DOS & DON'TS

We love these East Village tweakers who broadcast public-access TV shows from their mother’s living room in Alphabet City. They are the real New York, and the neighborhood would suck without them. Never go away, Crimson Bernie! Comments/Enlarge | See all

She’s SMS-ing her friend to say that she’s “gone all out with the Stevie Nicks vibe tonight” but what she’s neglected to include is that even in her elongated “bubble perm and tranq addiction” period, Stevie never ever looked as tragic as this. Comments/Enlarge | See all

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Every two years or so, everyone gets sick of generic music bullshit and gets down to destroying it again. It’s easier to do this now than ever before, what with cheap equipment, access to unlimited materials via the internet and, most importantly, a new wave of rampant boredom. We now have a loose global confederation of blue-skinned nerds sticking up their middle fingers with regards to the criminal status quo of music, and it sounds more fucked-up than ever before. Some might call it a new sub-sub-genre, but ignore them. Fuck easy tag names and fuck commercial marketing schemes. This is a real underground.

All electronic music, not just house, has gotten so boring it’s forced us to learn how to make it ourselves. This isn’t IDM or computer rock or breakcore. This shit goes beyond all those titles—it makes Kid 606 sound like Celine Dion and Aphex sound like Brahms. And you know why? Because anyone with a computer and a few thousand hours to kill can do it.

Says Japan-dwelling Aussie artist Hard Off!: “I mainly scan P2P servers for some song that might represent my mood, and then I cut just the bit from that song that I want.” Hence, pop hits get fractured and distorted beyond recognition over light speed beats, ominous laughter, harmonicas, distorted bass, and any other sound you can dig up. There are no rules to follow.

“Basically, I love making fucked up shit with my computer, but I’m usually too drunk to learn how to really play an instrument,” says Flis, one third of Duran Duran Duran.

Or, as the New York-based END, whose frenetic lounge splatter-core country tunes freak everybody out, adds, “This shit is just like punk rock. At its heart, it’s just a bunch of talentless suburban white boys struggling with three chords while trying to impress some chick they’ve never actually spoken to. But most of us are way too wimpy to put needles through our noses, and we’d lose our pathetic day jobs if we got liberty spikes or facial tattoos.”

All these freaks have found each other via the web. One focal point is Austrian artist Eiterherd’s widerstand.org.

That’s a good place to start, but don’t expect to find palatable mash-ups à la 2 Many DJs. Expect difficulty, frustration, annoyance, and blissful moments of radical discovery.

JASON FORREST
Also see: END: www.worldwentdown.com;
Cdatakill: www.cdatakill.c8.com.