Bono, Free Music

In case you haven't heard the news, there's a new U2 album out there. 

After starting and restarting the project over and over for about 5 years while in search for a sponsor who would or could take on the enormous task of providing a band like U2 with the humongous promotion it thinks it deserves, the charismatic Irish men have finally released the follow-up to 2009's bland No Line on the Horizon hand in hand with the almighty(?) Apple - their long-time corporate spouse.

*never forget*

Of course, we are living in the digital age, and there's no way an album release (especially a U2 album) could possibly generate any interest among the audience unless it was accompanied by some sort of super spectacular media stunt. In this case, that stunt came in the shape of Apple's brilliant idea of giving the album away for free to every iTunes subscriber (independently of whether they actually wanted it or not) coinciding with the release of their brand new iPhone 6 (damn, I used iTunes once, so I probably have a copy waiting for me somewhere. What a horrifying prospect. I won't even take the chance to find out :S LOL).

This move, once again, spurred the inevitable debate about whether it's morally acceptable to give music away for free and about what a self-important cunt Bono is (that's one very necessary issue to debate, if you ask me). I won't even bother to comment on the subject of music for free, because it's old as Hell, and debating it is extremely pointless, since the consolidated music industry has skillfully developed all the mechanisms to prevent musicians from seeing any money at all anyway.

Just keep in mind the idea that, if you come across a guy busking in the street and decide to give him two dollars, he'll be making a much larger profit per minute of work than he would with a major lablel release. Not bad, heh? That thought popped in my head once after I tipped a guitar guy who was playing Roadhouse Blues in the subway.

Nobody robs musicians as much as record labels do. But, hey... who said U2 were musicians anyway?

Jimmy Iovine - saving the music since 1990

And, then again, you can't really say you're giving music away for free when Apple is playing you $100 million for it, can you? Of course, this is Apple telling the world how big their corporate dick is, so I have absolutely no reason to believe they really paid 100 million dollars for this album, just like I have absolutely no reason to believe that they actually did pay $3 billion for Beats by Dre and their joke of a streaming service.

The whole thing looks like a page pulled from the book of Jay-Z's infamous Samsung deal - another disturbing (and not too successful) attempt at marrying album releases and totalitarian technology. In his case, Samsung offered a million copies of his Corte de Manga, Holy Shit Magna Carta, Holy Grail album for free to Samsung users through and app that, they would later find out, didn't really work - a malfunction that turned the album's glorious release into a hilarious fiasco.

Nevertheless, Jay-Z claimed that the million free copies Samsung was giving away should be counted as album sales (and, therefore, grant the album platinum status before its actual release), since they weren't really given away for free - just bought in advance by the tech giant. Billboard, however, didn't agree... and, a few months later, Bill Werde's head was comfortably sitting on top of a pike. Not a great loss, if you ask me.

I'm not sure about how this aspect will work out in U2's case, but I bet I'll have a great time finding out.

I have to add that the idea of a mega-corporation paying for an album's creation sounds like something so horrifyingly unreal it could only happen in the dystopic OCP-controlled society of Robocop.

That, of course, doesn't seem to be a problem for Bono, who, just like Jay-Z, knows that somewhere out there there's a megacorporation so loaded with money, it won't even mind paying him a ridiculous amount of it for whatever reason (or, preferrably, for no reason at all). His job as a *cough* "musician" is to find that corporation and suck from its money tit till it runs dry... and then find another. It doesn't matter if it's a record label, a tech company, a fashion conglomerate or a drug cartel - who gives a shit, as long as it means more money in Bono's off-shore accounts?

#NewRules, y'all

But Bono doesn't have enough with a succcessful(?) Nazi-marketing campaign - he has to save the world (after all, he's the Rock & Roll Messiah), and, apparently, so does Apple.

And, so, it turns out that the two goodwill giants aren't just selling an iPhone - they're working on a 'secret project' to save the music industry, y'all. At least, so says this article from Spin:

"The longtime partnership between the Irish band and the tech giant has more in store for the world in the form of a "secret project" that could revolutionize the music industry and help artists get compensated for their work.

The details of the plan are relatively vague, coming to us from a preview of Time magazine's upcoming cover story on the band. "Bono tells Time he hopes that a new digital music format in the works will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music — whole albums as well as individual tracks."

A new digital music format?! REALLY?! That's it?! LMAO

*Illuminati bitch*

To me, this whole talk about 'revolutionizing' the music industry sounds a lot like the promo campaign for Troy Carter's Backplane. Remember The Backplane, kiddies? Oh, well, in case you don't know, it was the social media platform that was going to "gather content and interaction into one hub", "completely alter the economics of Hollywood" and make "revenue that once flowed to corporations" "flow to artists", and in the end turned out to be a cheap-looking fansite for Lady Gaga... like I had always said it would be.

Oh, but this is not some shitty social network - it's 'a format so exciting that it will tempt music fans into buying music again', no less.

Well, excuse my sincerity, but there's no format in the world that could possibly force people into buying the substandard crap you and the rest of the music industry are manufacturing these days... unless it's one that somehow magically replaces shitty records with better music LOL

Like Sharon Osbourne said:

"No wonder you have to give your mediocre music away for free 'cause no one wants to buy it."

I'm not sure if there are some obscure interests behind her statement or if she was just being honest (this modern world makes me paranoid), but thanks for saying it anyway.

BONOOOOOOOOO

Thirty years later, the corporations are still refusing to accept that people don't buy formats - they buy CONTENTS, and, even if you can disguise a not-so-great product behind a clever and/or aggresive marketing campaign and a nice packaging, it's a trick that only works for a limited amount of time (the rise and fall of Lady Gaga is probably the clearest example of that).

People don't buy books - they buy Harry Potter... or 50 Shades of Grey, if you like (probably because there are tons of sexually frustrated housewives out there, and because, honestly... who doesn't love a guy from Seattle? LOL). People didn't buy vinyl records in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s because they were so despearte to have a piece of black plastic in a cardboard sleeve with a picture on top; they bought them because they contained good music (or, at least, they did in a notably bigger proportion than they do nowadays), and also because music and the musicians who made it had cultural relevance and a certain ideological value - things they have completely lost now, thanks to the totalitarian practices of the corporations Bono loves so much.

The problem is not that people don't want to buy music anymore; the problem is that they don't even want to hear it for free.

Try to fix that, Apple. 

BONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

This approach of putting the format on top of the content was basically what killed the music industry in the first place.

The record labels spent a good chunk of the 90s selling ridiculously overpriced CDs with free music in them, while buying each other into the monopolistic nonsense the music industry is today, and, when the idiotized Millennial teenagers (I know them well - I had to share a classroom with them and wonder why I couldn't have been born in the 1940s or the 1960s) decided they had already bought enough Eminem and Britney Spears CDs, the execs (who, by then, had already managed to steal tons of unwatched corporate money) got all excited thinking that they would finally be able to kill the CD for good and replace it for much less costly digital downloads. 

'Sugar, Free Donuts'

After all, CDs are quite an investment: they'remade of plastic and come with a booklet you have to design and then print. You have to make the whole thing at the factory, which is quite a pain in the ass, and then you have to physically transport tons of those things to the stores (thank God we have less and less of those now), where they will just sit on a shelf gathering dust... and they won't even start making money for you until someone actually buys them. So risky.

With digital downloads, however, all you have to do is design a cheap cover artwork (judging by the album covers we've been seeing in the last couple of years, the industry is already cutting costs in that department), upload the track and there you go. There is no factory, no transport, no unsold stock - just a tiny fee you pay to iTunes or whatever provider you're using. Compare the cost of both operations and you might get a clue on why the music industry has been trying so hard to kill the CD for the last 15 years... to little, success, I have to say, since even the most ridiculously industry-driven acts are still releasing albums (despite the many times the death of the album has been announced) on outdated CDs.

'Who said cover art was dead?'

Despite their non-existent production costs, digital downloads failed to generate a consumeristic fever that could be remotely compared to that of the early stages of the CD bubble, probably because people didn't need to re-buy their catalog as digital downloads (they could just rip them from the CDs anyway) and because there was no Black Album and no Nevermind to make them feel they wanted music to be a part of their lives - just Usher and 50 Cent advertising headphones in da club.

And yet here they are in 2014 - still looking for that magical format that will make them swim in money all over again - only the record labels don't care anymore, because there isn't really anyone left in the building. It's all down to the tyrants of tech now, and the former music moguls who have been clever enough to jump from one ship to the other.

Bono definitely wants to be in that category. But, of course, he'll never tell. After all, he's not into this to make money, remember?

"The point isn't just to help U2 but less well known artists and others in the industry who can't make money, as U2 does, from live performance. 'Songwriters aren't touring people,' says Bono. 'Cole Porter wouldn't have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn't coming to a stadium near you.'"

Can you believe that?! The Irish man doesn't just care about making money for himself - he wants other musicians to make money as well! That's SO SWEET of you, dear. You must definitely be a saint.

'Hey, leave me out of this, bro'

It's really funny to hear a corporate whore like Bono talking about saving the music. It's funny to the degree it's not funny at all; just sickening beyond belief.

It's also funny how tech companies and major labels always end up sounding like they're the biggest defenders of small bands and unknown artists you could possibly encounter... because nuturing talent is all they ever care about. They are not looking for a way of getting rich without doing shit (no way!); they are trying to save ART, y'all. How fucking BEAUTIFUL is that?

"Hey! I'm a pretty lousy president!"

Anyway, Bonovox, I wouldn't worry much about professional songwriters, if that's your biggest concern, since they already have all the criminal performing rights organizations working for them, making sure they get paid and re-paid for all sorts of absurd things - like radio airplay -, so I think they've got that pretty covered. I'm much more concerned about what this corporate nightmare of a society we live in is doing to culture and the irreparable (?) damage it's causing to people's brains.

Thankfully, not even Spin seems to be too confident in the success of U2's (and Apple's) ambitious plans:

"We'll have to wait and see if U2 can really save the music industry, though the fact that they couldn't even save Spider-Man on Broadway doesn't give us too much hope. "

I rarely agree with Spin Magazine, but I have to take my hat off for this. You've got a point, guys. You've got a point LOL

BONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I wouldn't be too sorry about their failure, though. The music industry doesn't need saving. It just needs to completely lose its mainstream appeal so that, hopefully, all the greedy bastards parasitizing on it will lose interest and move onto something else. Only then will REAL musicians be able to gain control over their business again.

After all, this is what happened to the rock music ghetto, so maybe there's still a tiny bit of hope left somewhere.

Hopefully.

Until then, we'll just have to sit in a corner and let Google steal our Big Data... because what else is there to do in the digital age?

*yup*

PS. No, I don't get a dollar for every time I use the word 'corporate', but if I did... boy, that'd be good.

Windows H8

Welcome to Windows 8: The OS that hates you as much as you hate it.

Don't get fooled by the poisonous colours and the user-friendly appearance: Windows 8 does hate you with every bit of its soul, and it's willing to go to any length to prove it. It hates you for the very fact you exist. It hates you for not thinking forward. And, especially, it hates you for buying a stationary PC instead of a tablet, because that's what this is all about, right? Selling motherfucking tablets.

I don't know if Microsoft has achieved its objectives in that field, but it definitely succeeded at pushing people away from buying stationary computers and into the arms of Apple. If that was what they wanted, congratulations - you really did a fantastic job, guys... just like Myspace did pushing away all the bands it had left with its brilliant revamp.

Windows 8, in fact, has a lot in common with the New Myspace.

With both, you find yourself struggling to navigate through an extremely unintuitive and confusing interface, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. Less than five minutes into any of the two, you'll be desperately talking to the computer screen, asking: 'Can I do anything, PLEASE?'

The answer is 'no, you can't'.

In both cases, all you're allowed to do is admire the flawless simplicity of the advanced interface design and feel grateful for living in this era of technological progress, all while allowing yourself to be spoon-fed with corporate-driven contents and generously sharing your personal data. Living in the future never felt so good, heh?

Now serioursly, it's phisically impossible for you to not enjoy Windows 8's sophisticated design: four of every five toddlers enquired stated that it was the best design they had ever seen; the fifth did not provide an answer because he was distracted sucking his thumb or taking a nap.

The statistics speak for themselves.

On the picture below, you can see the chief design officer at Microsoft immersed in the process of developing the intricate concept behind the groundbreaking Windows 8 interface:

Groundbreaking, indeed... in the most literal sense of the word, since it literaly breaks the ground you're used to standing on to pieces; to gigantic, flat, acid-coloured squares, in fact. It tears down the very idea of Windows (the really revolutionary design that both Microsoft and Apple bought from Xerox 1000 years ago and have been championing ever since); it shreds the multidimensional desktop space to unidimensional tiles; it shits on the very concept of multi-tasking; rules PCs out as obsolete.

Try to complain, they'll dismiss you as an analogic dinosaur and a desktop die-hard.

'You have to think forward' they'll tell you. 'Mobile devices are the future. You have to compromise.'

Well, mobile devices might be the future, but we are living in the goddamn present, where my PC still does stuff your tablets can't do. Babies are also the future, and yet that doesn't mean adults should start wearing diapers in order to advance.

Tablets and smartphones need optimitzed software precisely because of the limitations derived from their mobile condition. It makes sense for them to run simplified versions of programs and have a touch-friendly interface, but what's the sense of forcing that into a stationary computer that's potent enough to run NORMAL programs and doesn't even have a fucking touch screen in the first place? It's just as stupid as taking a guy from college and putting him back into kindergarten to play with blocks and learn the alphabet, because compromise. 

That's exactly the way the PC user is bound to feel when first introduced to Windows 8: like an adult sitting in a preschool classroom.

History books say that prisoners in concentration camps were forced to eat using their hands in order to strip them from their human condition. Well, as friviolous as this comparison might seem, one can't help feeling that Microsoft really thinks that, by making you click on gigantic multicoloured buttons and read texts written in humiliatingly orversized fonts, you too will end up believing you're too retarted to be treated like an adult.

If you've ever come across the Windows 8 calcultator app, you'll understand my point.

The visually impaired will most probably be thrilled about this new feature. For those of us who still have a 20/20 vision, however, clicking on numbers the size of a chihuahua head in a mandatory full-screen setting feels a bit humiliating.

But don't worry, PC user: you'll get used to this, just like you got used to everything else. Your indestructible faith in progress will help you adapt to the new world Miscrosoft has so lovingly crafted for you.

And, if you ever feel in doubt, you just have to look at your WWWD bracelet and ask yourself: 'What would will.i.am do?'

Probably, this:

It's obvious that will.i.am has been living inside the Windows 8 interface for quite some time. Very literaly. You can tell that from the design of his latest album cover:

That's most definitely what he would call 'Future Hunting'.

I, personally, still need therapy after trying to get along with the new OS for just one day. I have nightmares about it, and wake up from my dreams feeling raped by Microsoft.

Not funny.

Not funny at all.

So let will.i.am do the #FutureHunting;  I'm calling a computer tech in hopes he can return me to the comfort of Windows 7.

I can have no peace till I get this cancer out of my sistem.

Very literaly.

Up Till Dawn With Alice

Up till dawn with Alice

Just my headphones and I

Up till dawn with Alice

Just Rotten Apple and I

...

*    *    *

Only three days left before my birthday. 

Am I ready to turn 25? Hell, no. Absolutely not. 

I'm so not-ready I'm just about to suffer a severe atack of Brian Kinney Birthday Syndrome... again. Only it keeps getting worse every year. I didn't mind turning 24 so much... it's a cool number. But 25... man. 25 is a quarter of 100, and that shows just how bad it is.

And don't get me wrong: the fact of having survived on this Earth for 25 years is nothing to get depressed about - that's definitely something to celebrate. What is fuckin wrong is turning 25 having achieved fucking nothing in your whole fucking life; having given up almost everything other people consider a life because of your commitment to your cause and still having (almost) the blackest future perspective imaginable, despite all the efforts you'vealready fucking done. That is what really sucks.

Doesn't sound very cheerful, heh?

Well, I'm sorry. That's the fucking world we live in. 

If you don't like it, you could help me try and change it instead of sitting there doing nothing, growing increasingly numb to everything and everyone around you while your brain escapes to easier places.

But hey - who am I to judge you, anyway? I only feel at peace when I'm plugged into Alice. 

When the early hours of the morning come and we get back together I feel like I can deal with pretty much anything, and all the bullshit that torments me becomes insignifficant, and suddenly everything makes sense.

If onlly we could make it work in the real world...

Seattle, I think we've got a problem.


PS. Yup, I was actually referencing Connor Maynard with that one. That's 100 points for elite pop culture knowledge LMAO

Dave's Addiction (Trip to the Heart of LA)

Just prior to heading off on the World Violation Tour Dave Gahan was holed up for a day in a luxurious suite at the Kensington Hilton International, to face a long line of European Journalists.

"I'm a family man now," Gahan told Melody Maker's Jon Wilde. "I like to go back home and be with my wife and little boy, going about everyday thinkgs like everyoine else. That may seem pretty boring, but a lot of people have this idea that pop stars lead this life of Riley where they're out on the razz every night - that just ain't the fucking case!"

+    +    +

Fame evidently had its bonuses, but for the 29-year-old Gahan, a married father, it was weighthing heavily on his shoulders. By the time the tour ended, he had changed from the home-loving individual (as he'd described himself) to one who had walked away from his wife and child in search of a different life, effectively mirroring his own father's destructive behaviour, some 25 painful years later.

"Moving away opens your mind," he told Melody Maker's Jennifer Nine. "I needed to get out. I felt trapped by everything that was around me. The last tour was great, we had a lot of success and Violator was huge around the world - and I should have been on top of the world, and I wasn't. I had everything I could possibly want, but I was really lost. I didn't even feel like I knew myself anymore. And I felt like shit, 'cos I constantly cheated on my wife, and went back home and lied, and my soul needed cleansing. I had to figure out why."

It wasn't only his soul that needed cleansing. "After the tour ended, I spent a few months in London and that's where my habit got completely out of hand," Gahan told Q's Phil Sutcliffe in 1999.

"I just packed my bag and split; went off and rented a place in Los Angeles," he confessed to Nine. "During the Violator tour I split with my wife. My next year was really spent doing a lot of soul-searching and trying to find out what had gone wrong with my life, and thinking, to be quite honest, about whether I wanted to come back and do the whole thing - records, tours, fame, Depeche Mode - again. Just tearing myself away from everything that I had really grown up with and known, including my wife at the time, and my young son, Jack, as well... all that stuff was quite painful to me."

+    +    +

Having positioned himself over 5,000 miles away from his five-year-old son and heir, Dave cemented the move by taking up with the vivacious Teresa Conroy who, according to the Internet Movie Database, had appered in several hardcore pornographic films under the name of 'Terri' before accompanying the band across America as Press Liasison officer on the 1988 nd 1990 treks. 

+    +   +

Way out west, Dave Gahan got swept in the 'American dream': a large house in the Hollywood hills; the quintessential 'dream machine' - a powerful Harley-Davidson motorcycle... the whole enchilada. "It definitely was more comfortable for me in Los Angeles," he stated. "I fell quikly into that lifestyle, and, for a while, it was great fun."

Free to lead what he later termed as a "very selfish lifestyle", Gahan partied harder than ever; partly thanks to new partner Teresa Conroy's music biz connections, he was welcomed with open arms into LA's established rock fraternity, a select group for whom drug taking, if not necessarily heroin addiction, was almost de rigueur - a dangerous place for a wealthy individual in a highly strung emortional state to inhabit.

+    +    +

In April 1992, following what was reported by the British tabloid press as being a "messy, year-long divorce", Gahan finally tied the knot with Teresa Conroy. Like Gahan, Conroy was also a heroin user, someone he later termed as being "... a partner I could play with, in all sorts of ways, without being judged, because she was joining in. In fact, she didn't make me take heroin; she gave me the opportunity to try it again. We made a pact early on that I'd never use intravenously; but, of course, being a junkie and a liar, it didn't take long."

The nuptials took place in the somewhat tawdry surroundings of the Graceland Chapel at 619 Las Vegas Boulevard, South Las Vegas, with an obligatory Elvis Presley impersonator acting as guest of honour.

"Of course, everything was plastic - false," Dave confirmed to Jennifer Nine. "They wouldn't even light the candles in the chapel, 'cos they were just there for the show."

+    +    +

"My wife works in the music business," Gahan told Melody Maker's Jennifer Nine. "At the beginning of Depeche Mode's year off, she was out working for the Lollapalooza tour, the first one with Jane's Addiction. I went out on the tour kind of as a fan, just hanging out. It was different just walking around in the crowd, really not being bothered by the fans at all. I noticed the audience was the same as the one we have, or The Cure - or a lot of other bands, for that matter. Americans really see it all as just new, alternative music. And Jane's Addiction were just the most incredible thing I'd seen in a long while. Sometimes they were really shit, and sometimes they were just so mountainous and fantastic."

In fact, so mountainous and fantastic that Gahan "...spent the year trying to find the sort of music I wanted to be involved with. There was so much really good music coming out of the States at the time, much more so than where it usually copmes from - Europe or London. It felt that what was happening back home - all that Techno stuff - was really boring."

+    +    +

Martin Gore had barely heard from or seen his errant bandmate since the conclusion of the World Violation Tour.

+    +   +

"And then when he came back he was Jesus! He was tattooed from head to toe; he was skinny - all the puppy fat had gone; he was incredibly intense."

+    +   +

When Gahan's bandmates finally laid eyes on their long-haired, goateed, tattoo-covered singer - looking (and sounding) every bit like the American grunge star he so desperately wanted to be, the shock finally sank in.

+    +   +

"He looked like he'd been living in LA for a year," Alan Wilder pithily summed up.

*    *    *

I

It's so funny for me right now to imagine Dave Gahan falling in love with Jane's Addiction I can't even put it down in words.

I saw Jane's Addiction playing at Rock In Rio in 2010 (on TV, not in the flesh), and they really sucked LOL Perry Farrell looked like a crazy old lady, gripping onto a bottle of wine, with his arms wrapped tightly around what looked like a pair of wasted middle-aged strippers. His vocals were beyond unacceptable, and the whole band sounded like a real mess. I was quite surprised to discover that this band had had some sort of 'cult status' back in the day LOL

But, of course, I've never seen them perform in their glory days, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Given my current emotional state, I can totally imagine Dave Gahan feeling as mindblown by Jane's Addiction as I am by Alice In Chains, and, despite the fact that both bands are light years away in terms of musicianship, I can't help feeling some sort of 'grunge solidarity' with him.

I'm very focussed on that specific period of music history right now, and, as much as it might surprise you, this has actually nothing to do with my newly-discovered love for Alice. In fact, I've been having a thing for grunge music for the last two years, despite the fact that there was no particular grunge band I was really a fan of. It all probably started because Nirvana and their depressing vibes really connected with the way I was feeling back in 2011. Before I knew it, I was only writing doom metal and dark acoustic stuff... very much (extremely much LOL) in the spirit of AIC - only back then I had no idea the band existed e___e'

The reason I have such a fascination for the whole grunge movement, however, is because it happened to be the last step in the evolution of rock music, right before it got dismembered and caged by the consolidated industry. The big explosion of grunge (especially Nirvana) was probably the first ever major industry-driven movement (you just have to take a look at all the hype surrounding Nevermind... and at the fact that all the legendary grunge/alternative bands happen to have an album titled 'MTV Unplugged'), but its origins were genuine, and so was the music. It was probably the last ever music current to originate from a real local cultural scene.

Dave's words can give you a very accurate idea of just how different things were back then...

Nowadays, local scenes are a memory from the past. The organic ladder to success has been destroyed, just like the concept of success itself. Bands performers can no longer play their way to the top, like KISS, AC/DC or Motörhead did back in the day; they literaly go from being nobody to becoming A-list celebrities - often without even having one single album out (see Iggy Azalea) -, and when their hype-driven popularity wears off (it never takes more than 18 months), they are left suspended in the strange limbo of the precoucious has-beens. They feed them with hormones like they do with chicken, artificially inflating them into the top, and, by doing so, they turn the top - their top - into a place real musicians don't want (or shouldn't want) to be in. But don't worry - even if they wanted to, they still wouldn't be allowed.

Cultural trends are no longer born in the underground... or at all. In a scenario of cultural monopoly consolidation like the one we're facing, just a tiny handful of creatives has to provide contents for ALL the cultural industries (and, believe me - they don't have the biggest brains LOL). You just have to see the Billboard Hot 100 or the (identical) awful shit most fashion brands are putting out to understand how it works. For the first time since the end of WW2, there is absolutely no youth culture. No identity for the kids of this generation (and the previous one), aside from fucking smartphones and the uni-reality of the social networks.

How fucked up is that?

II

Dave's story comes to me in a moment when my relationship with the US has experienced yet another twist in its long and complicated history.

For the last couple of years, I've grown used to see LA (and the whole United States by extension) as a gigantic shithole where people are sent to die, stripped off their basic human dignity, prostituted and abused in every possible way. Just reading the name of that city makes me shiver with horror and disgust, and you can't blame me for it. After my two-year experience of living in LA through the Kaulitz twins, I had way too many things to be horrified and disgusted about. I was so angry at the city (and everyone in it) for everything it had done to them; I was so angry at America for allowing it to happen - for causing it to happen with its goddamn cultural hegemony politics; I was so angry at the world... for everything. And man, I swear to God I still am.

I used to fantasize with that horrifying place being swept from the face of Earth; engulfed in a gigantic fireball; sunken in lava. And I did it with no regrets whatsoever.

Now, however, life has just added a few layers of complexity to my scheme of things.

And yes, this time I am indeed talking about Alice In Chains.

They are not the first people I respect who happen to live in the nightmare city (you could find about 100 people worth saving living over there, if you tried really hard), but, for some reason, their music is making it harder for me to just hate it the way I used to (don't worry, I won't stop hating LA any time soon - I don't even think that's physically possible for me). It's not making me love it either (God forbid!); it just reminds me that good and evil are never as neatly parted as religion tries to sell us.

How should you judge, when it's (almost?) impossible to do it all completely right, and yet there are almost infinite ways of doing it all completely wrong?

Right and wrong are always a percentage. And it keeps on recalculating every day.

For Dave, LA was a place of reinvention and self-discovery; a refuge where he could feel free from all the things that were repressing him in his home country. It was also the backdrop to his personal degradation; the witness (and accomplice) to some of the worst and more shameful moments of his life. Was it good or bad? And was the city to blame? Or was he just running away from himself all the time, wherever he was?

And did the Kaulitz twins ever experience any relief for being away from a home country that still seems to hate them more than (almost) anyone on this Earth deserves? Did they ever feel liberated, if only for a second, for being able to walk completely unrecognized among the regular people of Los Angeles, like Dave said? Or did it horrify them because, unlike him, they knew their hiatus was going to be permanent; because, unlike Gahan, they never chose to take a break in the first place, but rather were shot off the rails before they'd had time to reach a tiny part of their potential and transferred to that Hell of a city to be dismanteled in the cruel slaughter machine of the celebrity business? Or perhaps they weren't even allowed to walk outside without the supervision of their creepy handlers? And how do they feel about it all now, from the depth of their German bunker?

Imprisoned and enslaved at home; imprisoned or enslaved abroad. Is there that much difference?

About Jerry Cantrell... I don't know him well enough to weight on his twelve year LA experience. I will just assume that nothing of what might have happened to him down there could be worse than the personal Hell he left in Seattle. Perhaps LA doesn't hurt you so bad when you're American. Perhaps it just depends on the person.

And yet it feels so strange for me to realize that a work of absolute perfection like Dinosaurs was entirely recorded in one of the many rooms where TH were mercilessly raped by a gang of unscrupulous producers. It feels so strange to imagine that, for two years, they shared the same city; they walked the same streets, drove down the same roads, ate at the same restaurants, looked at the same sunsets, shielded their eyes from the same light... Perhaps they crossed paths at some point, without knowing who the other was; roaming the steets aimlessly, taking pictures for a stupid phone app, while their counterparts were writing and recording one of the most awesome albums in recent rock history.

Was it good or bad?

And would I hate the city so much if I hadn't experienced what it feels like to be caught under its wheels? I probably would... or perhaps not so much. Or perhaps I'd be caught underneath them myself if those German kids hadn't showed me each and every one of the evils of this industry with their sad and terrifying history.

Was it good or bad?

...

Don't answer. This is a fucking koan.

III

It's sort of puzzling for me to learn that Dave's legendary Jesus Christ look (which happens to be my favourite Dave Gahan look of all time) was a product of LA. It's so obvious now I know it that I have a hard time understanding how had I never realized before.

Facial hair grows faster and thicker in LA; the spirit grows weary as days go by; the skin dries and wrinkles under the merciless sun; the body shifts shape in unexpected ways; ink flows endlessly through the needles, piercing the flesh over and over, in a vain attempt to regain control.

People come back from LA looking like they've been in outer space, because the human body ages faster there due to the extreme conditions.

Life in LA doesn't differ so much from life in prison.

Or, at least, it didn't for us.

What percentage does that make?

*    *    *

He came back from LA looking like Jesus Christ...

...because he too died to save us all.

Drought When I Die

The sun is still shining on L.A.'s Sunset Strip as Lemmy Kilmister takes his favorite spot at the bar of the Rainbow Bar & Grill. Sipping from a glass, he feeds dollars into a machine to play games of trivia and chance like Clock Teaser, a quiz about women and nature. At 67, the Motörhead frontman looks just as he always has: black cavalry hat with gold insignia, prominent warts and mutton chops, embroidered cowboy boots. But that's Diet Coke in his glass, not Jack Daniel's. And while the jokes roll out easily in his distinctive British rasp, he sounds like a man who's still recovering from a gut punch.

+    +    +

Lemmy's illness kept him quietly at home as Motörhead's thunderous 21st album, Aftershock, brought in the band's best first-week sales in decades last October. A few months earlier, his friend and onetime songwriting partner Mick Farren had collapsed onstage in London while performing with the Deviants. Farren never regained consciousness. "There are worse places to go," Lemmy says. "It's better than having tubes up your nose. I'd much rather go dressed in my best, trying to reach that last note."

After being forced to cancel the rest of Motörhead's European festival dates last July, Lemmy backtracked and tried to perform for the 85,000 rock fans at the Wacken Open Air concert in Germany. But he had to leave the stage after just a handful of songs. "We only did 38 minutes and I was done," he says. "I was too tired. I had to come off." Adds Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell, "It reminded us that this mountain of unwavering Lemm is actually a tiny bit mortal like we all are."

+    +    +

Lemmy says he worries about the future of his beloved rock & roll as his generation eases past middle age into retirement or worse. He sees few younger artists committed enough to the tradition to carry it into the future. "There's nobody now," he says. "There is going to be a huge hole, and nobody to step into it." You can see the concern on his face. "I think it's important music. It's the constant music of this generation and the last one and the last one."

[♠]

+    +    +

You are not the only one who's worried, Lemm. You are not the only one.

...But how does one keep on existing in a world that seems so willing to erase them? Is it possible for a single man to change the tide of a river just by swimming against it?

I can only hope the answer is YES.

Happy Dark Year

The sun sets on the horizon for the last time in 2013. 

As we prepare to bid farewell to another year, we gather all the things we never want to see again and burn them in a huge gasoline-fueled fire. And, as they burn, the wild flames make us teary-eyed, and the thick black smoke of our bad memories blackens our view a little more, before going up and merging with the black sky above our heads.

We are surrounded by darkness, but we feel fine, and we celebrate. And we display our best Hollywood laughter, as we toast to another black year gone by.

Two years ago it felt like we couldn't make it, but we're still here, and we're getting stronger. We've grown accustomed to life inside these dark woods. We've made this strange place feel like home; we've turned this hell into our playground. And we will keep on fighting.

We have no resolutions for 2014; no plans; no objectives. Our only aim is to stay strong and keep on resisting, blow after blow. We might not win, but we will not surrender. 

Whatever fate has in store for us, we will face it together... And perhaps one day the dark side will shine for us, like the song said. 

But, until then, let's celebrate our one and only victory: the enormous triumph of staying alive.

+   +   +

Let's have a black celebration

Black celebration

Tonight

To celebrate the fact

That we've seen the back

Of another black... year

+   +   +

Happy dark 2014.
 

The Low End Of Low

How low can you sink? Never enough, apparently, whenever there are females envolved. That has been Marilyn Manson's life motto for quite a few years already, and it wasn't going to change for his recent collaboration with Avril Lavigne.

That's right: the image above is a piece of fan art (don't worry, I didn't do it myself - it was the internet), but it's not a joke. The collaboration does exist, and it's included in Avril Lavigne's *sigh* self-titled album, that came out about a month ago.

The song in question is called *sigh* Bad Girl *sigh* *sigh* *sigh*, and, right as its title indicates, it is an epic piece of shit. And I'm not saying this just because I'm not a fan of Avril Lavigne and everything she represents - there really is NOTHING you can say in this song's defense. Written by the Nickel-glorious (and Lavigne-husband) Chad Kroeger, among others, the whole thing is a triplet-feel mess, with some pseudo-heavy Beautiful-People-esque distorted guitars, and Avril shouting on top, drowned in a pool of retro reverb, like some especially bratty and unprofessional version of Suzi Quatro. This shit is so awful it makes Taylor Momsen sound like Black Sabbath. It even makes the duet between Ke$ha and Iggy Pop sound sort of decent.  

Marilyn Manson's contrubution is reduced to one single phrase that is mechanically repeated throughout the song, which makes it even worse: if you're going to disgrace your name by taking part in such a questionable project, at least make it worth it. But that was never the objective of this... thing. The only reason for this collaboration - the C-word uglier than cancer - was to include Manson's name in the album tracklist, in order to spark some morbid interest, as well as buying the girl some artistic cred. Judging by the sales and the repercussion of the record, they failed at both, and dropped Manson's credibility levels even lower in the process. But that's exactly what the Industry does. Always. And the most amazing thing is that he doesn't even seem to have learnt that yet... even after being mistreated, criminally underpromoted and kicked out of Interscope in the most unfriendly way.

He, who has the blessing of not having to dance to the beat of the Evil Industry anymore, doesn't quite seem to find his place in the outside world. He might be releasing his records (one record, to date) independently, but he seems extremely reluctant to quit the celebrity game... and he doesn't seem too keen on burning brigdes either. The fearless man who once terrorized America (and the world) with his uncompromising social critique doesn't seem to have the balls to say the truth about the industry, or about the real reasons why his High End Of Low tanked was tanked, or to call Martin Kierszenbaum - the man in charge of his The High End Of Low promo - and Jimmy Iovine the things they really are.

Of course, he must have found out, at some point, that his whole career was a marketing mirage created by Interscope, and that's not an easy pill to swallow. He was Interscope's favourite puppet during the years when alternative rock was cool and Uncle Jimmy was desperate to create controversy at any price, and then he was just left aside, mobbed, and mercilessly thrown into the trashbin. No 'thank you' for the past sales and buzz. No glory for a faded cultural icon, who was probably one of the most influential and memorable characters of the 90s, as well as the frontman of one of the most important bands of the decade, musically speaking. His marketing was a corporate construction. His music and values weren't.

He, who once yelled "I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist / I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a shit", is now a rapidly aging man who seems to have forgotten his own glory and his own strength. Instead of claming what is due to him, he just sits sadly in a corner, trying to prove to himself (and to the world) that he can still be young and edgy.

He, who once criticised the values of Hollywood, has now become one of the undead creatures that populate the streets of LA. The city has eaten him from the inside, like it does with everone, and he doesn't even seem to have noticed.

And don't get me wrong - the man is still capable of releasing some quality music, but it seems like all his energy and all his ambitions in life are completely gone, like he has already achieved everything... which he definitely hasn't. Even though his career as a whole can't be called a failure, it can't be called a complete success either. He never had the chance to achieve the iconic status that KISS, Black Sabbath, David Bowie or even Nirvana have, not because he doesn't deserve it, but simply because nobody ever has a chance to do that in the era of the Industry Consolidation. And that' a real shame.

In this era, musicians don't work to build their own glory. They work for the glory of the Corporation, and are not even allowed to put their belongings in a cardboard box and take them home, once their work is done. Their successes are expropiated; their failures are charged to their bill and remembered forever. And they still have to be thankful, for having once had the honour of serving the Evil Empire of Music (a.k.a. the Uni-Label), and never ever speak against it, in hopes that, one day, the Gods might, perhaps, find them useful for some of their evil purposes again.

And so, Jimmy Iovine walks free with the money, and delivers speeches to college students at the university he has just bought for himself as a playground to spend his time at during his golden days of glorious retirement, while Marilyn Manson has to live in a modest appartment, with his artistic credibility blown to dust, and with the stigma of the precoucious has-been.

Nothing more left for the 44-year-old Marilyn Manson. Just a glimpse at life in the Low End of Low.

Disassociative

I can tell you what they say in space

That our Earth is too grey

But when the spirit is so digital

The body acts this way

That world was killing me

That world was killing me

Disassociative

That world was killing me

That world was killing me

Disassociative

The nervous systems down

The nervous systems down

I know

The nervous systems down

The nervous systems down

I know

I can never get out of here

I don't want to just float in fear

A dead astronaut in space 

I can never get out of here

I don't want to just float in fear

A dead astronaut in space

Sometimes we walk like we were shot

Through our heads, my love

We write a song in space like we're

Already dead and gone

Your world was killing me

Your world was killing me

Disassociative

Your world was killing me

Your world was killing me

Disassociative

I can never get out of here

I don't want to just float in fear

A dead astronaut in space 

I can never get out of here

I don't want to just float in fear

A dead astronaut in space

The nervous systems down

The nervous systems down

The nervous systems down

The nervous systems down

I can never get out of here

I don't want to just float in fear

A dead astronaut in space

I can never get out of here

I don't want to just float in fear

A dead astronaut in space

+   +   +

"No man can surpass his own time, for the spirit of his time is also his own spirit." 
[*]

*   *   *