en·ter·tain·ment
/ˌentərˈtānmənt/
Noun
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms
I have been told in the past that I have a very limited spectrum of entertainment Or at very least, a very harsh selection in leisure. This is both a confession and a protest to that fact.
Through experience with this startling yet obvious fact, a surprising result has been achieved. My palette expanded and new relationships emerged; integrating previously disconnected or unrecognized aspects of myself. This was not a conclusive and total change by any means. It has been an ongoing sensitivity to things perceived with aversion that continues to offer much value.
Moss works incredibly well if you shit in the woods.
The intent is to assist in exercising the practice of awareness of identity while using myself as an example. The provided juvenile history is meant to constitute data; yet the methods cannot be fully revealed unless a record is shared. There simply isn't enough time in your brief stay here to read the examples from my journals.
Lately I have been really dismissive about certain forms of music. Mainly my favorite: Metal and rock. I have compared it to food before. It is a form of sustenance for me and the quality is just as easily distinguished. As a professed opportunist, any "thing" will do if it ultimately provides. What would pass before simply isn't. There is an intrinsic article that moves me and only reveals elusive activity.
Part One:Music
The threshold for stimulus always remains. It takes violence to break the surface of the conscious. Something vibrant and adequate for assimilation. No bright and shiny for my procyonidae mind to grasp onto.
In the beginning there was Darkness...
Again some controversy but I couldn't understand the problem.
My stepfather had a subscription to a video and music club. Basically, entertainment was as broadcast as it could get. This was one of the newer ways you could acquire media for a low cost. We had several albums arrive a week. Initially, it was cassette media, then came along a newer format called Compact Disc. It was preferred that you call them "c.d.'s". These could be taken on credit, and let's face it, we weren't in the income bracket for cable until later.
The Early Years of the Ghetto:
1991:
1992:
1993 or the year we got Mtv and Middle School Starts:
Every morning the day began by making the empty house feel alive. The parents were at work. Only news and music channels...Listen to music while a got myself ready.
Alice in Chains was my introduction into the world of "grunge" and this was roughly the time the interest to play music came into focus. The video for "I stay away" was what got me.
Picking up the pace with interest...
This is where I met my first best friend. It was bonding over music. His name was Kenneth. I wore an old military jacket my stepdad had from the Army. He had some holes in his jeans and a flanel. Nirvana drawing on his spiral notebook. We began talking about the band and hanging out after school. He had a fucked up latch key life too and we got along great. We added Matt to the picture and then we needed chain wallets and instruments. We would make our own band.
Everyone wanted to play guitar. No one could afford nor were allowed to play drums. I knew bass clef already...I didn't know they sold Left handed basses.
This was a very active time for my young hands. My mothers soap and lotions began rapidly disappearing. Eventually, I began going through my stepfather's video collection. Searching for rated R material. After finding some X rated material, I began suspecting some of the titles for sexual code.
WOODSTOCK '94 Totally sounded like a porno.
We didn't say porn back then. It wasn't fucking casual yet. People could still understand four syllable words like pornography.
This was fucking great. This changed a lot of things. It integrated a new type of sound to my palette.
Next on the list is a chain wallet. A teenager sees me looking through some Nine Inch Nails while in the store and suggests something.
He Hands it to me:
Interested...
It had that Reznor guy's name on it, so I picked it up. My Dad picked me up for a weekend visit and took me too an Opera in my new shirt he bought:
The cello was really working out. There was a really cool kid that invited me to come over. We smoked "weed" for the first time.
My friend Jessie had a brother that got out of prison. He came to stay with us at the apartment complex. He played a cassette for me. During the begininning of Electric Head Part One, he looked at me..."Do you know what that metal sound is? It's the cell doors behind you." The felon mentor program.
1995: The Year of The Marijuana,More Masturbation, and something called the Internet...
welcome to the suburbs
  
I eventually went and listened to "Smells Like Children". It was a very fucked up listen. Concluding with a Patti Smith cover.
He said Nigger. You can't say that.
The father archetype. When I was twelve, during the summer I went up to San Francisco. He told me he was gay. He had a few friends he had introduced to me that gave it away long before. I am proud of my Dad so I offered to hang the rainbow banner on porch. Later that weekend we attended the Gay pride parade. Good times. What transpires is the attempt to merge Paternal and Maternal Influences.
During this trip in San Fransisco my Father and I watched a television program called Friday the 13th:
 They wrote back and invited us to a sort of Mass. Accompanied with the letter answering my questions, were some information leaflets. This is where the appetite to like sexuality, drugs, religion, and other taboos really fit my criteria in taste. Something pushing the envelope.
Kenneth and the rest of us were laying in the floor of his apartment listening to music.  We were all drunk and chain smoking. My favorite track was Orion. We were all about to pass out and I decided to tell them my Dad was gay. They said that was weird. One kid said, "my family hates fags". A few others agreed. I grabbed another beer. I walked straight over their bed and ripped their stupid confederate flag off the door and walked out. Definitely not into racism nor fag bashing. This was the same terrible treatment my mom endured from some of the worst type of Christians. Fuck this metal head group...
1996:
Antichrist Superstar Superstar came out. 
It was played on a Houston station (107.5 the Buzz?) in entirety with a brief introduction from the band. The day after I went and purchased it.
"Irresponsible Hate Anthem"
I am so all-American, I'll sell you suicide
I am totalitarian, I've got abortions in my eyes I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper I am the animal who will not be himself fuck it Hey victim, should I black your eyes again? Hey victim, You were the one who put the stick in my hand I am the ism, my hate's a prism let's just kill everyone and let your god sort them out fuck it Everybody's someone else's nigger, I know you are so am I I wasn't born with enough middle fingers I don't need to choose a side I better, better, better, better not say this better, better, better, better not tell I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper I am the idiot who will not be himself fuck it America cannot see anything History is written by the winner Fuck it
"When you are suffering, know that I have betrayed you"
That Halloween I shaved off my eyebrows and cross dressed to school.
The day after I only wore the make up.
By the end of the week I was wearing my mom's clothing.
I had grown tired of it and wanted to fuck with them.The appalling nature of others. The inability to explain due to a malignant case of megalomania or incapacitating condition of intellectual cowardice. Only driving me to listen further and question more.
Reeling me back in came my Orchestra teacher. She was aware that I was a latch key child. Two parents at work all the time. Times were tough. It was one day in particular when I was upset. I yelled a pile of obscenities at Mrs. Ledford in front of her students and stormed out.
She gave me In School Suspension for a week. "After I.S.S., you will come to my office." Once there, waiting for her to find a fitting punishment, she came out and sat down. She told me to get out my instrument. She gave me two weeks after school lessons. Something she normally would charge for. Killed me with kindness.
Practicing both instruments became the new norm.
Around this time is when I started researching online about record labels. Starting With Reznor's nothing records and then further into Martin Atkin's label Invisible. I started picking up some things I had been missing.
I got into a record by Atari Teenage Riot via Foo Fighters via the internet.
Still no eyebrows. Still wearing womens clothing. Still taking shit. Still getting in trouble. Time to move in with Dad in downtown Houston.
We lived in the ghetto. Mostly hispanic and black community. Two white kids at my school. To be fucked with everyday takes its toll, but always remember: even without teeth, there are plenty of opportunities to ask for some more.
One of the guys was a drummer and we jammed together after school everyday. His Dad is Jerry Gaskill from King's X. He lived in some really fucked up historic house in Montrose. The attic "belonged" to some punk rocker named Caffeine. It was destroyed. Like a blown ass. Truly dismal. Jerry's area? pristine.
Anyway we would jam up there and smoke weed. He got me into Deftones. He hated Manson because he was a "fag". He gave me some punk records.
And my first deftones mix tape with:
I enjoyed playing along to this record with the bass. The DK album also. Great rhythms from two low ends.
The punk kids were all skaters and also homophobic and hated metal... so it was "fuck that skater punk rock group", also. Surprisingly, it is my Mother's buddhist altruism that fueled my animosity towards cultural exclusivity.
Oh and more Beethoven from Dad:
My neighbor at the small unit complex in Montrose was a young white guy with a hot black girlfriend. He stopped me one day and asked if I wanted to go rollerblading. We went and smoked a joint behind Texas Art Supply. He was in his mid twenties. He took me back to his apartment and rolled up another joint. "Do you like Pink Floyd?" He showed me his peyote and explained the uses of the band and plant respectively. Another fine example of public service.
I punched a teacher at this point in eight grade and as an agreement with judge, left Houston with my Dad to live with my Uncle in Denton, Texas. This would dramatically alter my music exposure and sex life.
1997: Rednecks and The Underground
Denton is a strange town. Rednecks and counterculture. UNT is located there so you get that weird special breed going to the music program.
It was a move from Downtown Houston 3rd Ward ghetto into a small house where the backyard was literally a landfill.
I was fourteen and had a pretty serious case of fuck you going on. It brought some props and the older kids adopted me at the High School. No internet with Dad. Just some kids with really different tastes in things.
Monkeyweenie was an older guy from high school. A very unusual guy indeed. He took to me decently and invited me over to his apartment. We hung out and he wanted to show me some musicians he thought I might like. He plugged in a "bootleg" video by two groups: Ministry and Skinny Puppy. This was the begininning footage:
 
He showed some Skinny Puppy videos also. These two bands blew my mind. Manson and Zombie both lifted a lot from Ministry and Skinny Puppy. It was a matter of age and timing. Immediately, I explored both artists and found a wealth of inspiration in lyrical content and "performance art".
 
I was aware of synthesizers before. Yet I had never heard arrangements quite like the ones from Skinny Puppy. So much noise. A cacophony with melodies. It was very much like the orchestral music I was so familiar with. This made me greatly desire to generate music. The imagery infused some elements of the occult shamanism that appealed to me.
My Father immediately recognized Manson's inspirations and sources. So did Monkeyweenie. It was the latter that brought me up a notch though.
These taboos were thoroughly worked over and reduced the taboo necessary for rock n roll to work to a nearly non-existent amount.
Manson and Zombie were pulling the Evil and Sex cards. This was extremely effective and definitely needed at that time. Things like Sex and Satanism brought about a great discomfort for many. The mid-nineties brought a shit load of conservatism forward in America. Then the internet equalized that shit.
The desire to create emerged in Denton and I began playing bass with some other people and I ventured away from rock and metal.
Another punk rocker at the high school flagged me down. Really cool guy. A few years older. He wasn't getting the whole Manson thing. That it was "too glam" "or flashy". So then he introduced me to:
this was something that has consistently pleased with:
It was then that the local music store started revealing random goodness. All old. Suggesting that perhaps the past was worth investigating. Then moved back to Houston.
1998: Collaboration
Though the album was great. Only as exciting as your penis lump prosthetic.
Upon arriving to Houston, the internet would be the most immediate reunion. School was not a priority anymore. I stayed home and began using music software on my pc.
Everything was now becoming available. Peer to Peers were possible.
 
Suddenly, connecting the various projects of different musicians and artists became RAPIDLY accessible. MB's at this point. Only taking DAYS to download a single track from some guy in Taiwan, who has fantastic taste.
This was the year I met Jeff and Steve. They had an industrial metal thing they were working on. Steve took me over to Jeff's house and he had a record playing that I recognized:
Skinny Puppy- The Process
We became great friends. Jeff showed me everything he knew about industrial music and more importantly, how to use computers and hardware synthesizers to make music.
This was the year I returned home, and started researching music. Finding the things that I had missed by a few years. It was also when I began recording my own music and collaborating with others.
I bought both of these vhs tapes and they changed how my perception of what bands could be:
Pigface: Glitch and Son of a Glitch
Pigface concerts are characterized by high-energy performances. It is not unusual to see upwards of ten musicians on stage at any given time during a show. In addition, members of the audience have occasionally been invited on stage during the encore.
The following is a partial list of musicians who have been Pigface members at one time in the band's history as well as some of the bands and acts they have been associated with before and after their time with Pigface.[4]:
Friends who performed together without constraints. Solely for the creative endeavor. Minimal ego motivated. Until this day, it seems that this method has brought forth by far some of the best creative products. The blending of samples and cross polinating of ideas leads to unpredictable and exciting results.
And
Ministry: Incase you didn't feel like showing up "LiVE"
Fences and projections.
Some new stuff:
1999 Age 16:
 
This is where the juvenile records comes to an end. This is the line of demarcation where my life brought in another.
This unwoven history depicts an angry youth. Incidentally with appropriate materials much of the psyche remains as recognizable as the materials used to create it. Now the surface of these walls look much different, but the contents remain old favorites intended to coalesce with the new.
Part Two... Reading...
|
_album_cover.jpg)
.jpg)
_(1994).jpg)
.jpg)
