Robbie Thomas
The One Year Anniversary
Yello and today is the one year anniversary of this blog. I intended to have a blog to keep my time away from social media down. I know 2020 would bring some pissy folks screaming and moaning about politics. Also, I wanted to have a presence with my own deal opposed to Facebook or Twitter. I also wanted to show folks some pictures and tell about the events and concerts I was going to.
Sadly, Covid-19 came to town and now this blog has more been about my personal life and some memories about my creativity. I did have plans for 2020, going to see Jim Norton for the 4th time, also seeing Kraftwerk this summer. A couple of Detroit Tigers games and also a couple of games Jimmy John’s Arena in Utica to see the Eastside Diamond Hoppers. Going to the Ren Fest and also Arts, Beats and Eats. Covid-19 totally gummed up the works.
Don’t get it wrong, Covid-19 is real, we need to be careful. However, for me, I get cabin fever like a motherfucker. Yesterday, I took the day off of work to deal with a dental issue. Getting back home, I was playing Diablo III, Super Mega Baseball III and Mutant League Football on my Switch. I’m beginning to get sick of video games. I think I’ll give being creative a try, but also, I want to spend less time watching TV or playing video games. Problem is, here in Michigan, we are somewhat back to the lockdown we had in March/April. We cannot do indoor dining but we can dine outdoors. I see their point with this deal, being indoors causes more risk for getting Covid-19, but now announcing we can dine outdoors while it begins to get cold in Michigan? It’s goofy.
Anyways, happy first anniversary to this blog here. I have an investing article coming up for the 4 or 5 people who take a look at this blog. Stay tuned!
My Time Doing Techno Music (The Story of Super Human Intelligence Towards Exile)
In 2002, I had created this “band” called Shite (later to be named Super Human intelligence Towards Exile). It was Techno mainly with Rave and Hip Hop added to it from time-to-time. Realistically, it was me taking made samples from Techno EJay, Rave EJay and Dance EJay and making songs through there with the stock sampling they have. About 10 percent of what was made in 2002 was samples or pieces made by me. The rest were specifically from those three programs. This is the cover of the very first Techno EJay here I bought at a Best Buy in Roseville, Michigan:
The problem with me from when I was seven years old until around Robin Williams’ suicide, I wanted to be famous in some way. How I wanted to be famous, as a musician or a musical artists of sorts. Yes, having a name called Shite wouldn’t work very well, but my then 19-20 year old retarded self was convinced otherwise. Before Techno EJay, I wanted to be famous as a heavy metal musician but I kinda sucked at the guitar and whatever times I got into bands in my teenage years, it didn’t work out. Although in 1999, I was a heavy metal/goth metal fan, I did like Techno music. One song I dug was Eiffel 65’s “Blue.” (It is considered a Euro Dance song, but fuck it).
In 2002ish, I decided I will make an album with the songs I made with Techno EJay 2 (I learned now that what I bought is #2 appearently), and I was able to get Rave EJay and Dance EJay later. I had this idea that I could sell copies of this on CD until I was told by another electronic musician that I would NOT be allowed to sell copies of a CD of music not really made by me. At that time in 2002, I was pissed off that I couldn’t profit from this and didn’t quite understand why I couldn’t. Of course I know now that you can’t just take other peoples samples and work and claim it as your own without permission and royalties. In Trailer Park Boys season 3, J-Roc gets in trouble with DVS (or DVD as Ricky referred to him) for sampling his work (along with other famous hip-hop artists).
Back in 2002, I wasn’t a white man attempting to be black and I also couldn’t get that kind of crowd with my music. I wasn’t a popular person in 2002.
Murder Monkeys (Or the S/T album)
So, later down the road when I accepted the idea that I cannot mass produce my stuff and attempt to make money, I turned to SoundClick and got going. I wanted to make an album 75+ minutes long and also have a song passing 25 minutes. My brother Paul contributed a track called 640. I did nine of the songs, Orgasm, Disfunction and Unbehave, Anything Far Away, Panzy, ?, Happiness, Indian Burial Ground, Unhappiness and Scary Shit. Anything Far Away, Happiness and Unhappiness were all done through Rave or Dance EJay, I cannot remember which one was made with which. ? (or Question Mark) was done with Techno EJay but I “borrowed” some samples from Dance and Rave EJay, along with RPG Maker 95+ sounds. In 2000, I made a comedy-based game called Misadventures in Unhappyland. Unhappyland and Unhappiness, I suppose I was trying to communicate something there, heh?
Orgasm was the most popular song and even a few fellow SoundClick artists did remixes of that song (with my permission). I also had it where people could use my songs however they wish. A local hip-hop/R&B station used the beginning of ? as a promo back in 2004. It was quite strange how I discovered it, one day I start my car up to see my dial is set at 105.9, I never at that time listened to that station, but I kept it on. Then, I heard that familiar intro of ? with a radio voice saying 105.9, while saying the call letters. WOW! I did the same with WishesNetwork vids and have the fictional WRQ used ? as their intro. Panzy was the 30-minute song (well, 27 minutes with the 3-minute silence). Happiness was supposed to be named Horny Bitch and Unhappiness was supposed to be named Funeral for the Horny Bitch. Happiness contains female vocals (from Rave or Dance EJay, don’t remember) and I ended the song with a gunshot, indicating that ‘horny bitch’ had been killed. And Funeral for the Horny Bitch would be the sad song that followed. Ultimately, I decided to take the gunshot sound off of the former and name it Happiness.
In case you are asking, why would I make a song called Horny Bitch and she ends up getting killed at the end of the song, followed by a unhappy song called Funeral for the Horny Bitch? All I can say was I was a very sad little shit in 2002. And a very lazy one. I lived the white trash life style, I was a 20-year-old ne’er-do-well that blamed others for my own mistakes. Nothing was ever my fault. In the majority of 2002, I was working part-time with family and hardly made any money. I had no car and had to borrow my mom or other people’s cars to get around. I almost smashed my mom’s car on the way to a job interview (didn’t get the job) in March 2002 when the Catholic Church crisis was exposed. Howard Stern pretending to be the Pope made me laugh until I nearly crashed into a car waiting on a green light, had to slam on the fucking brakes and missed by a god damn inch. It would be quite sad that your a 20-year-old man (heh-heh) and you have to tell your mom you totaled her car that you borrowed. Ugh, God I sucked.
Murder Monkeys or later the S/T album would get a cover to that album two years later in 2004. In 12 Jan 2004, I had a dream where very tall sphinx were chasing me around and saying, “Where’s my money, bitch?” The cover features a sphinx with a speech bubble asking that.
Bad Things Happen
2004-2006, I was very active with Shite and also made an ambient album with my name. In 2004, I made Bad Things Happen. It followed the same premise as Murder Monkeys, 10 songs and about 77 minutes long (opposed to 78). I did a remix of both Happiness and Unhappiness. I made two songs I’m now embarrassed by, Hoiler Than Thou and Song Four. Desipule was originally going to be on the previous, but for some reason I don’t know now, it wasn’t added to it. I did a rock song of sorts called ! (or Exclamation Point). It had my late friend Tim Schlicht suppling the guitar solo. The best song on there (my opinion and a few others) was the final 28-minute track called Panzy Two. I also had help from C.Reider of Vuzh Music and Breakbeat Paradise on this one, along with Paul helping me out. Bad Things Happen had about 66% of EJay samples while the other 34% were supplied by me and other folks. I also bought a Casio Keyboard and used the Spacepad sound for Panzy Two.
Up
Mid 2004-Early 2005, I get going with Up. I bought a couple of royalty-free discs from EJay via EBay and went forward with the 3rd ‘album.’ At this time, I was thinking making CD’s of my music was not so important and I knew that MP3s or other forms of digital music was going to takeover the whole ‘CD universe.’ Up was mainly dependent on the royalty-free discs while myself, Tim Schlicht, Pat Thrall (previously of Asia and Joe Satriani) and Paul helping out. It had such “great hits” as Aurora Borealis, Prop, Faceless Figure On Static TV (was #7 in the subgenre, surprised by that) and also the 13-minute track I did with Tim S, called Cancer Cell, did well.
Two songs I was proud of at that time was both OBE and Ghosts. I played Ghosts to a few people I worked with at the time and one of them said the song sucked. I was pissed at the guy nevertheless for saying that (back in 2005), and now in 2020, I agree, that song sucks. Ghosts and Cancer Cell had guitars in them and they were a little hardcore. But with Ghosts, I think I went a little too far with the noise and the high levels some of the sounds were, especially the Spacepad voice I often used quite a lot at that time. I did have a comment on my page from some Chicago DJ (sadly, not there anymore) that he liked Ghosts. Hmm, perhaps it wasn’t that bad.
The cover of Up had a picture of one of Paul’s friends making a funny face. Also, I temporarily named the “band” Vioxx. You can see the Vioxx logo on that pic when you look at the song links. Up did not have the 30-minute song, instead it had three songs going past 12 minutes. I did the same thing with Everyone Loves a Moron in 2008.
Clairvoyance / A Time Of Bliss
Released in October 2005, Clairvoyance did not use any EJay samples whatsoever and little from those Royalty-free discs. Clairvoyance is where I went Industrial. One of my deepest regrets of this ‘album’ was I made a song called Darkness & Whore, what in the motherfuck was I thinking? I really need to travel back to 2005 and kick my ass for that one. I think a cousin of mine made fun of me for that song title, don’t blame him now. Other songs include, Patrick’s Song, A Flight Into Purgatory, the title track and another regret, making Panzy 3 but splitting them into five tracks. Panzy 3a did get into the Soundclick charts while the others did not fare well. Panzy 3e was just a 45-second song where I just press and hold a keyboard key. How creative…
Another regret was the song People=Shit. I was very proud of that song at the time, but it really was a noisy song with high-pitched synths and overdubbed amateur guitar playing (by me). Also, at that time, I had a vision of making an animated music video where it bashed then-President George W. Bush. I didn’t have any money for that kind of project so that didn’t go through. Glad I didn’t, the idea was to have a animated band of three humans and two monsters playing. And behind them is a screen of George W. Bush often saying, “You’re a piece of shit.”
I know, not a good idea. That would’ve been a stupid-ass video. Good thing I was broke at that time. Clairvoyance had a friend named Will who was good at the guitar and helped with a couple of tracks, I also had help from a English guitarist who had samples available for Patrick’s Song.
A Time Of Bliss is a 59-minute song that has yet to be released on the internet. The song has spoken words by a computer voice similar to Microsoft Sam (he appeared on Panzy Two). I have no good copy of this song laying around (that I know of). If I find it, I may put it up on YouTube.
Everyone Loves A Moron
Shite went on hiatus in 2006 and I didn’t get back on the music making train until 2008. Everyone Loves A Moron features a picture of Paris Hilton crying in the back of a police car, a person I was seriously angry with at the time. ELAM was half techno, one-third Industrial and the rest Eurodance. I did have a couple male rappers who happen to be African-American who were interested in singing in two of the songs. However, I lacked cash money and they said no. Wasn’t so happy with that but I didn’t piss in moan over it. The album title track (which was one of the songs I wanted vocals in) didn’t chart, neither did Virgin Mofo. Blood, Guts, Gore and Nintendo did well, surprisingly Those Monsters Under Your Bed went on the top 10 of the Soundclick Industrial charts. It seemed that my Industrial songs did better than the Techno songs, and my Eurodance song Yah! (For The Germans) also did justice as well.
The Greener Passage
Shite went on hiatus again in late 2008 as I went through a very dark time and focused more on the Mourning In Hochington series. In 2009, I thought of returning to it due to me making some money and living in a roommate house allowed me to save a few bucks. I also decided to ‘acronym’ Shite to Super Human Intelligence Towards Exile. I didn’t get things cooking until May 2011, I was living in a crap-ass apartment in Roseville with a neighbor that had a barking dog. To annoy them back, I decided to reform this great band (heh-heh) and turn the fucking music up when making it. Serves them right, I was working midnights at the time and there was a couple of days where the dog would be barking in the morning while he left. I was up till 3pm trying to sleep due to that fucking dog barking.
The Greener Passage was cut short to 5 songs. I did intend to go for a full 75-minute album but due to a friends death and my willingness to go out and about more often, I ended Shite in late 2011 (despite me saying on the Soundclick site that it ended in 2012). All five songs I made got on the Soundclick charts with Playing With Fire making the topps. I was thinking the title track would take the lead but that wasn’t the case. Also, my strange horror song Hypoxia did well. That song I intended to annoy the neighbors with that track.
In late 2013, I made music again, only under the name Gold Taurus. I also had money to promote my music and I would see that a few songs did better than Shite or Super Human Intelligence Towards Exile ever did. I had two top 10 hits (on Soundclick, not Billboard sadly), with Dolphins at #3 and Nights Without Ambitions at #2. My other “minor hits” include, The Trouble In Runefast at #16 an Sadrith Mora at #11 in the Techno category. And at the time of writing this, my 15-minute dark ambient song Northeast Of Tenebrae was at #26 on the Ambient charts on Soundclick. I also used that song on EAS Zombies Part II.