Ten years ago today, I waited outside HMV for it to open in the morning so I could pick up a copy of The Fragile at the very moment it was released.
Ten years later, I’m cursing ebay regularly trying to find a non-bootleg vinyl copy for less than $100.
This lot is what dreams are made of.
From a new Genesis P-Orridge interview:
Just recently some young students moved in to the apartment downstairs from us, so we went down and said “Hi welcome, we’re your neighbors,” and they gave us a cocktail because we’re all sitting there trying to make friends, and one of them said, of course, “What do you do?” So we said rather shyly, “well we kinda make music, do some art and stuff.” And one of the guys goes, “Oh what kinda music man?” And we said, “well the first band that we were in played music and we called it Industrial Music.” And he looks at me and he goes, “Yeah!” and he pulls up his T-shirt and he’s got a big Nine Inch Nails tattoo on his arm, and we went, “well, not really like that.” (laughs) And he went, “what do you mean?” “Well it was quite a few years before they were Nine Inch Nails.” and he went, “What? What do you mean? I thought Nine Inch Nails was Industrial” and so we thought, it’s not worth trying to explain this, and then the girl said, “Oh like Modest Mouse!”
Thanks to everyone who came out last night — musically, that was one of the best shows I’ve ever attended, let alone had the opportunity to play at, or promote. Everyone who played put on an incredible performance.
Acumen played the best cover of Bela Lugosi’s Dead that I’ve ever heard — DJ? Acucrack did live remixes of Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb and The Prodigy — and Ahnüsse made a surprise appearance to perform Aut Haus, which has been a hit at the club for a few months. Matt brought some Grandmaster Flash to the show, and DJ Hip-Hop rocked the fuck out with some of the dirtiest darkest drum-n-bass I’ve heard in a very, very long time. So to the people there, thank you all very much. Acumen have been trying to come to Ottawa for years, and you did not disappoint them.
With that said, the crowd was much, much smaller in number than we were hoping (or fearing) it would be, and financially the show was a complete disaster of size to rival the FLA cancellation.
After this, we’re almost certainly going to be taking a step back in how we’re doing shows. I don’t want to do them as often as we’re doing them, and I don’t want to do bands as big as we’ve been doing. (I don’t see us continuing to pursue the Skinny Puppy date for their next tour.) I think instead, we’re going to take some time to focus on Tuesdays, get some of the music we’re playing into local record stores, try and build the crowd earlier in the evening (which is something we’re having trouble planning given how many house acts Zaphods has been booking lately).
It was an incredible show, but I’m physically, mentally and financially drained from last night (as is Leslie), and I do not have the emotional or fiscal stamina to invest so heavily when we’ve been asked for years to bring bands to town, and they end up playing to a crowd of 30 people.
Today, much like yesterday, was full of chaos. I’m managing this tour now, it seems, so I’m trying to get all the shit in order. Madness.
We tried to break the stress by taking a trip to IHOP to partake of their delicious iced tea, which is unlimited and flows like a river.
Sadly, their iced tea brewing dealie was broken, and we were denied its rejuvinating powers. So we went home. And then we slept.
Today was spent on the phone with every car rental place within 100 miles, looking to find a place that both has a full-size van for rent, and also lacks a 25-and-above age restriction. This is an impossible quest, of course, so we’re going to be forced to rent a minivan, which means we’re going to have to cut two people off the tour.
One of these two people is pretty angry, but fuck him. It’s just not possible, and he’s being a jerk.
After a morning on the phone, the afternoon was spent finalizing the two tour CD-R compilations that we’re bringing with us. Most of this was wasted time, as we later discovered that my laptop sound card was distorting the fuck out of everything.
So.
We spent another hour undoing the previous four hours work, and then we were off to Invisible Records to drop it off.
We were there for an hour or so (the fridge full of free Red Bull may have contributed to this), and he was kind enough to spend the majority of that time giving me advice on tour management. The man is a fucking wizard.
He asked if Leslie and I could write a story or two for a book that he’s putting together on the music industry. A promoter’s perspective on how-not-to-get-fucked. (Clearly, he’s a poor judge of character.)
Then, a mostly-uneventful walk home (which was filled with tasty italian lemonade), a brief stop at the grocery store, and here we are.
Tomorrow I advance all the venues, and we drive up to South Bend to spend the rest of the week practicing and getting to know the gear. Martin wants me to give him a ring to fill him in on what’s happening with the venues, as he’s just as concerned as I am about the fact that the booking agent is a completely useless douche of colossal proportions. I am afraid of what we will learn.
…but now the time for Demolition Man draws near.
Update: We went with Robocop.
For those of you who will be seeing Cyanotic and Ion tour, here’s a sneak preview of one of the 3 (three!) new compilations we’ve put together for this little outing:
Trent Reznor appears to have packed Nothing Studios in a van, and then promptly rolled it:
Nothing Studios: 1995 – 2004.
Things that are happening:
Next week is the Displacer/Re_Agent/s:cage show slash Industrial Nation release party. Tomorrow, I need to get more flyers and posters printed, and spend a few hours postering around the usual hangouts.
October 18th is going to be KMFDM + DJ? Acucrack (+ local opening act maybe, if rider/time allows). This is going to be a fairly big show, and I want to get the promo started right away. I might do up some stark teaser posters to put up on my run tomorrow, just to let people know that they’re coming to town.
Oct 26 looks like a tentative date for our Halloween show, which is almost certainly going to double as an independent music fundraiser. Ideally, we can get some exposure to underexposed acts/organizations, and provide a little financial help:
Warren’s music keeps getting better and better, and I’d like to raise enough to pay for professional mastering for his CD (from the producer of his choice).
Downhill Battle can always use a few more dollars to keep things running, and they’re going to be sending t-shirts and stickers and such for giveaways and sales.
Rumour has it that Nick has sold all his gear, and is without a PC. If this is the case, I’d like to put together a barebones system for him so that he has a way to keep making music.
And so on, and so forth.
We’re still working to confirm Skinny Puppy for November. There have been some changes to the Barrymore’s liquor license, and we’re looking into alternative venues in case these changes affect Puppy’s willingness/ability to play there. I don’t want to use the Capital Music Hall, because they tried to fuck us out of the show when I went to them four or five months ago. Also, I hear their sound sucks like ass. Ottawa needs more venues.
…
I taught my first 5-day computer security course a week or two back, and it went pretty well, from what I can tell. The students seemed to enjoy the course and the material, and the school seemed to enjoy the reviews of my work. (Additionally, I think I’m unofficially the new IT guy for the school. I’ll find out this week.)
I made a decision to take a theory-based approach to the course (rather than a technical-based approach), because theory spans generations of technology. I could easily do a security course that’s just five days of hard tech geekery, but it’d mostly be useless in a year or three. With any luck, the material I presented will still be useful five or ten years from now.
…
I’ve been trying to dedicate as much time as possible to writing music over the past few months, and I’ve managed to get a fair bit accomplished — but every time I think I’m happy with the material I’m working on, I’ll leave it alone for a week or two and listen to it again, only to be disgusted by what I had thought was a good track. I’ve been trying to avoid showing this material to anyone but Leslie, who seems to think that the music is much better than I think it is. She cautions me against developing Zykotik K9 Syndrome (wherein I write a lot of very good music, but release nothing because I think it all sucks). She makes sense, but I don’t want to be the next Hypnoskull. (Ready to scream, ready to die!)
I was, for a time, considering playing some of it live if we end up doing an indie music fundraiser show — but after sneaking a track or two into the rotation last night, I’m thinking better of it. It sounds so very different in a nightclub than it sounds on headphones. I actually felt embarrassed when I heard it on the big sound system. So much so that without thinking I started looking for another CD to mix into before anyone got upset at me for playing such terrible music. I ended up letting the track play, but… There’s no way I want to have that feeling when I’m on stage with a hundred people staring at me.
I’m going to be trying to acquire some gear in the near future. I want to move from a composing-based setup to a recording-based setup, and I know how to accomplish it. ACID (and Tracktion, and the like) were a good starting point to learn about composition from a non-tracker point of view, but I can’t do what I want to do with it. It also makes the idea of a live show pretty laughable — I don’t want to be another artist doing Industrial Karaoke, where I hit play and pretend that the knobs I’m twisting are somehow managing the song structure and soundstage. I need to work in a structure where I can improv, where I can record different takes of a song, where I can perform instead of play.
We shall see how well this works.
…
This entry is just an excuse to avoid writing about what I’m actually thinking and feeling.
restraint.org is a loose collection of writing, links, ravings, photos, news, fiction, and bad poetry by Jairus Khan. This website has been here (off and on) for ten years or so, and was around in various other forms for three or four years before that.
I spend most of my off-hours working (in Ottawa, Canada) to promote underground music, arts, and media, and trying to keep independent music from being smothered by the hopeless anachronism known as ‘the industry’. I DJ and promote concerts/festivals regularly, make occasional beep-beep noises in an industrial-metal band, and recently released a CC-licensed debut album for my own industrial-slash-experimental-electronic project, Ad·ver·sary.
When I’m not working with, promoting, listening to, or writing music, I design very angry websites, flyers, book jackets, and the sort for various arts projects. I supplement my music/design income (roughly enough to buy a pocketful of buttons a month) by developing counter-hacking courses and moonlighting as a web coordinator for the man.
I also bake very tasty cookies.
