i mother earth & tea party at edgefest ninety.....bluesfest 2016?

i remember reading an article a few years ago about how the iconic canadian rock band, the tea party (often cited in the short list of best canadian rock bands of all time), refused to sell it's domain name to the corporate-dominated american political movement of the same name. rumours were running up to seven figures. yeah, they could have used the cash. but, which koch would have written that cheque?

i missed most of the preamble, but this combined track of an original (requiem) and a well known cover that he does regularly (hurt, by nine inch nails) was dedicated to the united states in the wake of rising racial tensions and police shootings. a requiem. it's not smug. you can dwell on "what have they become?". or you could dwell on "my sweetest friends". it's more about concern than superiority. but, it's a requiem, nonetheless - a requiem in the face of what is increasingly obvious american decline. would eight figures have shut him up?

how many times have i seen the band? i don't know. lots. so, getting a chance to see jeff martin play an acoustic set opening for a reformed i mother earth was a nice addition to the show, in the sense of it being a throw back. he played mostly tea party songs, and i don't think anybody was upset about it. but, i want to point out that seeing jeff martin play acoustic is not your average folk performance. i don' check setlists; i happened to catch a more toned down track, even as it was presented kind of heavily. most of the tracks featured foot driven percussion. he was playing a 12 string at one point (the badger). the truth is that he can fill the sound up on his own: he didn't really need to bring a band with him.

as it turns out, he brought one with him, anyways.

here is a full set from the same week:

given that jeff martin was coming home from australia for the set (something he pointed out as he was playing 'coming home'), it was sort of obvious that he would at least try and get his bandmates up on stage. and, it happened to work out. this is the complete band set, at the end of his solo set. the first track is a led zeppelin cover, and the second is a track from their first record, splendor solis.

yeah. you're not seeing things.

they're on a twenty year anniversary tour for scenery and fish, and i enjoyed every second of it. again: how many times did i see this band in the 90s? i don't know. lots. the setlist was pulled from both of their records. you can pick up from the footage that the audience knew all the words...

this show was pure nostalgia, and nobody pretended otherwise. i got everything i wanted out of it: some sing-alongs, some guitar freakouts, some drum circles - and even some pot floating around through the audience. score.

you can probably pick out almost immediately that this wasn't your average 90s alt rock band. i've argued pretty strongly that they really foreshadowed the sound developed by the mars volta, although they themselves were drawing heavily on the more progressive side of alternative rock: rhcp, jane's addiction, the smashing pumpkins. with a dash of rush, for canadiana? sure, even if the lyrical references are largely on the level of satirical post-modernism rather than serious objectivism. they were and remain viciously virtuosic on their instruments, and worth the price of admission simply for that fact.

if you weren't around to see it the first time, you're not going to get as much out of this. but, it's something that kind of got lost. to be clear: they were huge in canada. when they played edgefest '98, they co-headlined a concert that included green day and foofighters as opening acts. that's right: they didn't open for foofighters and green day. green day and foofighters opened for them. that's how big they were in canada, for a few years in the 90s.

they then completely imploded before they got a chance to build an audience outside of canada - the singer bolted and the band didn't recover. this is the original singer, apparently performing with the band for the first time in 18 years. so, it's something special for us old 90s canucks.

here is a full set from earlier in the month:

i walked out of this concert completely fried due to minimal sleep, overexposure to my ears (remember: i saw swans on tuesday, too), alcohol, nicotine and the other one that's still a few months away from open mention. so, i'm not done sleeping yet. but there was an experience near the end of the show that i want to say something about. it was one of those really surreal moments of racism that you just can't do much about besides point out loudly and shake your head about. so, i'm going to scream about it for a few paragraphs.

i mother earth were a kind of iconic canadian band in the 90s, and they were uniting here with a singer they hadn't played with in many years. the announcer said 18 years. i'm not sure if that's literally true or not, but it's been a while. the audience was consequently full of nostalgia: an older and mostly white crowd rocking out to records released in 1993 and 1996. much drinking, yes.

now, everybody knows you're not supposed to smoke anything at all in these kinds of outdoor bank concerts. you're just supposed to shut up and drink your over-priced beer. that is, of course, the economic purpose of this event: to sell over-priced beer. but, you can't actually enforce this rule once the sun comes down a little, the least important reason being that most people in the crowd at rock concerts like this actually don't agree with bans on smoking at outdoor concerts. many of them actually even smoke. and, not just cigarettes.

the smell of marijuana is pretty normal at outdoor rock concerts. it's a part of the experience - whether you're actually inhaling, or just taking in the aroma. it wouldn't be a real festival, without it. whatever the eventual legality of the substance in canada, that smell is not going to lift from the concerts of the nation. there will simply be a trail of corrected signs "thank you for pot smoking".

the spirit of this event, combined with the nature of the audience, actually at one point near the end of the set had joints passing around amongst strangers. somebody decided everybody at the show ought to be high. or it seemed that way. they were just circling around. my nose and eyes caught multiple burning around me.

so, i will acknowledge that there were people smoking pot in the audience. see, but that's just it - *everybody* in the audience was smoking pot. no exaggeration. nine out of ten, anyways.

so, you'll imagine how absurd it was to watch security swoop in, walk past several burning joints and key in on the only black guy in eyesight - who, yes, was caught green-handed. like, they took it out of his hand. ok. drug abuse. but, they had to blatantly walk by scores of stoned white folks to do this, and then scores more as they were escorting him out. 90 out of 100 people in the immediate audience were stoned. it was being openly passed around. but, only one person in the audience was black.

i didn't stay for the literal headliner, so i don't know if they came back later for more minorities, or even for some white folk - or maybe if they just backed off and let people have a good time. but i know what i saw and how obvious it was.

i don't really have any point besides the obvious one: it's really not ok. i don't know exactly who the security personnel were (mall cops?), either, but....i guess the way i should articulate this to organizers is that i don't want to see anything like that ever again.

of course, this has nothing to do with the band. the actual show was excellent, for what it was. tight. no fuck-ups. the tracks were identifiable, but expanded upon enough to play out. i'd need at least two hands to count the number of times i saw this band in the 90s, and they were always a strong live set like that. so, i will actually have some footage coming up in the next few days of i mother earth with edwin in 2016. that's something that is actually happening. there's some teaparty footage, too.

here is the vlog for the day:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/07/14.html

prematurely publishing why (inri010)

i'm about to post inri010 which, like everything else since inri004, is a collection of mixes and masters stemming from a recording made in 1998. it's meant to be very industrial sounding. but, in 2016, it comes off as experimental hip-hop.

i've never listened to hip-hop directly. i've just never found anything that's abstract enough to catch my attention, yet coherent enough to keep it. but, i mean, i was listening to a lot of stuff in 1998 that was widely classified as industrial or idm but was often on the fringes of hip-hop: nin, autechre, smg, skinny puppy...

i just want to clarify my opinion of death grips, before this comes up. it doesn't sound like death grips. not exactly. it may be appealing to fans of that style...

it's just too macho. it's dude music. there's some basis for growth hidden in there. but, i'm never going to listen to death grips for the same reason that i'm never going to listen to limp bizkit or rage against the machine or gwar or whatever other macho dude-bro shit you want to throw around. on top of pushing the abrasive macho aesthetic, there's also an incredible lack of subtlety to balance it out. i "get" that criticizing death grips for a lack of subtlety is like criticizing a lioness for refusing to be ladylike. it's just not what it is. but, just about the only way i'm going to get into somebody beating their chest for an hour is if there is some layer of subtlety. a decent example of that is ministry, during their peak period. it was when they dropped the subtlety that they got boring.

about the only major rapper that i've been able to get a little into is ice cube, as he has a bit of a punk rock streak. by that, what i mean is that he has a tendency towards the surreal aspects of cynical political analysis. it's not every song....

what i'm getting at is that i understand that this is going to be easily misunderstood. but, let's take a step back first.

thinking through why (inri010)

ok, this is only the very start of this release. it's the raw vocal and instrumental mixes; it may not even be the final vocal mix.

i'm going to need to splice an album mix, which means doing some work on the big machine. and, i'm going to stop to get some toast first...

what i'm look at right now is likely:

1) vocal mix
2) album mix
3) inriclaimed mix
4) wtf mix (from inrimixed) -followed by thirty seconds of silence

5) 2013 remaster of 98 version
6) one of the 98 mixes. i have the full mix, which includes my dad getting my dog to howl (i don't know, don't ask...) and a really noisy bathroom fan. the cd and mp3 mixes are the same as each other, but different to this.

bonus mixes:
7) 2013 remix of 96 demo
8) one of the other 98 mixes.
9) original 96 sequence

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/why

i decided against the play. it's this thing called "mr. burns", some kind of musical about people bonding around the simpsons after the apocalypse and then the process taking a life of it's own. i like the premise. but, i....i find the medium to usually be kind of childish: adults prancing around in masks, singing off key to poorly composed music.

it would just be very hard to put a play together that would live up to my standards.

instead, i have continued the close/review process. i want a single for think, but i need to attach it to it's noise component, which pushes it back to the end of may. likewise, a single for wish could not exist until the end of may, either. that means that the new inri010 is for the track why. i'm currently putting this together. it should be finalized today or tomorrow.

this track has a vocal version that i'd like published, which puts it in the same category as the previous singles with vocal tracks. this category had been rejected the first time through, or at least until the very end. there's also a glitch mix and some various stuff from 96 and 98.

the track is actually one of my favourites from the early period. it works on the level of political satire, on the level of industrial/no-wave dance/noise punk, on the level of guitar music and also on the level of hip-hop - which was unintended at the time. i just always listened to art rock. where's the art rock equivalent style of hip-hop? if it's out there, i never found it. but i've always dabbled around it's idm and industrial fringes, too.

anyways, the ep is currently being condensed. it's 9 tracks right now. i should be able to get that down to 5 or 6. i'll post when it's ready.

1:50. i'd rather something other than a fucking elf, but it's good to go.

this is absurdly racist.

deathtokoalas
i've been saying for a while that trump = gadget.

it's like gta.

but, what i'm looking for is a screen shot of those swirly eyes that comes up whenever somebody gets under mind control. point me to the right episode, if you can?

Cheyenne Cook
I think you are thinking of episode 10...A Star Is Lost where Claw wants to use superstar Rick Rocker to make a record that can control minds

deathtokoalas
naw, that's not the one. but i found the screen shot i wanted in a christmas special, where they brainwashed the elves.

good morning. afternoon. evening and goodnight?

i've got the cover art for inri009 up, along with the link to the physical disc. in the process, i added a hidden track to inri007. so, i have three tracks now with inricycled b fragments - 006, 007, 009 - and they all show up as hidden tracks on the disc. that's a pattern. you'll notice these patterns, if you'd like to.

that closes everything up to the end of march, 1998 and i can't for a moment think of anything else i'd like to add to any of these releases, except the eventual liner notes at the twenty year final close point.

i'd like to see a play tonight. but, i'll be making choices about the remaining april tracks. i'm leaning towards the maximal exploration at this point.

i need to eat and then formally close inri009 over the vlog. so, this may be the last post until tommorow.

refinalizing confused (inri007)

hidden track added to inri007. audio permanently closed.

===

so, how exactly does one go about being transgendered, anyways? i mean, like anything else, i guess you have to come to terms with it, first. then, what?

it was the "what next?" part that took me a very long time to grapple with before i was able to come to some kind of course of action. i don't remember exactly how old i was when i realized that i was more like a girl than a boy, but i will state that my thought process was always that i was like a girl, rather than that i was a girl. i have to be blunt: i was a precocious child. i understood the biology of sexual organs at a pretty young age. i knew which organ i had, that it was the same as the one my dad had and that it was different than my mom. i never felt as though i was in the wrong body - that's not how i'd articulate it. i knew i was male. but, all my friends were girls. i preferred to do "girl things". so, i realized at a very, very young age that i was more similar to the girls in my life than to the boys, despite being well aware that i was genetically a boy. it functioned more on the level of social inclusion and conscious choice of gender role than it did on the level of anything biological. am i really that atypical? i don't know. but, i know that i never had any difficulty at all, whatsoever, in separating between sex, gender and gender roles. so, for example: i have very early memories of asking my mom to let me wear lipstick, and of asking to get my ears pierced (3,4 years old) but i don't attach those memories to feelings of gender dysphoria. i didn't see any reason why boys couldn't wear make-up. further, nobody really "corrected" me on it. so, i grew up without any shame or second thoughts attached to being a boy that was more like a girl, and consequently without any particularly strong urges to become a girl. my very early life actually finds it's best explanation in the theories of radical feminism: because the gender binary was never enforced on me, i never felt oppressed by it. i have to argue for a very healthy early upbringing.

what screwed me up and set me back a good ten years was the school system. when i got there at the age of four and a half, i wouldn't talk to the boys. i wanted to skip rope and play hopscotch with the girls. well, all my friends were girls. i didn't know how to play with the boys. what's a marble? i just didn't know. i got stuck with a fossil of a kindergarten teacher that actually flat out banned me from skipping rope. worse, she banned me from reading books. my absolutely docile and clinically rational temperament at that age probably worked against me. but, i had two choices: i could play with the trucks with the boys in the corner or i could go to sleep.

in fact, i slept a lot.

but, gradually, the system socialized me as a male. or, at least it seemed like it did.

my path through elementary school didn't really ease up on the gender segregation until the seventh grade, at which point it was essentially too late. the system had successfully prevented me from socializing with girls, but had never taught me how to socialize with boys. so, i had spent the last twelve years of school in social isolation, usually without any friends at all. i'd lost the opportunity to have all the gendered experiences one associates with childhood - which means i was deeply socially stunted. i was still pretty smart, academically speaking. however, i was operating at the social level of a much younger child because the school system had arrested my social development through segregating me into a gender role that i didn't understand how to fulfill.

by the time i got around to writing this song at the age of 16, i'd just become entirely stoic about the whole thing. i knew i was more like a girl, but what exactly was i going to do about it? i guess i had the perspective, at 16, that life was largely about managing misfortune and you just have to deal with shit, whether you like it or not.

rational? perhaps, from a certain perspective. it gnawed at me, though. the trauma underlying the track was the realization that i was a good part of the way through puberty, without ever having signed up for it. this was by no means unexpected, either, and i didn't ultimately feel that i had any recourse of action in preventing it. but, i felt like i'd been cheated out of something and was being forced into something i didn't remotely want.

as with the rest of the early tracks, the lyrics here are at their core the exploration of a morbid fantasy. i'm taking things too far, i'm taking any excuse i can to keep taking things too far and i'm enjoying watching you squirm when i do it. in one sense, it's a sarcastic allegory on the question of thinking with one's cock, which is a bio-chemical problem that all testosterone producers are forced to come to terms with at some point. in another sense, it's a transgendered teenager carrying out a sort of morbid fantasy and desperately looking for a way to prevent the masculinization of my body.

it took me another five years or so of internal struggle before i could get to the point where i saw hormone therapy as a realistic option, rather than a kind of utopian fantasy that would be perpetually out of reach until i finally expired.

this is the only period 1 piece that was further expanded through the addition of some bass and piano sequencing near the start of the piece. the vocals were also brought back in without redaction. so, this ep starts off with a full reconstruction of the piece that is only available on this single. the ep further comprehensively documents all other released versions of the track.
    
initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. sequenced on jan 6-8, 2016. finalized on july 10, 2016. hidden track added and refinalized on july 21, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, synthesizers, drum programming, drum kit, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production

released february 6, 1998

20-07-2016: clean-up on inri005 and inri009

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/skaters
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-did-your-mom-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

naw. i'm done. i got something done today, anyways.

tomorrow, i'll need to be focusing on the string of tracks completed in march, april and may of 1998. i could push through quickly or add several releases. we'll find out...

no. that ep is closed. let's get the cover art done.

i'm on a second wind. wide awake.