Friday, June 11, 2021

yesterday was interesting but this analysis probably isn't, really

Yesterday was interesting because I got a text message at 8:15 asking if I would be able to do a 3-hour emergency fill on RRR starting at 9. I was able. I imagine the text message went out to a few people, as it was not personally addressed to me, but presumably I was the first responder. I grabbed a lot of records and hastened there. It was a pretty random selection of records plus three or four MP3s from stuff I had downloaded off bandcamp the previous week. It is hilarious that, essentially, all of this:

constitutes what I felt was required for three hours of music (I probably only played half of these records, admittedly. I didn't have time to prune before I left). But essentially I could just come in with a USB in my pocket and play everything off that if I wanted to/thought I had enough quality stuff. Anyway, this is what I played: 

Mess Esque - Listen, the Snow is Falling; Summer Flake - Heaven Knows; Amii Stewart - Paradise Bird; Cool Sounds - Back to Me;  Aztec Camera - Walk out to Winter (extended); Dragon - Sunburst; 13th Floor Elevators - Slide Machine; OMD - Bunker Soldiers; Carole Bayer Sager - Don't Wish too Hard; Value Void - Bariloche; K5 - Stretch Marks; Siouxsie and the Banshees - Happy House;  Ed Kuepper - Real Wild Life; The Supremes - Once in the Morning;  slimbillgates - Princess; Hello People - It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference; Martha and the Muffins - Motorbikin'; Joni Mitchell - The Jungle Line, Little Green; Skaldowie - Yearning; Myrth - Fading Image; Chic - Le Freak;  Snowy - Everyone in my photos; Blue Divers - Bending; Hot Half Hour - Caprice; LCD Soundsystem - Oh Baby; Waterfall Person - I'm Your Ghost; Roberta Flack - Gone Away; Edith Granger - The Octopus and the Salt Cave; School Damage - Two Friends; Sleeper and Snake - Great Question; Harry Nilsson - Listen, the Snow is Fallin

The reason I list is I was thinking about RRR's periodic imprecations to play a variety of material. I counted last night and the above is just under 50% women artists, without me even thinking about it, though then you get into the minutiae eg well Listen the Snow is Falling is written by a woman but Paradise Bird, Once in the Morning, Motorbikin', I'm Your Ghost and Le Freak were sung by women here but written by men (and an uncredited man sings on part of Once in the Morning). Don't Wish Too Hard was written by two women and a man. Happy House was written by one man and one woman. Sleeper and Snake are one man and one woman, and no-one sings on Great Question. Edith Granger, by the way, is a 'band name' for a man. slimbillgates is I suppose in some sense a band with a man's name, but it's not a band, it's one woman (as far as I'm aware). 

As for being ethnically variant, I think I probably didn't do the right thing there. Four, essentially, black artists. Some of the bands with Anglo (I'm guessing?) singers include non-Anglo instrumentalists. There was always talk of the Hunter brothers being part-Maori but would Dragon count as non-Anglo? By the way, when I say 'Anglo' I am not even sure what I mean precisely; 'white' bugs me but of course Skaldowie are white as, but they're not Anglo, they're slavic. So, I guess you can slice and dice things in various ways. It still ends up pretty meaningless IMO but I would say that, coming as I do from the dominant paradigm. 

* I realise looking at the above that I forgot to write down that I also played a track by Mia and Marc's band Blueprints, the name of which now eludes me. Oh well. 

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