This Is Masters of the Sonic Arts

So Spinal Tap parodied big hair metal, Tenacious D parodied disillusioned losers wanting to make big hair metal, and Flight of the Conchords parodied (and continue to parody) folk duos. There's also Christopher Guest's A Mighty Wind which basically covers the bases of any other sort of folk institution parody and there's CB4 to parody the Hip Hop genre.  

Parody is only effective when the subject of parody lacks self-awareness and as far musicians go, hair metal rockers win "the lack self-awareness in both in appearance and their egos" award by a landslide.  Exhibit A: Guns and Roses - Chinese Democracy.  Exhibit B:  My free Dr Pepper courtesy of Exhibit A.  Though gangsta rappers who've been shot 9 times and can still live to rap about it, come up a close 2nd.  Rappers who freak out at award shows are a distant 3rd.

There seems to be a gold mine that Hollywood (or HBO for that matter) hasn't touched.  The noise rocker.  Maybe it's because there is this subtle sense of self-awareness is us noise rockers (that's right, I'm one too).  Do we really believe that we are making sounds that only the truly gifted can understand?  I think so... At least, I think so enough to buy a bunch of effects pedals and an E-bow.  Or maybe I do.  I don't know.  I think I need to change my name to Quezecoatl Napoleon III and claim I'm from New Pangea first.  We'll see.

I really do take making noise rock seriously.  I think the Masters of the Sonic Arts are definitely a worthwhile endeavor (you can call us MOSA for short).  We take the music seriously (though much of it is unscripted), and the feedback so far has been quite positive.  But can I really go up there in a Bape t-shirt as Ryan Pak or do I need to go up there in a costume with an alter ego?  Will Ryan be accepted as a noise savant, or do I need to be someone much more pretentious like a Mortimer Ezekiel.  It's like Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend.  Would they be indie-darlings if his name was Billy Johnson and he wore a New York Islanders jersey all the time?   I know that he's using his real name but I think the same principal applies, which is why I think that noise rock will never fulfill their parody potential.

  

I think we're past the point of being full of ourselves.  I feel like we're trying to fit a mystique and that we can no longer create it.  There're no more crygasm bands, no more alter egos Ziggy Stardust, no flamboyant Freddy Mercury operatic singing, no more bat shit crazy Frank Zappa, and no more Slash guitar solos being filmed on the top of mountains.  It's just have Me and Ezra fitting our genres to a 'T'.