Wednesday, October 20, 2010

weiiiii pichuresss!

this one cracked me up:

"Joels a cool guy and I'm sure he thinks its funny but its rude and demeaning to make those faces in all of his pictures with other people. Just smile man or something, don't be such a tard to people. Take a hint from Tommy, he does good fan pics"

i fuckin lol'd hard.

don't worry, when i derp.... i don't always herp. it's just my clever way of showing you and your camera that i love you.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Ed Hardly

reason #32 for not giving a deadmau5 a microphone:

Following the actions of some idiot who cracked open a bottle of champagne at Voyeur in SD and spraying it all "up in the club" like a baller-tard.

"HEY, douchebag....  yeah, you Ed Hardly im fuckin talking to you... thats right... Guess what? Take your Jersey Shore and get out the fuckin door."

For those who witnessed this... i love you. For those of you who witnessed this and recorded it, i love you more, but for those who witnessed this, recorded it, and uploaded it to youtube... i want you to have my babies.


-Joel

Monday, October 11, 2010

up the mainstream without a paddle.

it's obviously kinda hard to ignore the "sell out / mainstream" comments... but it's much easier to laugh at it when you actually take into account what exactly happened in your lifetime.

like 99 percent of the rest of the people my age, i still do remember what it was like growing up and being part of something unique and special, or bigger than yourself. The first, and most obvious examples of this in my life were simply the social circles that were prevalent in highschool. You had your long haired metallica rocker folk, the moody black wearing NIN clique, the vintage rock / Doors fans (which i never really got)... your hiphop crews and then the whatever the hell was top40 at the time guys.

Might have expanded here and there.. but to my memory, thats what i recall.  Im pretty sure everyone, including myself had some kind of connection to at least 1 or more people in every "group"... it wasnt so segregated that you were destined to be a part of any one particular "scene" ... but at least thats how it probably looked when you were  thrown into grade 9.

Over time, mostly non-conciously observing everything, people would probably shift paradigms from one association to another simply based on who they spent the most time with really. I had a few of these phases myself... hung with the goths, bought NIN albums... had friends who were i guess what people would NOW call hipsters... so hung with them from time to time... never really 100% nailing myself down into any one scene... since i was somewhat of a loser anyway... it didnt really affect much and it didnt really take long for any one group to be able to point out that "i wasnt really all that cool anyway"

But, like 90% of everyone, i did manage to get through highschool and make a handful of friends here and there.

I definatley didnt notice it then, but i certainly notice it now... but i think the reason why we even had all that shit, was just so that we could be identified to others as being a part of something unique and cool... and it usually worked better as the number of people who were on board with the same idea was increased. But of course... there comes this point where, when too many people hop onto one thing... wait... its not longer unique... so some disbandment takes place, and life goes on.

this is all too familiar to me right now.  Wasnt it only 4 years ago i donned some mouse head, and had a small core of fun fans (none of which could pronounce my name) and i travelled here and there and did this and that...  and the message was clear "Let's take this music and shove it down mainstreams throat" ... so we all happily rode along with that didnt we, and everyone wanted more... and i was more than happy to oblige. so we all started making new friends... and more, and more.

and now, well look at us! All grown up, 1 million + fans on FB, over 4 million tickets sold throughout the world, and the ONLY way to get that done was to bring in the heavy artilery that only a major label can provide...

now im rocking out on a 2 million dollar mouse cube, stage, lighting, LED head that WE ALL paid for. It's what we wanted isnt it!?  something BIG... something cool! It's fucking crazy... Everyone wanted a show, and i didnt my damned best to give it to em, and i will continue to do so, because thats what i want to do.

I'd still hold true to the original plot.... lets take this music and shove it down mainstreams throat.  seems alot of people are on board with this huh.. wait a minute... this is us? yes. we are them now it seems.

so now that some of us are undecided on what good came of all this is... let's take a look back and see whats changed?  Nothing much.  the production of the shows have certainly ramped up... thats not a bad thing... more and more people are getting to witness this, also not a bad thing. Im sitting here struggling to find that one BAD THING that's happened during this crazy upwards rollercoaster ride... no need to help me out if you think you can manage to spot it.. because im perfectly happy with all of it... excited in fact.

"selling out" means doing something against ones moral fibre for personal gain. i challenge one person to call me out on that, just so i can laugh while they fail miserably.

i take solace in the fact that i can, at any time, re-invent myself. Just even having the small thought in the back of my mind is all the comfort i need to get through my days on tour. There is no law written that says i cant just drop everything, right now, right this second, and do whatever i please for my own personal gain. I now have reached out to so many people, which is awesome, and affected them somehow, even if its a tiny 2 hour long part of their life, that it wouldnt be worth it.

how mindblowing do you think that feels? i wish i could describe it to you... but i really can't. And i wish the world worked in such a way that EVERY artist could feel what im feeling when im standing there like a deer in the headlights in front of thousands of people, nightly. But the best i can do for now, is just express my utmost thanks for your support that got me where i am today... even through all the bullshit, the rumors, the fuckups, the politics, the major label shit... you all pulled through for me. So when im up there in front of a crowd, just try to imagine how i feel... and you've all done the best i can ask for in reciprocating the feeling in more ways than i can count.

so, we took that music and shoved it down mainstreams throat.... what was it we wanted again? This record is going to be playing on for a little while longer it seems.

im sorry, i can't seem to find the stop button.

raves?

Am i the only person in the world who cringes when they hear the word "rave"? As in, am i the only person to think that it's more or less been so shifted out of context of what the term meant to me back in 1995-1999? I don't know why it irritates me so much, maybe its just because "back in the day" i had something unique and special to me... and now it seems that it's for someone else, so i guess it would be like something taken from you and found and loved by someone else some many years later... like an ex or something.

"Raves" to me have always been ... i guess, breaking into some basement in Kensington Market in Toronto back in 96... walking into an extremely dark / poorly lit network of cellars, of course puslating to the beat of whatever the flavor was at the time. Or possibly even hitting up the science center, for a more organized all nighter of complete and utter randomness and jungle.

Or the News, Hullabaloo, Citrus, Dose, Phlux in NY... all that shit... i dont recall ever buying a ticket to any of these raves on ticketmaster.com, or buying merch and fucktons of 12$ bottles of water.

it's just bizzare to me as to what passes off as raves these days... maybe this is one of those "hey im getting old rants" and i havent at all ruled out the idea that ... all this is definatley new to the younger generation of fun fur donning "ravers".. therefore its a big exciting thing for them... so why the hell get so depressed to hear about some kid who's been in "the scene" they call it, for no more than 36 minutes, telling me im not a part of it?  Absolutley right though. most times, i dont feel a part of it, personally... if i can connect with it via my music, and vicariously be involved with the newer "scene" then great.... but i still have to think that it came and went for me.

its pretty hard to explain.