it's often remarked that there's a fine line between genius and idiocy.
it's less often remarked that there's an equally fine line between
wisdom and depression.
in early 1998, i was generating quite a
bit of concern about my mental well being. ironically, i think this
actually coincided with a period of very rapid mental development and
maturation. i kind of just went to sleep one night as an immature teen
and woke up the next morning as an overmature young adult. i can't
really assign any kind of catalyst to it, either. while i haven't looked
into this at all, i suspect it's a less uncommon phenomenon than might
be imagined.
i should maybe give my parents, which at this point
in time means my father and step-mother but primarily my father, a
little bit of credit for at least being aware that my character
underwent a fast and drastic shift from being kind of hyperactive and
full of snarky wit to being quiet and sort of withdrawn. the immediate
interpretation of such a shift is inevitably going to be that it is at
least consistent with the onset of some kind of depression. so, i ended
up dealing with the spanish inquisition for a while, regarding my shift
in demeanor. was i alright? if i wasn't, would i tell him? would i agree
to talk to somebody?
i did agree to talk to somebody, mostly to
ease his own concerns. i mean, i just didn't see the need for him to be
worrying about me like this.
the reality of the situation was
that i had simply matured a little bit. sure: there were some real life
concerns happening around me. life at 17 is not childhood any longer; it
can be stressful. maybe that had affected me a little bit. but,
depression? i didn't feel that i was suffering from anything. i just
felt that my personality was asserting itself as something that was kind
of stoic. i don't want to call myself a sociopath, exactly: stoicism
gets the point across better. what's the point of getting irritable?
what does it solve?
the doctor keyed in on some of the music i
was listening to. now, it's the late 90s: right after grunge. people are
still reeling from, like, kurt cobain copycat suicides. i was in a bit
of a different musical head space than that, one defined mostly by nine
inch nails (and including influences on nin and offshoots from it).
that's actually considerably worse, on first glance, although i was
aware of the fact that reznor was writing from the perspective of a
character rather than from personal experience. the point is that i
understood where the concern was coming from and was able to effectively
articulate that point to the doctor. we agreed that i didn't
necessarily need to be put on anti-depressants right away, but that i
should accept a prescription and fill it at some point if i get
overwhelmed.
so, i came home with a prescription and immediately
hit the internet to research it. i didn't like what i found. i had
explicitly told the doctor that i was experiencing a lack of emotional
instability, not an excess of it. so, i didn't need to turn my emotions
off; if anything, i would have benefited more from something that
amplified my emotions more. the idea that i was depressed was just a
misperception. nonetheless, the mere *idea* of taking drugs that would
suppress my emotions and may have long term or permanent effects scared
the hell out of me. the xfiles sample that appears on the original mix
was something that i had put aside for future pro-atheist use but, after
doing this research, became very relevant in a completely different
context.
so, i wasn't keen on taking these drugs that were going
to at best turn me into a zombie and at worst turn me into a mass
murderer. nope. no thanks...
my dad pushed the point for quite a
while, though. in his mind, i came home with a prescription and ought to
fill it. this song is a reaction to his insistence, which i always knew
was coming from a good place. in fact, he never really dropped the
argument.
the doctor and i also talked a little bit about my own
music, and how it was an outlet for various frustrations. i made the
argument that, while i didn't feel depressed, i was nonetheless better
off working out issues of the sort through art than i was taking pills.
so, this song also exists on that kind of meta level.
in
hindsight, i don't want to give off the impression that i reject
psychology or the medicalization of depression. that is simply untrue.
the honest truth is that i simply did not feel that i was suffering from
any kind of depression. yet, i've also always been very uncomfortable
with the way that this process unfolded. we talked for less than an
hour, and i walked out with a prescription for a mind-altering substance
that could have dramatically damaged me. why is there not more
oversight in this process? one would think that i should have been given
a blood test to determine if i actually had an imbalance or not. no
doctor can determine an imbalance through intuition. that is flat out
quackery! an imbalance must be measured. if it can be determined
empirically, it ought to be reacted to. yet, i was never even tested.
as
an artist, i'm glad that i had the presence of mind to reject the drugs
at this age. i simply don't know what they would have done to me, or
who i would be today had i taken them.
originally created in
april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 4,
2015. remixed july 15, 2015. vocals added jan 6, 2016. finalized on july
23, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1998, 2013, 2015, 2016).
credits:
j - guitars, effects, synth bass, synths, drum programming, sequencing, vocals, sampling, digital wave editing, production
released april 29, 1998
i spent the morning making up the liner notes for inri010 (why) and the afternoon closing inri011 (nope). i've been a little distracted for the last few days. kind of anxious. i wish the weather would just stay around 30 in here, but i'm in a really epic war with the a/c upstairs. i keep turning the heat up to 32 or 33, then turning it off - it's the only way to avoid the refrigeration effect, without overheating. on some level, it's fucking awful. but, what else can i do? i don't want to wear a sweater in july. i don't even want to wear fucking pants.
i've had some difficulty with writing this up, but i'm getting to it. i think it should be up soon.
yeah, but i don't care about "views". i'm not a vlogger, i'm a musician. the vlogs are ads for the music. and the store is over here. i've said it a thousand times, too.
i'd put some products up directly on youtube, but they demand that you use google wallet, which doesn't accept my debit card information because it's from a small bank in canada. nor do i have a credit card.
so, the store is at bandcamp. it's pinned, even. and, i'm openly transparent about this.
i mean, i could in theory use pay pal - which can interface with my bank account. but, google will not allow it. you must use wallet. which cannot interface with my bank account...
i don't want to sell you shirts or buttons or dildos or whatever the fuck else, either. you'll notice i don't wear logos, myself. ever. i just don't want to run a business selling merchandise. i have no interest in it...
the discography is currently a little bare, but it's coming up quickly and when i get over the hump in finishing period 1.2 it's going to really explode forwards to the end of period 2. so, give me a few more weeks, at the most. i'm just about caught up, finally, after the interference breakdown.
and, that mri is on monday morning. what i'm expecting to find is that my jaw is growing in crooked and it's fucking with my ear. i'll have to see what kind of remedies they can provide. but, i'll have to react further based on the scans...
here's the biting, satirical, misanthropic anarchist jessica that you know and love! finally...
this is the first thing that shows up that's explicitly political in more than a social sense. the lyrics are clear, obvious and mixed very much to the front. here's the story on that: i'm emulating a beat-box situation. i'm a politician, tongue-in-cheek, with a sound system in the back. the paper crumpling sound in the middle is meant to represent me spoiling a ballot.
in hindsight, i suppose that the idea that i'm trying to get across is largely gramscian. in the language of modern memes, the track simply tells us to keep calm and vote for the status quo. but, you'll note that i'm focusing a lot on the deficit of discourse. this could be interpreted a few ways. you could think about how the function of advertising is to suppress thought, for example. however, what i was thinking at the time intersects most cleanly with the idea of the state functioning as the modern church. in this system, which does not only exist on the right, the politician is also a priest and enforces the same role of thought suppression that the church did in the middle ages. the politician herds the sheep into the polls to uphold the status quo; democracy consequently leads to stasis, and prevents any kind of real change. what i had actually read at this age was not gramsci or chomsky but orwell. yet, what's actually driving me is something closer to what we would today associate with dawkins - largely through asimov.
you'll note that i'm not particularly hopeful about the process, either - i don't have a lot of faith in humans to transcend this process of control. it's a deep form of misanthropy, with little way out. yet, my idea of human nature is that we are very malleable, not that we are fixed in perpetual assholery. even at this age, i realize that we are not doomed....
....we're just very poorly equipped to get our shit together.
initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. vocals added july 15, 2015. sequenced, released and finalized on july 22, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, drum kit, synthesizers, found sound (paper crumpling), pick scrapes, tapes, noise generators, cool edit synthesis, sampling, vocals, digital wave editing, production
1) when i reclaimed this track in the summer of 2015, i output a vocal version for the fun of it and then left it to sit for several months. no single was constructed on the initial run through in early 2016 because i had made the decision to not release vocal mixes. however, with the creation of the epic "on sexual confusion in adolescence", i have reversed that decision and decided to release select vocal tracks as singles. this track makes the cut. initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. vocals added july 15, 2015. https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-3
2) this version has been edited and sequenced for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021). initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. sequenced and finalized on july 22, 2016. https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-album-version
4) this is a glitchy, instrumental remix of the track that i only vaguely recall putting together. initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. converted to stereo on sept 24, 2014. https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-wtf-mix-2
6) deleted 2013 remaster of the 1998 demo, which would later appear on my second record, inriched (inri021). initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. dated dec 24, 2013. https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-2013-remaster-of-1998-demo
if you want a shitty,
corporate-controlled model of music delivery then you'll have to learn
to live with the shitty, corporate music that such a model is able to
deliver. if you want independent music, then you'll have to seek out
independent channels.
ok, this is done. i just need to do the write-up.
the first seven tracks are pretty final, for the physical cd. the last three uploads will be download-only bonus tracks.
re:
the hip-hop thing - those are guitars, not tables. it's called
"muting". you can hear the same sound in virtually any funk song. a
related concept, the palm mute, is uses widely in metal. i acknowledge
it sounds a little like a scratch, but it's again accidental - it's just
meant to be a syncopated guitar muting.
so, i spent the morning rebuilding the vocal mix and then building the album edit. so, i think i at least have the pieces together for this, although i'm not at all sure which 98 mixes i want to use, yet.
i'm going to at least upload the parts, and then see how i want to put them together,
this version has been edited and sequenced for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021). initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. sequenced and finalized on july 22, 2016.
it might just be a nap. i'm not tired. i'm just not alert. i've been a little sleepy all day, really. this is going to require stronger attention, so i'm going to get some sleep and get back at it tomorrow.
i remember reading an article a few years ago about how the iconic canadian rock band, the tea party (often cited in the short list of best canadian rock bands of all time), refused to sell it's domain name to the corporate-dominated american political movement of the same name. rumours were running up to seven figures. yeah, they could have used the cash. but, which koch would have written that cheque?
i missed most of the preamble, but this combined track of an original (requiem) and a well known cover that he does regularly (hurt, by nine inch nails) was dedicated to the united states in the wake of rising racial tensions and police shootings. a requiem. it's not smug. you can dwell on "what have they become?". or you could dwell on "my sweetest friends". it's more about concern than superiority. but, it's a requiem, nonetheless - a requiem in the face of what is increasingly obvious american decline. would eight figures have shut him up?
how many times have i seen the band? i don't know. lots. so, getting a chance to see jeff martin play an acoustic set opening for a reformed i mother earth was a nice addition to the show, in the sense of it being a throw back. he played mostly tea party songs, and i don't think anybody was upset about it. but, i want to point out that seeing jeff martin play acoustic is not your average folk performance. i don' check setlists; i happened to catch a more toned down track, even as it was presented kind of heavily. most of the tracks featured foot driven percussion. he was playing a 12 string at one point (the badger). the truth is that he can fill the sound up on his own: he didn't really need to bring a band with him.
as it turns out, he brought one with him, anyways.
here is a full set from the same week:
given that jeff martin was coming home from australia for the set (something he pointed out as he was playing 'coming home'), it was sort of obvious that he would at least try and get his bandmates up on stage. and, it happened to work out. this is the complete band set, at the end of his solo set. the first track is a led zeppelin cover, and the second is a track from their first record, splendor solis.
yeah. you're not seeing things.
they're on a twenty year anniversary tour for scenery and fish, and i enjoyed every second of it. again: how many times did i see this band in the 90s? i don't know. lots. the setlist was pulled from both of their records. you can pick up from the footage that the audience knew all the words...
this show was pure nostalgia, and nobody pretended otherwise. i got everything i wanted out of it: some sing-alongs, some guitar freakouts, some drum circles - and even some pot floating around through the audience. score.
you can probably pick out almost immediately that this wasn't your average 90s alt rock band. i've argued pretty strongly that they really foreshadowed the sound developed by the mars volta, although they themselves were drawing heavily on the more progressive side of alternative rock: rhcp, jane's addiction, the smashing pumpkins. with a dash of rush, for canadiana? sure, even if the lyrical references are largely on the level of satirical post-modernism rather than serious objectivism. they were and remain viciously virtuosic on their instruments, and worth the price of admission simply for that fact.
if you weren't around to see it the first time, you're not going to get as much out of this. but, it's something that kind of got lost. to be clear: they were huge in canada. when they played edgefest '98, they co-headlined a concert that included green day and foofighters as opening acts. that's right: they didn't open for foofighters and green day. green day and foofighters opened for them. that's how big they were in canada, for a few years in the 90s.
they then completely imploded before they got a chance to build an audience outside of canada - the singer bolted and the band didn't recover. this is the original singer, apparently performing with the band for the first time in 18 years. so, it's something special for us old 90s canucks.
here is a full set from earlier in the month:
i walked out of this concert completely fried due to minimal sleep, overexposure to my ears (remember: i saw swans on tuesday, too), alcohol, nicotine and the other one that's still a few months away from open mention. so, i'm not done sleeping yet. but there was an experience near the end of the show that i want to say something about. it was one of those really surreal moments of racism that you just can't do much about besides point out loudly and shake your head about. so, i'm going to scream about it for a few paragraphs.
i mother earth were a kind of iconic canadian band in the 90s, and they were uniting here with a singer they hadn't played with in many years. the announcer said 18 years. i'm not sure if that's literally true or not, but it's been a while. the audience was consequently full of nostalgia: an older and mostly white crowd rocking out to records released in 1993 and 1996. much drinking, yes.
now, everybody knows you're not supposed to smoke anything at all in these kinds of outdoor bank concerts. you're just supposed to shut up and drink your over-priced beer. that is, of course, the economic purpose of this event: to sell over-priced beer. but, you can't actually enforce this rule once the sun comes down a little, the least important reason being that most people in the crowd at rock concerts like this actually don't agree with bans on smoking at outdoor concerts. many of them actually even smoke. and, not just cigarettes.
the smell of marijuana is pretty normal at outdoor rock concerts. it's a part of the experience - whether you're actually inhaling, or just taking in the aroma. it wouldn't be a real festival, without it. whatever the eventual legality of the substance in canada, that smell is not going to lift from the concerts of the nation. there will simply be a trail of corrected signs "thank you for pot smoking".
the spirit of this event, combined with the nature of the audience, actually at one point near the end of the set had joints passing around amongst strangers. somebody decided everybody at the show ought to be high. or it seemed that way. they were just circling around. my nose and eyes caught multiple burning around me.
so, i will acknowledge that there were people smoking pot in the audience. see, but that's just it - *everybody* in the audience was smoking pot. no exaggeration. nine out of ten, anyways.
so, you'll imagine how absurd it was to watch security swoop in, walk past several burning joints and key in on the only black guy in eyesight - who, yes, was caught green-handed. like, they took it out of his hand. ok. drug abuse. but, they had to blatantly walk by scores of stoned white folks to do this, and then scores more as they were escorting him out. 90 out of 100 people in the immediate audience were stoned. it was being openly passed around. but, only one person in the audience was black.
i didn't stay for the literal headliner, so i don't know if they came back later for more minorities, or even for some white folk - or maybe if they just backed off and let people have a good time. but i know what i saw and how obvious it was.
i don't really have any point besides the obvious one: it's really not ok. i don't know exactly who the security personnel were (mall cops?), either, but....i guess the way i should articulate this to organizers is that i don't want to see anything like that ever again.
of course, this has nothing to do with the band. the actual show was excellent, for what it was. tight. no fuck-ups. the tracks were identifiable, but expanded upon enough to play out. i'd need at least two hands to count the number of times i saw this band in the 90s, and they were always a strong live set like that. so, i will actually have some footage coming up in the next few days of i mother earth with edwin in 2016. that's something that is actually happening. there's some teaparty footage, too.
i'm about to post inri010 which, like everything else since inri004, is a collection of mixes and masters stemming from a recording made in 1998. it's meant to be very industrial sounding. but, in 2016, it comes off as experimental hip-hop.
i've never listened to hip-hop directly. i've just never found anything that's abstract enough to catch my attention, yet coherent enough to keep it. but, i mean, i was listening to a lot of stuff in 1998 that was widely classified as industrial or idm but was often on the fringes of hip-hop: nin, autechre, smg, skinny puppy...
i just want to clarify my opinion of death grips, before this comes up. it doesn't sound like death grips. not exactly. it may be appealing to fans of that style...
it's just too macho. it's dude music. there's some basis for growth hidden in there. but, i'm never going to listen to death grips for the same reason that i'm never going to listen to limp bizkit or rage against the machine or gwar or whatever other macho dude-bro shit you want to throw around. on top of pushing the abrasive macho aesthetic, there's also an incredible lack of subtlety to balance it out. i "get" that criticizing death grips for a lack of subtlety is like criticizing a lioness for refusing to be ladylike. it's just not what it is. but, just about the only way i'm going to get into somebody beating their chest for an hour is if there is some layer of subtlety. a decent example of that is ministry, during their peak period. it was when they dropped the subtlety that they got boring.
about the only major rapper that i've been able to get a little into is ice cube, as he has a bit of a punk rock streak. by that, what i mean is that he has a tendency towards the surreal aspects of cynical political analysis. it's not every song....
what i'm getting at is that i understand that this is going to be easily misunderstood. but, let's take a step back first.
ok, this is only the very start of this release. it's the raw vocal and instrumental mixes; it may not even be the final vocal mix.
i'm going to need to splice an album mix, which means doing some work on the big machine. and, i'm going to stop to get some toast first...
what i'm look at right now is likely:
1) vocal mix
2) album mix
3) inriclaimed mix
4) wtf mix (from inrimixed) -followed by thirty seconds of silence
5) 2013 remaster of 98 version
6)
one of the 98 mixes. i have the full mix, which includes my dad getting
my dog to howl (i don't know, don't ask...) and a really noisy bathroom
fan. the cd and mp3 mixes are the same as each other, but different to
this.
bonus mixes:
7) 2013 remix of 96 demo
8) one of the other 98 mixes.
9) original 96 sequence
i decided against the play. it's this thing called "mr. burns", some kind of musical about people bonding around the simpsons after the apocalypse and then the process taking a life of it's own. i like the premise. but, i....i find the medium to usually be kind of childish: adults prancing around in masks, singing off key to poorly composed music.
it would just be very hard to put a play together that would live up to my standards.
instead, i have continued the close/review process. i want a single for think, but i need to attach it to it's noise component, which pushes it back to the end of may. likewise, a single for wish could not exist until the end of may, either. that means that the new inri010 is for the track why. i'm currently putting this together. it should be finalized today or tomorrow.
this track has a vocal version that i'd like published, which puts it in the same category as the previous singles with vocal tracks. this category had been rejected the first time through, or at least until the very end. there's also a glitch mix and some various stuff from 96 and 98.
the track is actually one of my favourites from the early period. it works on the level of political satire, on the level of industrial/no-wave dance/noise punk, on the level of guitar music and also on the level of hip-hop - which was unintended at the time. i just always listened to art rock. where's the art rock equivalent style of hip-hop? if it's out there, i never found it. but i've always dabbled around it's idm and industrial fringes, too.
anyways, the ep is currently being condensed. it's 9 tracks right now. i should be able to get that down to 5 or 6. i'll post when it's ready.
1:50. i'd rather something other than a fucking elf, but it's good to go.
this is absurdly racist.
deathtokoalas
i've been saying for a while that trump = gadget.
it's like gta.
but, what i'm looking for is a screen shot of those swirly eyes that comes up whenever somebody gets under mind control. point me to the right episode, if you can?
Cheyenne Cook
I think you are thinking of episode 10...A Star Is Lost where Claw wants to use superstar Rick Rocker to make a record that can control minds
deathtokoalas
naw, that's not the one. but i found the screen shot i wanted in a christmas special, where they brainwashed the elves.
good morning. afternoon. evening and goodnight?
i've got the cover art for inri009 up, along with the link to the physical disc. in the process, i added a hidden track to inri007. so, i have three tracks now with inricycled b fragments - 006, 007, 009 - and they all show up as hidden tracks on the disc. that's a pattern. you'll notice these patterns, if you'd like to.
that closes everything up to the end of march, 1998 and i can't for a moment think of anything else i'd like to add to any of these releases, except the eventual liner notes at the twenty year final close point.
i'd like to see a play tonight. but, i'll be making choices about the remaining april tracks. i'm leaning towards the maximal exploration at this point.
i need to eat and then formally close inri009 over the vlog. so, this may be the last post until tommorow.
hidden track added to inri007. audio permanently closed.
===
so, how exactly does one go about being transgendered, anyways? i mean, like anything else, i guess you have to come to terms with it, first. then, what?
it was the "what next?" part that took me a very long time to grapple with before i was able to come to some kind of course of action. i don't remember exactly how old i was when i realized that i was more like a girl than a boy, but i will state that my thought process was always that i was like a girl, rather than that i was a girl. i have to be blunt: i was a precocious child. i understood the biology of sexual organs at a pretty young age. i knew which organ i had, that it was the same as the one my dad had and that it was different than my mom. i never felt as though i was in the wrong body - that's not how i'd articulate it. i knew i was male. but, all my friends were girls. i preferred to do "girl things". so, i realized at a very, very young age that i was more similar to the girls in my life than to the boys, despite being well aware that i was genetically a boy. it functioned more on the level of social inclusion and conscious choice of gender role than it did on the level of anything biological. am i really that atypical? i don't know. but, i know that i never had any difficulty at all, whatsoever, in separating between sex, gender and gender roles. so, for example: i have very early memories of asking my mom to let me wear lipstick, and of asking to get my ears pierced (3,4 years old) but i don't attach those memories to feelings of gender dysphoria. i didn't see any reason why boys couldn't wear make-up. further, nobody really "corrected" me on it. so, i grew up without any shame or second thoughts attached to being a boy that was more like a girl, and consequently without any particularly strong urges to become a girl. my very early life actually finds it's best explanation in the theories of radical feminism: because the gender binary was never enforced on me, i never felt oppressed by it. i have to argue for a very healthy early upbringing.
what screwed me up and set me back a good ten years was the school system. when i got there at the age of four and a half, i wouldn't talk to the boys. i wanted to skip rope and play hopscotch with the girls. well, all my friends were girls. i didn't know how to play with the boys. what's a marble? i just didn't know. i got stuck with a fossil of a kindergarten teacher that actually flat out banned me from skipping rope. worse, she banned me from reading books. my absolutely docile and clinically rational temperament at that age probably worked against me. but, i had two choices: i could play with the trucks with the boys in the corner or i could go to sleep.
in fact, i slept a lot.
but, gradually, the system socialized me as a male. or, at least it seemed like it did.
my path through elementary school didn't really ease up on the gender segregation until the seventh grade, at which point it was essentially too late. the system had successfully prevented me from socializing with girls, but had never taught me how to socialize with boys. so, i had spent the last twelve years of school in social isolation, usually without any friends at all. i'd lost the opportunity to have all the gendered experiences one associates with childhood - which means i was deeply socially stunted. i was still pretty smart, academically speaking. however, i was operating at the social level of a much younger child because the school system had arrested my social development through segregating me into a gender role that i didn't understand how to fulfill.
by the time i got around to writing this song at the age of 16, i'd just become entirely stoic about the whole thing. i knew i was more like a girl, but what exactly was i going to do about it? i guess i had the perspective, at 16, that life was largely about managing misfortune and you just have to deal with shit, whether you like it or not.
rational? perhaps, from a certain perspective. it gnawed at me, though. the trauma underlying the track was the realization that i was a good part of the way through puberty, without ever having signed up for it. this was by no means unexpected, either, and i didn't ultimately feel that i had any recourse of action in preventing it. but, i felt like i'd been cheated out of something and was being forced into something i didn't remotely want.
as with the rest of the early tracks, the lyrics here are at their core the exploration of a morbid fantasy. i'm taking things too far, i'm taking any excuse i can to keep taking things too far and i'm enjoying watching you squirm when i do it. in one sense, it's a sarcastic allegory on the question of thinking with one's cock, which is a bio-chemical problem that all testosterone producers are forced to come to terms with at some point. in another sense, it's a transgendered teenager carrying out a sort of morbid fantasy and desperately looking for a way to prevent the masculinization of my body.
it took me another five years or so of internal struggle before i could get to the point where i saw hormone therapy as a realistic option, rather than a kind of utopian fantasy that would be perpetually out of reach until i finally expired.
this is the only period 1 piece that was further expanded through the addition of some bass and piano sequencing near the start of the piece. the vocals were also brought back in without redaction. so, this ep starts off with a full reconstruction of the piece that is only available on this single. the ep further comprehensively documents all other released versions of the track.
initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. sequenced on jan 6-8, 2016. finalized on july 10, 2016. hidden track added and refinalized on july 21, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, synthesizers, drum programming, drum kit, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production
naw. i'm done. i got something done today, anyways.
tomorrow, i'll need to be focusing on the string of tracks completed in march, april and may of 1998. i could push through quickly or add several releases. we'll find out...
no. that ep is closed. let's get the cover art done.
i'm on a second wind. wide awake.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
i may add to that before i'm done, but right now i'm stopping to get some toast.
this is the final version of something i'd been playing with since about '94 or so, and by this time the track had become something that was beyond absurd. in a way, this is the culmination of everything i did in this period. it's the central track of my inri years: it's both the first thing i spent any time seriously writing and the ultimate realization of the musical ideas i was exploring. it's the longest track on the first demo. the drum programming is deep, there's an orchestration through sequencing, synth parts in the background, lead guitar work coming to the forefront - it's everything thrown together at a coherent level, really for the first time.
that this is the central track of this period maybe demonstrates how ridiculous i was and how ridiculous my musical vision was. maybe it also demonstrates just how young i was.
the remaining tracks in this period sort of pivot after this.
i should be clear: this is pretty much the most terrible song that you could possibly imagine existing, and that was kind of the intent. the shock value is entirely up front. but at the same time, it's just so terrible that it's kind of funny, and that was entirely intended as well.
you could maybe say something about how somebody like alice cooper ripping live chicken heads off in the middle of a performance is just about the most tyrannical thing you could imagine somebody getting away with on stage. it's just so ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh - even as you're horrified.
it's a phase a lot of teenagers go through. i guess the difference between me and a hundred thousand other kids is that i was exploring it through composition.
-
now that i'm an adult, this isn't something i would write or promote. yet, i sort of am by uploading it. the interest here is to document the existence of a troubled child. well, and to document myself - i was that troubled child.
the history of the track is perhaps a little less obnoxious than may be suspected. i was actually being taunted by somebody in the eighth grade. that person had never met and never would meet my mother. it's just a remark that young boys make. freudian analyses aside, i don't think there's really that much conscious thought put into it.
my decision to write a song about it was half a joke and half a response to being teased. i listened to and feigned laughter at a lot of oppressive jokes when i was younger; to an extent, i regret not speaking up, but i can state with honesty that i never felt comfortable taking part (now, self-deprecating humour, often of a sexual nature, is another thing). this reaction, on that "fuck you" level, shouldn't provide for any specific discomfort.
however, the fact that i explored the topic in a deeper level of depth than my taunters did perhaps might, and perhaps should. i need to bring you back to my aims in recording this early demo: i was trying to be as disturbing and shocking as i possibly could be. my taunters provided me with a particularly disturbing subject matter to explore, and i took full advantage of that.
this track is certainly disturbing and certainly shocking. success? well, i guess. looking back, i've always been torn between regret and satisfaction. i still am...
initially written in 1994. first full recording in 1996. recreated in
mar, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed &
remixed on july 18, 2015. released jan 7, 2016. sequenced jan 6-8, 2016.
finalized on july 20, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this
release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1996, 1998, 2013, 2015, 2016).
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, drum programming, drum kit, synths, sequencers, sampling, digital wave editing, production
lead track added to inri005. audio permanently closed.
===
this is maybe a little hard to understand, if you weren't a teenager in a very specific period - about '91-'99, the 90s i guess, when the nu metal shift "corrected" things and tough guys went backing to being metalheads.
that period overlaps with a period when punk fashion moved from subculture to dominant culture. as with any other failed social revolution, the period is more defined by certain subculture traits being co-opted than it was by any meaningful change in social attitudes, even if it did correspond with a move towards liberalizing social attitudes in the older members of gen x.
i remember playing this for my aunt, who was a teenager in the 80s, and she was just confused by it. in her day, the skaters were the skinny punk kids that got picked on by the meathead jock metal heads. as mentioned, i think people that were teenagers in the 00s may more readily associate with this as well.
but the 90s were weird in this sense. skater culture in the 90s was defined by a sort of thuggish machismo gang mentality that overlapped more into gangster rap than punk rock. what you had where i grew up was a lot of upper middle class white kids skating because it was advertised to them as the "cool thing to do" and in the process co-opting this sort of survivalist 'hood mentality into a tool of oppression that they used to bully and intimidate the kids that, a decade before, would have identified as skateboarders. those kids may have maintained an interest in punk rock, but weren't generally accepted into the skater clique - which was essentially the "in group".
the culmination may seem a little surreal nowadays, if for no other reason than that it's been forgotten. but i remember sneaking through back alleys, evading skateboarding gangs made up of kids into slayer, while i had socal punk music blasting through my headphones. and i'm sure you'll get similar stories if you ask around - or maybe you were also that kid.
on one hand, this track was constructed to be sort of precious, and i think that it is. it's a pretty catchy pop song, really. on the other hand, i think i was trying to be a bit tougher than i actually was. i wasn't one to back down from confrontation - i'm still not. while i think it's true that i could have taken most of these brats one-on-one, i probably would have mostly chosen not to. see, the fear was always more that they'd convert the boards into weapons and then jump you. in canada, guns aren't much of a concern, but knives are.
...and the fear often came out of trivial reasons. talking with somebody's girlfriend. having a pair of headphones or a pair of shoes that might be worth something. basic thug shit.
in hindsight, the analysis here is a little simplistic. suggesting that these kids are going to grow up into pimps is problematic on numerous levels, although i can state with blunt honesty that a number of the people the song was about have grown up to be petty criminals with lengthy criminal records. i have to own that lack of depth and how it comes out in sometimes less than ideal statements, but i'm going to once again blame that on my age.
overall, i like this track on both a musical and thematic level. i just wish i had articulated myself a little bit better.
===
there was a specific story that influenced the track. when i was in the ninth grade, one of these skater bro types took it upon himself to start body-checking me into lockers. it was well understood that this person was older, but that just gave him more clout in the school's skater clique; he knew the older kids that they looked up to. i was never certain if he was on his second or third try at grade 9.
this wasn't the first time somebody had tried to get physical with me, but it was an escalation that i couldn't really tolerate. people flicking my ears was an annoyance, and especially so when it was a game, but it's the kind of thing one withstands. these were full on, run-at-me body checks that seemed to be designed with intent to harm.
i actually tried a few different tactics before i reacted. i tried sitting behind in class until he left, but it was visibly starting to make the female teacher uncomfortable that i was just sitting around waiting after class - and perhaps not unreasonably so. as for bringing it up with the teacher? well, this guy went out of his way to look for a teacher watching before he took a run. i couldn't be followed around by a teacher all day. i had to react on my own.
so, i tricked him into running at my open leg, which had him fall face first into the locker. he did not see the retribution in the act; he got up looking for a fight. as i was walking toward the exit, which was a staircase downwards, he took another run at me - which i dodged. that was an adrenaline filled movement, i tell you - he was full of stupid, hot rage and sidestepped like an angry bull. but, i still had to time it. there was no escape. he ended up falling down several flights of stairs and breaking his leg. consider what would have happened if i hadn't moved - even considering that i may have helped him lose his balance, a little.
from that point onwards, i lived in fear of being swarmed. rumours were floating around that i'd better stay away from certain people - which was a broadcast to me to stay low. i got the message, and spent the next several years sneaking around back passageways in and out of the school. i learned where the cuts in the fences were, how to detour across floor levels to follow the crowd, how to time the bus (we had public transit passes - and that fact alone probably spared me broken bones) to come in to class during the national anthem and other various scheduling and transiting tactics to avoid being alone at critical junctures. and, then i started to enjoy living that way, too.
i don't think that student came back the next year, so i'm not sure if he ever finished grade 9. but, part of the reason i'm telling you this story is that it helps paint a clearer demographic picture of the narrative that i'm presenting. if you remove the "skater" designation, this could be a story about gangs in schools that could be applied equally well across any other grouping. it just happened to be that the gangs at my school were populated by white skater kids, some from the welfare projects and others comfortably middle class. that might help to explain what some might see as a difficult reference point.
== =
i've presented this track in chronological ordering because i wanted
to tell the story of the track itself. looking through my releases, it
may be difficult to tell what is an ep from what is a single, and what
is an ep from what is a record. this is an ep, and not a single. it's an
ep because it's a conceptual ordering of the tracks, rather than just
an exploration of a single incarnation of a specific track.
i
don't deny that the lyrics are painful. and, wasn't i supposed to be
getting rid of painful vocals? well, perhaps. but, note that no vocal
takes of this track make it on to any of the abum-format presentations
of it, excepting inricycled. the vocals are tied into the concept of the
ep, which is a narration of the song as it developed.
so,
chronological ordering is the only rational way to present the tracks.
further, a comprehensive exploration of the track's development actually
becomes necessary, in order to narrate it's entire development.
i'm not going to take this approach to every single. i just think that this track had to be preserved in this kind of way.
initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 1, 2015. deconstructed dec 18, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. finalized on july 6, 2016. lead track added and refinalized july 20, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 1998, 2013, 2016).
the walk to the store left me pretty happy with the tracklisting to inri009. i realized over the walk that that was a good 40 minutes, both ways. so, i was gone for well over an hour. i did end up watching the vlog for the 15th after all, although i haven't done the write up for the i mother earth show yet...
it turns out that i'm getting my tax refunds this year, after all. it will actually be a nice chunk in august, although i wish i would have gotten it in july instead. so be it. august may be an indoor month, in the end. baroness is the only thing that is at all likely, right now. we'll see what comes up.
as mentioned, i need to close some things today, and inri009 is in fact basically done. soon.
for right now, in looking over whether i should make a single for 'think' or not, i've realized i overlooked the album edit of 'skaters' and realized that dropping it into the single position resolves a number of problems with the release. i'm going to have to update that before i do anything else.
right now, i'm expecting this to be a long day. it could be a two-day vlog. i feel the need to get a lot done in this space.
so, i'm updating inri005 a final time and then moving on to closing inri009.
yesterday was a total bust, and i even forgot to upload last night on top of it. tomorrow's a two-day-er so i'm safe for the day.
i've got a day worth of ice cream and a day worth of mayo left, so i'm going to get something to eat and head to the store and then get right to listening. i guess i can tracklist while i'm doing that. so, no basic ritualism today.
it's taken me a little longer than intended, but i'm back at this. i spent the last few sessions working on a different recording, only to push the date forward to june, 1998. this is the new inri009.
there will be a write-up shortly. the track is purposefully unsettling, as so many of these tracks are, but it's even more tongue-in-cheek than initially apparent. it's coming, probably in the morning.
given my gender switch, i grasp that this is just that much more fucked. hey. go listen to hamburger lady and get back to me on that.
i feel like i should have a novel to write, here. i've stated a few times that the shortest reviews are the best shows. it kind of doesn't matter.
i'm ultimately going to refer you to the vlog, other than to point out that i wasn't paying a lot of attention to the show in the weeks leading up to it. i made a choice a few weeks ago that i'd wait to see the show before i heard the disc. it was part out of pragmatism: i've been closing discs this week. so, i kind of stumbled the few blocks there, and then stumbled the few blocks back, after.
i really should have been tired. i only had a few hours worth of sleep. yet, i got a boost of energy walking out that lasted me until well into the next day. i think this was as psychological as it was anything else; the excitement didn't hit me until i was there, and it didn't peak until i walked out.
in hindsight, i can see that the show was *meant* to have a kind of mystical quality to it. i point out in the vlog that the feeling gira is alluding to in describing a spiritual connection is really just the coming together of human beings. i think it's ultimately a sad reflection on the neo-liberal era that it's most important artistic creators are so alienated from social connectivity that they misinterpret social connectedness as something divine. but, then again, that's why we do the organized religion thing in the first place, right?
the show was in a deconsecrated church. at the end of the day, discussions and debates aside, i'd certainly rather worship with swans than with any kind of organized religion.
if you've yet to experience swans, you likely only have a few weeks left in which to do so. i cannot overstate how strongly i recommend doing so.
here is some footage from the show:
here is a full set:
& here is the day's vlog, with a more lengthy review:
i've got a vlog to watch for the 14th and show reviews to write for the 12th and 14th. it may be until noon before i get any work done. and, i need to stop to eat before i do anything at all.
i just woke up from a recurring dream that i've been having for a
really, really long time. thirty years? it's not every night or
anything, but i definitely recognize it when i have it. i'm not going to
add this to the liner notes for confused because it's kind of
tangential, but it's a good example of the kind of thing that will end
up on the aleph-disc. i've also had this discussion quite a bit over
various fora, so it should be familiar to secret admirers.
despite
what certain christian apologists may argue, this genetic v.
environment debate is largely rejected altogether by science. christian
apologists? well, this you-don't-have-a-choice nonsense is not science
but a "progressive" opinion coming out of the religious fundamentalism
of everybody following "god's plan". if you paid close attention in
sunday school, this denial of agency in gender roles should be entirely
logical to you. yet, it's truly hard to make sense of it, otherwise.
remember:
i'm not a christian progressive. i'm an anarchist. so, i have a strong
attachment to the idea of a tabula rasa. my politics make no sense if
we're all genetically determined. if that were true, i'd have to concede
to some conservative concept of "human nature" and fall into the
standard hobbesian apologism for deep totalitarianism. i readily concede
that humans are assholes, but i blame capitalism and not biology.
that's the point of being an anarchist: that abolishing capitalism will
abolish this right-wing concept of "human nature" and allow us the
freedom to decide how and what we want to be. if we have no way out of
this, we're stuck with the police state - and the most violent forms of
repression and surveillance become justified. i don't have any patience
for this middle-of-the-road liberal nonsense: we can either transcend
capitalism or we can't.
and, i believe that we can. but, we need
to be able to change. the technically correct statement comes from
chomsky: we don't yet understand humans well enough to know if we have a
nature or not. yeah, well you probably fell for a strawman. your source
probably sucks, and that's your epiphany, there. the term is currently
meaningless. but, the way it's thrown around has to essentially be
right-wing propaganda. otherwise, just give me a gun and get the fuck
off my lawn.
so, because i'm an anarchist and not a christian
progressive, my biases are towards tabula rasa rather than genetic
predetermination. and, because i don't get my science from left-wing
political rallies, i've run into quite a bit of push back on my refusal
to uphold certain types of loaded sloganeering. let's be clear on that
point.
real scientists will tell you that there's no evidence for
a genetic basis for gender nonconformity. in fact, it's not even
considered to be a psychological condition, let alone a genetic one.
think of it like this: suppose your daughter wants to wear pants.
nobody even cares anymore. you might even buy your daughter pants
without even thinking about it. but, suppose your son wants to wear a
dress. well, that's seen as some kind of mental illness. the only mental
illness here is repressed misogyny in the parents! yet, i'll
acknowledge that it's an empirical question. sort of. what do the
studies say?
the truth is that they're all terrible. one of the
studies you see thrown around to argue it's genetic relies on the
reversal of flawed notes. so, the doctor that did the study has
acknowledged that he falsified data and even sexually assaulted the
participants. such a study ought to be completely discarded. instead,
advocates of the genetic theory just negate all of the notes. this is
their core argument. see, the staunch truth is that this is the best
they can do in terms of presenting evidence in favour of a genetic basis
for gender non-conformity. they may also throw some studies about
twins at you, but if you look at the data closely it invariably actually
contradicts their argument.
what i can't make sense of is why
any scientifically literate person would consider it to be a valid
hypothesis in the first place. it's behavioural. genes don't code for
behaviours. that's religious thinking. but, in the sense that it
remains an empirical question, i need to see a properly designed study.
unfortunately, such a study would no doubt be unethical.
i can
accept some concept of hormonal imbalance as a complicating factor, but i
remain convinced that the issue is primarily environmental. so, we have
another straw man: i'm arguing it's a choice and that conversion
therapy should be attempted. which is completely ridiculous...
the
argument that we are shaped by our environment is not in any way the
same as the argument that we have a choice in our sexual orientation or
sexual identification. that should not need to be stated. i often have a
difficult time arguing this point, because i can't even make sense of
the implication. the reason, again, is that i'm not a christian
progressive. i'm an anarchist. the only reason you would come up with
such a ridiculous assertion is if you're framing the issue in terms of a
religious debate. so, these christians come at you with this idea that
it's a choice and you're evil or something (i don't even know...), and
your response is "no. it's genetic.". so, if i'm rejecting the idea that
it's genetic, i'm taking the side of the christians you're arguing
with.
i've made this argument about nihilism. i've been accused
of nihilism, because i'm so openly atheist. but, an atheist cannot even
make sense of nihilism, because it's framed in religious terms.
likewise, i cannot make sense of these arguments from progressives
because they are framed in religious terms.
so, no i don't think
it's a choice. not exactly. i think it's a consequence of the stochastic
processes of the universe. see, that's another atheist thing: i believe
in chaos and randomness. your life is not determined by some
supernatural force. you were not "programmed" by anything or anyone. you
are a consequence of chance, and may have come out entirely differently
had certain events in your life been different.
so, when i think
back to being a girly boy at the age of four or five, i think it's
obvious that the reason is that i spent all of my time with girls. i had
a mother, a grandmother, two aunts, a sister, a female cousin and
little girls living in the houses around me. dad was around, but kind of
distant. that's not genetic, and it's not a choice. it's just a
function of chance. if i had an uncle or a boy cousin or there was a
little boy across the path, things may have been different.
but,
that doesn't mean it's a good idea to enforce an arbitrary gender
binary, either. remember: not a christian progressive. an anarchist. i
reject the nuclear family, too.
the recurring dream places me in a
field with a baseball glove. it was t-ball, technically, not baseball.
i'm very young - 4. 5. i'm supposed to be paying attention, waiting for a
ball from the sky, but i don't really care. i'm more interested in
picking flowers. well, i'm in a field. that's what i usually do when i'm
in a field with my grandmother. a ball rolls by me, and i choose not to
respond to it. my dad whirls in in a rage, scoops me up and brings me
to the car. he's ashamed. that's the dream: remembering his shame.
it's a quiet drive back to my mom's.
when
we get home, he takes me out of the car, walks me to the door and
promises he'll never make me stand in a field by myself ever again.
--
my parents were both libertarians, although they wouldn't have
identified that way. my mom was a poorly educated white person, and had
political perspectives (or lack thereof) that would be stereotypically
associated with a poorly educated white person - support for social
services and redistribution, peppered with a lot of xenophobia and
social exclusion. not so much into the gays. but, my grandmother was far
more liberal (small and big l - card carrying, in fact) and had a
bigger effect on me. my mom struggled with addictions and would
disappear for weeks at a time. i have almost no recollection of the
elder trudeau, other than that my grandmother loved him and my mother
hated him.
my dad wasn't really white, but he was more of the
typical canadian - "fiscally conservative and socially liberal". he was,
for a time, this strange canadian political animal: a progressive
conservative. not an old tory. a pc, meaning he had strong support for
progressive social policies but demanded that they be paid for through
responsible taxation. you could maybe call him a tax and spend liberal,
except to point out that he demanded the tax as much as the spend, which
is usually a straw man when applied to liberals (who don't actually
care about deficits). he was the only person i've ever met that was in support of the gst in the 90s - because he didn't want to see spending
cuts. he voted for kim campbell, and defended it until the day he died.
yet, he was also in the group that was highly critical of the reform
party and never dropped his opposition to harper, instead opting for the
right-leaning side of the liberal party. his perspective on social
issues was always staunchly libertarian, whether he ever really realized
it or not. the gays never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the
chinese never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the
blacks....well, maybe they bothered him a couple of times, but it's
better to just get out of their way.
the point is that they were
both into hands-off parenting. i had huge free rein from a very young
age. this is another reason why i'm decidedly gen x: they were both very
opposed to helicopter parenting and very much into letting me develop
"naturally". i've grown up as an advocate of free range parenting, as
well (i am an anarchist, after all). but, i think that this perspective
is important to point out in the environment v genetics debate.
the reason is that the assumption was always that i'd grow out of it -
which is genetic determinism. after all, i have male chromosomes, so my
inner male tendencies should eventually over power and i'll in the end
grow into a man. i'm just being a kid.
what i was trying to get
across in my liner notes is that this is a type of naturalistic
fallacy. in the end, i would not just magically become a boy in the
absence of any instruction due to genetic determinism. but, it leaves
open the question: if there was stronger instruction, might i have?
i don't know. i really don't.
what i do think that i can state
with a lot of certainty is that the segregation was a bad idea, and i
reacted pretty strongly to it. my parents never did this, but the school
system did. the more that the teachers told me i wasn't allowed to be a
girl, the more i insisted upon it. but, if you understand kids, you
know that's how kids are - they want what they can't have, and the more
you say "no" the more they push back.
i would propose that the error in approach was less in telling me what i
can't be and more in failing to teach me what i "ought" to be. "you
can't have this candy" is one thing. "have this apple instead" is
another. the kid can't just magically fill in the blank that it should
have an apple instead of the candy, it just dwells on not having the
candy. the apple has to be presented as an option before it can be
accepted.
of course, the apple can also be rejected. might i have rejected the
apple and insisted on the candy? see, if you take my position on this,
you have to realize that this is not pre-determined. the choices i would
have made would not have been in a vacuum - they would have depended on
the people around me. i can't consequently know if i would have
rejected the apple had it been presented to me. i can just point out
that it was never really presented. i was just told i can't have the
candy.
and, yes i do think this is the right way to think about gender roles in kids.
so, i'm left with a complicated set of alternate outcomes:
1) had the system not tried to beat the girl out of me,
a) i might very well have grown out of it on my own.
b) or, i might have grown into it younger.
that
would have depended on the environment around me. but, at least i
wouldn't have internalized it and it wouldn't have become this thing i
struggled with.
2) on the other hand, had the system more rigorously enforced maleness in addition to penalizing femaleness,
a) i may have been more effectively masculinized.
b) or the internalization may have been that much worse.
i think the key thing is in rejecting 2a) as some kind of ideal. this
"ought" ought not be an ought. randomness is what it is. shit happens.
but, kids need positive reinforcement one way or the other, and the
ability to make these choices in a way that is free of shame or
coercion.
so, i can't say what choices i would have made in the absence of
coercion. i can only point out how the presence of coercion affected the
choices i did make.
i think i'm done for the day, and while it was less productive in terms of quantity than i'd have liked, i think it was nonetheless productive in terms of quality.
i have added a hidden tracks to inri006, upheld my tracklisting for inri007, added bonus tracks to inri008 and first finalized and then moved the previous inri009 forwards to june (and likely into the place of inri012). the new inri009 will need to be 'i did your mom', which will need to be rebuilt tomorrow. i think that should be relatively quick.
bonus tracks added to inri008. audio permanently closed.
==
my recollection of the initial recording of this track is unfortunately
somewhat vague. when we push our memories like i'm trying to, we become
more likely to imagine the past in terms that never actually existed.
so, how real is this vague memory of wanting to hear some backwards
guitars? i fear that it's perilous to try and force my mind to be more
specific.
it's at least fully consistent with what i know about
the situation. this was initially the second track recorded in my
basement studio in the fall of 1996. so, i was still at the point where i
was looking to try things in the studio for the first time. as for
backwards guitars? i was very interested in both zappa and hendrix (two
of my biggest guitar influences) at the time, and that is actually
blatantly obvious if you listen to inri000. they both used backwards
guitars. there are multiple occasions on inri000 (and afterwards...)
where the nods to both of these players are beyond heavy-sleeved. so, my
vague memory at the very least makes sense.
how i made the jump
from trying to create a backwards guitar solo to turning a song into a
palindrome is another question and i don't really have a good answer
besides stumbling upon it as i was listening to it. clearly, it is the
case that this struck me as a good idea at some point along the way.
when
i went to recreate the track in early 1998, i felt the need to recreate
the palindrome effect. so, i never saved any version of the track in
forward order (without the backwards overdub) or released it in any kind
of way. for all these years, there has simply never been a forwards
version of the track.
the remastering process over 2015 has
finally given me the opportunity to create a forwards version and spin
it off as a single for the express reason of documenting the track as it
was actually initially written, which was as a fairly straight forward
alternative pop song. that's a description that i do believe is very
old. yet, i may be imagining the past, too...
the new album mix
is a palindrome, as it always has been. the electronics mix is
constructed using the same algorithm. the backwards mix is just
literally that. combined together, the forwards and backwards mixes
create the album version. the 2013 remasters are appended as bonuses.
initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. finalized on july 11, 2016. bonus tracks added and re-finalized on july 18, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
regarding the subject matter of the deleted vocals/lyrics, please see the following vlog (which is also available on inriℵ0).
credits
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, digital wave editing, loops, vocals, drum kit, tapes, production
hidden track added to inri006. audio permanently closed
==
the christmas of 1997 was a good one. in addition to getting a
four-track recorder to multitrack with, i also ended up with a jx-8p for
my birthday, which is in early january. now that i could use the
computer a little bit, i decided that i was finally ready to do some
serious recording.
i had committed myself to reapproaching the first demo tapes and
rerecording certain tracks to reflect the uplift that they got from the
drum machine; that is, i had already dramatically rewritten most of the
tracks around the drum machine, so i felt i should rerecord them. now, i
was going to need to uplift some of those tracks a second time with
synthesizer parts. i knew which tracks i wanted to approach and how, but
i wanted to ease myself in a little. so, i picked a new track as my
first synthesizer experiment.
that is a large part of what this track is. i had the lyrics
pre-written, actually, and knew that i wanted a spooky kind of
atmosphere to the track. so, i was approaching the synth with the
question of how to manipulate it into sounding "haunted". that may seem
trivial, but please realize that i had never seen an actual synthesizer
before - i'd just always used the presets on my sister's electronic
piano. it was a small victory to get the patch by increasing the sustain
on the preset, but it was a hard-fought battle.
after i got the track mixed down through the 4-track and mastered into
the pc by sending the signal into the back of the soundblaster, some
listening had me wishing that i had slowed the tape down a little. the
track is a kind of a child's understanding of the existential, which i
just felt would be more aesthetically in balance if i slowed the tape
down and made it seem a bit more mournful. so, i wanted to go back and
remaster it with the speed set a little slower.
i decided i should test it by slowing the track down digitally, first.
what i was trying to do was get an estimate to use to remaster it at a
different speed. i took a guess on half-speed to try and was going to
incrementally reduce the reduction through trial and error until i got
to a good point. then, i could set the tape speed by ear. i did not go
through that process; i stopped at half-speed. for several weeks in
1998, the half-speed version was the final product for the track. i
believe i even uploaded it to mp3.com slowed down this way.
i just instantly stopped at half-speed because, while the effect was
more exaggerated than intended, that exaggeration was to greater effect
than i imagined. i wasn't expecting the guitars to get that grungy, or
the vocals to get that deep. when i heard it, though, i knew that this
was the track.
in the end, i reverted back to the normal speed version, but this was
done with much internal division. the reason that this is the last track
on the demo is because i was holding out for space for the lengthier
version. it was only due to a combination of space requirements and pull
for conformity of sound through the demo that had me relent at the very
end.
in hindsight, i do think that the short version fits better on the flow
of the cd, and it will remain there - minus the vocals. yet, i also
think that this slowed down version deserves it's own document. i've
slowed down two other versions of the track, as well, to drag out the
fun. the album version closes this collection.
originally
created in 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed
in the summer of 2015 and then manipulated further in the summer of
2016. released & finalized on july 7, 2016. hidden track added and re-finalized on july 18, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016).
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, vocals, digital wave manipulation, production
released january 22, 1998
....but, where was i? wow. ok. give me a few minutes to re-orient...
i got bogged down yesterday, but i'm just about to get back to work right now. so, expect some closures today.
009 and 010 are the slower ones - 011, 012 and 013 are basically unmodifiable. the bigger question is whether i'll be adding releases (for why, wish).
i do not feel that my politics are realistically attainable within my life time. this is why i would prefer to reject society and live in poverty in order to focus on art. i am entirely aware that i am so far outside of the status quo, that i cannot be coherently understood - except in a revolutionary context.
i consequently offer a kind of acid test, right. i would expect the status quo to reject virtually everything i say. so, if you find yourself of the opinion that i'm kind of extreme? sure. i agree with you. and, you're the status quo.
just understand two things:
(1) i expect a very small audience, because of the nature of my comments. i would be the first person to be shocked by the prospect of my audience growing. this would imply that my analysis is incorrect.
(2) the size of my audience has not and will continue to not have any effect on my comments.
i'm a musician. check out my tunes.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
so, the vlog for the 8th is uploading, the vlog for the 9th is rendering and the vlog for the 10th will be published at 00:30 on the 18th. so, i'm caught up. it may be most of the day before i get back to work, but i'm at least back on schedule.
ok, i'll be caught up by the time i'm done eating and switching back to listening for the week. that was actually a needed rest for my ears, and i'll be better off for it. i have nothing scheduled until the 21st (a play)/23rd (psychic tv)/25th (mri). i should be up to inri014 before the 21st, and ready to pivot some time in that period. i think...
scenery and fish and building rooms in basements and other things.
good morning. i've been up all night playing civ 2. how was your night? it's been a pretty good summer, so far. i've very much gotten into the routine of staying up all night and sleeping during the afternoon, which is a habit i can trace back a few years to when i used to live with my mom. when she got a new tv, she moved the old one into the basement, which is where my bedroom was. it was a nice, big tv - but very old. wood frame, with two dials on the front. uhf/vhf. it was around as long as i can remember, so it must have been from the 70s. at first, i used to stay up to watch conan and then get tired and fall asleep right after or even during it. i had to, because conan was the funniest thing to ever exist in the history of the universe. but, the habit of staying up late is something that builds on itself. you stay up a little later, you sleep in a little later; eventually, you're up all night. soon, i found myself watching muchmusic after conan; they always played better music at night. then, i was staying up even later to watch reruns of the original star trek series, which they were interestingly playing on cbc kingston. maybe somebody in the station went to high school with shatner, or something. kingston used to be the capital of canada, but it was eventually moved up the rideau river here to ottawa because kingston was considered to be too vulnerable to a sneak attack by american forces. those bastards are always trying to invade us, so we have to be careful. it's about half way to toronto, which is still close enough to get channels here in ottawa on basic cable. within a few years, i'd guess i'd seen pretty much the entire series - much of it several times. i even found myself staying up even later, mostly for the purposes of reading. by the time i'd got to high school, i'd read almost everything that stephen king had ever written. i also read a lot of science fiction including a lot of isaac asimov, especially the foundation series. the gaia theory narrative was very interesting to me. some nights, i would stay up reading until lunch time. this wasn't always really a choice, either - sometimes i just got lost in it. so, the idea of staying up all night is not something that's new to me. i'm only 15, but i've been doing this regularly over the summer for many years, already. it is a little different this year, though, for a few reasons. one is that i'm not living at my mom's this summer. mom didn't really care when i went to bed. dad doesn't either, really, but my stepmother claims she is a light sleeper and doesn't want to be woken up because she has to work in the morning. also, i might wake the dogs up (we have two golden retrievers). i'm well aware that there's an unwritten and unenforced rule that i should be in bed, but i also know that nobody is going to give me grief so long as i don't wake anybody up. the other reason it's different this year is that there's central air here. my mom has never had an air conditioner, and in fact there were even no windows in the basement. so, conan or not, there was some greater value in sleeping through the hot days and living in the cooler evenings. it can actually get pretty hot in canada in the summer! this has been my schedule for most of the summer: 1. wake up after 2:00 pm. 3:00, often. 4:00, sometimes, even. 2. eat. well, usually. sometimes, dad says not to eat before he goes because he's making something. or, he might leave a note. sometimes, he even phones to tell me not to eat - and, i'd better not, too. he gets strangely depressed when you won't eat his food, like he's failed at life or something. i think it's some kind of repressed italian cultural thing. that's the exception, though. usually, they eat out on their way home from work. so, i usually feed myself. i expect to feed myself. 3. play guitar until everybody goes to bed. 4. play civ 2 until the sun comes up, or later. 5. sleep until the afternoon and start again. is that a pretty good summer? i think it is, actually. although, i'm not sure if they're really aware of my sleeping schedules. i think they mostly think that i just get up early, and am awake all day. one of the things i enjoy about playing civ 2 all night is listening to music when i'm playing. the newest, greatest thing in my walkman is the new i mother earth record, scenery and fish. i did already have the first record, dig, although i found it a little dense to get into, at first. it was just a little more challenging than the grunge that came out in '93 and '94. so, it kind of sat for a while until i went back to it. right now, i'm actually listening to both of them. i find that the lyrics are really quirky at points, which i kind of like. they kind of want to tell a story, but they're kind of tongue-in-cheek about it, too. it's kind of like that they know they're cliched and are simultaneously revelling in it and poking fun at themselves for it. i think that's called post-modernism, but i'm not completely sure. what i really, really like are the guitars on the record. the fact that the guitars on this record are just a bit more advanced than the grunge records i've been listening to for the last few years puts them in just about the right space for me, right now. it's kind of more like the stuff my guitar teacher shows me: jimi hendrix, stevie ray vaughn, eric clapton, carlos santana. or, maybe it's kind of like that it's half-way between the blues that i'm being trained in and the alternative rock (pearl jam, smashing pumpkins, soundgarden) that i'm listening to a lot of. either way, tracks like pisser and earth, sky and c are immensely fun to rock out to through headphones. i mentioned in the last update that i was helping my dad build a room in the basement. it's something we've been doing on the weekends, mostly - and it's almost done. he already bought his drum kit, so he has to build it, now. that's what he said, anyways. we put all this pink insulation in between the walls, and then we put in sound-proof ceiling tiles to stop the sound from traveling upstairs. the last thing we have to do is put an outside layer of drywall around the wood joists. i tried to do as much as i could, but i really only had two tasks: (1) hold things still and (2) stay out of the way. he says that it should be done by august. he seems really excited by the prospect that i may bring some people over, as he's a little concerned about how much time i spend by myself. i don't really know anybody that would want to come over and start a band, though. it's past my bed time, so i'm going to sleep. enjoy the i mother earth: it's something special, i think.
so, i came home from the show on tuesday night and was awake until late wednesday morning. then, i slept for a few hours and woke up on wednesday evening, around the time of the sunset. that was actually a very nice sleep. a hot, sweaty sleep. those are the best kind...
i spent the overnight arranging two weeks worth of video content into folders, and narrating some of the political rants. i then spent the morning shaving, and the rest of the day at the bluesfest in windsor. the i mother earth set was solid, and jeff martin also got the rest of the band up on stage for a few minutes (which was mostly expected, if not advertised). good show. glad i went. but it was a long day that ended with me completely baked, so i crashed pretty hard. my ears still hadn't entirely recovered from swans, so the culmination of things meant i had to sleep.
i was awake for a few hours in the morning yesterday, but i did actually sleep for pretty much the entire day of the 15th. i woke up at almost exactly midnight. so, i'm starting on saturday right now rather than winding down friday.
there was an editing fuck-up on the vlog for the 30th (of june) and therefore also for the 1st of july, so i had to redo and reupload them. the initial plan was that i'd actually be mostly caught up by now because the vlogs up until the 12th are going to be relatively short. but, that screwed the whole thing up. i'm currently rendering the vlog for the 3rd and also about to get something to eat.
i never did get that filing done. that's still something that i should stop to do. so, i don't really plan on doing any listening today, either. near the end, maybe. rather, it's going to mostly be filing and editing, as i get back into a schedule that i plan to hold to this time.
