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A short history of the word 'Garage'.
The name comes from infamous disco club, the Paradise Garage which was where the godfather of modern DJing, Larry Levan, played from (I think) '76 through until '87. 'Garage' as a music term was used to describe the kind of stuff they played there, as opposed to the kind of stuff that Frankie Knuckles played at the Warehouse in Chicago, which was known as 'House'.
Garage, the New York sound, tended to be more vocal, have a lighter sound and use more snare drums than the heavier Chicago sound. As house became established as a mainstream sound in the early 90s, garage came to mean any vocal house.
However, as the 90s rolled on and house became more dominated by the European sound, a more purist garage scene emerged which fetishised a more stripped down, raw, soulful sound. The minimal garage sound was very clattery-sounding and snare heavy, with self-consciously 'soul-y' vocals. This style, as made by producers such as Kerri Chandler and Angel Moraes became hugely influential on the underground scene and in its turn started to spawn subgenres.
At this stage (mid 90s) garage was very much a US scene in that all the noteworthy producers and singers were in the US. However, the style was very popular in the UK as a more soulful counterpoint to the increasingly frenetic and synthetic sounding house scene, particularly among a certain group of older, black London DJs such as Paul 'Trouble' Anderson and Bobbi & Steve.
UK producers, notably Grant Nelson and Tuff Jam productions started to put out garage records on labels like Azuli and 4 Liberty which had a UK take on the US garage sound. They were particularly influenced by Todd Edwards and his distinctive chopped up style (the MK remix of the Nightcrawlers' 'Push the feeling on' is a blatant rip-off of Edwards). These UK records were faster than the US ones, which were typically at a slow house pace which was too sedate for UK dancefloors. Nelson in particular started to really accentuate the snare sound.
Finally, around '97 or so the whole thing really kicked off when a few producers got the idea of cobbling the big distorted ragga basslines of 95-era jungle with the emerging UK garage sound. There was a sudden explosion of what people called the 'Sunday scene' of UK garage clubs. These were typically on a sunday because the rent was less...
The major change had been that instead of an older US garage crowd, the scene had started to appeal to young black londoners. They had drifted out of Drum and Bass because media interest had driven that scene towards a more distorted rock-type sound that didn't fit in with their sensibilities. With this shift in demographic, MCs started to enter the garage scene - providing a rhythmic flow of words over the top of the music. The british MC tradition comes from the ragga style of toasting and unlike hip hop the words aren't terribly important. Most jungle MCs are indecipherable, and their voices are used more like an instrument.
Garage broke big on the mainstream in '98 and by then was almost fully formed. The main elements were jittery snare beats, fast house tempo, big basslines, cut up squeaky vocals and horns and ragga-style mcs. Since then the main evolution has been to cut out the kickdrum from the beat altogether to give a breakbeat sound, and the emergence of charismatic mcs such as the SSC.
Garage and Hip hop are basically coming from completely different places. They might sound a bit similar, especially given the current predominance of breakbeat garage, but the aesthetics and purpose of the music are very different. That's why, to a hip hop listener, garage mcs are so repetitive.
Clear?
Sauron I neither read nor write for the Face, and I think you'll find that the majority of SSC fans don't either. I think it's unwise to compare SSC production to RZA or Timbaland - they are completely different styles. You also need to remember that garage is a club style - the records are recorded and mixed for club play and contain lots of sub-bass that you won't hear on the radio, and that is a major component of the music and one of the things that differentiates it from what RZA and Timbaland do.
I like garage because this is a musical tradition that I fully subscribe to. I understand that most people don't share this fascination and don't know or care about all of this backstory and evolution that I find fascinating. It is largely a matter of my coming from a personal musical background (as do a huge number of people in this country) of primarily liking and listening to black, club music. If you don't generally like this sort of music, of course you're going to hate garage. I think the reason it inspires such hatred among people from a white, rock background is because it is such a pure distillation of this tradition and its values are so opposite to those of modern rock.
You cannot evaluate garage on criteria of authenticity, meaningful lyrics or political responsibility. These are irrelevant. Garage is about rhythm, bass, sex and attitude and you can't comment on it until you've danced to it.
Final word - I end up defending SSC in particular here because they are probably the only part of this vast and diverse scene that are at all familiar to anyone on the board. I'm really speaking for all underground club music from a black tradition.
Phew.
[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: Lyra Lovelaces ] |
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