Tried and True Attention-Getting Tactics

Insane Clown Posse

Instant Messaging with Random Juggalos I Found Online, Volume the First

Insane Clown Posse is one of those acts that I just don't "get." Admittedly,
I haven't tried very hard to "get" them - in fact, I've never even heard one
of their songs. There are basically two main reasons I've written-off the Detroit schlock-hop group without ever listening to their music: (1) They're grown men who dress in clown make-up and wield weapons onstage while they rap, and (2) They're ridiculous.

Yet ICP is one of those groups that droves of fans live and die for. I'm a total fucking music snob and all, but I do recognize that when something appeals to tons of people, there must be something of value to it. So I've decided to find out what exactly that something is.

Intervue Skillz: hi.
ICP Fan: hi.
Intervue Skillz: hey i googled insane clown posse and got your IM name off of www.furry.ca … how are you?
ICP Fan: i'm okay and you?
Intervue Skillz: good, thanks. so, you're an ICP fan?
ICP Fan: yes.
Intervue Skillz: nice. this is why i ask: i run a really fucking popular web site about music and one of the things i want to publish on it is a series of interviews with ICP fans about why they like ICP.
ICP Fan: i like ICP because the music has a good beat, there are good messages in the songs. some are really funny too.
Intervue Skillz: are there really positive messages in their music? i had no idea.
ICP Fan: they sing about accepting people no matter what they are like.
Intervue Skillz: seriously? i thought they were more about "clowning around" and being wacky violent nutjobs.
ICP Fan: yeah, you really have to listen. the last album goes into some detail about knowing that god is out there and that we're not alone ever, we got his love and all the juggalos got our backs.
Intervue Skillz: what exactly is a juggalo?
ICP Fan: juggalo is male, juggalette is female, i would define them as real fans of ICP, owning more then one of thier albums. and enjoying there diversity.
Intervue Skillz: so it's just a nickname for fans.
ICP Fan: yes.
Intervue Skillz: does it mean anything specific though? like what's it a reference to?
ICP Fan: i'm not entirely sure. maybe it's something shaggy and violent j made up, kinda like the word neden.
Intervue Skillz: what's neden?
ICP Fan: female genitals.
Intervue Skillz: as in "i'm neden some," eh?" haha! so, how did you first get into icp?
ICP Fan: my brother bought me there album the amazing jeckle brothers, for christmas a few years ago, i just fell in love so to speak.
Intervue Skillz: because of the way it sounded? or because of a particular message they were communicating in their music? was it because it was just different than anything you'd ever heard?
ICP Fan: it was good music, good bass good lyrics. it made me laugh, it was enjoyable.
Intervue Skillz: cool. hey, hold are you?
ICP Fan: 19
Intervue Skillz: wanna hang out?
ICP Fan: no.
Intervue Skillz: why do you think people are so quick to write ICP's music off as garbage?
ICP Fan: because some of there lyrics about fucking inanimate objects is hard to swallow and because they dress up like clowns, no one takes clowns seriously.
Intervue Skillz: right. ok, well thanks for your time.
ICP Fan: no problem.

===


X-Clan AKA Absolutely Not Insane Clown Posse

I guess it's not totally apparent from the interview, but "ICP Fan" is female. Does that change the way you read our chat transcript? Maybe the part where I ask if she wants to hang out? Just thought I'd mention it.

And don't worry, I'm not gonna put up an ICP song. Instead, you get "Funkin' Lesson" by X-Clan - a group which sits at the exact opposite end of the musicultural continuum from Insane Clown Posse.

Stark Reality

I'm syndicating my own "content" to myself, Part 3: Here's a blurb I posted elsewhere on the Web about "Too Much Tenderness" by Stark Reality. I helllllllla bet you'll find upon reading it that I'm (a) intelligent, (b) interesting, and (c) quite adept at causally throwing around lots of references to things that very few people know or care about.

This song was ravaged by critics in reviews of the Stark Reality 2003 reissue (it was previously-unreleased and included as a bonus track), but I think it's frickin' great. It's apparently from a somewhat different incarnation of the group and is a Monty Stark composition - not one of the Hoagy Carmichael reinterpretations that made up the original version of the album. It has a naive, off-kilter, beautiful, and bizarre sound that I just love. It's upbeat psych-jazz with extremely awkward cheery lead vocals. Stark's phrasing is kinda off (and his voice is WAY off) - it basically sounds like an easy listening number gone terribly wrong - but in a really good way.

Biv, Devoe, Bell (from L to R)

It's not a story but a moment in time: I thought a lot about the uncool kid last night and remembered a New Year's party a bunch of us went to in tenth grade. It was at some sort of youth center, which may or may not have been a product of Christian interests. I was often the lone Jew at stuff like that.

There must have been some girls there that we wanted to impress, because we we were all wearing nice clothes. Too bad my collection of nice clothes in 1991 consisted of brightly-colored rayon shirts and baggy pants with more pleats than the sturdy-like-burlap curtains in your old-ass granny's house.

We were five deep in somebody's father's Lincoln and we were all a little nervous because one of us had a flask filled with whiskey in his pocket. We stopped for Taco Bell - nothing like eating piles of beans before hitting the dance floor, eh? There was a Bell Biv Devoe tape in the deck.

Why don't you ever hear BBD anymore? They inexplicably don't get the same sort of love that Hammer and Young MC enjoy on irony nights at clubs and sorority parties across the country. Stop frontin' - "Poison" was the shit!

I heard Ronnie Devoe sells real estate for RE/MAX out in Atlanta now. Good for him - it's a much steadier job than new jack swing.

===

The Fans Speak, Vol. 1:

dearest smart money,

that fucking soft cell song you put up ABSOLUTELY KILLS!! i fucking love that devastating gay shit. the kind where every lyric is like the opposite of a hilarious joke. when you hear some brilliantly bitter stuff like that, instead of smiling or laughing, you feel like "awww fuck, that's sooo fucked." and then you kinda laugh anyway .. but not in a happy way! dude, you should post the original version of "tainted love," just to extend the soft cell fun for a little longer.

from,
a straight guy with a queer eye (for music - maybe a queer ear?? lol)


Gloria Jones - what a great smile!

So here it is, "Tainted Love" as recorded by Gloria Jones, who was Marc Bolan's baby mama. This rendition's got real live soul elements to it, unlike the highly-whitened new wave remake. Don't get me wrong though - I like the Soft Cell version too.

I had two best friends back in high school. One of them drove a sports car and smoked pot and played baseball for the varsity team. The other one collected comic books and had never kissed a girl. I fell in somewhere between the two of them popularity-wise.

The cool kid: When we all three went off to our respective colleges, the cool kid collapsed psychologically. His girlfriend broke up with him over the phone three days after he got to UC Riverside, explaining that now that they were away at school, they’d be meeting new people that they’d want to hang out with. It just didn’t make any sense for them to stay committed to each other and deny themselves the fun of new experiences, she said. At the time, I thought she was a total bitch for using logic to justify the unceremonious dumping. But in retrospect, she was incredibly right on.

The cool kid called me every night of the first semester, crying and complaining and detailing his ridiculous attempts to win her back. I listened as he told me about driving to her school way out in Malibu in the middle of the night, breaking into her dorm through the fire exit, and sliding a page of selected Pearl Jam lyrics under her door.

The uncool kid: I only talked to the uncool kid one time during the first semester of college. He’d gone to a Christian school in the Midwest to study drama and was super busy with a musical he was performing in. I don’t recall which play it was, but I remember it was wholesome but not overtly-religious. "Oklahoma!" or "West Side Story," or something like that.

Over winter break, the uncool kid called me and wanted to get lunch and catch up. It sounded great to me.

He picked me up in his dad’s red 1980 Honda Prelude and drove us to the El Pollo Loco on the long street with all the fast food restaurants near where my mom lives. We ordered the same things we used to get when we’d eat there in high school.

"How’s it been?" I asked.

"Perfect. It’s a lot different than here – I’m meeting lots of good, moral people who actually care about the things that matter in life and it’s exactly what I want."

I felt a little weird that he had given his new friends the designations of "good" and "moral," as if neither of those words would ever describe me or the people we grew up with. But I let it slide.

"That’s awesome."

"Yeah. And you know what? One thing that’s really different there is they don’t tolerate faggots. Here, everyone’s always defending faggots as if what they do is an OK thing. But it’s in the Bible that it’s wrong and these people aren’t afraid to just come out and say it."

As he talked, he rolled up the left sleeve of his undersized dress shirt to reveal jagged writing in black ink all over his forearm. The marks reminded me of when I was six years old and wanted tattoos. I had used a magic marker to draw an anchor on one of my tiny biceps and a heart that read "Mom" on the other.

"What the fuck does all that stuff say?" I asked. I moved my head in closer to get a better look. The odd shapes turned out to be Jesus fish outlines with the words "No more fagots" written inside. There were about ten of the creepy doodles and faggots was spelled with just the one "g" in every instance.

I gave the uncool kid a squinty look. He stared blankly back at me. Luckily we were at fast food, where awkward reunions could be mercifully brief. I ate my burrito quickly and quietly. So did he.

When we got back into his car, he turned the key and pushed a cassette into the deck.

"This is a Christian mixtape my new girlfriend made for me," he said with a proud smile. "Great fucking stuff."

===


Soft Cell

I know a song you’d like. It’s by Soft Cell and it’s called "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye." It’s off the 1981 album "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret," which is the same record that the duo’s hit remake of "Tainted Love" appears on. It’s filled with snippy/funny/mean lyrics that might make you wince – but hey, if the truth hurts, say ouch! It’s about a messy break-up, like the one the cool kid is probably still stewing over ten years later. And although he’d probably never admit it now, gay ‘80s synth-pop was the uncool kid’s favorite type of music when he was in high school. So it seems appropriate to post it here.