Wednesday, May 05, 2010

riffs (slight return)

Zone Styx on the riff, hip hop, and.... flutes!

Riffs Mailbag: late arriving missives

Terence J. McGaughey: "No mention of Shock Headed Peters' riffs...
1."always be waiting" (massive, fistfucker black sab riff, deep purple motorik rhythm, karl blake's 'cracks in the testosterone' vocals)
2."parabola" (half-krautrock, half-birmingham swirling mania with karl shrieking a-la ozzy "black sabbath 2" era)
3."hate on sight" (more huge hormonal riffs, somewhat reminiscent of magma AND deep purple -- grinding rhythm section, wailing)
i think the Peters are an exemplary pre-millennial british hard rock band, certainly alone in the indie/alt world of the 1980s... i will die defending them!
"

Terence again: "also, the women : pj harvey "rub til it bleeds", "ecstasy" - led zeppelin's hard-on crushed under polly's feet
cranes "heaven or bliss", "give" - riffage turns to emotional cheese-grater (though the vocals could be cheese-grater also)
"

Meant to include Polly...

Jon Dale "Bass riff - World Domination Enterprises "Asbestos Lead Asbestos"

A. J. Ramirez: "Shame on the lack of Goth or more post-punk riffs, even. Here's a genre where the bassists, not the guitarists, were the riff monsters (Peter Hook, Steve Severin, Jah Wobble, Dave Allen of Gang of Four, etc.) With Riff Week wrapping up and all involved still haven't even exhausted all the classics worth highlighting, might I even suggest Riff Week become an annual occurrence?"

Possibly. Actually, I was wondering if Solos was viable as a concept....

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

and one more for the road:

the riff being that fuzztone guitar at the back

there is something deliciously pleasurable when sound-signifiers that (rightly or wrongly) connote "rock" appear in black pop ("Shaft", "summer breeze"-era Isleys, etc)

Oh one more one more for the road:



When this first came out, the bass-riff instantly reminded me of The Stranglers, which was enough to overcome my backpackerland-aversion (as in the
chorus's three-line distillation of Old Skool ideology:" We're not ballin' or shot callin'/We take it back to the days of yes y'all-in'/We holding onto what's golden")