Plucky agrees!  F that Mainstream KRAP!  Tha ain't ULTRA!
 

industrial has used computers for more than 20 years.... easily. I know what is being said here, but I can't resist ; )

 

Not talking abut sequencers or samplers or Fairlights/Synclaviers (which were way too expensive anyway).  Having seen a bunch of industrial bands back in the 80s, they did it with instruments and tape decks.  There werent any laptops around then and noone used a computer (Mac or Atari ST back then) for anything more advanced than sequencing or extremely rudimentary sample editing.  Think Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle, Sink Manhattan, even Skinny Puppy and The Swans, all bands using musicians playing something together, not one guy with a laptop.
 

Laptops were essentially a novelty at that point, even through the early nineties. I figured we were talking about computers in the general sense - anything with a microprocessor, perhaps excluding digital synths. Regardless, if you sequence your music nowadays (as I do) you most likely use a computer to do so. That's because they're affordable, whereas they were not nearly so in the past. If they had been back then, they would have been everywhere as they are now.

I wasn't alive to see industrial shows in the 80's, though when I've seen bands like Skinny Puppy play their songs on recent tours they use computers to play their old songs. Computers are instruments, just hook up a midi controller and you have a great realm of possibilities. I feel like this anti computer sentiment is akin to the emergence of electric guitars or stomp box effects. There have always been people who class new tools as somehow less valid than the old ones. I'm not sure how this makes any sense. Use of these tools is purely optional.

If you're criticizing the whole one man on a stage with a laptop thing, I can sympathize (looks like he may be checking his email). But computers are certainly excellent tools to create music with, live even, they have matured far beyond what they once were. Regardless, I love what you guys do. Even if you won't use computers ; )

 

its true that computers make recording and performing much more available to the masses than before and thats great on one hand, bad on another.  Like the desktop publishing revolution in the 90s and bloggers recently, more and easier can lead to exposure for more voices, more publications, more news and more opinions, which is always good, but it can also swamp you with a lot of half hearted or truly uninspired dreck...
....The only real gripe we have against laptop artists is that its always better for you as an artist to collaborate, and explore the real world, which means recording with other people and inventing new sounds.  A computer is a great tape deck, just dont let it be yr generic sound module.  You cant be a worldly artist until youve tried endless possible paths and methods and only then arrive with the ones that suit you best.  And then go out and try something newer even.  Go find some other people, work together and see what you learn from that.  The more diverse the members, the more diverse the results.
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....The basics are simple, be original, be true to your own ideals, and dont just push the envelope, rip that envelope, burn it, take the ashes and mold them into a NEW envelope and then mail it. ....
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