bristle-krs said:
that is a great title
Heres the rest of the article...
Ever thought about all that being born timing stuff? What you saw that younger folks missed, what you missed that older folks saw, what you were there for but missed anyway, or what you were supposed to miss but it was late so you saw it, or it was early or something?
I always reckoned I'd been pretty lucky; firstly I was born long enough ago to have witnessed England win the world cup - absolute magic - although at two weeks old I admittedly failed to grasp some of the finer psycho-cultural implications... and secondly, the timing was perfect so that during those years prior to developing any interest in music whatsoever, I grew up blissfully unaware of one of the darkest sonic calamities of our time....progressive rock. It's great to think that while all those earwigs were running around getting me to throw darts at them, the apocalyptic ear spaghetti generation passed me by like a dinosaur in the night. Nice one earwig martyrdom fellas!
So what the hell's going on then? well, psychoanalysis has taught us that those events of shame that we, as individuals, societies and cultures fail to digest properly and come to terms with, are likely to be acted out by, or upon, the next generation in a guilt resurrection psychodrama swap thing. Take a top 70's fashion, like flares; who can say that we ever came to terms with the issues surrounding all that stuff? So, the 80's were spent in denial that they ever existed and then, whaddaya know...90's youth in audacious leg yacht encounter. Well, flappy keks are one thing, but, moving closer to the cultural epicentre, I have far more serious charges of generational guilt misanthropy to lay out; I ask you this... goa trance - 90's prog rock or what?
Goa trance - prog rock - its the same thing isn't it?... an additional 20 years of hippy distillation bother, but basically the same old formula; lumpen rhythms and arse magic... in a word, thdogsdinnr. Yet loads of folks have seemingly been lappin' it up for quite some time now. Or have they? Call me an old and grumpy person, but I'm a bit suspicious of stuff that exists in symbiotic relationship to gonzo drug culture - stuff where, it seems, you've got to get out of it to get into it; total disconnection. But one quick look at the cosmic arm judo & goldfish face buffoonery on the goa type dancefloor certainly suggests some form of drastic mind-body existential interface connection drama; Oi mate! That's not dancing! Obviously, lumpen rhythms & sort of annoying flapping bits go hand in glove with lumpen torsos & sort of annoying flapping bits, but where's it all going to end? During which stage of evolution was it that the hips - the major pivotal joints in the human body last time I looked - became redundant? Geoff Hurst didn't score a hat-trick in the '66 world cup final by flapping his arms in the air and gurning at Jerry. No no no; he wiggled & jiggled, got deep & funky down the middle, found some space & time, and whack! And did he go into some sort of trance ("hypnotic state resembling sleep" according to my dictionary)? Course not. That's why its so ridiculous to hear these goa-type folks claim him as one of the forerunners of their scene. Come off it goa-type folks! Did he have a picture of Ganesh on his back? Or some fractal shit? No way - he had the number 7 or 9 or 10 or something.
(By the way, what is it with all this Ganesh stuff and the wholesale appropriation of the symbols of eastern mystic tradition? Alright, we've all taken acid, and it throws up all sorts of interesting & expansive psychological spaces, experiences and intuitions, both beyond & beside the mundane; fair enough. And I'm sure that the Aurobindos & Buddhas and Booboos & Patanjalis of this world have taken a few drugs in their time, but the thought that the combination of psychedelics, pretty pictures & wibbly arse magic add up to anything but the shallowest of backwaters in comparison to the intensive internal work that fosters the depth of inner/outer understanding, awareness and transrational insight of these bods has got to be, like, having a laugh. It's like appropriating the bit of froth without the pint of lager. Bad animal psychedelia!)
No, Hursty showed us future sonic salvation alright, but it has knack-all to do with trance; think about it.... deep & funky right down the middle, space & time, and the occasional dubby echo bit - these were the groundbreaking musical hurstivisions of '66, and sure enough thats exactly whats really great now and I should know, I love it. Not the trance 'em folks though; just like that speccy no-eyes bloke in Jurassic Park who gets a bit lost & drops his retro DNA stash & gets covered in goo & eaten by those frisky little dinosaur fellas... the combination of reptilian chemicals & the trancosaurus hex have unleashed the shady underworld of the 10 second romantics into a parallel flakytopian universe of negative reality inversion, karmic overdraft and general mishaps. Take my housemate - buys decks...buys trance records...falls over... knocks teeth out. I do believe there's a lesson for us all there... and here's another good one; my friend's son, six weeks old, every time he hears trance stuff bursts into tears. Well what does he know you might say? Well I know loads, and its only my enduring internal acquiescence to the stereotypical male culture of apparent emotional invulnerability that stops me going the same way. Probably. That and the shouting.
Anyway, despite all this stuff, I was going to reacquaint myself with goa in a big-scale-big-club sort of way - I thought it would be good groundwork for a thoughtful, well researched and sensitive piece, instead of this gratuitous and ill-informed dis... but then, like my friend Scampi said, what on earth's wrong with a gratuitous and ill-informed dis? And now that I think about it, I'm sure that the last time I did end up at a goa night was what started my hair falling out - compliments of the Moseley hair thieves. Thanks, hippies
