You are entering... The Scary Door

Want to know something that gets on my nerves? People who are of the opinion that, because I or somebody else takes an interest in something morbid or "taboo", we are psycho/sociopaths who must be avoided or looked down upon. Not even talking about wearing goth-attire or constantly musing about death and murder and suicide and stuff like that, but just... the people who act shitty to you just because you're interested in the way psychopaths' minds work, or you listen to unconvential music, or you like horror.

This also segues nicely into another thing that annoys me: people who think that, because you acknowledge, or expend thought on something, you are condoning it. Therefore, if you like dark music, you want to kill yourself; if you like horror films, you want to kill other people; if you examine demonic themes (even within a work that at its core takes a positive view on Christianity), you want to kill God... I've seen so many people condemn art that agrees with their fucking point of view as being "of the enemy" because it simply acknowledges whatever they disagree with in a more realistic way... or sometimes even for a more arbitrary reason. An example of this kind of thing would be how, after Ozzy Osbourne (a Christian who had religious themes in quite a bit of stuff he sang, contrary to popular belief) sang "Miracle Man", a very pointed song specifically condemning the hypocrisy of one Jimmy Swaggart (a televangelist who once condemned Osbourne and was later caught soliciting a prostitute), some figures in religious media made extremely defensive complaints about Ozzy mocking the noble practice of televangelism... after which, they condemned the hypocrisy of Jimmy Swaggart. I could go on, but you get the idea.

One of the most awesomely bizarre things I've ever seen...

...yeah. There have been some weird crossovers before (I can't be the only one who remembers the Sonic the Hedgehog/Image Comics crossover where Sonic and his pals team up with the likes of Savage Dragon and The Maxx, and in a particularly disappointing scene, Knuckles spends exactly one panel arguing with Spawn), but none of them have ever reached the pure what-the-fuck level of this. It's something that would just fail to work on every fundamental level (have we ever even seen guns in Archie?), and that is where the genius lies. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the meetings where they discussed this.

Soon, I hope to acquire this gem and maybe do a breakdown/review-thing on here. Until then, however, we can only speculate... At least/too bad this isn't the Garth Ennis version of ol' Frank...

Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle, how I love thee. Is it because you make good music? Not necessarily. Granted, some of it is just plain good music, but the reasons I have for loving and being inspired by this band are oftentimes misunderstood.

EXHIBIT A: "Hamburger Lady"
This song... Jesus Christ, this song scared the crap out of me, and it still does. This terrifying sound experiment stands as probably the scariest piece of media I have ever been exposed to. I still remember the first time I heard it - I was high, listening in total darkness, and I actually broke down crying because this song hit me so hard. It's based on a letter one of the band members got from a friend who was a hospital orderly or something;

"...by far the worst is the Hamburger Lady, and because of the shortage right now of 'qualified technicians', e.g. technicians who can work with her and keep their last meal down, Screwloose Lauritzen and I have been alternating nights with her, unrelievedly. If you put a 250-lb meatloaf in the oven and then burned it and then followed that by propping it up on a potty-chair to greet you at 11pm each night, you would have some description of these past two weeks. Which is to say the worst I seen since Viet napalms. When somebody tells you that there is a level of pain beyond which the human mind cannot retain consciousness, please tell them to write to me. In point of fact this lady has not slept more than 3-5 minutes at a stretch since she came to us - that was over two weeks ago and, thanks to medical advances, there is no end in sight; from the waist up everything is burned off, ears, nose, etc. - lower half is untouched and that, I guess, is what keeps her alive. I took one guy in to help me change tubes and he did alright, that is alright till he came out, then he spotted one of the burn nurses (pleasant smiling zombies) eating a can of chili-mac at the desk, and that did it: he flashed on the carpet. It's fucking insane is what it is."

Take a creepy, robotic reading of parts of the letter in cut-up fashion, mutilated by a vocoder and set against a hideous, roaring atmosphere that sounds like the auditory personification of pain, and you get a scary fucking song.



EXHIBIT B: Wreckers of Civilization
I don't like punk music. I've never liked punk music. I don't know why, but it never clicked with me, even though I like the idea of sonic anarchy. Throbbing Gristle basically holds the same ideals as punk, but the sound is more to my liking - computerized, experimental, glitchy. The fact that none of the members of the band had any kind of experience with music in any way, shape or form (aside from vocalist Genesis P-Orridge doing some avant-garde stuff in the past) and that their shows were almost entirely improvised intrigues me. For reasons such as these, their output is really kinda split down the middle - some of it is genuinely good, trippy, experimental proto-industrial. The other half of it is so profoundly god-awful that it's like some beautiful train wreck that people have gathered around because the charred remains have melted into the shape of the Virgin Mary - it's unbearable, and an extremely important development in the ideals of music and the artist-consumer relationship because of it. It's really something that must be heard to be believed.

EXHIBIT C: Influence
The band has had a massive influence despite its relative obscurity. TG has most notably been an influence on Skinny Puppy, who themselves would go on to pretty much invent 'industrial' as it is currently known (or rather, refine the sound that came from many differing sources). After breaking up, the band splintered into several, including Psychic TV, Chris & Cosey, and Coil. Coil was perhaps one of the most influential electronic/ambient bands out there, with some of the more notable followers including Aphex Twin and Nine Inch Nails, both of whom would go on to collaborate with Coil. Through that small web, an enormous trickle-down effect (or in this case, fuckin' waterfall) has come into play, with TG at the top of it all.

I could go on for quite a bit longer, but to cut out the faux-intellectualism for a minute, I'll state some basic opinion: I adore TG's output from their '77 debut up to '79, but after that they kinda went on a decline until the breakup. However, they've recently gotten back together, and their 2007 reunion album is one of, if not the strongest piece of production they've released thus far. Frankly, I can't wait for what comes next.

We have such sights to show you...

This is my first post on my new Blogspot. At least in the beginning, the only people on here will be those who know me... At least, in the beginning. Soon, I'll spread and subjugate like the lulzing Anons of a vengeful /b/, and soon thereafter rule the internet with an iron fist!

......buuuuuuuttt.... we may be getting ahead of ourselves.

Here's what to expect: political barbs, observations, rants, raves, film and music reviews, angst, pain, suffering, experiments, dream transcriptions, philosophy, fursecution, wildly fluctuating superiority/inferiority complexes, and the occasional atheistic ACLU nazi homosexual abortionist orgy/recruitment drive. As you were, gentlemen.