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Jwar wrote:Does anyone have MASF contact info? I'm going to go look through my emails, but I want to straight ask him. I don't care anymore. I'm just going to lay it out.

This feels more like something we can all just forget about rather than chasing it up

coldbrightsunlight wrote:

Jwar wrote:Does anyone have MASF contact info? I'm going to go look through my emails, but I want to straight ask him. I don't care anymore. I'm just going to lay it out.

This feels more like something we can all just forget about rather than chasing it up

I emailed already asking straight out. I need to know for my own sake as well. I want to know who I support and who I don’t is justified. I get if everyone else is done though. I don’t have to share if I get a response I suppose.

Do as you see fit!! I'm just not actually that bothered either way

What is it that you need to know? What did you ask him? Personally, I can't think of a question that gives him an out. Either he knowingly named his pedal after the mass abduction of women, and he's an asshole; or he didn't, and he's inexcusably negligent. Either way, he's not worth my dollars. Call me an absolutist all you want, but it's not on me to get this guy off the hook, whether he chose poorly or maliciously. I don't have time for it. He very probably chose the name because of the "abduction" of the signal. Cool. Very clever. So what? If he called the pedal "abduction", we wouldn't be having this discussion. He called it "raptio", which is a word that targets a particular segment of the population, and that's fucked. It's like calling a pedal "lynchmob". Devil's advocacy and calls for moderation legitimize this sort of bullshit, and embolden the bad actors that continue to propagate it. Support who you want, but--for me--this is a dealbreaker.

And, no, I don't own any Japanoise records. I don't find that sort of edginess clever, endearing, or funny. It's tired, boring, inconsiderate, and not worth my time.

Hmm. Not sure where I sit on this.

I don’t think remembering bad history is a bad thing. It keeps a reminder of improvement and I think keeps us moving forward rather than sweeping it under the rug.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t release a pedal with a swastika on it, regardless of why it is there.

Eivind August wrote:

Pete wrote:Yikes, I had no idea of the meaning of the word “raptio”. That’s baaaaad. How long has that pedal been in production? Seems wild that we’re just now learning of the name, considering how popular that pedal is.

Wait, none of you ever googled this? Yes, it's a silly name, in line with the whole shock/horror/splatter/bondage theme a lot of noise culture goes for. Have you ever googled where the name Joy Division comes from? Great pedal though. I just got it etched with some cool samurai.

Just opened this thread, looks like I should grab a snack.

No, I only ever googled “Masf raptio”, because I think the pedal’s sweet and have wanted one for a while. Not sure if I still feel that way now, though... I have a Bananana Mandala, which does a real similar thing. It’s just wild to me that I never stumbled upon the meaning of raptio, until now.

Benn Roe wrote:And, no, I don't own any Japanoise records. I don't find that sort of edginess clever, endearing, or funny. It's tired, boring, inconsiderate, and not worth my time.

Probably pretty obvious to state but the amount of Japanese noise records that are overtly exploitative/sketchy is pretty minimal (but not non-existant!), Masami would like you to believe it never even happened!

However if we're talking power electronics you could fill a small rural cottage and it's adjacent barn with the amount of sketchy embarrassing shit coming out of that scene for the sake of shock value....

D.o.S. wrote:

Eivind August wrote:Have you ever googled where the name Joy Division comes from?

A rare example where the band is worse than the namesake.

Also this is the only good genital-themed pedal name I reckon



I don't know if I'd name my pedal company Hotone. But then again, maybe I would

vidret wrote:Why would you want ho tone?

vidret wrote:Is it hot-one or ho-tone? Why would you want ho tone?

Well, the idea was and still is: Hot-Tone. They are awesome pedals.

coldbrightsunlight wrote:If people were really worried about possibly offensive symbology they'd probably quit it with the Soviet stuff, you know given the wide scale human rights abuses, mass murder and starvation and the millions of people still scarred by the legacy of those regimes.

But we like that because it looks cool and edgy on the wall of my dorm room

This is a go-to for whataboutism, but it doesn't really work. The Soviet Union had far more non-Stalinist history than Stalinist - for the rest was it a repressive regime? Yes. More repressive than most of the world? Not really. More repressive than its predecessor? No. Is history complicated? Yes. Here in the enlightened west we're still happy to make heroic movies about Winston "Benghali famine, never heard of it" Churchill but you'd never whatabout Union Jack symbolism.

The semiotics of the Nazi swastika have no such complexity, of course. And a Japanese-themed pedal wouldn't be inherently offensive - we're talking about references rather specifically to Imperial crimes against humanity. Hell, make a Zero-themed pedal and no one would bat an eye.

jirodreamsofdank wrote:

coldbrightsunlight wrote:If people were really worried about possibly offensive symbology they'd probably quit it with the Soviet stuff, you know given the wide scale human rights abuses, mass murder and starvation and the millions of people still scarred by the legacy of those regimes.

But we like that because it looks cool and edgy on the wall of my dorm room

This is a go-to for whataboutism, but it doesn't really work. The Soviet Union had far more non-Stalinist history than Stalinist - for the rest was it a repressive regime? Yes. More repressive than most of the world? Not really. More repressive than its predecessor? No.

You're not Eastern European, are you jiro?

We are now in a unique place in history to be able to look back and be able to realise that humans are, in the grand scale, a terrible idea. Never should have crawled out of the ooze. Or perhaps, should never have triumphed over the Neanderthal. We're merely the nasty little apes that won and have we / will we ever outgrow that legacy?

Slightly more on topic, MASF formed to cater to the harsh noise & power electronics crowd. Being familiar with the UK scene through 'zines that covered them amongst other things I can't say I'm entirely surprised that Raptio would be a thing, take a look at Whitehouse as a prime example of "ironic misogyny". Or Boyd Rice edgelording his way in to fascism. Unfortunately there will always be unsavoury elements to any artform for everyone because art is subjective and one man's neo-folk album with cool imagery is another man's ethno-state fantasy set to sub-Neil Young chord progressions. All you can do is not support the things you don't agree with. You can't force somebody to be something they're not but if you don't feel comfortable then you should not support them financially.

It's a tricky line to walk though. On an old (and now dead) forum I bought some used CD's from another user based on nothing more than I had heard their name tossed around by a couple of folks saying they were cool. Package arrives and tucked in amongst the other stuff are these two albums I got on a whim. Which have Vikings in chariots charging underneath a fucking flaming windill on the sleeve. Y'know, that lame ass swastika that Nazi's use when they still want plausible deniability? So I put them straight back up for sale and got rid of them pretty quickly. Should have thrown them in the bin, in retrospect. And left the forum long before it closed down but hindsight is always 20/20.

So while it may seem glib, don't like the name? Don't buy the product. And this isn't a lassaiz faire, "the markets will decide" kind of argument, it's just that shitty people will be shitty. You might be able to change them with reasoning and deep conversation, you most likely won't with righteous bellowing and all things being perfect and fair you may still not. And is a niche effects pedal worth that much to your own mental health when a simple "huh, that's definitely not for me" will likely achieve the same outcome?

Also, can you imagine being one of those people that bought that Steel Panther pedal? And then gloated about it in the TGP thread with salutory "triggeRed Libtardzorz" being thrown about as if these shark-eyed, spandex wearing opportunists were in fact dropping the wittiest bon mots the world had heard since Oscar Wilde? Can you imagine being that fragile in your cis-het white middle class male fantasy?