Hallucinogenic Bulb interview on Live Streaming in the COVID-19 pandemic

Kitsch Magik is doing a series of interviews with artist about  Live Streaming in the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first addition in the series Dave Michael (Hallucinogenic Bulb) is kind enough to answer a few questions.



check out Hallucinogenic Bulb here!

https://hallucinogenicbulb.bandcamp.com/

KITSCH MAGIK - What's your project name and how long have you been active?

Dave Michael - Hallucinogenic Bulb is my project. I technically started it in 2016 but didn't really honestly start doing things with it until the summer of 2017.

KITSCH MAGIK - Where are you from? How did the pandemic effect where your living right now?

Dave Michael -I grew up in edge-of-civilization South Jersey, but have been living in Philadelphia since 2013. Philly, a major city, has many more positive cases at the moment than the town I grew up in currently does. Like pretty much everywhere, Philly has shut down most places and people are staying home, like they should be.

KITSCH MAGIK -How are you doing during this pandemic? Has it made you more creative?

Dave Michael -  Overall, I'm holding up in quarantine better than I thought I would. I don't feel like it's made me more or less creative more than it's made me kinda shift focus (and maybe rest a little more often). Starting from the end of March and going all the way through the summer, I had/have plans for shows (both at home in Philly and out of town) and tours that I've been extremely excited about! Most of those have been cancelled (or soon to be cancelled). The time I would've spent on those is now going towards livestream shows, working on new releases and finishing up stuff I already had going on (and, for once, not running myself ragged in the process).

KITSCH MAGIK - There has been a sudden peek of live streaming of performances since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Have you watched or played any? What was your experience if you did?

Dave Michael -  I've played 4 livestream shows so far, including one last night. They're no replacement for a true live show where you and a bunch of friendly faces are in the same room together, all feeling the same energy and having a great time. BUT given everything going on with the world at the moment, they're the next best thing. Other than my gear acting up on stream the other night, I've had nothing but positive experiences.

I, like many other people, were launched into a pretty bad place mentally when it became clear that COVID-19 was a serious thing and that we were all going to be locked down for a while; Being able to see my friends play shows on livestream, as well as being able to shoot the shit with them in the comments as if we were all in a venue together was a huge help in bringing me back to earth. Most of my social schedule outside of work is going to shows, so being able to see my friends in those spaces is a very good thing for me, personally

Another cool thing (which I've only just now started to see) is livestream shows with people from different parts of the country/world all in one bill. The last show I played was with someone also out of Philly, a duo out of Massachusetts, and someone based in Arizona. Those kinds of shows don't really happen in person and can make "dream lineups" happen much sooner than they would in person.

KITSCH MAGIK -When did you notice people start to organize live streaming events? 

Dave Michael - They started popping up pretty quickly, actually - I played my first one on March 20th, before stay-at-home orders officially came down in most of the US.

KITSCH MAGIK - Why do you think it took a global pandemic for a shift like this to happen? You would think the noise community would have jumped onto this beforehand, right?

Dave Michael -  You'd think it would've been a widespread thing before COVID19, especially since many noise projects are one person, and it's relatively easy for a lot of people to start livestreaming on social media to begin with. Like I said earlier, there's nothing like going to a show and seeing and playing with all the homies, both in noise and other types of music. Even though I've had the technology to do so the whole time, the idea of livestreaming a show just wasn't anything I felt the need to act on - especially since I was playing out a TON before all this happened.

KITSCH MAGIK  - Do you think that a need to live stream performances has helped the noise community in a way, compared to other genres?  

Dave Michael -  Since so many projects are just one-person operations, it’s way easier for them to just keep doing the thing, especially compared to full bands that can’t get together because they have several people who all live in separate places. I, personally, have gotten to see some awesome livestream sets that I wouldn’t be able to see in person because of physical distance, and I’m sure that’s the case for others as well.

KITSCH MAGIK - Do you think we are going to see more artists host live streaming events after this is over?

Dave Michael - We’ll probably see it more often than before this whole COVID-19 thing, but I don’t think it’ll really be a replacement for actual in-person shows when this is all said and done. I could see it being a common thing, especially for people who don’t play live shows regularly but still want to share their stuff in that kind of environment.

KITSCH MAGIK - How do you think this will change the landscapes of heavy/noisey acts?

Dave Michael - In the long term, it’s tough to say, especially since we don’t know yet when this whole thing is going to be over. But in the short term, the first couple weeks of shows are going to see a lot of pent-up emotion being let out, and I can’t wait for those shows.

  KITSCH MAGIK - What is the first thing you are going to do after this whole thing is over?

Dave Michael -I’m hanging out with ALL the homies I haven’t been able to see since this thing started.

  

  KITSCH MAGIK -What release of yours do you think best to listen to during all of this?

Dave Michael -I recently put out splits with Grave Blankets, burnt-feathers, and Glass Spitter in the last two months. Tapes of the burnt-feathers/Glass Spitter split sold out pretty quick, but Orb Tapes still has copies of my split with Grave Blankets (and you should buy other tapes from there, too). They’re as good for pandemic listening as anything else I have out.

      KITSCH MAGIK -  Any other acts that you should we check out during this time?

Dave Michael - Zombieshark, Regrown, Lambeth, Yuckmouf., MOYOGASH, Mara Maple, Wormtooth, Brook Pridemore, Burial Fog, Alpha Boötis, Glass Spitter, Schotzi, Lástima, Malevich, Nilserver, Cemetery Bastard, Niku Daruma, Hyve, Westward Journey, A Death By The Seaside, Knife Friend, Viscera, Nowhere, Countdown from Ten, Cop Jokes, Hotflakes, Bison Squad, Actual Entities, Steve Kallay, Cycle of Abuse, Codex Orzhova, Mikau, Midwest Lust, Bodyache (REST IN POWER), and Listless Spirit (to name a few!)

 

Kitsch Magik Interview with GRVD

GRVD is a blackened noise project from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was able to chat it up with GRVD about a few things and to pick his brain a little bit.

You can check out GRVD in the link below

https://grvd.bandcamp.com/

Kitsch Magik: What got you into noise and what are some of your projects influences.

GRVD: I got into noise around 2012, but I had always been curious about the genre. I remember fucking around on my Yamaha keyboard when I was around 10, and I found the "sound effects" settings, and I'd just make these soundscapes and weird sounds for hours. I remember being 10 years old and hearing Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and really be into the ambient portions of that track. I think that was in a way a gateway into non-conventional music for myself. I had played in punk and hardcore bands in High School, but in all of those bands I felt kind of unsatisfied with what we were doing. I felt like there was too much control over the music, and I wanted things to be going into a more experimental, chaotic direction. I wanted the bands to be much more of an "experience" than a standard hardcore band you'd see at a bar. The last band I was in broke up in 2015, but I had started noise as GRVD in 2013. As GRVD started getting a little bit of traction, I started caring about that project infinitely more than the bands I was in. I got into noise because it gave me complete creative control over what I was doing, and I loved that. I can admittedly be a control-freak, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Noise gives me the complete power to express myself and make exactly the albums I want to. As for influences for GRVD, I'd have to say IRM, The Rita, Prurient's older material, Grunt, Atrax Morgue, Darkthrone, Gnaw Their Tongues, Infirmary, Nahvalr, Giles Corey, Genocide Organ, Swallowing Bile, and Waves Crashing Piano Chords, Xasthur, Xiu Xiu  .

Kitsch Magik: That's a great backstory and a list of influences. I know some people when they play live have a out of body experience. How do you feel when you play live. Is it an emotional experience? Do you try to create what you do on your albums? Or is it more on the unpredictable side of things?

GRVD: I haven't performed live very often. Over the course of the 4 years I've been doing GRVD I've only done 7 shows. When I do play live, I'm really only concerned with what's happening in that moment. My main concern is dropping all inhibitions and just doing what comes naturally. I'm a big proponent in going with your gut instinct. If I meticulously planned out every performance I'd feel like I'm putting on some kind of insincere act, and that's pretty shitty and annoying to see. When I perform, it's just about me getting out all of those feelings of anger or depression. If I end up beating myself to a pulp and busting my head open with a microphone, that's just how I was feeling in the moment. If I just relax and perform calmly, that's how I felt. The performance always depends on what I'm feeling in that moment. It's all about sincerity and feeling for me. As for trying to re-create the albums or what I do on those, I have no interest in doing that. If someone wants to hear those albums, they should just listen to those. Every album I make is meticulously crafted, and I take as much time as necessary to make sure they're absolutely how I want them to be. That doesn't apply to my live show, I don't care if those are trainwrecks, I just want them to be sincere expressions if that makes sense.

Kitsch Magik:  I know that some people love what equipment people use in live setting. What are some of the stuff that you use live? Also I think this is a question that I always bring up!!! What do you think noise will sounds like in ten years. Also if you had to have one wrestler come out to your stuff what wrestler would that be? And who would your tag partner be!!!!!!!

GRVD: I'm not much of a gearhead and my setup is super minimal, and I know absolutely nothing about wrestling lol.

GRVD: As for the how noise will sound in 10 years, I think noise is a static (no pun intended) genre. Like hardcore or black metal, it kind of revolves around the purity of the genre blueprints. Experimentation happens, sure, but noise is very much so a monolithic genre, which I think is both good and bad (but mostly good). If it's not broke don't fix it, and unless you really want to bring something new to the table and sincerely make something outside of the mold, trying too hard to be "different" really backfires, especially in a genre like noise. I mean, in most GRVD releases there are ambient elements and even really melodic elements at times, but I'm not trying to "change" noise. I just want to do what I want. That's really all I'm interested in when it comes to creative outlets.

Kitsch Magik: How do you come up with the artwork of the releases? Do you find images online? Draw them out? The artwork really speaks to what your about I feel like! I might be wrong!

GRVD: For artwork it's changed a lot over time. Initially I wanted to have people design artwork and I'd pay them or whatever, but the few times I tried this it was a complete failure. Not because they provided bad work, but because I really have an image in my head of what I want, and there's a visual aesthetic tied to the images that I take really seriously, that it's basically impossible for someone else to design something that is exactly what I'm imagining. For the first release I ever did. "The Ides of Romance I-IV", the image was taken from a photograph I found in Ann Arbor. I still don't really know the backstory of the image, but I took a picture of it and uploaded it on bandcamp. The image was just of this figure sitting on a box of PBR in a basement, and it was so simple and bleak I connected to it instantly. There's nothing I love more than just striking images. As I've continued on the artwork is found in various places; books, magazines, online sources, weird blogs I stumble across, whatever. How I find the image I think is secondary to how it is augmented and implemented to accompany the noise and the music on the release. I always whip up artwork first and then record based around the aesthetic and atmosphere that image gives off. With one of my most recent releases "Burden", I designed that artwork and whenever I'd record I'd have that image pulled up, and I think it was a huge influence on why that album is more "epic" in scale. I've encountered criticism for using images from outside sources, and I think that criticism is bullshit honestly. As long as it is transformative and augmented, I see nothing wrong with it. I don't claim to be a graphic designer or visual artists, I merely find images and textures, combine and transform what I want into a new image, and accompany noise to it. If someone has a problem with that, then their opinions on art and the functions of art aren't something I'm concerned with or respect. Those people are probably boring and draconian and are probably more concerned with reading the next Lena Dunham memoir.

Kitsch Magik:  What’s in the future for GRVD? any talks on doing a tour someday?

GRVD: Doing a tour has always been a dream, and if I was ever financially able to do a 2 week+ tour, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Until then I'll just keep churning out releases and doing my own thing.

Kitsch Magik:  any last words?

GRVD: Shout out to Contraktor, Bullshit Market, Frataxin, Methlab Explosion, Hypnic Jerk, WCPC, Farting Corpse, Crustgirls, Alocasia Garden, Pory from NOG Records, Paraplegic Erection, Cory Strand, Burial Weavings and all the other sick noise projects and homies out there. Much love to you all. Thanks a lot for interviewing me, and if you have the free time to watch any film directed by Xavier Dolan, I recommend you do it now.

Kitsch Magik Interview with Crustgirls, King of Strong Noise!!

Crustgirls took some time out of his day of watching professional wrestling to chat with Kitsch Magik about a few Things. Without Crustgirls there would be no MOYO and then no Kitsch Magik so I really hold this project up to the highest!!

Check out his bandcamp and facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/crustgirlsfl/?qsefr=1

https://crustgirls.bandcamp.com/

Kitsch Magik: first what made you want to start wanting to make noise music and how was crustgirls born.

Crustgirls: Wrestling shows rule

Crustgirls:  I used to listen to some noise in high school but didn't really get into it that much until later. I've always liked the freedom that noise can have, no rights or wrongs just whatever you feel. I started crustgirls after being frustrated that my current hardcore band wasn't doing anything and I wanted to create something, anything! It was also a low key joke at the time too because I'd see all these stuck up noise people that thought they were the best things ever and I made my debut demo as crustgirls in a single day from modified field recordings at my job and then just yelled over it and then got some lathe records of it pressed haha. I grew Into really enjoying what I was doing Crustgirls though it quickly became far more serious

Kitsch Magik:  That's so funny on the concept of poking fun at noise bros. Something that I feel I do also. Do you feel that there is a lot of stuck up noise guys out there that take themselves to seriously? We should do this because we love it right? I feel like it shows if you are that egotistical!!

Crustgirls: of course, I'm sure you've seen it as well. Those guys that are just so "man I'm so much better at what I do than you" or "geez that guys set sucked" etc They worship merzbow or have jammed full of hell once, but for the most part I've met and played with so many nice people. I feel like with any music style you have to love doing it instead of looking cool to others, who cares if your any good at it just do what you love.

Kitsch Magik: I love that about you and I totally agree that who cares as long as your having fun!! We are in this really weird culture that most people don't understand. But how is noise down in Florida? What are some of the venues you love? How does the noise community treat each other in your state?

Crustgirls: Florida has some cool noise, but I'm honestly not connected very well with many people here, I don'y play live often and I'm not normally invited to play the bigger noise shows. I feel I have way more friends and fans far above Florida it seems when it comes to my stuff. My favorite venue to play is Uncle Lou's in Orlando, bless Lou for letting all the random kinds of bands and projects play there. The times I do play shows though I've noticed most people in FL noise are pretty chill and fun to be around. Shout out to Hell Garbage aka Dhouser for booking me for events the most out here xoxo

Kitsch Magik: It's great that we have a small community that supports each other even thought all of us can be so far away. I can't stand when people say noise artist only make music for other noise artist. That's kind of a no brainer of course we think of that!!! Because most likely they are the ones that are also buying our tapes, t-shirts, and cds!!! Do you have any pros and cons for our weird community and culture? Have any ideas on making it better? Or worse!!! Lok

Crustgirls: Most def honestly most most noise is for noise haha, but that's not saying anyone can't get into it though! My buddy Robbie of Human Fluid Rot is a shinning example of this. He is a fucking master of noise and I have see people just watch his sets in awe and then comment how they don't even enjoy noise but thought that was an amazing set. That to me is a big Pro in noise, because if you can put on a show and show people something different they might over look their first opinions of it check out other noise acts. The biggest Con of noise are shitty people. There's always those few bad seeds in the community that promote noise and other extreme or weird experimental stuff that a lot of us are tied too that are into white power (which fuck that) or they just are incredibly smug entitled people that think everyone Else's offerings are trash and they just make this image that all of us are just dicks. Less comps from Adult Swim, more comps from Adult Swim haha. Encourage each other I suppose. Fellow noise musicians people will send me stuff sometimes to check out and I love to just tell them to keep at it and make more stuff.

Kitsch Magik: If noise was wrestling who would enter the ring to crustgirls? And what song? Also if noise artist were wrestlers who would be the hardcore champ?

Crustgirls: most likely that wild motherfucker jun kasai would come out to crustgirls, the song "empty graves open homes" from my dead love EP. sean beard of waves crashing piano chords would hands down be the hardcore champion

Kitsch Magik: where do you think noise will go in the future? do you think there will be the same people involved as old heads and there will be fresh new faces? what do you think it will sound like?

Crustgirls: it's getting more and more accessible it seems these days. Hopefully it will be more accepted in a sense that maybe I can freakin play a show in my own home town haha. The people that love noise will always be around I think but there will most def be new faces around with it popping up more I feel like kids will find it and be like oh man this is fun to make and who knows. probably sound like crap ha too many laptops but who cares Ill hopefully still be kicking around making garbage no one cares about

Kitsch Magik: HAHAHAHA! ok who are some of the people that you would love to work with that you haven't already kinda like secret noise artist crush thing. its it almost valentines day or something!!!

Crustgirls: I'd love to have a crustgirls split with waves crashing piano chords(we've had one with my other project Parasyte* and he was on my crustgirls lp), contraktor, methlab explosion. I would love do more stuff with non noise people too honestly I really want to do stuff with burnt hair, virgin flower and dream of doing something with grimes

Kitsch Magik: last words!

Crustgirls: steal from Walmart

Kitsch Magik: hahahaha ok thanks again man it was a pleasure !!

Crustgirls: xoxo

Go check out the labels bandcamp

kitschmagik.bandcamp.com