Music I've Made

I just realized that I have pages all over the internet, with nothing to link them together. To make things better, some of them are years out of date. So, here's my musical history, with links to mp3s and websites where I have them.

Painted Invisible (2003-present)

A solo project that's somewhere between electroclash and futurepop (both terms I hate, by the way), as well as the name of a bouncy synthpop duo that never happened and an earlier trance/pop solo project.

An mp3 collection for Painted Invisible and Pneumat IX (below).

A web page about Painted Invisible and my musical history.

Pneumat IX (2005-2005)

Slower and moodier synthpoppish stuff. Pneumat IX was a duo with my former flatmate Francis until he flipped out and took off (with a bunch of my CDs and equipment) for LA.

The band's myspace page. Just about nothing on this page is true. For example, you may notice that the music that Francis claims as his deeply personal solo music is bit-for-bit the same mp3s that are on the other pages above and below. Oh well, it's still good music.

My personal myspace page, from the Pneumat IX era. I haven't updated it in almost a year, and I'm not even sure which email address it was attached to. There's some music-related stuff there, and some more blogs if you're bored.

The original Pneumat IX page, which we never finished.

The mp3 repository for the above site.

DJ Payn (1989-present)

My usual club DJ name. I've released a few mash recordings, but I haven't looked for them online.

Ice IV.V (1999-2002)

Electronic parody covers. My first post-Ice IX solo project. Most famous for "Del Taco Man," And One's "Techno Man" rewritten about various people in the LA industrial scene hanging out at a Del Taco. Other targets included Idiot Stare via Falco ("Rock Me Chadley Bishop"), NIN ("Closer to Lunch"), and... I can't remember. I no longer have any of this music. If you have any, please let me know.

LAGoth.net writeup, thanks to archive.org. Also see a later version, with the logo.

I have no idea how I ended up on last.fm. But someone must have this song--two different versions, in fact.

HacK (1999-2003)

Psytrance/ebm solo project. I never finished anything, mainly because I spent all my time making new sounds in Reaktor instead of writing music. Reaktor is dangerous. Also the name of three different clubs I promoted. No websites appear to exist.

Mulder's Files (1996-2000)

Synthpop all about the X-Files, basically a S.P.O.C.K ripoff. No finished recordings exist, and I can't find any evidence online that I existed.

Ice IX (1994-1999)

Synthpop/hiphop/ebm/techno. Ice IX was originally an SF band called RU486, but after founder Zeke moved to LA, it ended up turning into Ice IX, which I joined shortly thereafter. Over the years, we morphed from generic Laeatherstrip-style ebm to something unique and cool--partly because I got more involved, but mainly because Zeke's tastes evolved. Our album never came out, but we had a bunch of compilation appearances (not one of which I now have a copy of--again, contact me if you do). Not to be confused with Ice Nine (Levi from TKK's band) or Ice 9 (Chris Randall from Sister Machine Gun's band), from around the same time and in roughly the same musical space.

Official web site on Hallucinet, thanks to archive.org.

An interview in an online 'zine.

The discogs page, proof that someone actually paid me for a recording at least once. Although I think I made more off mp3.com (before they started screwing over their artists) than the whole band made from all the comps combined.

An everything2 node.

Internet Covers Database results, notably including not a single one of the covers we recorded on comps (I think Human League, Gary Numan, Run DMC, Kraftwerk?), and including some that we never even played live.

Krypton Angels (1992-1995)

Bad ebm. I wish someone had told me that the world didn't need another FLA ripoff. One demo recording lost years ago, and that's OK. No references online.

23 Naked Jesi (1991-1996)

Annoying old-school industrial noise. All demos lost, and I don't care. No references online.

Beat Traitor (1988-1992)

New beat/ebm/industrial collaboration with a guy named Topher back in college. One demo recording lost years ago, but I'd love to hear it again. No references online.

Battery Club (1987-1989)

"College rock" (which means somewhere between indie and alternative, before those terms existed) band that went through numerous incarnations before me and the other guitar player (Topher) decided we liked playing keyboards better and started Beat Traitor. No demos, don't care, no refs.

Waitresses and Sonic Youth

Here's a pair of bands you rarely see compared. Why?

Both bands were formed in the early 80s when quasi-stars of the post-prog-rock/pre-no-wave New York art-music scene found a skinny chick who couldn't exactly sing but could talk really cool. Both bands had alternative hits in 1992 with brilliantly quirky pop songs. Both bands have influenced far more musicians than their mainstream fame would imply.

Plus, both bands are somehow magical. Maybe not the same kind of magic--one is the everyday magic that's responsible for you coming up with the perfect sarcastic response without even thinking about it, while the other is more the kind of magic that you have to say "klaatu verata nikto" before picking up if you don't want to wake the deadites. But still.

OK, that's really about as far as the similarities go, so now for the "contrast" part of my "compare-and-contrast" assignment.

The Waitresses made brilliantly quirky pop music from day one. Starting with "I Know What Boys Like," and ending five years later with "I Know What Boys Like." It was a good time to do quirky pop, what with new sub-KROQ-clones springing up across the country (the spawn of a former KROQ program director who'd sold his soul to Satan).

The strange thing was, they had at least 5 good songs on the album, plus one brilliant non-album track. (Remember "It's my car, and I'm gonna do the drivin', drivin'"? Didn't think so... but you should.) And of course the theme song to the most quintessentially 80s period piece, "Square Pegs." And yet, all you ever heard was "I Know What Boys Like." Or, as the band called it, in their politer moments, "That Fucking Song."

The Waitresses were, to most people, a one-hit wonder, but they did have a mini-legion of devoted fans, mostly boys who imagined having an ambiguous relationship with Patty O'Donoghue. You know, the kind that mostly consists of sneering at the world together and staggering around under the influence of something, although it might have involved some drunken sex a few times but neither of you can remember.

All Waitresses fans are now playing keyboard in post-britpop bands.

Sonic Youth started off making the most off-putting music they could make. Discordant guitars, played with screwdrivers, feeding back on each other fed through distortion, with a gravelly-voiced cry for help. Technically brilliant, but the only people who'd had enough music education to figure that out either couldn't sit through an album or were in the band.

If you've never heard it, that description isn't going to give you an idea. So, have you ever had one of those days where you can't score your fix of smack so you try a couple hits of LSD hoping you won't notice the withdrawal symptoms and then realize what a bad idea that was? The sound you heard 20 degrees off to the right of Hell: early Sonic Youth is like that. But louder.

So most of their fans had to get into them as an acquired taste. It started off as a sort of macho test, like a punk rock version of a habanero burger, but after a while it grew on you, and you found yourself trying to convince your parents that there were real melodies in there and your friends that there was raw anger in there and secretly dreading that one of them might actually get it.

All Sonic Youth fans are now playing guitar in post-grunge bands. Except the ones who are dead or in psych hospitals.

So, what the hell happened in 1992?

Well, Nirvana got famous (much to their dismay). Suddenly the alternative stations were #1, except that when they ran out of grunge bands they pretty much changed "alternative" to mean "bad wannabe-70s crap" so they could stay #1. The few real grunge bands who found themselves caught in the frenzy spent every minute telling the press how cool Sonic Youth was.

Sonic Youth responded by suddenly making quirky pop music. Sure, "Goo" made a little less sense than "I Know What Boys Like," but you have to factor in the extra decade of learning to distinguish between different varieties of feedback noise while under the influence of heavy drugs. Anyway, a few years later, you'd still hear "Goo" every once in a while (usually when some hardcore Sonic Youth fan made a request for "Schizophrenia").

Meanwhile, now that they were #1 in every major radio market, the alternative stations had to come up with morning DJs and special features like seasonal countdowns. And you can only play the Ramones' one Christmas song so many times in a row. So the music directors started looking through the requests, and they noticed one called "Christmas (W)rapping" by the Waitresses, and suddenly they were in regular rotation again. And not "That Fucking Song," either. From November to December every year, this song is all over the airwaves. On the 26th, some DJ who's glad Christmas is finally over will play "I Know What Boys Like" one time before the record goes back in the closet, but that's about it.

So, in 1992, Sonic Youth and the Waitresses both found themselves as lasting alternative quirky pop one-hit-wonders.

A few years ago, there was suddenly a major reunion circuit for 80s pop acts. Some bands are back with their original lineups--which is sometimes not such a good idea. Others are the one or two core members filled out with younger guys who used to be huge fans in the 80s and really like the idea of second choice on the 35-year-old groupies. But neither of these bands are there.

Patty O. died a few years back, and the Waitresses guys have enough class that they haven't tried to fob off a replacement singer. Sonic Youth--well, they didn't actually have a pop hit until too late to cash in, and I don't think they'd sell out if it meant having to tour with all those bands they used to hate.

Anyway, I won't ask you to listen to Sonic Youth's "Confusion Is Sex." If you're going to like it, the name probably already called up nostalgia and/or flashbacks, and you're listening to it right now.

But go buy (or at least pirate) one of the Waitresses' multiple best-of albums (pretty impressive for a two-hit-wonder with a decade between hits even though they were on the same album...).

And if you can find the Barcelona song "Haunted by the Ghost of Patty," bonus points.

One-Hit Wonders

The thing about one-hit wonders is that they usually aren't.

Oh, sure, there's the occasional Baltimora or The Vapors, who produce an album or three but only one song gets any airplay.

There are also plenty of Gary Numans and Human Leagues who have a dozen hits in the UK but only one of them ever made it big in America.

But the most puzzling of all are the legion of artists who everyone agrees are one-hit wonders, but nobody can agree which one is the hit. No, I don't mean Soft Cell, where the club kids think it's "Sex Dwarf" but everyone else thinks it's "Tainted Love." I mean bands where any two random people are likely to come up with different answers.

Let's go through a few examples.

• Falco: "Der Komissar" or "Rock Me Amadeus"?
• The Waitresses: "I Know What Boys Like" or "Christmas (W)rapping"?
• The Smiths: "How Soon is Now" or "Panic"? (If it weren't so much fun pissing off Morrissey fans, I wouldn't include them on the list--but it is.)
• Suzanne Vega: "Luka" or "Tom's Diner"?
• Beethoven: "5th Symphony" or "9th Symphony"?
• Nena: "99 Luftballons" or "99 Red Balloons"?
• Men Without Hats: "Pop Goes the World" or "Safety Dance"?
• Twisted Sister: "We're Not Gonna Take It" or "I Wanna Rock"?
• Kylie Minogue: "Locomotion" or "I Should Be So Lucky"?
• Frank Stallone: "Far From Over" or "What, as in Sly's brother? He had a hit single? No way!"

As with many of the undisputable one-hit wonders, most of these artists (with the obvious exception of Frank Stallone) have multiple albums full of equally good songs, and legions of devoted fans.

For example, the entire nation of Austria is up in arms that Falco is considered a one-hit wonder in America (although the rest of Europe is just baffled that "Jeannie" isn't the one hit). Falco's three big hits (in America) are spread between his first and third albums, but he continued to release great music up until his untimely death--as artists ranging from Chemical Bros. to the Bloodhound Gang recognized, not to mention most of Europe, but few non-musicians in America even noticed.

It's sad, but the nice thing is, all those great Falco and Human League and Suzanne Vega albums are out there, ready to be downloaded via mininova^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H purchased from Amazon, hits or not.