why the show list is running late…

hey all. i just wanted to send out a note of apology for the lateness of the show-list. right about the time that i usually start compiling dates for the upcoming month i got word that i was going to be laid off my job. i know it’s supposed to be punx not to work and all, but the reality is that the circumstances of my life that make this potentially catastrophic.

right now i’ve got to put energy into sorting this out and so it’s going to be a bit before i can begin making the listing happen. in the meantime, you can check philly shreds, WKDU’s philly haps, and R5 for a few important pieces of the scene. i want to especially encourage folks to go to the post post show this saturday at kung fu necktie (7pm-10pm, review below). they’re a great band, seem like nice people, and they’ll be releasing a really solid new ep that night.

so yeah, the listing is by no means done and i will try to make the august dates happen asap. thanks for your patience.

i also just wanted to say that moments like this really clarify for me how much our social/political/economic situation doesn’t work right now. i’ll never pretend to have the worst shake of things, and i’m sure there are ways that the crises i experience are less crushing than they might be for other folks in different positions. but that doesn’t mean that bullshit in my life doesn’t hurt me or doesn’t hurt people close to me. it doesn’t mean that my experiences aren’t bound up in the same systemic forces that are driving people out of homes, out of health, and out of sanity across this city, country, and world… the same systematic forces that are killing people quickly and slowly with violence and depression… the same systematic forces that inject poison into our lives like oil gushing into seawater.

i’d say that all this is tragic but as i understand it, tragedy is more on the level of misfortune or bad luck. what makes things so terrible right now is that all these variations of poverty and pain we’ve got are just predictable outcomes of a setup that has no regard for what we need, and total regard for the accumulation of power and profit. it’s hurtful, it’s criminal, it’s suicidal, but within the terms of our social organization it’s also a foregone conclusion… a false-tragedy… a farce.

and my feeling today is that i love myself too much to accept this condition, and that i love other people too much to see them beaten down by these inventions. and since i know that the system is powerful and that it will take a lot of folks, a lot of whole communities, to make something equally powerful enough to challenge it, i guess i want to ask you (if you see yourself in this) to open yourself to the project of elevating life beyond mere survival and slow death. i want you to open old wounds and take a hard look at all the pain and the trauma you’ve got because of attacks you suffered or deprivations that were imposed on you. i want you to take the burden of that pain off yourself and i want you to see the connections between your pain and my pain and the pain of everybody else around you (recognizing the differences between us all).

as i want to heal, i want you to heal, and i want every suffering body out there to heal as well. the reality is that things are so bad, we’re all going to need each other. and this kind of collective healing, in the context of today, is a revolutionary project… a transformation that we’ll know in our bones and our souls, and that we’ll witness in the seizure of power from the government officials, corporate entities, and socio-economic logics that are breaking us today. there’s a lot of good writing on this (better writing than this), but there’s no complete map on how to get there. the beginning, as far as i can figure, comes from telling our stories, building connections between ourselves, and being increasingly clear in our collective commitment to pursuing the things we need and desire. there’s more to it than this… so much more… but this where is my head is right now.

with all love.

germ ross

forward movement

Just a quick note, readers. ARTNOISE continues to move forward. We have new show-listings up for the month of August. The first chapter of a long piece about punk rock is about to go up. Tonight I’m going to post up the first piece of review writing from our new staff writer Angela.

Based on what she had to say about the newish, much hyped Bats For Lashes record, I was stoked to bring her on board. She has an honest approach that’s about as devoid of hipster cynicism and know-it-all hyping as you can get. I know I’ll be excited to keep reading her reviews. I hope you all enjoy her stuff too.

There’s still even more to come. Even though ARTNOISE has been moving at a snail’s pace for the past month, as the summer comes to a close, we’ll be at full speed soon enough. Thanks always for reading!

all love,
germ ross.

this is some resurrection shit right here…

So we did it, we’re doing it, ARTNOISE has come back to life. There’s still a lot of dumb tech things to sort out. There’s still more new staff members that we need to make this shit more sustainable. There’s still more writing that needs to be written. Shit that needs to be finished. Old stuff that needs to be repaired.

But we’re still back…

And even among all the loose ends, messes, and incomplete thoughts, there’s enough space now for us to stand. There’s enough calm and quiet for us to begin to have a conversation. In many ways, this project has always been a work in progress; ARTNOISE has never been done and has always been forming. I guess that’s a part of our truth… part of the prescription we put forward about how creation actually works or how art should actually function. We’ll keep growing. We’ll keep solving problems and getting shit together, learning new things. And I’d like to think that we’re never going to be done.

Rebirth isn’t a one time fix. It’s basically just an arbitrary signifier we throw out at moments to better appreciate the constant transformation of one moment of life into the next. Life has its ebbs and flows, but it never stops, and so it never stops remaking itself. And so we never stop and we never stop remaking ourselves… our world… our creations. Today, as we celebrate the renewal of this project, I also want to celebrate that kind of cosmic force of renewal that brought us all back here. The truth is that a lot of shit had to happen between then and now to get us back here. On my end, I know I had to go through a lot to want to get back here. But it’s fucking good to be back here now.

On deck, we’ve got new staffers that will officially be coming on board, new reviews that are written or are being written, and some new commentary that’s trying to explore the bigger picture about what punk is and what it could be. We’ve also brought back the PHILLY SHOW LISTING and will work to keep it constantly updated (as always, send your show-dates to phillyshows@artnoise.net.

Also, in the time between now and way-back-then, we’ve lost touch with a lot of the labels and artists who formerly supplied us with materials for review. If you’re interested in having our staff check out/review your stuff, please drop me an email at germ@artnoise.net and I can give you updated mailing instructions (we don’t have a public mailing address at this moment). Philly bands and labels are still a major priority for us.

Thank you all for reading. Thank you all for re-joining us after this long absence.

Trust me, the best is definitely yet to come.

all love,
germ ross.

take it to the streets

ARTNOISE is concluding a brief unannounced two-week hiatus during which me and Catherine have refueled our creative juices and have once again gotten a grip on our crazy lives. Sorry for the lack of new content but hopefully we should more than make up for it in the coming weeks!

Stay tuned, faithful readers!

Best wishes,
germ ross.

attention nerds…

After much delay, I have confirmed that this site’s RSS is functional once again. It’s not clear what exactly caused the problem in the first place but whatever it was seems to have mended itself. Welcome to the future, kids.

on vacation

ARTNOISE FAITHFUL:

thanks to a family reunion in north carolina, i will be out of town for about a week. as such our dizzying update schedule of about two-three new in depth reviews per week will probably be a fair bit less than that. so yeah, unless catherine and julia go into a crazy writing fit i advise you to turn off your computer, leave your home, and live a little. sail ships, paint pictures, compose pictural essays about the life and death of darby crash. later gators! — all love, germ ross.

rss feed what what

Just a quick note, kids:

As some of you have probably figured out, this site’s RSS feed doesn’t work right now. If you happen to have a lot of experience managing such things feel free to give me buzz and let me know what might be fucked up. In the meantime, you’ll have to just read the content straight from the site itself. Sorry for the inconvenience but this is a new project for me and my computer know-how only stretches so far. I’ll let y’all know when things are fixed.