OK, I had a long day at work yesterday so I’m slacking a little today so will go into a bit of a rant, for those who don’t enjoy rants please read no further.
I listened to my share of noise and made my share of it too back in the tape trading glory days. These days noise is not alienating to me, it’s just boring. When something “alienating” has been done for almost 30 years is it still alienating? Nothing that your band, or my old projects, or Wolf Eyes, or Whitehouse or any of 'em do is going to have the impact that Throbbing Gristle did no matter how many times we scream about “Mohammad Being A Terrorist”
That’s because TG blew the lids off of people’s expectations and it made people mad because they were doing things “wrong”. There was no genre to define what they did early on, it was pure, mad chaos that took aspects of the past and glued them together in the context of a vast and strange rock band that did everything wrong. “Industrial” came later. It was a tag journalists used to try and define this weirdness. “True industrial” is absurd because almost none of the originators of the “sound” like the term industrial at all.
Once the genre name got bandied about by journalists, other bands wanting the same journalists’ interest started proclaiming themselves “industrial” in order to get noticed.
Really in many ways TG were the cultural mash-up of avant composers such as Stockhausen, rock bands like the Velvet Underground, fringe writers such as William S. Burroughs and freak culture the likes of which Jerry Springer and his ilk love to feature. It was, at the time, a unique blen but now that dish has been cooked, served and eaten - we’ve all dined at that table. We can make it again, it may be better cooked, delivered in a more garish or tasteful container, but it will never be as shockingly new as it was when TG made it.
Eat the food you like, love the music you love, but this constant bickering about the “true way” is boring. If you need your music to be better than other people’s in order to like it there’s a good chance you don’t actually like the music you like and you’re simply using it as a crutch to hold you up.
Throbbing Gristle (actually Monte Cazazza) coined the term Industrial Music, not the media., and they still label themselves as such and do so proudly, as do many of the “old guard” along with bands like the ones I mentioned. If they don’t use the term, it’s because it has become a synonym for harsh techno like the stuff this thread is about. so they will use ‘Noise’ or ‘Power Electronics’ instead.
In my view, if that kind of music has a structure, and if certain songs of the type made by these artists are performed repeatedly, it becomes Industrial (as distinguished from ‘Noise’ which to me means always improvised).
I can easily see how I came off as a wanna be elitist or something. I wasn’t dissing EBM (or Dub Step) for the record. I was merely replying to MaggitTooth’s initial comment that this Amon Tobin kind of thing was what Industrial should have become.
Wolf Eyes and co. are not trying to “shock” anyone or claim what they are doing is new and different. I think these bands are innovative, and are taking the original Industrial formula in new and interesting directions. But what I meant is that these are where Industrial, to me, is going as a genre. Not the EBM stuff MaggitTooth was dissing, because it was an offshoot to begin with.
The people who go to Noise shows or modern Industrial shows are not under the impression that the brand of music they appreciate is some radical new format. In fact, many are quite aware that there has become a formula to the ‘Noise’ genre (pornographic artwork, misogyny and racist themes in Power Electronics, different subgenres such as ‘cut up’, ‘harsh noise’, ‘walls’ etc.)
I think the impression that stuff like Wolf Eyes is shocking or musically revolutionary comes, again, from psuedo-mainstream media like Pitchfork and all this Indie Rock hype the genre has received this past decade because people were looking for something new.
I love TG, but these bands are taking that format to a whole new level. Hell, so is TG! I’m delighted they reformed and can’t wait to see them live in Brooklyn. We are living in an Industrial Renaissance right now. TG is back up and running, selling out shows. No Fun Fest is selling out. This is a good thing to me.
What I meant by “alienating” and “dark” would probably better be termed “abrasive”, “non-musical” (in the traditional sense), and yes the themes are usually dark but don’t have to be. Other terms I think apply are “mechanical” and “structured” to some degree. When you lose all structure, it gets closer to Noise or Power Electronics.
As for my band Nursing Home, I’m not sure where you get the idea that I think what we are doing is musically revolutionary or even fits within the Noise or Industrial genre as I have defined them. To me, we are an experimental rock band. We have been influenced by Noise and Industrial, but the attitude and core of our music is rock in a modern sense (not rhythm and blues-based, but synthesized from all of the hybridization that the genre has experienced since its creation).
'Muhammad was a Terrorist" or “M.W.A.T” was not an attempt to shock. It was an anthem that I felt encapsulated a number of ideas at the time it was released. Most immediately, it was based on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy and the idea that in a free society, you don’t have the right not to be offended (the title of our album).
Instead of upholding that basic principle, the media in this country and many others backed down and cowered in the face of fear and conservative pressure, refusing to run the cartoon.
The song is also about how the modern curse word is not a traditional expletive, but a phrase. An anthem. “Muhammad was a terrorist” became the new “fuck” and saying “fuck” was necessary at a time when I wanted to prove that in a free society, you don’t have the right not to be offended (which, might I add, is very different from “you must be offended” because to me a sensible person should not be offended.
The lyrics “you’ve allowed this cartoon to become a bomb” refer to the fact that people completely blew a simple cartoon out of proportion on both sides of the fence; Muslims factions because their ultra conservative culture was essentially incompatible with a free society and conservatives in the “free world” who would back down from threats and take the easy way instead of displaying the cartoon, effectively caving to terrorist demands.
Wow that was long-winded. I hope someone reads this haha I am bored at work. Anyway, I am in the process of updating the video and remixing the song as well as the other songs from the album, as well as posting new Nursing Home imagery and material so feel free to check it out I will post about it here.