The Beatnigs were a San Francisco-based band active between 1986 and 1990, influenced by industrial music , hip hop and hardcore punk .
7-542: Michael Franti and Rono Tse met each other clubbing in San Francisco. In 1986, Franti and Tse formed the band with Kevin Carnes, Andre Flores and Henry Flood. Troy Dixon joined later as a touring member. In 1988, The Beatnigs released a self-titled studio album and a 12" EP of their most famous song, "Television". Both on the record label Alternative Tentacles . That same year they played their New York City debut at
14-477: A United States experimental music band is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . The Beatnigs (album) The Beatnigs is the only album by the San Francisco band the Beatnigs , released in 1988. It combined punk, industrial and hip hop influences. Michael Franti wrote all of the lyrics to the songs; he also played bass. The album was produced by the Beatnigs. An enclosure explaining
21-566: A conventional rhythm section." MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide called it "the most interesting and innovative album any of Franti's three groups has made, loaded with sonic twists and turns." The Spin Alternative Record Guide deemed it "an angrier warm-up to De La Soul a year later: choppy beats mingled with inflammatory news items, goofy how-to spiels, exhortations from Malcolm X and others, and twisted loops of electro-industrial din." All songs written by
28-690: The New Music Seminar , and recorded for the BBC 's Peel Sessions . The band toured with Billy Bragg and Michelle Shocked in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Other groups they performed with include D.O.A. , MDC , Fugazi , Living Colour and Einstürzende Neubauten . Franti and Tse would later form The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy . They reworked the Beatnigs song "Television" to become "Television, The Drug of
35-550: The Nation" for the new group. Carnes would later form Broun Fellinis . The band's stage performance included the use of power tools such as a rotary saw and grinder on a metal bar to create industrial noise and pyrotechnics . Their sound included poetry and elements of african drumming. They were described in The Rough Guide to Rock as "a kind of avant-garde industrial jazz poets collective". The single "Television"
42-600: The origins of the band's name was included with the album. Spin wrote that the album mixed "the Last Poets’ severe rhetoric with the horrific industrial grinding of Einstürzende Neubauten." Trouser Press said that "this striking San Francisco quintet explodes in a tight and danceable riot of industrial percussion, vocals and tape manipulations." The New York Times called the album "a powerful conglomeration of taped sounds—speeches by Malcolm X , for instance—industrial noise made with saws, sirens and oil drums, and
49-440: Was reissued by Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and the album was planned for a CD re-release while made available on iTunes and other digital retailers. According to KQED , Beatnigs' and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy's influence can be heard in artists such as JPEGMAFIA and Death Grips . This article on a United States hip hop music group or collective is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article on
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