I (un)Rock the Party
Electronica does not exist. Not as a genre or a description. It was coined by the North American music press to refer to the second wave of electronic music's explosion in the late 90s, and exists purely as a marketing buzzword, not any actual quantifiable branch of music... Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy's 'Fat of the Land', Chemical Brothers and other big-time stars of that period were all called "electronica" at one point or another, but the person who really popularized it in the public consciousness was Madonna and her shallow, William Orbit-produced piss-poor attempt at appropriating trance music as something she invented (Ray of Light). She used that word all the damn time in interviews. God I hate her. So yeah: There is no such thing as electronica. I want each and every one of you to stop calling it that, because it makes you sound like a god damn retard.
i've been spending some time trying to learn valuable lessons about Goa-Buttrock and Illbient music at Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (not electronica).
personally, i find i'm more into the downtempo stuff. i know that because i just listened to bunch of Happy Gabber, Noizecore, and Glitch. what? you don't know those sub-sub-under-genres of electronia dance music?
fucking heathen.
i have known about them for at least six minutes. except Glitch which i just listened to for about twelve seconds.
it's as good as it sounds like it would be.
it's always sort of pissed me off that i had no idea what the difference between, say, jungle and drum & bass is. now i know. jungle is better.
not that i go out dancing all that often, but at least when i go now i'll have a better sense of what it is that i like.
also, speaking of weird sub-sub-under-genres, i got me a massage last night. i was achified so i did some trolling on the web for a masseuse in my neighborhood.
the castro.
surprisingly, most castro masseuses are men. by chance or hormonal demand, all of my regular masseuses for the past twenty years or so have been women. i like the women touching my body, see? they've got that womanly thing that i find so feminine. right? not that it was sexual or arousing or anything, just, hey. women. touching me. for money.
moving on.
i found this guy Jorge who offers Anma-Shiatsu massage a few blocks from my place. "Anma Shiatsu is an acu-pressure massage that is relaxing and therapeutic," says his website.
i like relaxing. hey! i like theraputic! $40 first time trial special? i think i-diggity-do!
plus, Jorge had the extra special feature of being available that very evening which, coincidentally, was when my back hurt. it's like, cosmic!
Jorge gives good massage. it's a lot of pressure point stuff, but with some satisfying kneading and pulling and no oil. we don't like the oil. it's all oily. i understand Anma Shiatsu is more popular in Japan. here it's barely taught or practiced. Jorge is like the last of the mohicans. except there are more practitioners and he's not mohican.
he also gave me a hug when i said goodbye which was awfully cute. i mean, he had just been touching my naked body. it seemed polite.
then we rolled around in some oil while listening to crunk.
well, sure, i can stop, but you really need to get cddb to stop categorizing almost everything as electronica/dance. itunes, to it's credit, uses electronic, but unless cddb stops, there's no hope really.
but what do i know? i don't believe that there's an effective difference between jungle and d-n-b anymore. and i like glitchcore.
You ought to post that to BoingBoing.... I found it very interesting indeed.