 |
These are the messages that have been posted on inthe00s over the past few years.
Check out the messageboard archive index for a complete list of topic areas.
This archive is periodically refreshed with the latest messages from the current messageboard.
This is a topic from the The 1990's forum on inthe00s.
Check for new replies or respond here...
Subject: Shot in the head Smilie?
Written By: Jaded on 02/22/08 at 10:13 am
Anyone remember those Smiley Face tshirts that had a bullet hole in the head? Were they something to do with Acid House music? Im not sure. Does anyone have a pic of one?
Subject: Re: Shot in the head Smilie?
Written By: quirky_cat_girl on 02/22/08 at 10:29 am
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/4935/bulletsmileyed5.jpg
Subject: Re: Shot in the head Smilie?
Written By: Foo Bar on 02/23/08 at 8:16 pm
Anyone remember those Smiley Face tshirts that had a bullet hole in the head? Were they something to do with Acid House music?
Yep; the symbol originally came from The Watchmen, and was then adopted (for reasons unknown) by Acid House fans. It really went global after Bomb the Bass used it on the cover of Beat Dis. There's some drug culture in there too, but it's largely tangengial. Sure, it probably did appear on some club drugs of the era, but that was almost certainly a side effect of the club culture picking up on the symbol in the first place.
My story on how acid house picked up the symbol goes something like this:
Once upon a time (60s/70s), there was a split between "rock" and "acid rock". "Rock" was that stuff came on '45s, out of a jukebox, or over the radio, and was what you danced to at parties with your friends.
"Acid rock" was what those weird stoner-types listened to while vegetating alone in a chemical haze. "What's the point of Iron Butterfly? Nobody can dance to In-a-gadda-da-vida, man! It's 17 minutes long, but there's only about two minutes of actual singing! What's with that gawdawful shrieking shound? And that drum solo? I don't get it!" would be the sort of things "rock" fans would comment when first exposed to "psychedelic rock", or "acid rock".
In the late 80s, by a similar mechanism, the synthpop and new wave stuff went through a similar split; there was the poppy stuff that everyone could relate to, which was a direct descendant of the 70s-era disco stuff that gave birth to the 70s "Have a nice day!" smiley in the first place. And then there was house.
House in general, and acid house in particular, put a bullet through the brain of that concept. Given a backbeat, a loop of tape for a melody, and (optionally) a loop of vocals or samples for a vocal track, a single DJ could fill a dance floor.
Synthpop: "Music ought to a force for change - and if not for change, at least for celebration. Oh, come on! At least the songs are about something! Music should strive to say something, even if it's something as innocuous as 'boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl, or 'Have a nice da-'
Acid house: *BLAM* No it shouldn't. Let's dance.