I'll keep it short since the issue's already too damn big: grievous is mein pal from way back and he has a noise project called [shunt], and since he also eats MEAT and LOTS OF IT, ergo, it made perfect sense to do an interview (doesn't that make sense? sure it does). Plus he has many interesting things to say, as you will see if you'll, uh, stop reading this bullshit and cast your eyes... yes... DOWNWARD....
DA: Okay, let's get all the basic background crap out of the way....
GRIEVOUS: [shunt] was kind of formed out of the remains of [rapevine], which was a kind of death-industrial/dark ambient project that I aborted for the moment because I don't have the equipment necessary to do it, or the money for the equipment.... I guess [shunt] started early in 1995, really, with some noise stuff i was doing as [rapevine]. I didn't think it really fit that mold, so I decided to do it as another project, and the name came to me in the middle of an electronics class -- it also appealed to me because I had a friend with brain cancer in middle school who had had a shunt implant to relieve the buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in his skull.
DA: What kind of influences are you drawing upon with your work?
GRIEVOUS: Basically, my love of cacophony. I do listen to a lot of noise, but I have to balance it out with music or I start getting a little freaked out... one of my MAIN influences is probably my tinnitus...mmm, mmm, RINGING EARS!! I want to re-create that horrid roaring sound for people who haven't had the pleasure. When I first started experimenting with dissonant/noise guitar stuff (around '92) my main influences were probably a lot of the Earache stuff and bits and pieces of industrial, grindcore, and other noisy forms of "music."
DA: What do you use to create the sounds in your noisescapes?
GRIEVOUS: On the DEATH BY ELECTRICAL TAPE split, I used microphone-pedal-amp feedback, and then I brought this into my PC and amplified it into digital distortion (clipping) because I love the distinctive sound it gives it.... I also used Syntrillium's CoolEdit software to add in some effects, particularly the spiffy programmable distortion, echo chamber, and brainwave algorithms. On the split with Musicide, I basically used everything I could find... video samples, microphone feedback, guitar, tone generators, and damaged vinyl. The first tape kind of relied more on looping and arranging of the sounds, now I'm going more for a straight-in thing, but I still use the PC for editing the tracks, fades, etc. As time goes on I seem to be moving away from massive sound collage tactics to a more basic noise "aesthetic" - one or two tracks, usually. Lately the damaged vinyl sounds have really been appealing to me....
DA: How do you generally work in the studio?
GRIEVOUS: Before I'd record four or five tracks and collate them into a single piece; now it's basically record one or two tracks and process them during recording, and then bring them into the PC for editing. I'm hoping to get a multi-track recorder sometime in the near future, because recording everything one track at a time is getting to be a pain in the ass.
DA: What's happening on the live performance front?
GRIEVOUS: Nothing. There's no real noise "scene" in Southern California, as such. Especially in the benighted backwoods of Ventura.... There are occasional shows, but I don't really have any pull with most of the people who assemble shows.... I've met some of the people in the scene here and they generally seemed kind of assholish, more obsessed with their record collections and the latest limited edition of 32 hand-cut vinyl collaboration they did with Merzbow or whatever... basically a complete lack of support for anyone but their friends, I guess. The usual human bullshit.
DA: Do you prefer working alone, or are you interested in collaborating at some point in the future?
GRIEVOUS: Circumstances kind of force me to work alone right now. It's a combination of not really knowing anyone here that is into the same stuff I am, wanting control of what I'm doing and my basic inability to get along with others. I am planning some collaborations, though o- one with Cullen from [Dyslexis Coup], maybe a couple of others. Mike from [Musicide] and I talk about it occasionally, but he's pretty damn busy, so that's not happening yet. I'd like to do some more Cervical Third stuff, actually. [NOTE: Cervical Third is yet another one the moonunit's billion or so side projects, this one with grievous.] My girlfriend is also working on some material, and we might do some kind of collaboration; she's more into spacy stuff and psychedelic stuff than i am, so it would be very cool. I'm also kind of intrigued by the possibility of mixing crustcore type punk with noise....
DA: How's it going in terms of getting stuff released?
GRIEVOUS: Eh, too slow. The first tape seemed to take forever to finish (packaging! unh!) and now the second tape is taking a while too, due to problems mike from _kill music_ is having.... The [musicide]/[shunt] split will be something like 50 copies.... There's also talk of a 7" split with Grunt on Left Deviation (which is pretty much definite, I hope) and very nebulous plans to release a solo 7" with another label.... I may just put out a very limited 7" myself, there's a place in New Zealand that does individually cut records with a minimum of 20 copies, which sounds good to me. The next [shunt] tape will probably be a split with 000 on [faint barren harmony], my "label." (000 is a project based entirely on live improv guitar stuff, not entirely noise.) After that, who fucking knows. I have to pack a life and job in there somewhere, I suppose.
DA: What's the appeal of listening to sheets o' noise, anyway?
GRIEVOUS: Well, for me, I've always been into dense, deep sounds, thick sounds, noise. I listen to everything from noise to punk to death and doom metal to rap to ambient, etc, etc, ad nauseam, looking for the depth and density of sound I enjoy... noise to me is almost a kind of overload, a blowout. When I crank up some MSBR or Incapacitants, it blasts all the accumulated bullshit residue of life out of my head and destroys the horrid aftertaste of listening to the radio, watching TV, etc. I think, in a way, that living in this world, in a city, you have an almost continuous kind of noise, a background din, that's almost as much mental as it is actual noise. I guess it's a kind of psychic static that builds up from the proximity of so much useless information and so many vapid people; to me, listening to noise is a concentration of a kind of pure and _meaningless_ noise that doesn't intend to do anything -- noise isn't going to sell you anything, tell you what's going on the Middle East, or talk to you about the weather, it's just THERE. Aand to me, it's cleansing.
As for why anyone ELSE listens to it; there are those who genuinely like it for whatever reason, those who are fascinated or repulsed by it but still listen to it, and regrettably a growing contingent of people who listen to it because they think it's the cool thing to do.
DA: What cliches of the noise genre are you hoping to avoid?
GRIEVOUS: Racism. Sexism. Nazism. The "I'm so fucking hard" stance that reminds me more of Nazi skinheads than anything. Basically, all the shit that's going on right now with groups like Macronympha and Taint and Intrinsic Action. Yes, they make great recordings, but their actions are all ludicrous, as are quite a few of their statements. I don't care about ANYONE's personal politics, but I think it's about time to kick the Nazi shit for a while -- it's not shocking anymore, It's like listening to a bunch of fucking rednecks in a trailer park go off about how superior they are to other races; the whole sex, death and hookers thing has gotten pretty stupid as well. The whole power eletronics scene seems to be riddled with these pathetic geeks, and I'd prefer to stay well away from them and their little Pat Buchananesque political ideology.
DA: What do you make of the noise scene's apparent need to wallow in art brut at the moment, particularly where packaging is concerned?
GRIEVOUS: I'm kind of split on this -- I appreciate disgusting pictures as much as the next person, but I'm getting really fed up with the complete lack of imagination in packaging -- "Yeah, ok, we got the dead naked girl on the cover, and the rape story for the back, we're set." The split with [musicide] has a rather disgusting cover (of a stillborn baby), and I'm kind of worried that we'll come to be associated with the "rape-power-bitch-death" geeks, whom we have NO love for, and no respect for. I guess it comes down to a complete lack of imagination; Whitehouse did it first, and I think everyone who picked up CREAM OF THE SECOND COMING used that as the model for their entire psychosexual, as well as musical, development. It's boring, it's stale, and it was old in the 80s. I have respect for artists like Small Cruel Party, Aube, Daniel Menche, and so on, who put THOUGHT into their work, and somehow avoid the dead dominatrix cover art.
DA: How do you suppose death metal and noise ended up sleeping in the same nasty bed?
GRIEVOUS: I blame myself. Uhm, i don't know -- I don't really see as much crossover there as people generally seem to.... I've met the odd metal person who's liked Masonna or whatever, but I think it's a pretty small percentage of the people in that scene who like noise, who really get into it. And I think that they probably like both styles as a result of the intensity and uncompromisingly dark nature of the material. Or something. Huh huh.
DA: What's the next frontier beyond noise in the extremity sweepstakes?
GRIEVOUS: Hmm. Music that kills you instantly? The answer that immediately jumps to mind is "How can it?" But that's been said before about a lot of different styles. I'm hoping it'll kind of recombine on itself and bring out some interesting mutations and new styles, instead of the recycled power- Nazi shit, or the "Listen! I've got 500 distortion pedals!" stuff that all tries to be Merzbow (which I'm guilty of, I know). I'm hoping it might interbreed with other underground genres and maybe create something more interesting. Dog knows it couldn't hurt industrial; all the Sister Leather Machine Snog Factory Westward groups wouldn't do badly to maybe look back to Throbbing Gristle, Maurizio Bianchi and Eintsturzende Neubaten instead of Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb....
DA: What would you recommend for listening to the neophyte interested in gaining a background in this particular genre?
GRIEVOUS: Oh, I don't know. I'd recommend buying a few good comps, actually; there are so many different styles, it's an easy way to discover who you like. For a true background, I'd go back to some shit like Intersystems, Keiji Haino, MB, Hijokaidan, Controlled Bleeding's noise stuff... the late 60s and early 70s seems to be the point where noise as it is today started evolving (and excuse me if i'm wrong, noise scholars) -- you can listen to psych albums like CONTACT by the Silver Apples and they have some proto- noise moments.... I actually got into noise and experimental just by buying whatever my friend at this record store said was "the worst crap" he'd ever heard. That's why i picked up BATZTOUTAI WITH MATERIAL GADGETS originally.
DA: Where's [shunt] headed, musically and philisophically?
GRIEVOUS: Hopefully towards a more original sound, a better sound. My basic worry is that I'm doing something that could easily turn into hero-worship, copying Merzbow and the rest, and I want to stay away from that, to create something that has its own identity and style. I also want to branch out into some other directions, do some collaborations, and a shitload more interviews (it's fuckin' fun being this pompous!). As for philosophically, eh? Who knows. I'm not sure i have one.