why gatekeeping exists in underground music (2025/03/24)
Nobody wants to be the fat kid in gym class.
humans want to be accepted by a group of other humans. this is one of the most basic, primal, and influential human instincts - the desire to fit in. think back on your life, and you will see how this primal desire has shaped your life for better or for worse.
mainstream culture sets a filter on what is okay and what is not. it creates its own sets of rules and criteria for its group. it will create structures to ensure that the people in the culture meet the rules and criteria, such as education, religion, law, morality, family, etc.. those who meet these criteria fit in. those who do not meet those criteria are filtered out, do not fit in, and are turned into outsiders. think queers, criminals, jews, asians, otakus, incels, metalheads, radicals, punks, carnies, foreigners, the ugly, the strange, the mentally disabled. At best, they do not benefit from mainstream culture. the cultural institutions do not see them as one of them and will not work for their benefit - jobs, schools, social spaces, are not welcoming to these people. Likely, mainstream culture will likely actively persecute them and make their life worse. At worst, mainstream culture will kill them en masse in a genocide.
those who are turned into outsiders, if on a large enough scale, will join together to form their own mainstream seperate from the previous. this is known as a “counterculture”, named because it largely runs in opposition to the mainstream culture it was rejected from. it has its own set of rules and criteria to fit in that are not the same as mainstream culture. it is the dark to the light, the yes to the no. in a counterculture, some of those outsiders now fit in. that primal need is satisfied, and they can try to be happy again.
in the context of music, countercultures want to be seperate from the mainstream. Black metal does not want to be mainstream. this is because if it is mainstream, it is not counterculture. if it is mainstream, it holds mainstream beliefs and tenets; a mainstream filter. if it has a mainstream filter, than those who were once accepted are once again outsiders. they’re the fat kid in gym class again.
people spread their personal beliefs to the world around them. they try to turn abstract ideas into reality. this increases exponentially when people of shared belief are together. if a group of mainstream people join the counterculture, they will try to shape their environment into what they believe, whether consciously or subconsciously. furthermore, because they are mainstream, they are more powerful. they have more resources and connections on their side. they can do it, and they can do it easily. the counterculture is forever in existential threat, and it knows this.
what this means is that the counterculture not only wants to be distinct from the mainstream - it HAS to be. if it loses distinction, then it disappears completely. it simply becomes a part of the mainstream again. once its a part of the mainstream again, then it restores the mainstream filters, and it establishes the mainstream in-groups and out-groups. its once again weird to smell weird, or to dress weird, or to listen to weird music, or to roll around on the floor screaming, or to slamdance into people on a tuesday afternoon, or to start your own record label, or to make a zine, or to start a band, and now you’re weird again, and people look at you weird, and people think you’re weird, and people treat you like you’re weird, and nobody wants to be your friend. So you kill yourself.
this is why gatekeeping exists. its not because counterculture people are evil or racist or stupid. its because they’re scared. its because they dont want to be the fat kid in gym class again.
outsiderism (2025/02/14)
“cool kid” - someone who meets, or exceeds, the expectations of the social group he is a part of. it’s not just about being cool; its being right, acting right, living right, living in a way that elicits almost unanimous approval. i imagine in prehistoric society there weren’t many “uncool kids”, since the reaction to a social transgression, such as a crime, was either an attempt at socializing the criminal, or exiling them from the group entirely.
in a society where the social group is able and willing to work so that its individuals meet social expectations, and when the social expectations are useful tools for surviving and thriving in the local environment, then “uncool kids” are antisocial aberrations and should be treated as such.
in a society where the social group is not willing and able to work so that its individuals meet social expectations, and when social expectations are taken over by profit-driven conglomerates to exploit the average person, then “uncool kids” are largely innocent victims of their circumstances.
what we live in is a surreal violation of our natural instincts, where those with social power are actively trying to create misery for profit, and where the tribal mans natural enemy - the out group - is actually a completely innocent individual who has been forced out of their mutual tribe by those with social power. we shun and reject the uncool because in it lies the devil, and nothing ever gets better because its not the uncool’s fault - its the evil megastructures who’ve made so many of the uncool. our minds cant intuitively grasp how something like this could happen. and so here lies yet another contradiction tormenting our lives.
now we know what cool and uncool kids are, and the unnatural dynamic between the two in todays society. next up is why we should care, and what we should do about it.
Slam My Head Into a Wall Until the Wall Breaks (2025/01/26)
if nobody else is going to do it, then I will do it. because nobody else is going to do it i will do it. i will do it. i will make music happen. i will bring music to ottawa. i will explain whats missing, why ottawa lacks music, and bring this to my contacts on the ottawa nightlife council. i will bring about tangible change. i will connect the people needed for a music community - people with houses, people with instruments, people with recording studios, people with marketing skills, people with graphic design skills, people who can make zines, people who can run labels, people. I will do it, and nobody else can do it.
Slam My Head Into A Window Until Something Breaks (2025/01/26)
I want a normal life. I want a normal life, and a normal job, and normal friends, and a normal wife, and a normal family, and a normal future, and a normal death. I think it is a human desire to live and die normally.
But oh well
balls in my mouth im gay (2025/01/13)
third culture is a personal, intimate scene. if it gets so big thats not possible, then that’s fine, people should just go and make one of their own
third culture the FRAMEWORK and third culture the SCENE are two different things.
rename to “third cultures” and “ottawa’s third culture”
punk (2025/01/08)
we do not need indie, we need punk rock. we do not need emo, we need punk rock. we do not need hardcore, we need punk rock. we do not need lo-fi, we need punk rock. we do not need cloud rap, we need punk rock. we do not need thrash, we need punk rock. we do not need post-rock, we need punk rock.
punk rock is the bulldozer that clears the slate of bullshit so creatives can create unimpeded. i dont like “punk rock”. in fact, most of it is pretty unlistenable. but there is very little modern, urban, art music or culture that i find worthwhile which does not have its roots in punk rock. punk rock is what makes your classmate make music. it is what makes your ex boyfriend go to shows. it is what makes your substitute teacher tell you about his band. it is what makes your autistic kid find friends. it is what creates a community for musicians who arent supposed to be there, and as we slip into this hellworld deeper and deeper, nobody is supposed to make music. to make some meaningful noise, we need punk rock.
Too Much (2025/01/07)
There is far too much. Much much much too much. Every day, too much. Too much people, too much peopling, too much work, too much working, too much noise, too much light, too much walking, too much thinking, too much doing, too much consuming, too much buying. There is too much stimulation being forced into our heads. It takes a full time career in “calm” to avoid the neuroticism of city life, with all this quantity and density and noise. I just walked past one hundred people and didnt say to hello to any of them. What the fuck? Humans are like any other being, we wish to protect our young and live a long and healthy life. Our greatest downfall is being good at it.
Living Passively (2025/01/04)
You can only live passively if your societies institutions are designed for your success. living passively, doing what you’re supposed to do, whats cool to do, whats easy to do, walking the path of least resistance, this puts you at mercy of the status quo. And if the status quo is on your side, all power to you! But when the higher powers, the schools, the courts, the employers, do not want you to succeed, then living passively is living under their thumb.
being upset about things you cant do anything about (2025/01/03)
helplessness. anger over a thing that is done and settled with no changing it, helpless anger, useless anger, stupid anger. sadness over what is gone and done, helpless sadness, pointless sadness, empty sadness.
Music Is Selfish (2024/12/29)
Read an interview with Justin Broadrick of Godflesh, where he said that his music is deeply selfish. He goes on stage and does what he wants and doesn’t care about what the crowds reaction to it is. That’s actually not what i want to do and im not sure why i started writing this.
good image (2024/12/25)
Live Slowly, Methodically. (2024/12/25)
Live slowly, methodically. Wake up with a deep breath. Get out of bed, with time on your hands. Look in the mirror without fear nor hatred. Recognize what you’re doing before you do it. Look at your surroundings with open eyes. Think through each moment. Move with purpose, not desperation. Act how you would want to act. Dont hide.
Subcultures and Atomization - David Chapman (2024/12/25)
“For Generation Y, my claim is, subcultures are not the native mode—atomization is, instead. When Gen X gets old and feeble, subcultures will mostly vanish.” - David Chapman.
Read the rest here. Very interesting writing on subcultures, their rise, and their fall.
negativity in music (2024/12/24)
converge is an extroardinarily negative band. every note that drips from that guitar reeks of hatred, fear, and insanity. and yet they’ve done nothing but bring great positivity into my life. how can this be? how can the presence of negativity bring about positivity?
my working theory is that its about an unnatural release. negativity played an important, balanced role in the human psyche when we were picking berries and throwing spears. negative emotions could often safely be acted upon with the knowledge it would be the right choice to trust your gut. with our safe, stressful, boring lives, there is endlessly negativity without purpose. without reason, without solution, without a point. when forces so powerful we cant even begin to comprehend them employ their tools to make us miserable for personal gain, negativity becomes a facet of life so omnipresent that it is impossible to discard naturally. thus, it is with negative, unnatural, violent, and manic noise and movement that we can release this unnatural negativity. in a perfect world, we would not need converge.
the point of music (2024/12/23)
music is merely the auditory form of art. art is communication. thus, music is auditory communication. music is able to communicate feelings, concepts, ideas, and vibes that other forms of art are not able to, or at least not able to in the same way. when i hear music, i feel, what is this communicating? what am i feeling? what am i thinking? what is this putting into my body? if i like it, or am intrigued by it, i keep listening and want more. if i think its aimless and uninspired, i stop.
Inconvenience and Design (2024/12/23)
inconvenience brings people together as a community. the convenient is the corporate, the conformist, the collective. what is convenient caters to the lowest common denominator. it sacrifices all values, all goals, all soul for the sake of simple priorities such as money, fame, and power.
inconvenience is a natural way of creating a tightly knit community, through shared challenges, barrier to entry, and proof of commitment. HOWEVER, it only works if there is somwthing valuable to be sought. a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. our pot of gold is live music and a warm, accepting, real life community. if you learn basic markdown, and you show you’re willing to create, and you wait for registration to be accepted, then you’ve shown enough to be accepted with open arms. this is the barrier of entry to third culture:
learn basic input/output in a computer. use html and css.
prove you’re willing to create and be authentic.
wait for your registration to be accepted.
the aspirant will upload a custom page on html that contains at least three pieces of art that they’ve created, and explain how they created it. this page/ticket/form will be submitted to a council member (lol), and will take however long it needs to take to be accepted. once accepted, the aspirant will have access to private third culture resources such as the events page, the art and social pages, the marketplace, and the blogs. the wiki is open to the public.
i like this design because it implements barriers to leechers and bad actors, while not making it vaguely exclusionist like other subcultures. even if it goes “mainstream”, there is now a huge part of ottawa that can express themselves with html and can make art. hooray! i expect thirdculture to scale in population heavily, and i do not want it to scale with population. i want it to inflate like a balloon, then pop. i want this influx to split off into splinters that share the same ethos but have different leaders, different names, and different interests. no real community can sustain itself beyond several hundred members without the use of violence and tyranny, and i will not succumb to cynicism.
A Macrocommunity (2024/12/22)
“But as long as people are marginalized and distracted and have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these sentiments,[…] people assumed that they were the only people with that crazy idea in their heads. They never heard it from anywhere else. Nobody’s supposed to think that. Therefore, if you do think it and you answer it in a poll, you just assume that you’re sort of weird. Since there’s no way to get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just stay on the side and you don’t pay any attention to what’s going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl.”- Noam Chomsky, Media Control
allan thought he was alone. he thought he was a crazy guy trying something crazy with no clue if it would work or if people agreed in a meaningful way. and now he knows he is not alone
third culture is more than just music. it’s the only way for people in ottawa to connect with eachother en masse. nothing else has that. Nothing. everyone’s group, their community, their tribe, is carved out with great trouble of a macrocommunity trying it’s very hardest to keep people alone. this is the only significant community that wants to bring people together.
gatekeeping through inconvenience (2024/12/19)
i think obstacles are one of the most effective ways to exclude people from a scene, for better or for worse.
in tough guy hardcore, its the inconvenience of getting punched in the face and a physical, noisy show. in the ottawa scene, its the inconvenience of paying out the ass and having to be in. these inconveniences exclude certain types of people, and make sure other types of people and included.
is it possible to have a scene without inconvenience? I think opting out of all social media and all drugs is how i would want to do it. if you want to be a part of the scene, you have to meet people face to face, and you have to confront the environment with a clear mind. you wont find out about it on your zogslop smartphone apps, and you wont be able to use it as an excuse to get wasted. i think this aligns with my values of DIY and pro-community.
i need some fucking contrarians to argue with goddamnit i hate people agreeing with me
mr president (2024/12/19)
a second 90s converge live show has hit the towers
hardcore is dance music, not fight music. it is for the presence of purpose, not absence of kindness. hardcore is free expression without barrier; beating someone with your fists for not agreeing with you is not that. i think the reason modern “hardcore” is just sad guy fight metal and not hardcore punk is because the scene does not revolve around music or message, but around the vibe. the hardcore vibe entrenched by the violent, oppressive, tense environment of minor threat, fugazi and TSOL is what has stuck around. the vibe of clenching your jaw, feet flying, knowing violence can happen at any time and its unfair because you didnt do anything you just wanted to have fun and these people want to hurt you and why and why but its not right and your friends know its not right and your friends arent small anymore you’re not small anymore you wont let them hurt you, so come, and fight.
the issue is, that vibe was present because cops, jocks, and nazi’s would come and beat the fuck out of people for no reason, and violence was met with violence. now those people dont bother hardcore shows, but the vibe is needed, it needs to stay, so someone needs to fill that antagonism to maintain the vibe. this is where we get middle aged mosh crew dickheads spinkicking 16 year old girls.
christmas is almost here (2024/12/16)
getting some gifts ready :)
giftgiving is a lost, beautiful art. hopefully i can inspire some people. hopefully i can be inspired.
viatrice (2024/12/16)
shout out to viatrice for making some really fucking good stuff. powerful, envelope-pushing, genre-defying rock that feels like a true and authentic product of its environment rather than derivative of some bs online.
Listen to Sailor
Community and Presence (2024/12/16)
Who you are is your lived experience. You are goth if you go to goth shows. You are punk if you go to punk shows. You are a raptors fan if you go to raptors games. You are a post-modernist if you meet with likeminded people in seedy bars to discuss philosophy. What i mean is that, to be a part of the community, you show up and you exist in that space. thats what it takes. nothing more, nothing less. if you only read about it online and dress like that when you go to the mall, you are not a part of that community, because you are not physically present in that space. much the same, doesnt matter how you dress or where you’re from, if you show up to the community, you are a part of it.
an possible downstream of this axiom is communities are ultimately defined by who goes to their events and what they do there. If this is true, then some degree of gatekeeping and exclusion is necessary to have a meaningful, purposed subculture. if you want to preserve certain ideals as an integral part of the community, then it has to be that the people who attend community events agree with those ideals. if they dont, they are not part of the community. this doesn’t mean they are bad people, or should be lonely, they just need to go somewhere else.
my third culture (2024/12/15)
- DIY ——> Just do things, don’t wait to do them the “right” way. do them with any means at your disposal
- Pro-community ——> Spend time with small groups of people in real life on a regular basis.
- Anti-drug ——> You shouldn’t need to spend money on intoxicants to have a good time.
this is what third culture means to me. this is what i want third culture to be. this is the kind of community that I want to play a part in creating. i want to concretely create this through organizing cheap and accessible live music shows.
these three tenets may seem pretty vague and ill-defined, and that’s because they are. but I think trying to stand by them can make a real and significant change in our lives if I make a strong enough effort. I think these three things are at complete odds with our society - they are not at odds with PEOPLE. I think people are completely cool with these ideas - but our mass culture has been manipulated to the degree where these very simple, very natural, very human desires are alien and difficult to achieve on any sort of meaningful scale. I think working to create a local music scene that embodies these ideas, no matter how small or fleeting, will be more significant than anything else I could do with my life.
become prolific! (2024/12/15)
every artist that meant anything was prolific. i will become prolific. Specifcially, I will retrain myself to immediately jump to creation rather than consumption when i want to kick back and relax. this is officially a SLOP blog and it is all shit ass. i will now be churning out slop after slop after slop here in literary, visual, and auditory form. I stand by nothing in this blog, it is all ironic.
and shout the fuck out to the girls with the big ass dicks (stay up) (2024/12/13)
shout out vanne for her deeply impressive drawings
shout out noam chomsky for his revolutionary work in exposing corporate control of mass media
shout out quentin for his schizophrenic savant coding skills
shout out kaz for his freakish drumming
shout out adil for his big ass camera
shout out mom and dad
Our Childhood was Sold to the Highest Bidder (2024/12/10)
To be young is more fleeting then ever. Barely have you learned multiplication, and suddenly being sincere, curious, and optimistic is cringe. No wonder well grown adults in their 20s who should have extensive life experience infantilize themselves and treat themselves like toddlers with no agency in their lives.
The world of the adult is the world of money. The world of money is the world of advertising, marketing, and self interest. The world of advertising is the world of addiction, sex, anger, desperation, stress. And what do you know! Here’s little Timmy with a 24/7 town crier in his little mitts 10 to 12 hours a day. Here is the classroom that can’t string a sentence together, that can’t read a chapter book, that can’t write a diary.
The revolution comes with incoherent rambles in unpleasing font.
BPD Girlfriend (2024/12/03)
“We get to talking about our best and worst traits. Her worst trait is "seeing things as all good or all bad” - as black and white, struggling to accept that any middle ground can exist. She feels this way about people she likes or dislikes. At this point, alarm bells are ringing and I’m getting BPD-ex flashbacks.
The date goes on. I’m distracted - my mind is connecting the dots - novelty seeking, accelerated relationships, splitting. The puzzle pieces drop into place - I’m leafing through the DSM5 imprinted in my brain from years of trying to survive BPD-ex. I think, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but in my gut I know she will ruin my life.
My heart beats faster when she looks me in the eye. Blood rushes to my head as she flashes a smile and brings the wine glass to her lips.
I’ve already lined up the second date."
credit - u/venus_fur on r/redscarepod
some punk dude from montreal (2024/11/30)
- credit to shawn scallen
“this is a photo of a member of Montreal Motorhead-wannabes Inepsy. they played at Club Saw two weekends ago. i was working that show doing sound and snapped a few photos as well. you gotta admire someone who a) has a full chest tattoo of his band’s logo and graphic (what happens when they break up?) and b) dances around drunken master style, blathering incoherently in French, through a gas mask. i missed an amazing shot of him moshing around shirtless with two cleancut high school punk kids, one under each arm, but this pic is pretty sweet.
also on the bill was a Montreal band called Last One Running. they were pretty good - straight ahead hardcore in the vein of Black Flag before they got metal. the vocalist and guitarist used to live in Ottawa 12 years ago and were in a band called Dr. Sicky. they were 11-13 at the time. i thought it was pretty cool that they were so young and in a band and took some pix and helped them get a write up in MaximumRockandRoll. it’s pretty cool to see some people actually stick with punk for more than a high school or college sentence…“ - shawn scallen
smoker (2024/11/28)
- credit to shawn scallen
“5 Arlington, located at 5 Arlington Avenue in Ottawa was the best local music venue i have ever encountered. it fostered the whole Ottawa hardcore scene of the early 90s spawning the likes of Okara, Union of Uranus, Shotmaker and also hosted amazing shows with touring bands like Drive Like Jehu, Jawbox, Sparkmarker, Franklin. the PA may have been crappy and the space decrepit, but unlike all other Ottawa venues before (One Step Beyond, Club SAW, various community centres) and after (Two Steps Above, Club SAW, Liquid Monkey, various community centres) the "Five” acted as a centrepiece to build a community. as well as two to four rock shows a week, it hosted film nights, potlucks, activist meetings, had a bit of a library and provided kitchen space to food not bombs.
sure we have shows nowadays at Club SAW or Sandy Hill Community centre, and a punk/hardcore community is slowly building with punkottawa.com, the hardcore sports league and miscellaneous bowling and movie nights, but without an autonomous and dedicated space it takes a lot longer.
5 Arlington is now an antique/curio/junk store.“ - shawn scallen
stop (2024/11/28)
stop fucking giving me dopamine
and let me be bored
let me grow up
leave me alone
they cant deal with it
its not their fault
it might be up to us
to do what we will
i guess
how do you stop someone who loves misery?
Positivity and Negativity (2024/11/27)
i think ottawa is missing positivity - not in the happy/sad sense, but in choosing for something to be instead of not. to create instead of to deny, to do instead of dont, to say yes instead of no. theres so many barriers, so much red tape, that it feels like a curtain of negativity lays over the whole city. Everything has to be thoroughly scoured with a fine comb - you have to make enough money, you have to be popular enough you have to say the right things. Everyone’s staring at eachother, just waiting for them to make the wrong move.
if you’re based, you’ll go out and do.