What Lies Encoded

You'll recall I was at a concert recently that really did a number on my hearing for a bit. It was a good time, to be sure. I was there with some friends, one of whom was taking pictures for the venue. Well, a gentleman got the idea that that we were affiliated with some major media outlet. Specifically, he asked if we were with a magazine. Of course, I over-thought the question. I should have flatly said no, but because I equivocated (on account of the answer not seeming so cut and dried), he insisted on giving me a CD with his band's music on it.

I would just as soon he not have. Just how am I to do him and his comrades any good if I like it? You see, I have not yet listened to the thing. I mean to. I meant to that very night. I couldn't, of course. My ears were ringing so badly I could barely tolerate silence. I felt like Roderick Usher or something. That being the case, this guy's CD was going to have to wait. Perhaps in the morning, I thought, I'll be able to give it a fair hearing, for whatever that's worth.


The packaging doesn't deeply inspire me. It's a blank CD-R with the name of the band written in Sharpie. The disc is in a plain, transparent case, on which has been applied a sticker containing what I gather to be the band's logo. It's vulgar, but I suppose one should expect nothing less from a band anywhere on the dial between punk and metal. Still, it's a bit puzzling to me. I don't know that their logo of a claw hammer poised to smash excrement will yield the effect they desire.

Even so, I do intend to listen to the thing. Maybe it won't be any good, but it might be good after all. There's nothing I like more than liking something other people don't like or even don't know about. I'm no hipster, mind you, but I do like being on something of a different wavelength from everyone else. With my luck though, these guys will be terrible or they'll be discovered rapidly. Most likely, they'll be terrible and be discovered rapidly.