Words

Noise and Music

  • Why Musicians and Labels Should Embrace Filesharing

    Lots of people (mostly labels, but some artists) believe that "piracy" is the same as "theft." They believe that downloading music for free hurts artists, especially independent artists. They're wrong. In this essay, I'll tell you why.

  • How To Be A Noise Artist, Part I: Playing Noise

    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.

  • How To Be A Noise Artist, Part II: Recording and Releasing Music

    As I said in Part I, you don't have to be good to be a genius at noise. What - you think your average teenage noise fan knows the difference between a subtly crafted noise symphony recorded in a pro studio in excruciating detail, and a half hour of radio static that you taped on your sister's boombox while you left to take a shower? Do you really? Give me a fucking break.

  • How To Be A Noise Artist, Part III: Playing Live

    Whether you're booking a live show or merely playing one, there is one cardinal rule to remember:

    It's always the venue's fault.

  • How To Be A Noise Artist: Introduction

    This is a satiric essay I first debuted on bostonnoise.org (RIP).

  • The Hidden Agenda of the Noise Music Conspiracy

    The political objective of Noise music is nothing less than a New World Order, with its political structure based on German Fascism, its economic system based on Japanese Imperialism, and its center in a pan-European empire.

Essays

  • Why Morality Is Evil

    For most of my life, I've been thinking about moral codes. What they are, why they exist, and how one can justify having them. I've come to a surprising conclusion: morality is a bad idea. I have ample justification for this conclusion, but in order to explain it, I'll have to steer you through some rough waters. Just bear with me, and I'll ferry you to the other side.

  • The Karlheinz Lexicon

    With apologies to Ambrose Bierce.

  • Christmas and Molech

    This was the text of a flier I handed out when I played at O'Briens on December 27th.

  • Practical Advice for a Fictional Son

    By now it's no secret that masculinity itself is being devalued and eliminated. We now have a generation of males that have never learned how to become men, or even known that they should. And the result is that they've produced nothing of value and probably never will. After all, what do you expect from a generation of wanna-be criminals and overgrown teenagers?