Pitchshifter
Hahaha…yeah I loved Pitchshifter for a while too waaaaaaaaaaay back in the day…Desensitized and Infotainment in particular. I was a fan of www.pitchshifter too when it came out.
KMFDM is another band I’ll add.
I used the hell out of one of the samples at the end of Infotainment?. Thanks, Pitchshifter!
What kids don’t understand nowadays is that back in the 80’s and EARLY 90’s, we just didn’t have as much access to music information and the ability to sample stuff beforehand.
If you were in a fairly cosmopolitan area you were hopefully blessed with a local music store or at least a couple other similar anti-corporate comrades to help you navigate. For those in the sticks, I can only imagine what it was like.
Finding new music was a gamble and a risk back in the day, and there was a much higher degree of emotional investment. We often bought records simply because the cover was cool or because we heard so-and-so liked it. We didn’t have iTunes or YouTube or any of that crap. Very few of us even had cable and if they did, they’d stay up to 1am to watch Headbangers’ Ball or 120Minutes and pretty much get excited over anything new and sort of different.
It’s a lot easier nowadays to sift through a bunch of crap and decide whether we like something or not before even paying 1cent on anything. To some degree it might be better (it certainly is more convenient) but I think it came at the expense of committment to scenes and bands.
I feel sorry for bands that are truly trying to make it nowadays. Most of us are already jaded before they even have a chance to try and impress us.
I’m not really sure where I was going with this. I guess just saying that while everyone has stuff that they don’t dig on as much as they used to, it’s different with us oldsters. We didn’t really have as many options and even though we may have been listening to a lot of crap back in the day, our hearts were innocent and pure.
Pfft. That was gay.
In those days it was a bigger investment all around…as a teenager I saved up whatever meager earnings I had to spend on records…you had to get to the record store,pick what you wanted based on either word of mouth,whatever I might have read about in a Circus,Creem or Hit Parader that sounded good,intuition,or as Gunnar says maybe jsut cuz the artwork looked cool…
Then you would take that record back and really play the shit out of it to get out of it what you invested in it,which at that time for me was monumental…
There is all this access to music now but that thrill is gone…kids these days have a million options at their fingertips…the problem is they burn through stuff at lightning pace and if something doesn’t connect immediately it is discarded,possibly never to be heard again…for me,the best music always required multiple listens(not that something can’t knock you out with immediate impact)…but the more multi-dynamic music always bears repeated listening…I get the feeling that’s happening less and less…
Oh well,at some point if we live long enough we will all just be sitting around saying how much everything sucks,eventually…oh wait,that happens on this board a lot already[:)][;)]
Absolutely true, it kinda disgusts me that i am able to get an album by a band i used to love, like Marilyn Manson or KMFDM, in mere seconds, for free, play it once (maybe not even all the way though) and just delete it. Listening to an album used to be much more involved, now it’s almost a throwaway experience unless it’s by a band i really love.
Were you guys ever the type to buy an album off of the strength of one song you heard on the radio or MTV? I can only remember being guilty of this one time with Coal Chamber’s Chamber Music. The song that sucked me in was a cover of Peter Gabriel’s Shock The Monkey that featured Ozzy. So I figured it must be cool since it involves Ozzy, a group of goths and a hot chick bassist. When I gave the rest of the album a chance I liked it, (save for a couple of songs) but I can tell you that this hasn’t worked with a lot of other people I’ve known. They’d just listen to the one song and say the rest of the album is crap. Most of the time not even giving it a chance.
Yeah back in those days it was a case of buying music from bands you liked and taking a chance of unknown music due to the record label. In the 90s I’d buy anything if I saw the Ninja Tune, Alternative Tentacles or Wax Trax label on it.
It’s a whole new ball game with the internet which is definately a good thing regardless of the sheer volume of crap.
Yeah back in those days it was a case of buying music from bands you liked and taking a chance of unknown music due to the record label. In the 90s I’d buy anything if I saw the Ninja Tune, Alternative Tentacles or Wax Trax label on it.
It’s a whole new ball game with the internet which is definately a good thing regardless of the sheer volume of crap.
Yeah,in the 90s it was definitely a case of collect the dots as far as labels went…I knew if the labels mentioned above or say stuff like On-U Sound,Wordsound,Axiom(or various Laswell labels)etc put out something there was a good shot the next thing they put out would be quality…all through the 90’s(even with the rise of the web)you could still send away for mail order and get catalog’s and stuff…amazing how things have changed…
Labels were VERY important and there was a relationship built on trust and loyaly. I would LITERALLY buy anything solely on the basis of it having a WaxTrax or Alternative Tentacles logo on it (AT, especially!). I guess in the same way people feel safe trying a new restaurant just because it is owned by Gordon Ramsay or seeing a movie directed by Quentin Tarantino.
I had quite a collection of such albums . . . Victims Family, Les Thugs, Galloping Coroners, Zeni Geva, Beatnigs . . .
But let me also mention another very critical medium. The SAMPLER disc/LP. Also variously known as “comps” (short for compilation), this was our window to what’s next for us. They were typically really solid tracks and gave a good representation of what the band beheld for you if you decided to risk a purchase.
Yes indeed,good point about the Sampler…it’s amazing how a good 2 disc sampler could point you in so many directions to find new stuff…seeking out the full length’s based on a track or two…I’ve found some wonderful shit just becuz I happened to grab a good comp…
Same here.
In high school it was all about the Alternative Tentacles samplers or any other independent label (SST, Sub Pop, etc.), and later in college, this was how I was finding my new extreme metal bands. Nuclear Blast, Century Media, and Relapse/Relativity put out some really cool samplers. These were critical, because a lot of these labels had some really diverse acts and while I admire these labels’ imagination and risk, I’m sure glad I didn’t get stuck with a full album of Tiamat or The Gathering.
Invisible was the record label for me back in the day. Their samplers clued me in to a bunch of cool bands. As did Pigface. I made a point of checking out the individual bands of most everybody on the Pigface records, which is how I fell into my love affairs with Skinny Puppy, Swans, Psychic TV, Ruby, etc. It all really comes back to Pigface, and I never would have lnown about Pigface if not for the contentious “Reznor/Pigface” credit that pissed Martin off for the Broken version of Suck. Before Pigface, the only experience I had with that kind of music was NIN and Ministry.
I always used to read the liner notes of every CD too, especially the thanks sections, I always wanted to know who the bands I listened to were cool with and then I would check those bands out. You don’t really get that with mp3s.
Record labels still do samplers, and a lot of them are free downloads these days.
It always pays to check what’s free on mp.amazon.com.
Yes,Invisible put out some outstanding comps…those Drug Test ones come to mind…all kinds of weird industrial shit,musique concrete,ambient dub,fractured metal,acousitc goodies…Invisible was a stone cold bad ass label before the Underground Inc umbrella…
Nuclear Blast, Century Media, and Relapse/Relativity put out some really cool samplers. These were critical, because a lot of these labels had some really diverse acts and while I admire these labels’ imagination and risk, I’m sure glad I didn’t get stuck with a full album of Tiamat or The Gathering.
Sounds like you were collecting Century Media’s Identity series. I had 4 and 7. I also had the first Metal For The Masses. Fun times.
The best comp I ever came across was a Black Metal one appropriately titled Blackened. Discovered many bands I know today on there. I believe that was from Death Records (subsidiary of Metal Blade).
^Yes. I think I had Identity 1-3. They were great. Some cool stuff on there.
^Yes. I think I had Identity 1-3. They were great. Some cool stuff on there.
GUNNAR OPEN YOUR MOUTH FOR A CUM BLASTIN.