Ok...videos.

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So, we posted improv videos of improv songs we recorded a few years back.

Please be brutal.
We're recording new songs right now.

These videos were shot in one or two takes. They're meant to be taken as is. We're not crazy enough to think these are works of high art.
 
Are there others like me who wonder what the point of putting up work that is by admission not a best effort.

I wouldn't be surprised if I totally don't get it. I am old after all.

If the intent is to collect flaming comments about how bad something is, then I guess there might be some humor in that. And I am sure there are some of you out there that will be happy to oblige.

As far as video goes. Your audience is used to seeing state of the art, even of the "low art" variety. So if you want to be noticed on that stage, your work had better be pretty damned good.

ac
 
As far as video goes. Your audience is used to seeing state of the art, even of the "low art" variety. So if you want to be noticed on that stage, your work had better be pretty damned good.

ac

I never said it was not a good effort. It's just recorded on the spot in the moment completely unplanned and then restored from a truly shitty sound to an ok rock and roll sound.

Our intentions are different than most. We believe media has gotten too perfect and sterile. We want dirt and grit and ug. We hate this click track grid super correct guitar snare sounds like a fucking drum machine every player sounds the same goddamn it what happened to rock sound that is so popular these days. We've got quite a few local folks on our bandwagon. Which is cool.

Our process is of creative elimination. I whittle down a semi finished song from an on the spot jam and then we relearn that song based on the original finished product. We're working on recording the songs that came from jams as polished pieces, but it's hard to find the balance between our jam and a studio sound.

We've got a very Howard Roarke attitude about our stuff. People who want it will come to us. The rest don't get it and don't need it.

Plus being flamed is pretty cool.
 
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I think Satan is a piss ant so I guess I didn't like it. Didn't watch the other one.
ac
 
I think Satan is a piss ant so I guess I didn't like it. Didn't watch the other one.
ac

The song is a mockery of Satanists, mainly Norwegian Black Metal guys. The lyrics point out how you have to believe in a made up entitity that is by nature weaker than another made up dude. It's a slam at both christians and satanists.

I think satan's pretty fucking lame as far as dark lords go.
 
I told you I wouldn't get it. I have to get back to sacrificing some goats now.
Peace
ac
 
Are there others like me who wonder what the point of putting up work that is by admission not a best effort.

I wouldn't be surprised if I totally don't get it. I am old after all.

If the intent is to collect flaming comments about how bad something is, then I guess there might be some humor in that. And I am sure there are some of you out there that will be happy to oblige.

As far as video goes. Your audience is used to seeing state of the art, even of the "low art" variety. So if you want to be noticed on that stage, your work had better be pretty damned good.

ac

I agree with acattoir. What's the point? If you're looking for specific advice then you'd ask a specific question--but that's not the case here. You're basically saying "This isn't so good. What do you think of it?"

I never said it was not a good effort. It's just recorded on the spot in the moment completely unplanned and then restored from a truly shitty sound to an ok rock and roll sound.

Our intentions are different than most. We believe media has gotten too perfect and sterile. We want dirt and grit and ug. We hate this click track grid super correct guitar snare sounds like a fucking drum machine every player sounds the same goddamn it what happened to rock sound that is so popular these days. We've got quite a few local folks on our bandwagon. Which is cool.

Our process is of creative elimination. I whittle down a semi finished song from an on the spot jam and then we relearn that song based on the original finished product. We're working on recording the songs that came from jams as polished pieces, but it's hard to find the balance between our jam and a studio sound.

We've got a very Howard Roarke attitude about our stuff. People who want it will come to us. The rest don't get it and don't need it.

Plus being flamed is pretty cool.

FWIW--"Anti-perfection" or "anti-sterile" doesn't equal art any more than perfect or sterile do. It may be a valid part of your artistic process, but its not art in and of itself. You need a point. (Maybe you have one, but it seems to me more like your process is your only point.)

Your videos looked like self-gratifying experiments. Acceptable as a starting point, but not for public consumption.

But like you said (and I emphasized in bold) you're not so worried about public consumption. That type of simplicity may seem humble and self-deprecating, but in reality its vain to think that you can deliberately produce amateurish work and whoever doesn't appreciate it just doesn't get it.
 
I agree with acattoir. What's the point? If you're looking for specific advice then you'd ask a specific question--but that's not the case here. You're basically saying "This isn't so good. What do you think of it?"

FWIW--"Anti-perfection" or "anti-sterile" doesn't equal art any more than perfect or sterile do. It may be a valid part of your artistic process, but its not art in and of itself. You need a point. (Maybe you have one, but it seems to me more like your process is your only point.)

Your videos looked like self-gratifying experiments. Acceptable as a starting point, but not for public consumption.
.

I certainly see your point. I agree that "anti perfection" isn't art. However, our aesthetic for that period was "wherever he falls, there shall he be buried" and the idea was to capture this moment in our history. That idea has garnered us some fucking crazy fans that range the gamut from satanists to born again christians. So maybe it's not the best approach :)


As far as they self gratifying experiment comment, I've got to respectfully disagree. I posit that what is acceptable for public consumption is what the public consumes. I wanted to do a pair of videos that well represented the idea behind these songs. They've been very well recieved in our little circle of local musicians. We're not trying for a pro look or sound. People said many the same things about early punk as about our stuff. Not that we're punk.

A question I ask; is it possible that despite a shift away from large recording operations, a move to "pro level DIY," a major shift towards home recording, and the destruction of the music industry people still think that music (and frankly all modern media) should look and act like the big boys used to? (polished, perfect and boring as hell)

I think there are a hundred tape punk bands that could never sound as good with the 24+ tracks that we've all got now.

We make music that is destined to never be heard by a group of people outside of our community. We're a part of that community so naturally that aesthetic influences us. We've rejected the idea that we've got to get the performance perfect every time. We've made the perfection of the show the important part. People come to see us because we're going to scare them, make them laugh or have something to talk shit about. I'm not going to go into a studio and pay some idiot engineer that thinks that rock and roll is Bob Seger or Fall Out Boy to make me sound like Danzig meets emo.

We like dirty. I hope you like it too.

BTW, I don't think if people don't like it, they don't get it. I think if they don't like it, good. There needs to be more stuff out there that some people like and others don't. As a culture, we've got way too much shit that's designed to get as many demographics as possible satisfied to make as much money as possible. We're not into money, other than what is needed to build up a space that we like and get the equipment and beer we want.
 
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How you managed to get chicks to hang out with you I'll never know.

If you like it, then more power to ya, but that shit sucks. :D
 
There were girls on one of those videos. Did you bribe them with beer?

No, they're in the band. My wife is the bass player, the other one is one of our backup singers.

Why would anybody have to bribe someone to hang out with them?
 
(polished, perfect and boring as hell)

These are not a matched set. They can be, but they don't have to be. I'll continue my pursuit of polished, perfect and "grab your still beating heart with a bare hand and squeeze until you finally feel what it's like to really be alive."

But you've got your thing--that's cool. By definition you've created something almost designed not to be liked my most--so don't go looking for that approval or getting bent out of shape when you don't find it.
 
Yeah I don't see how polished or perfect equals boring as hell. Why strive to suck? Sucking takes no effort, talent, or creativity. Sure, you can claim that you're making some kind of statement by churning out poorly performed and sucky sounding shit, but you're only fooling yourself. People that are happy to suck are just putting up a front so they can feel better about their own suckiness. If you suck, and sound like you suck, it's easy to say "yeah well we suck on purpose because we like it that way!" Total nonsense. It's not art, it's not a stand against the music industry, you just suck.

Prove to me that you suck on purpose by posting something that doesn't suck.
 
Yeah I don't see how polished or perfect equals boring as hell. Why strive to suck? Sucking takes no effort, talent, or creativity. Sure, you can claim that you're making some kind of statement by churning out poorly performed and sucky sounding shit, but you're only fooling yourself. People that are happy to suck are just putting up a front so they can feel better about their own suckiness. If you suck, and sound like you suck, it's easy to say "yeah well we suck on purpose because we like it that way!" Total nonsense. It's not art, it's not a stand against the music industry, you just suck.

Prove to me that you suck on purpose by posting something that doesn't suck.

I don't think it sucks. At all. I never said that. Polished and perfect doesn't always equal boring, but we're at a time where technical ability far outshines inspiration and talent. There's nothing I've heard since probably Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile" that I'd consider worthy of that kind of perfection. It's a time dominated by producers, not performers. I'm a performer by need and a producer by obsession. I love the idea that there are technically superior bands that make dirty rock and roll, but I've not heard any that have been around in my few decades.

That said. I spent a lot of time taking the raw awful sound and making it listenable. I think capturing the idea of a jam like that is more important that cleaning up every detail.

I said the recording equipment and room sucked. I can't prove that we'd sound different in a different space until at least a few of the tracks we're working on now (with dramatically better equipment and a great space) are finished. Also, these songs were created on the spot with no preplanning at all. I think they're pretty fucking cool for that. We kept them because of the imperfections.

I'll be honest here and say that there's a huge possibility that the music that you like would fall into my list of things that dramatically suck, not that I know your taste, but it's probably a good guess. Band that everyone talks about the "virtuosity" usually make me vomit. I hate Dragonforce with a passion, Rush makes me ill, but the Misfits are one of my all time favorite bands because they've actually got some energy to their recordings. But on the other hand, I've probably listened to the first 4 NIN albums over ten thousand times. That's probably not an exaggeration, but if it is you get the point, I like dirty sounding noise.
 
These are not a matched set. They can be, but they don't have to be. I'll continue my pursuit of polished, perfect and "grab your still beating heart with a bare hand and squeeze until you finally feel what it's like to really be alive."

But you've got your thing--that's cool. By definition you've created something almost designed not to be liked my most--so don't go looking for that approval or getting bent out of shape when you don't find it.

See, the thing is...you get it. You don't like the music but you get it perfectly and you're on the same page in a different book: You've got your passion and I've got mine. I'm not bent out of shape at all about people's opinions of the music, just their inability to understand something can exist outside of their comfort zone and be liked by as many people as what they worship.
 
Had to see what the fuss was about. No question musically and video-wise it sucks. If you like it fine. I'll never bitch about MTV not playing music videos again.
 
I don't think it sucks. At all. I never said that. Polished and perfect doesn't always equal boring, but we're at a time where technical ability far outshines inspiration and talent. There's nothing I've heard since probably Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile" that I'd consider worthy of that kind of perfection. It's a time dominated by producers, not performers. I'm a performer by need and a producer by obsession. I love the idea that there are technically superior bands that make dirty rock and roll, but I've not heard any that have been around in my few decades.

That said. I spent a lot of time taking the raw awful sound and making it listenable. I think capturing the idea of a jam like that is more important that cleaning up every detail.

I said the recording equipment and room sucked. I can't prove that we'd sound different in a different space until at least a few of the tracks we're working on now (with dramatically better equipment and a great space) are finished. Also, these songs were created on the spot with no preplanning at all. I think they're pretty fucking cool for that. We kept them because of the imperfections.

I'll be honest here and say that there's a huge possibility that the music that you like would fall into my list of things that dramatically suck, not that I know your taste, but it's probably a good guess. Band that everyone talks about the "virtuosity" usually make me vomit. I hate Dragonforce with a passion, Rush makes me ill, but the Misfits are one of my all time favorite bands because they've actually got some energy to their recordings. But on the other hand, I've probably listened to the first 4 NIN albums over ten thousand times. That's probably not an exaggeration, but if it is you get the point, I like dirty sounding noise.

You'd be guessing wrong. I'm no virtuoso and don't listen to that kind of music. I too grew up with the Misfits, along with my all time faves the Ramones, DK, Black Flag, Iggy, Circle Jerks, The Clash, New York Dolls, etc. All high-energy non-viruoso stuff done way before modern production techniques. These days I'm a total freak for Turbonegro. The thing is though, they still sound good. I don't need 5 minute guitar solos or over the top production value. But there's nothing wrong with technical ability if it's done right. What I do need is a good song. Don't make assumptions about me because I think your stuff is crap. That shit you posted sucks because it does.
 
Had to see what the fuss was about. No question musically and video-wise it sucks. If you like it fine. I'll never bitch about MTV not playing music videos again.

Huh. No question? I see we're all playing the absolutes game. I love this
"If I don't like it sucks. I can quantify what sucks but don't ask me to. "

What do you hate about it? Why does it offend your sensibilities so, and why do so many people worry more about polish than fun? Rock is supposed to piss off people and not be understood by the squares. We weren't going for that, but we seem to have hit a nerve.

Just a reminder, not that we're comparing ourselves to the Ramones, or other influential punk bands but everybody forgets that people made the same judgements. We're not a punk band and we don't follow that same idea, but I'm amazed at how these reactions mirror that time so well.
 
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