Plat du Jour -- Matthew Herbert

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This is, um, unique.
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PLAT DU JOUR - MATTHEW HERBERT
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2005, 8PM
Spectrum de Montréal
318 Sainte-Catherine Street West
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British musician MATTHEW HERBERT is a brilliant and multi-talented
electronic jazz artist, shifting from the exotic to the familiar with
fascinating ease. In this his North American premiere, he'll be
performing PLAT DU JOUR, a sonic and visual experience focusing on, well, food. During the last several editions of MUTEK, Montrealers have enjoyed the opportunity to familiarize themselves with different facets of his genius. A showman of the highest order, Herbert appears not only with his musicians, but with a chef, as well, de-constructing sounds and odors on stage to remind us of our daily relationship with food. Get set for a night of surprises.

Link: www.montrealhighlights.com

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Around the Kitchen!

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Hahaha this sounds really goofy (and maddening I don't want to just SMELL food ya bastard, I want to eat it too!)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:13 (twenty-one years ago)

When I saw him perform under his Radioboy guise (his anti-corporate/globalization personna), food was part of the performance. He destroyed a couple of Big Macs. He pulled the burger out of the paper bag and posed with it at the front of the stage, triumphantly holding it high above his head. The crowd went nuts. It really was an epochal moment in the performance. Then he threw it against a wall.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

That doesn't sound very surprising though.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

He destroyed a couple of Big Macs

and thus great changes occurred, bettering the lot of all society forever.

incidentally, the word-of-mouth reviews i heard of the london version of this were awful - people getting told off for talking etc

― stelfox, Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:31 (twenty-one years ago)

(xpost)

It's not surprising that he wrecked the Big Mac? Or that he chose to pick on McDonalds?

It certainly wasn't surprising that he threw the Big Mac, the entire performance was essentially him destroying things on stage.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"It's not surprising that he wrecked the Big Mac? Or that he chose to pick on McDonalds?"

Neither sounds surprising.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Why do they always let Chipotle get away with murder?

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Neither sounds surprising.
I'm not sure how deep he was trying to go with the Radioboy stuff. He singled out a lot of obvious big business targets and destroyed their stuff. The music is incidental to the path of destruction spectacle. He gave away his second album for free and the music on it isn't really compelling anyway.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Matthew Herbert seems a little too skinny to do a food record.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

That's like saying you can't do a sex album unless you're a prostitute.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

So when's your sex album coming out?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 18:18 (twenty-one years ago)

More prostitutes should record sex albums.

(x-post)

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 18:18 (twenty-one years ago)

WHY DOES MCDONALDS NEVER WANT TO ROCK?

oh wait.
http://www.thefantastictortoise.com/gallery/albums/staff/mcdonalds_lovinit.jpg

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

If you want to hear Plat du Jour for yourself, it's available this week via BBC Radio 3's wonderful show Mixing It. I reckon you've got 'til Friday.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

man, i saw that radioboy set at sonar one year. it was embarrassing. "ooohh!!!! take that GAP!!!!!" *rips up Gap bag*

and thus great changes occurred, bettering the lot of all society forever.

wot this man said

― ambrose (ambrose), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

omg this is tailor-made for me

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

cynics... would you rather he sought out cows with mad cow disease and collaborated with damien hirst to bisect the animals and sample the amplified surgical lasers tearing tendrils? would that have been any different? is the fact that mcdonalds and gap, et al, are obvious make them any less worthy of criticism? how does a conceptual musician manage to tackle these issues (and be entertaining?) when his music is sample based? given that the concept did take center stage over the music, perhaps it could have been more conceptually interesting. but the fact remains that until he kidnaps mcdonald's executives and samples the sounds of their being force fed tofu or their fierce cries against his macrobiotic preaching, there ain't a lot else to be done.

also, something tells me that ilxors might enjoy something more contrarian, like an album in praise of mcdonalds' clear cutting of the rain forest or praising trans fats or something.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

plus i really want to hear plat du jour. there's very few things that matt herbert has done that haven't floored me (musically, at least)

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

The Radioboy album he released online was pretty much a tune-free bore. Perhaps it worked as a live show. I haven't heard everything he's done since Bodily Functions but I haven't loved any of what I have heard half as much as that album. I don't think it's cynical or contrarian to question the point of his anti-globalisation work. Does preaching to the converted serve any purpose? It wouldn't be as big an issue if the music was stronger.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

of course preaching to the converted is kind of the shitty situation the left often finds itself in (well, in the u.s., at least, which is where i am). so the best you can often hope for (especially if you're a fringe-oriented musician) is that one of your listeners has some friend who hasn't been turned on to your cause and who hears what you've made and considers the implications. maybe it sways them, maybe it doesn't. it's also an exercise, hence its being free.

admittedly, nothing herbert has done since 'bodily functions' has been nearly as good as that album, imo. save possibly the song with d. siciliano on vox from the 'move your feet' 12".

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Well yes, I am prepared to give Mr Herbert a lot of leeway on the strength of his best work. The politics might have a different context in the States than here in the UK, where us smug lefties are two a penny. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, since going to a book-reading by Alexei Sayle and sitting in a room full of smug gits all clapping at the correct moments and wondering to myself "what is the point?"

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i can certainly identify with this... immediately after 9/11 when retaliation was the talk of the nation, i went to an anti-war rally in berkeley. it was the most disenfranchised i'd ever felt with all the back-patting and vacant enthusiasm and unity. the left has a tremendous capacity for breaking down a situation and analysing where it hurts and where the problems are, but fails time and time again to come up with many working solutions. of course this is derailing the thread and wholly irrelevant, so... basically, yeah, i want to hear plat du jour. sounds to be not that political. sounds festive.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Does preaching to the converted serve any purpose?
Perhaps not. But as a performance spectacle, Radioboy did work very well. No, he didn't expose new slimy layers behind corporate bohemoths, but that may not have been his M.O. You can make a political statement and have some fun with it even if the main objective isn't to instigate change.

By giving the album away, his strongest point may have been a pro-filesharing/anti-major labels stance anyway. (I do recall some CD destruction as part of the show as well)

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Herbert is the worst caricature of a liberal in the entire music industry.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

why? what does that even mean...?

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

But the man has a wicked sense of humor which I think redeems him from these slings n arrows; he's a very funny (and funky) person, and so there's a looseness in his character at odds with the stuff that some here are finding doctrinaire.

Of course these are the "obvious targets". Sometimes they are obvious for a strategic reason. A punk rock song attacking the Religious Right in America is a corny and obvious statement. So was Kerry's "Hope Is On The Way' slogan. Neither are incorrect for being obvious. Having spent two weeks at a Marxist Lacanian theory conference on psychoanalysis and politics, I can tell you that the sophistication with which one can "think the political" never, ever ends. But it can become so densely articulated as to be intransmissable to those not in the loop. A clear and obvious repudiation is sometimes exactly what is called for.

That said, a story . . .

Matthew asked me to go to the Gap to buy the boxer shorts for one of the Radioboy shows on that tour, and he said to get a big bag too as it would have the logo in a larger font. So Martin and I walk into the Oxford Circus Gap store, and buy some boxers and then we ask for an extra large shopping bag. The checkout girl asks why. We say it's for an art project. She rolls her eyes and looks at us and says, "Okay, you can have a big bag, as long as your art project is not intended to defame The Gap in any way." And then we paid and left.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

wot this man said

-- ambrose (ambrosewhit...), November 23rd, 2004.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

it means he says the exact same things as pick any person in any university all around the world, the same things that nobody outside a university would listen to.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

also if you think there isn't a massive amount of cultural snobbery among herbert and his fans, and that this isn't a massively damaging problem for lefties like him everywhere, then you're watching some crazy cartoons.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:51 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazzfest2004/

its worth listening to that Mixing It/Radio 3 that noodle vague linked; the first 15 mins is an interview about the politics and the mechanism he uses to relay his concerns and the reasonings.

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

and I say that as someone who likes some of his stuff.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

i like it that Drew Daniel posts on ILM

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I just like his basslines.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

ronan, regardless of whether or not you like his message, do you not find it important for people to be taking these issues up?... perhaps if the cause was something you sympathized with, you would feel differently? as far as whether or not his methods are damaging to perceptions about the left, somehow i don't think he'd be content with arriving at a middle ground, so it's kind of a moot point. and isn't calling something cultural snobbery when we're talking about pop music/pop communication (it's not as though these ideas are lofty or overly-academic) kind of a kneejerk reaction?

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm listening to the Mixing It show now, and yes, it does seem to make more sense.

Ronan, are you saying that you disagree with Herbert's politics, or just the way he expresses them? 'Cos I can totally believe he has listeners who are cultural snobs, but I think he's too good at making "straight" dance music to fall into that camp himself.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I do sympathise with the cause, but I feel he is of the "people are stupid" school of thought, or the "if everyone read what I have the world would be a better place" school of thought.

also someone destroying a big mac is laughable and boring and just so fucking stupid I don't even know where to start. are you meant to drown in your own tears at the sheer profundity of it all or something? he'd be better off doing some charity work or championing some small specific cause externally than this stupid art mixed with politics grandstanding. that stuff just annoys me alot.

x-post, I have an idea in my head, from a few interviews, that Herbert came out with some stuff I thought smacked of cultural snobbery, the usual sort of stuff, though perhaps I've exaggerated it over time or as is often the case the journalist lapped it up so much as to make it appear cloying.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I just wish lefties could figure out a way to get their very valid and worthwhile messages across with coming across as smug pretentious assholes to a vast majority of the human race. Matthew Herbert hasn't seemed to figure it out (and hey neither have I or most lefties) and I think that's mostly what Ronan is saying.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Of course Ronan can post ahead of me and say exactly what he was saying too.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

well... there are bits of profundity to it... i can't really think of anything that filled me with awe about the radioboy project... but, asking people to send in recordings of themselves dropping their phonebooks so that his beats could be made from the sounds of thousands of names strikes me as oddly moving and very, very humanistic.
he is, as far as i can tell, a pretty radicalized person who feels duty-bound to use his position as a place to do whatever meager amount he can to effect some change... it makes, perhaps, for a less interesting pop star, but it's a role that the world could use a few more people assuming. there's always the music. i don't like what i know about justin timberlake, but i still liked justified. you can separate one from the other.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

oh sorry I didn't get an x-post Alex!

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

x-posts to Ronan

Fair enough. As I said upthread, something about it makes me uneasy too, but it's definitely a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. I guess Drew is right in that sometimes its good to at least try and express these ideas, even if, as you say, chucking Big Macs around doesn't sound desperately radical (otherwise the kids hanging around our city centre on a Sunday must all be anarchists ;) )

Anyway, the music's about to start so we'll see how it sounds. I like people messing about with live sampling.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

also if you think there isn't a massive amount of cultural snobbery among herbert and his fans, and that this isn't a massively damaging problem for lefties like him everywhere,

do you mean like choosing to use an experimental jazz sound to "carry across" his concerns of food production and distribution should be more overt and perhaps in a style more populist?

or do mean that the problem is that it will never sell/be marketed sucessfully if done through a populist style and so inevitably will always be connecting with his "small" niche audience.

Some off the stuff on the Dr Rockitt album was political, yet framed within beautiful music to draw in music lovers first; more successful mechanism i think that the abstractions of RadioBoy "destruction" cd/gigs and Plat du Jour

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

does anyone know if herbert is producing the entire new moloko album? i heard the new single and omgwtf is it good.

i think his conceptual stuff is wonderful. the things that separate it from puerility are its consistency and the layers within its execution. i like how the conceptual lines extend throughout his work too. let's all make mistakes is a huge influence on me.

― it's tricky (disco stu), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Look I think the kindest thing you can say about these sorts of exercises (the GAP bag, the Big Mac thing) is that they are well meaning, but somewhat misguided. Michael Moore springs immediately to mind. They get the left going, feeling like "yeah, you tell 'em", but at the same time they alienate a huge number of people, people who might be willing to listen to real criticism of McDonalds or Dubya, but find tactics like tearing up GAP bags or inane voiceovers too obviously vindictive to take seriously. And I guess the problem I have with these guys is that really the Michael Moores and Herberts should probably know better, should try harder and should work to try to appeal beyond the small group of neo-liberals that are gonna go "yeah, fuck that Big Mac up" to concerned people who might be horrified by McDonalds, but find throwing Big Macs against walls kinda childish.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

does anyone know if herbert is producing the entire new moloko album? i heard the new single and omgwtf is it good.

what is it called? how does it sound? when is it out?

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Radioboy relies so heavily on cartoon violence (in the live show) that I don't see how one can consider it to be a serious piece of political criticism. I mean, some of you are attacking Radioboy as if it were a mainstream political speech or organization.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost -- Alex just summed it up for me

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Just listened to the first track of the gig - "Chickens" - and it's really good. Much more rhythmic than I remember Radioboy being, with a cool sort of damped vibraphone-y sound playing pretty solos over a beat like chopping knives, dubby bassline barely audible, blasts of skronk and white noise. Def'nitely worth a listen.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

what is it called? how does it sound? when is it out?

a. i don't know.
b. like his remix of "sing it back", but more like his recent output as herbert. brooding, minimal, vocal sample trickery, swung beats, fucked up and funky. her voice and his music are genetically predisposed towards each other or something.
c. i don't know.

― it's tricky (disco stu), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

thank you

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

This whole thing sounds a bit like Gallagher.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

(i am very excited about this new herb/moloko single)

her voice and his music are genetically predisposed towards each other or something.

agree. agree. as proven on remix of "Flipside" also.

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

it's actually a single that came out last year, but i just the herbert remixes for the first time. the title is "forever more". sorry for the false alarm. i still want to know if the rumor that he's producing her album is true.

― it's tricky (disco stu), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"Forever More" was already perfect; now I really want to hear herbert remix!!

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

there's four of them!

― it's tricky (disco stu), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

this

― it's tricky (disco stu), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

the Francois K remix is amazing, easily one of my all time faves.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree with alex in sf but i really want to see this because:

1. it's in montreal
2. i'm a food critic
3. i'm a fan of herbert's music

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

there's four of them!

In fact, there's more!

― JoB (JoB), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

i believe one of these is on the most recent mix that p. sherburne posted... it's really awesome herbert acid

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

the herbert/food thing sounds sweet to me! (in theory at least) isn't this around the same time that villalobos plays montreal? maybe he could do a food thing as well. haha 'cooking with villalobos'...it will involve a peyote cactus i am sure

― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

molobert! that's fantastic. i want. thanks JoB.

― it's tricky (disco stu), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

minimal pasta for everyone!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 22:48 (twenty-one years ago)

actually, i'm pretty sure the acid line was from the other track i was mixing... the molobert 12" has three mixes, but they're all pretty minimal (almost a little broken beaty!), and unless my memory is worse than i feared, acid-free.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 03:45 (twenty-one years ago)

surprised no-one has mentioned the sonic catering band (uk three piece who used to cook vegetarian food onstage and live-sample manipulate into tracks) and chilliman (manchester dj who used to cook chilli and feed the sounds of this into his dj sets of teutonic techno). i vaguely remember that health and safety got the better of the latter ...

― dh, Wednesday, 24 November 2004 11:02 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah maybe i was too down on radioboy, it was just that it was sort of attempting to be funky without any funk and i was in this sort of situation: since going to a book-reading by Alexei Sayle and sitting in a room full of smug gits all clapping at the correct moments and wondering to myself "what is the point?"
ie in barcelona the anarcho-hippy lefty capital of europe with loads of right on people cheering as the icons of capitalism fell. and i found it a bit boring. i dont know herbert though, so someone like drew who deos is able to show that his presence on stage is a sort of cartoonish humour filled one. at the time i mistook this for anger and self righteuosness.

― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

i like herbert a lot. bodily functions is probably one of my desert island discs, but i just don't like his political grandstanding and find his viewpoints so limited as to be laughable. i agree with ronan re the point that he should actually do something useful instead of knobbing about chucking big macs around.

― stelfox, Wednesday, 24 November 2004 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

This is, um, unique.

nope.

― :| (....), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

i think i'm going to be in montreal for this...

― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 25 November 2004 07:58 (twenty-one years ago)

seriously?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 November 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

i have molobert (see upthread).... does anyone want?

― Tannenbaum Schmidt (Nik), Monday, 11 April 2005 16:26 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yes please!

colinohara @ gmail

thanks!

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 11 April 2005 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

heard one track off this today, "Celebrity" it's really good and funny. "go gordon, go ramsey. go beyonce go beyonce!".

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 14 May 2005 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

what do we think of this? i've heard one track so far - 'the nine seeds of navdanya', and i think i really like it.

― jermaine (jnoble), Saturday, 28 May 2005 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

http://s24.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0HOLBANX8OVEH0VL477YUYXFGY

― a, Tuesday, 31 May 2005 22:40 (twenty-one years ago)

you are a god!

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 22:55 (twenty-one years ago)

the whole thing's leaked and on slsk by now

― manuel (manuel), Wednesday, 1 June 2005 03:54 (twenty-one years ago)

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