As you may have noticed, I'm writing to a lot of more commercial labels/'zines and trying to bring UR into the public consciousness. Personally, there needs to be some sort of an alternative in the 'zine world to the redundancy that I'm seeing in it. I complained about this in UR article 12, and to be quite perfectly honest I mean it now.
I've been in the music scene enough to know how crossover 'zines like mine (and I've always done a crossover 'zine, I admit it) fare. Having used many names/formats before I found one I could live with (not to say I'm a poser, 'cause anyone who knows me well enough knows this is not the case - I was seventeen when I started doing a webzine, chalk it up to youthful stupidity) I feel there needs to be something out there that breaks true, actual borders. There's so much stupid stereotyping in most music scenes, and I can't be arsed to look at music labels/scenes the same way I did five years ago. Some labels, scenesters, what have you care about the music, others push an agenda and still others worry only about the almighty commercial gain. Anyone who doesn't think there's a hierarchy in the music business is either being led or else impossibly stupid.
I want to be one who legitimately cares about what he's doing and what he's pushing when he's pushing a certain music. I do things different by design. I want to possibly raise the profile of the metal genre and other genres I review, or at least force other music reviewers to become detached from the surface subject matter and look deeper into the music, look at it from a more aesthetic perspective. I admit the genre I appeal to the most (death metal/grindcore) is rather reactionary and/or concerned about base negative pleasures a lot of the time but the genre's only thirty years old. Personally, I do UR to piss people and/or reactionary scenesters off. I've had a host of legitimate health problems over the past three years (I'll mail you copies of proof if you don't believe me) and over the years I've become set in my ways and so ultra-cynical I have to look within myself to remember why I do this since 85% of the time I don't enjoy doing UR that much. I've gone through thick and thin (mostly thin) over five years, and I really want to do something that matters, something that actively promotes a music scene without the stupid aboveground preening of the glossies and the fanboyish tendencies and reactionary stupidity of the average fanzine. I don't want to change the genres I have an interest in, mind you. I just want to push people's heads into the water and see the fish for what they are. So what if one band looks smarter than the other just because one writes gore lyrics and the other about babies. It doesn't mean shit to me. I tend to want to promote the band that I think deserves it. Lyrics are so unimportant in music it's so bloody scary to me. Sure this is a faulty stance at best. What the hell isn't a faulty stance in 'zine writing.
I realise I'm a faggy artist type, a discovery I recently made. Personally, I've debated closing up shop on UR like I did with Unbulova Ripoff two years ago. I might do a comic, I might make UR a print 'zine, I might go into poetry. Depends on money issues and health, mind you. Through trial and error I've realised how to promote myself (to a point) and the agenda of UR from this point forward is to push bands, labels etc. that truly want to further the music genres they're in. Possibly I'm talking out my ass. I don't know. Personally, I'm amazed I'm at this point that I've been active in the music business for more than five years and I want to take UR to the most postmodernist level it can possibly go. I want to poke the aura of pretentiousness and bring things down to Earth. Just because I listen to one sort of music doesn't mean I can't promote others. Personally, UR will reflect my tastes and ethical dealings within the music business and hopefully will reflect true musical artistry and art on its own level, on its own terms. On the side of art vs. business, I take art, but since music is a business I have to respect that as well.
I'm ripping off Metal Rules!, yes. Expect an interview with Devon Storm in the coming weeks.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Yay, watered-down beer and jokes about the IRA. Boy, what a fucking interesting holiday.
