Go Genre Everything

I saw Go Genre Everything for the first time at the ‘Dinosaur Show’. The Dinosaur Show was the event staged to launch the Go Genre Everything album Natural Disaster. It was in August 2004.

I didn’t see the faces of the members of the band, as they were hidden by Triceratops masks. Jen, on keyboard, drums and vocals, wore a tank top, shorts and running shoes; Zach, on guitar and vocals, a brown vinyl robe and plush reptile slipper feet. The sound was, as promised, enormous and jagged. The concert was staged with a backdrop of BBC artist’s-impression docu-fantasy land-before-time footage, and the kinetic experience was augmented with pregnant teenage acrobats flinging ping-pong balls and streamers, with one dancer teasing an orange in her hand the way David Bowie does with the crystal balls in Labyrinth.

Everything I knew about Go Genre Everything up to that point was based on hearsay. I knew little about the depth of the GGE experience. I had not met a subscriber to Go Genre Everything that I knew of; I didn’t know subscribers existed. Go Genre Everything were simply a conversation point on account of their immaculate ‘vibe’.

Go Genre Everything is a 2-piece band specialising in Audio Visual Human Communications. GGE is a non-profit organization characterized by a multipleperspective approach to creative work and the world that hosts it. As makers of music, the age-old human glue, Go Genre Everything employs sophisticated methods of promoting its work that balance a distaste for marketing with a necessity to publicise the GGE experience in order to register human response to the work and complete the artistic feedback loop.

Go Genre Everything is based in Melbourne, Australia. The two musicians of Go Genre Everything are Zach von Bamberger and Jen Tait. The Go Genre Everything Project also includes alleged staff Dieter Von Broumler, Cat Fridgelix, Christiana Heritage, Dark Black, Bitter Pink, Extavator Fraunchly and Dr Offchopsky Walters, offering support and advice in the areas of: External Relations and A.I.; Hyperbole and Pyrotechnics; Archiving; Spirituality; Hysteria/Mania; Costume and Atmospherics; and Humourology

All branches of Go Genre Everything operation are controlled by the two directors of the organisation, Jen and Zach. The things GGE make include concerts which attendees pay to see; free live performances in the street; zines and flyers; and a website which includes a login system for subscribers to GGE which allows them to download exclusive mp3 recordings of otherwise unreleased material. Much care is taken to ensure that ethical measures are employed wherever possible in the manufacture of GGE products. It is the wish of Go Genre Everything that activities of Go Genre Everything do not upset or disadvantage other people. The members of Go Genre Everything make it a priority to be polite and on time.

Go Genre Everything’s activities are bolstered by gusts of financial support from a group of dedicated subscribers to GGE. GGE offers annual subscription, with numerous benefits, to all people of the world. Not much is known about the common ground shared by GGE’s subscriber base, though it is evident that those who know about the band take delight in the fact that the performers and their activities are staunchly unusual.

The idea behind Go Genre Everything is for Zach and Jen to be as much themselves as possible. Together, Zach and Jen express concern that people who behave naturally seem to be a minority. Zach finds that these people tend to get into trouble, or are alienated by a majority who are unsettled by people who are being themselves. Zach and Jen have distinctive personal communication styles. While Zach takes a conversation from a molecular to a galactic level in seconds, wielding multiple digressions, wikipedia-style, Jen speaks cohesively and precisely, providing accessible reference points, with bursts of enthusiasm and alarm. These individual styles complement and elucidate one another, and add depth to the GGE vocabulary.

Gathering an audience
Go Genre Everything is an ‘underground’ phenomenon. At a Go Genre Everything concert, as with any performance, an audience is ideally both present and engaged. It is necessary for Go Genre Everything to promote its work and publicise its events to ensure that this happens. Promotion is done in various ways, through the following media: the Go Genre Everything website, printed promotional flyers, subscriber email invitations, word of mouth.

The majority of this information is in verbal form. Following the initial arousal of my interest in GGE, post my experience of the freshness and extravagance of the Dinosaur Show, it was the language of Go Genre Everything used in promotional material that became the source for my increasing fascination and deepening respect for GGE.

Promise
The name ‘Go Genre Everything’ promises action and diversity. Literal interpretation of this name can mean that people go to a Go Genre Everything concert expecting to be presented with a comedic pick‘n’mix of recognizable musical genre performances. Some have been surprised not to hear a pantomime love duet for example, followed by a death metal curse, a sea shanty, then a rap. GGE approaches style and genre in performance wryly, and surprise is an important element in the delivery of GGE media. Go Genre Everything’s tongue-in-cheek genre-labelling capabilities are continually being explored. Those documented to date include: post-psychotic android foxtrot, shit grammar emo-spore waltz neurosis, spew trance boot scoot, above ground gothic surf wave epoch, post bat cave blue note bag lady ragamuffin crumpet, and jet-set undead sci-fi romance. ‘Go Genre Everything’, through its name alone, promises to actively consider, embrace, and subvert all styles.

Control Centre
The Go Genre Everything Control Centre is GGE’s self-made, custom-built media distribution outlet, stationed on the world wide web. It offers a broad spectrum of GGE-related information including regular news updates, information on the history of GGE, an overview of the subscription concept, employment opportunities within the organization, mp3 files of songs for subscribers to download, and discussion on the nature of music’s presence in the world.

The ideas extended through the website’s information pages are able to generate feelings of scientific and cultural wonder, yet still be accessible to a person who is new to the band and their work. The accessibility is achieved through display of the information in a straightforward visual manner with little graphic manipulation, and through controlled utilisation of familiar conventions of language. The linguistic conventions used are appropriate to the topics being discussed. To encourage people to subscribe, the language used is down-the-line, no-nonsense and businesslike. The passage regarding not-for-profit usage in the MP3 download department is in extended and wordy ‘legalese’. The ‘Music’ page offers scientific and heartfelt anthropological rumination, and the references to entities of note on the ‘Links’ page offer sometimes tender and always sincere recommendation. The passages which embrace these stylistic conventions are integrated into a verbal navigation system which feels like a personal, conversational tour of the website. It is as though the members of GGE are talking you through the site, inviting you in, and making you feel at home.

Invitation
In written invitations to shows, GGE evades stylistic consistency and employs varying methods of persuasion. Language is used on occasion to challenge guests, and dare them into showing up and seeing them perform, as demonstrated in the aggressive tone of the following invitation to the community of GGE subscribers:

Alright youse. You want to check out whats on at the tote this thursday?
Underground rock and roll you creeps…
…Hey
Hey fuck you it’s Miss fist. Get on your knees and beg forgiveness!
If you’re lucky thats all you’ll get away with...
Miss Fist 10.15pm - 11pm
After that Miss Fist ain’t letting you off easy coz they’re getting all their Genre out with their best mates Go Genre Everything who
are gonna genre your genre till the crack of midnight...
GGE 11.30pm - 12.30am $5 on the door
Yaaaaargh!!!

while respect and sincerity characterize the invitation to see GGE play with Motor Vehicle Sundown at the Town Hall Hotel:

It has been a long time in the making. GGE are stoked beyond measure to make noise with a group of such integrity and style as Motor Vehicle Sundown. It is Difficult to know exactly what to say. It would be good to say thankyou to Mr O for fixing this event up. Also to thank Motor Vehicle Sundown just for keeping it together on that difficult road that is the path of personal desire and motivation. Meaning keeping the band together. It is always good to have music you can rely on. It is always good that the sound relates to the moments at hand, not the moments of half a generation ago. See you on thursday at the town hall hotel in north melbourne.

Rumour
The other way of learning about Go Genre Everything is through what other people say about them. Before I saw GGE for the first time, what I had heard was: “They are called Go Genre Everything; they are insane; they’ll clear the room; they are from Tasmania; their vibe is incredible; they don’t let you get off the phone; they don’t advertise their shows; they just let people know about them through Chinese Whispers”. I believed these claims before I knew Go Genre Everything, although I know now that there are varying levels of truth in what I was told.

Everything
Go Genre Everything is a large and involved operation for two people to captain. An enormous amount of energy is invested in the music of Go Genre Everything, and its paraphernalia. It is important that people are able to take part in the Go Genre Everything experience, and participation is ensured primarily through delivery of high quality, high empathy performance that encourages people to seek further contact with GGE. People are curious as to what will constitute their next interaction with Go Genre Everything, and GGE’s fantastic, slippery, caring and tough approach to promotion of its activities is integral to the frisson generated when people attend their shows. Zach and Jen oversee everything themselves, and keeping a firm hold on the reins of their own publicity means that they can control and avoid the feeling that they are manipulating or marketing people. People will always talk though, and after some initial hesitation, they have become more relaxed about delegation of control of GGErelated information distribution. They manage this with an awareness of the value of constant motion, curiosity, and being themselves, of changing perspectives, and of shifting truths, because it is the hazy division between what is really happening and what is fantasy that makes everything more stimulating and fun for those who come into contact with it.