IT was some documentary years ago, can't remember how many, but Jimmy Page was yapping about the blues and all of that stuff and he was talking about how Led Zep's Whole Lotta Love was lifted from an old black tune. When asked about the ethics of the situation he replied, rather gormlessly that the band were collectively "too out of their heads" at the time. Not "too out of their heads" though to cash the royalty cheques.
Despite everything, rock/pop (call it what you want) still retains its racial divide. We're not going all the way back to the Mississippi Delta and all of that because there's not enough space and anyway it's all too boring. Suffice to say, few white artists have paid enough respect to popular music's black history and context and while the likes of The Stones and Eric Clapton (who owe more than most) do pay homage to Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and James Brown, a lot more needs to be done.
Incidentally, Eric Clapton once waged his fans to vote for the right wing racist Enoch Powell.
It's a funny thing but even in these post rock days, black and white music seem as far apart as ever. You just don't get any black Britpop bands or grunge bands and you don't get any white people rapping (at least, properly) and no, Vanilla Ice doesn't count. "Ice, ice baby". Shut up Vanilla, you're an embarrassment.
For myriad reasons, black music has difficulty "crossing over" into the mainstream. Acts like Bone, Thugs N'Harmony and R. Kelly are massive within their own genre and can fill out larger venues than Supergrass, Cast and Northern Uproar put together, but they remaia marginalised.
Getting back to what we were banging on (and on) about the other week, one of the lasting legacies of punk was that it introduced reggae and dub to a vast white audience. All the 2-Tone bands and the sterling efforts of late period Clash did seem to offer some hope in reconciling the two types of music but nothing really followed.
Some people think dance music is primarily black music and if this is the case, the next meeting of the musics was when Manchester erupted and The Mondays and The Stone Roses melded indie guitars and dance grooves, most notably on Fool's Gold.
Maybe a change is beginning to come over in these trip hop/jungle ambient days. The true multicultural and polytonal face of music is best represented by Tricky's raggesque excursions and Goldie's booming beats. Trip hop, as practised by Massive Attack and Portishead, is a true musical and racial mix and Jungle, which is very much a black urban sound is now being appropriated by every second white dance band.
Coincidentally, the people who introduced Goldie to Jungle, namely Kemisty and Storm (from Metalheadz) make their debut appearance in Dublin this evening. The two female junglists will be slipping plastic mats on to Technics in the Kitchen nightclub from around about 11 p.m. Be warned they don't play the more commercial ragga end of jungle these two are hardcore.
FURTHER to the thing last week about how crucial a sole DJ can be to an artist's commercial success namely Chris Evans and the Divine Comedy it is highly amusing that the Divine Comedy's new single is going to be Alfie (named after the film). It is well known Chris Evans has a Michael Caine obsession.
Speaking of Setanta acts, The Frank and Walters are really going for it, after a long absence. They've got a single out (Indian Ocean) in the shops now, then they release another one (Colours) next month and then the new album, Grand Parade (Cork reference, I think) comes out in September ... Community information service just so you can get yourself sorted here are all the relevant stage times for" this weekend's Feile.
Today Joyrider (3 p.m.), The Jesus Lizard (5.50 p.m.), Afghan Whigs (6.50 p.m.), Beck (7.50 p.m.), The Manic Street Preachers (9 p.m.), The Foo Fighters (10.30 p.m.), Teenage Fanclub (midnight). See Saturday's paper for more details ... Coming up next week haven't a clue.
