A Taste of English Culture

Subject: A Taste of English Culture
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:42 PM

Leading on from a comment made Here regarding concerns over what might constitute a representative presentation of English Musical Culture at the 2012 Olympic Games - what would your selection be? This is open to all, by the way, English and non-English alike, resident, transient, or otherwise...

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:47 PM

Probably a blue police box and salt and pepper robot.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:48 PM

WEll, I imagine Damon Albarn(sp?) will be commissioned to write an opera using traditional English tunes.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:51 PM

Always look on the bright side of life
Dee Dum Dee Dum.........

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: irishenglish
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:55 PM

I nominate Walkaboutsverse singing only top line melody accompanied by his recorder (probably not made in England), with a backing of 100 people on the cittern performing English Country Dance provided they have won an English Folk Award.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Peace
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 06:06 PM

Well said, irishenglish. I salute you. And I friggin' near lost some coffee at the end of what you wrote. (It was excellent.)

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: mandotim
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 06:59 PM

How about massed drunks singing the Birdie Song, with formation dance? I wonder if WAV knows the Birdie Song?
Tim ;)

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 07:19 PM

Get the Last Shadow Puppets to write the theme song. Get Propellerheads to put some beats under it, then get Scott Walker to sing it (you've got to have a big voice over that kind of material). Over the fade, have Mark E. Smith declaiming something - I don't know what, get him to write it specially. It'd be great.

As for proper musicians, I don't know - all I'm listening to at the moment is Nic Jones and Shirley Collins.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Emma B
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 07:38 PM

not a bad choice Pip!
One thing for sure it won't owe much to British 'folk' tradition (in any of its contemporary/multicultural forms) unlike the Chinese ceremony

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 05:15 AM

get Scott Walker to sing it

The fact that Scott has not only made England his home but also defined many key points of Englishness underlines the universality of Englishness as a concept, showing how wonderfully subjective it might be, once we get away from those who assume they know what Englishness is! Those anthemic self-penned ballads from his early solo albums are indicative of the same England Saint Etienne are still singing about, and even his recent work is about as English as it gets really...

Meanwhile, here's a wee film I made some years back in which Scott's We Came Through was serendipitously found to last the exact same time it took to ascend the Holy Jesus Multi-Storey Car park in Newcastle upon Tyne:

First the Production Footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqf3TRP7XYs

And the finished article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_ktTtAZfV4

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 05:37 AM

"English Culture"?

Ok, definitely not Yoghurt, but perhaps Clotted Cream?

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 10:33 AM

IrishEnglish,

Excellent idea. You forgot to mention that the citterns must be played with feathers.

Why, oh why is Kevin Pietersen England cricket captain? Surely he can't be pure enough? Sadly, I can't find anything in David's 'Life's work' to advise me. I feel strangley lost...

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 06:18 PM

How about a Scottish pipe band? it was good enough for the Chinese!

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Effsee
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 10:13 PM

Faggots and peas surely?

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 03:30 AM

George Formby singing "In A Little Wigan Garden" would do me...

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 03:55 AM

Vivian Stanshall's Wheelbarrow song.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Chris Green
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 06:38 AM

To be honest, I'd probably just book The Imagined Village. Having seen them at Cambridge, I think they're probably the most accurate and diverse expression of where the tradition is (or traditions are!) in England at the moment!

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Bill S from Adelaide
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 07:51 AM

Last I heard it was 10 000 massed morris dancers but we'd better start practicing soon, we have enough trouble synchronising 6 let alone 10k.
With a massed chorus of "On the woad again"

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 03:38 PM

This just gone up on You Tube - the Amazing Bondel live in Norway, 2004, performing Seascape...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0ASyzKnIM

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Bert
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 03:49 PM

A performance of Lionel Bart's Maggie May.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Tradsinger
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:48 AM

You'll all wrong. English culture at the Olympics will be represented by Rap and Soul bands and Gospel choirs, along with some Scottish pipers and Riverdancers. God forbid that any real English-rooted music be allowed.

:-(

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 09:00 AM

It was the British Olympic Association that bid successfully to host the 2012 games in Great Britain.

England will not be competing, but Team GB will, so the opening ceremony should reflect what?

Answers on a postcard, please, to .....

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:52 PM

They will be known to the world as the London Olympics so they should reflect London Culture. Lots of jellied eels, pearly buttons, Chas and Dave, Derek Brimstone, John Foreman, murdered teenagers!

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Effsee
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 10:18 PM

Come to think about it, 1967 Darlington Railway Station Buffet, an individual pork pie! Having chomped through half of it, noticed it had a nice internal covering of mould on the surface inside on the meat! Culture, of a sort, I suppose.

Subject: RE: A Taste of English Culture
From: Gurney
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 03:01 AM

The Black Dyke Mills Band. A Welsh choir with 'Men of Harlech.' The band of The Black Watch doing something stirring.
That should cover it, and inspire them.