#i mean let's be real i was a furry long before 2005

[hms-no-fun]

i have never gone to kingdom hearts in my life. i tried to play kh1 at a friend's house and got as far as tarzan world before giving up. but when kh2 came out my mortal enemy brought the strategy guide to our high school lunch table to pass around. i flipped through it dismissively because i thought all the character designs were lame-- then i saw Lion King Sora. and i just fucking bluescreened for like six whole minutes. i don't know how to describe what i felt except pure, undiluted euphoria. someone asked me what was up and i was like "i dunno, i guess Lion King Sora looks cool." and then my mortal enemy smiled his toothiest evil smile and said "you're a fucking furry."

then i spent the next 13 years in denial despite vocally defending furries at every opportunity and only following furry artists and reading furry comics and fantasizing about getting turned into a funny animal person of the opposite gender ("no i'm NOt trans i'm NOT trans i'm not even GAY ok i just think it'd be hot SHUT UP").

unfortunately, my arch nemesis was right. i am a fucking furry, and it's Lion King Sora's fault.

♪"Look around in all the places you go to Stand your ground and stay solid like Ogun Watch your back and just do what you supposed to Take care of family and people you’re close to"♪

[fatrocka64]

I'm making this announcement because I was keeping a secret from everyone online.. but I don't want any trolls or hate comments on my blog at all. I am actually Autistic I also have something called Neuro Diversity which was caused by my Obsession with Zootopia and the Furry fandom was part of my Neuro Diversity same with how Bionicle was part of my autism too. I kept this secret for a long time for 9 years of being on mainstream social media. I am only posting this on my tumblr because I don't want to alarm anyone on Furaffinity and DeviantArt. But this is the real reason why I keep making vent and rant posts about my experiences with family life school and popular media. And I have been keeping them dear to my heart since 2006! Grade 3 changed my life forever and had driven me insane enough to the point where I managed to find out how I can escape my family in order to evolve into a stronger person "mentally" I also want to say that I am sorry for what happened with my experience with Zootopia's popularity due to how my mother not being supportive enough with the way that the movie had occasionally offered comfort and rebellion against the spirit of toxic mother syndrome. My teacher who managed to fill my Brain with sympathy.. she was the one responsible for me joining the Furry fandom but it wasn't even my fault that she did that. It was all her fault! Not me.. but Disney made the movie and they had created something that I ZERO involvement with in the first place. Bionicle was the first obsession but my mom didn't walk out on me because she would have been seen as a bad parent however my old ex staff at my group home agency had to walk out due to me being a furry because being a part of the furry fandom is different from Bionicle. Some people even make furry themed Bionicle characters in custom designed models. But that doesn't mean that Furries are monsters how my ex employee reacted to them so she can run away from me and them. The only good days I ever had was from 2001 to 2005 but Grade 3 in 2006 stripped my happiness away and turned me into a self doubting maniac to the point where I had to be taken into the hospital years later. In 2012 and 2016 my family had laid down threats where they would take me to the hospital over me being interested in many different types of fandoms and obsessions during that time. Until 2017 Zootopia had won the Oscars and as a consequence of my disgusting behaviour pattern I had to be taken into the hospital for letting zootopia exist.. but way before the movie was released. Uh oh! Monster's University came into the building and I had to keep it a secret from my parents because they wouldn't have taken me to see it in the movie theater due to how they would have reacted.

But 10 years later I had changed my life.. more like my teacher's arrogance.. now it's been 17 years ago since I was in Grade 3. should I leave social media due to how I acted?? Maybe not but there might be some consequences for what I'm about to do to stand up to the one person who decides to show hate. (It's a surprise) I will continue making posts but there will be a time where I perform the Harold Ramis Ritual. So Merry Christmas and have a peaceful one.. sincerely - fatrocka64.

I hope that you find peaceful life moments in your families..

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

[matthewebel]

Confessions of an Attention Addict

Hello again, old friend. It’s been too long. Let’s catch up.

Usually people say that as a means of politely begging forgiveness for their inability to maintain a relationship with no intention of actually following through. Right now, I need to follow through and catch you up on what’s been going on for nearly thirteen years now. It’s not an easy story for me to tell, but I promise there’s a happy ending. Grab a cup and let’s do this.

Depression, Addiction, and Cognitive Dissonance

Ignore the dramatic headline, I already told you there’s a happy ending.

I didn’t realize how addicted I’d become until maybe 2016. I suppose that’s normal; most addicts don’t jump head-first into dependency. It creeps up on you. Back in 2005 I wrote a lengthy song about addiction to caffeine and beer that seemed to resonate with some people, but I was never addicted to either. My drug was more pernicious. I’ve been mainlining the same publicly-accepted drug since I was a kid, in fact: Attention.

So when the podcast wave of 2005-2008 carried me to a magical land with no day job, I was ecstatic. Attention came easier than coke in Miami. The Furries also took me in as their star performer and, finally, I found myself touring the nation. Every time I looked out into a dark ballroom to see hundreds of people singing my songs back to me, I felt the kind of rush that makes addicts forget to eat or sleep. The peak of this attention— which we’ll lovingly refer to as “rock bottom” —was probably Anthrocon 2013.

Fuck, Runtt and I looked good on steadicam.

But that was the beginning of the crash. Podcasting and live streaming went from the hot new technology with a tight-knit community to everyday background noise. The Furry fandom got tired of seeing me and my amazing bald companion at every convention, but I wasn’t ready to let go. I had tasted that high and I wanted more.

From 2012 right up until 2017 I kept grasping for that attention-high only to have it dissolve in my fingertips. I tried everything I could think of– writing songs about trendy geek topics, spicing up the live shows with Sci-Fi themes, but no one outside a small core of followers seemed to know who I was any more. The high just couldn’t reach that 2013 peak, and I couldn’t face a future without all that glorious attention.

Fortunately the path downhill was paved with lyrics. My last foray into the world of piano rock emerged in June 2017. I’m still proud of Cognitive Dissonance, even if it reminds me of just how depressed I’d been for that half of the decade. Like most folks fighting their demons, it holds up a whimsical façade and a veneer of optimism, but everyone can see the darkness within.

Thank God I had a strong, steady man in my life all this time, I’m not sure how I would’ve fared without him.

It got to the point, near the end of 2017, when I just stopped booking shows. I stopped blogging and sending you emails. I would sit at my desk in the morning and stare at the screen with no clue what to do. Wasn’t I creative enough to make people pay attention any more? Wasn’t I good enough to be the center of attention again? Shit needed to change, and fast.

So we moved to Seattle, but that’s another story.

As I packed all of my belongings, I realized there was a lot I needed to throw out… first and foremost, my addiction to attention. But what would that leave me with? I had to redefine my identity in a way that was both healthy and sustainable. I had to ask myself a difficult question: Why did I get into this business in the first place?

An Apology to the Robot Army

People still ask me if I’m ever going to release another piano rock album. I know, if you’re reading this, it’s probably because you saw me on stage at a convention banging on a keyboard, not spinning turntables. The only answer I can give you is gonna sound like a copout: Maybe.

EDM wasn’t that far of a leap for me, to be honest. The event that sparked my love for making music was a single night with a piece of gear that plugged into my digital piano. If you want to hear that story, let me know and I’ll spin up another blog post. Suffice it to say, however, that I probably should’ve gone into electronic music genres right from age 12. No matter what, I never ever should’ve dabbled in Christian pop (sorry, Mom). But I’ve already made a major genre-shift once before, and I needed to now.

I had to decide if I was going to die on the hill of piano-geek-rock or retool the factory to make a product that would actually sell.

(Spoiler: I did not, in fact, die.)

You see, part of the healing process was what I call “retooling the factory.” When a company makes a product (let’s say 8-track tape decks) and the world starts listening to cassettes, they have to decide what their product is going to be. Actually, to be more specific, they have to decide what their identity is going to be… an 8-track deck company, or an audiovisual gear company? I mean, there are always going to be 8-track enthusiasts, but do we cater to that niche or change our product? Why did we get into this business in the first place?

And here’s where we swing back around to that pesky attention addiction of mine. In this business, attention is both a drug and the primary source of income. What a fucking dilemma, huh?

On one hand, the need for attention is an unhealthy way to gauge one’s self-worth. On the other, it’s the primary indicator for how well a performing artist is doing.

It took a lot— a lot –of soul-searching to realize dance music could decouple my addiction from the real business necessity of growing my audience again. Switching my primary instrument from keys to turntables made it easier for me to get out of the way and let the music itself be the center of attention.

And Avian Invasion was born. You should go check him out… more on that at the end of this long-ass update.

So, for those of you asking if I’ll get back into piano rock… I want you to understand that I cherish you greatly. I love you. I want to make the music that made you happy back then, I really do. The hard business truth is that there simply weren’t enough people like you to keep me in business. More important than that, though, I am once again engaged in the creative process. I don’t think I’ve been this focused on making music since the early days of Matthew Ebel dot net

I won’t say that another piano rock album will never happen, but right now Avian Invasion is the only thing on my radar. The Bird, effectively saved my life. I hope you can appreciate that, at least.

Now What?

Here’s where you, a part of my beloved Robot Army, come in.

I need you to go and show your support for Avian Invasion. Remember, Bird One saved my life. Without him, I’d still be staring at that blank screen wondering why I even bother to try any more. Like Leeloo Dallas, he needs your love to survive, just as I always have. And I need him. Please go to avianinvasion.com right now and do… the usual stuff: Add him on Spotify, Like him on Facebook, etc. There are icons on the website and you know what they do.

Matthew Ebel will still be here, updating you on the behind-the-scenes side of things. If you want to peek behind the bird mask and explore this new frontier with me, I’ll try to share as much as I can with you. In fact, I’ll be spending the summer building my own recording studio from scratch, and this is where I’ll be sharing photos and videos and blogs about the experience.

Maybe this decade will be one to celebrate.

Originally posted at http://bit.ly/2TnUU46

[oneweekoneband]

Why Did It Take Me So Long To Notice That The Word Is “Fury” Not “Furry”?

Hello again. While I must admit to mild surprise at Dinosaur Jr.’s absence from the constantly growing roster of artists covered on OWOB, I should also state my attempted approach to writing about a band with no lack of wordage already available on its behalf. Though potentially futile, I will be trying to write something that benefits a cross-section of readers, from the unfamiliar but curious to the currently dismissive therefore purposely detached to the self-appointed superfan. All of this being stated, please understand that “attempted” carries one hell of an implied emphasis.

As covered in the previous post, I’m an active writer with many years in the trenches, though at least a half-decade in between my first toe-dips into this endeavor and the formative teenage moment when exposure to two Dinosaur Jr. albums (1987’s You’re Living All Over Me and 1991’s Green Mind, their second and fourth, respectively) combined to transform a fervent interest in underground music into a terminal, all-consuming obsession that almost seems to have dictated, in some way, shape or form, each lifting of a finger since. 

I’ve had a fair amount of writing published on the subject of this band, but most of it appeared during the first half of my now 18 years in this racket, barring the entries about several Dinosaur Jr. albums did make it into my second (and most recent) book, which carried the subtitle of 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981 - 1996 and a title that I absolutely hate so it shall not be revisited. On that note, attacks of full-body cringe have become as reliable as Christmas upon revisiting older writings, therefore I did not in order to guarantee no points or angles reiterated. But for what it’s worth, at some point in the early-00s, I did a long and embarrassing tribute to You’re Living All Over Me for the Perfect Sound Forever website as my first piece of writing on the band. Then once the spotlight was aimed backwards and topically in 2004-2006 for that period’s two-tiered reissue and reunion activity, I wrote a bunch of features about the Homestead and SST years (plus the early run of reunion shows) for several outlets. I interviewed both Mascis and Barlow, twice each if I remember correctly, and essentially felt like I said everything there was to possibly say about this band whose music more or less put me on a personal and professional course that continues to this day. I don’t feel like that anymore.

Two things to take into account before we move on: First, none of the subsequent entries will be this long, or at least that’s the plan. Secondly, this week will feature very little writing on the four albums of new material Dinosaur Jr. has released since the original lineup of J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Emmett Jefferson Murphy III (almost exclusively known as “Murph” but I find his full given name to be amusing) reunited in 2005…will be of the unflattering comparative variety. However popular it might be to jump to black-and-white, definitive conclusions, do not take this to mean I consider these albums to be bad or boring or anything of the sort. But do know that they are, despite what the rest of the world seemingly believes, inferior when placed against what I will be trying to push into your ears and lives going forward. And understand that Dinosaur Jr.’s major-label era (1991 - 1997) will be explored in a nooks-and-crannies fashion (meaning, we’re going to get into Mike Johnson’s discography), as I feel there’s a nice chunk of amazing music hidden in there that has been largely overlooked or misunderstood.

I am about as obsessed with music as I am the non-fiction ghetto in which I operate.  Therefore it might or might not behoove me to do something no one outside of this little world should waste their time with, and that would be lot of overthinking about a couple of crucial elements of artistic criticism and appreciation that appear to be under constant attack these days: context and nuance. There is no such thing as good-to-great creative nonfiction or journalism that lacks or misuses either, and the most difficult to translate of the two is, of course, context. 

These days it seems every talking head (or every record-store loiterer or live show barnacle) of similar vintage to myself should be wearing a t-shirt or rocking a bumper-sticker that says, “Ask Me What It Was Like Before The Internet!”. This is something for which I harbor a visceral and distinct distaste if not great embarrassment. Any historically-precise party line of assumed profundity is going to fail at transmitting the intended impact for two reasons. First is the obvious neutering of any meaning or relevance when beating a cultural audience over the head with something, year after year, generation after generation. The second is more problematic, as I’m not certain that being present during its heyday or for a following period of linear influence is necessitated so as to provide fundamental context needed to understand how or why a band was groundbreaking or brain-rearranging or whatnot. 

For example, Dinosaur Jr. was four albums and seven years active once its music entered my life in earnest. Still, when it comes to blanket mantras of the reality-removed like, “This Was Before The Internet!” or “We Didn’t Have Cell Phones” battle stories, usually issued as some delusional badge of struggle or evidence of authenticity, we’re talking something that means far less than is assumed to a recipient without the same experiential history. I usually cringe when I witness someone else trying to get this across to a younger generation, though I have yet to figure out myself how to do it effectively. 

Conversely, there are examples of past underground rock prescience (well beyond the legendary trio of albums released by Dinosaur Jr. between 1985 and 1988) such as Mission of Burma, Black Flag, NEU!, Brian Eno’s “Third Uncle”, The Feelies, The Embarrassment, Can, This Heat, The Fall, mid-period Sonic Youth, Husker Du’s SST years, Black Sabbath, Slayer, mid-80s Swans, and Miles Davis’ 1970 - 1975 output, to name but a few, that occurred long before I developed anything close to refined taste or the ability to let music have an impact on a deep emotional and intellectual level. Or, for that matter, the ability to breath air outside of the womb in some of those cases. 

Still, once properly blown away, I could easily wrap my head around how each example was way ahead of the curve, or scared the shit out of most listeners who came in contact with it in real time. Of course, it helps if the music in question resides in the exclusive canon reserved for that which is genuinely timeless. If it falls short of timeless it sure as hell better be a high quality, well-aged specimen of music that’s nonetheless easily identifiable as being from a certain era of yore. Much of material released by Dinosaur Jr.’s during the band’s first two phases of activity, which together span 1985 until 1997, fits into one of those two categories.

My first meaningful introduction to Dinosaur Jr. essentially played out in similar a similar fashion to formative life-altering moments spun by many writers, musicians, and fans of my generation or older. I suppose a warning should now be issued that you’re about to read yet another account of someone taping episodes of MTV’s 120 Minutes. I had a habit of setting the recording time to the shittiest quality of six hours and fitting three episodes of said show onto my parents’ VHS copies of HBO and Cinemax films like The Cotton Club and Bill Cosby’s Himself. Some time after its parent album (You’re Living All Over Me) was released, on a Christmas night when I was in my early teens, the video for “Little Fury Things” ran between a Michelle Shocked number and The Cure’s infuriatingly awful “Let’s Go To Bed” (that goes for the video and the song). At first I focused on other future life-alterers like the clip for The Fall’s “New Big Prinz” and Sonic Youth’s iconic “Teenage Riot” video, as Dinosaur Jr.’s idea of a video and that song were just too fucking dark and ominous for my young teenage mind. 

But because I had to fast forward or rewind through multiple Christmas-special live-in-the-studio tomfoolery from hosts They Might Be Giants along with crap that was somehow already “not for me” like Fishbone, Camouflage, Translator, and the not-that-bad-but-long-as-hell video for Love And Rockets’ “Dog End Of A Day Gone By”, I eventually came around to the three minutes and change that was the “Little Fury Things” video….like a moth to flame. I still have the very VHS tape I used to play and rewind repeatedly while my parents were at work during the day, blasting it through the shitty speakers of our 27” Sony Trinitron and running all over the floorplans of the three houses (well, one house and two apartments, if we’re to split hairs) I lived in during my high school years. The beginning of the video goes blank for a few seconds because I accidentally hit “record” on the remote amidst some furious bouncing all over the couches and chairs.

I seriously doubt there’s a song I’ve listened to, on my own accord, more times than this one and it still delivers a palpable, albeit much different due to time passed, charge as it plays at this very moment. The sonic dichotomy that makes this track exciting- powerful noise/distortion married to a huge, highly emotive pop hook-happens to be another dragon I chase to this day and in general has been one of the crucial elements of forward movement undertaken by post-hardcore, proto and first-gen indie-rock, punk rock, shoegaze and underground metal over the last 30 years. Because I still run into music obsessives, mostly younger, who are unaware of Dinosaur Jr.’s legacy and historical place as a paramount force of innovation, influence and well-aged listening excitement, I’ll close this entry with the aforementioned video despite it visually communicating far less than it does musically. 

Much has been written (years ago by myself and more recently in Nick Atfield’s 33 ⅓ book on the album it opens) about attempting to decipher or assign one’s own meaning and words to what is probably a bunch of lyrical nonsense. I think that’s organically symptomatic of anything that hits with this kind of power and non-cheesy melancholic punch. A personal fave, however, would have to go to the one-off “Hallelujah, the sunlight brings the red out in your eyes” line that opens the gate for an instrumental mid-section of riffs (where a guitar solo might normally be).

“Little Fury Things” official video from 1987′s You’re Living All Over Me

And here’s a couple of clips that hopefully illustrate how insanely loud and air-moving Dinosaur Jr. Mach I must have been as a live band, especially considering the average age of the members was 20 to 22.

1986 at UMass…

Germany, 1988, full set. Pretty good sound given the age/era.