Restraint

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.

The first new Skinny Puppy track will be released on the soundtrack to the unremarkable looking vampire/werewolf movie, Underworld. It’s called Optimissed, and it’s credited to Ogre/Key/Walk. The soundtrack (which looks much better than the film) comes out Sept 2nd.

Also: New Ministry/RevCo/Lard albums soon, and a tour next summer.

One more quote, from Peter Christopherson, Co-founder of Throbbing Gristle, Coil, and Industrial Records.

“The original idea of Industrial Records was to reject what the growing industry was telling you at the time what music was supposed to be.”

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

A few words:

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

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

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

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