Vinyl Discography for Fucked Up and related bands, plus scrap book of things found along the way:
The FU Discog is as complete as it's ever likely to be, Discog 2 and; 3 are works in progress. The other posts are a mixed scrap-book of ephemera and personal interpretations...
Old man, life spent. Carving a legacy never making a dent...
Sleeve - Front
Sleeve - Back
Vinyl - 'A' side
Insert - Front
Insert - Back
Stats:
General:
Tracks: Paper The House B/W Galloping
Released: 2014
Label: Matador Records OLE 1071-7
Matrix A: OLE-1071-7 - A GOLDEN
Matrix B: OLE-1071-7 - B GOLDEN
Pressing Info: 2000? TBC
Inserts: Regular insert as pictured above
Variants: No variants
From FU Merch Table: The a-side here is this one off of Glass Boys:
the b-side is an unreleased song from the Glass Boys sessions, although part of the music from this song was used in this, a little promo vid we did for the record:
(Lyric) ...the Great Divide, The Gulf of Time. A vanguard turns rear flank. Over time the wounds they make just run dry. And as the bleeding stops, so do I.
Nerd Points:
"Paper The House" video has the 'A' side track dubbed over footage from the Long Winter show, also pictured on the back of the insert.
The Glass Boys promo features vocals by Chris Colohan, a man whose extensive punk CV includes being the original drummer for Fucked Up. The video footage is from this video of "Generation" from 2006.
Sleeve Notes:
The Dying Gaul: This statue is believed to be a second-century AD Roman copy of a third-century BC Hellenistic bronze commemorating the victory of the Greeks over migrating Celtic tribes.
Polybius wrote an evocative account of Galatian tactics against a Roman army at the Battle of Telamon of 225 BC: "The Insubres and the Boii wore trousers and light cloaks, but the Gaesatae, in their love of glory and defiant spirit, had thrown off their garments and taken up their position in front of the whole army naked and wearing nothing but their arms... The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life."
The Dying Gaul became one of the most celebrated works to have survived from antiquity and was engraved and endlessly copied by artists, for whom it was a classic model for depiction of strong emotion, and by sculptors.
Insert Girl: Flower-haired lefty, previously appeared artwork for other musicians and Lithuanian menus.
''In this arid wilderness of steel and stone, I raise up my voice that you may hear. To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weaklings, wealth to the strong!'' (Message on reverse of sleeve)
Sleeve -Front: First Press
Sleeve - Back: First Press - 100 of the first press have a Slasher Records'
stamp in the bottom right-hand corner
'Regular' Insert: The inserts for the early presses also had an image on the reverse;
later presses had no image on the reverse.
Stats:
General: Tracks: Generation B/W Ban Violins / Magic Kingdom Year: 2005 (1) Label: Slasher Records - SRC MR-003 (Red- text sleeves), MURDER 003 (Black-text sleeves) Matrix A (1st-3rd press): MURDER-003-A GWCZAMTNVWBWVOZWCVL Matrix B (1st-3rd press): MURDER-003-B 8+L Matrix A (4th & later presses): MURDER-003-A Matrix B (4th & later presses): MURDER-003-B Pressing Info (Figures kindly confirmed by Slasher Records):
Old Matrix - Pressed at Pickering Pressing Plant, Canada:
1st Press: 7 Test Pressings 500 with small hole, Feb 2005 (125 with 'Slasher' stamp on reverse of sleeve)
2nd: 1600 with 45 hole, late Feb 2005
3rd: 30 with white labels, 40 with black labels
New Matrix - Pressed at Pickering Pressing Plant, Canada:
4th: 460 (new sleeves) (1 with small hole) (6 Test Pressings)
New Matrix - Pressed at American Plant due to closure of Pickering:
5th: 1000 (500 in new sleeves + 500 awaiting sleeves) (20 Test Pressings)
Inserts:
1st & 2nd Press (Red-text sleeves) - Double-sided insert (There are at least 5 different inserts, see images below)
3rd Press - Variable
4th & later presses (Black-text sleeves) - Single-sided 'regular' insert
Variants:
Two sleeve variants, some of which are stamped.
Actually there's a third sleeve: 5 or 6 prototype UK style covers with the statue image from the 12" and a 'different' eagle on the back, made in 2005. See picture at end of post.
Six (main) vinyl variants
Five insert variants
Sleeve Variants:
'Red Text' Sleeve - front and back
'Black-text' sleeve- front and back
Vinyl Variants:
First & Second Press:
These have 'Red Text' sleeves. They also have an image on the reverse of the lyric sheet / insert. There are five different images. First: There were 500 copies of the first press, 100 of which had a 'Slasher Records' stamp in the bottom left hand corner on the reverse of the sleeve, as shown at the top of this page. There are spelling errors on the first press labels and inserts Second: There were 1600 copies of the second press. The spelling mistakes on the labels were corrected for this one, but not on the inserts.
1st Press - Red-text sleeve, small hole vinyl, silver labels with white stripe
2nd Press - Red-text sleeve, big hole vinyl, silver label with black stripe
Third 'Press'
The third press (seemingly) comprises a total of 70 records; 30 white-label 'test presses' and 40 with the new black Slasher labels. Presumably, it would have been intended to press more than 40 on the black labels, but the pressing plate broke, so these 70 records were the last to have the old matrix etched into the run-out on the vinyl. It's not clear exactly why 30 test presses were made; probably simply to provide the label with a stock of 'limited' vinyl; a lot of these were given to subscribers of the Slasher 'singles club'.
A random approach seems to have been taken to the packaging, stamping and distribution of these two records: The white labels were mostly stamped (the stamps vary, some are stamped with the Slasher address, others are stamped 'Third Press') some were marked in biro as test presses. The black labels mostly came with a stamped insert and / or sleeve and / or jacket. According to Sarah Milibrand's discography, at least one black-label copy had a new 'Generation Banner & Eagle' insert - presumably the same image as appears on the back of the sleeve. Distribution was similarly random; some subscribers to the Slasher singles club got them, others didn't, some went to friends etc.
3rd 'Press' Variant 1 - Mix of red and black-text sleeves, white labels, old matrix
3rd 'Press' Variant 2 - Mix of red and black-text sleeves, black labels, old matrix, some of these had stamps on the sleeve and / or insert (and maybe the dust sleeve?)
This one has the same vinyl / matrix and labels as the white label one above, but it has different stamps and a stamped / dust cover with a message to a 'singles club' subscriber from Matt Bickle, the owner of Slasher Records
Fourth & Fifth Press
These have 'Black Text' sleeves, the lyric sheet / insert is single sided; the reverse is blank. The vinyl is pressed with the new matrix code. Fourth: There were 500 copies of the fourth press (According to discogs). Fifth: Based on the assumption that there were no further black label pressings, the silver label version shown below is the fifth press.
4th Press - Black-text sleeve, black labels
5th Press - Black-text sleeve, silver labels with 'Slasher' text
Inserts:
There are a few different inserts, the seemingly random images might (or might not) be connected by themes of western empire reincarnating ideologies and symbolism from the past. See lyrics of ''Ban Violins'' & ''Magic Kingdom'' for more info.
The front of the inserts have the lyrics to the three songs and credits illustrated with a sword and eagle. The inserts that came with the 1st and 2nd press 'Red Text' sleeves have an image on the reverse; there are five different images - see below. The inserts that came with the later 'Black-Text' presses are blank on the reverse.
Unidentified image: Barbarians at the gates?
Nike, Greek Goddess of Victory. Remnant of the Greek Empire; according to mythology, Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the victors with glory and fame. Here she's looking slightly less victorious minus head / arms.
Unidentified image: Soldiers with spades - digging up the past?
Unidentified image: The New Order? According to a German Helmet expert contacted as part of research: ''That's a Prussian State shield on an M1918 German helmet. This would have been used in Prussia from 1923 to 1933''. See also Teutonic Knights
Unidentified Image: Born again? Neo-classical statue - woman with sword and shield and bay leaves. Eagle & 13 stars on shield. Liberty / Freedom?
Notes:
Earlier presses have fourth part of coded message etched into vinyl (see matrix info above).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From ''Couple Tracks'' LP Insert 2010:
Generation:Much has been written about how this song was written as a joke. Not a Joke so much as a reference... Fucked Up is too self aware to ever write a song with any specific politic or intention - this song would serve as to such a song, or even a parody. The lyrics are simple and anthemic, but also meaningless - we always hoped/ joked that it would become the theme song to a sports team. Ban Violins:OK, the lyrics on this song have nothing to do with the title. The lyrics are about Nazis or God, or whatever, or both. The title is a funny story. (See ''Couple Tracks'' for funny story). Magic Kingdom: In the notes to the track ''Generation'' I talked about noble intentions. It was our intention with ''Magic Kingdom'' to write a song like Discharge, the great early 80's UK hardcore band. What I'm realising now is that, while we did include the dirty sounding one note bass solo, replete with superfluous but that we forgot to use a d-beat, the most fabled drum beat in punk. Also the lyrics contain the line ''You can't defend against magic'', which would never appear on any Discharge song, or any self-respecting punk song for that matter. The Song is about Dungeons and Dragons.
From HeartattaCk Zine interview 2006:
We wrote "Generation" as a tribute to that - we tried to write the most anthemic sounding song we could, and inject it with the most insipid lyrical content imaginable, just utterly devoid of any meaning. That way, we knew that people would be able to find the most meaning within the song. (2)
From Mixtape 2 Side A - (DA Speaking - conversation about Nazi song themes (not) reflecting ideals of band)
The song ''Ban Violins'', there's a lot about Christianity in there. I can tell you one thing I'm definitely not a Christian.
Previous Generation An earlier version of ''Generation'' appears on the ''Epics in Minutes'' CD compilation. According to the CD inlay it was recorded on 16th February 2002, during the same session as ''No Pasaran''. The song ''Red'' was also recorded at the same time and is coupled on the CD with ''Generation''.
Artwork from 'Epics in Minutes' CD compilation.
The 'new' version of ''Generation'' that appears on the EP, was recorded around 3 years later and this may explain the difference in lyrical styles between the simple anthemic chant of the title track and the 'Dungeons & Dragons' lyrics of ''Ban Violins'' & ''Magic Kingdom'' - the latter two were written after ''Looking For Gold''. However, all three songs on the EP (appear to) share common themes and these are (maybe) complimented by the sleeve and insert artwork.
The Red text on the first and second press covers might reference some of the following. (From Wikipedia):
Red in History: In Ancient Rome, red had an important religious symbolism, it was used to colour statues, it was the colour associated with army; Roman soldiers wore red tunics. In Roman mythology red is associated with the god of war, Mars. The vexilloid of the Roman Empire had a red background with the letters SPQR in gold. A Roman general receiving a triumph had his entire body painted red in honour of his achievement.[30]
Roman Empire vexilloid
In the Middle Ages, red was the colour of the banner of the Byzantine emperors after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Byzantine Empire
The princes of Europe and the Roman Catholic Church adapted red as a colour of majesty and authority. It also played an important part in the rituals of the Catholic Church - it symbolized the blood of Christ and the Christian martyrs - and it associated the power of the kings with the sacred rituals of the Church.
Symbolism of Red: In western countries red is a symbol of martyrs and sacrifice, particularly because of its association with blood. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Pope and Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church wore red to symbolize the blood of Christ and the Christian martyrs. The banner of the Christian soldiers in the First Crusade was a red cross on a white field, the St. George's Cross. According to Christian tradition, Saint George was a Roman soldier who was a member of the guards of the Emperor Diocletian, who refused to renounce his Christian faith and was martyred. The Saint George's Cross became the Flag of England in the 16th century, and now is part of the Union Flag of the United Kingdom.
Red in Christian Religion: In Roman Catholicism, red represents wrath, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
In the Christianity, red is associated with the blood of Christ and the sacrifice of martyrs. Since 1295, it is the colour worn by Cardinals, the senior clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. Red is the liturgical colour for the feasts of martyrs, representing the blood of those who suffered death for their faith.
Red on Flags: Red is one of the most common colours used on national flags. The use of red has similar connotations from country to country: the blood, sacrifice, and courage of those who defended their country; the sun and the hope and warmth it brings; and the sacrifice of Christ's blood (in some historically Christian nations) are a few examples.
Red is the colour of the flags of several countries that once belonged to the former British Empire. The British flag bears the colours red, white, and blue; it includes the red cross of Saint George
The flag of the United States bears the colours of Britain.
Red, white, and black were the colours of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918, and as such they came to be associated with German nationalism. In the 1920s they were adopted as the colours of the Nazi flag. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that they were "revered colours expressive of our homage to the glorious past." The red part of the flag was also chosen to attract attention - Hitler wrote: "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement."
The Swordmay be symbolic of liberty and strength. In the Middle Ages, it was used as a symbol of the word of God.
The Eaglecan symbolise courage, strength and immortality, it is also considered "king of the skies" and messenger of the highest Gods. With these attributed qualities the eagle became a symbol of power and strength in Ancient Rome. Mythologically, it has been connected by the Greeks with the God Zeus, by the Romans with Jupiter, by the Germanic tribes with Odin, by the Judeo-Christian scriptures with those who hope in God.
'Freedom Or Death' (Meaningless #2) From Wikipedia: Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilization of Ancient Greece, which is considered the cradle of all Western civilization. The cultural and technological achievements of Greece greatly influenced the world, with many aspects of Greek civilization being imparted to the East through Alexander the Great's campaigns, and to the West through the Roman Empire. The modern Greek state, which comprises much of the historical core of Greek civilization, was established in 1830 following the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire. Eleftheria i thanatos (Greek: Ελευθερία ή θάνατος, "Freedom or Death") is the motto of Greece.It arose during the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s, where it was a war cry for the Greeks who rebelled against Ottoman rule.[3] It was adopted after the Greek War of Independence. It is still in use today, and is a popular theory regarding the use of 9 stripes (for the nine syllables of the motto) in the Greek flag. The motto symbolized and still symbolizes the resolve of the people of Greece against tyranny and oppression.
Top L-R: First Press Test / First Press / Second Press / Third Press White Labels / Third Press Black Labels
Bottom L-R: Fourth Press Test / Fourth Press Big Hole / Fourth Press Small Hole / Fifth Press Test / Fifth Press
Back: Prototype Sleeve, Artwork for Epics in Minutes comp.
All the top row of records were pressed with the old matrix, all the bottom were pressed with the new. The two test pressings on the LHS were from the now defunct Pickering Plant in Canada, the other test pressing (bottom row, 2nd from right) was pressed in America and has generic United labels.
Fourth Press Small Hole:
Only one exists. Note the extra big 'Pickering Dot' - i.e. the black dot on the label showing this came from the Pickering Pressing Plant - see also the test presses above, the first press and the small hole ''Baiting The Public''
(1) From email correspondence regarding date of recording: Also, you may already know, but the recording date on the insert is wrong. It says "12/28/05" but it should be "12/28/04" because the record came out early 2005. I haven't checked this date against other sources (e.g. Singles Collection CD on HG:Fact or Couple Tracks CD/2xLP on Matador) but I remember when I got it that the date was in the future so it was obviously wrong.
Subsequently, from Matt Bickle: Recorded December 2004 came out Feb 2005 5 weeks later for California tour. 5 weeks only from recording to completion hence the spelling mistakes!
(2) HeartattaCk Zine interview appears on LFG blog post
(3) This page is too long. It's a rambling lot of old bollocks.
Vibrations and hums the quantum sum where we're from...
Jacket - Front
Jacket - Back
Jacket - Image on inside of gate-fold:
This is the re-press version with stronger colours than the first press
Vinyl:
This is the re-press version with colour labels
Lyric Sheet - Front
Lyric Sheet - Back:
Vibrations and hums the quantum sum where we're from
felt in strings spread in rings spinning clouds eve Atom
Particle dust to dust clung now balls of fire conspire
Stars spit the molecules lit panspermigration comets
Sui generus in space amino acids in place
Cooling planets await fate until life shows its face
Double helix the code from which flowed the chromosome
Left hand supports life to divide and provide
create soil out of rock to build blocks on blank spots
bits and bugs make up weeds who build kingdoms of trees
bees speak to the world and change the shape of their tongues
they suck nectar from crowns and feed it to their young
gold grains stick to their legs so we spread it around
the whole world is alive on the pollen they've found
the fecundity spreads to all parts of the plot
until finally people emerge from the box
the codes of the world are wrapped into our brains
so things burst in to flame when we give them their names
a word and a breath breathed life to ignite
the world stood on its head to sing the songs made of light
feed for new seeds was just need by our mention
the plants that we said made to stand at attention
trade scant collection see selfing clone generation
ultimate uses defined by humankind
resurrection haberian food green revolution collude
tired nitrogen giants perspire a toxic attire
our end delivered by birds riddle by all the wrong words
we trade our bodies for bytes and give viruses and turn
subsist to simply exist turn on the next living switch
vibrations and hums the quantum sum where we're from
Stats:
Year: 2006 Label:Deranged Records DER-87 *
*Three different catalogue numbers appear on the release: DY087 on insert, DER 87 on back of jacket and Deranged - 87 on labels. Matrix A: DY-87-A GOLDEN Matrix B: DY-87-B GOLDEN
Matrix C: DY-87-C GOLDEN Matrix D: DY-87-D GOLDEN
Inserts:
Double-sided insert, as pictured above
Some (maybe all?) first pressings also include a poster - see below.
First pressing vinyl - monochrome labels.
Pre-order copies had the FU logo stamped on the sleeves. The stamps were a random mixture or red, blue and black ink
First Press Jacket - Image on inside of gate-fold:
The colours of the first press are a little washed out, compared to the repress
Colour comparison: Top: First Press Bottom: Repress
Poster:
Came with some, maybe all of the first press. Possibly because the colours on the jacket image were not quite right?
10,000 Marbles:It’s coming along great. We are firming up the first singles and are going to be ready to record soon. It will be the definitive Fucked Up project...
...the idea behind the album, is that there is such a multiverse in the quality things you can get involved in - if you take a medium or an idea and hide things just below the surface of what’s there, and have people find them, they're going to start looking for other hidden things in everything they see, and start being more conscious, about everything. Just like when you're a child, and you find your first nickel on the ground - you start to look at the ground with a lot more attention and concentration.
Fucked Up’s lyrics, especially post-“Dance of Death” have lots of references to the arcane and ancient (“Thule society,” a lot of “Looking For Gold,” etc.). What is the inspiration for these kind of lyrics? Why the shift from the “political” songs, like “No Pasaran,” “Municipal Prick,” etc., or more literal lyrics like “Litany” that make up Fucked Up’s earlier work?
Pink Eyes:The new lyrics are still political. The arcane stuff we are singing about is still applicable today. It's not like we are singing about dinosaurs. These are moments in history that have shaped the era we are living in. Sometimes the ancient is used as a metaphor for today. I think the relevance of a song like Looking for Gold is far greater then No Pasaran. We are certainly not as literal these days just because there is really only so many ways to say you hate your job. All the songs I have written for the LP are political songs, while maybe not as overtly so as Police, but political all the same.
What kind of label rigmarole did you guys go through?
Vocalist Pink Eye: We decided we wanted to do a record that was going to be a lot bigger — first of all, it was going to be an LP. We knew we couldn’t put that record out on Deranged, because Deranged said they could give us $2000 to record, and we knew this would cost more — even though I later told Jade Tree it was only going to cost $2000. One day I just went home, looked at every record I had and said, "I’m going to write to every label I can find…” Before, we were talking to Steve Kado and were like "yeah, it would be really cool if Owen Palett played on our record.” He was great.
Guitarist Concentration Camp: He came in and cut one violin line — I’m like, "Oh, cool! Thanks man!” and he was like, "No, I’ve got to do eight more tracks over top of it.” It was neat for us, being really threadbare musicians — and I think it was a breath of fresh air for [producer Jon Drew] to work with a competent musician for an hour…
Pink Eye: We talk about God more on this record than a Christian band.
Are you religious?
Pink Eye:Not at all. Not. At. All.
Guitarist 10,000 Marbles:We ran out of metaphors.
Pink Eye:We exhausted all those metaphors about moshing and friends and the pit. So now we were like, "God, what’s left?”
Wilsim Publogy was an offshoot of Romanian Manicheanism, and the whole Gnosticism trip. It sees cosmology in the same way as the Gnostics, in that the universe, or the being, or whatever, is split into these two forces, “light” and “dark”, or what have you, but differs in that Publogy doesn’t see the forces as necessarily opposite, but the same. It’s more into dualism, more along the lines of Vedantic Hinduism, who thought in terms of the “non duality of duality”. The whole Kabbalist “two poles” idea where the opposing forces are actually just different expressions of the same thing. We tried to be influenced by this when we were making “Hidden World”, and it shows up in songs like “Triumph of Life”, and “Two Snakes” and was the inspiration for the cover art. Actually, that’s another way Mircea comes back in, the quote we used from him in the record; “to be no longer conditions by a pair of opposites results in absolute freedom”. Especially in the world now where you’ve got your two political ideas, everyone has these strong feelings of wrong and right – we’re living in an age where the multitude has been slashed into these singular opposites where life is a series of choices between two opposites, and there are really only two ways of existing, you know “right” or “left”. It’s important I think to try and pull the crate back open, try to release these other ways of existing. And to do that we try to just take away the divisions and the opposites and just shine through Wilsim Publogy.
Scene Point Blank: One of my questions was going to be if you had any plans to make Looking For Gold more widely available, but you recently made it available online. Why did you decide to release it online rather than re-pressing it on vinyl or releasing it in some other format?
10,000 Marbles: We didn't release it as a record because we didn't want people to have to pay for it. The original 12" became such an economic fiasco that we just figured fuck it, why put effort and money into releasing a record that people are just going to flip for more cash anyhow. The song fits thematically with Hidden World, so we want it to act as a companion piece, but one you don't have you pay more money for. Regardless, music isn't really about physical objects anymore anyhow, so why waste the petrol if people are going to listen to it on the computer anyhow? I can't tell you i haven't listened to an actually record in a long fucking time. The song is available online
Scene Point Blank: It seems like a lot of your lyrics use a classic rhetorical strategy where you talk over an audience's head in hopes that they'll educate themselves. This is fairly uncommon in the broad world of punk, which is usually much more didactic; what's the rationale behind this and what kind of responses have you seen?
10,000 Marbles: I just write how I'd like lyrics to appear. We don't want to tell anyone what to think, really, I just like my lyrics to rhyme, use interesting imagery and words, and be about interesting topics. I'm not in this to spread any particular worldview. And yeah, when we do have particularly objective topics, they're usually tucked inside a metaphor, so the song is more interesting and you aren't hit upside the head with rhetoric. I had militarism in mind when I wrote "Triumph of Life," and smoking when I did "Dance of Death," but i like being discreet, you know?
Scene Point Blank: Some of the recent Fucked Up material seems to be pushing in a bit more of an aestheticized direction in terms of content - with songs like "Teenage Problem" referencing André Gide and "Vivian Girls" with Henry Darger. What kind of artistic traditions do you see yourself engaging with or inhabiting (if any), beyond punk rock?
10,000 Marbles: None. This is what a punk band does - borrow, steal, etc. We're just a patchwork of a million other things. I don't think we have a defined or central aesthetic or ideology, we just know how to pick parts from other ones really well. I don't even read or like poetry, and I didn't really like Dargers book, but I do understand the power the things we use hold to other people. Recently I guess we're into illegalism, but that's not really art, and we can't really get arrested anymore. In fact - fuck art, it's the biggest scam racket going (other than bike locks).
Scene Point Blank: "Carried Out to the Sea" attacks naïve postmodernism, but it seems to me that an argument could be made that the broad theme of Hidden World is a kind of deconstruction - the way that totalizing, Manichean oppositions are unstable and create a "hidden world" that overcomes them. Is this just a misreading?
10,000 Marbles: Pink Eyes has this lyric cycle going on lately where his songs are about this constant dawning of change that is just a recycling of old parts.
Pink Eyes: "Carried Out to the Sea" is more about being frustrated that we live in an era where nothing is new and every time something comes into existence that looks as though it may turn into something worthwhile it is immediately jumped on before it has a chance to fully develop. There will never be another Seattle because nothing will ever develop to that point going unnoticed.
Scene Point Blank: What's "David Comes to Life" about?
Pink Eyes:David is about a kid who figures out that everyday he lives his life he is just going to commit more sin and thus take him further away from heaven. So instead of waiting in this horrible life like the rest of us to simply die one day riddled with sin and have to then try to get into heaven, he is going to just kill himself, sin free, to get to heaven and plead his case.
(Editors Note: The trickster who did this interview also wrote this: ""David Comes to Life" is one of the band's most accessible songs yet, a tightly wound, almost-power pop tune very much in the vein of the Undertones and even the Ramones. The song's lyrics (penned by Pink Eyes) present an interesting kind of religious dilemma: a boy (the eponymous David) recognizes that every moment he continues to live will only result in commission of further sins, taking him further and further from heaven. David decides to cut out the middleman and commit suicide in order to get to heaven and, in Pink Eyes' words, "plead his case." The song's chorus explains: "Death comes swiftly / To those who wait / But he's like the rest of us / An impatient ingrate.")
Shirt design by Alex Snelgrove:
Five Snakes + 1 Owl =
Alternative Press: To that same point, I look at a title like Hidden World and consider it a guiding principle for the band – in other words, the surface is the least of what you're concerned with; the whole aim of what you're doing seems to be nudging people toward looking at underlying systems, perception versus reality, etc. I realize this isn't a question, but we're not having a real conversation here, so it's the best I can do.
10,000 MARBLES: That's true. The only real guiding principle I have with lyrics or intentions is that I don't want to tell people what to think, maybe just how to think. But Fucked Up isn't political, and there is no agenda. People want to put meaning in places where there is none. Hidden World is about low places, of course, but I tried to be careful not to stretch those meanings to the point where you could say "…and so it's about looking at the systems that control the economy," or what have you. Take "Crusades," or the whole Hidden World motif: "Crusades" uses the metaphor of nature to describe zealotry, but to me, nature is the more interesting of the two; so on one hand, all the meaning to that song could just be on the surface.
Artwork By Brian Walsby commissioned by collector to go with LP Test Pressing:
Ok, so I know this is probably something you’ve talked about for the past month solid, and I could probably interpret this my own way, but I gotta ask this: tell us about why you decided to call the record HIDDEN WORLD.
10,000 Marbles:Because it’s got so many connotations. It was originally going to be called "Crusades" but it sounded way too melodramatic. I thought of "Hidden World" in relation to the whole game that goes on just underneath of what is immediately visible, in all sorts of realms. And then I was reading an E O Wilson essay, and came across the words "Hidden World" regarding the biology of ant colonies, and that nailed it.
So, each song on the record seems like an attempt to explore a certain realm, right? I mean, let’s start talking about the song "Crusades": this seems to be about religion, the religious mentality, what it actually means to devote yourself to belief… right? Is Crusades an exploration of the Hidden Worlds of the faithful?
10,000 Marbles:It isn’t just about religion, it’s about the process of committing your life over to ANY belief, whether it’s god, politics, punk, ect. I’m not really interested in chastising religion specifically, so I tried to make the metaphor in that song as broad as possible. It’s about closing your mind to just one perspective or way of thinking.
Sure, I used the word "religion" loosely, I can see that the use of Christian metaphor is probably the most convenient approach… anyhow, the closing lines of the song about being reborn again, is the idea here that commitment to belief on this level will perpetuate itself no matter what the actual focus of that belief is… just the devotion to belief above all else? I can’t really word this right, I'm sure you get what I mean… devotion to something separate from yourself is a constant, the only thing that changes is the object being focused on.
10,000 Marbles:Yeah, I mean, the metaphor is the plant world, and in nature all life is the struggle to perpetuate itself onto the next generation. The purpose of any organism is solely to pass its genes into the future, regardless of if those genes are the best or not (obviously the best ones are the ones being perpetuated). But these political games, religion, points of view, you can see how in society they mirror the same process – as soon as an idea takes hold, the people who believe in the idea will expend their political energies in order to send that idea deeper and deeper into society and culture. So the song is supposed to be about how people can get so carried away by their own viewpoints that they get insidious and hard to control, and people aren't really trying to move them along because they think they've got the best idea any more, but just that they find themselves behind the idea, regardless of what it is and what it means. In the end of the song I tried to take the biological metaphor to it’s logical conclusion – when a particular gene gets too strong or insidious it becomes endemic in nature – like alien plant species that colonize the entire terrestrial environment because they've quickly eliminated all their competition – so instead of having these healthy waterway areas for example that are rich in biology and different kinds of species, you just have this one kind of plant, and the elimination of a rich ecosystem. The comparison is that as ideas in society get stronger and stronger, they choke the life out of other ideas, so you get these ridiculous polar opposites in culture, like in the US where there are basically 2 primary political ideas, left wing, and right wing, which is totally fucking absurd. I mean there are millions and millions of free thinking and interesting humans in the United States but the whittling down of ideas has happened on such a massive level that there are only two ideas that have been strong enough to survive – left and right. So crusades is supposed to be how dangerous it is to try and get rid of opposing viewpoints, even if you don’t agree with them.
Would you be able to define what the Fucked Up crusade is, then? Would you be able to define it? Are you attempting to develop an idea to choke the life out OF others? Or an idea that would, to follow the biological metaphor, enrich and strengthen the ecosystem of ideas, the process of engagement with ideas? That seems to be what, on most levels, FU are trying to do, from the confusion and obfuscation of the early records to the bold tome that is HW…
10,000 Marbles: That's a good point. That’s why I've always said we aren't a political band, and we don’t want to tell people what to think. I've always been careful not to talk in any specific terms – like, I don’t want to tell people WHAT to think, I’d rather tell them HOW to think, you know? I'm not interested in singing about like slavery, or racism or whatever, because it isn't really my business getting involved in people’s opinions. I guess on one level it comes down to censorship – like I'm not into racism, but instead of like criminalizing racism, I’d rather just let it become overwhelmed by opposing viewpoints. And I want people to get involved with the FU project specifically to get ideas involved that I wouldn't have been able to think up. i mean here is another metaphor – ideas can be like trains that you just get on and ride them where ever they go. I don’t just want to give people tickets to get on these trains, I just want them to know how many trains there can be, if you look hard enough.
Anyhow… was the title CRUSADES dumped before the artwork / design was finished? I wanted to ask about it’s significance to the HIDDEN WORLD theme.
10,000 Marbles:Yeah Crusades was long gone at that point. It’s funny about the art, it looks really great and cohesive but it was actually a real rush job. Jade Tree gave us pretty strict deadlines and we had to get everything in at once. So while we were mixing down the last few songs I was still getting rough sketches on email in the studio. I sort of threw a few ideas at Jay 3 weeks before it was all finished and told him ultimately what one to go with. The artwork relates more specifically to Two Snakes obviously and Crusades. It ties into Hidden World on the surface because it’s sort of got this inviting vibe like the woman is saying "Yo come join me in the Hidden World" but it’s not really about that. The middle artwork is more a mash of a bunch of different ideas discussed in the record.
Where does the woman tie in, then?
10,000 Marbles:It was supposed to be a sexless figure, like the combination of a woman and a man. Like the whole front cover is supposed to represent the union of opposites.
She seems a little less inviting and more statuesque.
10,000 Marbles: Yeah but I mean with the path between the snakes.
Before I forget, what’s the deal with the symbols on the archway? are there any specific meaning behind the patterns there?
10,000 Marbles: The symbols and the archway are totally the artist. He also told me he hid a "bunch of anuses" in there too.
Final artwork related question before I ask you more on that point and TRIUMPH especially… the overlapping circles is overlapping ideas and the space where they overlap is the hidden world?
@FUCKEDUP A symmetry finally as we transcend our strife, there are no sides, no divide, just the triumph of life
10,000 Marbles: Yeah – it’s a gnostic symbol – you know that Jesus fish? I read somewhere that if you extent the points where the fishes mouth would be, it makes these two circles that overlap. The gnostic idea was that heaven and earth where these two spheres that where at war for humanity. And in the centre where they meet, that’s the earth and human kind. So its the same deal – it’s supposed to be how there is a richer life when you don’t stand to one side and don’t commit yourself to one sphere or the other. The other cool thing is that the overlapping part is also a Vesica, which represents fertility in the obvious symbol of the vagina. We’re gonna do a record later that’s obsessed with vagina’s and wombs and motherhood and shit, so it will be a cool tie in.
What should we understand from that title? Does FU have a whole hidden world to show us ?
Marbles:Hidden World is about what is behind the layers; there are examples in every discipline. Huxley talked about it in Doors of Perception, what happens to your brain once you removed the walls of perception, you can see the Hidden World basically when you use a sharper tool to see things in greater detail. Buddhists talk about achieving higher levels of consciousness and acquiring new sensory abilities. You can even talk about the Hidden World in terms of belief – like what happens to your life and perspective once you start believing in new things, like magick or religion. There is a different hidden world for everyone.
One song that really intrigues me lyrically is Jacob’s Ladder with lyrics like: «I clearly can see now the devil is not the blight. A pact with the devil is necessitated to do the work of the angel so wipe away the tears that have been shed for an impotent Christ» Is it only about religion? Would you mind explaining those lyrics to me a little more deeply?
Marbles:I didn’t write the lyrics to this song, but Jacob’s Ladder is about the process of a good person being forced to do an evil thing, and whether or not evil exists as an ideal. There are lines from either Blake or Milton, but it’s revolves around the line «Evil be my good», about how one side can swallow up the other until there are sides any more. Just imagine being in a sticky situation where in order to do something you think is right, you have to sacrifice good, and do something wrong. I think he was using Christ and the devil as metaphors; it isn’t specifically about religion at all.
VIVIAN GIRLS is a song that seems to deal with the subject of paedophilia and how some people talk about it with disgust but would like to do it. Am I right or I got it wrong? Could you explain that song a little bit more? Why do you think the subject of paedophilia is not so often discussed in hardcore songs ?
Marbles:Vivian Girls is about the need for filth in order the create beauty. You can take this dichotomy anywhere – the need for crime in order to create law, the need for evil for there to be good, etc. The lyrics to this song are accounts of individuals taking great pleasure in sickening acts, which brings the two opposing sides to close for comfort. « Manqueller Man » is about how society has a great need for brutality, but also a great need to sequester it away. Vivian Girls describes when brutality and beauty are part of the same desire. We just release a song called « Teenage Problems » that is specifically about paedophilia.
