanley Unwin Ogdens Nut Gone Flake rave ?!?!?!?

OH MY GOD THERE'S A CODPIECE MINE EYES

This is both terrifying and amazing.

Our parents never should have let our generation watch so much of the Magic Roundabout, we were permanently warped by it.

OMG and the reveal at the end - it really was Stanley Unwin all along.

I went and looked up that track at Discogs and apparently there was a Seefeel Remix which is unexpected

Some debate over whether it actually *is* a remix of Petal, or a Seefeel original, but it's kinda cool in a minimal dubby way?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN5twiu1AMY

(And I actually really seriously hope that the Moksha / Shamen social media stuff is *not* Colin because apparently whoever does it has been following me for years, and now I'm super embarrassed about crushing so hard in public. Sigh.)

I am so so sorry, I know I am being objectifying as hell, please tell me to get me to a crush thread if this has just gone over the limits of acceptable, but this is the cutest that Colin's hair has ever looked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vltjxj33vM0

BIZARRE to see a brunette Mr C, and the guy in the back whose entire role appears to be plugging and pulling out cables on a sequencer = A++ amazing, I want his job.

I know that his clothes were better during his 'silver pleather trousers and a pile of synths' look but that ponytail just kinda looked like an Essex wide boy who overcharges you for dodgy pills. The wedge haircut was just so classic, slightly Kraftwerk, slightly Postcard-records-indie, just really suited his facial shape and pointy nose.

Matt DC!!! You were right, except it wasn't Glasto, it was TOTP Christmas Special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRr8j8Z94Bc

Alice in Wonderland, swing, Mad Hatter, everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzBPt1Y7i8k

D's Mellow Dub of Phorever People is a sunkissed delight! Heard this on a resolutely unsunny day in Montpellier a few years ago.