5 Stages Of Industrial Elitism, Or.. Invasion of the old internet memes Options

[Alanity]

I. Phase one.

- Discard all clothes your parents bought you at old navy, savers, ross, etc.
- Discard your entire record collection. This is non-negotiable.
- Purchase albums by these bands:

Front line Assembly
16 Volt
Ministry
My life with the thrill kill kult
Pig
Razed in black
Nine Inch Nails

- Purchase a dog collar and several KMFDM shirts (even though they all look alike, uniformity is industrial because it's a social commentary... or something).
- Purchase a trenchcoat. Of course it has to be black. This is non-negotiable.
- If you are female, purple streaks in your hair make you the center of attention.
- Also go for the magnetic no-holes piercings and black eyeliner.
- When people ask who your favorite bands are, always answer something along the lines of "oh you probably never heard of them"
- Dye your hair something dark and provocative.
- Start posting to the kmfdmdogma.com forum
- Start making music in Fruityloops. whip up a nifty name like "Gravitron" or "Destructive militaristic maschinery" or "Destructopsycho" and set up an mp3.com account. Make sure to tell everyone about your band. Remember, the more people who download your music, the bigger your mp3.com check will be.
- Change your AOL screen name to "smothered23hope". If you are female, this may be replaced by anything which includes the words "pixie", "faerie", "doll", "grrrl" or any combination thereof.




II. Phase two.

- Realize that all the bands you liked two months ago are not industrial because they use guitars.
- You will pretend you were never interested in the aforementioned bands, but in fact you still listen to your limited edition "burnout at the hydrogen bar" lp constantly.
- Purchase CDs by the following 'underground' bands:

Wumpscut
Covenant
Velvet Acid Christ
Din_Fiv
Leaether Strip
VNV Nation
Suicide Commando
Icon of Coil
Wolfsheim

- you make the mistake of ordering them from isolation tank. Wait a month for your shit to arrive. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars.
- When people ask who your favorite bands are, always answer something along the lines of "oh you probably never heard of them"
- Replace those aging Airwalk sneakers with a pair of knee high army boots.
- Buy a pair of vinyl pants and bondage bracelets/club gear.
- Buy a german army vest at the local surplus. - remember that your shwag is a metaphor of some sort (for the uniformity of society and man becoming a machine... or
something) so dress to impress.
- Dye your hair black and shave part of it. Do something "creative" with the rest. If you are female, decorate the rest with multi-colored extensions.
- Buy a roland groovebox and make "dark dance music with an edge." Pretend that this hasn't been done before.
- Go to your local industrial/goth club and hang out with your group of friends. Share fashion tips. Talk about "the goth/industrial/darkwave scene" and how much it means to you to go to these clubs to support "the scene".
- Pretend there is actually a "scene"
- Change your AOL screen name to "DekonstrvktedMekanizm23" or something in german




III. Phase three.

- Realize that the bands from Phase Two are utter crap.
- beg the club djs in desperation for reccomendations to save you from your stale, repetitive record collection consisting of angsty techno and ESL lyrics.
- Upon their reccomendations, hurry to your favorite internet mailorder site and check the following to "add to your cart"

Gridlock
Converter
PAL
Panacea
Synapscape
Mlada Fronta
NKVD
Hypnoskull

- you make the mistake of ordering from middle pillar. wait a month and a half for your shit to arrive. do not pass go. do not collect 200 dollars.
- When people ask who your favorite bands are, always answer something along the lines of "oh you probably never heard of them"
- Start posting to rec.music.industrial
- Change your AOL screen name to something cryptic or an acronym. For example "stubborncivility" or "E269GO__01V"
- get a livejournal.
- Get a Boss or DOD distortion pedal for your roland groovebox. claim that you are "experimental" Pretend like this hasn't been done before.
- start a side project, to allow more "freedom"
- Berate everyone for not having such obscure musical tastes as you.
- Sell your club gear to the salvation army. Keep your boots and army pants.
- Start wearing black turtlenecks.
- shave your head...yes, like mr. clean
- Keep going to the goth/industrial clubs, but only to make fun of everyone else.
- Even though you can't beatmatch, convince the club owners to give you a weekly 1 hour spot as "guest dj". Make up a silly dj name in the vein of your aol screen name (bonus points if your screen name is your dj name).
- repeatedly post your playlists to internet forums. Act like people actually care that you play the same shit over and over.
- Be very self righteous about your dj spot. Remember, you're helping "the scene"
- Keep this dj gig until the club owner finds out that people really don't like paying a cover charge to dance to what sounds like a jackhammer looped for ten minutes.
- bitch to RMI about how the club owner "censored" your dj spot.




IV. Phase four:

- You realize "the scene" is nothing more than fashion victims paying for watered down drinks and overpayed europeans singing along to prerecorded material.
- declare that you were never really part of the scene, because you didn't fit in with the uniformity and the close minded attitude.
- Immediately discredit anyone who mentions "industrial"
- Determine that industrial music never existed outside the frame of throbbing gristle's industrial records.
- Thus, you determine industrial is dead
- Become "intellectual"
- Carry obscure and/or philosophical texts such as Nietzche or Witkiewicz. Pretend that you read them.
- Determine that god is dead. Pretend that this hasn't been said before.
- Openly discuss the "mad destructive genius" of Mein Kampf.
- Claim you are not a nazi.
- Collect nazi imagery.
- Determine that hitler is dead
- Become a 'photographer' or "artiste". Use lots of adobe effects.
- Make 'collages' of old war pictures. Badly. On your PC, of course. Pretend like this hasn't been done before.
- Talk about going to 'art school' when referring to your community college night classes.
- Buy music by these bands:

genocide organ
mental destruction
grey wolves
szkieve
whitehouse

- in fact, buy anything from anyone who sounds remotely european and whose releases are obscenely overpriced.
- When people ask who your favorite bands are, always answer something along the lines of "oh you probably never heard of them"
- Delete your AOL profile.
- Sell your Roland groovebox. Keep the distortion pedal.




V. Phase five:

- Revelation: power electronics has a horrible price to quality ratio and nazi imagery doesn't get you laid.
- Become one of the following:

A: Musician

- Some European guy on your buddy list just started an internet label and wants to release your post apocalyptic rhythmic micronoise made entirely out of milli vanilli samples.
- Everyone pretends this hasn't been done before.
- You are hailed as a "deconstructive, social commentative genius" by all the phase four suckers
- Your buddy's label goes out of business and you are stuck with 150 copies of specially colored one sided 7" priced at 12.99 a piece. All your friends hate your music.

B: Label manager

- You still believe in a "scene" and you try your hardest to "keep it alive"
- Find a gimmick (such as only releasing 10" vinyl or hand painted mini-cds) and only release your friends' projects.
- Pretend to be "open to other genres" but one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between all your releases.
- Overprice everything. This is non-negotiable.
- Go out of business after three releases due to lack of distro and the fact that no one actually enjoys the phase four music, it just seems like a good idea at the time.

C: pretentious art student

- keep making art. even your parents hate it.
- only listen to wanky academic music which experiments in
"psychoacoustics" or "microwave manipulation" because traditional music is "boring"
- start a pretentious artsy, incomprehensible website.
- model it after hell.com. pretend that you've never heard of hell.com
- Impress people with your stories of travelling to Europe, when in fact you've never left Wisconsin.

D: A washed up loser with no life skills and no social value-

-This is your most likely route.

Follow this well-balanced recipe for success, and one day you too can be an industrial elitist!!

[CommieBastard]

It's funny because it's true. I've spoken to most of those people. Nice one Alan

[Mata]

Blimey, I think I already am and industrial elitist. Who'd have thought it?

Let's look at the evidence:

a dog collar (I haven't worn one in ages but still...)
purple streaks in your hair make you the center of attention (I used to change my hair colour once a week)
black eyeliner (yep....)
Velvet Acid Christ (quite fun but needs a decent producer to stop it veering towards self-indulgence)
VNV Nation (great fun, the early stuff was better though)
knee high army boots (I've got a decent size pair of New Rocks back from the days when they weren't absolutely everywhere, and I've been wearing army boots for years)
Dye your hair black and shave part of it. Do something "creative" with the rest (that describes most hairstyles I've had for years! Currently I'm regrowing it before attacking it again! )
get a livejournal (yep...)
start a side project, to allow more "freedom" (The Other Side _was_ my side project!)
industrial music never existed outside the frame of throbbing gristle's industrial records (I've got one of their albums and this is probably a true statement)
- keep making art. even your parents hate it. (yep, that's about right)
- start a pretentious artsy, incomprehensible website. (hehe http://www.matazone.co.uk )
- model it after hell.com. pretend that you've never heard of hell.com (who? No, really, who?
- Impress people with your stories of travelling to Europe, when in fact you've never left Wisconsin. (I have never been to Wisconsin)

Yep. That'd be me then!

[Mr Fuzzy]

Um. Can I wobble along doing what I feel like at the time? It's much easier, and allows for more relaxed evenings in the pub.

On a side note, purple hair dye (blue too) never seems to stay in for long. For some reason they've never got the hang of making it last.

[CommieBastard]

VNV Nation (great fun, the early stuff was better though)

You know your stuff. Early VNV ro><0rz. (See that? I'm all techno and stuff!)

[Jaq]

When people ask who your favorite bands are, always answer something along the lines of "oh you probably never heard of them"

Hee hee...I do that...but that's about it.

[Alanity]

Blimey, I think I already am and industrial elitist. Who'd have thought it?

Nah, for a start you'd have realised that VNV Nation and Velvet acid Christ are utter crap
And I assume you don't talk about Mien Kampf's "mad destructive genius"
And like you said, you've never been to Wisconsin....

[MoonlightSavings...]

When people ask who your favorite bands are, always answer something along the lines of "oh you probably never heard of them"

Hee hee...I do that...but that's about it.

I should probably *start* doing that, because it gets really tiring trying to explain to people what industrial music is... The only people who seem to ask my music tastes themselves know nothing beyond Christina Aguilera, Eminem, or Metallica. Try repeatedly explaining industrial music to that.