David Christmas pt 2: The 7"

Hey New Update - there will be an after party show on the 15th now at ADRIFT and will feature TYVEK among others. Stay FUned.

A lot of people have been wondering if the David Christmas 7" is going to be strictly limited to the Dec 15 show - it isn't. We are still working out the details but the record will be available for online ordering around the time of the show. So don't worry if you are some asshole from Omaha that needs a copy of the 7" so you can sell it on eBay ("this record has never been played), you will be able to obtain one.

It will be a free download, and will be pay what you can. Just kidding, they all cost $10 and it's a 7" single that comes in Fucked Up wrapping paper designed by Louis Vouitton and all the money gets donated to a charity. Also we are going to release David Christmas as an expensive boxset in a few months. Just kidding, although a version of the song will appear as part of our proto-musical "David Comes to Life", that will be issued on a memory card, and whatever other fancy futuristic shit music is issued on in the future (in like 20 months from now). PS that new radiohead record is really awesome. Just kidding, it was totally boring.

I would imagine that a lot of you are also confused regarding what exactly is on the b-side of this record. Well, I can tell you that the song is called something like "Stars on 45". We had (have) this to say in an interview published on CMJ.com tommorow (today):

We got the idea to have some friends and luminaries do pieces on the bside of the record at 5pm last tuesday and went into the studio at 7. we were in a time rush because we'd originally planned to have David Eliade read a bit from "A Christmas Story", but Nick Fenstle ended up getting sick that day and needed to be taken to the hospital....anyhow in two hours we managed to get large pieces from all our friends rolodex's and starting making calls from the studio. The roster is such a weird melange of people - from close friends to a lot of people we'd never met, nor assumed even know who we are. Graciously even the latter agreed to help out the project, in the interests of the charity. As always, we tried calling Uffie numerous times but she wouldn't pick up...the most exciting was definetely Nelly Furtado, not only because of the star-power (which is more subtle in Canada), but because of the process - she just happened to be recording something next door and we literally just bumped into her in the hallway. We got our newest member Young Governor psyched up for about an hour before he worked up the courage to barge into the studio to ask her the favour. She was very polite and cool about it!

You can read more about this developing story at the website "Pitchfork Media" (the US one, not the Polish one), and sort of at this "MTV" news webstation. That last article also has a bit about the house of FLEA getting burned to a crisp.
By the way, if you live in Montreal, or have access to the internet, you can hear the version of "Year of the Pig" we cut at CJLO studios last month before Pop Montreal. It was the first time we ever played the song in its entirety. We didn't even play the song completely while we were recording it, because we did it in two parts, so this session is like the 3rd time of maybe 5 times this song has EVER been played live by humans on this planet. Plus a) we fuck it up in like 3 places b) the engineer put this cool effect on at the end and c) it sounds really cool. You can check out their website, and tune in to the following shows starting today, which is
FUCKED UP YEAR OF THE PIG CJLO WEEK
Mon 11/26
thru being cool 11am-noon
idle minds 9-10pm

Tue 11/27
kids are so-so 2-4pm
hooked on sonics 6-8pm
losing my edge 8-10pm

Wed 11/28
bvst 7-9pm

Thu 11/29
turn down the suck 7-8pm

Lastly, my friend DX sent me a few issues of his fanzine DISTORT, which is a really great read because he is not only a great writer, but is on a mission to infuse a journalistic integrity back into punk rock. Check out his website here. The zines feature some amazing bands (FUCKED UP, SEX VID, NOT CLOCKCLEANER, POISON IDEA), but also some really shitty bands (CLOCKCLEANER, BALLAST), so check it out.

Also this came to our attention:
[ IMG] Dwid’s Legal legal holiday Message On Saturday Dec 15th Fucked Up will horde the special legal legal holiday eventuality during Sonic Boom Records to good the Toronto Food Bankwomen vital with mental illness issues. The day will underline the special Fucked Up set featuring the strain “David Christmas”, the initial singular from the David Comes to Life LP, as good as christmas covers, special guest as good as guest vocals from the really special legal legal holiday vocalist . During 3pm we c as good as George Herman House, the transitory housing module for

Lastly, if any of you nerds can tell me why firefox and vlc is taking up 100% of my CPUs at all times and making this blog-making machine insanely slow, you can leave some comments or call up Octavio.

David Christmas

href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/vqvh0b">Dwid's Holiday Message
On Saturday December 15th Fucked Up will host a special holiday event at Sonic Boom Records to benefit the Toronto Food Bank and George Herman House, a transitional housing program for women living with mental health issues.

The day will feature a special Fucked Up set featuring the song "David Christmas", the first single from the David Comes to Life LP, as well as christmas covers, special guests and guest vocals from a very special holiday vocalist. At 3pm you can also come get your picture taken with "Santa". The show will take place downstairs and will be decorated in the style of the season.

Additonally, we will release the 7" version of "David Christmas" on December 15th, the a-side featuring the aforementioned title track, with a bside with holiday wishes from a few of our closest friends. These singles will cost $10 and will be designed and gift-wrapped by our friends at Punch Clock - they will be the perfect gift for you son and/or daughter. 100% of the money from these singles will be donated to George Herman House. The press will be 1000 copies - the copies that aren't sold at the show will be available for mail order - please await details. Studio time was graciously donated by our friend Chris Hegge from Audiolab Toronto, a great studio where we have recorded most of our 7" singles (402 Salem Avenue North. 416-516-5542)

Saturday December 15th
Sonic Boom Records (Downstairs in the "workshop") 512 Bloor St. West
3pm Santa 5pm Concert
Cost: Non-perishable foodbank donation
FUCKED UP
Plus Guests

讓卡債族還有希望-請洽-0913-811-933 陳小姐

Attention nerds, this is David Eliade. We have just received what looks to be a very important email, but we are currently unable to decipher it. If anyone can uncode this ominous and portentous message, we would be within your gratitude, and gladly send you some limited and highly valuable merchandise. Patiently we await an answer...

還有信用卡未付餘額嗎 點看看 新低利率方案簡單借款，輕鬆償還‏
From: 讓卡債族還有希望-請洽-0913-811-933 陳小姐 (frances.jennifer@msa.hinet.net)
Medium riskYou may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as unsafe
Sent: Mon 11/19/07 10:40 AM
To: vibration333@hotmail.com
Character set: Learn more

給您快速 - 銀行低利貸款,優惠利率1.68起，負債過高、無薪資證明皆可辦理
速撥-0913-811-933-陳小姐
有房子 有車子 還怕借不到錢 代辦公司→輕鬆幫您貸,讓卡債族還有希望
速撥-0913-811-933-陳小姐
代辦低息低利,3分鐘即時告知對您有利的申貸建議
速撥-0913-811-933-陳小姐
3分鐘即時告知對您有利的申貸建議,你還在因為卡債壓的你死死的而煩惱嗎？給您低利-銀行高額貸款規劃

Pug

Hey, so we got nominated for another pug award. Remember last year when we lost to CSS? We were so incredulous. How could we lose to a programming language, we wondered. Then we found out they were actually a band from Paraguay. Then when we played next door to them at the BBC last year we stole a screwdriver from them (true story).

So anyhow, this year "Year of the Pig" was nominated "Best Disco-Dance 12"", so make sure to go and vote for us here. If we win we save 100 pugs from becoming a fur coat. Actually that would be great, pugs are gross.

Oh also - Pink Eyes (who owns the pug up there) does a new vinyl blog for the record label he works for - it's right here, so check it out.

Benefits

Hey a few key things are happening in December. Firstly, our friend Simone, who sometimes plays the keyboards in our band, also runs punchclock printers, and prints up some of our tshirts.
There is going to be a benefit for punchclock in December, and here are some details:

Dec 6 and 7
938 Bathurst St
Playing Friday: Final Fantasy, $100, Castlemusic, The Youngest
Playing Saturday: IsdoubleDcup, The Blankett, Kids on Tv, Motorhead

Secondly - we are planning a big xmas extravaganza for December 15th. It's going to take place at Sonic Boom records at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor. Pink Eyes will be there all day as Santa Clause. We will be playing a show in the basement. Also we are trying to press up a limited run of singles as part of the show - the proceeds will of course to go charity. The aside will be a sneak preview of the David Comes to Life LP, and the bside will be David Eliade reading from A Christmas Story. More details on this soon!

Hey plus, check out the latest installment of David Choe's show on VBS. We are the soundtrack

Like to get to know you...

Hello millions of new devotees. Here is the lay-persons guide to the band ______ __.
By Octavio St. Laurent.

A few years ago ______ __ was a stringy anarchist punk band that wore patches on their clothes and sang about the workers revolution during the Spanish Civil War. They would eat food from the garbage and didn't bother to write lyrics for the songs on their demo tape. Their distain for the "conventions of music" and self-imposed distance from their (small) audience made them instant legends in the inconvievable small hard-core-punk community in North America. When ______ __ started releasing more records, they took the form of 7" singles, which baffled many people. They band didn't care and as a response released a new 7" that contained only ONE song. People hated it, but the band loved it, because of their punk-attitude. Also the fans secretly loved the band for treating them so badly. Such is the psychology of a music scene full of wastoids with authority issues.

Things carried along in this manner for a few years, which could be summed up as a minor arms race between the band and their "fans". Then the band released their first full length record, called Hidden World. It was mostly about being afraid of dying and wanting to be a plant, or an ant. It sold modestly but also was picked up on by some major media outlets. Can you imagine how the bands core-fans reacted? Of course, they were incredulous! People would post pictures of sharks jumping over things on internet message boards, to voice their disapproval. The band became even more overjoyed at how their fans were reacting. Then yesterday the New York Times ran a review of a show the band played in Brooklyn. Even though the punks understood that the guitars were out of tune for most of the night, the Times felt the show was powerful and moving, and as a result thousands of stay-at-home moms from Queens clicked on a link to our "blog" that also ran in the story, and here you are!

Lets now go over a few things you should know about the band that you now have on your radar, but your young dirty child has already dismissed:

STAY AT HOME MOM'S GUIDE TO THE BAND ______ __

-The thing that looks like an F up there is the bands logo. A lot of cretins have it tattooed on their body. If you are interested in secretly being a fan of the band, it would be advisable to get it place somewhere on your body discreetly, like under the collar of you shirt on your lower neck, or around your shoulder. It is seen as a sign of devotion to the band (also know as "being lame") but also of not caring what other people thing ("even more lame"). But in your world it will make you mysterious and tough-looking.

-The band has a swear word as their name, but for you it will sort of be a minor liberation to tell it to your friends.

-There is "moshing" at the bands shows. Last month someone broke an ocular bone after he jumped from a stack of speakers. Also the lead singer, "Pink Eyes" (oh also - the band all use pseudonyms instead of their real names - it's sort of a punk thing that would take a lot of explaining). Sure, it's a dangerous world, but how bored are you of shopping for cauliflower every day?

-Some of their vinyl singles go for a lot of money on ebay. They would make great presents for your nerdy record collecting son. Try looking at his myspace to find his record-want list.

-This is especially true for the split 12" with the band Mind Eraser, which is literally impossible to find.

-The band used to be accused of "being nazis". It was mostly this thing where a band will often pretend to be interested in sketchy politics in order to create a controversy that people will talk about. Its sort of like what you would refer to as a "marketing ploy", but for violent lowlifes who respond to different inputs.

-The band has a manager called "David Eliade" who some people think is fake, and others aren't so sure about. Although I did have coffee with him this morning (he is my landlord).

-It is also important to make the distinction that even though they band are "punk", they have nothing to do with skateboarding.

-If you REALLY want to sound smart, tell your friends that the band "got you back into punk" or "renewed my faith in hardcore" or something, because then you sound like "so over it", but also "still into it" at the same time.

-In press releases the band purports to not have cell phones or drivers licenses, because the punk image they have to uphold needs to have these signifyers that differentiate them from mainstream culture, like the one you are all part of.

-Sometimes at a live show, the singer will smash a bottle on his skull or dig razor blades into his forehead. Some of the bands older fans have responded poorly to this, noting on its "gimmicky" nature. But we both know that these people just don't want their Manolo's to get skuffed up. It's best to come to a show with your dirtiest clothes that you wear to paint your boat on Long Island, and to have a "ready for anything" attitude.

-If you are at a dinner party and bring the band up and your friends ask you what they sound like, it would be advisable to say "everyone say's they sound like Poison Idea mixed with Negative Approach, but I find those influences to be too subtle, and liken the band to Khaottik Diisorder, but with a more Neu! approach to spacing".

-The band has referenced the Vienna Actionists, the Baader Meinhof Gang, the Situationist International, Charles Manson and Gille de Rais as main influences. If you don't know who any of these people are, it is best to just not find out. In cases where you will be found guilty of association from being a fan of the band, it is best to either plead ignorance, or just state that the band is trying to break down cultural cliches.

-Also the band has a pro-pedophilia song.

-Also the band once knowingly sold copies of a record to fans that was fake.

-Plus, they once penned and published their own interview in a major punk "zine" (which is like a magazine printed on newspaper but also with "diy ethics" [not the Home Depot diy, the dumpster food kind of diy I was talking about earlier] and try to claim otherwise.

-You can order a record by the band right here. Careful! This song is 18 minutes long and may become boring. But who are we kidding - you have plenty of time to listen to it! Just make sure to tell your friends that the first few 7"s were far superior, and the riffs on this one are "too repetitive".

-The band does not have a myspace page because they want people to know they are different. They just have this blog, so keep checking back here for more info and instructions.

So there you have it. We are glad to welcome you all into the fold. If you have more complicated questions about the band, "punk" or anything else related to your new culture, don't hesitant to email the bands fake manager David Eliade at vibrationandhum @ hotmail.com

You can read a short annotated history of the band here.
You can read a more rambling and incoherent account here.


Photo by Nina Hazen.

Oh yeah, and check THIS out.

See you on Saturday

Hey BLUES CONTROL is now playing with us on Nov 10. it will be great

Mind Invaders

.

Vibrations and hums the quantum sum where we're from
felt in strings spread in rings spinning clouds eve Atom

Particle dust to dust clung now balls of fire conspire
Stars spit the molecules lit panspermigration comets

Sui generus in space amino acids in place
Cooling planets await fate until life shows its face

Double helix the code from which flowed the chromosome
Left hand supports life to divide and provide

We're starting to book our SXSW experience. If you are throwing a party, get in touch with David at vibrationandhum @ hotmail.com

Speaking of David, he recently sat down (not literally) with the fine people at Jagged Visions fanzine, from Amsterdam. You can read more about it here. Look out for that issue, which will also feature Whitehouse, and hondenkoekesfabriek. David is also about to publish his third novel (not under his real name) - look for it to be hidden inside a bmp on this website in the next few days.

You are mainly known as the manager of Fucked Up. The band describe you as their main inspiration. How would you describe yourself?
I'm just a normal guy who takes abnormal interests.

I would like to get to know David Eliade, the person, a bit better. Can you tell something about your daily routine? Where do you live? What music do you listen to?
Well, I have a full time job, and that keeps me quite busy at home. I do that and enjoy it. I won't say what I do, but I can say that I work in film, under my real name. These days I have a fairly conventional lifestyle. I enjoy drinking - I collect wines, like drinking chocolate the old way. I'm one of those old hapless grown up hippies from a bygone age still trying to make the new age happen, but now it's by inserting things subtly into my work, and trying to control punk bands! I try to listen to "Ascension" by Coltrane once a week.

Are you related to the Romanian philosopher and writer Mircea Eliade?
Well, the "Eliade" part of my name is a pseudonym, and absolutely it's taken from Mircea. The plan with Fucked Up has never been to waste words - we try to pill as many meanings into each word as we can, so that no word on the paper is wasted. It's also the rule to use fake names as much as possible, partly for the same reason, but also for anonymity, so we can walk away from it when we are finished without the residue.

When was the first time you came in contact with FU and how did the collaboration develop?
I don't have a lot of time to spread myself around, but I have people planted in various places to keep and eye on things for me. Octavio hangs out in the underbelly and caught the band at a show in New York a few years ago. I believe he was breaking up a fight that had started while they were playing. We sat down together that night at my apartment and things just developed from there, we understood each other and wanted to move towards the same sort of future. They kept calling me Bruce Wayne!

Given that the band has a DIY punk background, do you ever have arguments with the band members about the musical and commercial directions the band should take?
At first we argued. I tried to explain their greater influence and potential. This is how it has been before - artists often need to be shown the way and have their art put in a greater context. I try not to interfere to much in the musical aspects of the group because that isn't my strong point, but I do show them things there too. I mean I try not to be too heavy handed in any aspect of the group because I want them to be able to stand behind everything they've done as their own, but I am a part of the group and do have an influence.

What is Wilsim Publogy?
Wilsim Publogy was an offshoot of Romanian Manicheanism, and the whole Gnosticism trip. It sees cosmology in the same way as the Gnostics, in that the universe, or the being, or whatever, is split into these two forces, "light" and "dark", or what have you, but differs in that Publogy doesn't see the forces as neccesarily opposite, but the same. It's more into dualism, more along the lines of Vedantic Hinduism, who thought in terms of the "non duality of duality". The whole Kabbalist "two poles" idea where the opposing forces are actually just different expressions of the same thing. We tried to be influenced by this when we were making Hidden World, and it shows up in songs like Triumph of Life, and Two Snakes and was the inspiration for the cover art. Actually, that's another way Mircae comes back in, the quote we used from him in the record; "to be no longer conditions by a pair of opposites results in absolute freedom". Especially in the world now where you've got your two political ideas, everyone has these strong feelings of wrong and right - we're living in an age where the multitude has been slashed into these singular opposites where life is a series of choices between two opposites, and there are really only two ways of existing, you know "right" or "left". It's important I think to try and pull the crate back open, try to release these other ways of existing. And to do that we try to just take away the divisions and the opposites and just shine through Wilsim Publogy.

Do you see Fucked Up as a "Gesamtkunstwerk" or just a band? And in what extent do you see them as a contemporary manifestation of Dada or neo-Dada movements?
Well we're starting to work on the David Comes to Life LP, which will try to incorporate more than just music into the presentation. We want to package it as a memory stick so that it can incorporate an albums worth of music, the play, the documentary, the musical, the movie, you know the whole deal. Soon I think media will be presented more along the lines of size rather than style - instead of buying an LPs worth of music from your
favourite band, you'll buy a gigabyte's worth, so we're trying to get with that. It's the whole indie-vertical-integration American Apparel style that is really taking off, now you've got record companies that are getting into publishing and management, it's like this disaster style economics where everyone is sensing this forbboding doom and trying to scoop up as much as they can before the bottom falls out.
But ultimately Fucked Up is just a band. We tried to reference surrealism with Baiting the Public, but none of that kind of art really matters anymore, things are too reversed to be able to make any sort of meaningful impact.

In the inlay of the Hidden World booklet is a text about the origin and harmony of the world: "Vibrations and hums the quantum sum where we're from" . You do not have to explain quantum physics, but can you explain your general idea of balance in the cosmos?
Well its the Wilsim Publogy trip again - we just feel the constant hum of unification throughout the cosmos. That piece ("Looking for Life") is about seeing the cosmos as one massive conduit for creating life. One of the quantum realities deals with the idea that maybe when you turn your back there's nothing behind it, that the physical reality we're surrounded by is manifested inside our heads, rather than outside it. So if there is no human consciousness, who manifests the universe? It's this nice one-sided romanticized view we decided
to run with - there is a picture by Kubin we used on the Year of the Dog 12" that shows satan ejaculating humanity onto the earth, and it's sort of the same view - the 14 billion years of space was the preparation for the consciousness that would be able to bask in the glory. That text is trying to follow the evolution of life through time and into the future. We like to see the balance in the cosmos as just that, a cradle for life. How there is the pattern of self-replication, at every level, that manage this constant reclycing of materials to keep pushing life and existence into the future.

Are there any final misunderstandings about David Eliade you want to eliminiate?
That I don't exist!