I’ve seen many a performance in my life; and seen many a human try to invent something magical on a stage; try to enlighten an audience or simply, try to be modern, and free from any external references. To be totally free from all influence in art is impossible though, and even the greatest musical performers of our time, in 2009; performers who seem to be from another planet, and whose live show represents the persistence of modernity in our age; even they have identifiable forefathers.
This is the case of Daft Punk. Yes, those two very well known robot dj’s from Paris who are responsible for putting on the best live musical show one can ever experience. Two summers ago, in July, Daft Punk brought their show to the Los Angeles Sports Arena; the “Close Encounters” theme music, the huge pyramid, the video board behind it which flashed words like “HUMAN,” “ROBOT,” “TELEVISION,” “TOGETHER,” and of course the robots themselves, and their laser-red outlined figures, standing in the apex of the triangle, pushing their buttons, and remixing their own tracks with ease. They pumped the arena full of funk, full of bass, high hat sputters, kick drums, keyboards, electric guitar riffs, and of course, that voice of our computer age – the vocoder which eternally sang, “Around the World.”
Their live show sums it all up for me, makes total sense, and as the greatest art should, it makes us rejoice, fling our hands up in the air, and shout for joy. Seeing such a spectacle makes one marvel at where it came from. “How did these guys come up with this?!?!” As for the spectacle, we might say it came from the genius of those two robots, in their desire to fuse the old with the new – the pyramid with the video board – the human with the robot.
But as for their sound, after doing a little digging around on youtube, I was delighted to discover a piece of information which makes the success of Daft Punk a lot more musically (and commercially, I might add) understandable. It turns out that the father of Thomas Bangalter (one half of the Punk), Daniel Vangarde, was a producer of funk and disco music in France during the 1970’s. “Da Funk” is in the guy’s blood, for sure.
Check out these videos of a couple groups Vangarde produced:
Ottawan
The Gibson Brothers
It’s classic disco funk to the max, and to my ears at least, I can hear how the funk has been passed down from one generation to the next. Disco never really went away, and it especially survived through Daft Punk in the late 90’s, as they fused it with techno and house, and for this, we can only be thankful. All the dumbass rockers who rioted at ‘disco demolition night’ in Chicago in 79’ were either racist, or homophobic d-bags. When you fall into one of these categories, funk music will never appeal to you.
Anyways, for those of us with a soul, we say Bravo Mr. Vangarde for teaching your son the way; and bravo Mr. Bangalter for showing the rest of us the way into the future.
Masthead.
Familia.
