with slight lyric twists

industrial’s not dead
it just deserves to die
it become another stale cartoon
a close-minded, self-centered social club
ideas don’t matter, it’s who you know
if the music’s gotten boring
it’s because of the people
who want everyone to sound the same
who drive bright people out
of our so-called scene
til all that’s left is just a meaningless fad

who played last night?
“i don’t know, i forgot.
but getting drunk was a lot of fun.”

so eager to please
peer pressure decrees
make the same old mistakes
again and again,
chickenshit conformist like your parents

what’s ripped us apart even more than drugs
are the thieves and the goddamn liars
flipping people off when they share their stuff
when someone falls are there any friends?

harder core than thou for a year or two
then it’s time to get a real job

that farty old rock and roll attitude’s back
“it’s competition, man, we wanna break big.”
who needs friends when the money’s good
that’s right, the ’80s are back.

EBM’s like a bad laxative
it just don’t move me, ya know?
the music’s OK when there’s more ideas than samples
do we rally need the attitude too?

shedding thin skin too quickly
as a fan it disappoints me
same old stupid sexist lyrics
or is Hellraiser all you can think of?

the more things change
the more they stay the same
we can’t grow
when we won’t criticize ourselves
as the clock ticks we dig the same hole
music scenes ain’t real life
they won’t get rid of the bomb
won’t eliminate rape
or bring down the banks
any kind of real change
takes more time and work
than torrenting more shit to pass time with

but that’s a tangent though. life is a performance, and as it is a performance there is a certain quality to it that we call authenticity. it’s hard to pin down, but i ran across a few things that got me to thinking about it

so let’s start by talking about alt-sex cause people love alt-sex or so i’m told. at the defcon jeopardy game (drunk social event for hackers) there was a girl there whose job was to basically dress up like a dom and hit people who answer incorrectly. she (and all the previous incarnations of her) did a great job, people had fun, cheering was had, but at the same time it was clear that she wasn’t a domina, not really, and i was wondering about why exactly.

it’s not a question in context in this case, i’m not speaking of attempting to subdue a room full of boisterous drunks, i’m talking about the reaction i had as she was still walking in before hand. it was one where the instant reaction was  ”aww, sweetie, i know what you’re going for and you certainly dressed the part, but you’re doing it all wrong. no idea how, but you are”

the dom thing isn’t attire or any physical action, in the end it’s something that’s an immediate emotional reaction. you either instantly understand upon seeing the person, or you don’t. if they don’t broadcast this authenticity in the first moment, there is no way to sort of back up and try again.

i guess i don’t mean in the first moment, but in the first moment it’s “turned on”. it is a performance and an act. keep in mind that those words don’t mean it’s “fake” to me, just that it is something we consciously choose to do. it’s fake only in the sense as our performance of being students, teachers, parents, or children is fake just because it’s possible for us to theoretically not act that way.

and i’m not saying that this is about some magical quality that comes from being in a culture. that’s stupid. it is absolutely possible to fake the performance with enough authenticity to make it real to anyone, but you would find that as you do so, you would no longer be faking it. yes, it’s catch-22ish. as soon as you pretend it well enough, you’re no longer pretending.

example 2: i was at a show not too long ago, 3 bands played. 2 of them were ‘normal’ to me, 1 of them the singer and frontman never felt like one. he dressed like a frontman, he spoke one, he sang into the mic, but at no point did i believe it. again, the authenticity wasn’t broadcast.

this is something i’m a bit hypersensitive to now that i’m fronting the band for real. the live show is a double performance, the band pretending to be the band, and the audience pretending to be the audience. if the singer can’t act like a band, soon the audience will feel stupid acting like an audience. there’s words that we use for it that vary from genre to genre, ‘energy’ being a common one, ‘feeling it’ is another, ‘getting us’, whatever. in the end it’s ‘we believed your performance, you believed ours, and we chose to have fun tonight’

another example: nerd core. yes, i’m taking, you kicking and screaming, from bdsm to geek rappers. let it go.

two rappers: mc chris, and mc plus+

mc chris:

mc++:

(what the hell, we don’t get pics of the girl dom but we get two nerd dudes?)

life’s a bitch, deal with it. btw, i originally wrote “pasty white dudes” but having googled him i now realize that mc plus+ isn’t very pasty. thanks for making me lose a great phrase.

so here’s the thing. i believe mc chris. and i don’t mean that i take what he says literally since that would include believing he owns a batmobile with a mcdonald’s inside, but the authenticity of his performance is there for me. i’m saying that when he talks about being a geek, i emotionally relate to him. i don’t feel it from mc plus+. and i’m not questioning mc plus+’s street cred, inasmuch as that term can possibly apply to someone who not only never claims to spend time on the streets but in fact claims to never leave their bedroom. i really believe he is a geek in real life, but his performance of being a geek doesn’t feel authentic.

“how can you possibly come across inauthentic at being yourself?”. because yourself is an act. because this requires performing a swagger and not just being geeky. and because there is more to this bravado than simply stating it and having the balls to hold a mic in front of a crowd of people, and that something is enjoying it to the point where you forget you’re only pretending to be enjoying it.

fourth and last example, this guy:

tim minchin performing “if i didn’t have you”, at the secret policeman’s ball.

btw, that’s officially my favorite love song of all time now.

there’s a geek culture thing to this song, like him trying to explain the word special as he’s using it, those 3 lines have more honesty in them than pretty much all other love songs combined. not just in what he’s saying (cause for all i know whitney will in fact always love you and is just as truthful), but in how honest his performance of it is. it’s someone who first screws up by saying his girlfriend/wife isn’t special, then tries to dig himself out, then realizes that even more importantly he’s now being ambiguous about what he meant by the word ‘special’ and the best way to explain that is with statistical analysis.

this post probably would here go on to start talking about dimitri martin and his palindrome, and then finish on comparing the comics smbb and “the warehouse comic”, but at this point i finished showering and stopped pondering this.

oh, and also something about how our ability to detect authenticity being in part our exposure to the role at hand. i’m positive i have a different standard of authenticity of a domina than 99% of defcon, probably 95% one way, and 4% the other way. or thereabouts.

here’s a hacker jeopardy pic in either case:

i’m certain that you are just as big a fan of the new bands in the metalcore genre of music as i am, drawn in by many of its appealing factors, including:

• heavy use of autotune and vocoders
• whiny lyrics
• sissy-looking tight pants
• idiotic techno break downs
• tame as hell guitar

and many many others. bands like this one, brought to my attention by steve k:

thank you steve.

as so, internet, you might be surprised to learn that some older metalheads have a hard time taking this genre seriously and refer to it as Crab Core. i have made these original content gifs using the above video in order to help explain it. please use them wisely.

(mac users: my safari renders gifs too slowly. if the bouncy bouncy isn’t bouncy-ing as well as it should, use firefox)

atmosphere – fuck you lucy (youtube, lyrics)

reason: lucy is his alcoholism

common – i used to love her (youtube, lyrics)

reason: ‘she’ is hip hop culture

assemblage 23 – disappoint (youtube, lyrics)

reason: the song is about his father’s suicide

- -

tangent, i used to think the lyric in disappoint was “i stood on your shoulder’s while you drowned” which to me is an even stronger line

if you find yourself constantly striving to match a paradigm, back up. maybe you’re not really meant to work that way. do you have something that works for you?

keep in mind though, some people really might not have a method that works, in which case anything that involves structure might be beneficial.

one random example from my own life: my email. i spent a stupid amount of time attempting to stay on top of sorting email because i was told at one point that organized email is important. i tried tags, rulesets in the hundreds, smart folders, all at the same time, and the results were dismal. best part? i never used it. i never once said to myself “oh, i need this communication from the prime minister of ukraine, let me look under “prime ministers”, tagged “ukraine” “. no, i’d just go to the search bar, click “From” and type ytymoshenko@gmail.com. ta-da.

new solution? 4 inboxes (i have 4 mail aggregating accounts), total of 2 regular folders marked “important” and “not”, and 1 smart folder. the rule for the smart folder is:
- if the email is unread, or the email is in folder important, show it.

the only folder i look at is the smart folder. all unread emails are in there and disappear after they’re read (technically, they disappear after i close the window, which i do as soon as i’m done looking at mail), unless they’re something relevant in which case i drag them to the “important” folder. once they’re solved/answered, they’re dropped in either “not”. every blue moon i drag all emails from the inboxes to the “not” bin, just in case things go bad if the inbox gets too large.

that’s really all i need from email, it works with my actual work flow, and actually uses that CPU power this machine has. i imagine this would work even better with gmail, but at work we have lolexchange so eh.

different example of this: i have a bizarre music writing method. i work in these bursts where i write and record for about 5 hours straight, in which time i like to be alone with no one listening, then when done, i leave it alone for a week while sending it to half the people on my IM list to ask for opinions on what they think of it and where it should go

somehow the conversation process is what lets me mentally decide where it needs to go. it’s silly, but songs which i don’t talk about end up piling up as minute long fragments that never went anywhere. songs i do, end up growing into actual songs. well, not immediately. they go through a bunch of cycles of this. some more than others.

(btw, apologies if you happen to be on the “hey can you tell me if this works? what do you think of the cut up trumpet loop?” and are annoyed by it. just let me know, i wont be offended)

in any case, yes, don’t get obsessed with following footsteps of others, just set a similar goal to what they had and find what manner of movement works best for you. but don’t use that as an excuse to be lazy either.

i also figured out a way to stream my sound card to my guitar. i haven’t found a use for this yet but i’m pretty that when i do it’ll be brilliant.

i want agree and disagree. on one hand we do still see trends, things like the rounded corners of the first wave of web2.0, which implies that simple hivemindedness can duplicate the effects of single points of distribution and design monoculturalism. on the other hand, how long did that trend last? one, maybe two years? and what percentage of the world was affected? it seems relevant to me, but a disproportionate amount of my design exposure comes from websites. that whole fad was probably not even a blip in the actual design world

i talked about the same phenomenon showing up in audio and music culture. i’m not sure if it will be possible for a genre, a culture, to start and grow into an actual world phenomenon starting from now. there simply might be too many people speaking at the same time for anyone to be heard.

counter-example: dubstep. counter-counter-example: dubstep. yes it’s a genre that is clearly different and clearly new, but on the other hand it hasn’t grown a visual culture, it isn’t growing very quickly, and i don’t think it has lasting power in the sense that the things it came from (jungle, dub) have, did, and do.

not that it really matters much to the average person. we will have helvetica corporate brands and 4 person guitar rock on radio, and the average person will be perfectly ok with that, because really, why shouldn’t they. you can’t worry about every damn detail of your life 24/7.

lyrics:

I can’t tolerate your sadness

Cause it’s me you are drowning (You’re drowning me)
I won’t allow (allow) any happiness
Cause everytime you laugh, I feel so (so weak)… guilty (guilty)
I feel so guilty

Am I forced to have any regret
I’ve become the lie, beautiful and free
In my righteous own mind
I adore and preach the insanity you gave to me

Oh, sell me the infection, it is only for the weak
No need for a sympathy, the misery that is me

I’ve lost the ability to paint the clouds
Cause it’s me you’re draining (You’re draining me)
I’m stuck in this slow-motion dark tale
Cause everytime you run, I fall (fall).. behind (behind)
I fall behind

And so I hear my voice again
The tale of the bitter man there I am
Shake the silence and hear what it says
The tranquil pride that become the lie

Oh, sell me the infection, it is only for the weak
No need for a sympathy, the misery that is me

ok, here we go:

• you are drowning me, which is why i can’t tolerate your sadness (lines 1-2). you are probably drowning me in your sadness. fair enough.
• i won’t allow happiness because when you’re happy it makes me weak and guilty (lines 3-5)
• since i tolerate neither happiness or sadness, i expect you to have no strong emotions either way since they make me feel guilty and overpower me
• i am apparently profoundly emotionally unstable and have no emotional borders to call my own
• i might be forced to have regrets, but i’m not sure. i apparently would rather not have to have a conscience unless i really have to, implying my higher emotional functions are tied to societies expectations of me, as if society could really check if i feel regretful for some of my actions.(line 6)
• i am a also now a lie and have been driven insane by you. most probably by your happiness and sadness, those “mood” things. (lines 7-9)
• i am however righteous in my own head where i totally believe the various ‘insane’ world views you gave me. these i’m ok with, but not with the emotions from line 1-4. (line 8 )
• sell me your infection, that you already have, which is only for weak people. i will now remind you that i am weak because you’re happy, which i don’t want you to be, meaning i don’t want to be weak, but i still want the infection that is for weak people. i am very confused as to that i want. (line 10)
• no need for sympathy for the misery that is me. really. i am miserable, and i’m telling you that i’m miserable, but please, i insist don’t feel sympathy for poor old miserable me. really. also, don’t be happy or sad, back from verse 1. (line 11)
• i’ve lost the ability to paint clouds because you’re draining me. apparently i used to be an artist, back before you insisted on being happy and sad, or maybe before i started adoring your insanity, or maybe before i decided i wanted to be infected as a weak person (lines 12-13)
• i am now trapped in a ‘slow-motion dark tale’, which implies i’m in a bad place, however i adore being insane in my righteous mind, so i’m both trapped in a bad place and happy to be in a good place (lines 14-16  + 8-9)
• at this point i hear myself again and i am a bitter man recounting my tale. so i’m only sort of in a good place, and i’m mostly in a bad place like in lines 14-16. (lines 17-18)
• tranquil pride has become a lie (line 20). we’re not positive whose pride this is, but before it said that i became a lie (line 7), so it’s probably my tranquil pride.
• i here point out that i want more infection for my weakness, but please don’t feel sad for horribly mistreated me (lines 21-22)CONCLUSIONS:
• your emotions have made me into a nervous wreck
• i went totally insane and am very happy now
• i am very unhappy now, but please infect me to keep it that way
• i’m drained of my art abilities
• i am unhappy

you know guys… you, children of bodom, and everyone else in the scene: it’s perfectly ok to sing in a language where you’re not just stringing random strings emotionally charged phrases culled from a 14-year-old’s diary

CoB almost got their own analysis post, but what can you really add to:

You can alter your look
And diversify your image
But the truth seems like
A bitch slap in your face

don’t diversify your image, bitches.