Cocteau Twins gave birth to Shoegazing?

[Brett]

Etheral?
Shimmering guitars?
Stoical stage presence?

How much do you think the shoegazing bands were influenced by our faves?

My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Kitchens of Distinction, Ride, Catherine Wheel, Adorable, Lush…do they owe a debt to the CT’s?

[mattadore]

Absolutely!!! I would also argue that the Twins influenced a lot of the downtempo and trip-hop electronic music that began to crop up in the mid to late 90's. Not to kill this thread, cuz I think this is a fab topic, but just as a point of reference, you might want to peep this thread (http://www.herb-bauer.com/~leesa/cocteautwins/vBulletin/full/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1249) which is full of all sorts of goodies on the topic...

The most obvious link I can think of off the top of my head is Robin's production on Lush's "Spooky" LP, which I love, although it was derided by some at the time of the release.

[superblast]

definitely. lush were heavily influenced by ctblue especially given that they were produced by robin guthrie.

i recently interviewed neil halstead and he said ctblue had been a major influence on his early work.

i wonder if/how different this music would have been without the cocteaus too... i think the influence is far-reaching.

[fredofla]

i believe Kevin (MBV) Shields is very up-front about the huge influence of both the CT and the Jesus And Mary Chain on the work of My Bloody Valentine.

Madonna admits to being a huge CT/Liz Fraser fan, but has yet to incorporate any their ideas (much to her disadvantage, methinks) but perhaps she's afraid doing so would risk losing some of her mainstream pop audience.

Bjork's Vespertine owes a huge debt to Victorialand, imo.

pure sonic enchantment!


FoLA

[E-Lo]

Originally posted by FREDofLA
Madonna admits to being a huge CT/Liz Fraser fan, but has yet to incorporate any their ideas (much to her disadvantage, methinks) but perhaps she's afraid doing so would risk losing some of her mainstream pop audience

Surprising on Madonna's part because despite her lack of musical talent, she does know how to exploit lesser-known genres, i.e., her collaboration with Bjork, underground house, etc.

I also understand Metallica loves CT too. Can you imagine what *that* would sound like?

But I digress, I completely agree the shoegazer style would not exist without CT first.

[Brett]

Originally posted by FREDofLA
i believe Kevin (MBV) Shields is very up-front about the huge influence of both the CT and the Jesus And Mary Chain on the work of My Bloody Valentine.

Madonna admits to being a huge CT/Liz Fraser fan, but has yet to incorporate any their ideas (much to her disadvantage, methinks) but perhaps she's afraid doing so would risk losing some of her mainstream pop audience.

Bjork's Vespertine owes a huge debt to Victorialand, imo.

pure sonic enchantment!


FoLA

I love Bjork and I feel there is space for everyone to exist in their own right. Sometimes though, it's hard not to feel she stole Liz's thunder. Does that make sense to anyone else?

[fredofla]

Originally posted by Brett


I love Bjork and I feel there is space for everyone to exist in their own right. Sometimes though, it's hard not to feel she stole Liz's thunder. Does that make sense to anyone else?


yes, i think i understand what you mean here, because in many ways my current fascination and awe for the talent of Bjork has replaced a lot of what i once felt about Liz Fraser.

but no one _really_ steals someone else's thunder when there is, in reality, not much "thunder" being made to steal, eh?

but i often imagine that some "symbolic" torch may have been passed from one lady to the other sometime between the release of the CTs (1996) "Milk And Kisses" and Bjork's (1997) album "Homogenic."

pivotal years, these were.....

and i often wonder what Liz now thinks of Bjork's music; and, vice versa.....what Bjork really feels re: the legacy of the Cocteau Twins (and especially Liz Fraser.)



FoLA

np: The 3rd And The Mortal "In This Room"

[fredofla]

Originally posted by FREDofLA

but i often imagine that some "symbolic" torch may have been passed from one lady to the other sometime between the release of the CTs (1996) "Milk And Kisses" and Bjork's (1997) album "Homogenic."

pivotal years, these were.....



okay, i just pulled these two great albums from the CD stacks and, strangely enough, the cover art of each one seems to sum things up appropriately:
on M&K's cover a partial female figure lays horizontally (submissively?) fading away into the background; while on Homogenic the female figure (Bjork herself) is clearly defined, full-frontal, vertical (dominant?) and extraordinarily confident, almost regal in disposition.

one politely disappears; the other steps forward and establishes authority.

sure, it's a stretch.....but nonetheless, images often do, even subconsciously, give clues to deeper meanings.


FRED of LA

[Maria Jose]

[i]Originally posted by FREDofLA the cover art of each one seems to sum things up appropriately:
on M&K's cover a partial female figure lays horizontally (submissively?) fading away into the background; while on Homogenic the female figure (Bjork herself) is clearly defined, full-frontal, vertical (dominant?) and extraordinarily confident, almost regal in disposition.
one politely disappears; the other steps forward and establishes authority.
FRED of LA [/B]


Excellent point made here , truly the way it is !
ballerina

[Colin]

Originally posted by FREDofLA

i often wonder what Liz now thinks of Bjork's music; and, vice versa.....what Bjork really feels re: the legacy of the Cocteau Twins (and especially Liz Fraser.)


I have a memory of Liz praising Bjork in an interview. And mmmender's www.elizabethfraser.com (http://www.elizabethfraser.com) includes a list of ten of Liz's "favourite artists" which includes the lovely Bjork!! (See the faq's)

Would love to hear Bjork comment on Liz. Like you, Fred, these two singers are my reigning Goddesses.

[E-Lo]

Check out this timely article on shoegazing revival

"It was sound, not style, for the shoegazers" (http://www.calendarlive.com/music/cl-ca-timberg2mar02,0,6766100.story?coll=cl%2Dhome%2Dmor e%2Dchannels)

[zed]

..........the jesus and mary chain gave birth to the "shoegaze" sound?:rolleyes:

news to me.

Z.:confused:

[E-Lo]

I gotta admit, Los Angeles Times does have some bizzaro POVs, especially when it comes to music and restaurant reviews. After all, their lead music writer worships Bruce Springsteen!

[zed]

..........well! that explaines it!!:rolleyes:

and here i thought ray davies invented it.:eek:

Z.:cool:

[fredofla]

Originally posted by by the sea


this isn't exatly true.
madonna badly ripped off..."a kissed out red floatboat"...when she recorded "i'll remember" from "with honors" soundtrack.
listen to the music.
you'll hear it.


hmmmm. now, this is interesting!

i'll have to check into it, yes.

(so maybe now i better understand why "i'll remember" is one of the very few things by Madonna that i ever liked enough to bother buying.....that, and a rather half-decent remix version of her song, Erotica.)

FoLA

np: Petracovich "Footsteps"

[mmmender]

*bump*

[Avninder]

If the twins didn't give birth to shoe"whatever", i hate that name, then who sounded like that before them? I mean, sure there may have been some similar sounds that appeared in parts of songs (i'm not sure) before them, but i don't recall anyone making "that sound" the basis of a whole song.

[3colors]

Modern shoegaze maybe, but go back further and you will hear all the elements of shoegaze being used to create soundscapes for songs rather than a whole style of music.

Phil spector created the production attitude of a wall of sound, so you have 'shoepop' in the early to mid 60's. The first shoegaze epic I know is "she's so heavy" by the beatles. It's classic shoegaze. A repeating melodic guitar riff with a white noise fade in for a few minutes that eventually saturates the mix with a wall of sound. That's a MBV Loveless recipe.

All through the 70's, shoegaze was fermenting with The Velvet Underground, Grateful Dead, psychadelic rock, prog rock, etc. It's all there way before the cocs.

As an aside I also hear the blueprint for late 80's early 90's hip hop in ... wait for it...once again the beatles "tomorrow never knows". The amazing use of found sound samples weaving through the mix and especially the staccato doppleresque siren that floats around reminds me of the trumpet blast sample that runs rampant through early 90's hip hop and rap ie. public enemy "fight the power".

[fredofla]

Originally posted by 3colors

The first shoegaze epic I know is "she's so heavy" by the beatles. It's classic shoegaze. A repeating melodic guitar riff with a white noise fade in for a few minutes that eventually saturates the mix with a wall of sound. That's a MBV Loveless recipe.



.....you are SOOOO right!

if you even go back a few Beatles albums prior, the song Tomorrow Never Knows has to be a dreampop precussor with more of an electronic attitude......and then came Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am The Walrus and Blue Jay Way (three more seminal examples.)

it would seem then that the compositions of Lennon & Harrison (but not so much McCartney) had the largest kind of influence on the possibilities for SG/DP in those early days.

and of course both of them were known to be fans of Phil Spector.

-FoLA

[iceblink555]

B-B-But the Beatles didn't look down at their shoes when they played. ;-)

Leesa, funny you should bump this thread now, as I just read an article a couple of nights ago in the Nov. Exclaim! mag. about the current "shoegazer revival". Have you read it? They talk about MBV, Slowdive, Mojave 3, etc., and some new bands, but no mention of CT. :confused: The article's avail. online here:

http://www.exclaim.ca/index.asp?layid=22&csid1=2064

--Alan

[fredofla]

Originally posted by iceblink555
B-B-But the Beatles didn't look down at their shoes when they played. ;-)

Leesa, funny you should bump this thread now, as I just read an article a couple of nights ago in the Nov. Exclaim! mag. about the current "shoegazer revival". Have you read it? They talk about MBV, Slowdive, Mojave 3, etc., and some new bands, but no mention of CT. :confused: The article's avail. online here:

http://www.exclaim.ca/index.asp?layid=22&csid1=2064

--Alan


this is so funny.

i was about to suggest that the shoegaze revival was finally winding down.......

actually, for those of us into this kind of music, it never really left, did it.

i would suggest that any article that fails to credit CT is missing the boat.

ah, but then, maybe CT is really dreampop, and not shoegaze, afterall?

i've also heard that kids these day are using the term "nu-gaze."

either way, the genre will alawys be better off underground.

and if it ever does get its own Grammy nomination category (like "hip hop" or "rap") then we'll surely know grand ole days of shoegaze (or nu-gaze, or whatever) are about over.

:)


-FoLA

[keefy]

Hmm, I don't think of CT as shoegazers really. I don't think I've ever seen them actually look at their shoes or gaze at anything, and it's hard to gaze at the videos because they flit round so.

My own music is more in the Orbital/Orb realm I guess, but I do owe something to the CT's indirectly. I can't sing in a midwestern Nebraskan accent -- it's in my own accent which is sort of this weird half-canuck thing. I say "aboot" instead of "about" and I say "shoon" instead of "shown", and count "one two free four" and all of that. Dropped T's, L's between vowels are W's, and, Th's become v's, etc. If I were to sing about two people in the room I daresay it would come out "two peepoo inner rum." I've tried to clean it up but my jaw gets tired trying to enunciate everything.

Consequently no one has a chance of understanding me if I've got some sort of sound happening behind it competing with me. It actually helps if I forget the words (which is frequent) because all I have to do is just rattle off random words and get myself back on track.

I didn't start out mimicking Liz, (nifty idea though considering I'm a guy), but I get a lot of comparisons, and I figure it's a great compliment.

- keefy

[iceblink555]

Got any MP3's for us, keefy? If you do, and you wanna upload them, you can get our FTP server details in the Dials forum.

--Alan

[keefy]

Sure, I'll be happy to upload some tunes (watch out though, sometimes they're longish - 7 or 8 minutes is short to me ... I definitely do not fit on vinyl very well).

I don't know if I have anything studio where I've sung that's ready yet but I have many instrumentals that are on tap. Can't do it immediately right this second but I'll put some up tonight when I get back home.

Thanks for asking ... makes me feel groovy and good and made my day.

keefy

[keefy]

Okay, because Alan asked --- in about an hour from this timestamp the stuff should be there.

If you look in the non-cocteaus folder you should see a folder called "Subvulture" (my project name, dp named it, had no idea it came from New Order, in case you were wondering).

There are several tracks in 5 files:

1. The Next Best Things In Life Are Horribly Expensive (3:53)

2. That's The Way The Insult Humbles (4:13)

3. Edits #5-9 from The Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic Mashup Disc (15:57)
a) A Band Of Debbies (Not Deborahs) (The Narwhale Swallowed By A Kelp Mix ft Kate & Ricky) (4:00)
b) Eye-Spy (Slo-Boy In Your Pocket Mix) (3:05)
c) You Talk Trash! (0:17)
d) Our Prayer (Commune With Nature Mix) (2:59)
e) Shortwave Papercut (The Parboiled Mix ft Sadie) (5:35)

4. Mondrian's Tree To Prokofiev For George (17:25)

5. Build A Home With Me, My Love (20:24)

1 & 2 are actual songs, but I decided they were too busy for lyrics.

3 is an excerpt from a full cd, 70 odd minutes. This section was written as one piece and if I have a hit "Shortwave Papercut" is it. Yes "Our Prayer" is the Beach Boys tune, and it's probably closest to the Cocteaus. It doesn't work without the transitions (I tried, I put it on a comp) but maybe you'll like the transition into it.

4 is a proper orchestral piece, but I played it on various synthesizers. I gave it to Damo Suzuki (of Can) and he plays it before his shows frequently.

5 is pretty close to the Cocteaus I think, and I didn't know it was 20 minutes long until after I'd recorded it. You're supposed to put it on and space out to it. It's supposed to be sort of sad because when I wrote it I was wishing me and my partner lived together (we don't, sadly), hence the title.

All of these are from various homemade albums (CD-R's). If you'd like them, shoot me a note and I'll let you know what's up with that.

Hopefully when I get a working mic I can get something with a vocal on it up here. Let me know what you think .... and someone *please* tell me what kind of music I play and who I might push it to because I don't have a clue.

Hugz
Keefy