Any chance of a new Boards Of Canada release?

[Babaluma]

I'm still personally uncertain of how much punk actually changed anything politically (and I wasn't old enough to be *there* so not going by first hand knowledge). I do appreciate the DIY 'you can do it too' vibe that it gave people who were not trained musicians/artists to get up and do their thang but it seems like every scene gets swallowed up by the mainstream and diluted. I don't know how many people/bands just used it as a vehicle to be a 'bit punk' in the same way that football hooligans use football matches as a reason to fight? (The Stranglers come to mind).

It's possible that the government viewed the rave scene in the same way they viewed punk, ie large groups of people getting together is dangerous to the status quo. I thought that the 'repetitive beats' argument was stupid.

Of course, I wasn't there but a lot of punk music I have heard (my wife is a big fan) has been as formulaic and uninventive as Coldplay. Please feel free to correct me and suggest bands I should listen to or that got some message across for longer than the short time span of the scene. I'm kind of pleading ignorance a little bit, also playing devil's advocate but I am genuinely interested in why the punk movement is viewed as such a progressive (excuse the pun) movement, whether it really was 'the moment' in music everyone says it is or whether there's some rose-tinted glasses involved.

i don't know a lot about punk, i was also too young to have been there, but i always enjoyed the pistols "never mind the bollocks" album.

i also really like crass and rudimentary peni. crass seemed to be at the forefront of the diy thing, and the political expression of anarchy, and were definitely progenitors of the the later "crusty" movement. rudimentary peni focus more on the internal struggles inherent in being a free thinker in an oppressive society, and get dark as fuck about it.

sorry for off topic reply!

[taoyoyo]

I like 'NMTB' and Mr Lydon's attitude but sometimes it's hard to see what was real and what was 'drama class acting'. Especially now as there's a perfume range out.

(My missus is a big RP fan btw. I'm a huge Wire fan... though not in the late 70's as I was 6-8 years old).

Like I said, I wasn't old enough to be experience the scene first-hand, and I am genuinely interested in a first-hand viewpoint. I'm aware that the society most of us take part in is a facade, has been and always will be, but what did punk do that had a lasting effect or what could it have done that would have changed things for the better?

[Roj]

Wow, this thread certainly mushroomed a little . Personally I just love their music. I find it totally hypnotic, intoxicating, melancholic and relaxing.

Just to say that our very own Skept has been involved in a little, shall we say controversy, involving a supposed (excellent) new release by BOC. Hmmmm.

Anyway, the upshot is that apparently a new BoC album will be on the way, but we've heard that before......

And Ken, you carry on with that death metal mate! Try a bit of Opeth, they are molten .

[Martin Dust]

Punk for me was all-ways about attitude and DIY.

I don't mind some of the stuff by BoC actually

[chas]

I do love BoC. Especially when I was only just getting into electronic music. They made the transition very easy.

This whole nasty business with the Chameleon fake is sort of scary and baffling though. Id like to see BoC release a new record sure, but patience is a virtue. It will come when its done and ready.

[cdw]

This whole nasty business with the Chameleon fake is sort of scary and baffling though.

Had no idea what you were talking about until I did a search

found this

http://www.brainchops.net/2010/10/board ... ingle.html

"Chameleon", a track illegitimately released on iTunes using the Boards of Canada name was previously released as a single on the now defunct label Artificial Bliss by Nick Baxter a.k.a. Skeptical. In this thread started by user skept (Skeptical himself) on the Black Dog Towers message board, it was pointed out that the track is in the Boards of Canada style, to which skept replies,

"with the boc thing... yes there is a bit of shenanigans going on there, but i'll not go into it!"

Nick-me-lad - what have you been up to

[kendo]

Apologies for the late reply. I have been painting cupboard doors, and watching them dry.

I'm still personally uncertain of how much punk actually changed anything
politically (and I wasn't old enough to be *there* so not going by first hand knowledge).

What it did do, was join black and white. it was fashionable and cool to listen to dub
reggae. Punk launched the ANL. It brought people together, and countered the hatred of
the NF. I think that's it's biggest legacy. As Gregg posted earlier, Crass also made people think.

I do appreciate the DIY 'you can do it too' vibe that it gave people who were not
trained musicians/artists to get up and do their thang but it seems like every scene gets
swallowed up by the mainstream and diluted.

nod. at the time, it was all Bee Gees, the fag end of disco, and saturday night fever.
What punk did, was enable people to do it themselves. It was affordable to get a 1000 or
500 of your tunes pressed up. It wasn't all three chord thrash. the door of "punk"
opening allowed many different styles of music to proliferate. I guess without people
being more receptive, and actively seeking new stuff out, a lot of it would have gone
unheard, and the status quo continued. (sadly thats not a pun). Status quo were beloved
of radio one. Sigh..

I don't know how many people/bands just used it as a vehicle to be a 'bit punk'

shitloads. they had a rant. a good time. recorded their album. and then dissapeared.
like a shooting star. which was beautiful.

(The Stranglers come to mind).

the stranglers and Dr. Feelgood came out of the pub rock scene. When i chatted to Hugh
Cornwell about the early days, he told me that (quite a few) punk bands had very little
time for the stranglers, which i found really suprising, as Jet Black taught the Pistols
drummer how to do a drum roll. So there was *some* cross pollination going on. FWIW, the
stranglers *were* punk to kids down in Devon. Bands could sing in an english accent, and
write about anything they wanted. Not just cheezy love songs. It was immensely
liberating. In my own little town, there were at least a dozen bands, inspired by the new
sounds.

Of course, I wasn't there but a lot of punk music I have heard (my wife is a big
fan) has been as formulaic and uninventive as Coldplay.

i do agree that it became formulaic when it crossed to the mainstream. and a lot of it
hasn't aged particularly well. but i must take issue with Coldplay. They are the very
antithesis of what punk was about. I recall there was outrage when The Clash signed to
CBS, and the Stranglers to UA. There was a feeling that was 'selling out'.

suggest bands I should listen to or that got some message across for longer than
the short time span of the scene.

There is the Jam. One of the first 'punk' bands. obviously not punk. but quintessentially
English. Stiff Little Fingers. ATV. Patrik Fitzgerald, the accoustic poet. (and lets not
forget John Cooper Clark). The Vibrators (especially the V2 album). X-Ray Spex! The
Damned. Thomas Leer. Subway Sect. The Buzzcocks. 999. and hundreds of others. Not so much
politics on display, but plenty of dis-satisfaction at modern living. maybe that's old
hat now. but fresh and new at the time.

I am genuinely interested in why the punk movement is viewed as such a progressive
(excuse the pun) movement, whether it really was 'the moment' in music everyone says it
is or whether there's some rose-tinted glasses involved.

it was ordinary people, like you and me, wrestling control from the industry. They were
still pushing prog, disco, and their tired old 'Leo Sayer' type shite. They were caught
on the hop, and didn't have a 'kin clue what to do next. That's part of why i think it's
so wonderful. Which is why house and acid house appealed to me so much. It was the same spirit. Until
the record companies got their cheque books out. *shrugs*. Then the A&R man got to say what bands
should write about, and how they should sound. prodigy and aphex twin became the publically acceptable
faces. cock cheese. zzzzzzz.... You know the rest.

[skept]

Nick-me-lad - what have you been up to

apparently, the new admin lass at itunes made a mistake when inputting the ol' meta data. the release should have been -

artist: Chameleon
song: Boards of Canada

needless to say, Warp weren't very happy about it, so it's been pulled from sale... you just cant get the staff nowadays eh?

[Martin Dust]

Great post Ken, when Iook through my collection, the scope of music is massive and it was expected as well, you couldn't call the selection narrow at all. That's punk.

[phil333]

a good tune is the carrier wave for the message. the message rides
on the tune, so i'd say that it's more of a symbiotic relationship. each part
relying on the other. good song lyrics stand up on their own, when the music
is taken away completely.

Message = ideas and IMO ideas are what make our world work for good or bad.

The messages hinted at in unsavory products i.e. that capitalism is unconcious consumption. I say hinted at as I wish tBd would delve more into some of the ideas they look into more. From capitalism, magik, egyptology, philosophy, pyschology, space, politics etc. There's been hints about what thing tBd interest them, some stuff/links on the older website (wass very interesting and wished there was more on the site).

Myabe not in the actual music itself but in the surrounding media = album cover,website these ideas/messages could be delved into more?

i.e. unconscious capitalism = why does it exist? = people have been taught that its pursuit will make them happy?, Is our concept/practice of happiness unconscious in terms of believing in hapiness not coming from within? Is profit over ethics is tolerated in our society too much? Why is this and why do we allow it? Is an ethical capitalism the way forward/what are the alternatives? If our concepts are flawed are there deeper philosophical issues?...

Would love tBd to explore more philosophical/pyschological ideas = Lacan's collective psychosis/the ability to express truth in an untruthful repressed world etc, Kant/plato's etc theory of intutive consciousness over the flawed and unconscious rational paradigm etc.

A constructive critism directed at the dog would be is that the messages/ideas need to be BOLDER/LOUDER/AND MORE IN DEPTH!

[Babaluma]

some good points phil, but maybe the idea is to be deliberately ambiguous so as to encourage further research on the part of the listeners? would be cool to take things in a more philosophical direction on this board again though!

[phil333]

No appreciate that gregg but isn't 'punk' about being 'BOLDER/LOUDER/...' A voice?

encouraging further research (great initself) is not a collective response.

A message to be effective needs to be sometimes clear and transparent or it can just fizzle out?

[skept]

No appreciate that gregg but isn't 'punk' about being 'BOLDER/LOUDER/...' A voice?

WHY WON'T YOU VOTE?

It's right there.... but the next gen haven't figured it out yet.

[kendo]

I wish tBd would delve more into some of the ideas they look into more.
From capitalism, magik, egyptology, philosophy, pyschology, space, politics etc.

The internet is full of it, phil. I don't have anything to say that isn't already out there. It's never been easier to find things out for yourself. To read up on our history. Or hook up with like-minded souls. Not at any point in human evolution has such an abundance of knowledge been so readily available, and at your fingertips. Here is what my teacher and mentor said to me... "You're a smart guy. You can (and should) make the journey of discovery, yourself. You don't need me to spoonfeed you bitesized easily digestable nuggets, or hold your hand, every step of the way".

the ability to express truth in an untruthful repressed world

The trouble is, that one person's "truth", is another person's bullshit.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The order is in the grid. That is the Aneristic Principle. Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the Aneristic Illusion. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

A constructive critism directed at the dog would be is that the
messages/ideas need to be BOLDER/LOUDER/AND MORE IN DEPTH!

I don't wish to tell other people how to live their lives, phil. that's their own "great work". authors like Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, and Aleister Crowley have already written extensively on the subject. They provide people with all the tools they need to keep their sanity intact. and they express things far more eloquently and humourously, than i ever could.

If you want some "starters for 10", here's two things i've found useful in life...
The Legion of Dynamic Discord
Carlos Castenada Books (free .pdf)

You may find them ridiculous.
Which is fine by me.

I'll gladly discuss capitalism, and politics with you (in another thread, if you like).
But I don't think i'd have any new or startling revelations to offer.

[Reason777]

Robert Anton Wilson's books changed my life. Cosmic Trigger hit me the hardest; just opened me up to looking at so many aspects of our lives in a very different way. There's just so much food for thought in that one book alone that you can read it over and over again and still walk away from it absolutely inspired and with new practices to adopt.

Read a lot of Castaneda back when I was going through a rather psychedelic phase and again, they were great catalysts to different thinking. Some of it is scary as all fuck when you actually consider it. The inorganic beings are a rather unsettling concept to delve into!

Stanislav Grof and John C Lilly have written some fantastic stuff as well, coming from a more psychological viewpoint and very interesting to consider.

[Martin Dust]

I'm with Ken on this and as 3 individuals we all have very different takes, which you've seen on this board with Ken and I, we disagree often but we all-ways remain friends. We've all taken different paths to get here and we're not done yet.

I'm happy to talk about my struggle with just about everything else on another thread perhaps.

[phil333]

don't wish to tell other people how to live their lives, phil.

Having a message is not necessarily telling people how to live their lives, but more highlighting injustice on some level. Sometimes we are to respectful, maybe too timid, too liberal/PC to have an opinion that may well offend others. People are too soft these days to hear something different than how they see it. I have full respect for any person I meet but no time to pander to the paranoia of others. One's person's truth being one person's bullshit does not negate IMO the person's truth in the first place. If that's the case then we may well not have any opinion at all? There's always a transcendence between two opinions but if you dont make the start then how do you ever start the cycle. People shouldn't be scared to be 'controversial' in the sake of having an opinion.

I thought it was great that unsavory pointed to the failings of capitalism. Whats wrong with more of that, with more exploration, with more of a voice. 'Punk' is the to challlenge the established order just because things should be pushed...

p.s. Would be good to hear the journey of the members of tBd, the ups and downs etc. More threads on philosophy, capitalism etc would be great. Ken appreciate the links(will delve in), I do look to be spoon feed sometimes but whats wrong with others saying...check this out. The world is vast and time is short, so whats wrong with a little direction now and again?

p.p.s difference of opinion in the band. the conservatives and liberals seem to be doing ok?(not the best example) multi agenders seem to be able to co-exist. IMO there is always a 'idealism' that can encompass both. Why we feel it's one or the other is something we have been taught to except.

[cdw]

I thought it was great that unsavory pointed to the failings of capitalism. Whats wrong with more of that, with more exploration, with more of a voice. 'Punk' is the to challlenge the established order just because things should be pushed...

surely Music for Real Airports ticks all the boxes you are after phil? It had a voice, it had a purpose, it had a message.

[phil333]

fair point graham it did!

[taoyoyo]

I'm returning a little bit late to the party but many thanks for sharing your thoughts on what punk meant to you Ken. And thanks to everyone for chipping in with other thoughts.

My head isn't really in a place tonight where I can add anything coherent (nothing serious that an early night won't cure!) to the discussion but I'll be back.