BEGIN LINE_NOIZ.8 I S S U E - * J A N U A R Y 2 0 , 1 9 9 4 >LiNE NOiZ< >LiNE NOiZ< > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > L I N E N O I Z L I N E N O I Z < < < < < < < < < < < < < < < < < < CYbERPUNk I N f O R M A t i O N E - Z i N E <<><><><><>------<><><><><>< L i N E N O i Z ><><><><><>------<><><><><>> I S S U E - * J A N U A R Y 2 0 , 1 9 9 4 : File ! : Intro to Issue 8 : Billy Biggs : File @ : Cyberpunk Lives! : Ben Iglauer : File # : Eyecandy : KRISJONES@delphi.com : File $ : SeaQuest DSV: The Death of Intelligent Science Fiction : The Eyeball Kid : File % : What is Cyberpunk Music? : Billy Biggs : File ^ : Cyberpunk Music : G Didcock ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- File - ! -Billy Biggs, da nerd. --NOTICE: IF you subscribed and HAVEN't recieved any issues, mail me and I'll fix the problem. -*- Subscription Info -*- Subscriptions can be obtained by sending mail to: dodger@fubar.bk.psu.edu With the words: Subscription LineNoiz In the body of the letter. Back Issues can be recieved by sending mail to the same address with the words BACK ISSUES in the subject. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- File - @ >From: benigle@efn.org (Ben Iglauer) Cyberpunk Lives! by Ben Iglauer For the last 7 years, it has been trendy to say that cyberpunk is dead. This all may have began in the late '80s, when many of the premier cyberpunk science fiction writers were declaring that the subgenre they founded had become cliched beyond belief, and lost the edge of originality it once had. People like John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, and William Gibson were saying that the original work was no longer being down in the Genre. It was just after the gulf war, a war that let the country watch a cruise missile strike through the viewing lens of the missile, when I had the opportunity to see Gibson read from The Difference Engine at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, California. Gibson described is fears of becoming pigeon holed not just as a science fiction writer, but as a 'cyberpunk'. He reiterated that the edge of the science fiction genre had moved away. That same year, Thomas Disch, an old 'new wave' writer, had an essay printed in the New Yorker about how science fiction has in general a juvenile oriented literature, cyberpunk as being based on slick hollywood movie sets (ala Blade Runner), and dismissing William Burroughs as a "gross out". To an extent it was true. In science fiction literature, many of the superficial conventions of cyberpunk had become cliched. Neurojacks, console cowboys, rebels on designer drugs, mirror shades and black leather, etc. had all been appropriated into boring, formula tales of detectives, cops, lone heros, and militarism. There was even a flurry of cyberpunk role playing games, which were not based on any particular work, but on the common devices of the genre as a whole: yakuza, implant weapons, mega-corporations-- cool games, but not necessarily a sign of a vibrant and original literature. But while some of the devices that the genre had started with may have lost their metaphoric punch, the essence of cyberpunk had not died, but was in fact thriving to an extent that no other form of science fiction ever really has. Scientists, consciously imitating the genre, were creating virtual reality and biofeedback interfaces for computers. Hackers in Germany were arrested for using the internet to access and transport information to the KGB (one of them, Pengo was a serious Gibson fan, and even wore black leather). The Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games, stealing their computers, and delaying the printing of GURPS Cyberpunk. People, calling themselves 'cyberpunks' faced off against the US government's efforts control encryption technologies. Only perhaps in the space program can science fiction be said to have such a profound resonance in our understanding of where we are, and what we are about as a civilization. Artists far outside the genre like Mark Pauline, Negative Land, and Kathy Acker, were innovatively utilizing a cyberpunk understanding in their work. Magazines like Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, and Wired appeared; magazines that were not devoted to cyberpunk literature, but to what was now being called 'cyberpunk culture'. The essence of cyberpunk can not die, because it is an insight into what it is to be a human in the kind of post industrial, capitalistic, technological civilization that we are a part of. Every time a homeless person asks you for a quarter while listening to his old Sony walk man; every time you read about AIDS, Singapore, the violence initiative (to drug inner those inner city residents designated as the most likely to become violent), chip heists, PGP, work place surveillance, or global warming; every time you log into the internet, donate sperm, or 'borrow' a piece of software, you are taking part in a reality that cyberpunk speaks to. It uses metaphor to up the volume on this reality. The louder, the better. Even after the epitaphs, cyberpunk literature (often called 'post- cyberpunk' now) is not only remaining vital, but seems to be getting better. Virtual Light is William Gibson's greatest work yet, Neal Stephanson's Snow Crash is hilariously Pynchonesque, and Jack Womak's books (Terraplane, etc.) are brutally emotional, and poetic. William Burroughs said that language is a virus from outer space. Metaphors, if they find a suitably ripe host, reproduce and spread rapidly, transforming their symbiotic partners in the process. As cyberpunk metastasizes throughout the culture, we start to see strange symptoms manifest, like Billy Idol recordings (Niel Young really beat him to it by more than 10 years with Trans), post- apocalyptic B action flicks, and cyber buzz words. These are not signs that cyberpunk is dead, but signs that it has taken over its host, and is in the process of devouring it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- File - # >From: KRISJONES@delphi.com Eyecandy they poison my mind they make me see things i don't what to -product of the system- they tell me they do tell me... i try to hide, but what they say is everywhere hated, because i submit but what choice have i? none no choice i cannot help myself on the teevee they say... on the radio... in the magazines, they say it everywhere oh god, i think i'm falling i can't help it this is how they raised me... when i was old enough to think they pushed it into my head now i'm a man possessed possessed no chance to run away the deadliest disease in the world has no cure addiction (gimme) oh god, i am falling falling i am falling! but they taught me! they told me this was right they told me how to think... they told me, and i listened i listened! why? why couldn't i see they had poison on their tongues? - in their eyes - held in their hands they gave me something something i can never give back because it's eating me alive and i'm dying falling (no parachute) can't help myself no one else will help me i'm diseased oh god, the ground is getting closer help their god is a three-letter word... and i con't help but bow down to him bow but i love it (they made me) i love it (i have no choice) i love it (god, it feels so good) i love it (i can't help but give in) i love it (no will-power) no more power no power they have it all and they're using it against me against me oh god, i'm almost compost dying tell you - don't listen! don't look! don't let them do to you what they've done to me (but now i have no choice) slave to to all the poison oh god... i don't know what to do i'm riding on a train that goies someplace i don't want to be... (no) and it's going so fast i can't jump i can't now that i've learned, i can't go back it's too late for me too late they took my hand and led me through hell and i saw that it reminded me of home sickness i wish i could grow wings and fly away... take a spaceship to a far-away world... and live, undisturbed (no more persecution) oh god, i've hit the ground and splattered (can't get up) oh god, i'm dying (and no one has a band-aid) now i sit here, bleeding watching my soul drip away before me dying voice, "call 911" ... fades away oh god... oh god... yea, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil... i will fear no evil fear no evil then why am i afraid? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- File $ >From: eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca (The Eyeball Kid) Subject: Article SEAQUEST DSV: THE DEATH OF INTELLIGENT SCIENCE FICTION There are three people in Hollywood who have done more to popularize Science Fiction than anyone else: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron. They've done so much for the genre I don't have to list their projects because anybody who's a Sci-Fi fan knows the material I'm talking about. In fact the two highest grossing movies in history are "Jurassic Park" and "ET.", both of which are labeled "Science-Fiction". But have you ever heard anyone defend the SF qualities of "ET." or "Jurassic Park"? Have you ever heard anyone debate the ethical ramifications, the technological or sociological impact that might occur if the events in either of these films actually took place? Of course not. Even a bunch of losers like the average Sci-Fi (or worse, SF) fan have better things to do with their time (to qualify my argument at this point, I'll write-off Jeff Goldblum's speech about Chaos theory and life finding a way to survive as simplistic subtext). And in fairness, these films were never intended to suggest ideas that might have contemporary relevance or meaning. You're not supposed to ask yourself "what if?", you' re supposed to pay your money and have a great experience. A glance at the box office receipts would suggest most people did. I might be a bit of a loner on this point, but from the collected bodies of work of Cameron, Lucas, and Spielberg, a "great experience" is about the best I could hope for. Perhaps I'm being too finicky, but I always had a soft spot for "Forbidden Planet", "Seconds", "2001", "Clockwork Orange", "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "Solaris", "The Andromeda Strain", and "Blade Runner" -- SF that made you THINK about a concept, made your mind grapple with an elusive idea; something too creepy to articulate in any language but cinema (monsters of the Id, more human than human, etc.). In fact, Lucas and Spielberg probably felt the same way at one time: THX 1138, and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are at least gestures towards that age of "great concepts". So where did it fall apart? Paragraph 1: "POPULARIZED". They "popularized Science Fiction". They used Science Fiction as a crutch to hold up a story that in any other genre would be called "juvenile" or "simplistic". STAR WARS and ET are fairy tales; TERMINATOR and T2 are urban westerns (you want to debate this? See Tarkovsky's "The Sacrifice" first: it covers every SF concept in T1 and 2 in fine philosophical detail -- and ISN'T an "SF" movie); Jurassic park is a monster movie (great monsters). Take away the Sci-Fi references and you have a story with no excuses. Science Fiction's greatest strength is it's ability to make ideas articulate, to allow us to grasp abstracts (ethical, moral, and philosophical) and interpret them. Hard-edge Science Fiction packs kick-ass cerebral hardware.-- Orwell's "1984" is so good it's not even considered SF. And Science Fiction's biggest weakness is as a crutch for a simplistic story ("We'll use the phasolator to reverse the polarity of the big machine with the stuff stuck on it and that'll get rid of those evil aliens/androids/smugglers). But tell this to Steven, George, or James, and they'll think (they won't say it but they'll think it) "Who cares? It sells tickets, let's go with it!" Maybe I'm an old fool. I learned my SF from Late Night Seventies TV, and from well thumbed library books (many with the pictures missing) talking about movies I might see if they came to TV, and if my parents let me stay up late -- because there was no video back then. I remember when Dr. Who was still shot in black-and-white video-tape, and second for second of air-time it beat the crap out of any TV Sci-Fi that's on now. I remember the opening credits from THE OUTER LIMITS ("do not adjust your set, we control the vertical, we control the horizontal"), and I still get chills. There was something alien hidden in the words and pictures back then; something no one could articulate, but which we all realized when we thought about it the next morning; not the "child-like wonder" that Stephen and his cronies shovel down our throats, but a spy-hole into something darker and more secretive. Like maybe WE had all been taken over in our sleep, and THEY didn't know about it. I remember when Science Fiction Television had the same quality of drama as Westerns, or Cop Shows. Can you imagine that today? Can you bare the thought of a Science Fiction Television Series with the same quality of writing, the same dramatic shooting style of LAW AND ORDER, or NYPD BLUE, or even HILL STREET BLUES or St. ELSEWHERE? IT USED TO BE THAT WAY! Yeah, yeah. Call me nostalgic, but I tried to watch SEAQUEST, and if Spielberg had been in my apartment at that moment I'd have slit his smug little throat. I've never been so pissed-off by a TV hour in my life. And based on the success of SEAQUEST, Spielberg will executive produce another "Sci-Fi" series: "Earth 2". It's about the colonizing of a new planet. Great. Just what I was looking forward to in the 95 TV Season. Well, I can always not watch, right? I can always shut off the tube, or rent "Things To Come"? Yeah, but I've seen it, and all the others, and since the genre's not completely dead I live in hope. Every time I watch Star Trek TNG I say a silent prayer for the day an adult will once again write SF Television. Every time I watch HOMICIDE LIFE ON THE STREETS, I wonder what it would be like if Science Fiction TV had grown up the same way Police Drama did. And every time I watch SEAQUEST I turn off the sound and read a book -- I like watching the VIDEO TOASTER SPECIAL EFFECTS! If you want to mail Steven personally and congratulate him on his new TV success, or deride him for being a complete sell-out and a traitor to both TV and Science Fiction, here's the address: Amblin Entertainment 100 Universal City Plaza Bungalow 477 Universal City LA CA 91608 - 1085 Tel: 1-818-777-4600 (The AMBLIN fax number is confidential and they won't give it to you unless they know who you are. If you want to fax, sit tight for my next tirade) If you really want to get his attention, try an intelligently critical letter including the following:: Dear Mr. Spielberg: After one hour of SEAQUEST, I know for certain: YOU WERE SPAWNED BY LAWYERS. Be seeing you, The Eyeball Kid ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- File % >From: ae687@freenet.carleton.ca (Billy Biggs) Subject: Cyberpunk Music WHAT IS CYBERPUNK MUSIC ? ? ? ? [ or more appropriately, What music is Cyberpunk?? ] Many repetitive threads have gone through alt.cyberpunk asking the question: What is Cyberpunk Music? The answer is not simple. Due to the fact that every defenition of cyberpunk can be argued to the point of non- existence, trying to define a genre of music is not a simple task. I would like to say that all opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the entire population, or even close. They are my opinions and you may write your own if you want to. This article is far from being finished. I only grazed the surface of a few bands, not even going into great detail. I expect to expand. If you have any submissions or suggestions, email me. [FLA] To me, the closest thing out there to a "Cyberpunk" group is probably Front Line Assembly. The sound is a mix of techno-like beats, ?interesting? lyrics and added samples. Their 'tactical NEURAL IMPLANT' CD I would consider extremely cp in nature. { Taken from 'Mindphaser' A war of technology Threatens to ignite Digital murder The language of machines } The Mindphaser video is excellent. A mixture of high-tech weponery, computer animation, japanese writing, Cybertech and mech-like machinery used to create an extremely cyberpunk atmosphere. Bill Leeb & Rhys Fulber, also in groups Intermix, Will, Delerium, Noise Unit and Fear Factory , are due to release a new FLA CD in Feb. this year (as in, next month). Expect a more detailed review of FLA [if you can write one, please do] regarding their works and the relation they have to cyberpunk and cp themes. [Front 242] The british Electronic Body Music group is commonly considered cyberpunk. The sound is a mix of noise, sounds, samples, synths and dancy beats. Described (by MuchMusic) as being a mix between Kraftwerk & DAF. The music is extremely electronic, busy (it's best to hear on CD, you almost need the sound quality with 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL) and alternative. Front is not a mainstream group, although rumor has it that they are trying to change that (good or bad?). With their latest release, 05:22:09:12 OFF, Front 242 has added a female vocalist (99 Kowalski). Rumor has it that Front is creating a new album combining the vocals of J-L De Meyer, Richard 23 and Christine 99 Kowalski to create a much different sound. The F242 video for 'Quite Unusual' has been considered cyberpunk. Other videos by Front are a bit more mainstream (Rhythm of Time was strange, images of a spinning ball with knives sticking out of it, a cyborg head, J-L D. M. singing and a mouse in a cage. CP?) yet it's more the industrial sound that sets Front 242 away from other groups. [Kraftwerk] Interestingly enough, I don't ever recall Kraftwerk being mentioned as Cyberpunk. The group to me is like a couple of german guys with a synth. The sound is synth music. Pretty much just synths, drums and vocals. It's not bad, if you like that kind of stuff (I do, but it's pretty weird). [Negativland] An interesting group with much attention on the net. The sound is samples. Yup, lots of samples. Samples, electric guitar and drums. Innovative idea, lots of satire. "soaked in an acid bath of irony" I can't really give too much of an opinion, since I only own the negativconcertland CD, but I was impressed by what I have heard. Their latest release, FREE, is suposed to be a good listen. Keyboard magazine, in a review of FREE, said: "The fact that Negativland, like John Oswald, has taken sample pastiche to a high level of expressive power doesn't settle the question of whether lifting samples from records is legally or morally defensible. But FREE does remind us that strict copyright protection comes at a cost - the suffocation of musicians denied the kind of access they need to express themselves through this idiom." Much discussion has occured in alt.cp conserning a law suit against Negativland by Island records about a 30 second sample of a U2 song. Questions of copyrights and related issues that don't belong in this article but that are worthy of discussion elsewhere have arisen because of Negativland. [Billy Idol] With his CYBERPUNK CD, Billy Idol has entered himself into the world of cp, and the world of internet [idol@well.sf.ca.us]. His CD is for people who listen to that kind of music. Idol was right on a few notes, but I'm sure he got alot of hate mail through his Internet account. {Taken from 'Wasteland' In VR land The future of fun Tell me what to do In VR law Computer Crime Um, so sublime A Fantasy scene In my machine } Whether or not his lirycs are cyberpunk, or if his attitude is cyberpunk, or if he has read Gibson, or if he knows what he's talking about are subjects that have recieved alot of attention. There are cyberpunks [?] who like what Idol has done and who like his music. I'm not going to say he isn't cyberpunk. If there are people who listen to it, maybe it is. [Others] [NOTICE: This list is INCOMPLETE] Other groups considered cyberpunk by some would be some assorted EBM groups, Industrial music, Ministry, Pet Shop Boys, Information Society, Electrik Music, Art of Noise, Devo?, U2 (Zoo TV?), Pink Floyd, Chemlab, etc etc etc etc etc " - In the end, real cyberpunks listen to whatever the fuck they want. " ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- File - ^ >From: eomc48@festival.ed.ac.uk (G Didcock) Subject: Cyberpunk Music With reference to your request for information relating to cyberpunk and music: 1. At a recent public reading and autographing session of Virtual Light in Edinburgh, Scotland - William Gibson stated that 'Neuromancer' contains many references to The Velvet Underground as they were one of his favourite bands. 2. In a VOX magazine article (February 1994) William Gibson refers to Brian Eno's 'Nerve Net' as... "the closest thing I've heard to a soundtrack for Neuromancer" Also, it states that William Gibson wrote the lyrics for 'Dog Star Girl' on Chris Stein's 'Debravation'. 3. IMHO talk of cyberpunk music has to involve the ultimate cyberpunk band (although they refuse to accept such labeling) - Sonic Youth. I know it's cliched but I want to mention it anyway. I don't know if this is the sort of thing you were looking for but I thought I let you know in case you don't get VOX in the states. -- Grant +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |eomc48@uk.ac.ed.festival | So many beautiful people that we will never meet! | |Edinburgh University | Drink on, my friend, Drink on! | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Next Issue [or in that general direction] << >> . I want to do a BIG BIG thing on that burning topic: << >> << >> I N F O R M A T I O N S U P E R H I G H W A Y << >> << >> I know YOU have stuff on it because everybody does. I want to << >> know what it is, who will run it, what will it be like, how to hack << >> it [Idunno] and when it's going to get here. << >> << >> And I'll write an article on it too [trust me, I've got one hell of << >> alot of stuff on it] << >> << >> . CP music reviews. Who is CP. Why. Lets add on to the one I << >> started. << END LINE_NOIZ.8 -- Billy Biggs Ottawa, Canada "When all else fails, ae687@Freenet.carleton.ca read the instructions"