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-   -   What is all this fuss about Whitehouse? (http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=23256)

batreleaser 07.07.2008 08:09 PM

hahaha

i love burmese too, like a whitehouse tribute band with weasel walter.

Everyneurotic 07.07.2008 09:35 PM

huh? i guess i have heard a different burmese because the ones i know sound as much as whitehouse as avril lavigne.

batreleaser 07.08.2008 06:22 AM

i didnt mean they sound like them, theyre just always mentioning em.

im talkin about this one:http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...id=142 050680

Everyneurotic 07.08.2008 11:38 AM

yeah, that's the same burmese, and yeah sounds more like scum grind than p.e. but whatever.

twodeadsluts onegoodfuck are great, playing grind-like p.e.

---

by the way, i think i will stop writing lenghty posts just for them to be ignored; i will start doing one liners like "rape mgmt" or "you are poop" from now on.

demonrail666 07.08.2008 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarramkrop
To be honest I never heard anyone making a fuss about them ever apart from some stuff written about their records. Where is the fuss about Whitehouse happening?

Nowhere, really. I just wanted the thread to sound more significant.

Glice 07.08.2008 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by demonrail666
I've read some selections of his stuff. In answer to your question: absolutely not, on all three counts. I wouldn't mind checking something more substantial by him though. Not being as good as either Artaud, de Sade or Bataille hardly makes someone bad, after all. Have you read Deleuze's essay 'Coldness and Cruelty'? It's about the only thing of his I've ever actually liked (or, I should say, remotely understood). If you're into your French libertarian stuff, you should like it quite a bit. Was flicking through Bataille's Visions of Excess anthology today - just to maintain contact with my inner ponce. Brilliant stuff.

Regarding your point about Whitehouse's Britishness, I entirely agree. There's definitely something of the 17th Century Ranters about them.

EDIT: I think I just managed to use up all my twat cards in a single post.


I think I managed to use up Europe's international reserve of twat cards in the last 3 years of messageboarding, and neologising verbs with the abandon of an A-level Derrida fanatic does nothing to assuage that fact. So I shouldn't worry if I were you.

Prima: You should read Deleuze on cinema (1 & 2) because he's got a fairly nervy grip on its various mileus (certainly over Badiou, with whom I agree because I don't really like cinema).

Further: I haven't read that particular Deleuze, because I'm of the impression Lyotard had a much better grip on the so-called 'philosophy of excess' without falling into the insouicance of the sado-dilletante (and this statement does L the disserverce of debasing him to a narrative that he merely glanced at).

Sunburn: It's not what you were saying, but I never saw Bataille as a Libertarian in the simple sense; there's too much of the Christian struggle to his writings (Madame Edwarda's Godcunt, the endless deification/ apotheoses of sex, sex-organs, sex-practises, sex-tension [etc, probably]).

Corrolary: The problem with 'simple' sadism in art (which is necessarily distanced from the sadism associated with sex) is that people like Whitehouse (and I imagine Sotos' writings) rarely go further than the first argument. Where batreleaser says,

"[Whitehouse are/ were] extremly confrontational, controversial, and offensive to those who dont understand tongue in cheek humour."

I think that's a perfect summary of Whitehouse - however, the problem is that there's plenty of people who get their humour, who appreciate their aesthetic, who appreciate the notion of 'sado-masochist' music/ lyrics who still don't find them that exciting. That's not to say Whitehouse are boring - the problem is that they create this polar narrative whereby the individual is supposed to either love them or hate them. The truth of the matter is that, to someone like me, the force of their rhetoric only perpetuates the fact that Whitehouse, to a great many people, simple aren't that good.

I do admire them for their agenda, and I like the idea of what they're doing, and as I said before, they're legions more articulate than the noise scene over which they stand, sentinal-like. The problem is that they seem to think they're forcing people to have an opinion. And it's true, I do have an opinion on them, but that's not because of the excess of their aesthetic (either their lyrical or musical), that's because I'm a gobshite, and the majority of record 'obsessives' are gobshites too (hello, internet messageboard).

Theta: In other news, international reserves of 'internet-twat cards' are at their lowest level since the internet was invented.

MellySingsDoom 07.08.2008 02:25 PM

Bennett sure has a habit of contradicting hmself - on the one hand claiming that only a select number of people will ever "get" Whitehouse, then having a throwing-toys-from-the-pram moment when some journalist or other expresses an opinion less than flattering of WH. You can't have your sadist cake and whip it, Billiam...

atsonicpark 07.08.2008 03:19 PM

I really enjoy Peter Soto's spoken word albums... I'd like to read his books.

batreleaser 07.08.2008 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic
yeah, that's the same burmese, and yeah sounds more like scum grind than p.e. but whatever.

twodeadsluts onegoodfuck are great, playing grind-like p.e.

---

by the way, i think i will stop writing lenghty posts just for them to be ignored; i will start doing one liners like "rape mgmt" or "you are poop" from now on.


i actually always thought twodeadsluts:onegoodfuck and burmese werent that far off soundwise. both to me sound they like they take equally from early power electronics and early grind to make on brutal clusterfuck of a sound. and yeah, the twodeadsluts record that came out this year is one of this year's best.

atsonicpark 07.08.2008 04:42 PM

haha twodeadsluts used to be a weird cybergrind band, they were into my first band stagedive suicide and sent me a free cd like 6 years ago.

they're supposed to do a split with scissor shock but they're really slow. it's taken them 2 1/2 years to record a full length and they've been meaning to do a split with warmth for many years now too.

Toilet & Bowels 07.08.2008 05:55 PM

where does story of the eye stand in the overall goodness scope of bataille's work?

Glice 07.08.2008 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels
where does story of the eye stand in the overall goodness scope of bataille's work?


I've not read everything, but I'd say that if you don't like that, you won't like anything of his. He's a pretty superlative writer, but something like Eroticism is far more cold and academic than a lot of people enjoy. I'd go with Madame Edwarda/ My Mother/ the Dead Man collection for my personal favourite (but he's someone I'd very much like to learn French for so I could read everything).

golden child 07.08.2008 06:15 PM

you deserve to be patronized

I'M COMING UP YOUR ASS

atsonicpark 07.08.2008 06:17 PM

ohh

golden child 07.08.2008 06:23 PM

seriously, the whole point of whitehouse is to be patronized. if you feel that way after reading interviews then good. twodeadsluts are fucking amateurs, all flash and no substance which may be ok if the flash was the least bit interesting... you say faggot all the time... cool

demonrail666 07.08.2008 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels
where does story of the eye stand in the overall goodness scope of bataille's work?


Story of the Eye is great but, despite being Bataille's most famous book, it isn't his most representative. His novels and short stories are quite different from his non-fiction stuff (which I tend to prefer). Even saying that though, he's a definite case of someone you either like or don't like (be it in fiction or non-fiction). A number of people whose opinion I greatly respect dismiss his 'philosophy' as pap. And yet I love it.

I think has very fashionable in the 80s, amidst all the body politics and sexuality stuff, but I don't think he's thought of as that big a deal now.

Aside from the various collections of his essays, his book Eroticism is probably my favourite.

Glice 07.08.2008 06:26 PM

I still can't my head around his 'blind spot' theory on Hegel. I wouldn't say he's written off now. I wasn't around in the 80s to comment on his popular time. I do think most people should read him, but as you say, he can be quite divisive. But, y'know. Madame Edwarda.

demonrail666 07.08.2008 06:34 PM

I think it's a shame the way he became hijacked by the whole body modification scene - who strike me, by and large, as a rather witless bunch at best.

He has a complex, and quite interesting relationship to Marxism compared with the 'official position held by most other surrealists (including the arch bore himself, Andre Breton.) His essay 'The Old Mole and the Prefix-Sur' is one of the best things I've read, and something that I still apply to a whole host of seemingly unrelated areas in my life.

atsonicpark 11.26.2009 05:29 AM

Today on syg is whitehouse day!

Glice 11.26.2009 08:35 AM

Since this thread I have read Sotos - pretty close to everything he's written, thanks to a certain Bristolian musician. And he's fucking awful.


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