Welcome to the Internet home of Codename: Black Rock and (for now) the temporary residence of the Van Helsing Corporation. In our continuing quest to provide the consumers of the world with the finest in all things, in addition to our desire to continue to put ourselves into the consciousness of as many people as possible (thus giving us maximum exposure and market penetration), we are proud to present the people of the world with this excellent, high-quality musical endeavour.
Codename: Black Rock is not simply a band that joined together in the hopes of their sounds being heard; not at all! In fact, Codename: Black Rock is a marketing director's dream. You see, the tracks you have heard and the web site you are reading have been in the works for quite some time-- it's not easy making people happy!
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For years, the Marketing Division of the Van Helsing Corporation has been trying to figure out how to slide our name and products into the minds of all consumers everywhere, particularly the vibrant and spend-happy 18-24 crowd. While it hasn't been easy, all of our hard work is starting to pay off: you're here, aren't you? What our Marketing Division discovered was fascinating indeed: some of the most popular music among males aged 18-24, worldwide, is extremely aggressive in tone! Hard to believe, but the first album by Atari Teenage Riot (a seemingly politically-motivated group whose founder Alec Empire is often noted synonymously with the style of music referred to as "digital hardcore") actually sold more copies in the United States than Weezer's Pinkerton and Saint Etienne's Good Humour combined! In addition, one need look no farther than your MTV station to see that aggressive music dominates the airwaves: Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and countless metal bands are more popular than ever! It only made sense to us that what we needed to do was out-aggress the most aggressive sounds out there. |
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Plans begun to start recording and promoting a super-aggressive group that would literally destroy the speakers of all those metal-lovers out there, resulting in increased revenue for us and our sister corporations who create stereo gear. The sounds would have to be extremely loud: all those MTV metal bands have started to get pretty heavy! The only way to compete is through complete overload- tracks recorded so loudly they must be turned down to at least 2 or 3 in order to retain hearing and prevent damage to playback equipment.
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Furthermore, the attention span of the average media consumer has dropped drastically from even just five years ago. Where once the epic length of Metallica's "One" was fine for radio programmers, it has become more and more difficult to keep the attention of listeners world-wide. The sound of the project was already set; the length of the tracks was restricted so that no track was to exceed 71 seconds (a strange threshold discovered by Van Helsing Corporation's Research Division). All that remained was to build an image. The sounds and imagery of the "digital hardcore" movement seemed ideal to our purposes: lots of exclamation points, shouting and vaguely thought-out political stances have proven to be most effective in the marketing of digital hardcore artists worldwide. However, not wanting to limit the commercial potential of our new musical product line, we decided to add another element that has become increasingly popular in the last few years: the supernatural. |
Further research showed us that films and television entertainment dealing with the supernatural were more popular than ever. In addition, extensive research in underground establishments such as Hot Topic and other "alternative" gathering places proved that the growth of the "Goth" scene had resulted in a demographic too large to leave ignored. These people, preoccupied with black clothing, dark makeup, death, and vampires seemed to be the next big audience, and the Van Helsing Corporation wasn't about to miss out!
So, our Development Staff brainstormed and came up with the perfect solution: the bizarre, seemingly random anarchist politics of Atari Teenage Riot, Disrupt, and their like-minded kin would be combined with the paranoia presented by supernatural entertainments, fear of high technology, tons of exclamation points and typographical/grammatical errors, and a vague mission to kill vampires who did not fall in with the band's own vampiric political agenda (whatever that may be). Our project planning phase was complete.
Now, we pass the entertainment on to you, the consumer. The sounds and imagery presented by Codename: Black Rock and the Van Helsing Corporation have been painstakingly researched to provide you with the maximum possible entertainment and purchase attraction. We have no doubt that in time, Codename: Black Rock will be the most popular form of musical diversion on the planet. Thank you for your time, and please feel free to drop us a line at [email protected]. A representative will respond to your comments and/or queries as quickly as possible.
