deathtokoalas
there's a subtext to this that attaches it to a specific urban setting; i just feel the need to point out that it would be misleading to attach the behaviour to that urban setting. just yesterday, i was walking down the street in suburban areas of windsor, ontario and got hollered at twice by elderly white men from their porches, 20 feet away from the sidewalk. as a transgendered person, i'm exceedingly aware of the differences regarding walking down the street with lipstick on v. walking down the street without lipstick on - it really is staggeringly different in terms of experiences. if you're denying that, you're just not living in this reality...

Ethan Ward
You're disgusting. Tranny turd. Why did you do that to yourself you fucking faggot?

deathtokoalas
i normally delete insulting comments, but i'm going to let the ones on this post sit for a little while.

Ethan Ward
Homosexuals are still fucking faggots so I don't know what you're on about. They will always be fucking faggot and they'll always be insulted and demeaned for their disgusting acts of homosexuality.

deathtokoalas
i wouldn't identify as a homosexual, but i'm otherwise not intervening on this specific post.

Ethan Ward
So you're a straight tranny.....

Doesn't that mean that lesbians don't want you because you're a guy and straight girls don't want you because they're straight......

Pathetic...

deathtokoalas
i'm kind of pansexual in theory, but primarily asexual in practice. you're kind of cluing in on something, but you're missing the point - gay men aren't generally attracted to women. this is a complex topic, but gay men aren't generally attracted to women, right? i said that twice, but, like get it. otherwise, they wouldn't be gay, would they? so a male that would be attracted to me would be either straight or bisexual. in the context of a relationship with a male, then, that's functionally a heterosexual relationship, where i'm fulfilling the female role and the dude is fulfilling the male role.

in the context of a relationship with a women, it's more complicated. the best way to box me in in this context is to understand me as transgendered - and the female in the relationship as bisexual. the relationships i've been in with women have been multi-faceted in this context, in that they take on heterosexual and homosexual tendencies. but it's hard for me to call myself a lesbian, in that sense because i'm really filling both gender roles. it's just too narrow - and i'm kind of appropriating something.

Ethan Ward
Sounds like some perverted, sick, twisted shit. I will pray for you.

deathtokoalas
in the end, i think you're entitled to your opinion - so long as you respect my right to not particularly care what you think about me and refrain from interfering with how i choose to live my life.

i mean, i don't really think there's much to fear about your ideas of "hellfire".

Joe Heuft
As a Marxist, I couldn't agree more without with the philosophical underpinnings of their lyrics.

welcometoskyvalley
With or without?

Anthony Diaz
If you play it backwards, it says, "Send me to the collective farm because Big Brother loves me"

EndTimeRunner
A snappy reply for all the philosophers with no personal experience of how their beliefs feel when realized. Leave Marxism out of good music, this is clearly about getting rid of issues bothering the spirit, not the state. It would stink if they'd play it at ANY political convention. And don't use it for commercials either.

stephanieboyla
Marxism means no more big record companies funding albums like this...and no more fancy hair salons...

welcometoskyvalley
Thank you for sharing the fact that you have absolutely no idea what marxism is. The door is that way.

Dot Red
the state is inherently evil

stephanieboyla
Yes, there's the door out of music funded by record companies (and the big, bad profit that makes some richer than others (which, by the way, enables the generation of more music.)) - please use it!

deathtokoalas
the soviets weren't so keen on artistic freedom, and there were a lot of people (anarchists mostly, but also other types of socialists) that saw that strain in marxism coming before it happened. marxism is in fact one of the worst "work or starve" philosophies out there. when you work through it, it's clear that it doesn't really offer a solution to the enslavement of workers, it just tries to argue their condition is a perception that can be overcome.

from an artist's perspective, marxism is truly unworkable and the artists you see arguing otherwise are truly useful idiots. i'd rather suggest an essay by oscar wilde, the soul of man under socialism, as the starting point for an artist-centric brand of socialism. artists have an especially strong motive to suggest solutions that move beyond the old worker-centric calvinist work or starve status quo.

i agree that the band is generally critical of the neo-liberalism that was engulfing the world around them.

obligatory "influential on track of the week" post...

it's aesthetic, and sort of a random choice. the influence is the mellotron, in general. i was trying to get that "angels singing" mellotron sound at the end of the track. this song occupies such a weird space in my childhood, as my favourite lullaby...it's like implant-burned into my brain...

(relevant tracks: bipolarity, inertia, a sickening obsession, on sexual confusion in adolescence, confused)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01CnBGWvBpE

obligatory "influential on track of the week" post...

these haven't been happening recently, but they'll be more frequent moving forwards as i'm now over that '96 hump. the second cassette demo is still messy, but more focused and more presentable. i was writing a song to open the demo about being bipolar that meant to capture that momentary swing from ecstasy to depression. i ended up using this is as the template for two simple reasons:

(1) it was one of the few songs in the style i'd heard
(2) i didn't really know how to play the synthesizer. in fact, i had to skip school to get access to the thing in my sister's room.

(relevant tracks: bipolarity, inertia, a sickening obsession, on sexual confusion in adolescence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1vxJb6MQ34

obligatory "influential on track of the week" post...

well, not really. but the funny thing is that this is basically identical to what i was writing at almost exactly the same time. i finished my track in march, 1997; this was first released in april. unless he's secretly a cia agent, billy couldn't have possibly heard my tune. in fact, nobody had, as i didn't want anybody to know i was sneaking into my sister's room to use her keyboard. i didn't actually hear this version of the end... until late 97 or early 98 - iirc, i downloaded it from netphoria and dumped it on a cassette with other pumpkins rarities. i didn't even have internet access in march, 1997 (i did by about august or so, roughly) . but the similarity is so strong that they're basically the same song.

these influential on posts haven't been happening recently, but they'll be more frequent moving forwards as i'm now over that '96 hump. the second cassette demo is still messy, but more focused and more presentable. i was writing a song to open the demo about being bipolar that meant to capture that momentary swing from ecstasy to depression. this is the dark half...

(relevant tracks: bipolarity, inertia, a sickening obsession, on sexual confusion in adolescence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmCrT6XkdMc

as for this tune? listening to it all these years later, it sounds strangely clinical. kind of like a grade school voice leading project. had he played those arpeggios on an analog synth instead....