by Professor B
Governments. Tyrannies. Oppression. Subjugation. Ladies in cute little cowboy hats wiggling their butts at people. Embitterment. Angst. Riots. Revolution. This is what Digital Hardcore music is all about. Recently, several of my friends and I subjected ourselves to the Digital Hardcore Tour, and it was such a compelling experience, that it would be selfish of me not to impart the story to those of you who were unfortunate (or sane) enough to miss it.
We went to the Trocadero in Philadelphia to see Atari Teenage Riot, which is a German group of four irate twentysomethings who blast dangerous mixes of incredibly heavy and intense beats while screaming and jumping around and trying to incite riots. And riot we did.
Also on the Digital Hardcore Tour, appearing that night, were ec8or and Schizuo (pronounce at your own risk). ec8or sucked so badly that they don't even deserve words. Finally, after many heartfelt and desperate pleas from the audience, they emptied the stage.
Next came Schizuo. What a treat! They consisted of: (1) guy backstage, making noise and (1) well-proportioned cowgirl, gyrating in an erotic manner. The girl was the only thing about their band. They didn't have anything you could call actual music; they just had this cowgirl, walking around, trying to look sexy. Their lack of talent was completely shameless. Whenever she thought the crowd was getting bored she would bend over and wiggle her butt at us. Sometimes you could see the guy yell to her, "Quick! Show them your butt again! Show them your butt!" Her butt was the saving grace of the band. I think it would have been funny if when she was showing us her butt, she lost her balance and toppled over, with a thousand people watching her, and then her rolling and rolling and rolling and landing in a speaker and having the speaker explode all over the stage and then having it fall over backwards on top of the guy in the band, and then having the two of them just lying there all stupid and humiliated, still with her butt, and wondering what made them think they had any talent in the first place and why they even left Germany or wherever the heck they came from where they could have sat there and just ate wienerschnitzels and tried on liederhausen all day. But that was just my mind wandering; actually the predominantly-male crowd loved them.
Well then the real band, Atari Teenage Riot, came on, and that's when the serious rioting began. Alec, from ATR, would shout things like, "F*** THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT!" and the crowd would shout,
"YEAH!"
And then he'd yell, "F*** THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT!" and the crowd would shout,
"YEAH!" again, and at that time, by Golly, we were so pissed off at this government and that government that we decided we weren't going to stand for it any more, so we just up and rioted! We rioted like the dickens! Right inside the concert, a pit of about twenty people ran around, pushed each other, spun their arms around, smacked people, jumpkicked them, and did whatever else they could think of to hurt each other. To the casual observer, it may have seemed stupid for us to be brutally attacking the people around us when it was really the government we were mad at and not each other. Well give us a break, we're only the angry youths; we don't know what we're doing. I never actually rioted, though, because it looked like it would have hurt. It was enough for me just to listen to the music and make believe that I was in a real riot.
Atari Teenage Riot ended up being the only good band there, and they put on a powerful performance. Then at the end, when they had everyone riled up, ec8or and Schizuo joined them onstage and wiggled their butts at us some more. I learned a few things that night. I learned that people will riot if you tell them to, regardless of whether or not a good reason is supplied. Also, I learned that many Digital Hardcore bands have no musical talent whatsoever, and that sex is a viable solution to this problem. Most of all, though, I learned that I hate my government, although I forget why exactly, and that I hate Germany's government too. Come to think of it, it might be that I just hate governments in general. Oh well, who cares about politics? Let's just riot!
