We Need To Talk About Fred… Again
There could be no worse modern musician than Fred Dugan. The 29-year-old DJ has become a model for " serious" electronic music fans around the world, seen as annoying, possessive and dangerous to everyone they love. This is a culture war of one man and one artist whose very existence causes much talk about authenticity and class.
When his viral box office performance at Glastonbury last month exploded onto BBC2 and iPlayer, my Twitter feed became a wall of memories, re-digging Fred and his fans. Some were amused ("The Fred Again fans are the second evolution of die-hard Kerner Carhartt side bag fans"), others were outraged ("To hell with these vulture cultures"), and still others started tweeting lists of their fathers . supporters. An unpleasant thing. Customers (including tobacco and pharmaceutical companies).
The accusations against Frederick John Philip Gibson were widely publicized and impossible to refute. First of all, it is beautiful. Not just a cool British school nipo, real blue blood. His foundation credentials are impeccable; Ian Fleming comes from a family of barons, dignitaries, landowners, socialites and creator of James Bond . The family tree is now so popular that the Early Life section of the Wikipedia page is almost a meme in itself.
And then there's the music: a kind of pseudo-ambient techno, full of noise, melodic melodies and muffled vocal samples. You can clearly hear his influences: Tomb, Aphex Twin, Bicep and the lesser known Traumprinz/DJ Healer (which sounds like his greatest musical work).
Even the fans don't match the standard Berlin or Ibiza uniform. Turn the sound down during their Glastonbury set and you might think they're playing liberal post-electronic music like Kings or Leon or Flume. Look back at the tweets about Fred and the word Normie keeps coming up. His fans are not sentimental, fashionable or sophisticated. They are happy, really happy. They are right, absolutely right. The boys wear short-sleeved printed T-shirts, while the girls adorn their faces with gold sequins. Everyone is consumed by the strange joy of the music, reminiscent of the summer camp of the Alpha course, for which you pay more than the price of admission.
Combine all these factors and Fred would be the perfect victim of the 21st century . Precise planning for the 21st century. It's a throwback to the progressive rock era when public school enthusiasts like Peter Gabriel and David Gilmour toured the world with huge kits and 30 drums, an era when consciousness and representation were at the center of musical culture. Keith would really make Fred's life easier if he went back to prog rock, but he didn't. He creates electronic music, a show full of harsh words and debates about accessibility.
So, here it is; A very successful artist, but much mocked. Someone who can't really accept, let alone enjoy. For many, it is the culmination of decades of opportunistic artists rising from the underground, generations of businessmen and major labels applying their powers to everything. Meanwhile, the genre's inventors and creators (many of whom are black, homosexual or creatively inactive) play on much smaller stages and receive less return on their efforts. At Glastonbury, even successful house/techno acts like Sheryl and Jayda G couldn't come close to Fred Again Moment, who emerged from tiny black tents at sunset parties that big. People
