Thursday, June 30, 2005

Un Cauchemar

- Hey, wuts up? Long time no see.
- Yeah, everything is good. What about you?
- Its ok, like always. Working hard, partying hard. You?
- Ah, same old, same old.
- Cool, gotta run. See ja latter.
- Ya, see ya.

......

- Yo, how are you?
- Shit, holla. I am good, almost done with that project, you know…
- Hehe, yeah, that’s amazing great news.
- What about that thing?
- Well, doing whatever I can.
- Nice, gotta go, I have a meeting.
- Cool, lataz.

......
......

- Sup dowg?
- Hi ......
- ......
- ......
- Bye
- Ciao

......
......
nothing but dots
......
......
......
more, more and more dots
......
......

- Hey, how are you?
- Wake me up; tell me this is not life, tell me it’s just a bad dream.
- What????
- Ah… Nothing… I am ok, you?
- ......
- ......
- Alright, lataz
- Bye.

......
......
......
que des points, rien que des points, plus en plus en plus de points sans fin jusqu’a la fin


bad dreams are only dreams

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

K

theHug made a new best friend/obsession/worst enemy. It’s a creature that shall remain nameless. It is of no gender, although it wishes to be a girl or a firm. theHug wishes it was simply a girl at the head of a big firm, but the creature, simply known as K. from now on, does everything it is not supposed to do, acts as no one excepts it would and always reacts in an unpredictable way: it will probably end up becoming a firm at the head of a girl. That won’t stop it from being provocatively demanding and handsomely frustrated. Frustrated from life, frustrated from society and its beautiful hypocrisy, frustrated from demands and deliciously entrenched in ice cream and other bodily wonders. Unfortunately, K. is cursed with an "enivrant" taste, a "poudloudiavasht" smell and a bubbly feel, it definitely is more of a girl than a firm, at least for now, in its young age. K. is highly addictive, more so than nicotine, and is entrenched in a furry to smoke all the cigarettes that theHug can provide. K. flows through the mind of this blog as a song, as a fantasy born from a computer weekend, without ending, but with a bang-alicous beginning. K. is annoying and "nahalno" invading, no therapy is potent enough to purge this helpless blog, or anyone else as a matter of fact, from the pleasantly malignant grip of K. No, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, no escape, K. is everywhere and after this blog, the easiest task of them all, K. aims at overtaking the world. No, there ain’t no stopping it, and really who would want to do such a foolish thing. Marshmallow is boring compared to K. and movies can only wish they could show it/she. Hollywood is crying, while theHug is dreaming. Fuk it, it’s too late, just listen and: “we are the K. resistance is futile”. K. doesn’t need you or anyone else, it is everywhere and it’s so aggressively combative. Even this lifeless string of bits has quit attempting to conquer it; lost it is in the K., lost somewhere, anywhere really but does it matter??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Mushroomly Infectious

Here is the famous article that I spoke about in my previous rant. I agree, the words are strong, but that's my style. If you think the article is over-the-board, leave a comment.

This was supposed to be an interview. Obviously, I forgot everything, didn’t take any note or recorded anything. That’s where we’re at now, no interview will be produced whatsoever. Anyways, the truth is that listening is boring; dreaming is much better. Anything to escape reality, really. Like a blood sucking spider I pretended to listen but actually tried to absorb as much of that band aura so that I can somewhat live the experience myself.

Me a rock star… Sweet. I will really be obnoxious, that’s for sure. My head will be so big, I won’t fit in my own private stretched Hummer limo. Anyone who meets me will hate me, and anyone who doesn’t will be in love with me, with that me that I’ll project on stage and on paper.

Or maybe I’ll stay true to myself and just hate everyone for liking me and my music.

One thing is for sure, I’ll start off all innocent and happy, and finish bitter and in pieces. At first there will be the thrill of fame, of people enjoying my work and of recognition. Money will be more than welcome, and I’ll finally pay off that permanent Visa bill. I will talk to people, share my enthusiasm and feed-off from theirs. I’ll take every chance I get to visit a new city, tour till I drop dead and be freaked out before every single show.

And then something will die inside of me. Die is a bit of a strong word, change would be better, but hell, I am a rock star no, it’s either everything or nothing, there are no in-betweens. Slowly it will all start becoming a routine; I’ll convince myself that people are the same everywhere and I will stop talking to them. My enthusiasm will slowly fade away; I’ll need a mask to hide behind.

It will simply be a cross road: I can either decide to become a professional musician, be happy with what I have achieved and keep entertaining people, just do it cause I can, like the Stones or U2. Or I can decide to burn out, get frustrated, lose myself in drugs and alcohol, not give a fuck anymore and just be bitter till the bitter end.

Me a rock star… I’ll definitely take the second path, just cause it’s the REAL thing to do. One day, flocks of brainless fans will put flowers on my grave in Paris, thinking that I overdosed just because I was such an un-understood and lonely artist. In reality I was simply pissed off because I couldn’t assume reality and live without that original and so fake dream.

Here we have it, in the span of a short interview, my whole life of rock star flashed before my eyes. But the guys from Infected Mushroom aren’t like me. They’re actually doing it and they’re still there. They seem to enjoy it; their definitely not taking the path of the dark side as I would have done.

Here ends the first part. Tonight I am going to the show, and the second instalment will hopefully at least be a bit about the music and not about me.

Here starts the second part. Three long and hot days after the show, little sleep in my body (really, who can sleep in this bliss of a furnace Montreal has become), I have finally eaten enough to get some meaningful thoughts together.

Easy: the show was infectious; very infectious and no mushrooms of any kind were needed. Really, the name of the band is just a misleading publicity stunt. Clearheaded at 4 AM, it took me less than 15 minutes to get absorbed in the thick digital atmosphere engulfing the club. These three guys somehow made me dive head first into it. Three, because of the newly added guitar player, and I have to admit, the best pieces were the ones that he has on too.

It’s hard to capture or describe the show, and I won’t even try. The big sound, blasting behind and above our heads was definitely a must; it’s probably next to impossible to feel what Infected Mushrooms are all about on a small stereo. The crowd had little effect on me, all the energy was coming from the speakers. Tired, I still wanted more tracks when 6 AM came along and the mushrooms left. A big breakfast followed by a short nap in the park under the sun and I was ready to face another sweaty day.

Enjoy the bootlegs our bootlegger made. I have no idea of song’s names, we failed to capture my favourite part of the show and digi cams obviously have shitty mikes. Still, it might just get your mouth wet enough to make you see Infected Mushrooms live when you have the chance.

Till then, ta-da…

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Infections, or how I now hate the music industry too

I unfortunately had the chance to but heads with the ugly world of the music industry today, and let me tell you, it hurts much more than I thought it will.

It all started last Friday when I had the misfortune to meet the boys from Infected Mushroom for an interview. I didn’t want to ask any questions because I had no inspiration whatsoever. There was someone else there with me, doing all the real work. Except that it all hit me as the thing went along, and I did ask a few questions, some interesting others not. I also got answers, obviously, but to my great dissatisfaction they were either ridiculously cliché or boring or when they were good, it was the exact same answers that I would have given. Really, I was bored by the interview process and mostly interested in the role that the boys were playing at moments, that of musicians that have to answer, a situation that probably somewhat helps them convinces themselves the importance and the value of their art. Interviews for the sake of being asked questions, feeling like someone cares about you and not really interview for the sake of reaching your fans.

Sill, the experience was pleasant. I was actually happy to see that they were regular human beings and not some outer-space arsti-intellectual junkies. But there isn’t much to say about regular people. Wait, I am wrong here, there is tons to say about regular people, but in the eyes of the world Infected Mushrooms aren’t regular people, and so they are to be treated differently; for example they deserve an interview on my site. Your plain wrong here, buddy. They deserve only what I feel like writing. It’s my site, it’s my ideas, it’s my work. I do whatever I want with them. When I have no inspiration for an interview I won’t write one. Maybe one day I’ll post the original article here, when this whole things dies out, so you see what the fuss was all about.

So, here I am, all innocent, believing in the sincerity of the band, the coolness of their manager (hell, they chose him after all, and he travels with them, they MUST get along, he MUST be a nice guy, cause they are nice guys, no???) and in the all-powerfulness of my independent journalistic integrity. I publish my piece at around noon, only to get the weird phone call, less than four hours after the article is up (someone has no life, to check my site so often). It’s some women, with an annoying British accent, calling me from the PR company in New York, the one that organized the interview, and asking me to remove my article, on the grounds that it didn’t look professional and wasn’t an interview. I simply flipped out. At first I was nice and tried to explain that the article did no harm to the band’s image (which was true) and that the writer had thought that an interview was a poor subject to have the piece on (which was again true). She still insisted, and I started loosing it. I was raising my voice, and openly expressing my utter disappointment at the fact that a PR company was trying to pressure me to change MY own content. Apparently, the band’s manager had called the PR company in New York to complain about the article, and now they were shitting in their pants. We were both yelling at the end, I was red and fuming, until she hung up on exactly 3 milliseconds before I was about to do it.

The rest of the story is long, but let’s just say that the pathetic situation in which one of the employees of the PR company was put in because of my text, and because I had directly involved other people around me into this pig fight, I backed down and removed the text entirely.

Now, after all of this, I have come to realize the nastiness of this industry. It’s fake, it’s rotten, it’s pretend to be artsi but actually corporate whore till the bitter end. Techno music, which has the concept of free and open built into it, is no exception. I shouldn’t talk about the music, it’s the people that do it that are corrupted, or at least the people that manage them, and you know why, cause they manage, that’s their job, make money, more and more and more money, on the backs of the artists (who should open their eyes and either acknowledge this or change the people that surround them). And it’s also the fault of the whole apparatus that artists believe they need, or maybe that managers impose, like PR firms, disguised advertisement firms parasite-ing people that really create content for the sake of entertaining. I rather deal with an advertising agency, at least they admit they do it for and about the money, they give you some of that money too, and they even do some (and often, a lot) of creation, real artistic expression (true, used for an un-noble goal, but artistic nonetheless). What do PR companies create? Nothing… press-releases; a six year old can do that painstakingly useless and boring job.

Don’t take me for a fool. I knew the music industry was foul; I knew it was exactly that, simply put, a real industry. But I never expected bands like Infected Mushroom, that are in my eyes a small band (and thus couldn’t have been corrupted so much), bands that do techno (and thus should think differently than the mainstream, cause they aren’t mainstream) would still be caught in this trap.

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