Category Archives: Music

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An excerpt from an article regarding the relevance of the deaths of Dee Dee Ramone and and Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby, who died within 24 hours of each other.

“The reason Crosby’s June 6 death was mostly ignored is that his band seemed corporate and fake and pedestrian; the reason Ramone’s June 5 death will be remembered is that his band was seen as representative of a counterculture that lacked a voice. But the contradiction is that countercultures get endless media attention: the only American perspectives thought to have any meaningful impact are those that come from the fringes. The voice of the counterculture is, in fact, inexplicably deafening. Meanwhile, mainstream culture (i.e., the millions and millions of people who bought Ratt albums merely because that music happened to be the soundtrack for their lives) is usually portrayed as an army of mindless automatons who provide that counterculture with something to rail against. The things that matter to normal people are not supposed to matter to smart people.”

Martin Atkins interview excerpt regarding Skinny Puppy, circa 1995

[Dwayne and cEvin] were unable, through jealousy, to allow Ogre to shine. So in Skinny Puppy, the dynamic was to suppress Ogre, and his opinion and just like the worst, worst, _worst_ dysfunctional family, there was also a support system, in which Ogre’s belief in himself and his opinion was constantly invalidated to the point where I think Skinny Puppy is dangerous for Ogre as a human being.

You have a very strong point of view.

You spend a day with those guys and you see it. When you see what I’ve seen…

What about Dwayne and Cevin’s relationship?

It’s sad. I think Dwayne is a very talented individual who, because Cevin taught him some things four years ago, and because Cevin believes Skinny Puppy is _his_ band, Dwayne will never be anything more than Cevin’s assistant.

It’s pretty twisted to see it in action. I feel very lucky to NOT be a part of a situation like that where …you know, the closest I can explain it to you – if you’ve seen Amadeus – the relationship between Mozart and Salieri.

Excerpt from a Nivek Ogre interview, circa 1996, regarding the death of Dwane Rudolph Goettel.

But you weren’t at the funeral, were you?

No.

But cEvin was, wasn’t he?

Yeah. cEvin was. I talked to Rave and had a plane ticket booked – I scammed a plane ticket, saying it was a family member – so I had a plane ticket, so then I talked to Rave and said, “Are you going?” and he goes, “Why?” And that kind of answered all of my inside questions.

I was prepared to let a lot of it lie, and I still am letting it lie, but I know in my heart and I know in my head, because of what information I was given by Dwayne’s sister, of certain letters that were about to be sent to certain people, right before he accidentally overdosed. The contents of those letters paints an entirely different picture than I was even aware of. And so be it. I can’t speak for cEvin, and I certainly don’t want to speak out against cEvin, because cEvin’s got a lot of stuff to deal with… but his friendship with Dwayne wasn’t what he makes it out to be and what he’s projected, from the very beginning of this whole fiasco, in a lot of ways.

Just the idea of a person who is dead and who can’t speak for themself, is one of the issues I’ve had to deal with with Dwayne’s sister, because they don’t really want Dwayne’s material coming out on Subconscious. They want all of Dwayne’s data back, and cEvin’s not willing to give it back to them.

E. xtremely B. anal M. uttering

From an interview with Stromkern:

“I take our music very seriously, I take music in general seriously, maybe too seriously. But that doesn’t mean I can’t poke fun at it when I’m off-camera, so to speak. Maybe we’d be more successful if I’d have some über-spooky website and updated a LiveJournal every day about how I was about to go sacrifice a goat before engaging in a wild sex orgy, but I can’t be bothered, really.”

Music

The Future is Happening Already: Industrial Music, Dystopia and the Aesthetic of the Machine — A PhD thesis final draft from Karen Collins at the Institute of Popular Music.

A few words:

“This thesis represents the first comprehensive overview of a genre of Western popular music known as industrial. It asks the questions, ‘What is industrial music, who creates and listens to it and why: what does it mean to its producers and audience, and what do they believe in? How is the music mediated and disseminated? What does the music communicate, and how does it communicate this meaning?”

In exploring these questions, the thesis uses industrial to develop a methodological investigation into genre in general, asking what might be learned from a detailed interdisciplinary approach to the process of communication within the limits of a genre. Systematic methods involving a variety of approaches were undertaken. These methods included content analysis, hermeneutics, semiotics, an internet questionnaire, interviews, reception tests, a case study with Swedish industrial band Project-X, participation and participant observation in Canada and England from 1999 to 2002.

The results of the study show that, in reception tests, both fans of the music and those unfamiliar with the paramusical elements of the industrial genre have similar connotative responses. Nevertheless, the interpretation of those connotations differed, even to the point of being diametrical. The thesis uses the term ‘supplementary connotations’ for this additional level of meaning, suggesting that familiarity with a genre guides an audience towards a text’s deeper meanings and values. The research shows that industrial has specific signifiers which help to situate the music in a distinctly dystopian setting.

In exploring industrial, therefore, the thesis also introduces musical representations of dystopia and Hell; in particular, the use of mechanical motifs as a critique of rationalisation in the twentieth century. The thesis then suggests industrial music draws on this long tradition of apocalyptic notions to express in particular an alienation from, and critique of, late capitalism.”