Inside May's Profiles, Earpollution offers you another two-for-one interview special. Steve Weatherholt braves the elements and dives into the hurricane of noise that is Christdriver to bring back an interview with front man Eric Greenwalt, while Sabrina Wade goes deep undercover in the heart of Disneyworld to sit down with Meshuggah's Jens Kidman and Marten Hagstrøm. Cool By Proxy finds Paul Goracke in deep meditation on the sounds of Diamond-Fist Werny, while elsewhere inside you'll find reviews of albums by Gus-Gus, Frank Black and the Catholics, TLC, The Ladybug Transistor, along with eP's lovely Sabrina Wade muttering "Black Metal" over a dozen times; as well as live takes on Frontline Assembly, Sebadoh, George Clinton, and oh...so much, much more!

Miscellany

Last month, Public Enemy and Atomic Pop announced a partnership to release the forthcoming PE album, There's a Poison Going On. While releasing songs and albums via MP3 over the Internet is nothing new, this release marks the first time an Internet label will exclusively handle Internet and all other commercial sales of the album. The album is due out May 19th in a variety of formats.

Roger Waters has announced his first tour in more than 12 years. The former Pink Floyd co-founder (who took over the creative helm after the mental and physical departure of Syd Barrett) is set to play dates this summer throughout the U.S. Midwest and East Coast. Rumor has it he'll also be doing a West Coast jaunt in early 2000, the same time his upcoming French and English opera, Ca Ira, is set to be released. Asked why he was touring, Waters cited the need to "get back in touch with his fans." Yeah... Well, he should be doing a lot of handshaking as he's scheduled to play venues with seating in the tens of thousands.

A little more up front and personal is the works of Washington, D.C. photographer Cynthia Connelly. Best known for her collaborative work on the seminal punk book, Banned in D.C. (a look at the early '80s D.C. punk underground through photographs and anecdotes), Connelly will be presenting her first one person show at the Milky World Gallery in Seattle--111 Battery, 206-374-0933--with the opening scheduled for Saturday, May 8th (7-10pm), and running for a month. Gallery hours are: 12-6pm, Monday-Saturday, 12-5pm Sunday. Stop by and check out her work, and be sure to tell 'em Earpollution sent you.

R.I.P. Love and Rockets

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:25:28
To: jeff@earpollution.com
From: craig@earpollution.com
Subject: love and rockets go bye-bye

jeff,

found out yesterday that love and sprockets have decided to call it quits. *sniff*sniff*

-craig

Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 09:55:17
To: craig@earpollution.com
From: jeff@earpollution.com
Subject: RE: love and rockets go bye-bye

my life is over. -jeff

"Television: the drug of a nation. Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation."

On Tuesday, April 20th, two teenagers, armed to the teeth with guns and homemade explosives, entered their suburban Denver, Colorado high school and open fire, killing 12 classmates, 1 teacher, and finally, themselves. As a murder of media swooped into the aftermath--like carrion looking to suck every ounce of life from those their shadow passes over--television viewers were assailed with every potential news item possibly related to the tragedy. When they ran out of news, they manufactured headlines from trivia or inconsequence. Anything for the sell. The last headline I tried to avert my eyes from read, in 3 inch high bold letters, that the teenagers had planned to hijack a jetliner and send it plummeting into the heart of New York City. Like I said, anything for the sell.

As the media repeatedly beat us senseless with their soulless images (A Clockwork Orange, anyone?), authorities and other public figures started doing what they do best: pointing fingers. The music of KMFDM, Rammstein and Marilyn Manson were blamed as being directly responsible. The movie adaptation of Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries was pointed at accusingly, along with the video for Pearl Jam's song, "Jeremy." As the days wore on it became increasingly obvious that a witch hunt was forming. Both KMFDM and Rammstein issued condolences and denied their music having played a part in the killings. Jim Caroll remained silent, but someone rightly pointed out that the dream sequence in The Basketball Diaries (where actor Leonardo DiCaprio shoots his fellow classmates to cheers and applause), was not in Carroll's book, but added by the movie company for the film adaptation. Marilyn Manson (real name Brian Warner) initially canceled a show in Denver, in deference to what had happened. Still, as his face and music was broadcast all over the press, in New Hampshire, students were banned from wearing Marilyn Manson T-shirts. And in Fresno, California, the Fresno City Council unanimously adopted a resolution to condemn "any [...] negative entertainer who encourages anger and hate upon the community." Bowing to nationwide pressure, Manson subsequently canceled the five remaining dates on his tour, stating, "It's not a great atmosphere to be out playing rock 'n' roll shows, for us or the fans. The media has unfairly scapegoated the music industry... This tragedy was a product of ignorance, hatred, and an access to guns." As the mob began to swell and the torches were lit, even a Seattle a cappella group called The Trenchcoats was looked at accusingly. One email to their site accused them of deceit. "I find it a little odd that in such a short matter of time it was possible to convert this site over to reflect such a different interest."

Everyone is scrambling for someone or something to blame. Everyone is missing the point. In our reactionary attempt to bring a sense of justice and to preserve the common good, we've completely overlooked the fact that we, as a society, are responsible for this.

We've let television become the surrogate parents for yet another generation. As repeated images of violence and sexual misrepresentation are bombarded day in and day out to our kids, what should we expect from them? What else can we expect from them? We continue to cut back on social services, making it difficult (if not impossible) for working class families to survive, let alone raise a family in a nurturing, positive and promising environment. We underpay teachers and overfill our school classrooms, and then scratch our heads and wonder why our quality of education is steadily falling. It is ironic that the day after the shootings, Washington State Governor Gary Locke promised to push through legislation making it a felony to carry a gun in school, while outside his mansion window teachers were picketing for higher salaries. And in a similar twist of irony, while Marilyn Manson was forced to cancel his remaining concerts, the NRA squeaked by with only having to cut their gun jamboree in Denver down to one day. We let the gun promoters and gun makers off with a slap on the wrist--parties whose guilt can be directly linked to the shootings (teenagers->guns->dead bodies)--because their purse strings hold so much political influence, and instead we go after the demons of music--not realizing that the image we're pointing our finger at is actually our own reflection and disowned darkness.

Jackie McCarthy of The Seattle Weekly put it quite succinctly. "Music isn't created or received in a vacuum. Before everyone clamors to censor musicians, we should examine the society their work reflects."

During the late '80s, the Parents Music Resource Center (an arch-conservative organization made up mostly of the wives of then-current congressman) urged the Senate to hold hearings on the subject of requiring warning labels on any music medium deemed "offensive." In testimony both lucid and intelligent, Frank Zappa (R.I.P.) made the following observations. "Children [...] have a natural love for music. If, as a parent, you believe they should be exposed to something more uplifting [...], support music appreciation programs in schools. Music appreciation costs very little compared to sports expenditures. Your children have a right to know something besides pop music exists." "Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality. Freedom of speech, freedom of religious thought, and the right to due process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled..."

It's time we turned off the television and took a proactive approach as a society. We need to realize that it is our reflection inside the media images that we're looking at, and face the fact that banning the music, books, thoughts and ideologies we disagree with will not prevent this from happening again in the future. It will only hasten its return.

Earpollution would like to offer our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of all the victims involved with this tragedy. It's time for the media to pull the plug, turn off the cameras, go home and let these people heal.

Craig Young,
Editor, Earpollution