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What the f*** is Freak Beat?


BetaFunk
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Just googled it . Panic over . It turns out it's old timers music from the Sixties . From what I just read , it's kind of like The Shadows with clinical depression . For a minute then I thought I might be out of touch with youth culture . Thank God it's a retro thing .

Edited by Dingus
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I have Nuggets 2 and a few other psychedelia compilations and I've never heard the term before, think people just make this nonsense up to appear more informed than they are sometimes. Were people at the time really referring to these bands as 'freakbeat' bands? I'm a bit young to have been musically switched on in the late 60's.

Edited by KevB
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[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1370988449' post='2108459']
Were people at the time really referring to these bands as 'freakbeat' bands?[/quote]

I doubt it very much. Just as myself and other fans of CAN [i]et al[/i] in the 70s didn't refer to what they did as 'Krautrock'.

Edited by discreet
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[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1370989123' post='2108467']
I doubt it very much. Just as myself and other fans of CAN [i]et al[/i] in the 70s didn't refer to what they did as 'Krautrock'.
[/quote]
I can distinctly remember NME using the term Krautrock on one of its covers at the time (this being around 75-77).

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[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1370989735' post='2108476']
I can distinctly remember NME using the term Krautrock on one of its covers at the time (this being around 75-77).[/quote]

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1370988449' post='2108459']
I've never heard the term before, think people just make this nonsense up to appear more informed than they are sometimes.[/quote]

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It's not a term that was used at the time but I understood it now to mean that tight period around 1966-1967 when what had been [u][b]beat[/b][/u] groups, often influenced by US soul and R&B, became purveyors of psychedelia (that's the [b][u]freak[/u][/b] part). Mind altering substances may have been involved.

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Of course i know when the term Freak Beat was first used but it annoyed me than and continues to annoy me. If you'd have used this term to describe a type of music in the 60s or 70s in your local record shop the men in white coats would have come to take you away.

To me it's a re writing of history and the term should be banished forever. :)

Edited by BetaFunk
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[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1370992714' post='2108529']
Of course i know when the term Freak Beat was first used but it annoyed me than and continues to annoy me. If you'd have used this term to describe a type of music in the 60s or 70s in your local record shop the men in white coats would have come to take you away.

To me it's a re writing of history and the term should be banished forever. :)
[/quote]
Historical periodization is always after the fact and looking back.

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[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1371020696' post='2108619']
And a quick google later...

It seems it was invented in 1980 to sell records by Bam Caruso. [url="http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/music/coventry-freakbeat-still-being-celebrated-4029682"]http://www.coventryt...ebrated-4029682[/url]
[/quote]
I didn't know that but I was in a band thinking of itself as kind of freakbeat revival in 1983ish.

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[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1371020696' post='2108619']
It seems it was invented in 1980 to sell records by Bam Caruso. [url="http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/music/coventry-freakbeat-still-being-celebrated-4029682"]http://www.coventryt...ebrated-4029682[/url][/quote]

Ha! And I have also discovered that 'Krautrock' was a derogatory term invented by the British music press, but I have yet to find out exactly when it was first used.

Edited by discreet
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[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1371020696' post='2108619']
It seems it was invented in 1980 to sell records by Bam Caruso. [url="http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/music/coventry-freakbeat-still-being-celebrated-4029682"]http://www.coventryt...ebrated-4029682[/url]
[/quote]
....and it has annoyed me ever since. The first time i saw the term was at a record fair in the 80s when a lot of people in their late teens and 20s were getting into 60s Beat groups vinyl. Within a few weeks every dealer had a Freak Beat section and started to talk about certain groups as 'Freak Beat'.
It still annoys me but then i suppose that Classical music wasn't called Classical at the time either.

Anyway i'm off to listen to some Metal-Funk, Rave-Groove, Prog-Beat, Beat-Funk, Fuzz-Rock, Thrash-Ska.

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