Unkle?

[Nick Cope]

Was there a thread on here about contemporary breaks, specifically drum breaks, of funky drumming on new tracks that aren't hip hop or dance music related? Maybe it was Soul Strut..

I'm just looking for a relevant thread to say that the office I'm working in today had Unkle playing... My intial thoughts were 'fuck me, this is shit! Those drum patterns sound like someone who listened to a Shadow tune and not the music Shadow listens to i.e. funk etc.' So when i was told it was Unkle, it all amde sense...

A lot of this faceless music that tries to have challenging or funky drums achieve neither - I guess we all know that already...

[left hand corner]

Was'nt the first Unkle LP produced by DJ Shadow?

[bongolia]

yes, but it's still (mostly) shit

[Rich Hero]

Quote[/b] (bongolia @ Sep. 08 2004,15:11)]yes, but it's still (mostly) shit

I don't agree with that, but it certainly didn't meet the hype. And I don't think that Shadow had any involvement in the second LP whatsoever.

To play Devil's advocate, how far do you need to go back with your influences to make a decent tune. Personally, I think that the more diverse your tastes for better informed your own music will be, but I'm not sure that listening to Shadow but not funk should necessarily make for a bad producer. I mean, even Shadow's (or anyone you rate as a good producer) influences must stop somewhere?

[Nick Cope]

I'm talking about someone trying to do funky drums, with lots of fills etc, but making an absolute mess of it. I know that DJ Shadow likes to make realistic style drum patterns, but whoever did this really fucked up. Unless it's Shadow himself, which would be really surprising...

I know Shadow produced the 1st Unkle LP (which was the joke), but I don't think he did the 2nd. I'm guessing I heard the 2nd. I'm not super familiar with with either, as I heard the 1st when it came out and decided not to bother again...

[Rich Hero]

Well I guess you'd consider the first 'hip hop related' owing to the inclusion of Kool G. Rap and Mike D, so it was probably the second. But, thinking specifically of 'Endtroducing', I always thought that quite a lot of his fills were in now way similar to a live drummer. But still funky.

[Nick Cope]

That's what I mean, Rich... What I meant was that before I even knew it was Unkle, I thought the drums were programmed like they were influenced by what Shadow did, as opposed to trying to be almost like a real live drummer, which is what I presumed Shadow was interested in. The result was a great big, stupid sounding mess. So it was particuarly funny to learn it was in fact Unkle!

[Rich Hero]

Er, I just a made a typo. I meant to say 'in no way similar to...', i.e. I didn't particularly think that Shadow was going for the feel of a real drummer. Whatever, I can sense the VV massive drifting into a deep coma, and I'm beginning to feel like one of those obsessive Shadow nerds. And that'd be really sad, as opposed to just being a record nerd...

[Nick Cope]

yeah ok, let's forget it. Anyway, it's rubbish - that's the gist of the thread. Case closed...