Category Archives: Digital

Drag Music

Nationality: American; Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cheshire, CT
Performance Date: 3/19/2013
Primary Language: English

Apathy Syndrome, “whendawurldends”

(For this entry, I asked my informant, who is a hobbyist underground music producer, about the genre of drag music, which is a form of remixing that my informant has had significant experience with, both as a producer and a member of the culture. A transcription of his explanation of the genre and its culture is included below.)

“Drag music came along as an extension of, um, what DJ Screw was doing with “chop and screw” remixes, which was taking a track and manipulating time, and specifically slowing it down, and what DJ Screw would do also was he’d have parts repeat and make it very choppy, hence the “chop and screw”. So what drag remixes did with that is they took it and they really emphasized the slowing it down and exaggerated the slowing it down, and then, in most cases, it took that and it applied it to popular music, pop songs, rather than just hip hop, and it would create a slowed down, darker version of whatever song you were drag remixing.

“I want to say my first exposure to drag, like actual drag, was…I want to say it was Salem’s “Until the World Ends”* or whatever that song’s called, but I’m not one hundred percent on that. It’s definitely the one that sticks out in my mind as being the first, um, yeah I think that’s the first.

“Drag is really tied into the witch house community, so, it’s not that they’re interchangeable, but most witch house groups – well that’s not true – most drag groups identify as witch house groups. So, as far as witch house communities, witch house has this thing where they try to be very underground, almost to an absurd degree, right? So they spell their names with symbols that can’t be Google searched and so it’s really hard to form a community around that. There is a message board, um, that I don’t personally, I’m not personally a member of, I very rarely log onto, but that message board, as far as I know, is the closest thing that witch house has to a community.

“So for typical drag, there’s not a whole lot to [the production]: you would take a track and you would, either digitally or with live turntablism, you would slow it down. What some groups, well depending on the group they’ll change up the drums, or maybe they’ll only [slow down] the acapella and then they’ll add in their own instrumentation, um, or else they’ll add effects on it. They’ll add reverb and, um, delay, or – it’s pretty much fair game. It’s not defined enough to really have a step-by-step process, there’s a lot of different ways to approach a drag piece. I’d say really the core aspect is the slowing, is the tempo manipulation and making it slower.

“It’s definitely deriving from elements of house music, um, but it really emphasizes tone and I would argue that really, that emphasis comes from goth music, like 80’s synth-y goth music. And it also pull from, whether they know it or not, pulls from a lot of music from musique concrète, found sound, really where sample manipulation first came from.

“I guess the most famous examples [of drag remixes] are pop songs. The first drag track to I know have existed, well it was a collection of tracks from sort of a proto-witch house group, Aids-3D, and they did an album called 11 Songs I Like More when I Slow them Down, and those songs were all pop songs, and that album was a huge influence on, like drag music now, so you’d have something like people remixing Justin Bieber or Britney Spears, or just whatever pop music comes up, and they’d take it, this sort of up-beat, pop music, and turn it into a down-beat, sort of dark music.

“You know, it’s interesting in that, um, I wouldn’t say Drag music specifically, but certainly from its associations with witch house, witch house has definitely cross-pollinated into popular music. Now you have artists like will.i.am have symbols, because a lot of witch house is about symbols, right? So you would have someone like will.i.am now have a music video where he raps in front of a black pyramid, and black pyramids, in their pagan and Christian sense, are a symbol in witch house.”

(At this point my recording became corrupted and the rest of the interview is unintelligible. The following is a summary of our conversation after this point, using notes that were taken during the interview.)

My informant continued to elaborate on the visual culture associated with drag and witch house music. In addition to the black pyramid, my informant included daggers as another common symbol, as well as many symbols drawing from paganism and Christianity, both Gnostic and modern. These symbols used both as art associated with the music, such as on album covers, and also in the names of drag groups and songs themselves, to add to the mystery and unsearchable aspect of the drag culture.

When asked to conjecture as to the spread of the style of drag remixing, my informant made a tie between the often-used popular music subject matter and the idea of guilty pleasures. While this couldn’t be confirmed, my informant guessed that many of the artists associated with drag remix culture actually do enjoy the music they are remixing, even though there is often a stigma against doing so within underground music circles. By dragging a favorite pop song, one can recontextualize the music into a new form, one that’s more abstract and thus acceptable as part of the underground, as well as a new way to enjoy a favorite song. There’s also an element of satire in the process of drag, that by taking a polished, easily digestible pop song and slowing it beyond recognition, one can corrupt the original with an individual’s distinct mark, transforming the gloss of a hyper-polished Justin Bieber or Britney Spears track into a dark, gothic dirge.

When asked about the idea of authorship in drag remix culture, my informant suggested that drag artists prefer to be thought of more as co-authors of a track, rather than just remixers. He makes this distinction: in a typical remix, the remixer usually credits the original artist first, delegating the remixing artist credit to either a title mention or a production credit. A drag artist, however, will often place their name first in the song’s credit, taking claim as the song’s artist, and then give credit to the original artist of the song they are dragging. With drag remixing, the remix artists present themselves as a coauthor of the song along with the original artists, where the ordinary remix artist relegates themselves to obscurity, not to be seen as an additional author to the track, but simply a remixer.

My informant is of the opinion that the trend toward co-authorship in drag music could derive from the amount of reimagining that goes into the process. With original chop and screw music, the remixing of a track was done with physical records and tapes, which was something a remixer had to physically acquire and put physical effort into manipulating. Even in the digital age, what emerges from a drag remix is often a very different song aesthetically, tonally, and atmospherically, than from where the track began. It’s very obvious where the drag artist’s influence comes into the sound of the drag remix.

The interview with my informant ended with a discussion of the practical element of drag music. The culture of drag music, according to my informant, has strong ties to drug use and drug culture, specifically codeine and cough syrup. My informant believes the development of drag music was at least partially spurred by a need for music to accompany the use of such drugs, the slowing of popular music turning songs that might be otherwise unpleasant in an altered state into music that could compliment the user’s experience.

 

Analysis:

As one who dabbles in music critique and culture beyond just popular music, I have often encountered “music snobbery”, where one can be made to feel inferior due to one’s tastes in music, often for enjoying what is most popular at the time. With my informant’s piece, whendawurldends, the masking of guilty pleasure can certainly be seen in the piece’s production. My informant divulged that the main source material for the remix comes from a Japanese Pop Song, which carries the stigma of both popular music and the “otherness” of foreign music and art that can be alienating to those outside of the culture. It is important that my informant pointed out the link between “guilty pleasure material” and the pieces of drag music that become popular, like the remixes of Britney Spears and Justin Bieber found on the Aids-3D “original” drag album. While my informant believes there is both an element of homage and corruption in the drag process, I propose that the element of homage, partaking in the guilty pleasure in a way that is not so guilty, is a much greater factor in the creation of drag music. Even the titles and personas of drag culture seem to suggest this, ranging from the trivial misspellings and reckless disregard for grammar of whendawurldends to the outright absurdity of Aids-3D. For such a dark, secluded culture and sound, drag remix culture does not seem to take itself too seriously.

It is perhaps this absurdity that has drawn these artists together to create a movement. My informant believes that drag remix culture actively defies categorization and popular exposure, due most drag artists having unsearchable names and rare releases, though such absurdity unites these artists in a more abstract way. The corruption of common music and artist tropes, the steps taken to stay underground, all these factors point to a singular desire to just be an “other”, undiscovered, always underground. It makes these artists mysterious; it makes them “cool”; but in the end, it helps place them together as drag.

*Citation: the song my informant refers to here as his first exposure to drag music is actually titled Till the World Ends. The official video for it can be found here (warning: video contains disturbing content).

Gatsby’s Facebook Chat Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, fast food employee
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant told me this joke as a piece of humor relating to current events. It references both a Movie (Great Gatsby) which comes out this (May) month, as well as Facebook chat, a  currently utilized electronic media.

Informant: (as a prologue) You know Gatsby right?

Me: Yeah

Informant: All right, well you know that sexual tension you get when you and your crush are “online” on Facebook at the same time, and you just stare at the green light chat button?  Suddenly you realize that you know what Gatsby felt like.

This joke relates Fitzgerald’s classic Great Gatsby, by way of its new movie, to generational issues of correspondence. Just as Gatsby looks out longingly at the green lighthouse light which represents his beloved Daisy, so does this joke suggests those of us with Facebook accounts have a similar experience when looking at the green chat buttons with which we  can start conversations with others. Perhaps most appropriately in light of its digital themes, my informant first heard this joke on the internet.

 

World of Warcraft Legends – SuperAIDS

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Barista - Starbucks
Residence: Lake Forest, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/16/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant used to play World of Warcraft for a period of about 5 years, and during his time with the game, he has come across several stories.  The two stories he told me about were the SuperAIDS story and the Leeroy Jenkins story.  This story is about SuperAIDS.

According to my informant, SuperAIDS was the player given nickname of a debuff [essentially a curse] that a particular boss character would inflict upon the players.  This debuff would deal damage to the inflicted player and would spread to any nearby allied units.  The debuff could be cleansed by a particular class and be stopped.  However, this debuff would sometimes get on a player’s pet, and one of the ways to deal with this was simply dismiss the pet rather than wait for someone to cleanse it off, because it’s really hard to see if it’s on someone’s pet and just as hard to target the pet.  So players with pets would simply dismiss them and be done with it.  Unfortunately, the debuff didn’t go away, so when they went back to major cities, and summoned their pet, the debuff would still be there.  Once players figured out this was happening, they got their pets infected and brought them into the major cities and started spreading the disease intentionally.  The disease would spread rapidly between players and would kill almost anyone who wasn’t highest level.  Normally this would just be considered a prank but the disease would also spread to NPC’s [non-player characters].  The major problem with this was that NPC’s regenerate their health when out of combat and this regeneration outpaced the rate of damage from the disease.  So the disease would kill almost any player who came into contact with it, but it would never get off the NPC’s.  This is perhaps how the name SuperAIDS came about, because it didn’t go away.  Anyway, this meant that, as the disease was spread, more and more areas of the game became essentially uninhabitable because your character would just get infected and die over and over.  This persisted for about a week until the devs were able to patch the game, eliminating the disease from the NPC’s and preventing the disease from leaving the raid encounter.  And even though the game of WoW is played in several different servers, because the players all communicate online, nearly every server experienced this in some way.

World of Warcraft Legends – Leeroy Jenkins

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Barista - Starbucks
Residence: Lake Forest, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/16/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant tells me that the Leeroy Jenkins story is pretty short, and that the results of it are far more interesting than the original story.  Basically the story goes that this group of 15 guys were in a raid dungeon getting ready for a big fight, and they were talking about their plan, when one of the members just decides to screw the whole plan and charge right in.  He screams his name, “LEEROYYYYYYYY JENKINNNNSSSSS” really loudly in their chat, and just runs in.  The rest of his group is forced to follow and they all end up dying in the encounter.  Fortunately, because one of the group members was recording the event, we can see the whole thing happen on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

This video became an instant hit among players of World of Warcraft, with players showing the video to their friends.  I myself was shown the video by one of my friends who also played the game.  There were many videos that only WoW players would have found amusing, but no one else would really get.  However, the Leeroy Jenkins video and story started to spread to other video games and even outside of gamer culture.  If you go online, you can find fan art of Leeroy, comics, demotivational posters referring to Leeroy, custom Warcraft figurines.  The video became so huge that Blizzard, the developers of World of Warcraft, invited the actual player of the character Leeroy to come give a quick speech at BlizzCon in 2007, and do the trademark “Leeroyyyyyyy Jenkinnnnnssssss!” shout.  The also put a reference to Leeroy in the game itself.  Essentially, re-enacting the Leeroy Jenkins video will earn the player an achievement called “Leeroyyyyyyyy!” which also rewards the player with the title “Jenkins” that he or she may put on their character.

Within the gaming community as a whole, shouting “Leeroy Jenkins!” is synonymous with shouting “CHARGE!” and is usually shouted either at the beginning of a game, or when the player goes “balls to the wall” or “goes Rambo.”  Even players who have never played World of Warcraft in their life understand the meaning of the phrase.  In this sense, “Leeroy Jenkins” has become a folk saying.

As for the origins of the story, my informant tells me that the player simply thought the plan was ready and just charged in ahead.  According to other sources I have heard in the past, some say that Leeroy was away from his computer getting food while the plan was being discussed and so he didn’t hear it, and when he got back he assumed they were all ready to go and so he just charged in.  Others say that he thought the plan was stupid and knew they would all die anyway and so Leeroy just decided to charge in and have fun.  One other variant I have heard is that the guild who made the video did it as a joke video, knowing full well that their plan was stupid and so they were just trying to be funny.  This is the version I like to believe because everyone I know who has done the fight shown in the video says that their plan is stupid and would never work ever.  According to Leeroy himself, he and his guild buddies were just drinking at the time and being generally stupid, though he will neither confirm nor deny if the whole thing was staged.

The University of Chicago “C Bench”

Nationality: American
Age: 83
Occupation: Businessman - retired
Residence: Glencoe, Illinois
Performance Date: 4/10/2013
Primary Language: English

At the University of Chicago, there is a concrete bench in the form of a C in front of the administration building.  According to my informant, who attended the University of Chicago in the 1940’s and early 1950’s, you were not to sit on the C bench “unless you were a letterman or had been kissed by a letterman.”  Essentially only athletes and the girlfriends of athletes could use the bench.  My informant says that if someone violated this rule, however, no one really did anything, it’s was just a funny rule.

After some research, it seems that there are two different traditions surrounding the C Bench from different eras.  In the early 1900’s, the C Bench was off-limits for Freshman, and any freshman who sat on it would most definitely be harassed by older students.  Back then, the C Bench was a big social center of campus and lots of people hung out there.  In later years, that tradition appears to have faded and been replaced by reserving the C Bench for athletes and their girlfriends.   At this point in time, however, the C Bench seems to have dwindled as a hot spot for social activity and the  tradition had lost almost all meaning, especially with the school’s shift from athletic focus to academic focus.

http://college.uchicago.edu/story/story-bench