#23 skidoo

[strawlessandbraless]

[godslayingenthusiast]

I am WILDLY behind on Holy Nonsense 2023 and even more behind on updating you here. Anyway this page began life as a post by @katelyn-danger which you can read in all of its glorious context here https://www.tumblr.com/katelyn-danger/723128167455391744/anarchist-but-gets-triggered-when-people

I've got a couple updates on the patreon, all the Holy Nonsense stuff is publicly available so don't worry if you can't or don't want to join up there. https://www.patreon.com/qgpennyworth

I'm making progress in fits and starts. I'll try to get this baby born before the new year.

[littleplasticthings]

23 Skidoo, 1964

[anticbrvtalist]

LAIBACH, LAST FEW DAYS, 23 SKIDOO at Hotel Esplanade, Zagreb April 1983 - "Muzički Biennale Zagreb" Festival.

(Jani Novak, Milan Fras, Dejan Knez, Iztok Turk, Keir Fraser, Daniel Landin, Si Joyce, Alex Turnbull, Johnny Turnbull, Fritz Catlin, Richard Heslop,..).

[nocternalrandomness]

P-38 Nose art

[enki2]

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

Timely: my collection of vintage Father Time imagery.

[page-28]

[yzrysiyzrysi]

Various - In The Beginning There Was Rhythm 2 × LP

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm1ikUrySO1/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thephilosopheroftheboudoir]

23 Skidoo

Quiet Pillage

from the lp Seven Songs

[true-miamouse]

I think since it is now 2023, we should bring back the phrase "23 skidoo." What do ya say?

[reno-matago]

Synchronicity about Antinoüs (on 23th.1.23) which is also Noumenia in the Calendar I follow!) as I was watching Thermae Romae.

Just the day I planned to start..

23's!

[littleplasticthings]

[spilladabalia]

23 Skidoo - Porno Bass

[c-40]

A-T-4 007 23 Skidoo - Urban Gamelan

23 Skidoo are a laff. They took themselves very seriously, you could say they were militant but they were committed. They were committed to culturally appropriating Burundi drumming and they were equally committed to appropriating Indonesian Gamelan.

From 23 Skidoo's biog on LTM "Gamelan is a ceremonial style in which light yet insistent percussion forms a rhythmic base, to which chiming melodies by gongs and bells are added. Adding their own slant, Skidoo came up with the concept of 'urban' gamelan. 'Real Gamelan instruments are made from bronze and wood and elaborately carved,' explained Johnny, 'which makes them very expensive, so we've had to make our own. Hence the cylinders [plastic tubs]. It's very attractive as an idea, simply because it's an available source of music.'"

Trouble is 'urban' gamelan already exists in Indonesia, like Johnny says bronze or wood gamelan instruments are expensive and would have been played in palaces but in the paddy fields instruments were made from bamboo

We like to think of ourselves as more sensitive to cultural appropriation now but try telling that to pissed up middle-class white girls wearing Native American headdress at a music festival. The early eighties we were still very much in the mindset of The Beatles adding a bit of eastern mysticism and La Monte Young discovering the Tanpura and being the great white man to deliver it to the world (meaning America) like a 1960s Sir Francis Drake or Picasso's 'African-influenced' period or Netflix anime because that’s how we in the west receive non-western cultures

Fortunately for 23 Skidoo their gamelan playing was so terrible nobody cared they'd appropriated Indonesia's traditional and ceremonial music. In 1983 they released a second rate gamelan album The Culling Is Coming, it confused fans and gave critics meat. 23 Skidoo styled it out by saying they feared they had become darlings of the music press so purposely made something they would hate. "Certainly Skidoo never viewed the album as a mistake. 'Culling was very necessary at the time,' Fritz told Sounds [in 1985.] 'Because it felt as if the music press was right behind us, ready to present the group as the new wonder boys. But we wanted to flush all that down the toilet, and make something very clear about our attitude.'"

What they wanted to be clear about was that they were no sell out and defiantly anti-commercial. So they followed The Culling Is Coming up with their two most commercial 12" singles to date "'Then we were kind of lumbered with that new white funk scene' "

1984's campaign ended with the album Urban Gamelan released by Illuminated Records

quotes from here https://www.ltmrecordings.com/23_skidoo.html

They met Mr Sketch who had been bassist for Lynx, unlike 23 Skidoo he'd seen actual commercial success and wanted to do something more on the fringes. Sessions with Mr Sketch produced the track Language and they continued to work together

Coup was a 12" single released in February 1984, it features the Aswad Horn Section. The track gets an additional sprinkle of Apocalypse Now samples and is renamed Fuck You GI (23 F.P.M.) for its inclusion on Urban Gamelan. I prefer Coup, the Chemical Brothers nicked Mr Sketch's bass part and rerecorded it for Block Rockin' Beats

Language 12" Dub is the completed version of the track started with Mr Sketch a year before. It's notable for using karate samples before the Wu and J. Saul Kane. They put a completely different version on the album but gave it the same title

Fire is a pretty successful dub track from Urban Gamelan