ilovefuzz.com

Miles fucking Davis and the Stooges are basically why I started down the path that I'm on today. The Stooges's Fun House is an album that spoke to me through energy, that energy and sheer emotion and stripped primal humanity is the most important thing in music. Iggy screaming "BLOOOOOOOOWWWWWW" at Steve Mackay doesn't get anymore real.

Miles' 70's stuff really turned me around on how I looked at music especially albums like It's About That Time--which in some respects is the album I most identify my own music with, just in a different context--and the Pete Cosey trilogy of Dark Magus, Agharta, and Pangea. Pete really put the guitar in my hands and the pedals at my feet (although I played bass six years before then). And I really had a conscious thought of what type of music I wanted to make and how I wanted to play guitar. Since I started recording my own stuff and finding my own way about the world, I've found that real and unique noises are what I want to make. Obviously this brought me to this community.

Since Miles I've found so many bands pertaining to the title of this thread. Right now I'm loving Bardo Pond, Comets on Fire, and Acid Mothers Temple so much. I've also come back to My Bloody Valentine. I go through stints of about that many bands at a time. As I experiment with my rhythm playing I'm finding drone stuff to be more identifiable. My leads have always been about a pulverizing attack of crazy noises and unique picking dynamics and an instinctual frame of mind while incorporated the tap dance on my board. A staple of my band is to basically break a song down from the relatively structured form into a free jazz segment of noise exploration which is where I basically use the pedals and guitar like a cyberpunk tribal ceremony.

But rhythm is so interesting in some senses. Bardo Pond and Sunn 0))) and some other shoegaze/drone bands have been huge influences on incorporation of rhythm for me, but I've yet to be happy.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. With Noise for me it takes music to this different plane of listening and it's exciting coming up with new things. Good thread. Glad you mentioned Sonic Youth and Dino Jr. they are a couple of genesis pieces for me too. /Post

So nearly bought a sleepdrone last month, ended up buying £200 worth of CDS instead :D

I like the bugbrand synths that seem to work in a similar way, and are similarly limited (generally selling out within an hour of going on his site), I have also been looking at the Thingmabob (DIY brother of the Thingmagoop) which looks cool, especially as those LEDs should work great with the devi eye pedals :)

I guess I came to noise/drone music from a slightly different route to you guys, started off listening to sonic youth, then spent 10 years listening to nothing but electronic music, from minimal ambient, field recordings, japanoise to techno, jungle and more up-tempo stuff. It is only now that I am listening to guitar-y music again, but that is cool because it all feels fresh to me :)

My first chosen music was black metal, I think, when I was seven-eight.
That's pretty noisy, I guess. Though it sounds horribly structured to me now.
Captain Beefheart led me to unconventionally structured music, what some people probably calls noise. A few from the seventies, psychedelic drones, stretched out jams that turns into something more when you look at it from another perspective. John Frusciante was also an important gateway drug, mainly into lo-fi tape recordings and such.
Then it gets hazy.
But in shoegaze, never really got into it before two years ago maybe, with flying saucer attack. I think I get into music from the wrong side, discovered Boris and Boredoms through Merzbow and Sunn O))), discovered norwegian jazz through MoHa!, Ultralyd and Noxagt, discovered Slowdive and MBV through various electronic ambient artists or Brian Eno.

Now I go to school to learn about where the stuff comes from, so at the time I am listening through classic dronings and noise, comparing it to new things. My first electroacoustic analysis was of Svarte Greiner's "the boat was my friend"

I steals your drone box. Nowz!

I am musically schizophrenic-so I'm still not sure at what point I decided I loved noise and actually considered it music right along side the likes of Elton John and Meshuggah (skitso-like I said)...

Since hearing MBV's Loveless album-then finding the band Lovesliescrushing all those years ago-I have been interested in noise music, but didn't really take the plunge in "performing" it until the last few years or so...

Where I am currently at - we can blame Devi completely for inventing the AE (the original one with the Chaos switch!) - since then, it's been a slide towards complete noise/drone/glitch...it's what I like to do and I think I do it pretty well...

Interestingly-I am in the process of creating a net.label dedicated to noise music, which will be launching in October. I will be needing submissions for releases right out of the gate, so against my better judgement, I see no reason not to post this link for some of you potential noise artists to see what we're up to ahead of time - (the website is not yet "live"):
http://www.noisekoncept.com/mission.html

.b

Although I like almost music style under the sun (almost), melody has always been king for me. That doesn't mean that I like things to be contrived, or that a song has to have a pop chorus that "out" notes are to be avoided. I even dabble with some free jazz once in a while. But yeah, a strong sense of melody is always important for me, even if it's not the melody you expect.

The stuff I don't like:

1. modern country (vocals bug me, production makes everything sound fake)
2. any type of diva music (Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, etc.)
3. Most hip hop and R&B from the 80s on (I do dig on some underground hip hop from time to time, but the slick corporate and/or gangster stuff is boring to me)
4. Stuff with bad vocals. I know that's subjective, but if a voice bugs me for one reason or another (especially if the singer is sharp), I can't get into it.

Pretty much everything else is fair game.

So where did it all begin...

I still remember the day as an elementary school kid when I took one of my parents' cassettes into my room to listen to. I'd never really heard of this group, or of any music group, really, but I gave it a shot. "Feelin' Satisfied" by Boston poured out of the speakers and that's when I knew I wanted an electric guitar. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. So saturated, and the melodies were great. No matter how cheesy they are now, those perfectly crafted lead lines still influence a lot of my playing, even though the context is entirely different.

The first song I heard on my very first radio was L7's "Pretend We're Dead," which also fueled my affinity for distortion.

I really started to get into music in high school, thanks to the early-to-mid 90s alternative being played by the local radio station... I was introduced to stuff like Nirvana, Soundgarden, early Oasis (I still like "Supersonic," the first Oasis song I ever heard), Veruca Salt, the Breeders, Smashing Pumpkins, REM, etc. along with some older stuff like Stone Roses, Social Distortion, and the Smiths. The smaller stations introduced me to a bunch of bands I don't even remember, along with Sunny Day Real Estate. Some of that I still like; some not so much. But one thing all those songs did was make me start playing guitar. A lot. In those days I'd come home from school every day, play for hours until dinner, then eat, then play a little more, then do homework.

Then I got really into punk. It started with groups like Green Day, Rancid, Bad Religion, and NOFX, all of whom were getting radio play at the time. From there, I quickly moved away from skater punk and towards Hardcore, Chaos Punk, and Oi... stuff like Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, Bad Brains, Exploited, Chaos UK, the Varukers, the Business, Blitz, Cock Sparrer, UK Subs, Zounds!, etc., etc., etc.

I think that if I broadened my horizons a little more then, I'd be a lot better player than I am today. But I was just into punk, and had no interest in incorporating influences outside of that genre. I was the best musician in our band, so I didn't feel the need to try to excel more than that.

After that, I went though the ska craze like most of the country, but I shied away from the newer “silly” stuff and dove headfirst into the 60s and 80s stuff. Marley, Toots & the Maytals, Justin Hinds, the Specials, the Selecter, Madness, et al. At the time I was playing drums for a ska band. We did a mix of jazz, ska, and reggae, not unlike bands like See Spot, Hepcat, and Jump With Joey. I know a lot of people are ashamed of the whole ska thing, and to this day, “ska” carries this enormous negative connotation, but, as with every phase of my musical evolution, the stuff I really liked back then still resonates with me now.

Our singer and most of our horn players left the band and we started doing early Brit Pop... kind of like later Beatles mixed w/ Queen type vocal arrangements... with Sunny Day Real Estate drumming. Kind of a weird mix, but I think it worked. I started getting really into the late 90s emo thing and basically wanted to be William Goldsmith (SDRE drummer). I still think just about everything touched by Jeremy Enigk is golden, except for The Fire Theft, who I never really enjoyed.

From there it kind of explodes... I started to get into too many groups to name, most of which are rooted in that classic 90s indie rock mold – alternately chiming and then wall-of-sound guitars, bombastic drums, inventive bass lines, etc. I also started to get really into shoegaze, although the more melodic groups have always drawn me in more than some of the others. For me, I’d listen to Slowdive before Swervedriver, and Swervedriver before MBV, although I do like all three groups. I also like quite a bit of indie pop (Acid House Kings, Club 8, Moonbabies, Sambassadeur)

My playing is basically a mixture of the following influences:

1. Guitar arpeggios into a slightly dirty amp (a la Appleseed Cast, Sunny Day, et al) or the same into a super clean amp dripping with reverb (a la The Innocence Mission, Trespassers William)
2. Walls of fuzzy guitar drenched in reverb (a la Slowdive and similar melodic shoegazer bands)
3. Soaring yet melodic guitar solos (a la David Gilmour, and to a lesser extent, Boston)
4. Ambient drones (again, still the melodic (a la Hammock, Stars of the Lid), usually with layers of near-infinite delay rather than proper looping
5. Fuzz, fuzz, and more fuzz (a la Autolux, The Lassie Foundation, Asobi Seksu, The Black Keys, etc.... too many to name).

I didn’t really get into Devi’s products because they would be that useful for the sounds I tend to produce, but because I have a soft spot for pedals that make the audience take note. And Devi's pedals certainly do that. Case in point, my VFM Smooth does a decent muff sound on its own. It's good, but I have other pedals I prefer for those muff moments. But I really like the VFM Smooth with the texture up pretty high, to get that squashed scrambled sound because it's not the sound you expect to come from a guitar.

And to be honest, I first stumbled upon this place back in the Effector 13 days from one of those "List all the Pedal Manufacturers" threads, and I was blown away by the artwork. I always thought that if they sounded a little more to my liking, I'd have the whole lot.

So it wasn't really noise/drone/ambient that drove me to Devi's pedals, though they certainly enable me to do that stuff. I guess I kind of hijacked the thread by giving a bunch of influences that are NOT in the noise/drone category. Oh well... I usually recommend most of the bands I listed to everyone, so there you go.

Pedalboard tour in the works...

mrbrooks wrote:I am musically schizophrenic-so I'm still not sure at what point I decided I loved noise and actually considered it music right along side the likes of Elton John and Meshuggah (skitso-like I said)...

Since hearing MBV's Loveless album-then finding the band Lovesliescrushing all those years ago-I have been interested in noise music, but didn't really take the plunge in "performing" it until the last few years or so...

Where I am currently at - we can blame Devi completely for inventing the AE (the original one with the Chaos switch!) - since then, it's been a slide towards complete noise/drone/glitch...it's what I like to do and I think I do it pretty well...

Interestingly-I am in the process of creating a net.label dedicated to noise music, which will be launching in October. I will be needing submissions for releases right out of the gate, so against my better judgement, I see no reason not to post this link for some of you potential noise artists to see what we're up to ahead of time - (the website is not yet "live"):
http://www.noisekoncept.com/mission.html

.b

I had a huge stint with Elton john's early stuff, I'm pretty schizo myself.

Shit man, the label idea sounds ill. I might drop you a line about it with my stuff.

Sonic Youth and Dino Jr. were both big influences for me at a certain point as well. Sunn ((O)) has been mentioned, which is a respectable outfit, but I think I prefer Jesu for drone/metal...Broderick was/is/and always will be a huge influence on me musically.

Funny that for how much I love guitar pedals, and certain music- I rarely play actual guitar at all anymore...when people at work ask about my pedal addiction, they always say, "Wow, you must love playing guitar..." to which I usually respond, "Actually I prefer playing pedals."

.b

Holy Boredoms,. Pop Tatari =

Yeah Godspeed would be my favorite from the post-rock side of things. F#A#∞'s opening is just astonishing. A huge influence on my work in a conceptual sense. I've always been interested in the future and the apocalypse and I've really tried to put an apocalyptic energy and ambience into my music--with noise and such. I've always wanted to do an album with song structure based around an apocalyptic event. Someday.

On melody, I've always been into destroying it. And we all know destruction is just another form of creation.

I got to see the Boredoms once... absolutely insane and awesome.

archlilim wrote:On melody, I've always been into destroying it. And we all know destruction is just another form of creation.

Agreed.

Hi!!
Kudos to NewarkWilder for mentionning Mono. They put a spell on me when I saw them live.

Don't know if I am eclectic or suffer from a severe multiple personality crisis like some of you. Anyway, here is my musical history!

It started when I was about 10. I stopped listening exclusively to my mom's music (which was gregorian chants and Elton John!).

So it all started with the Beastie boys, Eels and bit of britpop with Pulp and Blur. Whose fuzz was quite brutal to me at the time (compared to the classic stuff).

Then, I discovered metal, thanx to (I'm ashamed) Limp Bizkit and (mostly) Slipknot. I quickly went extreme and spent a lot of time listening mainly grind, black and brutal death metal...(and listened to NoFX to rest my ears)

But I soon got bored and kept only la crème de la crème : Macabre and Cephalic Carnage on top.

Coming to the university, my musical horizon widened a lot. I found out that Dance was very funny (Aqua, Toy Box) and noise too (Merzbow, Shu Ishikawa for the Tetsuo OST).
I started my journey in the electronic world with some hardcore tunes and english acid (Chemical borthers, Add N to X, Lemon jelly) and also worshipped The Mad Capsule Markets for their techno punk.

Only then I heard MBV and Mono, The Brian Jonestown massacre and Explosion in the sky...It was very instructive. I learned to take great care of the textures, densities and to better enjoy "instrumental" music (lyrics-less music ).

Nowadays, I listen to tons of things but I may have an liking for breakcore and chiptune. Destructuration is the way!
My actual playlist would be : (album - artist (silly comment))

Hurtbreak wonderland - World's end girlfriend (this guy is a genious, seriously! eclectism virtuosity has a name)

Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding - Ventian Snares ( destructurating unstructurated beats as no one)

Sell our soul - Tha Blue Herb (best japanese hip hop, oneiric transcendence)

LIVE CBGB's NYC 1998 - Alec empire Vs Merzbow (when titans clash it makes a lot of noise (easier to listen for noise neophyte than most of merzbow's works))

Of course I forgot a lot of stuff (mix master mike, future sound of london, Comity and other chaotic hardcore bands, electrocute and datarock...) and most of the listed bands ain't Shoegaze/noise...but that's what made of me a noise addict!!

I'll end this post with two jewels :
one is smooth and just brilliant :Shuren the fire, a subtle jazz rappist http://www.tbhr.co.jp/en/artistprofile/ ... barrel.mp3

the other is brilliant...but jut rude : Cock rock disco a perverted breakcore fun label http://www.cockrockdisco.com/

NewarkWilder wrote: i think my actual dead favorite band of the past few years is Okkervil River but I know I'll never be able to write songs like that.

Saw them live not too long ago in oslo
Didn't get into it, but they were in front of the tent that sold guiness, so uh. yea, had to see them, haha.

edit: also, the netlabel thing sounds fun, maybe I'll send a mail and see if you can dig my stuff? If I'm feeling not too shy one day.

I'm mostly into Shoegaze

JAMC, Slowdive, MBV, Ride, Loop, Moose, Chapterhouse, The Telescopes, and some psychedlia variants of the genre.

What got me into devi's stuff is the loudness of her stuff and the kind of sound I'd like to get ala Jesus and Mary Chain. I also particularly liked the buzzsaw guitars from The Telescopes - Taste album. Pretty awesome stuff.

I'm 29, grew up on 80s new wave post punk, to the birth of shoegaze and death of it in 95 and the resurgence of new shoegaze bands that came out of it is awesome too. I also used to play in a post punk band, http://www.myspace.com/myvalium in the midst of playing shoegaze/ambient stuff as a solo proj. Then people started expressing interest and I just ceased the solo stuff to form a band.

The current shoegaze bands that caught my attention now are A Place To Bury Strangers (though i hated what Oliver's statement about other pedal makers inspired by his designs) and Ringo Deathstarr, to quote a few. I have almost all of the current shoegaze bands as well as old. Too many to list.

Anywayz, glad to see lots of different people with different palettes of sounds and taste here. Always good to see variants of colours of a kaleidoscope.

We should start a thread to share each other's music. Any takers?

Agata, Melt Banana, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Aphex Twin, AsvA, Atheist, Battles, Behold...The Arctopus, Benevento-Russo Duo, Beneath The Massacre, Between The Buried & Me, Billy Cobham, Björk, Bloodbath(Original line up), The Book Of Knots, Boris, Brian Eno, The Brides Of Dr Funkenstein, Buckethead, Burning Witch, Burnt By The Sun, Cecil Taylor, Cephalic Carnage, Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussain & Eric Harland, Charles Mingus, Charlie Hunter, Charlie Parker, East>West Blast Test, Christian McBride, Circa Survive, Cody Chesnutt, Converge, Curl Up And Die, Cyro Baptista, David Byrne, Dhafer Youssef, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Dmitry Yablonsky: Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, DNA, Donald Byrd, Dr. Dre, Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Eddie Hazel, Edgar Meyer, El-P, Electric Masada, Electro Quarterstaff, Eric Dolphy Quintet, Explosions In The Sky, Fantômas, Fear Before The March Of Flames, Foetus Inc., Fred Frith & John Zorn, Funkadelic, Gates ov Hades, Genesis, Genghis Tron, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Grant Green & Bobby Hutcherson, Hella, Hemophiliac, Horse The Band, Into The Moat, Intronaut, Ion Dissonance, ISIS, and this seems enough for today.

On the Subject of Sunn0))) it's to bad so many folks don't seem to dig em the are unruly pioneers of that blackened sound, None the less these are a few off me faves. all are influences. Word Up

,

St.Norman wrote:Agata, Melt Banana, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Aphex Twin, AsvA, Atheist, Battles, Behold...The Arctopus, Benevento-Russo Duo, Beneath The Massacre, Between The Buried & Me, Billy Cobham, Björk, Bloodbath(Original line up), The Book Of Knots, Boris, Brian Eno, The Brides Of Dr Funkenstein, Buckethead, Burning Witch, Burnt By The Sun, Cecil Taylor, Cephalic Carnage, Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussain & Eric Harland, Charles Mingus, Charlie Hunter, Charlie Parker, East>West Blast Test, Christian McBride, Circa Survive, Cody Chesnutt, Converge, Curl Up And Die, Cyro Baptista, David Byrne, Dhafer Youssef, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Dmitry Yablonsky: Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, DNA, Donald Byrd, Dr. Dre, Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Eddie Hazel, Edgar Meyer, El-P, Electric Masada, Electro Quarterstaff, Eric Dolphy Quintet, Explosions In The Sky, Fantômas, Fear Before The March Of Flames, Foetus Inc., Fred Frith & John Zorn, Funkadelic, Gates ov Hades, Genesis, Genghis Tron, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Grant Green & Bobby Hutcherson, Hella, Hemophiliac, Horse The Band, Into The Moat, Intronaut, Ion Dissonance, ISIS, and this seems enough for today.

On the Subject of Sunn0))) it's to bad so many folks don't seem to dig em the are unruly pioneers of that blackened sound, None the less these are a few off me faves. all are influences. Word Up

Damn, that's pretty much THE list for me or at least a large chunk of it. Any list that has Bjork AND El-P on it is just indescribable.