The Archive

Not many things I’ve done have spawned any reviews worth mentioning. Mostly there were some concert reviews back when I was in a hiphop group (about which I will talk in a later post) but a few other mentions as well. Let’s have a look.

Bad Taste was the name of the hiphop group which was active between about 1992 and 1996. We did a grand total of 13 public shows, and a few small things with punkrockband Millencolin. Our performances and musical recordings were rated from “meh” to “yay” thusly:

On our first demo:
“…heavy and well made, but not too original hiphop.”

On our second demo:
“The four Örebro-youths that make up Bad Taste also manages to create lyrics that follow in the traditional paths of rap without growing to stale clichés. More of that, please.”

Live:
“They rapped their songs to pre-recorded music on diskette (or whatever it’s called). They explained that as a rule they would do a cover on every show. I guess they were good, since I couldn’t hear a difference between that and their own songs. [Later, Millencolin goes on stage.] Suddenly the ensemble was expanded, and Bad Taste was on stage. I have to admit, that with real instruments even I thought they were good.”

On Bad Taste Millencolin:
“It’s always positive with bands that break the mould, and with their hip-hop-hardcore song it was just that kind of successful break that Bad Taste Millencolin gave the audience.”

On Bad Taste Millencolin next performance:
“No, this wasn’t very good. A lot of people on the stage – yet Bad Taste didn’t sound like much. Some sort of hip-hop – but more hopping than hip, you could say.

But that was a long time ago. How have I progressed since then? Not much, it would seem. The first two hardcore tracks that I had released, under the name Terata, were reviewed in some Dutch magazine, and here are some well chosen bits of them:

“A little too simple. The kick does sound nice, but that’s also all there is.”
“When breaks come it’s very odd. It sounds really strange. After two minutes theres a good part. Delightfully freaky. The kick comes back in later. That sounds fat. A little later there are new breaks and again doesn’t sound that good.”

That last one is still a good review, considering that according to myself it’s just pretty pointless trash. It really didn’t take me long to make that track, and that it has strange breaks and bridges is because there really aren’t any. That bit after two minutes I do like a bit though, and had I been smart/engaged I would have restructured the entire track and concentrated on developing that part, but I’m way too restless to do that stuff.

I guess one of the best things about not being well known is that you don’t get any bad reviews. Writing in a magazine (or god forbid a blog) gives you the distance you need to tell someone how shit they are. Instead I sometimes get told in person that I’m okay, and that’s nice. I try to do the same, but sometimes people are just crap and I can’t help myself. Now, what was this post about really?