I'm largely responsible for Free will, Free will and the problem of evil, David Hume, and a few other little entries in philosophy. I'm really not even that interested in free will, honest!
Melt-Banana (1994-) is a Japanese noise/punk/grindcore band with a standard rock line-up (vocals, guitar, bass, drums). They started out without a drummer, and they keep going through drummers. But the vocals, guitar, and bass are so percussive that it's not a big deal. The singer and bassist are female and the band absolutely rends your ass live, so they have a bit of a following in the punk community. I'm a big fan -- I've seen them 5 times and I used to run a fansite.
Renaldo and the Loaf (1979-87) was a British experimental/art-rock group strongly influenced by the Residents. As such, the music was created with all sorts of instruments (real and toy), warped and looped and spliced. There were only two guys involved, one of whom has since turned psycho Christian and is trying to destroy the group's recordings.
Metamorphosis (1996-) is an Austrian/Czech group playing what can indeed be described as "contaminated chamber music" (violin, cello, guitars). My ex-girlfriend happened to catch them playing in Slovakia, she dubbed me the CD, then I happened to catch them playing in Nashville, and later I almost got to see them in Prague with my friend Tomáš (they cancelled due to sickness).
Zeni Geva (1987-) is a Japanese noise/prog/metal band with drums and two guitars. The frontman, K. K. Null, is also a solo noise artist, and he produced Melt-Banana's second album. They like songs with one slow, off-time, nasty-sounding riff played over and over again while Null screams "No hope!" in Japanese. I find it hilarious that the other guitarist used to be in the Boredoms. (Their name is a Japanese-German mashup meaning "Money Violence")
Zuby nehty (1993-99) was an all-female Czech art-rock band (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, flute, saxophone). I found about them through a personnel connection with Uz jsme doma, downloaded a few of their albums, and then found out from UJD frontman Mirek Wanek that they had broken up. Bassist Pavla Jonssonová (neé Slabá) now lectures on gender studies at Charles University. (Their name means "By tooth and nail", and the two songs are "Still there is time" and "Flies in the apartment")
bert (1995-98?) was an Alabama noise/punk band that my friends and I saw several times in high school when they came to Nashville. They put out a zine on dissonant/noisy/atonal/etc. music, which was pretty important for my friends and me in retrospect.
Už jsme doma (1985-) is a Czech art/prog/punk band that I got into in high school -- they are the source of all my Czech-mania. They were influential in the underground 80s punk in Communist Czechoslovakia -- inasmuch as punk can sound like Pere Ubu, the Residents, and Etron Fou Leloublan. They connected with the Residents after the Velvet Revolution by publishing a book of Residents lyrics translated into Czech, and then performed the Residents' "Freak Show Live" opera in Prague 1995. This is how I found out about them. Later on, I started learning Czech by memorizing their lyrics, and I met my ex-girlfriend over Napster because we were both sharing mp3s of their music. I've seen them three times in the US and once in the Czech Republic. They probably won't tour here again. (Their name literally means "By now we are at home" or figuratively "Well, there you go" or "Now I understand". I once heard a Czech soldier say this in an elevator when we arrived at our floor. The two songs are "Go there, I don't know where, bring it, I don't know what" and "Traditional cat")
The Melvins (1985-) are an American art/punk/metal band best known for having practically created Nirvana (they went to high school together). Despite this, they're more in line with weird bands like Zeni Geva, Melt-Banana, and Mr. Bungle (they've toured with each of these bands), by playing slow, off-time, dissonant noise-metal. My friends and I in high school worshipped the Melvins, and I've seen them 5 or 6 times.
Mr. Bungle (1985-) are an American art-rock band who play the John Zorn game of mixing genres wildly. They started out as a death metal band, and then became ska, and then became more avant-soundtrack-noise-rock with all sorts of instruments and studio manipulation. Singer Mike Patton became well-known when he began singing for Faith No More, and now there are lots of cultish spin-off projects. These days Mr. Bungle is something of a touchstone for American experimental rock.
Thinking Plague (1982-) is an (American) avant-prog-rock band through and through. I don't know much about them, but here's some info: The Rock In Opposition (RIO) movement included bands like Magma, Henry Cow, Etron Fou Leloublan, Univers Zero, and the Residents. They did all the wacky 20th century tricks of odd meters, polyrhythms, dissonance, and atonality, while still sounding like a rock band. Thinking Plague is very much in this tradition.
Alamaailman Vasarat (1997-) is a Finnish band that play fake ethnic music in an avant-metal sort of way. This particular song is their take on Balkan brass band music (e.g., Fanfare Ciocarlia, Taraf de Haidouks), and the video mimics the movie Underground. They arose from the avant-prog band Höyry-kone. So far they have only two albums, but both are kick-ass. (Their name means "Hammers of the Underworld" and the song is "Your kebab or your life!")
The Residents (1972-) is an American band best known for being anonymous. Starting out in the late 60s and early 70s, They were influenced by popular rock, psychedelia, German electronic music, Harry Partch, and Zappa, and pretty much set out to be the weirdest band of all time. Being anonymous and all, they typically appear in eyeball-head tophat and tuxedo costumes, and they play fucked-up electronically-manipulated art-rock. They have connections here and there, with Penn and Teller, Gary Panter, Negativland, Matt Howarth, Fred Frith, Laurie Anderson, and other deviants. If you're a big fan, you'll find out their identity soon enough, and if you're my ex-girlfriend, you'll get to hang out with them at their house. I wanted to put more of their stuff on here, but it's hard to get short songs from concept albums.
Secret Chiefs 3 (1999-) is an American genre-mixing (avant-electronic-Islam-soundtrack-surf-western-metal?) tons-of-instruments band spun-off from Mr. Bungle. They've been known to play some Balkan brass band music live, so the Eastern European circle can be completed.
Dybbuk (1983-91) was the precursor to Zuby nehty. They were part of the underground new-wave/punk scene with Už jsme doma, and after Communism fell, they released an album produced by Mirek Wanek. Apparently they were big Vonnegut fans, what with the lyrics of one song ("Tygr") having been translated from the Book of Bokonon, and with another song about Kilgore Trout.
Tara Fuki (2001-) is a duo of Czech cellists who sing in Polish (Czech not being nasal enough, I suppose). Sounds a lot like Iva Bittová to me.
Iva Bittová (1985-) is a Czech violinist who plays something like art-prog-folk -- often just her singing with her violin. She's part of the Brno scene of prog-rock with Dunaj and Pavel Fajt, and was first given international exposure by RIO guitarist Fred Frith. My ex-girlfriend brought her stuff to my attention. Sometimes she goes into shreiking and caterwauling (you can chalk this up to Gypsy influence as much as anything), and according to my friend Tomáš, her performance at some Czech government gala alienated and embarrassed some visiting diplomats. I'd say those diplomats had, in the words of Charles Ives, "sissy ears". (The song title means "Stop searching")
Slayer (1982-), like Los Locos, kick your balls into outer space. Well, at least two of their albums do -- Hell Awaits and Reign in Blood. They defined Satanic speed-metal, enough to draw the attention of Bob Larson (author of "Satanism: The Seduction of America's Youth", and one of my favorite Christian retards), who toured with them doing research. Also some dude carved the Slayer logo into his arm with a knife -- HAIL SATAN! Drummer Dave Lombardo later joined the avant-metal band Fantömas with Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn from Mr. Bungle and Buzz Osborne from the Melvins.
I'm an alumnus of UA living in Arizona, and so I just heard about the Faculty Senate's blockheaded hate speech resolution. First, I have no doubt that the comedian who triggered the whole scandal is a halfwit bigot whose comedy is lame. But I am not too pleased at the prospect of student programming officials drawing up hate speech policies with the help of the Faculty Senate and other self-appointed heroes of righteousness.
My first concern is a purely comedic one: committees have no clue about what makes for good comedy -- their idea of caustic wit is Garrison Keillor. Case in point, the resolution itself rules out all comedy "which demeans or reduces an individual based on group affiliation or personal characteristics". In other words, it rules out anything that's funny: could Twain, Mencken, Lenny Bruce, or Michael O'Donoghue pass this ham-handed test? The comedy at UA is bad enough, I'm sure, without committee-approval grinding it down into flavorless pablum.
But forget comedy, what about political speech? Could John Stewart, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh pass the test? The whole point of attack politics, after all, is to demean and reduce individuals based on group affiliation and personal characteristics. Or are universities supposed to be big insulated comfort zones, with hostility and hatred magically kept outside in the nasty old real world?
I'm sympathetic to the idea that programs like these shouldn't be publicly funded. I, for one, wish my money didn't go to Christian clubs on campus. But since the CCSO does exist, it wisely decides not to make student organizations toe an official party line in order to receive funding. Professors are themselves publicly funded, but that doesn't justify some kind of oversight committee ready to cut off their salary as soon as they offend someone.
And the UA administration has proven itself an enemy of free speech again and again; slippery slope worries are more than justified. The resolution actually says "the right to freedom of speech is not absolute and is subject to both legal restrictions and standards of civility". But last I checked, standards of civility leave the right to freedom of speech completely untouched, unless you think "FUCK THE DRAFT" is within the bounds of civility. The Faculty Senate is clueless on freedom of speech, and if this resolution is challenged (like other speech codes), it will be thrown out as unconstitutional (like all the other speech codes).
2.1.9 – Of external advantages and disadvantages External objects related to us can also trigger pride/humility.
Resemblance doesn’t work well for pride/humility. We focus on the quality in ourselves instead of in others.
Association of ideas alone not enough. Association of impressions also required—nature doesn’t produce pride/humility immediately.
Country, climate, foreign countries, kin, spreading wealth around
Ancestry: uninterrupted proprietorship, nothing but males.
2.1.10 – Of property and riches
Property, whether justice be natural or artificial.
Riches Power / Exercise thereof: not philosophically respectable, but it does influence the passions. In daily life, we think strong incentives (judged from past experience) take away a man’s power to act otherwise.