here it is – the commencement of the faux pas agony aunt column that i have previously alluded to. who knows whether this will be a lame embarrassing stunt that lasts for a few weeks, or a lame embarrassing stunt that lasts forever.
let me ask the first one:
why do an “ask tim” column? are you some kind of wanker?
well first up, like many others, i was a big fan of trawling through the weekly Q&A’s on marieke hardy’s reasons you will hate me which is where i’m directly taking inspiration for doing this. but there’s a very specific reason for it. i have a relatively small number of very interested fans who are into faux pas, and i’m always excited by the articulate and interesting nature of their questions. it seems to me that it might make more interesting or meaty blog post material than the usual robert palmer youtube clips.
ok. here we go.
Erika asks:
Ok, there’s a sample of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ in ‘For The Trees’ right? Well i hope so now that i’ve said it. … I had a listen to the Marvin Gaye version but i couldn’t really hear it as being the same. But i know there are a heap of other versions of the song out there that it might have come from. So, is it actually a sample or did you reproduce it?
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just for the record i’m not tremendously precious about guarding my sample sources, i’ve mentioned that before. so yeah, spot on erika, at about 1:08 in “for the trees” the unmistakable main melody from “i heard it thru the grapevine” appears. i love the idea of co-opting familiar melodies, sometime subtly and sometimes very overtly, and incorporating them in with my own elements. the ambiguity that this throws up – juxtaposing the familiar with the unfamiliar, questioning what it means to be ‘authentic’, and kind of prodding at the question of “who actually owns this melody, does anyone or does everyone?” – well, they were definitely in my mind in terms of what i was doing a few years ago when that song was released. at the time my stuff was probably closer to straight sample collage than what it is now, but its still something that interests me – i want people to recognise these samples. in hindsight i wish i’d incorporated more identifiable sources than i did.
many many people explore these ideas more coherently and directly than i do – and in fact, “for the trees” was named after someone who i think approached sample collage approximately 100x better than me or anyone else for that matter, and thats jason forrest. forest, trees, get it? um yeah. the way that he reconstitutes 70s and 80s rock and disco into complex brand new rave-ups, subverting your memories of familiar songs along the way – “baker street” will never be the same for me, ever again – he is continually an inspiration to me.
for a place to start, track down his version of the who’s “who are you”, which is called “10 amazing years.”
the version of “i heard it through the grapevine” comes from a group called the electric indian, specifically a record of theirs called keem-o-sabe from 1969.
this record is very inoffensive easy listening, and i think i found it on a vinyl sharing website a few years back. some judicious google searching may lead you to a copy of the whole record, but don’t mount an exhaustive search because really, its not that wonderful! oh hang on, i think its here
MP3: The Electric Indian – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
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ok! this is fun. send your questions to asktim@iamfauxpas.com. i’ll quote your first name on the blog unless you request anonymity.
