Turn Pale/Radio Berlin

[manny at telerama.com]

Victoria-
I don't know who you are, exactly. So I don't know exactly what
you do.

But:
1) If you don't do much that involves music, then you're the one
who is all bark and no bite, since a 'ridiculous' platitude such as
the one is exactly the kind of thing people who don't know anything
about music say to justify their position about why they don't know
anything about music (i.e. they're busy with something else, and
music is not important, therefore there are only 'two kinds of
it' - Miles Davis, and a lot of other people made that statement,
too, but it doesn't make it any less stupid).

While both my bite *and* my bark are both fairly evident.
Every time I announce a show on this list, I bite, and every time
I talk about something, I bark. So I've got both angles covered, dog.

2) I am not the one who put these bands into the categories. You are
(or your friends are on this list are). If a person who is involved in
the 'goth scene' says 'Radio Berlin and Turn Pale are not goth', well
then they are the ones who have categorized (or more accurately,
decategorized) them. If, in turn, they then say that these bands sound
more like 'garage' bands, well then they have recategorized them,
and they have done it wrongly.
I didn't do any of that. Other people did, specifically DarkThreads.

I also didn't create the neo-G/I-club paradigm wherein certain types
of dark and electronic music are purposefully included and other
completely compatible, entertaining and danceable types of dark and
electronic music are purposefully excluded, as if by arbitrary fiat.
You (or your immediate predecessors) did that to yourselves. I can
merely mention which categories are excluded. Which I have, on
numerous occasions. The exclusion of these genres is a fact.

In addition, any categories I happen to use as terms are not 'ridiculous'.
They are documented by years of mention and use. Maybe not by you. But
again, just because you don't know what some term means doesn't mean
that *I'm* the ignorant one, the one with 'all bark and no bite'. That
appellation more than likely refers to you, instead. (glue, meet
rubber) You can't lump names on me to cover up your shortcomings.

Probably, what's going to happen is that within a couple years the
long-overdue fossilization of 'goth as neothud' will collapse and/or
diversify as more and more live-oriented bands bring dark music and
dark rock back to the forefront. At least, that's what I hope will
happen, because the music i'm involved with lives and dies on the
stage, not in the danceclub. Within that period of time, if the
term 'goth' is still used, less and less people will question whether
a band like Radio Berlin or Turn Pale is a goth band, they will just
accept it. Very likely, seeing these bands at the Rozz Tribute will
be the first step in this process.

On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Victoria wrote:

> Of course, there are those of us who have better things to do than to 
> sit around and put bands into ridiculous categories.  I have exactly 
> two... those I like and those I don't like.  Go ahead and say what you 
> will Manny, I know you're all bark and no bite and even if you did 
> bite, that's fine since it turns me on.