56 minutes, 46 seconds

Velvet Acid Christ
Hex Angel: (Utopia-Dystopia)

To date, I havent seen any news articles that indicate what type of music Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui listened to. But something tells me there's a decent chance it ends up being goth or industrial music and we see a rehash of the whole Columbine subplot. In other words, did the music (and the violent Korean horror movies) make him do it?

It's a facile way to explain why someone picks up a gun and starts killing people, of course, and it's absurd. Not to mention the implication that you have to be mentally disturbed even to listen to this kind of music. (Although maybe if you listen to it in descending order of total time... I digress.)

The central question is, Do violent music, movies, video games, television, etc., have a role to play in mentally ill people's actions? The answer is yes, probably. They might not have the proper detachment to process this kind of content the way the rest of us do. It's akin to alcoholics or obese people--they don't have the same relationship to food and drink the rest of us have.

But alcoholics and overweight people aren't homicidal--they're killing only themselves. So what makes it easy for mentally ill people like Cho Seung-Hui to wipe out 32 people? Easy access to guns. But that's not what Middle America likes to hear. So much easier to blame it on the music or the movies or the video games.

Also today:

56:43 Desiderii Marginis, Songs Over Ruins
56:39 Flëur, Prikosnovénie
56:37 Dominion, Only the Strong Survive
56:36 Cyclone B, Demolished
56:34 Anthesteria, Nebesnaya
56:33 Klinik, Klinik (CD 2 of 2)
56:32 Data-Bank-A, The Citadel (CD 2 of 2)

78 minutes, 26 seconds

Velvet Acid Christ
Between the Eyes, Vol. 1

Kind of a weird thing this band did a few years ago, basically rereleasing their first few CDs (Neuralblastoma, Church of Acid, and some additional singles and rare material) on four volumes, all called Between the Eyes. I think one track from Neuralblastoma didn't make it onto any of the rereleases, which is a bummer, but otherwise these are pretty complete. And I'm nothing if not a completist.

The Star Trek samples on the first couple of tracks on Vol. 1 are pretty cheesy and obvious, but it gets interesting on Track 4, an alternate mix of the "Decypher" single. Someone who sounds an awful lot like Ronald Reagan (perhaps when he was governor of California, perhaps earlier?) rants against lascivious dancing and drugs at the University of California. I know, shocking, right?

It reminded me of the old Skinny Puppy song "Far Too Frail," from 1984's Remission. "For years, some people have argued that this kind of pornography is a matter of artistic creativity," Reagan says in the sample they used. (Apparently this was taken from remarks he made on child pornography.) Of course, Reagan was still president when Skinny Puppy recorded that album. That's what makes VAC's use of the sample a little more interesting and obscure, especially if you weren't alive then or you don't remember Reagan's presidency. (For the record, I was and I do--I'm old.)

And damn if it doesn't make you somehow nostalgic for the Gipper. Despite all the bad stuff he did (invade Grenada, authorize the Iran-Contra program, ignore the emerging AIDS pandemic, etc.), he was a gentleman and a scholar compared with President Monkey-Boy. Sheesh.

Also today:

78:22 Various artists, Metro Tekno
78:18 Terrorfakt, Reconstruction