Monday, December 6, 2021

i actually remember thinking  a lot of it was just rebranded hair metal. it was just this parade of bad cliches and awful lyrics that made me cringe over and over again....

and, it was escapist, which is very un-punk. we were in the middle of a serious political moment, after 9/11 and with the onset of a corporatist global trade regime. and, all these pampered children of the bourgeoisie wanted to talk about was their failed romances. what an aimless distraction.

i probably could have tolerated some of the worst genre characteristics (such as the pointless yelling) if it had some kind of artistic purpose, but essentially all of it was just this exercise in nihilism, in escapism, in the worst kinds of hedonistic excess.

and, that's why it struck me as hair metal, and not as punk.

you won't get that from me, so you're wasting your time, if you're looking for it. i haven't talked to sean in many years, but he was always very interested in my music collection, and became a fan of seminal and more artistically valid bands like swans under my influence, although i couldn't get him into a lot of it, either - he never liked sonic youth, for example. but, he was the hipster  - he was the one into alexisonfire and silverstein and at the drive-in and glassjaw and animal collective and whatever else pitchfork liked this month.

i do believe he produced some post-rabit demos. what i remember hearing indicated a big post-thief thom yorke fetish (something i don't share. i think radiohead lost it after ok computer), and a strong animal collective influence. it also had a vague early no-wave sound, in the sense that he was completely tone deaf. he had picked up a cheap guitar along with a few boss effects and was frequently using his mom's old organ, which was in his basement. as would be expected, he seemed to be getting into the delay effects thing, as was popular at the time. i would broadly expect anything he's created since to follow existing trends, rather than attempt to evade or transcend them.

but, he might have a deep body of work now, for all i know - and i don't know. i really don't.

what i know is that if you're looking for an emo kid here, you're not going to find it. sean was much more that than i ever was; there may be some confusion about identity, despite a very clear attempt to carefully label everything, by myself. i've tried to make it very clear who did what, but people don't read anything, anymore, including liner notes, it would seem.

i'll be continuing the asimov readings this week.
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listen, i don't write emo. i posted the vocal compilation, and it's a collection of shock rock postmodernism and (at times, intuitive) anarchist rants. there's maybe two poems that could be classified as 'beatnik'. the main focus of my vocals is and also has been political. very early vocal influences included roger waters, john lennon, michael stipe and bono. in high school, i listened to a lot of punk, in a wide range of sub-styles, but it was always vaguely political - from my first offspring cassettes when i was 13 to the major movement acts (dead kennedys, bad religion, skinny puppy) to my exit point in the late 90s, which was mostly centered around a silver mt zion. since then, 95% of the music composed has been instrumental. i really haven't listened to much of anything labeled "rock music" since about the year 2000.

i never listened to pavement or fugazi or anything like that - i largely found it amelodic and boring.

so, i skipped the entire emo thing and i frankly don't really understand what it really was. in fact, i was not really cognizant of it happening around me, at the time. i was more cognizant of what you might call "nu-metal", but i didn't like it, either. you could run me off a list of 00s emo bands, and i would barely even recognize most of them. the few i would recognize, i'd mostly argue were trash. what i was actually listening to during that period was idm, post-rock and jazz - and almost all of it was instrumental. at the time, i would have told you that "emo", which i would have just called "punk", was largely childish and stupid - and pretty boring. or, i would have written off what you're calling "emo" as "nu-metal", and not bothered further with it, by proxy. i was not open to exploring the genre and looking for hidden gems, at that time - i had made up mind that it was all corporate drivel and not worth my time.

there was a batch of post-hardcore bands that showed up about the year 2010 (a little before) that i found a little more interesting, because they were a lot more developed, both musically and thematically. they were mostly writing concept-records, which is something you more readily associate with progressive rock. but, i still wouldn't call any of it "emo". in fact, i'd label the bulk of it "grunge" or "alternative rock".  and, it's had no development on the music i've produced, because it was released years after i wrote all of it.

the singer that i worked with for a few months at the end of 2001 and the start of 2002 dabbled in what could be called emo or screamo, although he would have no doubt preferred the term post-hardcore and would have broadly labeled himself an aimless, trendy bitch. he was a fan of all those bands that were running in the fake underground media - at the drive-in, neutral milk hotel, etc. i had no interest in any of that; i was following the brainwashed feed and listening to tortoise and autechre.

when i finalize lyrics for the remaining pieces, insofar as they will have lyrics, they will follow the outlines i've constructed, and none of them will be about relationships or, really, social relations of much of any sort. the isolated beatnik tracks are really discarded outtakes, strictly, and will appear in finalized forms as instrumentals, if they appear at all. a couple of the remaining pieces  are broadly philosophical (there's a song about how they should have killed aristotle and spared socrates), but most of them are commentaries on (then) contemporary political events.

the bottom line is that i have spent my entire life single, by choice. i don't write about love or relationships because i haven't experienced any, and i don't really have a lot of interest in walking down that path. and, a part of the reason that i don't listen to lyrical music is that i can't relate to much of it.

so, yes - there's what could be called an emo singer on a handful of the recordings, but it was not me. i've stated in the past that i'll let sean identify himself, if he'd like to. if that's your interest, he ought to be your focus, and not me. my lyrics are generally focused on political commentary in a more traditionally "punk" framework, although i might rarely dabble in beatnik poetry, as well. the remaining tracks are focused mostly on political commentary and abstract philosophy, as i age into my mid-20s, in the reconstruction.
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this is inri009, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri008, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri007, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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i actually spent more time sleeping this weekend than cleaning, but the cleaning is finally done. i told myself i'd get the cleaning done, take a shower, get some rest and then do the legal stuff. that was thursday.

i've eaten a lot since then and am feeling a lot better.

the filing is about 50% done, i think. and, this is so key for everything, because everything else will click in immediately.

so, it was a sleepy weekend, but so be it.
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this is inri006, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri005, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri004, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri003, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri002, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri001, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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so, this is inri000, updated to remove any sound corruption:
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