A noise guy named BLACK BLOC is coming over to my house

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

I feel like I'm not alone anymore. Thanks for your words.

It's a talentless circle jerk.

My friend was sort of well known in the noise scene in the late-80s. He got out of it by the time the mid-90s rolled around. He recently asked me about it. I showed him it was still going on. He listened to some of the more well known "artists" of today and laughed so hard I thought his head would pop, then he got really quiet and sad, saying, "They're doing the same shit, it's all the same, that's really depressing, I feel bad for them."

I know they have these web sites where you can order your prepackaged soldered noize boxes and custom wired noize contact mics and whatnot. And the forums are a bunch of pissy entitled nerd artists stroking each other.

And all of it takes almost no talent. Blows my fucking mind.

[altars of radness]

What the shit, mods? Just to be clear, I said noise is g'rindcore for people who can't play. Electronica for people who can't play would clearly be psy-trance.

[james]

Alyssa and Black Bloc stayed over my house last night. I showed him this thread and he thought it was hilarious.

Hahah awesome!! That is so weird and surreal. I'm not accustomed to the internet intersecting real life in any way. Alyssa is an AWESOME girl. She is like being visited by a friendly ghost from a David Lynch movie.

[fallbacktostone]

Alyssa and Black Bloc stayed over my house last night. I showed him this thread and he thought it was hilarious.

Hahah awesome!! That is so weird and surreal. I'm not accustomed to the internet intersecting real life in any way. Alyssa is an AWESOME girl. She is like being visited by a friendly ghost from a David Lynch movie.

my friend called me once in the middle of the night from a strip club while he was on tour

he was with justin broadrick

and amelia

[E.E 3.0]

I know they have these web sites where you can order your prepackaged soldered noize boxes and custom wired noize contact mics and whatnot

totally agree with this, it's such hack shit

[james]

my friend called me once in the middle of the night from a strip club while he was on tour

he was with justin broadrick

and amelia

this can't possibly be true

[fallbacktostone]

i still have the voicemail

[Foot Foot]

i still love Prurient, Deathpile, Bloodyminded, Sickness, and others.. but that's because it was the first noise i heard, and it has some modicum of character beyond being a wall of static with some modulated howling. as for current stuff i dig the more atmospheric near-industrial types like Pharmakon, Sewer Goddess, and others here and there. i recorded a PE album earlier this year, and i did it cause it was fun playing around with the pedals and seeing where the songs would flow, plus i had a bunch of lyrics that didn't fit with my grind/metal band.

i agree that there is an elitism in the noise circles that is weak and sad, and a lot of "preaching to the perverted" going on. sort of like how crust bands adopt the same tired ass extreme-leftist freegan ideology that was watered down 15 years ago, only replaced with semi-literate-but-still-generic BDSM tirades and existential posturing.

[Idget Child]

It is a talentless circle jerk for the most part, but it's sure as hell fun to do. I know I would still be pursuing this if I had the right drummer with me (noisecore project that wishes it was Nikudorei). If anything, I think the logical next step for a noise performer is to perform but not record (not necessarily artist --> queue the quasi-academic dialogue here --> queue someone punching my dick for saying "quasi-academic dialogue"). There's enough YouTube videos of hackneyed noise shows anyway, so why burden your friends with the RRR tape that you shat out on a day off from work?

I still like noise a bit, but I do find it hard to follow because it really can be a stale scene with even staler performances. Nonetheless, I got to see Incapacitants live, which has to be one of the most brutal performances I have ever experienced in my short life. There's a few relatively newer performers who I can fucks with, but I can admit that none of it is groundbreaking. At the very least, though, it can be someone who is upfront with their art school background and not reliant on the regular "provocative" commentary.

[Foot Foot]

Incapacitants

thems good, too.

a lot of the Japanese stuff is pretty awesome cause it's more focused on brutality and organic weirdness rather than pretending you're George Bataille.

[DR. THRAXX]

Eh.

Sick of all these noise guys leaning so hard on the artist thing. Rubbing contact mics plugged into pedal chains had an impact when it was first done because of novelty. Cool idea, whatever. Don't be that needy tortured fame whore who still does this, 20 years later. Might as well be the asshole staging Cagean 4'33" inspired silence shows and pursing your lips for the scene girls. If you're going to give me some shitty noise that anyone can make, do it first, exploit the idea behind it, write an essay, and move on. Else, do something that's actually more difficult and takes way more courage--try writing a fucking song.

Thank you.

I have a couple friends (except I don't really talk to them too much anymore) who are really into this. Put on "shows" at parks, parking ramps, or whoever is dumb enough to allow them to perform. They always ask me via facebook or text to come and watch. I made the mistake of going one time just to support them. BIG MISTAKE. It was 6 people all watching them and like those videos of this BLACK BLOC guy, clapping at the end of the set. I think they only clap out of obligation, not because people actually enjoy listening to shit like this. I'm sure it's the same people, who go every time.

One of the guys recently posted a link to download his newest work, which was he took a cd-rom game, and played it through a cd player and pedals, whatnot and recorded it with a 4-track. BIG FUCKING DEAL GUY...who can't do that?

You've inspired me to tell these guys to just stop embarrassing themselves next time I get an invite. I'm not going to stand for this bullshit any more.

[Idget Child]

My main gripe with that is there is nothing courageous about writing a song and there are enough assholes in this world populating county colleges and doing the same bullshit. If anything, I want to see some guy who lives for noise put on an impromptu performance (in the parlance of the Cunting Cunt-Hendrixes of the world) at a bank during business hours or a college green late on a weeknight.

[DR. THRAXX]

I'd totally respect that.

[TF@work]

re: doing impromptu noise at like banks and shit

I think that trope is itself worn out as performance art

I'd be super impressed if somebody could organize something like a blocks-long drone installation along a major roadwork project, particularly if they could play with the resonant frequencies of automobile glass

[altars of radness]

If anything, I want to see some guy who lives for noise put on an impromptu performance (in the parlance of the Cunting Cunt-Hendrixes of the world) at a bank during business hours or a college green late on a weeknight.

Most noise guys wouldn't even consider doing something like that because it might give people a reason to look at something other than them for a second. Noise isn't about making statements anyway. It's about self-indulgence. The few times it's not -- like Incapa -- are the few times it's fun.

[Foot Foot]

It's about self-indulgence. The few times it's not -- like Incapa -- are the few times it's fun.

exactly.

i also really REALLY hate noise acts that do the album-length song deal. some people can pull it off i guess, but most of it strikes me as boringly ineffectual.

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

If anything, I want to see some guy who lives for noise put on an impromptu performance (in the parlance of the Cunting Cunt-Hendrixes of the world) at a bank during business hours or a college green late on a weeknight.

Most noise guys wouldn't even consider doing something like that because it might give people a reason to look at something other than them for a second. Noise isn't about making statements anyway. It's about self-indulgence. The few times it's not -- like Incapa -- are the few times it's fun.

That's a really interesting insight. I think you're right. Noise is a prepackaged, automatic "artist" genre with a bargain buy in and no requisite for skill or talent. Except that the "artist" idea has been neutered over the years. They don't want to actually apply the noise thing to any new applications because that would be risky. Risk is what's keeping them from doing other more difficult things with no guaranteed pay off of tortured genius cool.

Can't say all. There are probably some noise guys that are willing. There's also some noise that I don't mind. I should say I'm not a stranger to it. I collected some back in the '90s and released a noise album with my friend in 2001. There is some noise I like that is like white noise in a way, even the PE stuff, it's hypnotic and relaxing, paradoxically. But it's no different than the ocean and rainforest sleep aid app I have on my phone, no higher art than that. And making noise was fun to do, sure, but so is doing puzzles and I'd never watch some asshole sit at a folding table and assemble a jigsaw puzzle as an art show. (Though I'm sure that's happened.)

I love non-standard music. I study and play double bass for modernist classical pieces. Some of it doesn't even contain notes. Much of it sounds like a mess. It doesn't have to sound like music for me to love it. (Rather, over time and exposure I'm able to hear the music in non-standard sounds.) Maybe I'd be impressed if some noise performer carefully composed a spectralist piece in stochastic design and pulled it off live, but that's not at all what these boneheads are doing. They're just robbing a real tradition of avant garde music without putting in the effort, playing dress up. Easy Bake Oven for tortured artist. Thin fucking weak shit.

There is an idea to noise that was every bit as important as found in classical and experimental genres, but idea music has a shelf life after which point we view them as important but dormant or dead museum pieces. No one is honestly giving important credence to 50-year-old indeterminate music; it's a footnote in a history book. Although, what keeps idea music alive and relevant is a demanding skill set to make or perform it, which is why choirs who train their asses off singing microtonal stuff composed in the '60s still put on shows and are respected.

If the most demanding thing about noise is having to budget room on your credit card to buy your official Noizu Gear!, you are not an artist. If the most demanding thing is building all the stuff yourself, you're an electrician. Get over it. If noise artists are creating difficult to perform pieces that contain new ideas or sonic scapes, let me know because I'd totally be into that.

[TF@work]

I'M NOW HIJACKING THIS THREAD TO COME UP WITH LAZY SOUND INSTALLATION PIECE IDEAS

This one is called s(un/et), CLICK TO READ IF YOU DARE

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Video input-y things (I guess you'd call them cameras?) pointed at different points near the horizon late in the afternoon, so one's higher up, one's closer to the horizon, one's skewed to the right, blah blah blah; and not evenly/regularly spaced, that's for furniture builders

The data from each video input is then averaged to achieve a single color based on the specific patch of sky it's focused on; the color information qua frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum is then set to correspond to some distinct (obviously audible) pitch

The color changing as the sun sets will invariably result in oscillation, some tuneful, some atrocious, who knows, fight me

It runs until dusk; everybody drinks wine

fucking romantic

[Idget Child]

If anything, Bastard Noise is a go to group for me with noise because they do craft their own electronics and specifically create songs that they can recreate or perform accurately live.

I had Sickness on my radio show back in college and, while his pieces are so hyperactive and skittish, he knows EXACTLY what he's doing with making the sounds he wants to make, and that, in my mind, is pretty impressive for working with a full collection of junky electronics and pedalboards. The guy was a total audiophile, anyway, so he is pretty certain of what noises he wants to generate.

The self-indulgence is absolutely true, but I guess what I have in my head is this fantasy that noise, at least as textbook unwanted sound, would be ideal for disrupting business as usual. Maybe to play up KRB's schema a little bit, a lot of 20th Century composers find themselves in their own worlds while many American performance halls and orchestras continue to be memorial services for the long dead. In my experience, there are enough composers who seem to be content with staying in their own microcosm as long as the grant money can roll in. While there is a bit more of a trolling aspect of what I am saying with noise artists, the idea is to push the jimmy buffet fans aside and get the performers teeming with personality to push their noises and humming on regular people, even if nine times out of ten, it's going to be for discomfort (I grew up with CKY and shit like that, so see where I'm coming from?).

[badgevvrecker]

noise is vital for taking the piss out of the self-importance most artists feel.

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

a lot of 20th Century composers find themselves in their own worlds while many American performance halls and orchestras continue to be memorial services for the long dead.

Very true. Idea music is iconoclastic because by dint of its newness it stands in opposition to the status quo. But then as it's embraced and codified it becomes the status quo. Look at what the dodecaphonic movement did, it made tonic composers hide!

I'm impressed with noise guys who know their equipment and can shape the experience. In effect the gear becomes an instrument. Nothing wrong with building a crazy instrument. (Lou Harrison.) You inch toward the concrete and electronics movement a la Stockhausen that way, but let's not kid ourselves, most noise kiddies aren't doing this. I'd also argue that learning the idiosyncrasies of a piece of gear and manipulating it is a far cry from studying instruments and composition. But I can respect it.

[canon.docre]

anyone who looks down their nose at noise and plays in a grindcore band needs to seriously re-evaluate the significance of their 'art.' I suppose I'm spoiled, what with Noisefest happening every year here, and its certainly easy to see who is just fucking around, and who is spending a lot of time crafting their sound. Anyone who watches say, a Griefer performance, and understands music, but refuses to acknowledge the time and care put into rehearsal, could they please explain how is this more "valid" than shitting out guess-and-test 3 chord "songs".

[Cryptoplasty]

I will never take noise seriously because of people like Robert.

[james]

I will never take noise seriously because of people like Robert.

I would vote to have the entire National Endowment for the Arts directed towards funding Deadly Orifice exclusively, even if it meant completely dissolving the Navy or whatever.

[fallbacktostone]