CLOWN UNVEILS ANOTHER NEW BAND, CONTINUES TO CONFUSE THE SH*T OUT OF US

I guess Slipknot’s Shawn “Clown” Crahan is easily bored, because he keeps starting new bands. During downtime from the ‘Knot, he’s already had To My Surprise and Dirty Little Rabbits as side-projects; now he’s apparently started another new outfit, this one called The Black Dots of Death. According to The PRP, the band will release their first single, “Let’s Get Fucked Up,” on November 29, with the video to follow a day later; their debut album, Ever Since We Were Children, will come out on January 11.

There’s already a teaser for “Let’s Get Fucked Up,” though (screen cap above), and it sounds, like, ridiculously, terribly, laughably, horrendously, embarrassingly, painfully awful. It’s basically some electronic beats that I think probably anyone could whip up in five minutes with the aid of Garage Band and cough syrup, with somebody [sobbing sounds] rapping  about “liquid lunch” over it. I haven’t even heard anybody use the phrase “liquid lunch” since the 90s.

That would all be silly enough, but because this is Clown and he has a lot of BIG IDEAS that actually make little to no sense, the band has also released a mission statement on their website. It’s one really long paragraph that’s actually pretty difficult to read because so much of it is just words strung together without any regard for the actual definitions or recognized usage of those words — for example, the phrase “The human voice infects and cultivates speaking in persistent reverse exorcism against the raw elements” doesn’t actually mean anything, even if it sounds kinda highfalutin’. But here’s an excerpt I was able to decode, only to discover that while it makes sense as a series of words, it does not make sense as an ideology for this particular project:

“In 2010, nearly everything you eat, the water you drink, the music you listen to, the art you enjoy… are almost exclusively produced on/or processed by some form of computer. We even have to create special laels or make certaint compromises to experience something that is not born of our technology… The Black Dots of Death.”

And then later:

“The Black Dots of Death are brought together like collectors at a serial killer convention on the outskirts of town, only we are not benign enjoying uncomfortable small talk over coffee, we are festing and pulsing to the march of electronic sequences and test tones.”

Okay, soooo… you’re using electronic music to rebel against the idea that modern society is too-reliant upon computers? How? How does that accomplish that goal? Wouldn’t the best way to express that particular idea be to make music that does not rely on any computers whatsoever?

And what does “liquid lunch” have to do with any of this? How does a song called “Let’s Get Fucked Up” in any way, shape, or form make your argument for Neo-Luddism? Is there symbolism I’m not understanding? Is the subtext that the dude wants to get drunk in the middle of the day because technology has made him miserable?

And are there really serial killer conventions? And, assuming that there are, would the attendees of such a convention really be benign, or enjoy uncomfortable small talk over coffee? That seems like just the crowd that would never, ever, engage in uncomfortable small talk over coffee. They’re at a serial killer convention, not a scrap booking seminar.

In conclusion, please bring back To My Surprise, Mr. Clown. I actually really liked that band!

-AR