The first thing to remember about being a noise musician is this: you are not making music, you are creating a product. Memorize this dictum, as everything else follows.

Your Name.

Your name is what introduces you as an artist. It's the first thing people will remember about you, and if you're like most noise artists, it's probably the only thing people will remember about you. The golden rule is to choose a name that says: If you like all the other guys, you'll like me. The best way to accomplish this is to simply take two vaguely provocative words and string them together (the truly creative will combine them into one word). There are really only two acceptable subjects for noise artists - destruction (death especially) and technology - so be sure to keep your thesaurus handy.

Alternately, and especially if you're a Dark Ambient artist, you can choose a name that sounds vaguely like it's in a foreign language but isn't. German is best for this, although any Old World language is just fine; Harsh Noise artists will naturally gravitate to Japanese. This follows from the undeniable truism that all Americans have bad taste in everything.

Your Gear

Remember, your music is entirely determined by the gear that you own. There are generally three categories of noise setups: Piles of Junk, Harsh Noise, and Everything Else.

Piles of Junk artists (I really couldn't think of anything else to call them) only need two things: a huge collection of contact mics, and an account at the local junkyard. Buy something made of metal, put a contact mic on it, and then destroy it. Don't worry about how it actually sounds - your performance will be eye-catching, so people will remember it and want to buy more of your shit. Remember: you're not making music, you're creating a product.

Harsh Noise artists should use pedals. And more pedals. And nothing but pedals. Perhaps you might want to use some sort of "playback" device - a turntable, CD player, MiniDisc, 4-track, or (oh, joy!) reel-to-reel tape device - but that's not strictly necessary, and you should never use more than one, ever. When choosing pedals, you should always try to make everything analog - even the delays. Don't bother to try them out, just buy them according to how cool they look. And if you can afford that rare hand-built custom-designed flanger from 1975, buy it immediately, even if it sounds worse than that Arion pedal that you can buy for twenty bucks from Guitar Center. Remember, your gear determines your music, so if you've got a pedal that nobody else has, your music must be better, right?

If you're in the Everything Else catagory (e.g. Power Electronics, Dark Ambient, etc) you should always buy outlandishly expensive synths and gear, and then try your damndest to make them sound exactly like a mound of cheap pedals. Analog synths should be used whenever possible, even if they only have one oscillator and the filter is broken. And remember: If you're not spending more on equipment than you are on rent, you're doing something wrong.

Also, nobody should use anything other than Behringer mixers. Ever.

Your Music

There is only one way to make noise: plug everything into everything else, then crank up the volume all the way. Remember that the quality of your music is directly proportional to the amount of knobs you turn. Don't worry about how it sounds - since there's no way to tell "good" noise from "bad" noise, the logical conclusion is that all noise is "good" noise. You don't have to be any good; as long as it's loud, you're an artistic genius. (Hey, that's probably why you started playing noise in the first place, right?)

If you're going to use vocals, the lyrics should always be utterly indecipherable - feedback is a plus. There are two ways to go, content-wise: If you're a Power Electronics artist, your lyrics should be about serial killers or sexual sadism exclusively. If you're a Dark Ambient artist, you'll need to find as many ways as possible of saying "I'm Angry and You Suck." Never, ever be any more specific than that. Ideally, your lyrics should scan like an explosion in a thesaurus factory.

Congratulations, you're a noise artist!

Welcome to the club! You're now on your way to becoming the top of the heap - the very best - and soon you'll have the undying admiration of whichever ten people in your town actually like this shit.

But not yet. In order to get all of the attention that you so desperately crave, you still have to do two things: put out product, and play a bunch of noise shows.

These are our subjects in the next two installments.