you could think of it like this: i was a huge goth rock fan, despite the aesthetics, rather than because of it.

goth is meant to be camp, and it becomes self-parody when you take it too seriously.

so, you look at something like skinny puppy, for example. it's usually called 'industrial', but it's variously seen as punk (due to the politics) or goth (due to the aesthetics), as well. i certainly listened to a lot of stuff in this punk/goth/industrial/techno crossover space - and still do.

but, i was fundamentally a punk in ideology. if skinny puppy had shitty politics, i wouldn't have cared much for them - which is confirmed by my total non-interest in this swath of ebm bands that came out after them, drawing from frontline assembly. i don't listen to any of that stuff, because it's broadly a bunch of fascist garbage, and it has this dominant misogynist streak in it that has always left me cold.

the cure is another example of something that was massively crossover, but they were essentially a progressive rock band at their best. i wouldn't have had much interest in it, if it were just stripped to the makeup, even if that's all that most people take away from it nowadays.

the result is that i grew up immersed in goth culture, but always had this distance from it. huge amounts of what i've listened to for my whole life are in some way goth rock, but it's always been as an overlap with something else and it's always been the something else i really cared about. i've never identified myself that way - i've always called myself a punk, not a goth.

so, yes - i'm taking the piss. and, the right cultural space, the right perspective to see it from, is from somebody like the aphex twin, who i have quite a bit in common with, overall.

i'm about to post inri004 and i want to post this, first.

punk & goth have always overlapped, but i was the kind of punk that thought goth was silly - despite listening to a lot of it. punks have always had this strange love/hate relationship with goth culture.

but, if you want to understand inri004, this is really where my head actually was.

i know it seems like i haven't been doing anything for....years. but, i have been, and i need to start putting this all together and making something concrete of it, again.

so, i got some rest.

i'm supposed to be doing alter-reality right now, but i'm obviously not going to. i at least finished the thought in getting the two sites set up, but it sidetracked me and i don't want to get stuck in these recursions - i want to enforce a stricter division of labour on my time. i need to start getting back to having completed tasks in front of me.

so, i'm going to finish the thought before i close some tabs and get back to it on monday.

i will spend most of the night and morning putting final touches on cleaning.

and, my post today is inri003:

---

i spent the summer and fall of 1997 programming drum tracks into an ry30, notating them into a tablature program and sequencing them using noteworthy composer. i did not know how i was going to record these tracks. i think i was expecting to use the computer, but that was probably naive; instead, i was gifted a 4-track recording machine. i then spent the next year and a half rearranging and rerecording the songs i programmed over that period. as these tracks were recorded into my pc, they are time stamped...so i have a much clearer understanding of when they were finished.

the jump to incorporating computers into the recording process is something i always wanted to do, it's just that it wasn't really previously feasible. first, there was a learning curve. i was a smart kid, though; the learning curve was just a time concern. the larger problem was simply access to a pc. i did have a pc at my disposal, but it did not have a modem and it was only equipped to run windows 3.1, which basically meant i could run civ 2 and wolfenstein and little else. the windows 95 computer had dial up but it was in a central location for family use.

when we moved across the city, my dad bought a new computer and i happily inherited his old one. this gave me internet access, which allowed me to download some freeware. it also gave me the time i needed to learn how to do certain things.

i'm separating out a handful of my first electronic sound experiments and collecting them together into an ep. what these blasts of noise have in common is that they were constructed on a windows 95 computer out of samples or generated sound and with very primitive software while i was waiting to get some kind of recording equipment. most of it was pasted together meticulously using the windows 95 sound recorder; the rest of it was constructed in cool edit, which i used as a sort of a synthesizer.

for the most part, these weren't really ever meant to be songs. i ended up using them as connectors, introductions, background. "continuity". yet, i find the idea of throwing them together here to be interesting from an autobiographical perspective.

created in mid 1997. sequenced and converted to stereo in november, 2013. released on nov 9, 2013. corrected in september, 2014. finalized on july 5, 2016. first liner note release added on dec 23, 2019. as always, please use headphones.

this recording is a part of the following collections:
1) inriℵ0: https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/flac-dvd-disc-volume-1 
2) inriℵ1: https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-box-set 
3) inriℵ2: https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
4) inriℵ4: https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/mp3-dvd-disc-volume-1
5) inriℵ6: https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1 
6) inriℵ17: https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/flac-bd-disc-volume-1

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016). as of dec 23, 2019, the release includes an 8 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.

released dec 1, 1997

j - cool edit (wave synthesis, digital wave editing), windows 95 sound recorder (sampling, digital wave editing), yamaha ry30 drum machine (programming)

so, what am i up to?

i crashed yesterday afternoon and was up in the evening. i fell asleep while updating this page and it ended up taking me until the morning to finish it:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch

i'm under cyberattack by some fascist muslims that want to launch a jihad against me for saying mean things about their idol. you know you're all going to hell for idolatry, right? so, i'm trying to reduce the number of cookies...

i actually don't think it's google, at this point. google always takes my side, and they've shown me what they do if they want to remove something. it's ordered and predictable; it's not this kind of primitive hack on my internet. this is some vigilantes that don't care about civilized law, and want to barbarically take things into their own hands. but, they're just fucking swimming in cash, remember. it's easy to get what you want when you're a millionaire...or a billionaire....

i don't know the extent of it, but i seem to have gotten the attention of some powerful zealots....

i was specifically doubling the prices of everything physical, and otherwise verifying that everything was correct with the new pricing. this is a relatively important update to do if i'm going to be uploading isos to the payhip site.

i understand that people don't really want to buy physical media anymore. i have to admit that i'd still be buying it if i wasn't broke, because i like it; i like the cd shelf. it's a mark of obscurity. and, if you have disposable income, you spend it on art...

so, what do i do, as an artist? it's not economical. i want the option available, but i understand that i'm selling torrents...

i mean, i'm not a pop star. i don't write jingles. i'm not a singer-songwriter. i'm not a sex idol pretending to be a musician. i'm kind of an old-fashioned thing at this point - i'm a musician with a large, album-oriented discography. so, it's easy to tell me to sign up for a streaming service, but it's really not the universe i live within. i mean, i'm a consumer too, and i wouldn't have the slightest interest in something like spotify - it's just a bunch of major label crap. if i'm anything, i'm an independent artist. but the technology is crowding me out because the fuckers have monopolized the means of production.

but, i'm more pissed off about the market. frankly, as hard as it is to sell things on the internet, it's even harder to sell them in real life. i'd be nowhere at all without a website. but, consumers expect everything to be free, nowadays, and i'm guilty of that, too.

so, i'm not selling singles to tweens. i'm not trying to go viral on youtube (although i was at one point, and think i did a few times - it didn't translate to much). and, i'd like to sell you a cd, but nobody's buying. that's not my universe, it's not my market, it's not the world i live and breathe in.

what people in my universe want is full discography torrents. they want to download twenty records at a time. and, i've done that - i did it with cardiacs in the 00s, i did it with swans in the 90s. these were artists before my time that i was happy to find and benefited dramatically from finding. and, that is my audience - people looking for music that exists beyond the image, that is real and interesting to listen to. it's a small potential audience, but if you click into it...

i've got the dvds for sale, but kids nowadays don't even have optical drives.

this is why i'm setting up the payhip site - i'm trying to give the people, my people, my audience, what they actually want.

in the process, i created a sequence of physical companions to the existing dvd sequence with the intent of building a one click option to purchase all cds:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/purchase-of-complete-physical-discography

unfortunately, bandcamp wouldn't allow for a price that high. so, we got what exists, instead.

and, that was my night - not what i planned, but a little progress.

so, we're not done with this yet...not until the state is completely removed from the process and the right for the individual to freely decide strictly on their own terms is finally upheld....

unfortunately, though, it seems as though the law still has unnecessary restrictions on bodily autonomy, and those restrictions will need to be struck down, yet again.

the legislature seems to fundamentally not get it - it doesn't grasp that it's a rights issue, and it's been swayed by religious groups to implement rights restrictions. again.

but, it's a big step forwards, even if it's incomplete.

if you don't have the right to end your own life, you don't have any rights at all.

it's the most extreme way to affirm self-ownership, possible.

the right way to see this is that it's a major victory for self-ownership and the autonomy of the individual.

i bitch about it, and it's dying, but we still have the remnants of an actual liberal party here. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/7703262/canada-senate-passes-bill-c-7/