Thursday, January 30, 2014
what's with us weirdos? we like to be challenged by sounds we don't understand, rather than be sold sounds we already understand. it's that simple. there's always going to be less of us. but it's not like it's mutually exclusive, either. i greatly prefer year zero, but i've actually warmed up a little to with teeth over the years. i was absolutely mortified when it first came out, though. i mean, the first track is a fucking radiohead song, and a good chunk of it is boring arena rock. not thumping ministry arena rock, but fucking radio-oriented alt rock. i guess that started with starfuckers. what really freaked me out, though, was that the best song on it was the single (the hand that feeds). that was really scary coming from reznor....
i see it has an internet history, but releasing this is a nice treat for fans of both acts. i have to say that, growing up, nin remix discs (fixed, march of the pigs, closer, further down the spiral, the perfect drug) were at the very top of my list of favourite records. of the proper records, only broken really hit me the same way that the remix discs did (which isn't to say that the downward spiral or the fragile weren't landmark discs or that i didn't play them down to cd rot, but they don't exist at the same level of abstraction). those remix discs really shattered my conception of what music could be and got me into a lot of experimental music. and they still really stand in a place of their own - nothing else has ever sounded quite like a 90s nin remix disc! even just the sense of discovery, y'know? i suppose that beginning with trent layering on dozens of tracks and then giving it over to other really creative, forward-thinking experimental artists to reassemble is sort of a magical formula. i've often wondered why he stopped doing it, given that the results were always so thrilling. it's got my mind racing, though. i wonder if there's a similar amount of unmodified thirlwell mixes out there?
wow. it's great to hear this in it's initial form. i noticed somebody mentioned the precursor remix is on the deluxe edition of the downward spiral. it was also on the closer single (which was released with two different tracklistings - one in a 2xcd case and one on a single cd), which i suspect may be difficult to locate in...shit, it's 2014. it's been 20 years since it was absolutely lodged in my walkman. but, the closer cd as a whole is an absolutely brilliant masterpiece of abstract sound - arguably the most difficult piece of music ever released on a major label. if you like this, you should find a way to listen to that single all the way through. there's really nothing else like it.
getting some fresh air at a basement punk show
i've found there are very few legitimate constants in life that transcend time and circumstance, but, for me, one absolute certainty is that, wherever i go, and whatever type of people happen to be there, and however it happens to be managed, i tend to get compliments about my hair.
it's nothing, really. i blacked it months ago. i blonded it months before that. i reded it still months before that. and blonded it still further months previously. now, i haven't touched it in a little over a year. so it's just grown in to have blond highlights at the end, and a few different shades scattered in. nothing managed - if anything it's sort of dilapidated.
we will all consider the idea of dilapidated hair now and if it really makes any sense.
regardless, tonight somebody liked my hair. thanks. i guess. i was out to see a couple of concerts....
there's two themes for the evening. the first is the fact that windsor also has a dom. not just a dom, but a punk/metal dom. two examples are not enough to build a general theory, but i do wonder how many other cities have punk/metal doms. of course, i had to compare...
it's a little more up kept, but not by much. pool tables. the difference is really that the stage of this dom is downstairs, which gives it a basement show feel more than a bar show feel.
there's even a staircase you don't want to walk down at all, let alone after a few drinks - except it's worse, because it's outside and iced over.
it was freezing in there, and that's theme number two. it seems to have literally been not heated. i wasn't dressed for it.
see, this is where my subconscious dom expectation was no doubt a serious impediment. -10 is manageable in a sweater, if it means walking to the bus stop and back in between hours of warmth. in my mind, i thought "well, the heat is always on in the dom - when i get there i'll put the sweater around my waist". not this dom.
it's not a fashion thing. i'm there to hear the music, i don't care about that nonsense. it's just that carrying around a jacket at a concert is annoying. it makes holding a beer difficult, and it makes taking part in any audience participation impossible. i'd rather go in a sweater if i can.
-10 is admittedly the extreme point. -15 is not sweaterable.
unfortunately, the issue compounded itself. i could have easily handled a ten minute wait for the bus if i'd been inside for two hours, but i was actually getting seriously worried for a minute because i'd been shivering for several hours.
obviously, i'm ok, i'm not naked in a snow bank complaining about the heat (more like wrapped up in a blanket and still shivering a bit) but it was kind of scary.
anyways...
narcolepsy. two drinks over three hours will not render one drunk, but it'd been a while since i'd slept and the eyelids tend to overpower. i've stopped fighting them, under the agreement that they don't enforce an arbitrary 24 hour schedule on me.
one more thing before i finish this: the historic strength of punk rock (as a type of music, rather than an attitude) is that it gets your adrenaline moving. that's how you know you're doing it right. it's the characteristic that defines punk as a type of sound. it's the reason people throw themselves around everywhere. it's the reason green day and mcr and ... aren't punk. adrenaline. on the other hand, metal seems to focus more on testosterone. that's the chemical reaction they're really going for (and, yes, women can feel testosterone). there's overlaps and levels of mixtures and points where people get confused and other things. but a punk experience need not include any testosterone at all, so long as the adrenaline is high - and there has always and always will be (for as long as punk exists) a subset of the audience that is interested 100% solely in adrenaline, which happens to be the subset of the audience i'm in. i'm not interested in punk with testosterone, or exploring testosterone in music in general.
ok, that's enough rambling.
keep getting distracted, lol. ok.
so, the first full set i caught was this band called minors and it was better than i expected. it's local. the core of the sound was pretty generic, but they mixed it up with some ambient, droney type stuff - as is the fashion as of right now, i suppose - and also with some spastic punkish stuff. it's nothing particularly novel, but it's a little bit more eccentric than the average basement punk band.
white ribs is the band i went to see. the record is a pretty creative mix of lightning bolt with hipster hardcore and no wave. that sounds off the wall, but i'm playing it up a bit. they're clearly trying to look like lightning bolt, down to the masks, but they can't play like lightning bolt - and seem more interested in being weird.
the show was a little flat. it lacked the valleys of the record, and the audience didn't get it. small town. *shrug*.
the record they have up on bandcamp is interesting though, and i'd check it out if you like weird experimental loud shit.
bird death was spastic and incoherent, but it's the point. it's fun in small bursts, but i wouldn't go out of my way for it.
unfortunately, the bassist broke a string and the singer made an ass of himself while he was fixing it, but i was kind of more paying attention to the lumberjack that had been bugging me all night and was now going on about where to get meth. self-preservation was more important than paying attention to the singer being a douche.
anyways, there's nothing special here, but it does what it does competently.
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2014/01/29.html
it's nothing, really. i blacked it months ago. i blonded it months before that. i reded it still months before that. and blonded it still further months previously. now, i haven't touched it in a little over a year. so it's just grown in to have blond highlights at the end, and a few different shades scattered in. nothing managed - if anything it's sort of dilapidated.
we will all consider the idea of dilapidated hair now and if it really makes any sense.
regardless, tonight somebody liked my hair. thanks. i guess. i was out to see a couple of concerts....
there's two themes for the evening. the first is the fact that windsor also has a dom. not just a dom, but a punk/metal dom. two examples are not enough to build a general theory, but i do wonder how many other cities have punk/metal doms. of course, i had to compare...
it's a little more up kept, but not by much. pool tables. the difference is really that the stage of this dom is downstairs, which gives it a basement show feel more than a bar show feel.
there's even a staircase you don't want to walk down at all, let alone after a few drinks - except it's worse, because it's outside and iced over.
it was freezing in there, and that's theme number two. it seems to have literally been not heated. i wasn't dressed for it.
see, this is where my subconscious dom expectation was no doubt a serious impediment. -10 is manageable in a sweater, if it means walking to the bus stop and back in between hours of warmth. in my mind, i thought "well, the heat is always on in the dom - when i get there i'll put the sweater around my waist". not this dom.
it's not a fashion thing. i'm there to hear the music, i don't care about that nonsense. it's just that carrying around a jacket at a concert is annoying. it makes holding a beer difficult, and it makes taking part in any audience participation impossible. i'd rather go in a sweater if i can.
-10 is admittedly the extreme point. -15 is not sweaterable.
unfortunately, the issue compounded itself. i could have easily handled a ten minute wait for the bus if i'd been inside for two hours, but i was actually getting seriously worried for a minute because i'd been shivering for several hours.
obviously, i'm ok, i'm not naked in a snow bank complaining about the heat (more like wrapped up in a blanket and still shivering a bit) but it was kind of scary.
anyways...
narcolepsy. two drinks over three hours will not render one drunk, but it'd been a while since i'd slept and the eyelids tend to overpower. i've stopped fighting them, under the agreement that they don't enforce an arbitrary 24 hour schedule on me.
one more thing before i finish this: the historic strength of punk rock (as a type of music, rather than an attitude) is that it gets your adrenaline moving. that's how you know you're doing it right. it's the characteristic that defines punk as a type of sound. it's the reason people throw themselves around everywhere. it's the reason green day and mcr and ... aren't punk. adrenaline. on the other hand, metal seems to focus more on testosterone. that's the chemical reaction they're really going for (and, yes, women can feel testosterone). there's overlaps and levels of mixtures and points where people get confused and other things. but a punk experience need not include any testosterone at all, so long as the adrenaline is high - and there has always and always will be (for as long as punk exists) a subset of the audience that is interested 100% solely in adrenaline, which happens to be the subset of the audience i'm in. i'm not interested in punk with testosterone, or exploring testosterone in music in general.
ok, that's enough rambling.
keep getting distracted, lol. ok.
so, the first full set i caught was this band called minors and it was better than i expected. it's local. the core of the sound was pretty generic, but they mixed it up with some ambient, droney type stuff - as is the fashion as of right now, i suppose - and also with some spastic punkish stuff. it's nothing particularly novel, but it's a little bit more eccentric than the average basement punk band.
white ribs is the band i went to see. the record is a pretty creative mix of lightning bolt with hipster hardcore and no wave. that sounds off the wall, but i'm playing it up a bit. they're clearly trying to look like lightning bolt, down to the masks, but they can't play like lightning bolt - and seem more interested in being weird.
the show was a little flat. it lacked the valleys of the record, and the audience didn't get it. small town. *shrug*.
the record they have up on bandcamp is interesting though, and i'd check it out if you like weird experimental loud shit.
bird death was spastic and incoherent, but it's the point. it's fun in small bursts, but i wouldn't go out of my way for it.
unfortunately, the bassist broke a string and the singer made an ass of himself while he was fixing it, but i was kind of more paying attention to the lumberjack that had been bugging me all night and was now going on about where to get meth. self-preservation was more important than paying attention to the singer being a douche.
anyways, there's nothing special here, but it does what it does competently.
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2014/01/29.html
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
not that i would have cared anyways, but i am too young to have any recollection of oj as a football player. rather, i knew oj as nordberg. this is an aspect of the trial that i don't remember being explored much.
http://movieclips.com/oQBjK-the-naked-gun-from-the-files-of-police-squad-movie-nordbergs-bad-luck/
what i'm getting at is that, for a lot of people, i'm guessing, or at least me, the whole circus around the trial made it seem like a literal extension of the naked gun series. there is even a narrative level of continuity.
i mean, i realize it's sort of bleak and insensitive, but the way the trial unfolded really stripped away any pretension to existing in reality. i mean, people got killed, sure. but that wasn't what the trial was about. maybe that's what the trial *ought* to have been about, but it's not what it actually *was* about.
the thought came up when i became cognizant of how the naked gun was probably my first exposure to geopolitics. i don't have any clear memory, it's just the first thing i can recall. and i'm exploring my favourite topic of the surreal, again.
but the nordberg thing is an under-reported angle that was probably more widespread than people realize.
http://movieclips.com/oQBjK-the-naked-gun-from-the-files-of-police-squad-movie-nordbergs-bad-luck/
what i'm getting at is that, for a lot of people, i'm guessing, or at least me, the whole circus around the trial made it seem like a literal extension of the naked gun series. there is even a narrative level of continuity.
i mean, i realize it's sort of bleak and insensitive, but the way the trial unfolded really stripped away any pretension to existing in reality. i mean, people got killed, sure. but that wasn't what the trial was about. maybe that's what the trial *ought* to have been about, but it's not what it actually *was* about.
the thought came up when i became cognizant of how the naked gun was probably my first exposure to geopolitics. i don't have any clear memory, it's just the first thing i can recall. and i'm exploring my favourite topic of the surreal, again.
but the nordberg thing is an under-reported angle that was probably more widespread than people realize.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
late defeater review
bothering to write record reviews (these aren't really reviews, and are certainly far from the analyses i have over on my review page, which i'll note has a five year minimum age on it) for newish releases comes with an understanding of my own tendencies and biases as a listener. i tend to over-react when i'm underwhelmed by something i had high expectations for.
there wasn't really a possibility that defeater could have bettered their last album, the question was whether it would be a huge disappointment or a marginal one. how would they twist the narrative? would they get poppier, or over-compensate in the other direction, or even take an experimental swing? when walking into that situation from the start, biases are going to overpower on first listen. it needs time...
i'm not going to get into the story. i'm not the teenager that is going to spend hours and hours sorting out all the characters and how everything fits into a chronological space. i have a loose understanding. that's enough to get it. it's the kind of thing that puts itself in place over years, not weeks; i'm old enough that a part of me ties itself to a reality that existed before internet forums, when there was more independent analysis. but, the loose understanding is important in understanding the musical decisions. this chapter focuses on a person with unappealing character traits, and the swing towards a broier-core (don't hate it, interpret it) seems to be contextual. ok, but is it listenable?
it's going to depend on who you are, obviously. defeater are a punk band, but they're hardcore enough that they have a crossover into that thrash/metalcore bro audience. this entire discussion will mostly not even cross their mind. for the smaller number of fans of more pure punk music (which is not remotely this heavy) that consider this on the envelope of heaviness that they can tolerate, though, it's an issue that took me about twenty listens to get over completely and put the hooks in their dominant position. take that as you may...
....but it doesn't actually answer the question, does it? well, what's your interest in theatrical music? how far are you going to dig into this oxymoronic concept of a "punk opera", anyways? there are some guest vocalists i'd never listen to, and they stand out as something i'd never listen to, but it works in that theatrical setting.
so, a loose understanding of the story is really key to get beyond the heavier gloss, if you don't usually listen to music this heavy. and time is required to reclaim the hooks and melodies.
meaning it's less of a disappointment and more of a grower. ask me how much of a grower it is in five years....
http://bridge9.bandcamp.com/album/letters-home
there wasn't really a possibility that defeater could have bettered their last album, the question was whether it would be a huge disappointment or a marginal one. how would they twist the narrative? would they get poppier, or over-compensate in the other direction, or even take an experimental swing? when walking into that situation from the start, biases are going to overpower on first listen. it needs time...
i'm not going to get into the story. i'm not the teenager that is going to spend hours and hours sorting out all the characters and how everything fits into a chronological space. i have a loose understanding. that's enough to get it. it's the kind of thing that puts itself in place over years, not weeks; i'm old enough that a part of me ties itself to a reality that existed before internet forums, when there was more independent analysis. but, the loose understanding is important in understanding the musical decisions. this chapter focuses on a person with unappealing character traits, and the swing towards a broier-core (don't hate it, interpret it) seems to be contextual. ok, but is it listenable?
it's going to depend on who you are, obviously. defeater are a punk band, but they're hardcore enough that they have a crossover into that thrash/metalcore bro audience. this entire discussion will mostly not even cross their mind. for the smaller number of fans of more pure punk music (which is not remotely this heavy) that consider this on the envelope of heaviness that they can tolerate, though, it's an issue that took me about twenty listens to get over completely and put the hooks in their dominant position. take that as you may...
....but it doesn't actually answer the question, does it? well, what's your interest in theatrical music? how far are you going to dig into this oxymoronic concept of a "punk opera", anyways? there are some guest vocalists i'd never listen to, and they stand out as something i'd never listen to, but it works in that theatrical setting.
so, a loose understanding of the story is really key to get beyond the heavier gloss, if you don't usually listen to music this heavy. and time is required to reclaim the hooks and melodies.
meaning it's less of a disappointment and more of a grower. ask me how much of a grower it is in five years....
http://bridge9.bandcamp.com/album/letters-home
on the staggeringly clear parallels between citizen and bon jovi (or, the curious observation that citizen fans seem, inexplicably, to not like bon jovi much...)
Uncle Elvis
Wow. Boring! This crap put me to sleep! Where the fuck does a band like this get its influence from? Cough syrup commercials?
deathtokoalas
sounds like bon jovi, mostly.
i honestly don't care if people enjoy this. i just wish they'd stop marketing it wrong. it's hair metal, and the demographic is teenage girls that think the singer is cute.
arod13arod
in what fucking deluded world do you live in that you think this sounds even remotely like bon jovi?
deathtokoalas
i don't know how you can miss it, really. but i think thursday sounded like bon jovi, too. that whole jersey punk thing was 90% bon jovi, 10% ian mackeye.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
i'm sorry that you don't realize that corporate emo and hair metal are indistinguishable up to the age of the listener.
Nickelpitts
Stop hating on a talented band. If you don't like it, listen to your own crap. Just don't make fun of people's musical interest.
deathtokoalas
i didn't, honestly. i stated specifically that i have no ill will at all whatsoever in any form or content towards people who enjoy music of this particular variety. my interjection into the conversation was even with the specific intent of converting a crude outburst of disgust into a more tolerant discourse. you oaf. that being said, my lack of ill will towards those that do enjoy this does not in any way preclude me from making objective, comparable statements about the nature of said sound - namely that emo of the pop-punk variety is virtually indistinguishable from bon jovi in terms of melody and songwriting structure. they may have different hair. i'm talking about sound, though.
so, might i reflect to those that feel the need to jump to conclusions that inquiry is not equivalent to hostility and people that don't enjoy the same music as you don't therefore (implication i think, here, is key) hate you.
DatzWhatsUp
hahahahaha bon jovi hahahahaha
Nickelpitts
You know showing off your vocabulary to defend your unneeded criticism doesn't make you appear smarter. If anything calling me a "oaf" does nothing but convince me further that you simply consider yourself as someone who has a issue with tearing a talented band down in order to make yourself seem like a musical prodigy. At least they are following their dream >.> not making fun of other musicians.
deathtokoalas
ok, but now you're basically conceding the point that i wasn't intending to tear anybody down and tearing down a strawman of me instead. and, to that end, i wish you great fun. i'd even help brainstorm strawman ideas to tear down if i didn't think it was a waste of time.
TheStory SoFar
Actually I've been listening to them for awhile now and I never once looked at the band members so no, not everyone likes bands for their looks. Its how they can relate to lyrics and how they like the sound. Get your head out of your ass and go somewhere else.
deathtokoalas
nonono, i'm the one that tells people they have their heads in their asses.
my statements admittedly excluded the caveat that some people have incomprehensibly bad taste. apologies. but, on the balance of probabilities...
i actually don't know what these kids look like either, i just assumed they have long hair and wear their shirts open. that's what they sound like, anyways...
TrulyHorrifying Productions
There is two types of people in this entire conversation. People who dont like the music and fans of the music. Neither one can lose at the argument because both are providing theories that are un-falsifiable, one saying that the music is bad and one saying it is good. Neither of the statements can be proven wrong because they are solely based on personal opinion one can tell the other as many things as they want to "prove" they're wrong but no one will ever come to conclusion because both people a basing their evidence on opinions. Therefore it is pointless to argue with one another; so share your opinion and view others opinions with open mindedness everyone's personal interpretation of art is meant to be different so don't ruin it by being egotistical about your own opinion. Art was never meant to mean one thing it was meant to mean many things to many people.
deathtokoalas
you're trying to say something that intends to be technically correct, if somewhat lacking in it's application to art, but you're both interpreting it badly and misunderstanding what is written here.
i've been blatantly clear that i'm not judging this, but simply pointing out that the marketing is terrible. this isn't punk, and shouldn't be marketed as though it is. i wouldn't have even found my way here to this page at all if it weren't for the bad marketing. i don't often click through to bands that sound like bon jovi. what i'm irritated about is actually that i was tricked into listening to this at all. had it just been marketed as radio music like it should have been, i wouldn't have wasted my time with it. conversely, i think it likely that there's a lot of young people that could be connected to this by advertising it to a more bubblegum market.
i think that what you meant to say is rather that comparing music needs to be done in a way that is coherent. so, "dead kennedys are better than beethoven" isn't a meaningful statement. but, arguing over whether dead kennedys or black flag were better is something that can be done meaningfully.
TheStory SoFar
Let's just stop talking to her about it. She obviously doesn't understand that this sounds nothing like Bon Jovi and we don't want to listen to her act like she knows everything about music when she doesn't. I mean come on, she called this hair metal. She obviously has no idea what she's talking about so why allow her the satisfaction of your time to post a comment. Just leave her to her delusions and move on.
deathtokoalas
...but it does sound like bon jovi. bon jovi was exceedingly melodic corporate rock music without any kind of discernible message that was centered around fashion, designed for arena rock play and radio domination. this is precisely the same thing. they just have a different fashion sense, because they're separated by a generation. i'm sorry you don't see the comparison.
listen to this and then listen to "you give love a bad name" and tell me it isn't the same genre.
as for my own music, i don't think it's questionable that it is produced at a far higher level of detail and production. however, it isn't remotely comparable to any kind of corporate rock music. it's flat out moronic to try and compare a four minute radio song to a forty-five minute symphony. they're created for different purposes, and listened to for different reasons. i'm not going to reach any points of reflection listening to weezer (although i may still think it's fun from time to time), nor am i going to have fun dancing to arvo part at the local bar. i don't suffer idiots well, and have just flat out blocked that hopeless dipshit.
people (and especially you shallow corporate emo / hair metal "punks") need to learn not to dismiss things that they don't understand. i wouldn't expect many people that post here to understand the music i produce, but i'd rather they admit that than ignorantly kneejerk and dismiss it.
Erik Paulson
Hold up, you are comparing the two based on their business model, but your logic is heavily flawed. The business model of hair metal incorporated giant record labels, huge budgets, overbearing guitarists, band antics, ect. The lyrics are unarguably more interesting in this genre. To assume that people here wouldn't understand what you produce is also stupid. You constantly post about Adrian Belew, an artist who hasn't done anything particularly interesting since the 80's. In summation, It's fine that you don't like this, but you need to reconsider your comparison.
deathtokoalas
one of the strongest comparisons is in the lyrics. the primary concept within hair metal lyrics was the objectification of women, either directly through reduction to "sexual play thing" or abstractly into evil, jezebel types. that's why i picked that particular bon jovi track. the thematic unity into what has been called emo, with all it's woes of sexual malice, is heavy-handed - and, i would argue, mostly linear in direct influence.
i have to separate out a few acts. i think i was checking out citizen in the first place because they were touring with defeater, who are lyrically not at all comparable (and, musically, really are pretty "grunge"). then there's la dispute, which take the emo stereotypes to a transcendent point of absurdity (and i'd argue are actually mostly descendent from tool and the mars volta). so, there are certainly examples where what is called emo has more interesting lyrics than what is called hair metal. but, i think it's a stretch to compare citizen to defeater or la dispute or put them into the same genre in the first place. that is to say that this argument is not applicable to this band.
rather, overall, it's the comparisons in the lyrics that dominate.
how much classical music do you listen to, erik? how much do (or did) your parents listen to? how much do (or did) your grandparents listen to?
now, as for belew, he's been on my mind lately because i run a sort of a hobby review site. he happens to be my current topic of review. in actuality, belew's solo work in the 80s was terrible - mostly second rate bowie and byrne knockoffs. this is widely acknowledged. he was, however, involved in some of the most important records of the 90s. for example, he was responsible for most of nine inch nails' lead guitar work in the mid to late 90s (including on the downward spiral). his "strong period" actually begins in the mid-90s (when he was in his mid 40s), when he stopped trying to be somebody he wasn't.
you'd do well to have a little bit of respect for important and influential artists, rather than buy into the continued corporate narrative of generational overturn. when you grow up a little bit, you'll understand that age is something the industry correlates with music to create specialized markets, and pushing that narrative pretty much makes you a tool.
the site is over here for the curious:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/index/index.html
kurtless guhle
i don't know about you guys but music is suppose to bring people together, hold hands while singing the lyrics to your favorite song. not this shit, to be honest i thank the internet for showing me music but fuck all you hurting people craving attention. music is the only thing that makes sense in this world and you are ruining it one step at a time
deathtokoalas
ugh. fucking hippies.
world's full of conflict, man. best way to reach nirvana (pun not intended) is to shoot yourself in the forehead.
the hippies’ approach to revolution:
GUYS WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG.
bosses should love their employees as the force which gives them life and luxury, and employees should love their bosses for expropriating their labour.
marx is bad karma, man.
danny shuddup
For the record, they aren't hair metal, and I doubt anybody likes them for their looks. I like the band and no disrespect is meant but the singer sort of looks like Pepper from American Horror Story: Asylum. But yeah, look at their Waiting Room set and you can see that they aren't hair metal...
deathtokoalas
that reference means nothing to me. but this discussion has already been had, and it's already been explained that contemporary hair metal looks a little bit different than it used to - and that, musically, it's in the same category.
cklin114
"and that, musically, it's in the same category."
for fuck's sake, shut the fuck up
deathtokoalas
yeah, great. i provide all kinds of valid comparisons about the shared misogyny, melodic approaches and aesthetics of emo and hair metal, and your response is "shut the fuck up".
i'd rather extend the invitation to you, all of the fucking whiny brats that listen to this and all of the bands that perpetuate the continued idiocy.
danny shuddup
You shouldn't really be so judgemental when your own music is shit... And you look like fucking tiny tim
deathtokoalas
again, i'm not about to take critical evaluation from people that listen to glossy pop music. i wouldn't expect you to remotely understand anything that demonstrates any kind of depth.
people that listen to this kind of radio drivel are not my "target demographic" (if you'll allow me to be crude), and i really couldn't care less what you think - other than to correct your constant ignorance and/or tell you to shut up because you're being fucking annoying, yet again.
i was here to check out a band that was touring with defeater, and agreed with somebody's revolted reaction. because this is revoltingly bad, especially in comparison to something as in depth and intense as defeater. i would have probably skipped the show, had defeater not cancelled (and made the show not worth attending).
nor, again, was i intending to be particularly insulting. i was simply drawing attention to the reality that it sounds a whole lot like bon jovi.
danny shuddup
It sounds like your target is to not have a demographic
deathtokoalas
it's music for adults and precocious young people, which i'm not going to find many of here. i'm probably at least ten years older than you are, possibly closer to or maybe even more than fifteen (although probably not as many as twenty). and maybe i grew up too fast. but i happen to have a soft spot for no bullshit, riff-heavy, solid grunge (like defeater, not like this), which brought me into contact with this. i wouldn't normally go anywhere near this type of music or the people that listen to it...
danny shuddup
You might be confusing precocious with pretentious
deathtokoalas
no. rather, i'd suggest you don't know what either word means.
Matt Gaub
Mom- "Hey honey, what did you do today?"
You- "LEAVE ME ALONE, MOM! I'm getting into pointless Youtube arguments! I know more about music than anyone, and everyone needs to know that! Now make me my goddamn hot pocket!"
Mom- "Sounds good! Pepperoni pizza or ham and cheese?"
You- "HAM AND CHEESE! IT'S THE ORIGINAL!"
deathtokoalas
shut up and click my links.
and, yes, it's a far better idea than paying $50 to play an empty bar (plus 1 or 2 hopeless hipsters), while the kids stay home and surf their tablets. especially in this cozy suburb of detroit...
maybe, one day i'll meet some musicians with similar tastes. but, it hasn't happened yet, and i'm not counting on it.
so, shut up and click my links.
Memphis. Methods
You stated, "i actually don't know what these kids look like either, i just assumed they have long hair and wear their shirts open. that's what they sound like, anyways..." You just proved a lot of people's arguments about you. You stated they were a hair band yet you don't know what they look like."it's hair metal, and the demographic is teenage girls that think the singer is cute." You also stated above that you assumed. Assuming lead you to this long argument you've got yourself into. I understand that you meant no harm and you are probably trolling, but this has gone rather farther than expected I bet. This is something that will never end musically. No one really knows what genre something is. We all THINK we know when in reality we have no idea. We are trained by ear to hear what we think. We can think that John Mayer is alternative, but someone else may say, "no no there's no way. He sounds Indie or folk rock to me!" No one is right or wrong. It's solely based on opinion. I hope you can understand my viewpoint on this subject. Thank you.
deathtokoalas
well, no. the evidence is the music. it may not look like a duck, but it walks like one and quacks like one. you can put a duck in a new suit, but it's still a duck. i don't have to know what they look like in order to understand what it is.
they don't have to have long hair and wear their shirts open to be hair metal. it's sort of an out of date caricature, which is something i pointed out repeatedly. and, you may try to gain a sense of humour about it, because you're missing the joke.
they write catchy, vacuous songs about broken relationships. that's what hair metal is, and what ian mackeye was trying to copy back in the 80s in order to sell more records to young girls.
Memphis. Methods
then again someone can say they make pop music. Pop is obviously what you just described.. Broken relationships and catchy lyrics. So do indie and alternative bands. You're basically describing every genre out there.
deathtokoalas
hair metal, pop, blues, emo, whatever - they're all basically the same thing. the point is that this isn't punk rock. what i was trying to express, initially, is that it sounds like bon jovi, not that it fits the precise definition of any specific genre. i brought in genre markers to solidify the bon jovi sound-alike comparison, not the other way around.
Memphis. Methods
I'm not talking about Bon Jovi. I don't listen to him.
deathtokoalas
bon jovi was a band, not a person, and it's an important difference because jon bon jovi mostly wrote ballads as a solo artist but the band, bon jovi, more or less invented what we now refer to as "emo".
if you like this, you should check out new jersey.
yes, they wrote an album called new jersey. because they were from new jersey. just.....like....
Evanya Parker
Honestly, if you don't like them; fair enough. But don't comment your unwanted opinion. The comments should only really be open to people who ENJOY the music and like it. We don't want to hear what you have to say :)
deathtokoalas
why do you think i care what you think, or that you're entitled to a greater share of the comment space?
Evanya Parker
I'm not entitled to a greater share of the comment space at all. I think everyone who enjoys the music and maybe even has some actual CONSTRUCTIVE criticism (which is rather pointless as the band wouldn't see it anyway) towards the music video should be allowed a greater space of the comment section than you.
deathtokoalas
well, that's nice. thanks for sharing.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
this is mainstream crap, you buffoon.
Nowell Kishimoto
oh, so this is on MTV right? And the radio? Yeah, thought so. Smh.
deathtokoalas
well, there's lots of shitty bands out there that haven't hit a break, and probably never will. that doesn't have anything to do with whether it's written for mtv and radio or not. and this clearly was....
George Porte
You are the epitome of music snob elitist. Everything you say is pretentious. There are varying amounts of inaccessibility for music depending on how much attention you are willing to invest into it. Nobody is going to look at this album and say it's one of the best albums of all time, obviously. But that isn't what it's supposed to be and I think you're missing the point of it. No, this isn't relabeled hair metal about fashion sex drugs and rock n roll, it's literally a group of childhood friends who are like 19 writing easy going (and loosely MBV influenced) alt rock with pretty generic but relatable emo lyrics that a teenager would really empathize with. But according to you're logic every single artist has to put out music as challenging as say, the movie donnie darko is. But in reality, there are different types of music for people who prefer a different amount of depth. It's like saying a comedy movie like wayne's world is bad because it doesn't break any molds or try to be something different when in reality it doesn't have to in order to be considered a good movie. Anyway, music taste is completely subjective so you're entitled to your opinion; but if you base everything about an artist on how expiremental/avant garde or how "corporate" they are, I think you're missing the bigger picture, honestly.
deathtokoalas
indeed. buy more disposable garbage. keeps the economy going.
and i need to point out again that i was checking out an opening act and trying to soften somebody's criticism by pointing out that, as boring as it may be, it is what it is. i don't go around looking for 80s radio rock to criticize....
i didn't make it to the show for a variety of reasons. the process of getting papers to cross from windsor to detroit has proven absurdly slow. gotta make sure terrorists like me have a hard time of it, i guess. second, i don't think defeater made the show, anyways. something to do with a sore back.
i'd not have thought anything else of this if people hadn't continued responding for months and months. and, i'd have closed the thread and deleted most of the responses weeks ago if i was unkie elvis up there. alas...
Bearslikejaimie
This comment is really pointless. Lol
deathtokoalas
you're subscribing to this thread, admit it. which frightens me.
Adam Moscinski
people like you make me hate people
deathtokoalas
the feeling's probably mutual, kid.
Wow. Boring! This crap put me to sleep! Where the fuck does a band like this get its influence from? Cough syrup commercials?
deathtokoalas
sounds like bon jovi, mostly.
i honestly don't care if people enjoy this. i just wish they'd stop marketing it wrong. it's hair metal, and the demographic is teenage girls that think the singer is cute.
arod13arod
in what fucking deluded world do you live in that you think this sounds even remotely like bon jovi?
deathtokoalas
i don't know how you can miss it, really. but i think thursday sounded like bon jovi, too. that whole jersey punk thing was 90% bon jovi, 10% ian mackeye.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
i'm sorry that you don't realize that corporate emo and hair metal are indistinguishable up to the age of the listener.
Nickelpitts
Stop hating on a talented band. If you don't like it, listen to your own crap. Just don't make fun of people's musical interest.
deathtokoalas
i didn't, honestly. i stated specifically that i have no ill will at all whatsoever in any form or content towards people who enjoy music of this particular variety. my interjection into the conversation was even with the specific intent of converting a crude outburst of disgust into a more tolerant discourse. you oaf. that being said, my lack of ill will towards those that do enjoy this does not in any way preclude me from making objective, comparable statements about the nature of said sound - namely that emo of the pop-punk variety is virtually indistinguishable from bon jovi in terms of melody and songwriting structure. they may have different hair. i'm talking about sound, though.
so, might i reflect to those that feel the need to jump to conclusions that inquiry is not equivalent to hostility and people that don't enjoy the same music as you don't therefore (implication i think, here, is key) hate you.
DatzWhatsUp
hahahahaha bon jovi hahahahaha
Nickelpitts
You know showing off your vocabulary to defend your unneeded criticism doesn't make you appear smarter. If anything calling me a "oaf" does nothing but convince me further that you simply consider yourself as someone who has a issue with tearing a talented band down in order to make yourself seem like a musical prodigy. At least they are following their dream >.> not making fun of other musicians.
deathtokoalas
ok, but now you're basically conceding the point that i wasn't intending to tear anybody down and tearing down a strawman of me instead. and, to that end, i wish you great fun. i'd even help brainstorm strawman ideas to tear down if i didn't think it was a waste of time.
TheStory SoFar
Actually I've been listening to them for awhile now and I never once looked at the band members so no, not everyone likes bands for their looks. Its how they can relate to lyrics and how they like the sound. Get your head out of your ass and go somewhere else.
deathtokoalas
nonono, i'm the one that tells people they have their heads in their asses.
my statements admittedly excluded the caveat that some people have incomprehensibly bad taste. apologies. but, on the balance of probabilities...
i actually don't know what these kids look like either, i just assumed they have long hair and wear their shirts open. that's what they sound like, anyways...
TrulyHorrifying Productions
There is two types of people in this entire conversation. People who dont like the music and fans of the music. Neither one can lose at the argument because both are providing theories that are un-falsifiable, one saying that the music is bad and one saying it is good. Neither of the statements can be proven wrong because they are solely based on personal opinion one can tell the other as many things as they want to "prove" they're wrong but no one will ever come to conclusion because both people a basing their evidence on opinions. Therefore it is pointless to argue with one another; so share your opinion and view others opinions with open mindedness everyone's personal interpretation of art is meant to be different so don't ruin it by being egotistical about your own opinion. Art was never meant to mean one thing it was meant to mean many things to many people.
deathtokoalas
you're trying to say something that intends to be technically correct, if somewhat lacking in it's application to art, but you're both interpreting it badly and misunderstanding what is written here.
i've been blatantly clear that i'm not judging this, but simply pointing out that the marketing is terrible. this isn't punk, and shouldn't be marketed as though it is. i wouldn't have even found my way here to this page at all if it weren't for the bad marketing. i don't often click through to bands that sound like bon jovi. what i'm irritated about is actually that i was tricked into listening to this at all. had it just been marketed as radio music like it should have been, i wouldn't have wasted my time with it. conversely, i think it likely that there's a lot of young people that could be connected to this by advertising it to a more bubblegum market.
i think that what you meant to say is rather that comparing music needs to be done in a way that is coherent. so, "dead kennedys are better than beethoven" isn't a meaningful statement. but, arguing over whether dead kennedys or black flag were better is something that can be done meaningfully.
TheStory SoFar
Let's just stop talking to her about it. She obviously doesn't understand that this sounds nothing like Bon Jovi and we don't want to listen to her act like she knows everything about music when she doesn't. I mean come on, she called this hair metal. She obviously has no idea what she's talking about so why allow her the satisfaction of your time to post a comment. Just leave her to her delusions and move on.
deathtokoalas
...but it does sound like bon jovi. bon jovi was exceedingly melodic corporate rock music without any kind of discernible message that was centered around fashion, designed for arena rock play and radio domination. this is precisely the same thing. they just have a different fashion sense, because they're separated by a generation. i'm sorry you don't see the comparison.
listen to this and then listen to "you give love a bad name" and tell me it isn't the same genre.
as for my own music, i don't think it's questionable that it is produced at a far higher level of detail and production. however, it isn't remotely comparable to any kind of corporate rock music. it's flat out moronic to try and compare a four minute radio song to a forty-five minute symphony. they're created for different purposes, and listened to for different reasons. i'm not going to reach any points of reflection listening to weezer (although i may still think it's fun from time to time), nor am i going to have fun dancing to arvo part at the local bar. i don't suffer idiots well, and have just flat out blocked that hopeless dipshit.
people (and especially you shallow corporate emo / hair metal "punks") need to learn not to dismiss things that they don't understand. i wouldn't expect many people that post here to understand the music i produce, but i'd rather they admit that than ignorantly kneejerk and dismiss it.
Erik Paulson
Hold up, you are comparing the two based on their business model, but your logic is heavily flawed. The business model of hair metal incorporated giant record labels, huge budgets, overbearing guitarists, band antics, ect. The lyrics are unarguably more interesting in this genre. To assume that people here wouldn't understand what you produce is also stupid. You constantly post about Adrian Belew, an artist who hasn't done anything particularly interesting since the 80's. In summation, It's fine that you don't like this, but you need to reconsider your comparison.
deathtokoalas
one of the strongest comparisons is in the lyrics. the primary concept within hair metal lyrics was the objectification of women, either directly through reduction to "sexual play thing" or abstractly into evil, jezebel types. that's why i picked that particular bon jovi track. the thematic unity into what has been called emo, with all it's woes of sexual malice, is heavy-handed - and, i would argue, mostly linear in direct influence.
i have to separate out a few acts. i think i was checking out citizen in the first place because they were touring with defeater, who are lyrically not at all comparable (and, musically, really are pretty "grunge"). then there's la dispute, which take the emo stereotypes to a transcendent point of absurdity (and i'd argue are actually mostly descendent from tool and the mars volta). so, there are certainly examples where what is called emo has more interesting lyrics than what is called hair metal. but, i think it's a stretch to compare citizen to defeater or la dispute or put them into the same genre in the first place. that is to say that this argument is not applicable to this band.
rather, overall, it's the comparisons in the lyrics that dominate.
how much classical music do you listen to, erik? how much do (or did) your parents listen to? how much do (or did) your grandparents listen to?
now, as for belew, he's been on my mind lately because i run a sort of a hobby review site. he happens to be my current topic of review. in actuality, belew's solo work in the 80s was terrible - mostly second rate bowie and byrne knockoffs. this is widely acknowledged. he was, however, involved in some of the most important records of the 90s. for example, he was responsible for most of nine inch nails' lead guitar work in the mid to late 90s (including on the downward spiral). his "strong period" actually begins in the mid-90s (when he was in his mid 40s), when he stopped trying to be somebody he wasn't.
you'd do well to have a little bit of respect for important and influential artists, rather than buy into the continued corporate narrative of generational overturn. when you grow up a little bit, you'll understand that age is something the industry correlates with music to create specialized markets, and pushing that narrative pretty much makes you a tool.
the site is over here for the curious:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/index/index.html
kurtless guhle
i don't know about you guys but music is suppose to bring people together, hold hands while singing the lyrics to your favorite song. not this shit, to be honest i thank the internet for showing me music but fuck all you hurting people craving attention. music is the only thing that makes sense in this world and you are ruining it one step at a time
deathtokoalas
ugh. fucking hippies.
world's full of conflict, man. best way to reach nirvana (pun not intended) is to shoot yourself in the forehead.
the hippies’ approach to revolution:
GUYS WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG.
bosses should love their employees as the force which gives them life and luxury, and employees should love their bosses for expropriating their labour.
marx is bad karma, man.
danny shuddup
For the record, they aren't hair metal, and I doubt anybody likes them for their looks. I like the band and no disrespect is meant but the singer sort of looks like Pepper from American Horror Story: Asylum. But yeah, look at their Waiting Room set and you can see that they aren't hair metal...
deathtokoalas
that reference means nothing to me. but this discussion has already been had, and it's already been explained that contemporary hair metal looks a little bit different than it used to - and that, musically, it's in the same category.
cklin114
"and that, musically, it's in the same category."
for fuck's sake, shut the fuck up
deathtokoalas
yeah, great. i provide all kinds of valid comparisons about the shared misogyny, melodic approaches and aesthetics of emo and hair metal, and your response is "shut the fuck up".
i'd rather extend the invitation to you, all of the fucking whiny brats that listen to this and all of the bands that perpetuate the continued idiocy.
danny shuddup
You shouldn't really be so judgemental when your own music is shit... And you look like fucking tiny tim
deathtokoalas
again, i'm not about to take critical evaluation from people that listen to glossy pop music. i wouldn't expect you to remotely understand anything that demonstrates any kind of depth.
people that listen to this kind of radio drivel are not my "target demographic" (if you'll allow me to be crude), and i really couldn't care less what you think - other than to correct your constant ignorance and/or tell you to shut up because you're being fucking annoying, yet again.
i was here to check out a band that was touring with defeater, and agreed with somebody's revolted reaction. because this is revoltingly bad, especially in comparison to something as in depth and intense as defeater. i would have probably skipped the show, had defeater not cancelled (and made the show not worth attending).
nor, again, was i intending to be particularly insulting. i was simply drawing attention to the reality that it sounds a whole lot like bon jovi.
danny shuddup
It sounds like your target is to not have a demographic
deathtokoalas
it's music for adults and precocious young people, which i'm not going to find many of here. i'm probably at least ten years older than you are, possibly closer to or maybe even more than fifteen (although probably not as many as twenty). and maybe i grew up too fast. but i happen to have a soft spot for no bullshit, riff-heavy, solid grunge (like defeater, not like this), which brought me into contact with this. i wouldn't normally go anywhere near this type of music or the people that listen to it...
danny shuddup
You might be confusing precocious with pretentious
deathtokoalas
no. rather, i'd suggest you don't know what either word means.
Matt Gaub
Mom- "Hey honey, what did you do today?"
You- "LEAVE ME ALONE, MOM! I'm getting into pointless Youtube arguments! I know more about music than anyone, and everyone needs to know that! Now make me my goddamn hot pocket!"
Mom- "Sounds good! Pepperoni pizza or ham and cheese?"
You- "HAM AND CHEESE! IT'S THE ORIGINAL!"
deathtokoalas
shut up and click my links.
and, yes, it's a far better idea than paying $50 to play an empty bar (plus 1 or 2 hopeless hipsters), while the kids stay home and surf their tablets. especially in this cozy suburb of detroit...
maybe, one day i'll meet some musicians with similar tastes. but, it hasn't happened yet, and i'm not counting on it.
so, shut up and click my links.
Memphis. Methods
You stated, "i actually don't know what these kids look like either, i just assumed they have long hair and wear their shirts open. that's what they sound like, anyways..." You just proved a lot of people's arguments about you. You stated they were a hair band yet you don't know what they look like."it's hair metal, and the demographic is teenage girls that think the singer is cute." You also stated above that you assumed. Assuming lead you to this long argument you've got yourself into. I understand that you meant no harm and you are probably trolling, but this has gone rather farther than expected I bet. This is something that will never end musically. No one really knows what genre something is. We all THINK we know when in reality we have no idea. We are trained by ear to hear what we think. We can think that John Mayer is alternative, but someone else may say, "no no there's no way. He sounds Indie or folk rock to me!" No one is right or wrong. It's solely based on opinion. I hope you can understand my viewpoint on this subject. Thank you.
deathtokoalas
well, no. the evidence is the music. it may not look like a duck, but it walks like one and quacks like one. you can put a duck in a new suit, but it's still a duck. i don't have to know what they look like in order to understand what it is.
they don't have to have long hair and wear their shirts open to be hair metal. it's sort of an out of date caricature, which is something i pointed out repeatedly. and, you may try to gain a sense of humour about it, because you're missing the joke.
they write catchy, vacuous songs about broken relationships. that's what hair metal is, and what ian mackeye was trying to copy back in the 80s in order to sell more records to young girls.
Memphis. Methods
then again someone can say they make pop music. Pop is obviously what you just described.. Broken relationships and catchy lyrics. So do indie and alternative bands. You're basically describing every genre out there.
deathtokoalas
hair metal, pop, blues, emo, whatever - they're all basically the same thing. the point is that this isn't punk rock. what i was trying to express, initially, is that it sounds like bon jovi, not that it fits the precise definition of any specific genre. i brought in genre markers to solidify the bon jovi sound-alike comparison, not the other way around.
Memphis. Methods
I'm not talking about Bon Jovi. I don't listen to him.
deathtokoalas
bon jovi was a band, not a person, and it's an important difference because jon bon jovi mostly wrote ballads as a solo artist but the band, bon jovi, more or less invented what we now refer to as "emo".
if you like this, you should check out new jersey.
yes, they wrote an album called new jersey. because they were from new jersey. just.....like....
Evanya Parker
Honestly, if you don't like them; fair enough. But don't comment your unwanted opinion. The comments should only really be open to people who ENJOY the music and like it. We don't want to hear what you have to say :)
deathtokoalas
why do you think i care what you think, or that you're entitled to a greater share of the comment space?
Evanya Parker
I'm not entitled to a greater share of the comment space at all. I think everyone who enjoys the music and maybe even has some actual CONSTRUCTIVE criticism (which is rather pointless as the band wouldn't see it anyway) towards the music video should be allowed a greater space of the comment section than you.
deathtokoalas
well, that's nice. thanks for sharing.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
this is mainstream crap, you buffoon.
Nowell Kishimoto
oh, so this is on MTV right? And the radio? Yeah, thought so. Smh.
deathtokoalas
well, there's lots of shitty bands out there that haven't hit a break, and probably never will. that doesn't have anything to do with whether it's written for mtv and radio or not. and this clearly was....
George Porte
You are the epitome of music snob elitist. Everything you say is pretentious. There are varying amounts of inaccessibility for music depending on how much attention you are willing to invest into it. Nobody is going to look at this album and say it's one of the best albums of all time, obviously. But that isn't what it's supposed to be and I think you're missing the point of it. No, this isn't relabeled hair metal about fashion sex drugs and rock n roll, it's literally a group of childhood friends who are like 19 writing easy going (and loosely MBV influenced) alt rock with pretty generic but relatable emo lyrics that a teenager would really empathize with. But according to you're logic every single artist has to put out music as challenging as say, the movie donnie darko is. But in reality, there are different types of music for people who prefer a different amount of depth. It's like saying a comedy movie like wayne's world is bad because it doesn't break any molds or try to be something different when in reality it doesn't have to in order to be considered a good movie. Anyway, music taste is completely subjective so you're entitled to your opinion; but if you base everything about an artist on how expiremental/avant garde or how "corporate" they are, I think you're missing the bigger picture, honestly.
deathtokoalas
indeed. buy more disposable garbage. keeps the economy going.
and i need to point out again that i was checking out an opening act and trying to soften somebody's criticism by pointing out that, as boring as it may be, it is what it is. i don't go around looking for 80s radio rock to criticize....
i didn't make it to the show for a variety of reasons. the process of getting papers to cross from windsor to detroit has proven absurdly slow. gotta make sure terrorists like me have a hard time of it, i guess. second, i don't think defeater made the show, anyways. something to do with a sore back.
i'd not have thought anything else of this if people hadn't continued responding for months and months. and, i'd have closed the thread and deleted most of the responses weeks ago if i was unkie elvis up there. alas...
Bearslikejaimie
This comment is really pointless. Lol
deathtokoalas
you're subscribing to this thread, admit it. which frightens me.
Adam Moscinski
people like you make me hate people
deathtokoalas
the feeling's probably mutual, kid.
corporate personhood as a red herring for the problems created by limited liability
deathtokoalas
it's quite the opposite. individualism doesn't make any sense in the context of socialized production. corporate personhood is conceptually a collectivist concept, rooted around the idea that the entire corporation exists as a singular entity, rather than as a collection of individuals. abolishing corporate personhood would be a return to liberal individualism. pretty much everybody across all spectrums is terribly confused on the topic...
the function of corporate personhood as a "legal fiction" was simply to provide standing. let's go back to before corporate personhood. let's say a corporation sold you something with false advertising, or endangered your health. you would have no legal remedy to reverse the situation that involved the corporation itself because you couldn't sue because they didn't have standing because they weren't people. rather, you'd have to sue the individual within the corporation that was responsible. this was considered impossible, due to the socialization of production (which is just a fancy way to say that the nature of modern production is not reductionist). it neither made sense to sue an individual worker, nor a middle manager, nor a corporate director. so, we constructed this fantasy that the corporation itself is an entity.
that itself is not a problem. without the existence of corporate personhood, many important environmental and aboriginal cases could not have gone forward at all, let alone amounted in victory. the left doesn't really want to abolish this. it's just infamously (and stereotypically) clueless about law.
rather, the thing the left should seek to abolish is the other side of corporate personhood, which is limited liability. see, we live in a class system. so, when they set up this fantasy of a corporation as a person, they naturally set up a legal shield around investors. certain people will make lame excuses about how this is designed to encourage risk in investment. even if this is true, and it isn't, it was just the investor class blatantly legislating itself above the law, we shouldn't want to encourage investments that are risky because they're environmentally damaging or investments that risk people's savings. it's institutional insanity.
...but what's going to happen if you abolish corporate personhood is that the worker on the oil rig making shit wages is going to become legally liable for any mistakes he might make. collectivists of any kind should strenuously oppose this!
============
Bushrod Rust Johnson
What a load of collectivist, progressive shit. Corporations have the same rights as people because the individual persons who are part of corporations do not give up their individual rights just because they form groups. The law does not say and has never said that corporations are literal people.
George Merkert
Corporations are collections of people working together to achieve goals but they're not the least bit democratic. "One person one vote" is the democratic ideal but that ideal has no place in governance of a corporation. Corporations are governed by boards of directors whose charters demand that they pursue profit as their only goal. That leaves out a raft of important goals like providing clean water for all citizens, administering justice, securing our country's borders. The law does, in fact, give corporations literal Constitutional rights. Notably, the right of free speech which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United ruling to mean that corporations have the right to give unlimited amounts of financial support to any political cause or public official. That means that the small groups of people (Boards of Directors) that govern corporations and who can command control of many million$ use that money to influence whatever political issue they choose. That means corporations – whose wealth comes from the collective efforts of many people but whose wealth is controlled by only a very few – have vastly more power to influence our country's political process than any one individual US citizen can have. That violates the democratic principal of one person one vote. With which part of this thinking do you disagree?
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+George Merkert
The reason why constitutional rights, such as speech, should apply to corporations is that denying them any right would effectively also deny an individual's rights. When an organization "speaks", it is actually an individual choosing to speak or a collection of individuals choosing to speak. Preventing anyone from spending money on causes they support also results denying individuals or organizations of individuals the means to communicate or organize. Anyone should be allowed to spend as much of their own money, including any money they have been authorized by others to spend, as they want on any cause they support. If this results in undesirable political outcomes, then the real problem is the stupid powers granted to government. This includes all economic and social issues. Without these powers, there would be much less reason to spend money on political causes. If someone does not like what a corporation or other organization is doing with its money, that person can choose not to invest or do business with the organization. Once you voluntarily give your money away, it is no longer your money. And you are still free to vote however you like, how a corporation spends its money actually has no discernible physical effect on anyone's ability to vote.
George Merkert
Thanks for your answer but I don't understand how denying a corporation a right denies an individual a right. A corporate executive when speaking for his/her organization is speaking with the power of the collection of individuals that make up that organization. Executives hew to the ideas that the Board of Directors of the corporation have authorized the executive to promote. The BOD represents the interests of the organization as a whole and not the interests of any individual within the corporation. Individuals with less power in the corporation may have very different ideas than the official line of the organization that they work for and depend on for a paycheck. So I don't see how when a corporation speaks it's speaking for an individual. If I'm missing your point, please clarify so I understand.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+George Merkert
Quite simply, there are no exceptions in the first amendment. Corporations don't actually speak unless at least one real, individual person speaks. The views of a collection of individuals are still also the views of at least one or two individual individuals, and any of them has the right to speak or refuse to speak as an individual or as a representative or in support of the views that a collection of individuals may or may not hold. If any member of a formal organization feels strongly enough against the views of the majority of the other members, they are free to attempt to persuade them otherwise or are free to stop supporting it, working for it, giving money to it, or owning a part of it. The other members should be free to send them packing, too. Nobody is entitled to be a part of any private voluntary social structure or force the other members to run it a certain way.
deathtokoalas
it's quite the opposite. individualism doesn't make any sense in the context of socialized production. corporate personhood is conceptually a collectivist concept, rooted around the idea that the entire corporation exists as a singular entity, rather than as a collection of individuals. abolishing corporate personhood would be a return to liberal individualism. pretty much everybody across all spectrums is terribly confused on the topic...
the function of corporate personhood as a "legal fiction" was simply to provide standing. let's go back to before corporate personhood. let's say a corporation sold you something with false advertising, or endangered your health. you would have no legal remedy to reverse the situation that involved the corporation itself because you couldn't sue because they didn't have standing because they weren't people. rather, you'd have to sue the individual within the corporation that was responsible. this was considered impossible, due to the socialization of production (which is just a fancy way to say that the nature of modern production is not reductionist). it neither made sense to sue an individual worker, nor a middle manager, nor a corporate director. so, we constructed this fantasy that the corporation itself is an entity.
that itself is not a problem. without the existence of corporate personhood, many important environmental and aboriginal cases could not have gone forward at all, let alone amounted in victory. the left doesn't really want to abolish this. it's just infamously (and stereotypically) clueless about law.
rather, the thing the left should seek to abolish is the other side of corporate personhood, which is limited liability. see, we live in a class system. so, when they set up this fantasy of a corporation as a person, they naturally set up a legal shield around investors. certain people will make lame excuses about how this is designed to encourage risk in investment. even if this is true, and it isn't, it was just the investor class blatantly legislating itself above the law, we shouldn't want to encourage investments that are risky because they're environmentally damaging or investments that risk people's savings. it's institutional insanity.
...but what's going to happen if you abolish corporate personhood is that the worker on the oil rig making shit wages is going to become legally liable for any mistakes he might make. collectivists of any kind should strenuously oppose this!
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
Actually, in limited liability, individual employees, board members, and investors still can be held legally liable for fuckups or deliberate wrongdoings that can be traced back to them. Limited liability protects individuals who weren't personally responsible for a problem, but investors and owners still risk losing up to their entire investment. Speaking in terms of individuals making a personal choice to include themselves in or leave an entity consisting of a collection of other individuals at will does make sense, this is not the same thing as "collectivism" of positive-rights based rights, responsibilities, and entitlements. When I use the word "collectivism", anyway, I am talking about people telling other people what to do for intentions (but often not results) of a subjective "greater good".
deathtokoalas
+Bushrod Rust Johnson
"Limited liability protects individuals who weren't personally responsible for a problem" .
..and this is equivalent to the investor class legislating itself above the law. if you profit from organized crime, that's called money laundering. if you take part in it through financial aid, that's called abetting a crime. yet, shareholders are protected from accusations of the sort through the concept of limited liability. shareholders are guilty by means of enabling and should be prosecuted strenuously for it. this would provide a strong disincentive for investing in unethical companies, which would prevent them from existing. it's the thing that leftists actually want, even if they lack the education to articulate it. it's a neat trick to use a concept of collectivism that isn't remotely relevant in context. collectivism is a dozen different things depending upon how one applies it. it can be a type of political organization, sure. yet, that's not what we're talking about. it's obviously certainly not "individualist" to gather a group of people together that function as a unity and declare them a singular entity - a corps, or a machine. a holistic whole. a hierarchical (unfortunately) hive. politically, that's called "corporatism", which is a type of political collectivism, and forms the ideological underpinning of our concepts of corporate legal personhood. right-wing liberals and individualists oppose this idea, by definition. of course, one can also have right-wing collectivists (like nazis or stalinists) but i don't wish to commit the error you did.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
Money laundering and abetting involve intent to support a crime. Limited liability doesn't protect people who directly enable or cause something through deliberate actions or negligence. It provides a limit to how much an employee, officer, or investor can be held responsible for not being able to babysit every fucking thing every moment. Companies already have plenty of incentive not to operate unethically because of the risk to owners and investors, and potential investors. Anyway, you know limited liability isn't going anywhere and you can't do anything about it. How is it not individualist for an individual to choose if he or she wants to associate with other individuals, as opposed to being forced to associate with others (what collectivism actually is)? Corporatism is what happens when you give government powers to set policies favorable to one business or another- which is what really enables most of whatever your hangups with THE CORPORASHUNS are. I'm not sure you can be sure you didn't commit a bunch of errors. Lets get one thing clear: collectivism is using force to tell other people what's "good" for "everyone".
deathtokoalas
+Bushrod Rust Johnson
i'll say you're providing a consistently right-wing idea of responsibility, but you're not addressing the core of the argument, which is that leftists do indeed think that shareholders should be liable for the consequences of their investments. investing in exxon comes with a high level of foresight that they're going to likely be involved in both negligent and genocidal behaviour. it ought to be the shareholder's responsibility to do that research before they invest and, if they don't, they ought to be prosecuted for it when it happens. the legality is something that would swing on a shift in philosophy. i mean, you're deriving your ideas from liberal axioms, but if we were to reject those liberal axioms then other conclusions would follow. obviously, the current incentive systems aren't working very well. corporatism is not at all what you think it is. you're using a colloquial definition that aligns more properly with a type of mercantilism. corporatism came out of an idea to merge guilds with the state by creating monopolies across industries. that worked itself out in the fascist era through the creation of large trusts that were under the control of state departments. i don't have the interest to explain this much further, other than to say you're not even close to it and you need to read up on the topic if you want to converse about it. mercantilism and corporatism are not related ideas, but you seem to have confused them as equal. none of this has anything to do with my basic observation that supporting corporate personhood is viewing the corporation as a holistic entity (a collectivist idea) and that rejecting corporate personhood is viewing the corporation as a collection of individuals (a liberal idea). to extrapolate it further through analogy: if these concepts were properly understood, thatcher would have said that corporate personhood could not exist because a corporation is merely a collection of people, and all the opposition to thatcher would have gasped and said she was out to lunch about it.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
"Genocidal behaviour", prosecuting shareholders, your simplistic view of things in terms of "left" versus "right"... I can see you are a well rounded and level headed person to have a discussion with. If someone within a company really did initiate some form of genocide, it should be really easy to hold that person accountable. Even the shareholders would have a valid moral and monetary claim against them. You are fucking hyperbolic and ridiculous.
deathtokoalas
+Bushrod Rust Johnson
not at all. it's relatively common for mining companies in latin america to literally commit crimes that are banned under the rome convention, which was a convention on war crimes. mass rape. burning entire villages. i claim that investors share responsibility for these crimes by enabling them through their investment. and i'd argue that the directors of these companies should be prosecuted as war criminals.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
This is shit that happens with easily manipulable and corrupt governments in third world shitholes that don't respect individual liberty, markets, and property rights. It doesn't matter how companies are set up. They get away with shit.
it's quite the opposite. individualism doesn't make any sense in the context of socialized production. corporate personhood is conceptually a collectivist concept, rooted around the idea that the entire corporation exists as a singular entity, rather than as a collection of individuals. abolishing corporate personhood would be a return to liberal individualism. pretty much everybody across all spectrums is terribly confused on the topic...
the function of corporate personhood as a "legal fiction" was simply to provide standing. let's go back to before corporate personhood. let's say a corporation sold you something with false advertising, or endangered your health. you would have no legal remedy to reverse the situation that involved the corporation itself because you couldn't sue because they didn't have standing because they weren't people. rather, you'd have to sue the individual within the corporation that was responsible. this was considered impossible, due to the socialization of production (which is just a fancy way to say that the nature of modern production is not reductionist). it neither made sense to sue an individual worker, nor a middle manager, nor a corporate director. so, we constructed this fantasy that the corporation itself is an entity.
that itself is not a problem. without the existence of corporate personhood, many important environmental and aboriginal cases could not have gone forward at all, let alone amounted in victory. the left doesn't really want to abolish this. it's just infamously (and stereotypically) clueless about law.
rather, the thing the left should seek to abolish is the other side of corporate personhood, which is limited liability. see, we live in a class system. so, when they set up this fantasy of a corporation as a person, they naturally set up a legal shield around investors. certain people will make lame excuses about how this is designed to encourage risk in investment. even if this is true, and it isn't, it was just the investor class blatantly legislating itself above the law, we shouldn't want to encourage investments that are risky because they're environmentally damaging or investments that risk people's savings. it's institutional insanity.
...but what's going to happen if you abolish corporate personhood is that the worker on the oil rig making shit wages is going to become legally liable for any mistakes he might make. collectivists of any kind should strenuously oppose this!
============
Bushrod Rust Johnson
What a load of collectivist, progressive shit. Corporations have the same rights as people because the individual persons who are part of corporations do not give up their individual rights just because they form groups. The law does not say and has never said that corporations are literal people.
George Merkert
Corporations are collections of people working together to achieve goals but they're not the least bit democratic. "One person one vote" is the democratic ideal but that ideal has no place in governance of a corporation. Corporations are governed by boards of directors whose charters demand that they pursue profit as their only goal. That leaves out a raft of important goals like providing clean water for all citizens, administering justice, securing our country's borders. The law does, in fact, give corporations literal Constitutional rights. Notably, the right of free speech which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United ruling to mean that corporations have the right to give unlimited amounts of financial support to any political cause or public official. That means that the small groups of people (Boards of Directors) that govern corporations and who can command control of many million$ use that money to influence whatever political issue they choose. That means corporations – whose wealth comes from the collective efforts of many people but whose wealth is controlled by only a very few – have vastly more power to influence our country's political process than any one individual US citizen can have. That violates the democratic principal of one person one vote. With which part of this thinking do you disagree?
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+George Merkert
The reason why constitutional rights, such as speech, should apply to corporations is that denying them any right would effectively also deny an individual's rights. When an organization "speaks", it is actually an individual choosing to speak or a collection of individuals choosing to speak. Preventing anyone from spending money on causes they support also results denying individuals or organizations of individuals the means to communicate or organize. Anyone should be allowed to spend as much of their own money, including any money they have been authorized by others to spend, as they want on any cause they support. If this results in undesirable political outcomes, then the real problem is the stupid powers granted to government. This includes all economic and social issues. Without these powers, there would be much less reason to spend money on political causes. If someone does not like what a corporation or other organization is doing with its money, that person can choose not to invest or do business with the organization. Once you voluntarily give your money away, it is no longer your money. And you are still free to vote however you like, how a corporation spends its money actually has no discernible physical effect on anyone's ability to vote.
George Merkert
Thanks for your answer but I don't understand how denying a corporation a right denies an individual a right. A corporate executive when speaking for his/her organization is speaking with the power of the collection of individuals that make up that organization. Executives hew to the ideas that the Board of Directors of the corporation have authorized the executive to promote. The BOD represents the interests of the organization as a whole and not the interests of any individual within the corporation. Individuals with less power in the corporation may have very different ideas than the official line of the organization that they work for and depend on for a paycheck. So I don't see how when a corporation speaks it's speaking for an individual. If I'm missing your point, please clarify so I understand.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+George Merkert
Quite simply, there are no exceptions in the first amendment. Corporations don't actually speak unless at least one real, individual person speaks. The views of a collection of individuals are still also the views of at least one or two individual individuals, and any of them has the right to speak or refuse to speak as an individual or as a representative or in support of the views that a collection of individuals may or may not hold. If any member of a formal organization feels strongly enough against the views of the majority of the other members, they are free to attempt to persuade them otherwise or are free to stop supporting it, working for it, giving money to it, or owning a part of it. The other members should be free to send them packing, too. Nobody is entitled to be a part of any private voluntary social structure or force the other members to run it a certain way.
deathtokoalas
it's quite the opposite. individualism doesn't make any sense in the context of socialized production. corporate personhood is conceptually a collectivist concept, rooted around the idea that the entire corporation exists as a singular entity, rather than as a collection of individuals. abolishing corporate personhood would be a return to liberal individualism. pretty much everybody across all spectrums is terribly confused on the topic...
the function of corporate personhood as a "legal fiction" was simply to provide standing. let's go back to before corporate personhood. let's say a corporation sold you something with false advertising, or endangered your health. you would have no legal remedy to reverse the situation that involved the corporation itself because you couldn't sue because they didn't have standing because they weren't people. rather, you'd have to sue the individual within the corporation that was responsible. this was considered impossible, due to the socialization of production (which is just a fancy way to say that the nature of modern production is not reductionist). it neither made sense to sue an individual worker, nor a middle manager, nor a corporate director. so, we constructed this fantasy that the corporation itself is an entity.
that itself is not a problem. without the existence of corporate personhood, many important environmental and aboriginal cases could not have gone forward at all, let alone amounted in victory. the left doesn't really want to abolish this. it's just infamously (and stereotypically) clueless about law.
rather, the thing the left should seek to abolish is the other side of corporate personhood, which is limited liability. see, we live in a class system. so, when they set up this fantasy of a corporation as a person, they naturally set up a legal shield around investors. certain people will make lame excuses about how this is designed to encourage risk in investment. even if this is true, and it isn't, it was just the investor class blatantly legislating itself above the law, we shouldn't want to encourage investments that are risky because they're environmentally damaging or investments that risk people's savings. it's institutional insanity.
...but what's going to happen if you abolish corporate personhood is that the worker on the oil rig making shit wages is going to become legally liable for any mistakes he might make. collectivists of any kind should strenuously oppose this!
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
Actually, in limited liability, individual employees, board members, and investors still can be held legally liable for fuckups or deliberate wrongdoings that can be traced back to them. Limited liability protects individuals who weren't personally responsible for a problem, but investors and owners still risk losing up to their entire investment. Speaking in terms of individuals making a personal choice to include themselves in or leave an entity consisting of a collection of other individuals at will does make sense, this is not the same thing as "collectivism" of positive-rights based rights, responsibilities, and entitlements. When I use the word "collectivism", anyway, I am talking about people telling other people what to do for intentions (but often not results) of a subjective "greater good".
deathtokoalas
+Bushrod Rust Johnson
"Limited liability protects individuals who weren't personally responsible for a problem" .
..and this is equivalent to the investor class legislating itself above the law. if you profit from organized crime, that's called money laundering. if you take part in it through financial aid, that's called abetting a crime. yet, shareholders are protected from accusations of the sort through the concept of limited liability. shareholders are guilty by means of enabling and should be prosecuted strenuously for it. this would provide a strong disincentive for investing in unethical companies, which would prevent them from existing. it's the thing that leftists actually want, even if they lack the education to articulate it. it's a neat trick to use a concept of collectivism that isn't remotely relevant in context. collectivism is a dozen different things depending upon how one applies it. it can be a type of political organization, sure. yet, that's not what we're talking about. it's obviously certainly not "individualist" to gather a group of people together that function as a unity and declare them a singular entity - a corps, or a machine. a holistic whole. a hierarchical (unfortunately) hive. politically, that's called "corporatism", which is a type of political collectivism, and forms the ideological underpinning of our concepts of corporate legal personhood. right-wing liberals and individualists oppose this idea, by definition. of course, one can also have right-wing collectivists (like nazis or stalinists) but i don't wish to commit the error you did.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
Money laundering and abetting involve intent to support a crime. Limited liability doesn't protect people who directly enable or cause something through deliberate actions or negligence. It provides a limit to how much an employee, officer, or investor can be held responsible for not being able to babysit every fucking thing every moment. Companies already have plenty of incentive not to operate unethically because of the risk to owners and investors, and potential investors. Anyway, you know limited liability isn't going anywhere and you can't do anything about it. How is it not individualist for an individual to choose if he or she wants to associate with other individuals, as opposed to being forced to associate with others (what collectivism actually is)? Corporatism is what happens when you give government powers to set policies favorable to one business or another- which is what really enables most of whatever your hangups with THE CORPORASHUNS are. I'm not sure you can be sure you didn't commit a bunch of errors. Lets get one thing clear: collectivism is using force to tell other people what's "good" for "everyone".
deathtokoalas
+Bushrod Rust Johnson
i'll say you're providing a consistently right-wing idea of responsibility, but you're not addressing the core of the argument, which is that leftists do indeed think that shareholders should be liable for the consequences of their investments. investing in exxon comes with a high level of foresight that they're going to likely be involved in both negligent and genocidal behaviour. it ought to be the shareholder's responsibility to do that research before they invest and, if they don't, they ought to be prosecuted for it when it happens. the legality is something that would swing on a shift in philosophy. i mean, you're deriving your ideas from liberal axioms, but if we were to reject those liberal axioms then other conclusions would follow. obviously, the current incentive systems aren't working very well. corporatism is not at all what you think it is. you're using a colloquial definition that aligns more properly with a type of mercantilism. corporatism came out of an idea to merge guilds with the state by creating monopolies across industries. that worked itself out in the fascist era through the creation of large trusts that were under the control of state departments. i don't have the interest to explain this much further, other than to say you're not even close to it and you need to read up on the topic if you want to converse about it. mercantilism and corporatism are not related ideas, but you seem to have confused them as equal. none of this has anything to do with my basic observation that supporting corporate personhood is viewing the corporation as a holistic entity (a collectivist idea) and that rejecting corporate personhood is viewing the corporation as a collection of individuals (a liberal idea). to extrapolate it further through analogy: if these concepts were properly understood, thatcher would have said that corporate personhood could not exist because a corporation is merely a collection of people, and all the opposition to thatcher would have gasped and said she was out to lunch about it.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
"Genocidal behaviour", prosecuting shareholders, your simplistic view of things in terms of "left" versus "right"... I can see you are a well rounded and level headed person to have a discussion with. If someone within a company really did initiate some form of genocide, it should be really easy to hold that person accountable. Even the shareholders would have a valid moral and monetary claim against them. You are fucking hyperbolic and ridiculous.
deathtokoalas
+Bushrod Rust Johnson
not at all. it's relatively common for mining companies in latin america to literally commit crimes that are banned under the rome convention, which was a convention on war crimes. mass rape. burning entire villages. i claim that investors share responsibility for these crimes by enabling them through their investment. and i'd argue that the directors of these companies should be prosecuted as war criminals.
Bushrod Rust Johnson
+deathtokoalas
This is shit that happens with easily manipulable and corrupt governments in third world shitholes that don't respect individual liberty, markets, and property rights. It doesn't matter how companies are set up. They get away with shit.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
speedy ortiz - major arcana review
i was a little bit excited about this band before this record was released. they have an ep up on bandcamp called 'sports', and they did a small venue tour last spring, which brought them to a fifty-person bar in ottawa called 'pressed'. it was actually a pretty good show, if you like the idea of starting with the pop-punk of something like weezer and layering on swaths of sonic youth style noise to make it more abstract. catchy + noisy is a good formula for my ears and enjoyment.
it was hard to miss the reality that the band had the right sound and look to launch itself to the forefront of the imminent grunge revival that the music press (pitchfork and others) has been trying to start for close to five years now, with mixed success. a grunge revival is a hard thing to engineer. the process is rooted in a lot of irresolvable contradictions. i'm not sure that the people that study media have ever really properly understood how the contradictions in grunge collapse their model; they'd rather just try and explain what happened using their old models, and continue to hold to the delusion that it can be recreated using those methods, and then think they just have to tweak it better when it fails over and over.
this is why we have highly controlled bands like girls and yuck being put together in board rooms and marketed to us as nineties revivalism. because the 90s were put together in a board room! where speedy ortiz seemed to offer a little excitement was that they weren't put together in a boardroom. there was some realness there....
.....but, unfortunately, the record displays the clear influence of an army of carpark marketing people. it's a very professional, polished recording. it sticks almost perfectly to hatfield-era writing formulas, only pausing to bring in flourishes meant to appeal to 00s indie fans. as such, the perfectly safe writing sort of belongs in an engineering classroom more than it belongs in your headphones.
there are a few decent moments when the riffs reassert themselves, but, overall, it's formulaic to the point of being trite. true nineties revivalism will only come in the form of rejecting nineties revivalism.
3/5.
it was hard to miss the reality that the band had the right sound and look to launch itself to the forefront of the imminent grunge revival that the music press (pitchfork and others) has been trying to start for close to five years now, with mixed success. a grunge revival is a hard thing to engineer. the process is rooted in a lot of irresolvable contradictions. i'm not sure that the people that study media have ever really properly understood how the contradictions in grunge collapse their model; they'd rather just try and explain what happened using their old models, and continue to hold to the delusion that it can be recreated using those methods, and then think they just have to tweak it better when it fails over and over.
this is why we have highly controlled bands like girls and yuck being put together in board rooms and marketed to us as nineties revivalism. because the 90s were put together in a board room! where speedy ortiz seemed to offer a little excitement was that they weren't put together in a boardroom. there was some realness there....
.....but, unfortunately, the record displays the clear influence of an army of carpark marketing people. it's a very professional, polished recording. it sticks almost perfectly to hatfield-era writing formulas, only pausing to bring in flourishes meant to appeal to 00s indie fans. as such, the perfectly safe writing sort of belongs in an engineering classroom more than it belongs in your headphones.
there are a few decent moments when the riffs reassert themselves, but, overall, it's formulaic to the point of being trite. true nineties revivalism will only come in the form of rejecting nineties revivalism.
3/5.
Friday, January 24, 2014
late night birds review
when nirvana took west coast punk mainstream in the early 90s (followed shortly by the offspring and green day), it just sort of imploded. there was a huge rush to get on mtv. warped tour followed. skateboarding shoes became unreasonably expensive. by 2000, the whole thing was just entirely dismantled. fashions changed to offshoots of "post-hardcore" and "nu metal". through the 90s, fans of independent hardcore punk gave up on the west coast sound altogether and focused on offshoots of the east coast's centre, which was not new york but dc (dave grohl included, for roughly five minutes). people that found the west coast sound to be a fun and enjoyable way to explore political questions, and offshoots of the dc sound to mostly be noisy garbage, found themselves without a punk scene to really grasp hold of.
night birds aren't the most politically interesting act in the world. i caught the dude in a misfits shirt, which was probably intentional, given that it's sort of a faux pas on the punk left. but it's been a long time since i've heard a punk act like this rock like this.
this record is not quite as strong as the last one, but nonetheless belongs in any best of 2013 list. and maybe i'm hoping this isn't just a retro act appealing to a certain nostalgia, but the launch of a revival of sorts...
...'cause punk needs more than a thousand awkward teenagers trying to be ian mackeye (with or without eyeliner).
http://night-birds.bandcamp.com/album/born-to-die-in-suburbia
night birds aren't the most politically interesting act in the world. i caught the dude in a misfits shirt, which was probably intentional, given that it's sort of a faux pas on the punk left. but it's been a long time since i've heard a punk act like this rock like this.
this record is not quite as strong as the last one, but nonetheless belongs in any best of 2013 list. and maybe i'm hoping this isn't just a retro act appealing to a certain nostalgia, but the launch of a revival of sorts...
...'cause punk needs more than a thousand awkward teenagers trying to be ian mackeye (with or without eyeliner).
http://night-birds.bandcamp.com/album/born-to-die-in-suburbia
proof i exist: defeater, gatineau. heartfest 2012. full set.
yeah, i can see myself: white shirt, blond hair. this was a good show...
trent reznor's peculiar sense of tonality finally breaks into legitimately mainstream pop music. maybe there's an earlier example, i don't know. but those pianos...
actually, there's a lot of tori in this, too. but it's not as distinct as the debussy via reznor.
it's been predicted for many years, is arguably overdue, and is something people should get used to.
actually, there's a lot of tori in this, too. but it's not as distinct as the debussy via reznor.
it's been predicted for many years, is arguably overdue, and is something people should get used to.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
i didn't post this at all? lol.
it's a disappointment, but only in terms of how strong the empire sound disc was and only from the perspective of somebody that likes abstract electronic music. grimes can go launch herself off a cliff for all i care (i liked maddy better), but airick's audience has tightened up and, well, so be it.
honestly: as slightly weird pop it's really fairly developed. but i was hoping for slightly pop weird and it just didn't thread the needle for me. but your kid niece or nephew might legitimately be blown away, if this is their thing.
https://soundcloud.com/doldrumss/sets/lesser-evil
(https://doldrums.bandcamp.com/album/lesser-evil)
it's a disappointment, but only in terms of how strong the empire sound disc was and only from the perspective of somebody that likes abstract electronic music. grimes can go launch herself off a cliff for all i care (i liked maddy better), but airick's audience has tightened up and, well, so be it.
honestly: as slightly weird pop it's really fairly developed. but i was hoping for slightly pop weird and it just didn't thread the needle for me. but your kid niece or nephew might legitimately be blown away, if this is their thing.
https://soundcloud.com/doldrumss/sets/lesser-evil
(https://doldrums.bandcamp.com/album/lesser-evil)
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
wendy makes it clear, here, that she's actually an atheist. and that her focus is on promoting christianity because she thinks that it will create a society she wants to live in. it's a means to an end; it's actually some kind of positive nihilsm. and dawkins (the secular humanist) makes it clear that he realizes it.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
publishing j’s adventures in guitarland (inri045)
so, after some months of denial, i've come to the sober realization that most of my classical guitar monstrosities are now forever lost in the consequences of a snow-flooded backyard shed. i would shed a tear, if it weren't for the reality that they've been lost to my mind and my fingers for far too many years to recover them, anyways.
i would have laughed at you if you would have told me i'd be sitting here, thirteen years later, lamenting the fact that i never recorded these pieces. yet, here i am.
there's not really a good reason why i never recorded these. i just didn't. it's true that i was distracted by other projects, and that i wanted to make sure they were perfectly imperfect before i let them out. that doesn't explain why i never bothered demoing them, or even just recording them half-assed for historical purposes. alas...now they are gone...
i took classical guitar lessons for about a year from spring '00 to spring '01. by that time, i'd been playing guitar for almost ten years and had been through many years of blues and jazz training, albeit not for several years before then. i didn't want to go back to rock-era instruction, but i felt i could benefit from approaching the guitar with a different perspective. i also wanted to learn a little about counterpoint. so, we went with renaissance pieces to start off with (and which comprise this short offering) and more avant pieces by the likes of leo brouwer near the end.
a punk with a classical guitar is still a punk, just a punk with a classical guitar. throughout the experience, my cobain instincts and hendrix flairs overpowered any demands to play nicely. the truth is the guy i was paying absolutely despised me, but he also had a muted level of respect for somebody with the panache to actually think about even trying to pull this shit off. i caught him open-jawed a few times, as impressed as he was shocked.
there were almost twenty of these things written out. he'd present me with a score and i'd just go to town with it, scrawling notes all over it, changing chords, making up notation symbols, just whatever i thought sounded better. the results were a legitimate fusion of noise rock and classical guitar music in a way that stressed technical playing over atmospheres. what is present here is the very tip of this iceberg.
yet, i didn't want to just record them. i wanted to recreate them. the version of little suite that is here is a good example of where i wanted to take these things. the problem i ran into was that i didn't know how to. which isn't to say that i didn't how to do what i wanted but that i couldn't conceive of what i wanted to do. so, i kept putting it off until that stroke of inspiration would finally come...
it never came, and is now lost.
there will be a second version of this; how far in the future that will be, i cannot say. i think a part of me wants to wait until i'm older and is happy i now have the excuse to do that. for now, though, i'm closing down this project, restricting it to this short ep and an album of unrealized dreams.
recorded in the first part of 2001. initially released as a bandcamp upload in august, 2010. re-released on january 18, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - classical and electric guitars, ebow, effects, organ, synthesizers, sound design, sampling, sequencing, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing
original authors forgotten. please contact if you recognize these pieces.
released may 10, 2001
i would have laughed at you if you would have told me i'd be sitting here, thirteen years later, lamenting the fact that i never recorded these pieces. yet, here i am.
there's not really a good reason why i never recorded these. i just didn't. it's true that i was distracted by other projects, and that i wanted to make sure they were perfectly imperfect before i let them out. that doesn't explain why i never bothered demoing them, or even just recording them half-assed for historical purposes. alas...now they are gone...
i took classical guitar lessons for about a year from spring '00 to spring '01. by that time, i'd been playing guitar for almost ten years and had been through many years of blues and jazz training, albeit not for several years before then. i didn't want to go back to rock-era instruction, but i felt i could benefit from approaching the guitar with a different perspective. i also wanted to learn a little about counterpoint. so, we went with renaissance pieces to start off with (and which comprise this short offering) and more avant pieces by the likes of leo brouwer near the end.
a punk with a classical guitar is still a punk, just a punk with a classical guitar. throughout the experience, my cobain instincts and hendrix flairs overpowered any demands to play nicely. the truth is the guy i was paying absolutely despised me, but he also had a muted level of respect for somebody with the panache to actually think about even trying to pull this shit off. i caught him open-jawed a few times, as impressed as he was shocked.
there were almost twenty of these things written out. he'd present me with a score and i'd just go to town with it, scrawling notes all over it, changing chords, making up notation symbols, just whatever i thought sounded better. the results were a legitimate fusion of noise rock and classical guitar music in a way that stressed technical playing over atmospheres. what is present here is the very tip of this iceberg.
yet, i didn't want to just record them. i wanted to recreate them. the version of little suite that is here is a good example of where i wanted to take these things. the problem i ran into was that i didn't know how to. which isn't to say that i didn't how to do what i wanted but that i couldn't conceive of what i wanted to do. so, i kept putting it off until that stroke of inspiration would finally come...
it never came, and is now lost.
there will be a second version of this; how far in the future that will be, i cannot say. i think a part of me wants to wait until i'm older and is happy i now have the excuse to do that. for now, though, i'm closing down this project, restricting it to this short ep and an album of unrealized dreams.
recorded in the first part of 2001. initially released as a bandcamp upload in august, 2010. re-released on january 18, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - classical and electric guitars, ebow, effects, organ, synthesizers, sound design, sampling, sequencing, drum programming, vocals, digital wave editing
original authors forgotten. please contact if you recognize these pieces.
released may 10, 2001
grappling with my own writing
"bear patrol"
my laptop died on the 5th. i resurrected it! but the push out of schedule has got me focusing on cleaning up my discography as a sole priority. i'm almost at the point where i've caught up to unfinished work that i always intended to complete. a few more days. when i get there, i will pause and spend possibly as much as a week cleaning up this page, as well as a few days dedicated to my proper web page.
i knew that if i started focusing on genealogical links then i'd lose focus. years ago, that meant falling into obsession. nowadays, considering that i have a stronger grasp of the genetics of the situation (we're all relatively closely related) and a better understanding of the social science of sexual promiscuity [some studies estimate that as much as a third of people are born into families that include males that are not aware they are not the biological father *and* women that are aware of this - this kind of "trickery" is a normal and natural aspect of human sexual behaviour that attempts to combine female intuitions about genetic superiority (dna daddy) and financial security (non-biological daddy, but in every functional sense actual daddy). while this recognition doesn't really have an effect on my underlying arguments regarding class, it does make the research meaningless. even if you get through the childish myths and legends of aristocratic control, there's no way to actually know who daddy ever actually was in any specific situation. in many cases, centuries-old gossip about the queen sneaking out late at night to meet her chosen genetic suitor has been preserved, and is probably true on a very real level. "he doesn't look much like his father" actually usually *does* have an obvious explanation!], it means losing interest. i wanted to ensure i was doing a certain amount of "formal reading" a day. i want to get back to it.
so, i'll be back!
....but it's quiet for a few more days on this front...
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/simpsons-co-creator-rescues-bears/19645/
some species of birds do this. we're not unique in it.
some people will counter that women were under strict control until relatively recently. well, i may question whether the examples provided are general or extreme cases. i may question how large a period that really applies to (does it apply to the "anarchy" of the early middle ages and periods before it?). but, excluding these academic questions, patriarchy is a system of control and comes out of reasons to control. that is, it gets the causality backwards - men exerted control over women's reproduction because it was the only way to ensure their dna would carry on, for the precise reason that women were constantly faced with this biological contradiction between ensuring that their own offspring had the best father and being coerced into this breeding system defined by land and wealth. women had to be forced into it to overpower their biological urges.
now, liberal-minded people of both sexes would, today, universally accept that treating women like child-bearing chattel vessels is morally wrong. there's no real debate there. but, how much of that follows from the social systems that have developed since the modification (i don't want to say collapse, because i reject that) of feudalism is a serious question. the old feudal logic no longer applies. yet, recognizing it's inherent injustice is not the same thing as understanding it or why it became a dominant system of controlled reproduction. as morally reprehensible as patriarchy is, it made sense relative to certain axioms - and as a reaction to natural, biological behaviour.
the flip side of this is that, throughout the history of patriarchy, we find examples of "enlightened land owners" that didn't really feel the need to enforce it. one could suggest it was only necessary to enforce it under the conditions that the male dna was coming from a less than ideal source. see, and now i'm starting to build a biological theory of patriarchy and class dominance, which was sort of what i was getting at in the first place, albeit very modified from my initial beginnings.
the point being that the argument isn't debunked by patriarchy. rather, it works as a mechanism to explain it along biological terms.
so, what i've shifted that aspect of the site to is away from mapping the lines out and towards examining their validity, even as i constructively build up these historical classes from their obscure roots in the collapse of roman control of northwestern europe.
marx & engels could not have fully understood the implications of modern evolutionary biology on their ideas. they're just too close together to each other. they were certainly aware of darwin's ideas, and engels particularly actually spent a lot of time with certain aspects of them, but they just hadn't developed enough at the time. while i may not agree with the social darwinists (a disagreement i share with scientific darwinists), the extreme political movements that followed social darwinism or their watered down equivalents in neo-liberalism, i have to at least give the right credit for actually adjusting to darwin. the left has not done that. well, kropotkin tried, but, he, too, was too close to the source. leftist theory has to be rewritten to take these ideas into account.
to carry on from my earlier point, the person closest to actually doing this (that i'm aware of) is actually that old liberal-in-a-hurry richard dawkins.
unfortunately, the left has tended to lean more towards freud than darwin. that's not going to get anybody closer to utopia, it's just going to trick workers into accepting conditions of dystopia.
this is what modern scientific socialism is actually about:
my laptop died on the 5th. i resurrected it! but the push out of schedule has got me focusing on cleaning up my discography as a sole priority. i'm almost at the point where i've caught up to unfinished work that i always intended to complete. a few more days. when i get there, i will pause and spend possibly as much as a week cleaning up this page, as well as a few days dedicated to my proper web page.
i knew that if i started focusing on genealogical links then i'd lose focus. years ago, that meant falling into obsession. nowadays, considering that i have a stronger grasp of the genetics of the situation (we're all relatively closely related) and a better understanding of the social science of sexual promiscuity [some studies estimate that as much as a third of people are born into families that include males that are not aware they are not the biological father *and* women that are aware of this - this kind of "trickery" is a normal and natural aspect of human sexual behaviour that attempts to combine female intuitions about genetic superiority (dna daddy) and financial security (non-biological daddy, but in every functional sense actual daddy). while this recognition doesn't really have an effect on my underlying arguments regarding class, it does make the research meaningless. even if you get through the childish myths and legends of aristocratic control, there's no way to actually know who daddy ever actually was in any specific situation. in many cases, centuries-old gossip about the queen sneaking out late at night to meet her chosen genetic suitor has been preserved, and is probably true on a very real level. "he doesn't look much like his father" actually usually *does* have an obvious explanation!], it means losing interest. i wanted to ensure i was doing a certain amount of "formal reading" a day. i want to get back to it.
so, i'll be back!
....but it's quiet for a few more days on this front...
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/simpsons-co-creator-rescues-bears/19645/
some species of birds do this. we're not unique in it.
some people will counter that women were under strict control until relatively recently. well, i may question whether the examples provided are general or extreme cases. i may question how large a period that really applies to (does it apply to the "anarchy" of the early middle ages and periods before it?). but, excluding these academic questions, patriarchy is a system of control and comes out of reasons to control. that is, it gets the causality backwards - men exerted control over women's reproduction because it was the only way to ensure their dna would carry on, for the precise reason that women were constantly faced with this biological contradiction between ensuring that their own offspring had the best father and being coerced into this breeding system defined by land and wealth. women had to be forced into it to overpower their biological urges.
now, liberal-minded people of both sexes would, today, universally accept that treating women like child-bearing chattel vessels is morally wrong. there's no real debate there. but, how much of that follows from the social systems that have developed since the modification (i don't want to say collapse, because i reject that) of feudalism is a serious question. the old feudal logic no longer applies. yet, recognizing it's inherent injustice is not the same thing as understanding it or why it became a dominant system of controlled reproduction. as morally reprehensible as patriarchy is, it made sense relative to certain axioms - and as a reaction to natural, biological behaviour.
the flip side of this is that, throughout the history of patriarchy, we find examples of "enlightened land owners" that didn't really feel the need to enforce it. one could suggest it was only necessary to enforce it under the conditions that the male dna was coming from a less than ideal source. see, and now i'm starting to build a biological theory of patriarchy and class dominance, which was sort of what i was getting at in the first place, albeit very modified from my initial beginnings.
the point being that the argument isn't debunked by patriarchy. rather, it works as a mechanism to explain it along biological terms.
so, what i've shifted that aspect of the site to is away from mapping the lines out and towards examining their validity, even as i constructively build up these historical classes from their obscure roots in the collapse of roman control of northwestern europe.
marx & engels could not have fully understood the implications of modern evolutionary biology on their ideas. they're just too close together to each other. they were certainly aware of darwin's ideas, and engels particularly actually spent a lot of time with certain aspects of them, but they just hadn't developed enough at the time. while i may not agree with the social darwinists (a disagreement i share with scientific darwinists), the extreme political movements that followed social darwinism or their watered down equivalents in neo-liberalism, i have to at least give the right credit for actually adjusting to darwin. the left has not done that. well, kropotkin tried, but, he, too, was too close to the source. leftist theory has to be rewritten to take these ideas into account.
to carry on from my earlier point, the person closest to actually doing this (that i'm aware of) is actually that old liberal-in-a-hurry richard dawkins.
unfortunately, the left has tended to lean more towards freud than darwin. that's not going to get anybody closer to utopia, it's just going to trick workers into accepting conditions of dystopia.
this is what modern scientific socialism is actually about:
Friday, January 17, 2014
on taking nancy grace seriously
deathtokoalas
ok. hold on. why are so many people entertaining the delusion that she (or the anti-pot guy) have any intent whatsoever to win a reasoned debate? this is propaganda designed with the purposes of social engineering a population into an officially approved "good worker" lifestyle. she seems to be completely aware that she's full of shit, and doesn't have the slightest amount of interest in whether she is or not. she's getting paid to push a point by all means possible, not to come to some kind of understanding of what is "true".
calling her a moron is consequently missing the full context. what she is is diabolically evil and interested in nothing more than her own career trajectory.
Scorpionloses
If you really believe she's consciously inventing this persona or argument for some grand scheme and not because she's just wrong you seriously need professional help.
deathtokoalas
these demagogues operate under a type of nihilist reasoning that goes something along the lines of "it doesn't matter if what i say is actually true, what matters is if i can convince you it's true".
...and understanding that this is how they think and act is a pre-requisite to stopping them. so pass it on.
ok. hold on. why are so many people entertaining the delusion that she (or the anti-pot guy) have any intent whatsoever to win a reasoned debate? this is propaganda designed with the purposes of social engineering a population into an officially approved "good worker" lifestyle. she seems to be completely aware that she's full of shit, and doesn't have the slightest amount of interest in whether she is or not. she's getting paid to push a point by all means possible, not to come to some kind of understanding of what is "true".
calling her a moron is consequently missing the full context. what she is is diabolically evil and interested in nothing more than her own career trajectory.
Scorpionloses
If you really believe she's consciously inventing this persona or argument for some grand scheme and not because she's just wrong you seriously need professional help.
deathtokoalas
these demagogues operate under a type of nihilist reasoning that goes something along the lines of "it doesn't matter if what i say is actually true, what matters is if i can convince you it's true".
...and understanding that this is how they think and act is a pre-requisite to stopping them. so pass it on.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
publishing deny everything (inri041)
by posting a final final final final final version of this record, i'm transporting myself out of my deny everything phase and into a period where my main focus was playing the classical guitar.
this was the culmination of a year's worth of experiments in almost ideal working conditions, and as such represents a singular moment in my discography. the reason i've modified it so often is that i was in such a rush to get so many ideas out that i got sloppy. i'm confident that everything is resolved in this incarnation of the record, and the five eps i've spun off from it.
--
this is a project that has been through many incarnations and revisions, which should hopefully stabilize now that the tracks are entirely instrumental and the substantial number of outtakes have been categorized into companion eps. i don't expect to modify this further, but note that versions have been created roughly every 3.5 years since 2000 - in 2004, 2007, 2010 and now 2014. that slow, 15 year process of removing samples and reconstructing instrumental sections is now entirely complete.
what's left when the thematic ideas are stripped out is an eccentric and elaborate delve into psychedelic and electronic music that has no clear parallels that the author is aware of.
the record can be sectioned into 4 parts:
- ignorance is bliss [introduction]
- entropy/curious george/gravity's rainbow [program]
- a commercial break [intermission]
- acidosis [finale]
abridged versions of this record entitled 'symphony 1' should contain only the program and the finale, although condensed versions may leave out the beginning parts of the program.
recorded over the space of the year 2000. remixed substantially in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2014. existing version finalized in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
an audience exists somewhere that will cherish this as the truly unique monstrosity that it is.
credits:
j- guitars of all types, bass, programming, drum programming, sequencing, synthesizers, live drums, piano, loops, films, noise generation, organ, ebow, flute, mandolin, treatments, effects, found sounds, sampling, sound design, generative synthesis, granular synthesis, generative percussion, light-sound synthesis, digital wave editing, production, coughs, a broken equalizer, cover art
the star trek sample in 'gravity's rainbow' is from the episode "errand of mercy" (mar 23, 1967).
the rendered electronic orchestra includes theremin, ukelele, orchestra hit, string ensemble, taiko drums, gongs, trumpet & sax.
released november 11, 2000
this was the culmination of a year's worth of experiments in almost ideal working conditions, and as such represents a singular moment in my discography. the reason i've modified it so often is that i was in such a rush to get so many ideas out that i got sloppy. i'm confident that everything is resolved in this incarnation of the record, and the five eps i've spun off from it.
--
this is a project that has been through many incarnations and revisions, which should hopefully stabilize now that the tracks are entirely instrumental and the substantial number of outtakes have been categorized into companion eps. i don't expect to modify this further, but note that versions have been created roughly every 3.5 years since 2000 - in 2004, 2007, 2010 and now 2014. that slow, 15 year process of removing samples and reconstructing instrumental sections is now entirely complete.
what's left when the thematic ideas are stripped out is an eccentric and elaborate delve into psychedelic and electronic music that has no clear parallels that the author is aware of.
the record can be sectioned into 4 parts:
- ignorance is bliss [introduction]
- entropy/curious george/gravity's rainbow [program]
- a commercial break [intermission]
- acidosis [finale]
abridged versions of this record entitled 'symphony 1' should contain only the program and the finale, although condensed versions may leave out the beginning parts of the program.
recorded over the space of the year 2000. remixed substantially in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2014. existing version finalized in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
an audience exists somewhere that will cherish this as the truly unique monstrosity that it is.
credits:
j- guitars of all types, bass, programming, drum programming, sequencing, synthesizers, live drums, piano, loops, films, noise generation, organ, ebow, flute, mandolin, treatments, effects, found sounds, sampling, sound design, generative synthesis, granular synthesis, generative percussion, light-sound synthesis, digital wave editing, production, coughs, a broken equalizer, cover art
the star trek sample in 'gravity's rainbow' is from the episode "errand of mercy" (mar 23, 1967).
the rendered electronic orchestra includes theremin, ukelele, orchestra hit, string ensemble, taiko drums, gongs, trumpet & sax.
released november 11, 2000
publishing curious george (inri040)
this track was taken from the then lost curious george suite...
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/chimpanzees-cant-dance
...and loaded up with samples to raise awareness. the impression i was trying to create was that bush wasn't going to be a president who was particularly concerned with civil liberties because he had stated as much rather clearly. this is still pre-9/11, it was right before the election, and i still had no idea what was coming. i was just conscious of the fact that this is a guy that isn't going to stand up for anybody's rights, have much interest in maintaining the rule of law (international or otherwise) or have much respect for the democratic process.
even listening to it today, a lot of it is really surreal. at the time, i was focusing a bit on the irony. for example, his "people who are going to commit crimes shouldn't have guns" quote is cited in reference to himself - by that logic, he should have overseen an american disarmament. "this guy's not elected, he just took over office" quip was also meant to apply to him. i think it's largely forgotten that the news of a possible attempted coup hit before the 2000 election did. there was a buzz on the internet that the people behind bush (military contractors) weren't going to let him lose. the "court battle" in florida wasn't a completely surprising turn of events. it was gore's disinterest in fighting the legal battle (because it would "destabilize" the country) that hit people by surprise.
i've split this into it's own space because it belongs in it's own space. deny everything has been converted into abstract instrumental music; the samples don't belong there. it also seems disingenuous to insert it into the lost suite.
i think i need to be careful in stating that historical hindsight inoculates me in explaining what i hoped was obvious: that this is a thinly veiled call for the assassination of bush before he takes over. a tree fell in a forest here. alas.
recorded in april, 2000. samples added in oct, 2000. samples removed around 2010. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, drum programming, sampling, sound design, digital wave editing
released october 13, 2000
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/chimpanzees-cant-dance
...and loaded up with samples to raise awareness. the impression i was trying to create was that bush wasn't going to be a president who was particularly concerned with civil liberties because he had stated as much rather clearly. this is still pre-9/11, it was right before the election, and i still had no idea what was coming. i was just conscious of the fact that this is a guy that isn't going to stand up for anybody's rights, have much interest in maintaining the rule of law (international or otherwise) or have much respect for the democratic process.
even listening to it today, a lot of it is really surreal. at the time, i was focusing a bit on the irony. for example, his "people who are going to commit crimes shouldn't have guns" quote is cited in reference to himself - by that logic, he should have overseen an american disarmament. "this guy's not elected, he just took over office" quip was also meant to apply to him. i think it's largely forgotten that the news of a possible attempted coup hit before the 2000 election did. there was a buzz on the internet that the people behind bush (military contractors) weren't going to let him lose. the "court battle" in florida wasn't a completely surprising turn of events. it was gore's disinterest in fighting the legal battle (because it would "destabilize" the country) that hit people by surprise.
i've split this into it's own space because it belongs in it's own space. deny everything has been converted into abstract instrumental music; the samples don't belong there. it also seems disingenuous to insert it into the lost suite.
i think i need to be careful in stating that historical hindsight inoculates me in explaining what i hoped was obvious: that this is a thinly veiled call for the assassination of bush before he takes over. a tree fell in a forest here. alas.
recorded in april, 2000. samples added in oct, 2000. samples removed around 2010. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, drum programming, sampling, sound design, digital wave editing
released october 13, 2000
publishing acidosis (inri039)
this is the core of my first symphony. it's a sort of a pun; it uses the medical condition of acidosis, which is when the ph level of a person's blood dips to a level that causes complications or death, to draw an analogy to the environmental destruction being carried out by industrial civilization. it also forwards my intuitive hypothesis that homo sapiens will ultimately end up as an evolutionary dead-end. more specifically, my view is that intelligence, as a trait, is ultimately an evolutionary disadvantage. well somebody else probably has that view too; i honestly couldn't cite anybody, sorry.
the material is presented here in fragmented format to properly outline the structure of the piece. it exists in one section on deny everything, and will be the dominant component of a larger first symphony file.
that sexy cover art is a couple of bitmaps of neurons played with in paint and superimposed onto each other in coagula. the sound of that sexy bitmap is heard in the song.
i think i'd rather let the piece stand by title alone, other than to point out that the reaction explored in the piece is really more general than any specific narrative justifies. it's a systems break down.
the music is half generated algorithmically and half played. the half random, largely atonal notes i had programmed into the generator created unusual jam circumstances that were fun to play with. as an example, the piano part is live, but it's being spurred on by the random synth bass underneath it. the computer was driving me, creatively; i think it produced interesting results, both out of me and in itself. as a rhythm section, the computer holds it's own here - as random as the notes are.
what centers the track, though, is a classical guitar part that i recorded very late one night. i was weirded out about things and wanted to get some shit out, so i recorded myself playing for close to a half hour. i think a lot of people don't realize just how powerful a guitar can be as an alternate outlet for aggression. psychologically, that's powerful shit.
i listened to the jam when i got my head clear and i was sort of fascinated by it's just raw emotion. it didn't make any musical sense, but it expressed an idea through it's dynamics. i ran it backwards through an effect designed to simulate a record player dying over exaggerated lengths of times and that became the idea to build around. the shape grew slowly, all the way into the analogy, from there.
this was constructed over a little more than a month: from 7/7-8/20, 2000. it seems to have been recombined into one track around 2007 but has otherwise not been modified. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars of all types, bass, drum programming, synthesizers, piano, loops, noise generation, organ, ebow, flute, mandolin, treatments, effects, sound design, generative synthesis, digital wave editing, production, coughs, cover art
released august 20, 2000
the material is presented here in fragmented format to properly outline the structure of the piece. it exists in one section on deny everything, and will be the dominant component of a larger first symphony file.
that sexy cover art is a couple of bitmaps of neurons played with in paint and superimposed onto each other in coagula. the sound of that sexy bitmap is heard in the song.
i think i'd rather let the piece stand by title alone, other than to point out that the reaction explored in the piece is really more general than any specific narrative justifies. it's a systems break down.
the music is half generated algorithmically and half played. the half random, largely atonal notes i had programmed into the generator created unusual jam circumstances that were fun to play with. as an example, the piano part is live, but it's being spurred on by the random synth bass underneath it. the computer was driving me, creatively; i think it produced interesting results, both out of me and in itself. as a rhythm section, the computer holds it's own here - as random as the notes are.
what centers the track, though, is a classical guitar part that i recorded very late one night. i was weirded out about things and wanted to get some shit out, so i recorded myself playing for close to a half hour. i think a lot of people don't realize just how powerful a guitar can be as an alternate outlet for aggression. psychologically, that's powerful shit.
i listened to the jam when i got my head clear and i was sort of fascinated by it's just raw emotion. it didn't make any musical sense, but it expressed an idea through it's dynamics. i ran it backwards through an effect designed to simulate a record player dying over exaggerated lengths of times and that became the idea to build around. the shape grew slowly, all the way into the analogy, from there.
this was constructed over a little more than a month: from 7/7-8/20, 2000. it seems to have been recombined into one track around 2007 but has otherwise not been modified. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars of all types, bass, drum programming, synthesizers, piano, loops, noise generation, organ, ebow, flute, mandolin, treatments, effects, sound design, generative synthesis, digital wave editing, production, coughs, cover art
released august 20, 2000
Monday, January 13, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
publishing ignorance is bliss (inri038)
the third of what will be four eps of material cycling around the deny everything lp, this is definitely a pretty heavy listen. as i tend to do, i've mixed some weird styles together here. electro-goth-grunge? noise-hop? industrial blues? ambient post-punk? i dunno. it's not easily describable, and i aim for that. as a piece of electronic music, it's pretty neat. let's leave it at that. three times in a row with subtle variations is going to require an interest in the topic. but, i demand some grit from my listeners; i expect that, in turn, from the musicians i admire.
so, have some fun tripping out into this. or don't. whatever.
--
this is a collection of versions of a track that was important to me around the turn of the century: three electronic versions and an electric folk version that i often played as a sort of a drunken party trick. the three electronic versions are arranged in decreasing complexity, and the electric folk version is at the end.
it's sort of about me, and sort of about my dad, and sort of about caricatures. we never had a dog drown, and i simply have no knowledge of the dynamics of my parents' sexual relationship. that's just an old country song. yet, there were a lot of stressful problems in both his work and family life, and that was being pointed to as a cause of his heart problems.
in hindsight, i'd tend to lean more towards genetics than stress. of course, that's something i have an interest in understanding further as i age. at the time, though, the focus was all about reducing the amount of stress he was dealing with.
i really just sort of didn't get it. i still don't *really* get it. stressed? well, chill out then. spark one up. put on a tune. it's maybe not as easy as snapping a finger, but it has to be about a general philosophy of life. see, i guess i place a lot less faith in the idea of free will than most people do - and my father, being a rush fan, and don't get me started on that travesty, put far more faith in it. when one is absolutely convinced that their entire life is determined by the choices they make, including the ones they don't make, it produces a lot of pressure to make or not make the right choices. meaning? he did it to himself - his atlas never shrugged.
ultimately, universe gonna hate. your so-called free will is doomed to be crushed in a wave of stochastics. the universe is a random, chaotic place defined by poorly understood probabilities. so, why bother concerning yourself so deeply with the consequences of your actions in this pointless existence, to the point that it might cut that existence short? it was the idea of him driving himself to cardiac arrest that pissed me off. you could be hit by an asteroid in your sleep. you could spontaneously combust. you could even wake up one day to find that aliens have landed and are taking over the world using robot gunships. once you get *that*, trying to fight for control seems pointless. embrace the random, and spiral out....
or, so, the debate went. i wasn't really comfortable writing a song *about* my old man, so i took a fictional first-person perspective and went to town with it a bit.
the vocals have come in and out of the track, but in the end they became attached solely to the electric folk version, leaving the electronic version solely as a piece of music.
the cover art bitmap is one of the files i put through coagula to produce sound out of light. inristart was a working title for the piece.
written and recorded, 1999-2001. track 2 was reconstructed out of existing sound in june, 2004. sequenced as is in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, vocals, vocoders, sound design, sampling, digital wave editing, production
released july 11, 2000
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ignorance-is-bliss
1) this was the meta mix: recorded from may to july, 2000 and included on the original deny everything demo. it's also the most produced mix, in the sense that it utilizes a number of electronic and guitar based sound effects that were dropped from the final mix. note also that the bass part is different and arguably better, if slightly out of sync.
i should point out, in the context of streaming it from this site, that it starts about 15 seconds in. this was a conscious thing that was designed to startle the listener. you're supposed to listen to the first fifteen seconds, adjust your volume, scratch your head, etc - and then jump a foot in the air when it actually comes on and scares the fuck out of you. even if you know it's coming, the suddenness is still jarring.
2) i've held to this version since june, 2004 but i'm going to update it for inclusion in deny everything, yet again. the fun part of being an unknown composer is that you can modify your works at a whim. well, known composers have done that, too. fuck the rock era. fuck rock stars.
it contains more of the track than the "original" inristart may, 2000 version but less of the track than the abandoned vocal mix (july, 2000).
the sections that were abandoned for this mix were largely overflows of the vocal version. for example, a short guitar solo was ignored because it seemed pointlessly indulgent and empty without it being an introduction to the vocals. there's also a sequenced "ukulele" part that ran through the vocal version that was discarded; it was a vocal accompaniment (in a way that may bring to mind lady in satin, or perhaps vespertine) that seemed to just appear out of nowhere. a thunder crack only made sense relative to the lyrics. a noise-funk guitar part was meant to work with the bass part and no longer did.
i was also in a more minimalist frame of mind back in '04 when i put it together. today, though, i want to bring in more of the vocal version. this version just feels half done.
this differs from the inristart version only in the addition of a lead guitar part that bridges the first and middle sections and a subtle feedback swell around twelve minutes in. these, however, are substantial differences that i feel are worth maintaining in their own mix.
the 2004 date seems anachronistic, but all the parts were recorded in the spring and early summer of 2000.
3) this is the oldest version i have and formed the basis of the final version.
4) this was never meant to be recorded like this, only played live, usually drunk, but a friend of mine talked me into recording it for inclusion in a radio rock project we were hatching up. well, he was hatching up. i didn't really have much of an artistic investment in it, i just agreed to play bass, because my friend needed a bassist more than any other reason. he wanted this to be a "hidden song". i obliged.
however, he was a little taken aback by the result. he wanted it to be twangy and country, which indicated a misunderstanding of the content. it's comical on a surreal level, but it's not a cheap comedy skit. his ideas would have devalued it and that sort of pissed me off; my refusal to redo it pissed him off. this was part of the reason that the project never went anywhere, except to spark rabit is wolf:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-iz-wolf
this recording did not happen until mid 2001, but i was playing it at parties months before that. it's only very slightly anachronistic to attach it to here; the conceptual unity overpowers.
so, have some fun tripping out into this. or don't. whatever.
--
this is a collection of versions of a track that was important to me around the turn of the century: three electronic versions and an electric folk version that i often played as a sort of a drunken party trick. the three electronic versions are arranged in decreasing complexity, and the electric folk version is at the end.
it's sort of about me, and sort of about my dad, and sort of about caricatures. we never had a dog drown, and i simply have no knowledge of the dynamics of my parents' sexual relationship. that's just an old country song. yet, there were a lot of stressful problems in both his work and family life, and that was being pointed to as a cause of his heart problems.
in hindsight, i'd tend to lean more towards genetics than stress. of course, that's something i have an interest in understanding further as i age. at the time, though, the focus was all about reducing the amount of stress he was dealing with.
i really just sort of didn't get it. i still don't *really* get it. stressed? well, chill out then. spark one up. put on a tune. it's maybe not as easy as snapping a finger, but it has to be about a general philosophy of life. see, i guess i place a lot less faith in the idea of free will than most people do - and my father, being a rush fan, and don't get me started on that travesty, put far more faith in it. when one is absolutely convinced that their entire life is determined by the choices they make, including the ones they don't make, it produces a lot of pressure to make or not make the right choices. meaning? he did it to himself - his atlas never shrugged.
ultimately, universe gonna hate. your so-called free will is doomed to be crushed in a wave of stochastics. the universe is a random, chaotic place defined by poorly understood probabilities. so, why bother concerning yourself so deeply with the consequences of your actions in this pointless existence, to the point that it might cut that existence short? it was the idea of him driving himself to cardiac arrest that pissed me off. you could be hit by an asteroid in your sleep. you could spontaneously combust. you could even wake up one day to find that aliens have landed and are taking over the world using robot gunships. once you get *that*, trying to fight for control seems pointless. embrace the random, and spiral out....
or, so, the debate went. i wasn't really comfortable writing a song *about* my old man, so i took a fictional first-person perspective and went to town with it a bit.
the vocals have come in and out of the track, but in the end they became attached solely to the electric folk version, leaving the electronic version solely as a piece of music.
the cover art bitmap is one of the files i put through coagula to produce sound out of light. inristart was a working title for the piece.
written and recorded, 1999-2001. track 2 was reconstructed out of existing sound in june, 2004. sequenced as is in jan, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, vocals, vocoders, sound design, sampling, digital wave editing, production
released july 11, 2000
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ignorance-is-bliss
1) this was the meta mix: recorded from may to july, 2000 and included on the original deny everything demo. it's also the most produced mix, in the sense that it utilizes a number of electronic and guitar based sound effects that were dropped from the final mix. note also that the bass part is different and arguably better, if slightly out of sync.
i should point out, in the context of streaming it from this site, that it starts about 15 seconds in. this was a conscious thing that was designed to startle the listener. you're supposed to listen to the first fifteen seconds, adjust your volume, scratch your head, etc - and then jump a foot in the air when it actually comes on and scares the fuck out of you. even if you know it's coming, the suddenness is still jarring.
2) i've held to this version since june, 2004 but i'm going to update it for inclusion in deny everything, yet again. the fun part of being an unknown composer is that you can modify your works at a whim. well, known composers have done that, too. fuck the rock era. fuck rock stars.
it contains more of the track than the "original" inristart may, 2000 version but less of the track than the abandoned vocal mix (july, 2000).
the sections that were abandoned for this mix were largely overflows of the vocal version. for example, a short guitar solo was ignored because it seemed pointlessly indulgent and empty without it being an introduction to the vocals. there's also a sequenced "ukulele" part that ran through the vocal version that was discarded; it was a vocal accompaniment (in a way that may bring to mind lady in satin, or perhaps vespertine) that seemed to just appear out of nowhere. a thunder crack only made sense relative to the lyrics. a noise-funk guitar part was meant to work with the bass part and no longer did.
i was also in a more minimalist frame of mind back in '04 when i put it together. today, though, i want to bring in more of the vocal version. this version just feels half done.
this differs from the inristart version only in the addition of a lead guitar part that bridges the first and middle sections and a subtle feedback swell around twelve minutes in. these, however, are substantial differences that i feel are worth maintaining in their own mix.
the 2004 date seems anachronistic, but all the parts were recorded in the spring and early summer of 2000.
3) this is the oldest version i have and formed the basis of the final version.
4) this was never meant to be recorded like this, only played live, usually drunk, but a friend of mine talked me into recording it for inclusion in a radio rock project we were hatching up. well, he was hatching up. i didn't really have much of an artistic investment in it, i just agreed to play bass, because my friend needed a bassist more than any other reason. he wanted this to be a "hidden song". i obliged.
however, he was a little taken aback by the result. he wanted it to be twangy and country, which indicated a misunderstanding of the content. it's comical on a surreal level, but it's not a cheap comedy skit. his ideas would have devalued it and that sort of pissed me off; my refusal to redo it pissed him off. this was part of the reason that the project never went anywhere, except to spark rabit is wolf:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-iz-wolf
this recording did not happen until mid 2001, but i was playing it at parties months before that. it's only very slightly anachronistic to attach it to here; the conceptual unity overpowers.
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