Robert Inhuman and
Mavis Concave interview with Kevin (Green Bay WI) for Deaf Culture 05/09/06
http://www.youbettershutupandlisten.com/lead/?p=146
REALICIDE:
PUNK'S NOT PUNK!
By
Kevin Failure
Hardcore.
The word seems simple enough, but it means different things to different
people. For most of us it simply refers to the stripped down, barebones style
of punk music that rid itself of rock 'n roll's past and blew the minds and
speakers of white kids across America during the early 80's. Many don't realize
the term has been used by people taking a similar approach to hip-hop and
electronic musics for what's approaching twenty years now.
A
friend of Robert's approached me at one point in the night and asked what my
impression of him was. He nodded at my response and said "the guy is like
a bullet, he cuts through all the bullshit" referring to his hard gaze and
matter of fact manner of communication. Every sentence out of his mouth felt
like a statement. All cold facts. No filler.
Realicide,
live, felt like a sonic expression of that same stoic brutality. Pummeling
gabber kicks at speeds that'd make Discordance Axis jealous. Crushing
industrial noise that makes Merzbow sound flat and empty. Throat ripping
screams. All punctuated by the odd hardcore punk or hip-hop sample. It all made
for a completely overwhelming aural assault. It renewed my faith in a lot of
things that had been treading on shaky ground for quite a long time.
Contemporary
hardcore. How much more to the point can you get?
Kevin: Tell me a bit about the concept of
contemporary hardcore.
Robert: Contemporary hardcore
is just what I’d like to think are the more useful aspects of hardcore culture
(and music) executed currently and without dismissing the potential of new
technology, definitions, and methods in expressive media. We are currently
rehearsing a Black Flag cover with drum/sampling machines and vocal references
to grind and noise. Black Flag’s message is just as timeless as it always has
been but to stay relevant language often needs to evolve; same ideas but new
media. Also a consistent thread throughout our work is the very blatant
pointing-out of parallels between “hardcore” cultures, be it guitar/drums rock
bands, gabber producers, harsh noise artists, etc. else…
You guys seem to tour constantly, and release
your music either on cassette or for free. What are your feelings on mp3
technology and how do you feel it effects underground music?
Robert: In many ways mp3
technology is very much underground
music at this point and this entails the good, bad, and ugly of course. The CDR
and mp3 are cheaper and more omnipresent than any previous DIY medium. Pressing
a 7” seems very expensive in comparison. Duplicating tapes seems infinitely
more laborious at times. CDR and mp3 media means more and faster. For a
propaganda group this is awesome because the music is simply a vessel for
endorsing or protesting something. And for the 14 year old kid who will grow to
the 30-something year old adult with very little development of ambition or
intent it is unfortunately a huge crutch and means to maintain low standards.
I don’t have a lot of money, period. But CDR’s
can be merely cents a piece, I know how to scam for free xeroxes, and I know
how to screenprint. My publications are humble but not lazy, the media itself
is a big part of the message in most cases. “Yes, it is very easy to release
recordings these days, but DIY methods are still something to take pride in,
something that can influence just like lyrics or graphics.” And as far as I’m
concerned, with a positive intent and hunger for progression, the larger the
edition the better. Within reason of course; then again that goes back to the
mp3, an infinite edition and the closest stab at immortality a recording has to
date.
Mavis: If it weren't for
online file-sharing servers such as Soulseek, I wouldn't have found out about
some of my primary influences in noise, hardcore techno, and other punk-ethic
based genres of music. Websites with MP3 uploading capabilities for D.I.Y.
artists offer a network to link themselves to the rest of the world. Sounclick,
Myspace, PureVolume, and more are free promotion in this digital age where most
of the youth audience live on the internet as if it were their actual home. MP3
technology has the ability to expose people to music they would have never
given a chance if they had to pay for it. It has the ability to inspire and
influence artists to move outside of their comfort zone. Try something new, put
it online, promote it, no money lost on putting out a record that maybe nobody
will buy cus it completely sucks. But at least an attempt to progress was made
and hopefully the artist tries again and again and again. If an artist is
putting out a record, MP3s are a good way to offer samples of new work, past
work, and work in progress.
You often sample yourselves in your songs, how important
is the philosophy behind your music to the music itself?
Robert: Ideally philosophy is
all that ought matter, but that is pretty stupid when injected into the actual
world. The goal is a balance between philosophy and musicality, or I could also
say between valuable communication and entertainment. If a project leans too
far into conceptual it will inevitably alienate the public, and if it falls
into purely the pursuit of fun it will encourage sloth and weak-mindedness. The
skill of creating music that provokes and stimulates change in people while
remains really fun to listen to is an amazing skill I would like to become much
better at. This doesn’t necessarily mean I’d like to end up a master of pop
while blowing minds with earth-smashing concepts, but it would be great to
learn a balance similar to groups like Crass or Wu Tang.
As for sampling ourselves, it is a very
necessary tradition in order to remind ourselves we are not exempt from the
copyright/originality armageddon of the twentieth century, no one is. Stealing,
in art, is one of the most relevant ways to speak about yourself and your
perspective on the world. This is the almighty conclusion of the twentieth
century.
You seem to have crafted a very specific
aesthetic that draws a lot from underground American hardcore. What is your
musical background and what inspired the path you've set for yourselves?
Robert: I have no academic
musical background and haven’t really noticed very much natural talent in
myself as a musician, but I began experimenting and playing with taperecorders
when I was in high school. When I started using my voice on a 4-track I
realized I wasn’t really “gifted” as a “singer” or anything, but I knew I
wanted to use my voice to tell people about myself and that music is
traditionally a reliable sugar-coating to wrap this voice in. My drive and
determination to be a vocalist has over the years forced me to make due with
what I have, through faith that an emotional intensity can compensate and
surpass for a limited physical capacity or lack of formal training. That is
again punk ethics; use what you have, don’t be impaired by what you don’t have.
Limits demand innovation.
Jim Thirlwell’s Foetus albums in the 80’s are
one of the best examples of music that inspired my work and direction; one of
those guys who is working alone with very limited resources and creates these
maniacal beastly layered songs, pouring everything in himself into his creative
process.
Later, when I was like 20 or 21, I finally found
the value and appeal of hardcore, for it’s raw and liberating qualities, not
the dogma and insecurity it is commonly associated with. Hardcore is a lot like
church, and like any supreme religious doctrine it will be corrupted and
misrepresented immediately by humanity. This doesn’t discredit the doctrine, it
just reminds me that humanity fails. Anyway, the similarities to religious
practices yet with enough malleability and open-endedness for me to work with,
that’s why I gravitated towards hardcore. In that sense I guess you could see
the Realicide project as a form of cult, and I assure you we are charged with
heresy quite often by numerous people active in the hardcore scene, both by
punks and ravers.
Mavis: I come from an educated
musical background. I played classical trumpet for approximately 9 years,
studied music theory, orchestration, and composition for approximately 5 years,
and studied jazz bass and performance for a year. However, over the past two
years of my life, I have been doing my absolute best to wipe my mind clean of
most of what I've been taught in those areas.
For example, I can no longer read music on paper
aside from rythmic patterns which I use when programming drum machines and
sequencers. This is completely by choice. The dissection of music through
formulas and catagories and rules, "you can't modulate to this chord
without first resolving to this chord through this cadence..." shit like
that became less meaningful day by day after I was introduced to noise in late
2003. It became obsolete to me when I started performing noisey sets in late
2004. I am in no way against tonal music, melody, harmony, etc. In fact my
current solo work is moving back in that direction after my last year and a
half of drum-machine-gun/noise performances. The difference between my tonal
music now and my tonal music up until 2004 is today I am no longer burdened
with the knowledge that was intended to assist me in my compositions but ended
up greatly detracting from their quality. And my non-tonal music is not an oppositional
force to my tonal music now that they are created with the same mindset. Before
I decided to let music theory go, I would use noisey elements such as mic
feedback or banging on a piano to ruin tonal compositions I had written. By the
mid-to-end of 2004, I was using those same elements to enhance my tonal
compositions.
What role do you believe politics play in
music? Is the way you play music and the music that you play as an individual
inherently a political statement?
Robert: Well ok first I will go
over and re-check the definition of “politics” in my dictionary… it says “art
and science of government, public life and affairs, activities concerned with
seeking power.” I’d be an idiot to say music isn’t political. Everything is;
everything we do is an endorsement or protest according to how we want to live
or what we think is the right thing. Politics are like air or sound waves;
omnipresent although not always acknowledged or don’t always have to be. I
breathe air all the time but don’t need to talk about it every waking hour of
my day, and to be equally verbal and mundane with political issues can often
suck too. There should be a balance (again) of awareness with free fun action.
Don’t be swamped and pigeon-holed by subjects you detest; don’t be tricked into
becoming what you hate, an alienating and oblivious-to-reality monster like
many government officials.
Politics: art and science of government. In this
definition I would choose to opt “apolitical”, to drop out because I do not
believe in the human capacity to solve the larger problems we so extensively
get ourselves into, my humanity is an anti-solution and surrender to an
alternative perspective outside my own, although so much easier said than done.
Politics: public life and affairs. Excluding
overlap with the first definition, this is really important to me. Why are we
supposed to be so afraid of each other? Why am I not supposed to look a
stranger in the eye when we pass on the street? Why is the world so
neurotically passive-aggressive… I’d like to address these things in bands I’m
involved with.
Politics: activities concerned with seeking
power. Very very important. To the people who are after power over me and my
peers, power over eachother, this music needs to be a total “fuck you.” And to
the people scraping to take control of their own lives, to find a foothold and
change things to become who they really want to be, we need to push them and
lift them up as much as we can.
In your travels touring the country, have there
been certain people or places that you've felt inspired by?
Robert: Yes, although I’ve
learned not to really envy other cities as much because things don’t vary that
much in many ways.
How do you balance the symptoms of survival
like work as an obvious example and your path as musicians?
Robert: Sometimes I enjoy
having a job because it can be downtime during periods where my creative and social
life is overwhelming and too hectic. I wrote all my lyrics and designed all
flyers and record sleeves while I was a security guard for a while. Other times
I’m working when I really don’t want to; I constantly remind myself it is
temporary and keep my focus on moving past the period where I have to work the
job, dedicating as little mental energy to the job as I am able. This summer I
am technically unemployed. It is the first time I have decided to experiment
with actively staying away from jobs and focusing on my real work for as long
as I can. I am cutting lawns with a friend once in a while for rent money,
otherwise I am trying to find distribution for records and books.
How important do you feel passion is in
relation to skill or technical ability in creating art?
Robert: Passion is mandatory,
skill is an optional tool. That’s about it, but I can include a segment of this
essay I wrote spring 2005 which addresses the mystique of skill…
“Skills, more often than not, distract and
mislead away from any true importance. Skillful art is often done to pass large
amounts of time in a feeble life thirsty for glory as a default sense of worth
and purpose. Skillful art is a standard and a precedent with an absurd
tradition to deceive and fall into vagueness through illusion – fuzzy and faint
creating a mystique assumed to be brilliant and superior. Illusionary crafts
are preferred largely because they are a set of rules which make it easy to say
who is great and who sucks – simply at face value. They distract for such a
time that there is none left to look past and evaluate content beyond aesthetic
mastery (thanks, college). Art and music that serves to instill a vaporous vibe
or atmosphere is usually, in a sense, cowardly and uncertain, implying that the
artists rock so hard that they could say something more direct and legible but
that would be beneath them; too easy and silly of course. Bullshit – I wonder
how many people can look me in the eye and tell me anything at all. I fucking
wonder about that. Lives whittled away through a hypothetical worth only – the
possibility of message and substance – but you know dawg possibilities can suck
it – we’re gonna die and soon – so get to the point.”
Mavis: Even the most
talentless, unskilled, ignorant artist will develop all of these things if they
are truly passionate and consistantly active in what they are doing. Passion
for one's own art breeds original style, skills, technical abilities over time.
Although your aesthetic is rooted firmly in
punk, you incorporate elements from other underground cultures. What other
cultures inspire and influence you, and how do you make these influences your
own?
Robert: Basically anything that
can be paralleled to punk has an appeal and potentially useful influence to me.
Noise should be pretty obvious, the most sensible evolution of punk music, but
also grindcore (not metal as far as I’m concerned), gabber and other forms of
raw aggressive rave music, and of course hiphop and rap that has firm
allegiance to street life or at least real
life. These are all genres that encourage inexperienced and unschooled
individuals to try their hand at using music as an expressive and truthful
medium.
Sometimes the influence is presented very
directly. For example, I have been using select lyrics by The Screamers and
other bands for years now and though they originated as covers or tributes,
gradually they become my own through their mutation and adaptation to our
progressing style as a band. I splice appropriated lyrics with my own, I change
the way the lyrics are accented or repeated. It is very parallel to the
sampling process I use when sequencing electronic music.
Rave culture is a good example of adapting an
entire cultural phenomena to our own way of curating events. We liked the idea
of a rave, the music instills such an unstoppable energetic feeling, it can be
an extremely inspirational experience. We liked the ideal of an event in which
the music is generated by an anonymous individual, like a DJ who is not in the
spotlight and the attention of the audience is on itself instead, making the
event the actions of everyone present and not one band or person. The pitfalls
of rave culture are mostly all too apparent, many are cliché. We are not
generally interested in drugs. We aren’t against them, but we don’t really talk
about drugs or recommend them generally. So “heinous rave” is not drug-based,
it is actually about the music and natural adrenaline. This makes the event
even more terrifying to many traditional ravers who insist that it is
impossible to tolerate gabber and speedcore without the aid of drugs. It’s
hilarious. Then they want to know when the DJ’s are coming on. There aren’t any
and when the “heinous rave” segment of the event is underway (usually after a
few bands play and video gear is set up) we often just play our own tracks off
a computer by the soundboard. Nobody is looking over at the soundboard, or
finding some DJ veteran to hover over and worship for picking out the same
mundane joke records they’ve heard time and time again. The kids that come to
Heinous Rave are busy dancing, swinging off the ceiling beams, watching video
feedback being scrambled, and yelling into microphones set around the room for
spontaneous (and shrill) MC’ing. When they leave they don’t thank Realicide
crew for being the sickest DJ’s that no one can beat, that is just the same as
the rockstar shit I thought raving was a refuge from, the kids thank us for
arranging the event as a whole, for taking the initiative to get everyone
together for a really memorable collaboration. Heinous Rave is a means of
reclaiming rave culture, the same way as a band we infiltrate and jostle the
punk rock community.