PANTY RAID! MR. JUNE IS…’MYSTERIOUS GUY HARDCORE’ EXPERT DAVE RIVERA!
I’m So Over Mysterious Guy Hardcore
Or Fuck You Mark McCoy
(the unspoken rule of Mysterious Guy Hardcore is to never wear a shirt…ever)
So when I was asked to contribute to the Panty Raid here at Reign In Blonde, I felt like I had to bring forward something I loved dearly and you might not be familiar with. That’s why I chose, of course, the most wondrous genre that is Mysterious Guy HardCore. Hold your horses, I bet you’re already asking “What is this cauldron of no Myspaces, limited tapes and contrasted images of gore and explicit homosexual acts of affection for album art?” Well, it’s the new music craze and it’s been snatching up our elitist youth since the days of pretending you fit into your sister’s jeans and that youth medium pageninetynine shirt and having the most Saetia plays on audioscrobbler. Although you’re probably already fidgeting and refreshing at this point, waiting for another Limp Bizkit “Gold Cobra” update, for those of you who are still left standing, we’re going to go through a few rules that personify these harbingers of cardigan chaos. Oh, and who gives a shit about the Mind Eraser story?
1. DO NOT RELEASE CDS. EVER. VINYL OR TAPE ONLY.
(PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT BOOTY CONTENT)
What?! Tapes?! Who in the fuck owns a tape deck still? The children, that’s who. CDs can be played in CD players, and such things are common. Obscurity above all, man. These vultures will sit up all night in record label Youth Attack’s Jerkbooth (aka the waiting room for decline of humanity) furiously hitting the refresh button on their browsers like a Magrudergrind (who are a powerviolence band, let’s start a debate in the comments section) blastbeat to obtain a tape that’s limited to 20 copies with abysmal sound quality and a 7 minute running length, all for eight dollars (plus shipping, of course). Flimsy inserts, lyrics in fine print, and a lack of any pictured of the band are just cherries on this secret shortcake. But there’s a positive FLIPside to it! All you blossoming investors need to get into the limited vinyl and tape game because anything you can snatch from these distributors can be flipped on eBay an obscene profit margin! But you can find out more about that by purchasing my book “HOW TO BUY SIX BLACK METAL TAPES AND SELL THEM FOR A DOLLAR MORE THAN WHAT YOU PAID,” which comes exclusively in papyrus format printed with invisible ink, limited to only 23 copies. Get ‘em when they go up for sale at 3:48 AM on July 3rd 2011. Limit one copy per order.
2. BLACK AND WHITE IS RIGHT.
(What’s going on here? Devilish and Mysterious!)
Color is stupid. We all know this. From the Wizard of Oz to Facebook, we all know things in black and white are way more artistic. Plus who would want to see guts and blowjobs in color, eww. Add a bit of contrast and voilà! You’ve got instant mysterious cred. I mean, who cares if you can’t tell if it’s a pig intestine or an unidentifiable, annihilated human face, right?
3. MYSPACE BAD, BLOGSPOT GOOD.
http://cultmaternal.blogspot.com/
Myspace is convenient. Who fucking likes that? I love to work for my music and by work, I obviously mean go to a band’s blogspot page and download the shit out of those limited cd-r’s I couldn’t nab from the record release show that no one went to. And if you have a blogspot, please spare us your stupid poetry. Post flyers that follow the Mysterious Guy code. Where else will you see a band like Socially Retarded or SQRM? You’ll see that this is also linked to #2, because nothing is ever…EVER in color. Oh I hear you, calling it “pretentious” and a bunch of “assfaggotry.” Well guess what? You like Mastodon, go fuck yourself.
4. PRODUCTION IS NOT COOL.
(Photographic evidence of portable Mysterious Guy HardCore recording machine)
HardCore was never meant to easy on the ears. You’re not supposed to hear the bassist who keeps everything shrouded in mystery by probably never being plugged in. Guitars? Need to sound like a witch’s queef. Plus, even though these bands probably make $20 total profit selling LIMITED EDITION TAPES WITH BULLETS INCLUDED (yes, this is real), they can’t afford decent studio time. So if there’s one thing that’s true about Mysterious Guy HardCore, it’s that they’re D.I.Y. as fuck. Remember when SS Decontrol turned into a heavy metal cheese fest band? Yeah, that isn’t happening with our beloved Raw Nerve.
(Uhh, yeah, this Sucks Several Dicks)
5. FIVE WORDS: SIDE B OF MY WAR.
(Why are you sitting down reading this? Stage dive off your desk, idiot)
Every single band has pretty much replicated this off ad nausem. It’s the blueprint of Mysterious Guy HardCore. All you have to do is listen to it and you’ll have heard the entirety of the Youth Attack roster and Bay Area scene (which is a bigger joke than Crazy Town covering “New Noise”). Stompy drums, bare minimum riffage and demanding vocals. Just record it in a tin can and bam! It’s Myyyssterrriouuusss. Thank you Henry Rollins for making this possible, I’m sure if he could see all the skinny nerds screaming their brains out about rotting in suburbia with a 9th grade creative writing edge and kewl mystifying colorless photography adorning every LP cover he’d saw off his own dick with his solo album (on CD!). Then again, maybe he deserves it because he did this:
6. CONCLUSION.
Now maybe you’re thinking to yourself that Mysterious Guy HardCore isn’t for you. Correction: you’re definitely sitting there right now thinking to yourself that Mysterious Guy Hardcore isn’t for you. This probably just sounds like another elitist, pretentious, and exclusive circle jerk club that you don’t want to be a part of. I get that. I was kicked out of the Junior Astronauts in 4th grade after Quincy Jackson told on me for breaking a model of the Saturn V rocket, but I’ll save the story about those fucking pricks for another day. The point is, I understand where you’re coming from, but we think you should give it a chance before it’s too late. Whether or not this subgenre has any staying power remains to be seen, but anyone trying to find out about hardcore punk music would be remiss to not include Mysterious Guy HardCore. Too bad there will be no way to find out any information about it, huh? That’s why you need to get into this now, fuckers.
BONUS: GARBAGE BAG T-SHIRTS.
“One size fits you all.” What other genre of music produces garbage…err—I mean..trash…damnit—attire like this? EXACTLY. Now go get the Cult Ritual demo from ebay with your parent’s credit card.
-Dave Rivera
@airbagged
[Attention citizens of BOY LAND! Think you’re worthy of a Panty Raid?? Send your stuff to reigninblonde@gmail.com. You just might be Mr. July!]
