The Insulting Cabaret 2010: Love & Hate DJ Set

Well the night went really well! Thanks to the Hub team and all the great performers for making it an evening of insight and delight.

Photos of the evening will be posted shortly!

Jason

How often have you heard “the devil has all the best tunes”? Well most cliches have a grain of truth to them, but in this case and after exhaustive research I’d say the devil is losing on the musical quality front.

This year’s theme of Love & Hate is a musical trick or treat, sweet and sour.  A black and white endeavor for myself and Ruth Barnes who put this year’s DJ set together.  Yes love and hate are two very important emotions when it comes to music, because those two sentiments are the bedrock of popular music since it’s inception.  Fact!

Love, for obvious and heartening reasons, tends to be the winner when it comes to quantity of tunes in popular culture and for the most part, I would take a rough guess, most of us will find more love then hate in our personal record collections.  A good thing I hear you say, but for this year’s Insulting Cabaret DJ set we took a journey into the musical world of hate.  Demonisation, racism, misogyny and bigotry are all there entwined in the words and harmonies of music from London to Tokyo, from Country to Reggae.

Myself and Ruth being pretty left-leaning, well-intentioned liberals, have to say from the outset that our record collections were not places to find a whole lot of hate.  Throw into that the fact that we hold dearest to our hearts the diversity and mix our our beloved Hackney here in London.  That our friends and family come in all colours and creeds, faiths and physical shapes. So listening to the bile and festering hatred in some of our selections has offended us as much as we hope it offends you. Be warned.

Take a collective deep breath and prepare to be challanged at this year’s Insulting Cabaret (no false advertising there).

Jason Phipps & Ruth Barnes

I think a brief qualification is in order.  Most of these songs (not all) make me feel green around the gills and without going into much detail I’d like to point out that no funds of mine where contributed in gathering the most racist and prejudiced tracks.


* ‘Hate’ by Cat Power

Self hate is perhaps the most insidious form of hate because the battlefield is on the inside and it’s participants, victim and aggressor, is oneself.  I cannot think of a song that expresses this better then Cat Power’s paired down ballad ‘Hate’ from her 2006 album ‘The Greatest’.

* ‘Boom Bye Bye’ by Buju Banton

“Boom bye bye
Inna batty bwoy head
Rude bwoy no promote no nasty man
Dem haffi dead
Boom bye bye
Inna batty bwoy head
Rude bwoy no promote no nasty man
Dem haffi dead”

This chirpy little number has aroused justified controversy since it’s release in 1992.  As inventive as Buju’s reggae infused Jamaican patois is, the essence of this hate song is the murder of gay people.  How, I can hear you ask, did reggae, the music of love end up being so hateful? To be honest I’m not sure but there is a nasty visceral homophobic seam through Jamaica’s most important export that does the Island, and the tradition of reggea little credit.  Outrage in the UK in mid 1990’s, by Peter Thatchel and other campaigners, cast a glaring and unwelcome spotlight on this strain in Dancehall and Reggae, to the point that Brighton and Hove even tried to ban the playing of ‘murder music’ in it’s boroughs.

* ‘Judge’ by Anal Cunt

Catchy moniker aside A.C. (as they are more commonly referred) is a staple of the the Grindcore scene in the U.S. and the band have been around in one form or another since the late 80’s although I note the lead vocalist has changed on a few occassions and it only takes one listen of this track to understand why.  This track is taken from their album 1994 album ‘Everybody Should Be Killed’ which tots up a handsome 58 tracks. I’d be telling a fib if I was to say I actually understand what this song is literally saying but I think you’ll agree it’s not a love song!

* ‘Slappin White Boyz’ by Brown Fish Jahbu

Baltimore Hip Hop group pump out this funky blues riff around the thorny notion of when it’s justifiable to beat up white people. The track is hilarious and punctures the whole ‘N’ word debate brilliantly.  It brought to mind the second season of The Wire where to black officers, Seargent’s Kima Greggs and Sgt Carver, are staking out a local street pusher, a white kid decked out in hip hop finery with all the lingo and patois of black Baltimore, Sgt Carver, a black man from Baltimore himself, says to his fellow officer whilst gazing at the pushers body language and liberal use of the ‘N’ word, “Thieving muthafuckers.. take everything don’t they”.  ‘Slappin White Boyz’ is a musical expression of where the line is drawn when a white boy tries to take a liberty too far.

* ‘Droppin’ the Kids of in Harlem’ by The Racist Redneck Rebels

Jaw droppingly racist and creepily upbeat this country inspired outburst is from their 2003 album ‘Keep Hate Alive’.  I’d like to think that there was an ironic twist to this ditty but I’m afraid there is not and rarely does a foot stomping tune get my fist a’ shakin’ then this track. I play it with greeted teeth and cannot muster the generosity to put a link to it.  If you want to find out more, good luck to you!

* ‘Love & Hate’ by Mano Negra

This is an ode to jealousy and mysoginy that travels from the south pole of desire and love to the north pole of insecurity and hatred for women.  Mano Negra are a gypsey punk fusion outfit started in the late 1980’s and their hybrid style of music was as panoramic as the emotions of this song.  Primarily it’s about the near craziness of desire, in particular for Ornella Muti an Italian model that the band seem to have a collective fetish for.  The outcome is a mixture of self hate and a frenzied hate for all the women they never had which is slightly disturbing and brutally honest.

* ‘Hate Your Friends’ by The Lemonheads

This is the title track to the 1987 album by a band who’s name came from a candy bar that was according to lead singer Evan Dando “sweet on the inside and sour on the outside”, a bit like the band he noted.  And so with just too many songs dedicated to friendship from the perspective of love Dando penned a tune about hating your friends.  Surely a sentiment that we all have felt from time to time.

* ‘Ilahiya Khinzir!’ (All Hail Allah the Swine) by Ayat

The title is in these times provocative in the extreme and this is exactly what this metal group from Beirut intend.  They are “We never described ourselves as Anti-Islamic Black Metal. We are against the religious establishment in all its forms and Islam is just one form of it.”. This track is taken from their blistering 2008 album ‘Six Years of Dormant Hatred’.

* ‘I Hate CD’s’ by Legendary Stardust Cowboy

The great unsung country music hero Stardust Cowboy claims that he’s written more space songs then anyone, well whilst he was penning tunes for the heavens he had time to knock off this attack on the compact disc.  Never before has the CD been so despised. I have noted that he still has not given up selling CD’s but I think he’s too angry to note the contradiction.

* ‘Hate Me Now’ by Nas featuring Puff Daddy

It sounds pretty generic now but this track from Nas’ ‘I Am…’ 1999 album was in fact born out of hate, the song being produced by D-Moet for Foxy Brown but she hated it and it was passed on to Nas who thought it a great duet piece for himself and Puff Daddy / Sean Combes.  Puff liked it so much he decided to record it and be in the video which turned out to be very controversial as it showed both Nas and Puff on a crusifix.  Combs regreted doing this scene almost immediatly and asked for it to be edited out as he is a Catholic. Either due to mischief or genuine error the unedited video was sent to MTV and broadcast leading to Mr Combs to barge into the offices of Nas manager Steve Stoute and assault him.

So ‘Hate Me Now’ managed to brew up it’s own cauldron of hatred although the song is actually about jealousy and how Nas and his wealth had engendered hatred and resentment, it’s pretty angry for a middle class son of a jazz musician born with a theasaurus not a needle and a gun.  There you go I’m feeling the hate best stop now.

* ‘Mein Kamarad’ by Ariches Blut

By the neo-nazi group Arisches Blut this is a joyous attack on every foreigner who is ‘coming to take our land’. The group is one of the more active soft rock / leider bands that spend their musical energies celebrating the past and berating the present, forwarning of the future etc. Strangely for all it’s racist bile it does use the polite and formal “sie” when addressing the dreaded Auslander.  Again I’m not up for linking as the act of finding this song tested the nerves and I’m sure my internet provider is wondering why a lefty cosmopolitan eco hippie like me is racking up white suprematist, neo-nazi and skin head sites in his search history.  For the good of The Insulting Cabaret I just kept going.

* ‘Threat To The IRA From The UVF’ by unknown

A enlightening part of compiling this playlist for The Insulting Cabaret was forcing myself to listen to music from a perspective that is alien to me and none more so then from the Ulster loyalist tradition.  Being brought up a southern Catholic in 1970’s Ireland I have countless republican songs in the back of my head, songs that as I get older seem more prejudiced and vengeful by the year.  The good news is that, to a great degree, most of these songs of vengence are nostalgic (hope lives eternal) so I was intrigued by this song / sermon in the Johnny Cash mould of country music.  The singer / speaker has a southern U.S. tinged Ulster drawl and tells of how the U.D.A. will get these “IRA scum” and have their revenge for their killing of innocent teenagers.  It’s heart wrenching and viscerally angry at the same time and although it’s brief it packs a punch.

* ‘Snipers Promise’ by The Wolftones

This particular song is from the other side of the track to loyalism.  Snipers Promise is a standard of the Republican trad scene although i think it’s probably not sung so much now which is a blessing.  I honestly hate this song, I have memories of smokey pubs in the 1970’s where Snipers Promise was sung in these sickly sentimental tones and even as a child I could sense it’s moral ambiguity or perhaps that was just the horrendous lyrics.

* ‘Campaign of Hate’ by The Libertines

Hands up this is on the playlist becuase it has hate in the title and Pete Doherty has managed to illicit so much hate from the red top readers in this country I think that the song is an unintended reference to his own plight.

* ‘Hate Is All You Need’ by The Delgados

Hate is all around find it in your heart in every waking sound
On your way to school, work or church youll find that its the only rule
Build a different world, hate will help you find what youve been looking for
Hate is everywhere, inside your mothers heart and you will find it there
You ask me what you need hate is all you need

Taken from their 2003 album ‘Hate’ this song is an obvious reposte to the Beatles ‘All You Need Is Love’.  It’s a magnificent and malevolent song from Scotland’s finest and although I’m not sure of the origin of the song it’s a biting attack on some optimistic soul known to the band at one time or another.

* ‘Fuck Off’ by The Frogs

The Frogs are a Wisconsin duo of brothers who songs may have inspired Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins but who’s subject matter insured that they were never to enter the mainstream.  ‘Fuck Off’ one of their tamer little ditties and where we are used to artists crooning their loyal fans and expounding their joy at being honored to entertain this song takes a very different and hateful view of their fans.  Jimmy and Denis Flemion recently played ATP and as usual managed to delight half the crowd and appall the other half. 

* ‘Haters’ by Jay-Z & Kanye West

Jay-Z was at the end of lots of borderline hatred when he was announced as a headliner at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival.  On this track from his most recent album ‘Blueprint 3’ he’s joined by another figure from the global hip-hop elite Kanye West who despite his obvious musical talent and creative bravery manages to whip some hate of his own.  This is mostly due to his own outrageous public performances.  ‘Haters’ is a shot back at all those who hate rap royalty just for being fabulous!

* ‘Hateful’ by The Clash

Taken from their second album in 1979 ‘London Calling’ this track is an ode to the pusher or fixer who for a price gets them what the want, who gives them via narcosis a door to freedom but this is just a pact with the devil. ‘Hateful’ is a realization of just how doomed a person is within addiction which was to some degree a self fulfilling prophecy as drugs and addiction would in time lead to enmities and departures from the band itself.

* ‘Hate’ by Nightmare

Honestly I’ve no idea what they are singing about but Nightmare, darling of the Japanese metal-lite scene are angry about something and who am I to judge!

* ‘I’m In The Mood For Love’ - Persuasive Percussion

Compiling a list of love songs to combat Jason’s Hate list is harder than you’d think. There are just thousands of great love songs in the world that I thought I would go back to my old record collection as a place to start. I used to DJ lounge and easy listening many years ago, what better way to begin than with one of the very first quadrophonic stereo sound records from 1959. Persuasive Percussion was released on Command records run by violinist and recording engineer Enoch Light, a pioneer of recording music for ‘audiophiles’. Sounds bounce between the speakers and have a depth never heard before 1959. This version of I’m In The Mood For Love captures this technique brilliantly and I am sure the song’s original composer Jimmy McHugh would approve. It’s been recorded by everyone from Shirley Bassey and Aker Bilk to Rod Stewart and Amy Winehouse. In fact put the title into Youtube and you’ll stumble across some gems, and some horrors - avoid the version by Kenny G, the jazzy/reggae-esque version by Jay Kay and Jools Holland, but do pause to take in this super-loungey version by Japanese jazz guitarist Satoshi Inoue.

* ‘Is This Love’ - Bob Marley

Is This Love is arguably the best known Bob Marley song, released in 1978 on ‘Kaya’ it peaked at 9 in the UK charts. Unlike the homophobic Buju Banton track in Jason’s Hate list, Marley’s music reveals the true nature of reggae - love and good vibes. Most people discover Marley in their teens, perched on a bean bag in a mate’s house rummaging through old vinyl, as it was in my case, and hearing the first thudding, twanging chords of this song would send you spinning. How could I go back to listening to Shaggy (‘O Carolina’ was big at the time) when this was the real, pure deal?

* ‘I Want Your Love’ - Chic

Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards have given us some of the funkiest bass lines in popular music. The bass on I Want Your Love is just so groovy and ice cool. Never cheesey, Chic truly lived up to their name in the hey day - and let’s not forget that the riff from ‘Good Times’ formed the basis for one of the biggest (and first crossover) rap records of all time, and still a staple on wedding playlists around the world, ‘Gangsta’s Delight’ by the Sugarhill Gang. To be able to play I Want Your Love, with it’s crystal clean lines, simple message and bumpy bass line after some particularly nasty track from Jason’s list fills me with glee.

* ‘My Love’ - Paul McCartney

Love him or hate him, Sir Paul has written one of the best love songs of all time with this little ditty. Ok, I could have put in ‘All You Need Is Love’, ‘In My Life’ or ‘And I Love Her’ etc by The Beatles… but I settled on this one from Macca. Delighting in it’s cheesiness, the languid guitar solo and the lazy strings - ‘woah, woah, woah, waaaw’, sing along now ‘My Love does it goooood’. From Wings’ 1973 album Red Rose Speedway, it’s a sign of the eighties Paul to come, we’d had a smidge of it with ‘Yesterday’, but now you get the feeling that Paul is in LOVE for the first time (it’s written for Linda) and is his own boss, so will hit the cheesiest heights he can.

* ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’ - Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass

Mmmmm a Burt Bacharach/ Hal David classic. I’ve always had a soft spot for Herb and his brass… did you know that he is the ‘A’ in A&M Records and that he signed The Carpenters? Did you know as of 1996 he had sold 72 millions albums worldwide? That at the ripe old age of 75 he is still recording and er, sculpting? http://www.axiom-media.com/work/pmca/_images/_exhibits/1/exhibit_full_3.jpg Not bad for a guy who plays the trumpet. You could say that what Bob Marley did for reggae, Alpert for did for mariachi music, his versions of classic hits, and original recordings, scored him six Grammy awards, fifteen albums won gold discs, and fourteen won platinum discs. Strangely enough Alpert rarely sang on his records, this track was a rare number 1 hit that featured his vocal. Notable covers include Faith No More, Noel Gallagher and The Bad Plus.

* ‘All Of My Love’ - Led Zeppelin

Robert Plant recorded this song as a tribute to his song who died of a stomach infection in 1977 at the age of 5. He recorded the vocals in one take. Listen to the song again and it will break your heart. The band had started to drift by this stage, In Through The Out Door saw Plant and bassist John Paul Jones (synth solo) working on the songs together and Page and Bonham adding in their parts later. Not a band you would traditionally associate with a love song, but this is one of the purest kind.

* ‘Baby I Love You’ - Aretha Franklin

You can’t have a love list without Aretha Franklin’s huge voice belting out ‘Baby I Love You’, this is from her Aretha Arrives album released in 1967 and it was a huge hit for the Queen of Soul. Aretha Franklin has had a major album in every decade of her career, garnered seventeen Grammys and has worked with the likes of Carole King and Puff Daddy. She’s a regular at most major American international events, including Martin Luther King’s funeral and Bill Clinton’s inaugural gala - long live the Queen.

* ‘Let The Sun Shine In’ - Hair Goes Latin (Edmondo Ros and his Orchestra)

Is there are happier, sunnier, hopeful record in the world than Let The Sun Shine In? From the Hair musical originally played in 1969 comes this joyous song, full of love and an anti-war anthem used as a rallying cry against the Vietnam war. Edmundo Ros is a Trinidadian of Venezuelan/ Scottish descent who made about a million latin orchestral records. He owned a nightclub just off Regent Street in London called The Coconut Grove and is also a ‘Mason’ - never really sure what that means, but kind of don’t want to ask! In 2000 at the age of 90 he was awarded an OBE. Hardened fans may not have approved of a Hair tribute, but it works, as the people on the Lounge Legends blog rightly point out - he even makes Manchester, England sound like a hot, fiery salsa tune - not easily done! They’ve offered up the whole album for download on their blog, click on the link above and turn it UP.

* ‘Dat’s Love’ - Connie Francis

During my easy listening phase I disovered Connie Francis and her voice blew me away, so warm, so honeyed, and brilliant dramatic intonation. Dat’s Love is a cheeky, catchy, rousing ditty that has her laughing at her the follies of relationships and makes you laugh right along with her. Connie Francis was the youngest artist to play Las Vegas, the first female to have two consecutive number 1 hits and performed for the Queen before she was 30. Gloria Estefan recently wrangled with her to make the film of her life story (and lost) and apparently Dolly Parton has also shown the same interest.

(more tracks to come!)