Dance Gavin Dance Band • Page 42

Jon Mess makes Bob Ross look like Tilian Pearson

 

That's something I noticed as well, even the songs that aren't the best on the album, there's at least one incredible vocal melody that makes it great!

 

Yeah, even Flossie Dickey Bounce and Petting Zoo Justice have something cool from Tilian between the madness.

 

DGD is doing an AMA on r/music today at 4:30EST!

 

I was going to make a Reddit account just for the DGD thing but someone already asked "Why isn't is it "Cocaine Christmas"?" So I'm good.

 

A friend of mine asked me for recommendations for instrumental music a while ago and I told her to listen to Tide Of Man - Young and Courageous and she really liked it. Then recently she told me that she'd discovered their stuff with Tilian and she really liked it(so I got really excited Obvi since I'm a Tilian fanboy) and told her to listen to DGD and she told me that she liked it too. And just now she messaged me after I'd mentioned Mothership many times to her she finally listened to it and said "wtf is a "cocaine Christmas" this band makes no sense""

 

The lyrics are the biggest reason I never recommend DGD to anyone. hahaha

 

idk, i showed petting zoo justice to a vet student and they were more than amused. just gotta play it right.

 

Alright so unpopular opinion but for the sake of discussion -- the lyrics in Lost never bothered me. I get how they can seem really problematic in the sense that it can be interpreted as a sort of "well why can't I use a slur" sentiment, but from first listen that's not how I interpreted it.

When I was younger and I'm sure like a lot of kids growing up through the turn of the century, I used "gay" as an insult or negative adjective but I've since learned from that (thankfully before I hit my teens -- would've made coming out even more confusing).

I took the lyrics in Lost to refer more to the way people are reacting nowadays to that kind of ignorance. This one time I saw a video of some kids using a homophobic slur and it got circulated on Twitter where far from trying to educate those kids and let them know that's it's not okay and why, people started attacking them personally. The overblown way that the lyrics describe a reaction to "a bad word" (he'll surely rot in hell, a menace to us all) and the fact that this is one of the relatively infrequent instances that the lyrics are in third person I think are why I initially interpreted it this way, probably compounded by my own experience, and reading interviews today where Will Swan said IG was heavily influenced by the culture of social media.

Anyway, sorry for the block of text but my point is, maybe give DGD the benefit of the doubt for this?

 

I guess I approach it from the view that there is no excuse for the use of slurs, and any use should be called out 100% of the time. Do people's views differ on what is a proportionate response? Of course, and I'm no different - sometimes social media goes way OTT with it's aggression towards people that make mistakes (i'll never forget that guy from some space program that wore that weird shirt on a TV interview - in his apology you could tell the social media response destroyed him and IMO was disproportionate to the mistake that was made).
But the lyrics to Lost just miss the mark totally. Aside from wondering what made them even consider writing lyrics on a topic like this anyway (let alone close their album with it?!), their stance appears to allude to the whole "witch hunt" debate. Here's my thought - there is no accidental use of slurs, under any context. They are damaging and should be stamped out ASAP, so there is no "witch hunt" when social media unloads on someone who uses them; the heat that person would catch would be justified. If the argument is that sometimes the persecution of those that use slurs is unfair, then it would help to remember that persecution could be avoided simply by not using slurs/hate speech in the first place.

TL;DR - their argument is a waste of everyone's time lol

 

I think it's really simplistic to ignore criticism of the way we address hate speech by saying "well you shouldn't have said it in the first place." Obviously. But we're not all born understanding the role that language plays in oppression, and we should be able to address the way we react to these situations.

I want to clarify that the way we treat people using slurs is not nearly as important as actually helping oppressed people. I'm repulsed by the use of slurs in every and any situation. I also don't take kindly to my words being referred to as a waste of time, particularly on a topic I think is fairly important, especially now that our culture is reaching a point where social justice is being discussed far more often in the mainstream, and these kinds of mistakes are put on blast constantly. I believe that the only way we as a society can purge our culture of ignorant and hateful speech is by creating a culture of education rather than one of public shaming and we're not going to be able to do that if we shrug it off because they deserved it. The motivation not to use slurs shouldn't be avoiding public embarrassment, it should come from a place of understanding and that's not going to happen unless we address the way we educate each other.

 

I'll address the part I bolded first:

I didn't make a single comment about your words at all - the "waste of time" part was referring to DGD's argument they were trying to make in the lyrics. Apologies if that's the way it came across but insulting your views was not the intention at all.

Secondly, I want to state that I agree that a culture of education is a very positive thing, and can agree with you that excessive public shaming takes away from that (as I attempted to convey in my 1st post; obviously not well enough, so my bad). However, education by itself will not work - I used to think exactly like you, almost to the word in your post, but this site & AP taught me things that developed my personal thoughts on it.

If we take just homophobic remarks as an example - as that's specifically what DGD refer to in 'Lost' - then you have to look at why people use them. Any word or comment that is used negatively towards homosexual people is done so to hurt them. No amount of education can prevent this - if someone calls a gay person a f****t, there is no other reason to use that word (or the multiple other homophobic slurs) other that to hurt the recipient. If a comedian makes a homophobic joke, the goal is to get people to laugh at homosexuals, even if the comedian is just trying to do it in a light-hearted, non-malicious way. In 2016, people have been educated enough to know that language that promotes homophobia, sexism & racism are bad. They know this. The reason people use them is because they hurt; there's no other possible use for slurs. That's why my sympathy only goes so far for people caught in a backlash for using them.

If that's too simplistic a view for some people to get behind then I understand. I work best when I simplify "moral" things down to a skeleton - i.e. just language in this instance. I know & appreciate the fact that public humiliation does little to nothing in deconstructing entire systematic biases against oppressed peoples. But that's all people like us can really hope to achieve - we as individuals aren't going to be able to bring homophobia to an end. These public humiliations at the very least show that use of these slurs will not go unpunished, which at least makes people aware that what they did was wrong and promotes personal accountability.

 

Sorry I misread your post and got all insulted! :/

I definitely think there's more nuance to the way slurs are used and I unfortunately don't think that everyone's privy to the kind of education we have. I think it really depends on the kind of people and environment you grow up around, because while online it feels like we're so past the point where we should have to educate each other not to use slurs, a lot of kids are still growing up in homophobic communities that normalize it and unlearning that behavior can be difficult. That said, DGD specifically are old enough to know better, but I'm not convinced of any interpretation of the lyrics, one way or another.

 

personally i think making slurs socially unacceptable is a good thing. second, i think its socially irresponsible to write a song that could easily be used as justification for using such slurs. where's the song condemning it? third, the onus of education is not on the people who are affected by the slurs. i shouldnt have to explain to someone why using ***got or gay as a slur is bad every single time i hear it. its daunting, its draining, its bad for my mental health.

 

I don't think the onus of education should be on those affected either, it should be a community effort. I am assuming that most people understand using slurs isn't okay and that those actually using them will be outliers. I don't take it upon myself to educate others unless I know them personally, which makes the number of times I have to do so thankfully pretty small, but I wouldn't ask or expect others to do so in any circumstance. If you already know interacting with that kind of ignorance isn't good for you, by all means don't touch it with a ten foot pole. I agree we should make the use of slurs very clearly unacceptable, what I'm interested in is doing so in a productive way.

I also don't take the lyrics that seriously to the point where I'd call it socially irresponsible. A homophobe will use anything to justify their homophobia, I don't think we should hold artists accountable for their art being interpreted that way, especially if there are other interpretations (even if I'm the only one entertaining them).

 

No worries at all, my post wasn't as clear as it could have been!!! My writing really goes to shit when i'm on the internet it seems - looking at it, you wouldn't think i'm educated to degree level & that essay writing was my specialty!

I do also agree with your point about the people you are around/environment you are in having an effect on the education you receive on topics like this. Say what you want about this site & AP, but it & it's users have had a profound effect on my education on social issues, and I know not everyone is lucky enough to be a member of a community like this!

This x100 to the bolded, and also wanted to note that it was literally you & Jason that (indirectly) taught me this important point when I was lurking a thread back on AP!!! You were calling someone out who was defending some bandmemers' use of a slur, so IMO that's proof that publicly condemning such language CAN have an educational effect.

 

"Lost" is easily their worst song to me. I'm in the minority in liking pretty much every album track they've released, but that song is just very underwhelming as a whole, and the first time I caught those lyrics I was very disappointed in the band.

That song aside, I think Tilian is a pretty bad lyricist but luckily lyrics aren't a huge factor in my enjoyment of music.

 

People keep bringing up Tilian as a horrendous lyricist, but are we forgetting JC's clunky af lines so soon?

 

None of the vocalists (clean or unclean) have been particularly good with lyrics. They've had good moments here and there but never anything consistent. I'd say Kurt had the most good moments though.

 

I can personally relate to Kurt's lyrics the most.

 

Johnny was obviously bad, his lyrics ranged from improvised nonsense to offensive sexual boasts. Tilian is usually just really cheesy.

Kurt was mostly good.

 

One time I was at this party thing that Mingus was at and he came and sat with me and my friend and I asked him what Jonny said at the bridge of Lemon Meringue Tie and he said no one in the band knows

 

"Improvised nonsense" is a very polite way of saying drunken rambling.

 

I asked my dad what he thought Jon was saying in "Flossie Dickey Bounce" and he said "Cocaine Christmas" so it's definitely Cocaine Christmas.

 

That's what I thought it was until I read the lyrics. I doubt anyone will hear that and initially think "cringe fest."