From: payne@ecf.toronto.edu (PAYNE DENISE JOYCE)
Subject: Industrial Music for Industrial Snobs
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility
Distribution: rec
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 07:08:57 GMT


No editor, no quoting.
 
Too many good points made (between the gratuitous flames) to let this one
by...
 
The point I was trying to make about the lack of coverage is this: you wanna
think you're REALLY into industrial? Pick up an Alternative Press. There's
a
whole SUBGENRE of industrial missing! Only the most popular, and usually
very old, bands make it in there. There might be mention of TG, SPK,
Chris & Cosey, but their good days are long gone. And the rest of the mag
is filled with KFMDM and Front 242 clones. Techno I'm beginning to gain
more respect for cause its evolving quick enough to maintain my interest. I
havent taken an active (aka monetary) interest in it yet, but I may. The
other stuff evolves way too slowly. Mebbe this is a way to guage how "good"
or "bad" a scene is - when a large number of people point out that
there are N bands for P ideas that are C years old, when it gets too crowded,
it gets too boring and its not worth it. (That signal:noise thing again, this
time its signal:money, which generates a natural selection type activity
by the listner. Corollary: rich people listen to too much and too boring
music. :^)
 
You'd have to go to File 13 or Forced Exposure to find out stuff about
industrial bands not on major labels. This is understandable, but I really
get pissed off when a fanzine sized publication goes after a band like
Pankow - I cant remember which fanzine it was... one from the UK with
alot of other good interviews (such as Master/Slave Relationship, tho
I think they're stupid, I can understand why people like them) - they wasted
X hours and Y pages on Pankow, which is boring and derivative as hell. 
Why cant they leave it to AP and other major-label-funded/proded mags?
 
(And they probably had to bust their butts to get such material as well.)
 
As for NM List. Its very poorly named, or you'll have to twist the more
obvious meaning of the name into something festering and bubbling, such
as Nm List is. :^) I dont know if it means new-styles of music or newly
released music from bands that only exist as a few characters together
on my screen (:^) or what. It definitely has established its own inherent
identity, that is of underground music of almost any type, including alot
which doesnt fit into too many people's definitions of underground. It
may be a difficult-music-list as well, if you want to call it that. The
easiest way would be to subtitle it as "unpopular music list" but then
that leads us into the "popular means sellout means bad" argument which
RMI was obviously setup for to siphon off the NM List. I dont know what
it is, but I find out alot of stuff that I want to know about there, and
that just happens not to be covered too efficiently anywhere else that I
look, for free or for money, in print or on tape or on radio.
 
As for improv - thats a large section of NM List's mail. I dont read alot
of it closely, but I've sampled some of it by trading with Nm Listers who
pay alot more attention to it. I'v come to live some of it, tho I dont
have much yet.
 
As for grunge industrial - perhaps it is dead. I'd better hurry up and
figure out whats still worthwhile. I never made it into the Swans/HoD
camp til recently (tho Swans have changed alot, but I still like them).
I just bought DustBowl which makes up all the HoD I have for now, except
for the material on my Nothing Short Of Total War comp which I think is
quite excellent, but full of dated material. Getting into a dying scene is
the worst, alot of bands still exist which aren't as good as others, and
releases are abundant and still expensive. If I learned of it 3 years from
now, only the best will stay on, tho only that with the lowest common
denominator. 

What else is dead then? There's enough ambient industrial to play end to
end from here to the end of the solar system, due to its nature. I find it
a very narrow range in style, though I think I have listined a requisite
amount to make such a comment. Hearing enough :ZF:, HT, SPK, etc will do
it for yu. Anymore of even zoviet france makes me want to go to sleep.
I've even noticed that the god of industrial, Mason (lets talk about him
while he's away!) has been listening to less and less ambient, and has
been making suggestions for very old ambient material when people ask, such
as SPK's Zamia Lehmanni, which is quite amazing and definitely one of the
best industrial ("") albums ever. I'd say ambient is dead as well, or dying.
 
When a musical scene has a hard time surviving in the early years after its
formation, the most growth occurs. I think this is pretty true. When a scene
has an easy time expanding, due to giant popularity, alot of shit pops up,
just because it influences so many more people, who want to get on the
ground floor of the movement, cause its new music to them. By the time
this whole wave is established, its a baby boom, imitating the first few
years of the original - and there's no improvement or expansion. I think this
is the current state of dance industrial. It is dead. It will not go very
far from here. Eveyrthing you hear will be very similar to things you've heard
before, unless it leans towards techno. Its enjoying a huge surge in popularity
and that does mark the end of its useful life.
 
As for the bullshit about personal tastes... well, I cant get away from that.
There is just some way I can hear it and say "this is experimental/new" (ie
interesting) and can call something when its not. When I heard Front 242
in 1985, it sounded pretty amazing to me, cause it was like Puppy, but it
wasnt. And puppy in 1985 (when I discovered both) sounded really amazing then
as well. Of course, I knew hardly anything about alternative/new wave/under-
ground, and next thing you know I am a Depeche Mode fanatic because of Puppy.
(Dont ask how. :^)
 
Actually, when I got into Depeche, New Order, Simple Minds, even Duran
Duran - the scene was well dead and the distillation process was occuring.
DM's first three LPs are classics in the genre, same goes for New Order's
first two and a whole slew of Simple Minds material. Same with PiL which is
shit. I guess we'll have to wait 5 years and see what non-technoish dance
industrial is left, then spend money on it.
 
As it is now, a friend of mine is coaching Greg Clow and I on roots music. Yep.
Thats where my open mind is better put to use. Get out some blues and check
them out, cause they've sure had a good time to age. :^) 
 
I must admit that I got into the distillation cycle of TG, SPK, and even
Neubauten somewhat. There MUST have been other bands around then, some of
which I can name but dont have material from, but of which I dont have a whole
collection, who were considered contemporary at that time in the scene. To have
gotten into it when alive means I would have been worshipping Genesis and Kirk
at 10 and Graeme at 12. I didnt get to Puppy til 15. (Hadda do my RUSH time...)

 
(Can I go on?) One last point about the quick evolution of a new scene. I think
this is the way that it happens: Puppy explodes onto the scene ca 85 or 86
here in Canada and a year or so later everywhere else. Any new band which
comes out now that sounds like Puppy has a hard time to make airplay and
NO ONE does it as quick as Puppy did so many years ago. Example in point, since
I've witnesses the (d)evolution of such a band:
 
Puppy is hot for those that know about it and I'm nearly done high school.
A friend of mine in my school, Heike Sillaste (aka Mouth 392), is in a
band (gag! Heik and the Shakes) but has a noisy side project named after
his nickname (due to his hairstyle) Digital Poodle. They make really raw
Puppy type music. Its alot of fun cause its so cheesy. They do alot of
shows and progress really slowly towards a cleaner sound. Then all the sudden
a few connections and some new equipment later, it seems they've lost alot
of their creativity and gained a squeaky clean FLA sound - but its too late.
Even FLA is dead in its own wake from 3 or 4 years ago when it was
still interesting - and here Poodle has finally taken the requisite 4 or 5
years that an amateur band takes to become semi-"pro" and get airplay,
and they're doing the same material that was perfected by fore-runners
so much earlier. DP has alot of catching up to do, and if they can survive,
they might become original in 2 or 3 albums from now, but in the face
of huge
nubers of clones pouring out of the sudden acceptance and popularity of
"industrial" dance. 

Checkout techno groups - +8, 808 state and the Shamen are even known by me,
mr non techno, and I even like alot of their material. There are alot more
bands now, but I cant name them cause they all have one song and thats
about it. 808 state is still progressing and has a number of songs which
are good, new and old. Bands imitating their first incarnation are just
coming out now, and they sound used.  

The orb has managed to, in my eyes, get into a new niche and there's no other
bands who've made it to my attention through the same channels (well, its 
sort of electronic industrial, so here you go Ken, check it out), so we'll
see if thats a new scene or just a good rehash of ambient acid house, as
it were. The clones of their first LP should be arriving, no?
 
/kc
Ken P Chasse
sizone!closet_raver@ee.ryerson.ca
via payne@ecf.toronto.edu
 (her techno habits have nothing to do with mine, etc.)
--