Friday, May 30, 2003 4:19 PM | Matthew Jeanes Do artists have a social responsibility to create art that will not diminish culture? There is always a squabbling debate between the conservative factions that believe that violence and sensationalism in entertainment generates more of the same in the real world, and the creative liberal types who hide behind the banner of freedom of speech to defend any and every expression regardless of its content. This debate collapses into name-calling and political jockeying where pundits on each side grease up their well-oiled public relation engines and race to win the pulse of public consciousness. We can all agree that entertainment objects like films and albums have a impact on behavior, even if we only admit that such expressions may serve only as reinforcement for behavior patterns that are already established. This is the classic projector/reflector dichotmy: are cultural artifacts like movies and television programs a projector of the prevailing moral stand of a society; do they direct and so influence audiences that they push the collective into a particular direction? Or are such artifacts merely a reflector of the prevailing attitudes and mores of the society at large; a socio-cultural barometer if you will, of standards and practices that govern a society at any one point in time? I tend to think that the answer is not that works of art and entertainment and the media at large are one or the other of these, but that they serve both roles in a cyclical feedback loop of listening, reacting, projecting, and affecting. After all, in a free society, the people really do rule, and they rule by the choices that they make. Collectively, the people have spoken, and they have chosen Justin and Kelly, Clay and Reuben, Daddy Day Care and Charlie's Angels, WWE and The Real Cancun, 50Cent and the abominable Bennifer. If our society is undereducated, politically apathetic, morally corrupt, and culturally bankrupt, we have only ourselves and our own hedonistic urges to blame. There is no collaborative effort of filmmakers, rappers, artists, and magazine editors to force things like the Bennifer upon us: we choose it freely. In fact, in growing numbers, we seek it out, we crave it, and we stalk it. But there is a question in here somewhere that is not being asked. Trying to prove the causal connection between Ozzy Osborne's lyrics and a pair of maladjusted teens shooting themselves in the head, or between KMFDM and kids who take Uzi's into their high school cafeteria, or between The Matrix and delusional murderers is utterly futile. For those who try to make such a case, the result at best is the conclusion that the film, song, or book in question played some role in a derranged person's violent actions against others. And these movies, songs, plays, and photographs are such easy targets because they provoke; they push buttons and sometimes appeal to a fringe minority who live life on the darker (albeit still LEGAL) side of the American Family Value Spectrum. The question I want answered though, is not what responsibility do artists have to make sure that their works of art, literature, etc. are not used for evil. These objects are not like bullets and bombs- they cannot harm simply by existing and they are not designed with a purpose to destroy by those trained to improve kill ratios. In fact, there is no more abused and misused piece of literature in the world than the Bible- a book in whose name countless thousands of murders, wars, executions, rapes, and hate crimes have been committed. If we are to believe that a cultural object and its creators should be halted before harm can be done in their name, then we should have stopped printing Bibles centuries ago. No, instead, the question I want answered has not to do with the misguided misinterpretations of a few, but with the greater damage done to our cultural heritage as human beings when we allow Survivor:The Amazon, American Idol, and Pet Stars to rule our lives. What responsibility do the creative (and I use that world loosely) minds behind such works as The Real Cancun, The American Idol Movie, and Coca-Cola advertisements have to society at large to keep our collective cultural identity from sinking into the earth? While Girls Gone Wild may not have led anyone to murder (yet), it's impact on the notion of healthy gender roles amongst teens and college-aged people seems to be part of a dramaticly declining trend towards the abasement of women. Playboy is cool now, has anyone noticed? Apparently the freedom to view porn in the privacy of your own computer room has left many asking the publc question "what's so wrong with Playboy?" In fact, that question isn't even asked anymore, it's rather assumed that there is nothing wrong with porn- so much so that porn stars are now hocking shoes and soda. The Man Show, The Bachelor, and the 6 o'clock news are all to blame for dumbing down the information our tired, hungry, but ultimately easily satisfied minds desire. When was the last time you went to an art gallery? How about a poetry reading? The last time you wrote someone a letter without using a blinking cursor to make the words? When was the last time you saw a movie and it made you think, or you heard a song and it made you feel something other than an instinctual urge to 'get busy'? You see, I think the greatest evil perpetrated by the entertainment/infotainment industry is not the gratuitous sex, violence, and lack of moral character in the content being produced. I see the greatest evil as the near obliteration of any cultural objects that we as a human race would be proud to unearth in a time capsule some 100 years from now. Just imagine, people will be digging and they will vfind a DVD copy of Bruce Almighty, a 50Cent dis CD produced by the Neptunes, and Teen People magazine with tips on how to be cool enough to get the cute boys to notice you. But mostly, what future generations will dig up will be our empty, lifeless bodies and they will blame us for standing in line to see Scary Movie 3 instead of planting a tree, reading a book, or learning something about the way Nike increases profits. If anyone was outraged at The Matrix and the way it inspired people to be killers, they need only fast forward to the last frames of the original film when the Rage Against The Machine track roars up with "WAKE UP". Wake up indeed. 11:53 AM | Matthew Jeanes The Disposable Heros of Hiphoprisy were able to accomplish a tremendous amount in a small amount of time. I can't say I've been as excited about Michael Franti's Spearhead project as I was about the Disposable Heros and Beatnigs work, but there are moments on that Disposable full length that are just amazing. Of course, it helped to have Pistel and Jack Dangers working on the record, but some of the brilliance came from the palyers themselves. The metal percussion is so seamlessly worked into the mix, the songs all had hooks, and the lyrics were head and shoulders above most of their contemporaries. There's a line in "Music and Politics" that I often go back to: "I can express more emotions than laughter, anger, and let's fuck." That line says so much about the music I am trying to make now, and the obstacles to getting people to understand what Larvae songs are about. There is more to the potential pallette of sounds and ideas than "GRRRRR, I'm angry," and we often approach things with a bit more nuance. But often, nuance is perceived as "This isn't hard enough," or "This is not as violent sounding as that." Personally, I could give a shit because making music is not a pissing contest and we are not creating sounds and songs to out-pummel the other guys out there. We are never going to out-Venetian the Snares, out-Scorn the Harris, out-Aphex the Twin, etc. It's not about that. Miles once said something interesting to me when I told him I thought a song of his had a strangely abrupt ending. He said something like "It ends the way I wanted it to end." and that was great because it made me think not about how I thought he should have made the song, but about how he did make it. Wednesday, May 28, 2003 3:37 PM | Matthew Jeanes Why do so many people making electronic music act the same? For that matter, why do so many people act the same? I wish I had more free time, because I'd like to do a content analysis on appearances of Avril Levigne in Rolling Stone over the last year. We get Rolling Stone because its free or something, and its always interesting to see the very popular, public point of view about music expressed as it is in Rolling Stone. Other magazines that are perhaps equally commercial and 'above ground' like Spin are actually so wrapped up in their need to appeal to their narrowly targeted demographic, that they can't even give a straight page to discussion of people like Bob Dylan or the Beatles. RS seems to be a little less skewed, but it's still awfully manipulated and constructed to yield album sales. After I finish my Rolling Stone content analysis, I'd like to complete a comparitive study of review ratings and ad space as they appear in Outburn. Has anyone else noticed that the median score for an album review in Outburn is around 7.5 out of 10? Outburn is smaller, but the same as anyone else. Actually, maybe they are more open about their 'pay to play' sort of business plan. Does the openness make them less evil? Friday, May 23, 2003 12:50 PM | Matthew Jeanes I've recently gotten more music in the mail than I have time to listen to. The new Tape/Opera was a welcome surprise, and the new releases from Ad Noiseam are terrific. Too much good new stuff that I wish I had more time to enjoy. Of course getting music in the mail is the only way to get the things I'm interested in here in Atlanta, but that's a rant that has burned out by now. No one is listening. We have parts of a Displacer remix to work on that I'd really like to get to now that the other remix is done, but I think we need to focus on finishing our own material first. There's also a project with Horchata that got off to a great start just before we started working on our album, so I hope to get back to those sounds soon. All of this opportunity sometimes generates decision apathy, where I have too many projects that I want to work on and I can't decide which to start so I just sit and stare at the computer. Thursday, May 22, 2003 11:56 PM | Matthew Jeanes Finished mixing down a couple tracks at Zero Return on Monday. It was our first time in a real studio since I can't remember when, and the session went pretty well. Zero Return is an aggressively analog studio, and proud of it. I figured this would be a good place to mix down aggressively digital music, to perhaps bring something to our mixes that isn't usually there. Rob, the engineer/owner plays bass in Man or Astroman? and knows his way around the room, so that made things go pretty smoothly. We mixed down the Dalek remix I've been working on for several weeks and a track called 'Dither' that may or may not make it onto our album. Actually, depending on what Dalek thinks of the mix we are turning in for them, who knows, maybe neither of these tracks will ever see the real light of day, but I think we got a solid mix out of Zero Return and we'll probably go there to mix the rest of the new record there. I have no idea what it will be called yet. I'm very stuck on my aversion to fashion at the moment, so that will certainly play a part at least in some of the songs. 10:18 PM | Matthew Jeanes Thoughts updated sporadically from the source. More is coming, I promise.

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