HW Favorite year/line-up

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

At 19.34 +0000 99-11-24, Tim Stephenson wrote:
>Just because a few Goths joined the faltering Hun line up prooves nothing
>more than that the Huns had run out of inspiration some time ago and needed
>a fresh infusion of styles from new talent.  The eastern movement was
>reduced to aging old Rock dinosaurs by the mid to late fourth century,
>spending most of their time doing support gigs for eytie prog bands like
>'The  IV Legion'.

I agree that the Huns did well to recruit members who had done such great
(if seldom appreciated) work with the early Goths. But this just shows, to
my mind that the Huns were on a roll in the late fourth and early fifth
centuries--drawing on Goth talent, but taking their work to audiences which
the Goths had never broken into (and would not break into until later).

>I assert again that the 'happening sound' was Krautrock.

Well, there was indeed a lot of the Krautrock thing going on, but the Huns
though coming from a somewhat different background were working on very
similar principles. And their very successful (if short) career really gave
the Krautrock seen as much as a kick as it did the Italian prog scene
(which was hardly progressive at the time!). The difference is that the
Goths reformed after the Hunnic demise and went on to cut some great albums
which sold widely, whereas the Romans were reduced to playing their hits in
little club dates.

>Yes indeed there was a swift evolution of bands, but this just shows the
>wealth of talent there was.  What about the extended tour of The Vandals?
>Legendary stuff this, as they covered most of europe then the Iberian
>peninsula, before their triumphant finale in Africa.

The Vandals did superb work, covering a range of styles, but were really
working in a different market (southern and wester Mediterranean) than the
Huns.

>Nah - the Huns were musically isolated, nothing came from them until the
>Mongols lots later.

The Mongols made some great music, but I'd see them more as working the
same vein as the Huns rather than directly connected.

>The Goths, apart from their own great albums, spawned
>bands like the Rugians and later the Gepids and Lombards

I would agree that the Goths and their ilk eventually made it really big,
but not until after "Hun" was dead. That scene just collapsed after
Attila's suspicious death in the mid-fifth century.

>(notable for their
>long hair and mustaches, including Lemmy on Bass)

Lemmy looks more like an escaped Gaul to me :)
I guess its a North Briton thing :)

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/