GREETINGS:
It has been a long time since I have had anything to say in regards to the goings on in the world of noise. My life is a strange patchwork quilt of family, college courses, band practices, work, dreaming, eating, and planning. In amongst all that are those good intentions that I have for all the projects I surround myself with. For reasons both intentional and unintentional, noise really just fell out of favor on my list of priorities. I make no excuses and only small limited appologies for this having happened, but I must say that for the sake of my own sanity I really needed to get away from noise and away from the shit that surrounds noise. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to explain my feelings about the noise scene as I see it today and some of my plans for the coming year.
For a long time I had simply had enough of the strange attitudes and narrow minded indifference of a scene that I had long identified with. When I started getting actively involved back in 2003-2004 I truly felt that there was a scene full of people willing to share, willing to take part, willing to trade, and willing to listen. The early shows that I participated in were always full of enthusiasm and energy like anything was possible. There was an openess to ideas which was prevalent throughout the scene, an almost communal way of doing things.
The idea that anyone could start a project, a label, a zine was attainable in those early days. I never felt like an outsider despite my origins being rooted in a dirty, depressing, and meth rattled mill town. I helped my friend Matt Jenkins run his label BARFING DAGGER RE-RECORDINGS, offering labor, insight, and support. We both picked artists we were interested in and released stuff in a wide variety of formats, from CDR, 3inch, B-cards, and cassette. There was a time where I truly felt we were doing something special for the noise community. Then, the bottom dropped out.
I cannot precisely pinpoint how or why things changed. I cannot even figure out what sorts of elements went into creating the climate that is still so damaging to the scene today. I think part of it stems from an influx of artists who were less about community and more about fostering an attitude of exclusivity. My friend Matt moved to Portland which effectively put an end to THE SUNKEN and to BARFING DAGGER RECORDINGS. In the aftermath of this move, I realized that Matt and myself believed very different things about how to do noise. He believed in practice and planning where I believed that practice was unnecessary in a genre that was open ended and happy accidents were things to be explored. Philosophically speaking we grew apart and the partnership ended. He went on to do his own explorations as REDNECK and I continued to work as CRACKED DOME.
I must back track a bit to illustrate a point. I am unsure of the year but I think it may have been around 2008 or so when THE SUNKEN was playing a show in Portland. Bits of conversation were picked up from various parties throughout the room. It became quite clear that the new prevailing attitude in the noise scene was the one that had also infected the punk scene: It is way cooler to act like nothing impresses you. This attitude is one that I find to be patently disgusting and counter productive to the creative process. The room started to reek with a sort of arrogance and hipsterism that makes me want to fucking puke. By the time THE SUNKEN started to play it became less about the noise we could deliver but more about the novelty of who we were and where we were from. To be from Longview / Kelso was not cool in their eyes, it was something that made us inferior, poseurs, and interlopers to an exclusive club.
Around this same time period I had taken a break from my project CRACKED DOME and took a different approach in a project I had named DEAD HITCHHIKER. I set up my gear in a filthy and cold basement and prepared to deliver what I felt was something different and challenging. What I got was cold stares and complete indifference on the part of the audience. Again, I felt like an outsider who was only being tolerated and not accepted. Portland was no longer the open noise market that it once had been. It was now a den of self absorbed strangers who worked harder on trying to look like they were incapable of enjoying anything. Many of these people also had their own noise projects and each of them acted like their noise shit did not stink. When a scene becomes populated by individuals who only react to their own hype and fail to feed off the energy of their community, the community dies.
With BARFING DAGGER RECORDINGS and my own label BURNT SOUND OFFERINGS, many of the releases were on CDR. This had been the prefered medium for which to put noise on. Here, a disposable genre being imprinted on a disposable medium, seemed so utterly appropriate. Especially to those more prolific artists who developed with each succeeding release, leaving previous works in the dust. However, this medium fell out of favor and in turn it affected the output of the labels which I worked for. It should be noted that BARFING DAGGER releases barely sold enough that the best one could hope for is to make some money back for all that we put in. Only select releases sold out and we never made more than 50-70 copies of any release. BURNT SOUND OFFERINGS ran on an even smaller scale as I never produced much product. The scene had moved on from CDR and into boutique vinyl and high end one sided lathe cut releases. If you were a label doing CDR based products you were basically an amateur not to be taken seriously in the larger world of noise. Even oddball formats such as 3inch and B-card had fallen out of favor and were no longer seen as cool. BURNT SOUND OFFERINGS simply died a slow death due to lack of interest and publc support.
When I started the 'zine WITCH KUNT my love for noise and outsider music was still running at an all time high. However, this 'zine came at a time when the elitist attitude and hipster generated scene politics were starting to infect the Portland scene like a bad case of AIDS. While the 'zine enjoyed an great early run with orders coming from all over the world and even a notable order from one THURSTON MOORE, it was not to last. The 'zine died a sort of death and even changing the content a slight was not enough to keep things going. It was simply too expensive of a project to maintain. With a family to support and interest being at an all time low, I simply could no longer justify keeping both the label and the 'zine going.
However, I find myself drifting back into the scene that I feel I made a notable contribution to despite scene turk sponsored beliefs to the contrary. Indifference can be a bitter pill to swallow but it is not a valid enough reason to stop doing the things that one is passionate about. In the final analysis I had to face the fact that I, GENE SYMPTOMS / BLASPHEMATOR / TYLER STOCKTON am an artist who has no real reason to stop creating. The larger world may not see my work, may not read my words, may not hear my sounds but there is still people who I may still be able to serve. While Portland Oregon's scene suffered a steady cannibalization by self serving try hards and the dictatorial whims of hipster creeps, places like EUGENE OREGON and SEATTLE WASHINGTON are still alive and thriving. These towns still appreciate art and noise, the are still open to newcomers, still ready, still willing.
To illustrate my point, I played my first show in several years at the 2013 EUGENE NOISE FEST. I had long been waiting to get back into doing live shows and felt that this event was the perfect opportunity to do so. Upon my arrival at the venue I was greeted by the friendly faces of noise allies I had not seen in several years, everyone was having fun, everyone was welcoming, and the negativity of the classic hipster put on was non-existent. My set was far from flawless, but it was loud and enjoyable. It was a great place to return to and an even better audience to play for. Nothing makes the difference more than when one is allowed to ply their trade in a supportive environment free of the pathetic desire to look cool. Some of you may scoff at this but it is a fact that I have experienced first hand.
In the days and weeks leading up the Eugene show, I heard some offensive things being said about the Eugene scene. A unnamed party, who should just know better in the first fucking place, made a backhanded comment about EUGENE NOISE FEST being the place for amateurs. This to me seemed strange considering that ENF is one of the longer running fests in the northwest noise scene while PORTLAND has lacked any sort of community spirit since NOISE BBQ 2008 which was curated by ME. Again this is the sort of attitude that has ruined the cooperative spirit of the noise scene in Portland. I truly believe that if Portland's scene wants to survive it is going to need to shed its parasitic participants rather quickly or else be passed up once again. It is this infection which has made it nearly impossible for there to be anything exciting like ENF in Portland. No spirit, no heart, no fucking scene. The Portland scene is a joke and I think the punchline is becoming more apparent to those parties who have turned it into an exclusive club just for the phonies and assholes.
From the looks of things on the MANIACS board, the only places where things are going on are in EUGENE and SEATTLE. Seattle seems to be brimming with great shows full of newcomers and old schoolers. While it has been at least 6 years since I have done noise in Seattle, it seems that the classic spirit of comraderie and support is allowing a vibrant scene to exist. I hope to experience it first hand very soon as I plan on doing quite a few shows in 2015. Again, there is no reason to allow the indifference of others to prevent me from doing the things I want to do. The people who truly believe are out there and I want to engage in a true spirited give and take of a living breathing vibrant scene.
So with all of this bitching, moaning and theorizing aside I would like to get to the real point of why I am writing all of this. 2015 is going to be a year when I get back to creating and not worrying about the fucking trends. I am going to do the things that please me and those who want to be a part of it can join in.
GENE SYMPTOMS GOALS FOR 2015:
1. BURNT SOUND OFFERINGS will start releasing new material in 2015. The first project on the table is the long awaited compilation which I solicited submissions for way back when. However I am going to do something slightly different this time. I want to release the compilation as a series of 3inch CDRs featuring 2-3 artists each. In doing this I will be able to put out a killer series of discs with a great batch of artists. The list of artists involved is long but suffice it to say each track I recieved was deadly and inspiring.
I also intend to release some material which has sat in the vaults for far too long. The first of these releases is by 2673. Not sure if he is still out there doing noise but he submitted material several years ago intended for BARFING DAGGER and I want to make that material available. The other artist whom I plan to release is by GHOST MOTH. Their release 'Cosmic Bulldozer' is a scorcher that also deserves to be available to the public.
2. In the first week of January 2015 my garage will be set up as a work space for both the label and the small scale screen print shop I hope to operate. I will start doing limited runs of shirts for projects whom I deem worthy of such a thing. The first shirts I hope to do are for CRACKED DOME and WARNING BROKEN MACHINE. I may even do a FUCK PORTLAND shirt just for shits and giggles but who knows. I just want to have fun and learn some new tricks.
3. While I am considerably light on gear, I hope to remedy that little by little as I gear up for some shows in the summer of 2015. I want to rage in EUGENE and SEATTLE and meet up with old pals and meet new friends.
4. While WITCH KUNT as a physical 'zine may be long gone, I am going to spend a lot more time on this blog page adding reviews, interviews, and anything else I feel like posting. To those who have sent me stuff and have yet to see a review I truly am sorry for the delay. You should start seeing your reviews as of this writing. I will make a more concerted effort to review materials as they come in. As always I will be open to all styles of noise / grind / hc / black metal etc and so forth. Keep your stuff coming gang.
5. I want to support the rest of you. Even as hipsterism and elitist attitudes fuck up scenes all over the goddamned place, there is still so much good stuff to hear, see, read, and digest. I will be sure to post lots of links to blogs, bandcamps, and websites worth your time and energy. The only way to foster a positive scene is to spread the word.
6. I have started recording new stuff under the CRACKED DOME banner and my next release is going to be a split with A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN which will be released on California based label NEFARIOUS ACTIVITIES. I am really stoked with the track I recorded as it truly runs the gamut of what I have become recognized before on past releases. It has brutal harsh wall action and paralyzing drone. Stay tuned for this one. I am willing to work with any label who is interested in my work, especially the truly underground D.I.Y. labels. Get in touch with me and lets make some noise happen.
Anyhow that is all for now. Drop me a line, leave some comments, lets shoot the shit. Best wishes to all my long time noise homies. Hope the rest of the year is good to each and every one of you. Stay safe and worship Satan. Cheers. Symptoms.
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headlesspymprockalliance.blogspot.com
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