UTMC

yep, another braindead, pointless, rambling post by yours truely.

however, with my (latest obsession) into the punkyness, ive discovered cyberpunk, and i wish to share with you all, some of its music.

Eisenfunk seems to be a german industrial band that tends to keep to the studio, without alot of documentation out there on the web, but i think their stuff is good so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNAdtkSjSps - Pong, a general Videogame theme, interspersed with dancing and some fun foolery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO4eugImgBQ - Skudrinka, no video that ive found, but it seems to have abit of a russian flavor with the marching montage bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZFTupXDAqs - Werbepause, it has some weird fake infomerrcial in the beginning. pay it no mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1X-F8-Ji0s - Das Zweite, all around industrio-gothic techno.

swinging from the strictly fun, now we slip abit into the more mature 3lements of cyberpunk.

Repo! the genetic opera!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tevg_jT5Sco - Zydrate Anatomy. segment 8 of this wonderfully nasty tale of corruption and perfection, ZA is the chapter dealing more overtly with drugs and addictions. warning, has images of overt sexuality and surgical gore. not for your boss or the kiddies to see, and will probably give the wife all the wrong impressions....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1r30nge4Y - a remix of the above song, and with only a picture. the reverbs, faster pace, and more pronounced base and echoes, give this remix a harder edge.

If you're digging the Cyberpunk, I strongly recommend you go read "Snowcrash" by Neil Stephenson, and pretty much anything written by William Gibson (who coined the term "cyberpunk," I believe).

--Jaeger

And should you find to like Snowcrash, read "The Diamond Age" and find out which character from the one book appears in the other!

DerGolgo wrote:And should you find to like Snowcrash, read "The Diamond Age" and find out which character from the one book appears in the other!

See, "Diamond Age" is really more "Steampunk" to me -- in the first couple of chapters, Stephenson sort've... well, symbolically kills Cyberpunk, so to speak.

I won't go too much further lest I give too much away, but... the aesthetic of The Diamond Age is very different from Snowcrash. It focuses on the "Neo Victorians," who are very (VERY) technologically advanced, but who embrace a much more "traditional" view of the world.

Read "Snowcrash" first, but then absolutely read "The Diamond Age." They really do show a progression. (And honestly, I think "Diamond Age" is a better book.)

If you like those, check out "Cryptonomicon," which is totally unrelated but is a brilliant fucking book. If you can digest that, "The Baroque Cycle" is directly related, but is incredibly complex. Brilliant but a total skullfuck (in the best of ways).

--Jaeger

+100 big effin thumbs up on the Stephenson suggestions.

Neal is my favorite author. (I've forgiven him for "Zodiac")

Started with Snowcrash, then The Diamond Age, then Cryptonomicon.

I haven't made it to the Baroque Cycle yet.

They all rock. Read them.

I heard about the Bit-52s on NPR this weekend. Had to share.

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Drift wrote:+100 big effin thumbs up on the Stephenson suggestions.

Neal is my favorite author. (I've forgiven him for "Zodiac")

Started with Snowcrash, then The Diamond Age, then Cryptonomicon.

Coincidentally, I read those three books in exactly the opposite order.

But what I'd like to know: Why is everyone so down on Zodiac?
It's solid writing, good characters, good plot. I went through it in just three days or so, I quite enjoyed it.
Big U, on the other hand, was a mess...I can understand why he pretty much renounced it.

"Diamond Age" pretty much stunned me. It's the last book I lost sleep reading because I felt compelled to find out what happened to the characters. Quite an amazing book.
The first ten pages of "Snowcrash" had my ribs hurting from laughing so hard. Some really great cultural predictions in that book. Am I the only one who pictured Robert Loggia as Uncle Enzo?

This thread makes me sad I don't have any of these books with me. Now I have a strong urge to read Diamond Age again.

Zodiac is good solid pulp writing. It holds a special place on my shelf because of the experiences I had as a kid riding in a zodiac with my marine zoologist grandfather (who grew up and went to school in Boston) and his mildly drug addled grad students to get to my grandfather's research station. Naturally, he and most of his colleagues have read Zodiac and love it, despite his flaws.

In terms of music, Angelspit has a thing for being a "cyberpunk riot squad". One of my favourite bands, figured I'd share since it's kinda on-topic...

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This is my Shortlist of required Cyberpunk reading:

1. Cyberpunk, by Bruce Bethke (The word 'Cyberpunk' was used for the first time in this story)

2. The Sprawl Trilogy, by William Gibson.

I. Neuromancer
II. Count Zero
III.Mona Lisa Overdrive
(in that order)

3. The Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson.

I. Virtual Light,
II. Idoru,
III. All Tomorrow's Parties
(in that order)

4. Hard Wired, By Walter Jon Williams

5. Bad Voltage, by Jonathan Littell

6. Headcrash, by Bruce Bethke

7. Dr. Adder, by K.W. Jeter

8. The Company Man, by Joe Clifford Faust

9. The Carlucci series, by Richard Paul Russo
I. Destroying Angel
II. Carlucci's Edge
III. Carlucci's Heart

10. 1984, by George Orwell

11. Ferman's Devils, by Joe Clifford Faust

12. Boddekker's Demons, by Joe Clifford Faust

This list is *not* all inclusive, but, IMNSHO, it contains the literary works that truly define the Cyberpunk genre.

may I suggest a disgression to music with maybe less cyber but more punk?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwiTCe-3FDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0bQ2iomUYs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkb3r9filcM

Here's some more music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI1Em3rQz3E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bedj1qC_jwg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pc7rK1T6zA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbdLfqTNNM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLmXq5k3-EQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6q22sHl7Wg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grBLbiyJTDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhr-CRcK3OM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqRCRmSiTP8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cadA5iANN2o

Enjoy!

BillyName99 wrote:Here's some more music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhr-CRcK3OM

Enjoy!

wow, that is quite a *coïncidence*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPpUFBVSyWs

Golgo, to clarify, nothing was wrong with Zodiac, I just probably shouldn't have read it after the other three. To me Zodiac seemed...well, it was ok. But I was so blown away by the other three that it just didn't measure up.