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Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2018 3:21 am
by Albert H
FMEnjoyer wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:16 am Nice reply Albert your insider knowledge always respected. You are an interesting fella, you have some close ties with the pirate scene of the past and seemingly managed to capitalise on your RF engineering skills. Hats off.

However think your short sharp take down of a few parties and kids is a bit off the mark.
Thanks for your kind comments - perhaps I'm just an old curmudgeon!

The "rave" scene was similar to the disco scene of 20 years before, but without the very skilful songwriting! By the mid-90s, the record companies had realised that they could get hit records made by a kid with a computer, a drum box and a cheap multitrack machine in their back bedroom, rather than in an expensive recording studio! This led to the boring, talentless, repetitive rubbish that passed for "dance" music, and the chemicals of choice at the time made this stuff acceptable. Sorry to rain on your parade, but it's exactly what happened!

Incidentally - I can still get out a large box of 45s filled with nothing later than 1979 and fill any dance floor! I still do occasionally.

If you want to hear where modern dance music came from, listen to "I Want More" by Can from their Flow Motion album - 1975! Also listen to "Supernature" by Cerrone, "Do What You Wanna Do" by T-Connection and pretty much anything produced by Giorgio Moroder from 1970 onwards.... You'll quickly discover that there's nothing really new under the sun! The entertaining pharmaceuticals of choice in those days were less inclined to make you dance spastically all night - we had better things to do late at night when the clubs closed!

We all had our "golden age" periods - many of you youngsters will have had great fun in the fields and warehouses of the rave scene in the early to mid-90s - mine was the late 60s and the early 70s, when music was truly "alternative" and "progressive" and before the punks came along and wrecked the whole scene!

Damn it! I'm starting to sound like my own Father!

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2018 10:29 am
by FMEnjoyer
Whether the music was made with a string section or in a bedroom is less relevant than how something made people feel. The music was there filling a need to come together and dance.

You did not rain on any parades, a lot of people leveled the same commentary at disco, what mattered is people had a great time, it is not something to look down on, it is something to be viewed with great value and encouraged.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 1:31 am
by Albert H
I completely agree!

Just for the sake of amusement, I recorded a really "atypical" programme for a station recently - two hours of Motown obscurities! It was great fun digging out the old vinyl. My co-presenter kept saying "I didn't know that ~~~~~~ was on Motown (insert name of artist)". I plan to do the same kind of show for Atlantic, Stax and a couple of British labels in the next couple of months.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 8:04 am
by wazza
Albert H wrote: Sat Dec 15, 2018 3:21 am If you want to hear where modern dance music came from, listen to "I Want More" by Can from their Flow Motion album - 1975! Also listen to "Supernature" by Cerrone, "Do What You Wanna Do" by T-Connection and pretty much anything produced by Giorgio Moroder from 1970 onwards.... You'll quickly discover that there's nothing really new under the sun! The entertaining pharmaceuticals of choice in those days were less inclined to make you dance spastically all night - we had better things to do late at night when the clubs closed!
Thanks for the patronising lecture, grandad, but any DJ worth their salt is already well aware of the lineage from Kraftwerk & Can and 70s disco through to house music. Stick to the technical talk, you're better at that.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:00 am
by nrglcb2016
Dont normally get involved with these sort of convos normally but...
I dont think albert is being patronising i just think its a generation gap issue here. I say it to my younger work m8s who are all into the drill , rap , crap whatever you wanna call it - the amount of arguements when it comes to the music at night ( being the boss means i win :) ) .
Now back to the dance music im quite lucky to have been around since the early 90s so have gone through the hardcore jungle dnb garage trance etc. now music to me is all about progression , i could waffle on about how good ever single dance tune is but i would be lying however just look at some of the classics , alison limerick , crystal waters but to name a couple.. Drop them in a set and all from young to old still go mental for them.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:49 pm
by FMEnjoyer
I have to say these day I mainly listen to LBC, although not keen on most of the presenters the bloke on Friday nights is quite funny. Pirates bore me really, quite literally playing exactly what you would expect them to play, not too hot on garage etc.

LBC or that immensely boring bloke Duncun someone on BBC London.. but he is such a bore he even plays music now, he must even bore himself and need a music break... "oh come on mate, bear with me we are trying to have a conversation, that's my job".. If I hear that once more...ugh ! Sure sends you off to sleep good that's for sure.

I find small community stations have more of a pirate feel than pirates.I listen to SW sometimes on a Sunday morning and than radio dinosaur bloke was good when it was on. Hopefully something happens this christmas that is of interest.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:25 am
by Albert H
You're right about the appalling lack of invention of the current crop of pirate stations. It's just kids playing their narrow genre of choice to their mates. The days of wide appeal and significant audience number have long gone.

I wasn't being patronising about the 70's influence on current dance music - contrary to your assertions, most of the kids are unaware of anything from the last century except for the "Gold" playlists churned out by Crapital and the like.

LBC has become deadly dull with that condescending clown after Ferrari in the morning. It's obvious that he doesn't have much of an audience, since the keep playing the phone number jingles in an effort to get callers. The ex-BBC Fogarty and Mair in the afternoons also add to the overall dullness of their output. It used to be much better...

BBC Radio London is completely unlistenable - it died completely when it stopped being GLR!

I also listen to the shortwave stuff at weekends sometimes. I have even been know to fire up a 400 Watt (pep) FET rig on 6215 or 6220 kHz sometimes. Listen out for it over Christmas - it'll have a very suitable callsign!

Late at night, I often listen to 207 kHz from Iceland. Their bandwidth is pretty wide, and if you can use a synchronous detector and filter out the BBC Radio 4 splatter from 198 kHz, it sounds good enough. Their choice of (continuous) music is bizarre at times and seldom fails to be entertaining!

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 6:55 am
by wazza
Albert H wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:25 am I wasn't being patronising about the 70's influence on current dance music - contrary to your assertions, most of the kids are unaware of anything from the last century except for the "Gold" playlists churned out by Crapital and the like.
Sorry, but that's how it came across. I think the opposite is true, actually. "Kids" are more aware than ever of music from the past as it's all available at the push of a button online.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:47 pm
by Albert H
That may be true Wazza, but most of the kids of today that I know are openly dismissive of anything "last century". They actively like the awful production values of modern pop, with it's deliberate over-compression (to deliberately generate "pumping" as an effect!) and severe clipping. Anything recorded without clipping is perceived as "quiet"!

Of course there are some kids today who actually seek out older recordings. Some of them recognise the higher recorded quality and the quality of the performances.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 5:54 pm
by SundayGroover
Albert H wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:47 pm That may be true Wazza, but most of the kids of today that I know are openly dismissive of anything "last century". They actively like the awful production values of modern pop, with it's deliberate over-compression (to deliberately generate "pumping" as an effect!) and severe clipping. Anything recorded without clipping is perceived as "quiet"!

Of course there are some kids today who actually seek out older recordings. Some of them recognise the higher recorded quality and the quality of the performances.
Some of the engineering on modern releases is beyond dire. All in the name of sounding 'well loud' on da kids iPods and bluetooth speakers.
On a decent HIFI it is rendered virtually unlistenable to my ears - and that applies to artists I like too not just the chart dross.

Re: Do any pirate ships still exist

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 9:13 pm
by drumandbasshead010
wazza wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 6:55 am
Albert H wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:25 am I wasn't being patronising about the 70's influence on current dance music - contrary to your assertions, most of the kids are unaware of anything from the last century except for the "Gold" playlists churned out by Crapital and the like.
Sorry, but that's how it came across. I think the opposite is true, actually. "Kids" are more aware than ever of music from the past as it's all available at the push of a button online.
More aware? Not really - perhaps a certain minority. I would imagine I'm a lot younger than most on this forum, and I can tell you from experience that just because kids have access to something, it doesn't make them either aware or appreciative of it. It's all about pop (wich exception of the occasion gem that lived on into the modern ages among the young such as "Africa" by Toto) - in Ireland in any case, techno is also growing in popularity. Personally, I hate pop/chart for the most part - most of it is cringe-worthy. I'll listen to mostly anything else, love d&b/jungle but I also enjoy oldies/almost anything from before 1990