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Polluteme / Polluted Ezine / Features / The Fine Art of Band Bashing
The Fine Art of Band Bashing written by: Jacob Robison The internet has been both a Godsend and a pain in the ass for local bands all over the world. On one hand, the net makes it possible for someone in a country to listen to a band from a country thousands of miles away. But it also makes it possible for that same person to bash away at that same band if what they stand for doesn't quite measure up to par in that fan's mind. It's a catch twenty-two situation. And everybody knows that opinions are like assholes; everyone has one and the majority of them stink (and yes, this includes mine. I have a particularly stinky brand of opinion). There is no way on God's green earth that a band is going to please everybody, so it's inevitable that every band is going to take their fair share of criticism and bashing during their musical career (some more than others). It can rage from the mundane "These guys suck", to the more colorful "These guys suck more than a prostitute during a 'buy one blow job, get the second one free' promotion", to the downright nasty "These guys should get a different job cleaning up spooze at an all-night peep show because they will never get a record deal, even if they offered to take it up the ass from every employee at You Suck Records while fondling the owner's nuts". It's gonna happen whether you like it or not. That's the beauty of the net; free speech at it's finest. While I don't applaud or condone band bashing, I have to admit some of the things I've read on the net are worthy of praise merely for the writer's creativity. Some of the stuff made me double over in pain because I was laughing so hard. But I've also read some of the stupidest, retarded, third-grade mentality, ignorant shit ever conceived by a human being. Some of these people don't have a clue. I mean if you're going to take the time to bash a band, you should take the time to do it the right way (if there is a right way to bash a band). That's where this article comes in. By following these simple steps to bashing a band you'll be bashing away intelligently in no time at all. And I repeat, I don't condone bashing at all. So don't take this article to mean it's open season for band bashing here on Polluteme.com...but I was raised to believe that if you're going to do something you might as well do it right. The absolute first thing that you must do before you began your bashing frenzy is pick a cool ass name. Something flashy, yet subtle; trashy, yet respectable...anything that you want. But before you go and write down the first thing that comes to your mind however, there are a couple of guidelines to follow while picking out your name: make sure you can spell it correctly. The absolute worse thing that you could do is misspell your own net name. No one will take you seriously after that. The second thing, make sure your name isn't taken by someone else. Only pussies and assholes would post using someone else's name (and yeah, this is referring to the asshole who used Surfacing's name to keep some bullshit going. You've got no balls man). Some good examples of net names that you have my permission to use: Midget Lover, IHateU, USuckNutz, and my personal favorite, UguyzRdorks. Some names that you can use that pretty much suck worse than the band you're about to bash: Jism Lover, SpoozeinyourI, and IgiveHead4Free. Take your time while picking out a name. It represents you more than you know. We still have a couple things to talk about before we start in with the bashing. The first thing to remember when beginning to bash a band is how to spell. Nothing pisses me off more to read a post full of misspelled words. It's just not American. Example: "I seen yur band thee oder day, an I jus wanned to say tat you guys realy realy suk. Yur musik maks me vommit, and I tink yur singger iss gay." Did anyone else have to vomit after reading that miserable excuse for spelling? Writing that sentence just made my spell checker quit working. If you're going to insult someone's life and music, you might as well make it to where they can understand what the hell you're trying to say. Besides, who the hell is going to listen to someone who can't even spell music right? Don't worry if you can't spell very good, though; you too can bash away with a little bit of work. I suggest avoiding words longer than six letters long for starters. Big words such as dandruff and cornhole can be tricky, so it's best to avoid them. Another thing you can do is get someone else to write the post for you and then write your name on it. Just don't tell anyone, because if the word gets out that you're a complete moron you'll never hear the end of it. You can also practice writing before you get online and make an ass of yourself too. And yet another helpful suggestion is to go back to school and finish out elementary school. Anything to learn how to spell better. The next thing I'm going to touch on in learning how to bash properly is one of my biggest pet peeves...fuckers who write in all capital letters. Every time I see a post full of capital letters I'm tempted to jump out of my window onto a road full of broken glass, and then take a quick dip in some rubbing alcohol. It really, really pisses me off. I mean, do you not know what the shift button on your keyboard is for? I HATE PEOPLE WHO WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!!! God it's so annoying. It makes going to a Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys concert while tripping a ten-strip of high grade acid pale in comparison (then again, that could be because I'm a writer). Here's a typing lesson from yours truly: first of all, turn off your caps lock key...Good boy. Now use your pinky finger and press the shift key, and at the same time press any letter key. Did you notice what happened? You made a capital letter. Good job. Now take your pinky finger off the shift key, and keep typing. Sweet. Did you see how easy that was? You just wrote a proper sentence utilizing both capital letters and lowercase letters. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it will keep me from going bananas reading your posts. My sanity will thank you. Now that we've talked about spelling and typing correctly, the only thing left to discuss is the actual post itself. This is the fun stuff right here. We're going to go ahead and assume that you already know the band that you're going to be bashing, so we can skip that part. Next thing to do is think of something creative to say. I mean, there are only so many times you can say someone sucks before it gets old. Thinking before you write can save yourself a lot of embarrassment, and it makes a good read for everyone who's going to read it. Don't be afraid to explore the inner depths of your imagination either. If you find yourself in the middle of a brain fart a good thing to do is read some other posts to get a good feel for it. Break out some old school bashing and go straight for the jugular. Then again, if you can't think of anything good to say you can always cuss them out up and down. That happens to be a very popular form of bashing nowadays, especially with the nonspelling portion of the online community. Four and five letter words are right up their alley. I'm not a big fan of this method of bashing though. Any idiot with a keyboard can cuss someone out; it takes a true bash master to bash a band without cussing one single time. A really interesting bashing method being pioneered by veteran basher The Boston Strangler is the use of free webspace to create web pages for bands that suck in his opinion. So far he's done pages for Krakt, Fliptop and Pushrod (he could have done more though; these are the only ones I'm aware of). From what I've seen the layout to their pages are really basic, but the point gets across anyhow. If you want to go this route you can get free webspace from pretty much anywhere on the net; Geocities and Angelfire are two places to look first. You can use any basic page maker to upload anything you want to. After you've constructed your page, the last thing to do is advertise the address at popular locations and watch your hit counter go up. That basically covers the fine art of bashing a band. I hope this article is of use to you, or you at least found it entertaining. Just try and remember a few things for me before you begin your bashing career though. Believe it or not, there are actual people on the other end of the stick. I'm talking about the musicians in the band itself. And believe it or not, they're just like you in pretty much every way; they have feelings and emotions too. They're probably not going to like it very much when they read what you have to say. They've devoted a lot of time and energy into creating something out of nothing. That in and of itself at least deserves some measure of respect, because creating music is not an easy thing to do. If it were easy then everyone would be doing it, right? Also, imagine if the roles were reversed and you were the one getting bashed. Bet it wouldn't be much fun then, now would it? Like I said, I really don't condone band bashing myself. I think it's immature and pointless, and not really worth my time. I have better things to do than come up with ways of putting other people's dreams down just to make myself look better. But if you feel the itch to bash a band feel free to scratch away. |
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