Deconstructing Division

[illusionofjoy]

I should know better by now than to stay at joi_division's apartment when she's not around. I eventually go stir-crazy and begin bouncing off of the walls - boing! She even said so much before she left; "You're probably going to be completely stir-crazy by the time I come back." She is correct, for I see not how I am to maintain any semblance of sanity from now until 7:00PM. Still, she has the internet access and I had the need to tweek my website. I just didn't expect the tweaking to be done so quickly.

I've signed up for a DSL line in my apartment. It was supposed to be active on the 21^st, however the latest email from the company is telling me that the expected "hook-up" date is now the 24^th. This doesn't particularly bother me, as I've yet to construct the computer that would be serviced by this utility. I am still waiting for my hard drive to be shipped, along with a couple of other parts. In the interim, I am also waiting for UPS to stop holding my wireless DSL router hostage.

As most are aware, UPS has a policy of making three attempts to deliver something that needs to be signed for (such as a wireless DSL router). After the final attempt is made, the package is held at the distribution centre for five business days before being shipped back to whomever sent it. As this is supposed to be the case, I hopped a bus after work on Friday out to rundown suburbia to go pick up my package. When I arrived at the distribution centre, I was told that my package wasn't there. Instead, they were making yet another attempt to deliver it. Mind you, all these attempts were made at the same time - while I was at work. I was asked if I wanted the package to be held for Monday, to which I replied, "yes." Thus, I have another trip out to rundown suburbia in the near future for something that should be delivered to my front door.

At times like these, I think back to UPS' commercials with their tagline of, "what can Brown do for you?" Well, for one thing, Brown can stop holding my packages hostage and freaking deliver them after 4:00PM when I'm actually home to sign for them! My theory is that UPS is more interested in serving the sender, rather than the recipient.

Therein lie all the excuses as to why I'm not on the internet at home...yet. These can be filed right next to the excuses as to why I'm not working on a new album...yet. Still, it hasn't been that long since Division was released (a couple of months, at this point). A slow promotional campaign has been in the works, mostly targeting clubs that might play the disc. [As an aside, if you frequent a club where the Djs don't have a copy but you'd like to hear it spun, feel free to forward some contact info my way.]

For the past couple of months, I've been debating with myself whether or not I should publically discuss the songs from Division - that is, reveal the mechanisms which led to their creation. This would lead to two schools of thought: discussing the recording process (which most people would find painfully dull) or discussing the philosophy behind the songs (which fewer people would find dull...I hope). Obviously, I'm inclined to the latter, as most people wouldn't give a flying fuck that the drum machine on "My Little Girl" was re-miked twice (but I told you anyway - ha!). Therefore, what follows is a quick rundown of where, when and what influenced the creation of the songs on Division. If you prefer interpreting music and lyrics for yourself and holding close your own personal meanings for my music, then I suggest that the following paragraphs are not for you.

Division
The title itself is a reflection of the structure of the disc. I was attempting to make this CD play very much like a record or a cassette, with a discernable "Side A" and "Side B." To this end, there are 15 seconds of silence between tracks five and six - the middle of the album. Also, more politically-themed songs and those which were more overall comments on society were placed together on one side, while the more personal songs were placed on the other. One could say that Division isn't really so much of an album as it two EPs placed back to back.

In addition to being a reflection on the structure of the disc the word "Division" is an adequate description for the current political climate (side A) and what is generally happening in the relationships described on the album (side B).

The clincher to titling the album Division, however had to be the fact that when said alound, "Illusion of Joy Division" was sure to piss off more than one hard-core synth-hating organic music fan. As a keyboardist who writes and plays music almost exclusively from synthesized sources when recording an album, I loathe being pigeonholed into the EBM or industrial genres. It's not that I have anything against said genres (well, okay, maybe EBM a little), but the simple truth is that my music has its roots more so in post-punk, classic rock and 80s pop than anything put out by VNV Nation or :wumpscut:. I generally like to refer to what I play as "synth-rock," that is, if I must refer to it as anything at all.

"My Little Girl"
I really dislike brats. We all know the type: these people contribute little to society, yet are thoroughly convinced that the world owes them everything. They whine and cry until they find an enabler to give them what they want. In my waning college days, I was seeing a girl whose roommate fit this description. When I first met this roommate, she immediately started hitting on me in front of my girlfriend. I decided to ignore her, realising that doing so would probably slice her deeper at that point than any verbal barb I could muster; already, I knew what would be proven again and again: the roommate was miserable unless she knew that everybody liked her! Not only that, but she usually made guys like her by screwing them ("the boys all love me, the girls are my friends").

During the course of my relationship, I was witness to the roommate's seduction of most of my girlfriend's male friends (by hearsay, obviously - I wasn't in the room), use of her personal grooming impliments without permission along with other items, a botched clittoral piercing (again, by hearsay - ewwww...), and various attempts by the roommate to become "gawth."

That last item, I mused was some sort of last-ditch effort to impress me. Needless to say, it didn't work. Nor did her attempts to impress me with her musical knowledge. At one juncture, she decided to tell me all about the rave scene where she was from (barf). For about ten minutes, she prattled on about "happy hardcore" and "DJ what's-his-face" as my eyes glazed over and my brain began whimpering. Later that night, my girlfriend and I looked up this "happy hardcore," just to see how much of it was coming out of the roommate's arse. The genre did exist and it turned out to not be emo in ecstasy as I has thought. Instead, it was just techno noise. All beats, no waiting. It was from this experience that I laid the foundation for the music of "My Little Girl." You love Happy Hardcore? Here's some mother fucking Happy Hardcore! The song was built around an industrialised disco beat and four bass notes, which repeated incessantly. I wanted this song to be as annoying and mind-numbing as possible - the embodiment of the roommate and her favourite genre of "music." About the only thing that would break up all this monotony would be the lyrics.

It was telling when the roommate's mother showed up for parent's day at the school. I watched mother and daughter caricature each other in a gross parody or parasitic symbiosis. The two of them both needed approval from everyone and were horribly put out when someone (usually me) would say something to knock them off of their cloud. That was the last element I needed to work on the lyrics. Over two verses, I built a fictional call and response conversation between mother and daughter, book ended by a chorus of parental pride in the lie. To my eyes, mother and daughter were just alike, meaning that verse three could have been sung by either one.

When I originally recorded the song, I was hoping to get two female vocalists to sing the verses. Unfortunately, this didn't pan out, leaving me to sing them all myself. Still, in retrospect, this is probably more effective as I narrate in the grand folk tradition (over a bed of gothic/industrial/happy hardcore).

"Right Wing Radio"
Take your pick kids: Clear Channel or Infinity, because if you're listing to the radio, you're probably tuning into a station owned by one of those companies. In the past decade, the Federal Communications Commission has done more to pander to the desire of major corporations to take over the airwaves than it has ever in its existence. The purpose of the FCC is to maintain checks and balances for the public airwaves, which it has been glaringly flippant in doing. Deregulation has allowed a handful of corporations to nearly take over the airwaves, narrowing points of view expressed in newscasts along with genres of music played.

For this song, I chose to pick on Clear Channel by name simply because Pittsburgh is one of their major markets, meaning that they annoy me more directly than Infinity. Also, it is notable that between the two Clear Channel throws off the more obvious spectre of being the "evil overlord" (salon.com has several articles about Clear Channel's corporate practises).

This song was designed to be a parody of a single. It is only two minutes long, which currently makes it the shortest piece in the Illusion of Joy repertoire. It is written in a catchy, punk-poppy style, which ultimately fails because 1.) The studio sheen employed by bands like New Found Glory and Good Charlotte isn't there on purpose and 2.) I don't sing through my nose. Hey kids - rock n' roll!

"Hip Hip Hooray"
Among the many things wrong with America is the tendency of our government to stick its nose in where it doesn't belong - in this case, Iraq. This song was written during the beginning months of the Iraqi conflict, however since then I believe that it has become even more bitingly ironic. According to George W. Bush, the troops did win the day, however I think that with victories like these, who needs defeats. If anything, I was writing from the viewpoint that dissension has become unquestionable evil, despite how many lives it might save. Saddam may have been your stereotypical bad guy, but I'm not seeing any evidence that he and Bush aren't cut from the same filthy cloth.

"Is There Some Way Out Of Here?"
Citizens of the United States of America: you are all being taken for a ride...but most of you don't really give a shit, now do you? That pretty much sums it up.

Verse one takes us through the debacle that was the 2000 election to the September 11^th 2001 attacks through the invasion of Afghanistan. The Supreme Court did put "a monkey in the White House" who threw his shit about in the form of prodding every nation on the face of the globe to "come and get us." Of course, it wasn't the Chinese who rose up to would the U.S. after the spy plane incident, but the Taiban who decided to take a bite out of New York and Washington D.C. simultaneously (with a redirected hit on rural Pennsylvania, thanks to several courageous flight passengers).

Enter verse two, where we've wrecked Afghanistan and are now going to...Iraq? It's all good though, say the media, who has been put in cushy little positions right at the front of the action that the government wants us all to see. Of course, we soon find out that all is not well with this war; even after major combat is over, our boys are coming home under the flag they fought to defend.

Verse three: wake up America! Quit thinking that it's alright just because the government says it is! This is a democracy, which means advanced citizenship, which means that it is not just your right, but your duty to question the actions of your government. Oh, but wait...you're too busy voting for the next American Idol to bother catching up on politics, or to go out and vote for the president when November rolls around? You say that less freedom and more security is a good idea? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

"Dead Winter Sky"
Side "B" of Division begins with, what I think is, the most progressive song on the album. The majority of the song is built around a broken Csus4 chord, played on a piano with a slight chorusing effect, giving it a dreamy, surreal sound. This holds until the CODA bursts out into a different time signature and louder dynamics. Then it all fades away into uncertainty...

The music to "Dead Winter Sky" had been with me for years. I had tried writing lyrics for it under various titles (my favourite being "Happiness In Grey"), but the words never panned out into something I would want to present for mass consumption. Still the music remained, almost haunting me. In the end, words would not come until after I moved to Pittsburgh.

In fact, that is pretty much the gist of the song: moving from a place one is familiar with (to the point of contempt) to something uncertain in the hope of something better. The majority of the song takes place in Potsdam, outlining the emotions and activities that were puissant to that locale. It isn't until the end that the transition takes place, bringing forth the statement, "these dreams I've had all float away." It is not so much a cry of desperation, as one of uncertainty - once I knew what to expect and now a new set of plans must be forged.

It may seem strange, but in hindsight, I always had a begrudging affection for the winters in Potsdam...probably because they inspired so much bad poetry...

"Disconnected"
It's a straightforward breakup song. That's all I'm going to say about it.

"Beloved"
There is a song by The Catherine Wheel entitled "Black Metallic." Any alternative music geek worth their salt should know it. At first listen, it appears to be an inter-racial love song. Many people ran with that idea and swooned over it. It was with some glee that The Catherine Wheel's lead singer, Rob Dickenson, confessed that the song was actually about a car. Say goodbye to romance.

It is with similar glee that I confess that "Beloved" isn't a love song for another human being (which immediately disqualifies it from being a VNV Nation cover). Instead, it is a love song for a place - or set of places - that have been corrupted and made ugly by the narrow-mindedness and bad intentions of others. Who among us hasn't been to a bar or a club that we really liked only to have it ruined when they hire a completely different staff or the majority of the clientele suddenly changes? I thought so.

"Still Life (Division)"
Another one about an ex-girlfriend. Everything that went wrong was all my fault...or so I've been told.

On the other hand, this song was also inspired by the fact that I've met many a "blameless" person in my lifetime. Newsflash: we're all guilty.

"Take Away My Comfort
This one should have probably been called "March of the Metaphors." Herein I use a surreal road trip to represent a polyamorous relationship that isn't. The protagonists are either too selfish or apathetic to make the relationship work, each one more driven by their own desires than any consideration for what the other party may want. In the end, all we have are two lonely self-loathing people clinging to each other out of desperation and contemptible familiarity. Makes you just want to go out and pick someone up, doesn't it?

Perhaps I haven't delved as deeply into the songs as some may wish, though I may have delved too deeply for others. Either way, you the listener, now have a primer for which context(s) to listen to Division in. Anything else you may want to know can be gleaned by reading the rest of this journal.