Comedy in BoC

[Echo the Sun]

@rodheh and aerial: can you guys link me to where you read about their depression? or are you just speculating?

"Mike: Now I find that a lot of the depression about losing my childhood has gone by the wayside because I'm able to go back there with my little daughter." - http://bocpages.org/wiki/Peering_Out_fr ... he_Curtain

"Mike: I have a long history of depressions, when im depressed I always seek for consolation in my childhood. That sadness, melancholy is always around In our music." - http://bocpages.org/wiki/The_Last_Secret_of_Pop (translated from Dutch)

When I read that second one, I was so happy that they'd confirmed that for me. I always had the feeling one or both suffered from it.

thanks, aerial

[gfxtwin]

They seem to be dudes who take music very seriously but not themselves or their "mythos". Like someone mentioned, there was that blank jpeg next to the album art on their site a year or so before the new album dropped (forgot about that, lol) - definitely intentional and definitely a good prank that shows they know us fans better than we know ourselves sometimes, lol. Even Tomorrow's Harvest, which is a dark and serious sounding record about the end of life/humanity/innocence/etc, is kind of a funny concept as they've often been labeled as bunker-dwelling recluses, so they had a laugh when making it I bet. Maybe years from now it will sound as funny as some of the earlier stuff. They seem to feel music is a serious emotional/artistic outlet, but have fun creating it too, no doubt.

[Negamuse]

It does seem like the further you go back in their catalog the more overt the humour. The Old Tunes have some stuff that is obviously a pisstake or an injoke first but then they were never made to see the light of day. Then they had Hell Interface for after they got known but that wound down.

The fun in their released stuff though really dropped off after mhtrtc. I mean I can live with it not being there but I sort of miss it a bit. Overall I just hope the music is still fun to make.

[orphan demo]

They've never done anything to make me think there are anything but honest people

Even with, and also partly because of their interesting choice to not put words in their music, they've caught me in worry regarding their view on things.

But about Mike's mentioning his depression, and his reviving his childhood a bit through his daughter, that's divine. And sharing those kinds of reflections takes a special honesty, so I know how you feel with that.

But back to their comedy and mystery, I think they depend on each other. If they weren't such teases their music would lack a dimension. On the other hand the "just ordinary guys" outfit keeps it all lighthearted.

[number-six]

It does seem like the further you go back in their catalog the more overt the humour. The Old Tunes have some stuff that is obviously a pisstake or an injoke first but then they were never made to see the light of day. Then they had Hell Interface for after they got known but that wound down.

The fun in their released stuff though really dropped off after mhtrtc. I mean I can live with it not being there but I sort of miss it a bit. Overall I just hope the music is still fun to make.

That's an interesting observation. I think there may be an element of truth to saying that they've raised the bar for themselves. Obviously Old Tunes and the like had a lot less quality control than what goes into something like Tomorrow's Harvest or Geogaddi. Does that make the process more agonising? Less likely to result in what they could consider as childish asides like Devil, which frankly, I appreciate. But I think one thing that's remained a thread throughout all their work is parody. I just think it's slowly become more deadpan in its execution.

[ZosoCon]

Another example of their possible subtle comedy is using Leslie Nielsen as a sample in Geogaddi's Dandelion. Of course the context was non-comedic, being a national geographic documentary. But surely (don't call me Shirley wink wink) they knew of Leslie's comedic work and decided to include it on the finished album anyway...it being both an artistic and tongue and cheek statement.

[orphan demo]

Nevermind my previous reply. Wish you could delete comments.

[Aerial Boundaries]

Nevermind my previous reply. Wish you could delete comments.

I will not ignore it, there is nothing wrong with that comment regardless of whether I agree (which I do)

[Jonse]

They seem to be dudes who take music very seriously but not themselves or their "mythos". Like someone mentioned, there was that blank jpeg next to the album art on their site a year or so before the new album dropped (forgot about that, lol) - definitely intentional and definitely a good prank that shows they know us fans better than we know ourselves sometimes, lol. Even Tomorrow's Harvest, which is a dark and serious sounding record about the end of life/humanity/innocence/etc, is kind of a funny concept as they've often been labeled as bunker-dwelling recluses, so they had a laugh when making it I bet. Maybe years from now it will sound as funny as some of the earlier stuff. They seem to feel music is a serious emotional/artistic outlet, but have fun creating it too, no doubt.

^^^ This guy gets it exactly, I think (as much as I can without knowing them).

Comedy is part of the same serious process that making music is. I've always felt whenever someone comes up with a great idea for a line or a sample in a song that would break the "ultra serious melancholy only" thing some people love and someone says "no, that's not a good idea", they're being the exact sort of thing that limits creativity in music. You get less of that often in stuff like hip-hop but sometimes a lot in many electronic genres. I honestly think that the "IDM" (ambient techno, what have you) niche is also probably the funniest and least afraid to joke around of them all. I mean just look at RDJ or Autechre. Track names, samples, the way they conduct themselves in person. FSOL are probably the funniest (explicitly sampling and track titles). I can't say it's exactly the same for BoC but there's some overlap.

It's never one or the other and it can be both at the same time if it comes from either some real emotional place or simply the joke is funny enough.

Geogaddi is arguably their most "serious" record in terms of work-concept ratio and simultaneously their least because of all the 'satanic' stuff, Magic Window, a barking dog, etc... And on the matter of them not seeming to have much comedy in their newer work - they do - it's just buried a lot deeper. Go screw with the audio sometime and see what you find.

I'm all for comedy in "serious" music. I made a song with a sample of a Doug Stanhope bit in it years ago. Joke was (to the audience) "do you do drugs at all? huh? (some guy yells "acid") ...uh, well acid I haven't done for a while up until about maybe...40 minutes ago." The end of the punchline/laughter gets chopped up and added to the sequencer with the beat for two bars. Worked real well, one of a very small amount of old tracks I can look back at and not feel extremely self-critical about.