2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla & Feed Publisher http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310112#Comment_310112 2011-09-23T19:23:29-07:00 2011-09-23T21:43:54-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

Let's talk about the nineties. Celan brought up the point that this might devolve into an issue of personal taste and subjective memory, but I'm not certain that's a bad thing - instead of trying ...

Celan brought up the point that this might devolve into an issue of personal taste and subjective memory, but I'm not certain that's a bad thing - instead of trying to prove objectively whether the nineties were a good or bad decade (for culture, technology, art, whatever), let's just talk about how we each experienced the 90s, the good, the bad, and the ugly, all together.

To start us off, I'm going to say right now that if you haven't read Joshua Ellis' essay Children By the Millions Wait for Alex Chilton, you really should. 1) Because it's directly relevant to what we'll be talking about here, and 2) it's just a damn good essay. I'm gonna go re-read it as soon as I post this.

I also think it's sorta funny that this topic was brought up, originally in the Ask Whitechapel thread, just after REM announced their dissolution and Nirvana's Nevermind album had it's 20th birthday.

So, everything's open for discussion here, I say - examination of 90's music, clothes, cars (I agree for the most part that the 90's weren't a great time for automotive innovation, but there were a few gems that I want to bring up), and maybe some personal stories (with Lord Master Spurrier's usual story rules applying here, of course) of how you made it out of the 90's alive. I think the 90's have been dead long enough that we can all examine it through the eyes of history as well as nostalgia, and I'd be interested to see what happens when we try to combine the two. I grew up in the 90's, but I grew up mostly isolated from everything that was going on at the time, and I missed a lot of the good shit. So tell me, Whitechapel...

What did the 1990's do for, to, or with you?]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310114#Comment_310114 2011-09-23T19:48:29-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 oldhat http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=75

The 90s...man. I WILL post on here a few times. I guarantee. I was born in '84, so I entered grade 1 in 1990 and started to comprehend things a bit stronger than I did in the 80s (although I still ...

A lot of things stuck out for me, most of which I'll talk about later, but I really want to address the animation aspect, which is what had a particular impact on me.

Although we didn't get it up here in Canada, my dad's contacts allowed us to get mixed VHS shows from the likes of Disney, Nickelodeon and MTV. Good 'ol Nick and MTV, of course, were HUGELY in their prime and, to me, way ahead of their time when it came to animated entertainment. With Nickelodeon boasting shows like Ren & Stimpy, Ahhhh! Real Monsters and Rocko's Modern Life, I really had to give credit to this company for encouraging a beautiful sense of innocent chaos to bloom in my imagination. But MTV...well. Never mind shows like The Maxx, Beavis & Butthead and The Head, which came later for me. My SHOW was the great Liquid Television. Where Nickelodeon gave me the innocent chaos, with fun-loving cartoon characters not really meaning any harm, Liquid Television brought forth an animated world with a knife's edge to it. Something that showed the dark side of things. But it had a beauty to it. Shorts like Aeon Flux taught me that in this day and age a story can still be taught with no dialogue whatsoever and the messages can be as deep in animation as they are in films and music.

Here's the Aeon Flux short that particularly impacted 7 year-old Robin. It's called War.


It had it's silly side as well. And of course what made the show great is (as I later learned) a lot of great animators got their start on Liquid Television doing either a regular short or a one-off. For instance John R. Dilworth, creator of the amazing show Courage the Cowardly Dog, first had a spot on Liquid Television. Here's Smart Talk With Raisin (note that the dog Hamilton is the start of what would become Courage):



So that's one of many things that the 90s introduced to me.

Yeah.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310115#Comment_310115 2011-09-23T19:56:56-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Fishelle http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=8854

I was born in January of 1990. (I promise you're not as old as that sentence probably makes you feel.) I spent most of my first 10 years (and beyond) playing Barbies. It was a good time for Barbies. ...

And I didn't discover in until much later, but, well, the 90's had Twin Peaks.

As far as art and entertainment generally goes, I didn't really know the difference as a kid. I watched anything that played on our tv, from Aurthur to General Hospital. I wasn't too picky really. I didn't read comics back then, since I didn't have a store of them anywhere close. I listened to lots of crap music perfectly happily. Most kids do, it seems.

It was a fine time for me, but it was my childhood. And that's always the time people look back on and remember things being simpler, right? No matter what the time actually is like, it seems easier and better when you look back on what the world was like at 8.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310118#Comment_310118 2011-09-23T20:23:38-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 tedcroland http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2106

@oldhat Fuck yeah Liquid Television! THE HEAD!! The nineties, for me, was bad comics (that I loved), great cartoons, terrible movies, and music I would later fawn over in High School. The ...

The nineties, for me, was bad comics (that I loved), great cartoons, terrible movies, and music I would later fawn over in High School. The aforementioned Rocko, AAAH!! Real Monsters, along with Doug, and others. Fox Kids Saturday Morning was my shit: Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman, The Tick, Animaniacs...then when a bunch of that moved to WB we got Freakazoid! and Pinky and the Brain, and tons more.

This is just a nostalgia thread, right? Being ages 4-13 in the nineties makes me have few emotions associated with it, but my nostalgia bone hits hard for that stuff.

Oh, yeah, and this:

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310119#Comment_310119 2011-09-23T20:33:04-07:00 2011-09-23T20:34:57-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

Oh, man. oldhat got it in one - the 90's were such a good time for TV animation. The quality, artistry, storytelling, and voice acting were all amazing, and even shows that didn't have to be anything ...

No discussion of 90's animation would be complete, I think, without talking about the Batman animated series. I mean, just look at this:

Two Face's Origin

That is some frightening, smart stuff, considering it's a cartoon about what most people thought of as a kid-friendly superhero. Before the Animated series, most people's vision of Batman came from the 60's Adam West show - yeah, there was 1986's The Dark Knight Returns, but while that got more attention that most comics, I don't think it had the wide appeal that the animated series did, and for my money, there were episodes of B:TAS that were in a lot of ways darker and better-told stories than even The Dark Knight Returns.

Of course, we got the best of both worlds with Tales of the Dark Knight

This was what came on TV almost every day after I got home from school, and my mom had kind of a weird opinion about it - she told me on a few occasions that she was worried it would warp my brain, but it was ALSO the only TV she'd let me watch before I did my homework. I think even she knew there was something interesting, something fulfilling, happening with that show. You also had stuff like the X-Men cartoon, which while not nearly as dark, quirky or brainy as Batman, still had a LOT more going on than anyone would have expected, including some interesting examinations about social responsibility.

Of course, you've also got, as oldhat mentioned, things like Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead, Daria, Rocko's Modern Life, animation that went straight for the 20-somethings, declaring outright that TV cartoons could be for ANYONE. That, I think, was a huge leap forward, and if those shows had not been as successful as they were, I'm willing to bet we wouldn't have shows like The Venture Bros. These shows which, on the surface looked no smarter than a fart joke, became voices to the people who watched them, rallying points for a counterculture that was practically defined by its apathy. That's a pretty impressive feat, if you ask me. Even today, if I'm hanging out with a bunch of people I don't know that well, doing a Butthead laugh or telling someone they're lucky they don't allow hanging in O-Town, is a pretty good test to see if I will get along with these people.

Consider also that Disney was pushing the boundaries of what an animated feature film could be around this time, too, with things like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. We look at the 30's and 40's as animation's golden age, but the 90's were more than even just a silver age - I think they were something entirely new, and its effects on the art form and industry have yet to fully surface.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310120#Comment_310120 2011-09-23T20:44:39-07:00 2011-09-23T20:51:07-07:00 StefanJ http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=961

I'm old folks. I was in Vietnam War protests, albeit in a stroller. I watched the moon landings live. In some ways the nineties seem like yesterday. First half of the nineties I was living in ...

In some ways the nineties seem like yesterday.

First half of the nineties I was living in my parents basement, yet traveling and seeing stuff and doing stuff I'd never done before. I was working as a freelance sales trainer and trade show guy.

The last half of the nineties, I was at a incredibly demanding grade school, and then moved to SILICON FRICKING VALLEY. Dot-com paper millionaire ulcer burnout track career time.

So, I was pretty damn busy. I missed out on a lot of cultural stuff, especially music. Clothing? I'm a nerd. Jeans and polo shirts and sometimes a T-shirt.

I was very, very attuned to the whole birth of the information superhighway / cyberspace thing. I felt like I was right on the edge of the edge of things. Not quite involved, but close enough to get an idea of what could be coming. A Secret Service raid on one of my publishers led to the creation of the EFF; I went to lectures and author readings. Heady times. Too bad the Global Village turned into Pottersville real fast.

Oldhat brings up the animation renaissance. Oh, yeah, I was in my thirties, but did catch on to that, as did my old-school college SF club friends. We grew up watching Hanna-Barbera crap, and here Hanna-Barbera was suddenly turning out COOL stuff. (The rumor was that the younger H-B animators went down the street to Spumco after hours to work for free on Ren and Stimpy for the sheer pleasure of working on wild stuff.) And then all that crazy sick shit on Liquid Television, and those goofy, joyous, WB shows.

EDIT: BATMAN! Wow. You know, not the best animation, and the noir style was kind of pasted on, but WOW, what stories!What characters! I remember slouching on the couch watching "Silicon Soul" when then sixty-something mom came in. (The folks weren't AROUND a lot, they travelled even more than me.) She sat down and got right into that show.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310125#Comment_310125 2011-09-23T21:17:32-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 William Joseph Dunn http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2798

"...Radiohead announced their dissolution..." what? you mean REM?

"...Radiohead announced their dissolution..."

what? you mean REM?]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310126#Comment_310126 2011-09-23T21:43:32-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

Okay, forgive me in advance Whitechapel, but... I'm gonna talk about cars for a little while. Now, okay, 90's cars, most of 'em? Sucked. Yep. No arguments there. And not even "they weren't ...

Now, okay, 90's cars, most of 'em? Sucked. Yep. No arguments there. And not even "they weren't cool," or "they had no soul," I mean most cars from the 90's were rustbuckets a year after they went home with some sucker, and while certain things like brakes and safety features did improve, the engines were lowest-common-denominator drek, the newfangled computer systems often didn't work right, if at all, and there's a lot of evidence out there that hybrids and even full-on electric cars were totally feasible in the 90's, but simply weren't put into production, weren't even LOOKED INTO, by almost all car companies.

Now, if you WANT to talk about coolness, bah. Even the MUSTANG wasn't all that cool in the 90's, and if you can't count on the Ford Mustang to be cool, who can you count on? The Europeans were making some cool stuff, particularly Lamborghini, but (and forgive me, again, for this) while the Lamb was sexy as hell, it's always been, to me, American cars that have to most spirit, the most iconic and powerful look and feel of all the regional auto designs. And we just simply fell down on the job, in that respect.

But then... then, Dodge said "Let There Be Viper."



What started out as an homage to the Shelby AC Cobra became perhaps the 90's most iconic car, and one of the coolest muscle cars ever built. Some mad genius at Dodge said "let's take something that looks like a 70's-era pony car had hot, sweaty, oily sex with a Ferrari, and then let's open the hood and drop a V-10 aluminum truck engine into it, give it tires that would look right at home on a tractor, and do everything in our power to make sure that when this car's engine revs to life, toupees get blown off, underpants disintegrate, and marriages are saved." And, for what they were built to be, these were GOOD CARS. Fast, fun, reliable, relatively safe, and not so finicky that you had to call in a specialist to have them worked on.

The thing I love about the Viper is that it wasn't an update of an old design, it wasn't an attempt to play off the nostalgia and romance of cars from decades long past, like the Mustang and a lot of other crap sport and muscle cars from the 90's were. Yes, Dodge got their ideas for it from the Cobra (the inspiration is as obvious as the car's name), but it was a brand-new design that will always be a car of that decade, in the same way the Mustang will always be a car of the 60's. You think 90's muscle, and you think Viper.

I'm not gonna spend TOO much time on this next one, but it has a special place in my heart, and I would be remiss not to mention it. The Jeep Cherokee, widely considered the first real sport utility vehicle, was everything SUVs were initially meant to be, and nothing they weren't - whenever I see some absurd monster like the Lincoln Navigator or the Hummer (another product of the 90s, though not one I'm as enthusiastic about... actually, not enthusiastic about them AT ALL), I shake my head, and think back on the Cherokee. Now, why does this car mean so much to me? My first car was a 1993 Grand Cherokee Limited, and I could not have asked for a better one. Easy to drive, reliable, easy to fix, tougher than a Soviet Tank, precisely the right amount of space that I needed to haul most of my life back and forth from Iowa to Georgia (where I went to school from 2006-2010), and for such a big, unwieldy-looking thing, she was an absolute dream to drive. Where most cars from the 90s were made of cheap, flimsy parts, which often weren't produced in enough numbers to order replacements, my Cherokee (the "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy," as she was called - I was big into Iain M. Banks at the time, so she got a name that could have belonged to a Culture starship) almost never broke down, and when she did, my dad and I could perform most of the repairs ourselves, with rarely more complicated tools than a few wrenches and an oil rag.



This car could almost BE The Prophecy, except for the hubcaps.

I miss that car, and I miss the design philosophy that went with it - an SUV built without any frills or bullshit, a car that would be kind and forgiving to its driver, that would carry a decent amount of freight, and would perform well in nearly any road condition. Even the new Cherokees have given in to the 'roid rage of SUVs lately - I remember a time when such beasts were looked upon with shame, and a car was judged on its power, its reliability, and its (yes, stay with me here) personality, and not on how loud its speakers could thump, or whether or not the seats came with heated, vibrating pleasure nubs. The Cherokee needed nothing but clean lines, a dark, subdued paintjob, and a small, contended grin on her grille. She was simple, and that was what made her beautiful.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310127#Comment_310127 2011-09-23T21:44:31-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

what? you mean REM? Or... yeah, that. *Edit* Oooops.

what? you mean REM?

Or... yeah, that. *Edit* Oooops.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310128#Comment_310128 2011-09-23T21:51:23-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 BrianMowrey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1709

it's so weird to read you feminizing that Cherokee, and yet it gives me a lot to think about.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310130#Comment_310130 2011-09-23T21:57:36-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 mercurialblonde http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2444

I was born in 82 so the 90s were the bulk of my development/conscious youth. It was sort of a mixture of nine inch nails t-shirts, sneaking over to my friends to listen to Biggie Smalls Ready to Die ...

Aeon Flux and the Maxx were two shows that sort of happened like as if in a dream. I was addicted to the X-men cartoons.

And I got to see a president impeached over a blow job.

Oh also I strongly remember Montell Jordan's "this is how we do it" video.

I think we've had our 90s hating buffer period incidentally--and that in the next few years, the 90s are going to be cool again.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310131#Comment_310131 2011-09-23T21:57:45-07:00 2011-09-23T21:58:21-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

@BrianMowrey I will happily admit to being THAT WEIRDO who gives his cars girl names and talks to them softly as he drives. I cried over that car at least three times that I can remember. She was ...

I will happily admit to being THAT WEIRDO who gives his cars girl names and talks to them softly as he drives. I cried over that car at least three times that I can remember. She was 14 years old when she finally died, which means she'd been in our family as long as my youngest sister. Even before I started driving her, when she belonged to my dad, I still thought she was the coolest thing on four wheels. I grew up with that car.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310132#Comment_310132 2011-09-23T21:59:13-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 government spy http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6088

Man the 90's was my decade. I was born in '79, so by 90, I was 11, and by '99 I was 20. The 90's made me a man. That's where I learned about music in general (I was a grunge kid, with the long ...

I left out high school completely, but you all can imagine I'm sure.

By '99 I learned what it was like to find morphine or heroin mixed with your weed, watched crack destroy my father, lived in a car and later a crackhouse (though I never touched the stuff), been a roadie, a couch surfer, and off and on homeless.

At some point I joined the swing dancing craze... somehow that sticks out a lot...

Yeah the nineties completely whooped my ass. But they made me the man I am today.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310135#Comment_310135 2011-09-23T22:13:41-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

Standup comedy in the 90's. I'm just gonna say one name, alright? Most of you know exactly who I'm gonna say, but for those who don't, well... here you go, ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Bill Hicks

I'm just gonna say one name, alright? Most of you know exactly who I'm gonna say, but for those who don't, well... here you go, ladies and gentlemen:

Mr. Bill Hicks]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310146#Comment_310146 2011-09-23T23:18:06-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 razrangel http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2075

REM brings thoughts about the 90s? Ok. Sorry Fishelle, you will not take away my need to feel old when someone with all the adult worries you carry around declares she is 13 years younger than ...

Sorry Fishelle, you will not take away my need to feel old when someone with all the adult worries you carry around declares she is 13 years younger than me. *sigh*

First half of the 90s = high school. Second half = college. Put them together, shake them a bit, add ice and dried red pepper and you have the heady, necessary disaster of my formative years.

Before I forget - Amen to cartoons! I refused to outgrow them! Just when some shows and some toon blocks were getting too immature for me, along came the Dark Knight and Gargoyles to smarten the place up a bit. Just when characters were a little staid and stuffy, there was Peter Pan and the Pirates with Tim fucking Curry as Captain Hook. just when cartoons weren't speaking to my crazed sense of social positioning, along came the Beavis and Butthead spinoff, Daria. And THEN someone introduced me to anime, by way of Cowboy Bebop. (Reintroduced? I'd already watched Robotech and Voltron and several others a decade earlier.)

But back to music and other such markers of the times: I have a theory that there's a sort of soft programming in the late teenage mind that leads it to glom onto whatever music that speaks to looking for an identity and finding most of the usual offerings severely lacking. In the end, it's probably just me (and the millions of other rock fans - by which I mean, excluding the zillions of hiphop, R&B and top 40 fans), but I couldn't stand love songs, I couldn't stand songs about chest beating "Yo! I'm the best, the rest of you is just muthas who wish they was as great as me!" I couldn't stand pretty much anything that wasn't playing on the local alternative rock station. The exception to this was the jazz station, but at the time it was taking a distinct second place to alternative rock.

1. In the early 90s there was a sort of rock to which alternative rock was actually a distinct option. Hair metal, the dying vestiges of glam, and disco-infused I-don't-even-know-what-the-hell was still around, along with "mainstream" acts like Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top, etc. Blue jeans and hair spray and very, very red-blooded American.
2. In Los Angeles, and throughout most of Southern California, the juggernaut radio station was KROQ. Back then it was the alternative. (Today not so much...we need a new alternative. And maybe I'll win the lottery and get a pony.) They played the new wave acts, kept spinning the British rockers - Cure, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode - and played the more accessible acts of industrial rock - Nine Inch Nails, some Ministry. Fearless singers were featured - Tori Amos, PJ Harvey - and every now and then a kind of love song would get through my angst by dint of its ability to say something old in a new and profound way (see ref Portisehead). At lunch Richard Blade spun favorite tunes from the 80s and on Sunday evenings Rodney on the Roq would play little known bands that he earnestly believed in. Of course, he notoriously hated the 90s, but still he played No Doubt, Hole and Sonic Youth among many others.
2b. As well as music, KROQ had a nightly show called Lovelines where people could call in and ask (usually) sex or drug related questions and a DJ and a doctor would answer them. they were frank about safe sex, blunt about the impact of hard drugs and seemed genuine in trying to keep people from hurting themselves. For me this was huge as Lovelines made sure I got to college knowing how to drink (eat, keep up water intake, etc). Freshman year would have been an even bigger disaster without knowing this.
3. Living in/near LA with such an important station meant that it wasn't hard to get to events that featured acts I really wanted to see. In person, I saw professionals do their damnedest to mix doing what they loved with running their business. I haven't figured out the mix yet for myself, but it let me know it wasn't a hopeless romantic scheme to think I could do the same.

Internet: There are books upon books on the impact of the Internet, and my typing here to you beautiful strangers is a direct consequence of it. I have NO FUCKING IDEA who I would be or how I would get along without the Internet. Hell, the fucking thing has probably saved my life more than once. When I was a kid I was called shy and I didn't want to argue with the label but I didn't quite agree. I just didn't know what to say and I hated being interrupted and just wasn't good with the chaos of communication that comes with what normal people call speaking in social settings. As an adult I came to learn this is called social anxiety and that as an introvert I'm hardwired to want to wait and get the lay of the land, so to speak, before talking. (Never mind that I learned all of this by researching ON THE INTERNET.)

But anyway, my freshman year one of my roommates showed me how to use my email and introduced me to this computer-based process called IRC. And I was off to the races. I could talk without feeling like I was being interrupted. I could hold my peace until I had constructed my speech exactly as I wanted it. I could listen or not listen to people; I could talk or not talk; I could go off for ages about subjects I wanted to talk about...someone would be around to listen. Best of all I could hide behind a nickname. Best of motherfucking all, I could just be a mind. Without a body, without a gender, without an age, without a life - just intelligence. It was my childhood dream come true. I could be "nobody" and I could speak for myself exactly as I pleased.

I dove in without knowing thing about hacker culture, without having read any of the prominent scifi, without anything. And reaching people far away was how I became comfortable with who I was here and now. Well, sort of. Crippling depression did find me, from time to time. But then I could retreat into virtual space and say what was on my mind without listening to someone freak out over me or bore their eyes into me or something.

Fuck, sometimes it feels like the Internet was handcrafted for people like me.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310148#Comment_310148 2011-09-23T23:25:18-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 oldhat http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=75

Thank god someone else remembers Peter Pan & The Pirates.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310153#Comment_310153 2011-09-23T23:46:09-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 razrangel http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2075

Oh - also, X-Files. And the first Matrix movie.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310171#Comment_310171 2011-09-24T06:51:00-07:00 2011-09-24T06:56:57-07:00 BrianMowrey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1709

No, this thread isn't just for nostalgia! We can also address problems. So, the moving pictures Movies: in the ASK thread, I said that 'if you unexisted all the Hollywood movies from the 90s, ...

just for nostalgia! We can also address problems.

So, the moving pictures

Movies: in the ASK thread, I said that 'if you unexisted all the Hollywood movies from the 90s, you would lose ten good ones.' good might be better phrased as essential, as offering something you couldn't get just from asking three smart people today to spend one day bullshitting a story. I stand by the number! Movies were afraid to be quiet and create resonant moments of awareness of grace! Rage!

Then I said of TV, the 90s were tame and docile -- compared to previous decades where American TV pushed boundaries outward, 90s TV kept it's head behind its fists. Stop auto correcting i-t-s, iPod! As an example of how stuff used to be raw, I namedropped Kaufman's cussing out his wrestler friend on Letterman. YouTube it.

However! You'll unexist 90s TV over my significantly bruised body! Safe is not bad, and there was a lot of great stuff in the safe realm. Northern Exposure, vintage ER, MST3K, first gen Futurama, on and on. (Northern Exposure had quiet, resonent moments of an awareness of grace). And as we have seen in this thread, cartoons in general were a life preserver amid TV's general dearth of good shit.

But what TV in the 90s could not deliver is the things we take for granted today: long-form storytelling that requires sustained attention from the audience over multiple episodes (see: the quick clean death of EZ Streets), underplayed humor based on gestures (look at how half the laughs in the new season premier of Parks and Recreation come from half-pauses and half-second facial expressions: until Sorkin, nothing even resembling this happened in the 90s -- in the 90s we still had laugh tracks). The state of the tech had a lot to do with it, yes. TVs still were low res and no one would see muted facial expressions. But the state of the tech doesn't explain why there was not yet anything like The Shield or The Sopranos (started in 99): cable TV was widespread, these stations were already in people's homes! Cultural unwillingness to accept edginess is what explains those shows not happening for an entire ten year stretch when the groundwork had already been laid by 1990.

Lastly cinematography: and while we're at it, photography. somewhere around 1984 it was decided that video and pictures should never again have color filters and let's make movies that look like the evening news. Thank god we got over that in the 2000s; or rather in 99 with Fight Club and The Matrix]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310176#Comment_310176 2011-09-24T07:50:37-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

Wow. Memory lane... I was 16 when the nineties started, and on a skiing trip in Italy. I came back with my sister on about the 2nd of Jan to find my grandmother had died on New Year's Eve. So it ...

I was 16 when the nineties started, and on a skiing trip in Italy. I came back with my sister on about the 2nd of Jan to find my grandmother had died on New Year's Eve. So it was really the decade I grew up in - where I had my first relationships, my first jobs, went to university, left home and drank inhuman amounts of alcohol...

Music - I loved Nick Cave's output, Tindersticks, Suede, Elastica - most of britpop passed me by, and I never got on with Grunge. The mid-nineties seemed to be taken over by Oasis, every song that ever got played on a pub jukebox (and I spent every available moment in pubs) went 'nyah nyah nyah nyah' ad infinitum, usually the same bloody three Oasis tracks...

Photography - I rented a flat from a photographer and started processing my own black and white film with my first proper SLR, a Pentax K1000 - nothing I did from then survives, and I was pretty rubbish, but had caught the bug. When I went to work, and found that magazine photography was part of my job, I had to learn pretty bloody quick, which was fantastic. I ran up my first stupid sized credit card bill on a Nikon F90x and some decent lenses, and wound my friends up by having a camera loaded with Fuji Neopan 1600 at all times of the day and night... I'd develop it in my room, which I'd blacked out and stay up all night as my girlfriend slept making prints and drying them in the bathroom. I lost the deposit on that place because I destroyed the carpet with chemicals. I love a lot of the people stuff I did then, want to compile it all into a photobook at some point. Lots of poignant stuff for me there...

TV - Prime Suspect and Inspector Morse. In the mid nineties, my idea of heaven was to bake a huge plate of scones, start a log fire and curl up in front of it with a pot of Earl Grey and an episode of Inspector Morse. I should have got out more...

Internet - I discovered the internet in 1995, when my dad gave me an old modem and the log on codes to JANET, the uk Joint Academic Network. I had an old 286 Amstrad PC, and I used to log on late at night to do research for my degree or pull off weather forecasts and news headlines for the college radio show I did. The noise of the modem connecting used to have a really powerful effect on me, I still get goosebumps when I hear it. I was reading a lot of William Gibson at the time, and the buzz of the modem made me feel I was falling into that world.

Cars - I learned to drive in '92, and bought a Triumph Dolomite, which I wrote off about 4 weeks later. Then I bought another one, and blew that up six months later after ignoring the overheating problem for too long. The AA turned up and said 'sorry mate, you need a new car'. So I bought a third one, a 1979 1500TC, which I loved to bits, walnut dashboard, twin carbs, could get a ton out of it. I learned to fix it too, spent the weekends taking bits of the engine to bits.

Clothes - I started the '90s a goth, had black hair, Robert Smith style, I finished it dressing much smarter, wore suits and ties everywhere. There were probably some bad bits in the middle where I got it horribly wrong. I don't remember much about '90s fashion but remember strongly the impression that things had got much more fragmented in terms of subcultures and there was less of the 'alternatives/casuals' split that there was in the late '80s.

Politics - spent much of the time in the '90s dreaming of the day when the bastard tories would be thrown out. 1997 felt brilliant. I was up for Portillo, and it felt great. Shame that Labour turned out to be a shower of dickheads (even though they were nowhere near as vile as the current lot of pricks), but for a while things felt good.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310180#Comment_310180 2011-09-24T08:23:50-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 icelandbob http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5250

For me the 90's started so well, then towards the end, it sorta got crushed by University stuff and Call centre job blues. I will start off with the music then partying! Then ...

I will start off with the music




then partying!



Then crappy 90's US alt rock that came out from Grunge. Best summised by this article.

Then Britpop... Jesus what were we thinking.



And the end of the decade was completed with a nasty post-Oasis coke hangover. But at least we had this...
]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310182#Comment_310182 2011-09-24T08:28:14-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

Bob - yeah, what was that whole Neds Atomic Dustbin/Jesus Jones/Carter scene called? Post-grebo? Can't for the life of me remember...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310183#Comment_310183 2011-09-24T08:35:56-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 icelandbob http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5250

The Neds, The Wonder stuff and Carter USM was definitely Grebo. Jesus Jones wasn't really grebo, they were too clean. They also made that whole thing of "oh we're the first guys to record all ...

Grebo. Jesus Jones wasn't really grebo, they were too clean. They also made that whole thing of "oh we're the first guys to record all our music digitally" as if to say it was slightly more special than all the other stuff out there.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310186#Comment_310186 2011-09-24T08:44:43-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

Ah, OK... I'd somehow always thought of grebo more as that first tranche of bands in the late '80s - Bomb Party, Gaye Bykers, Crazyhead, and the later lot being some sort of poppier, semi-nicer ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310188#Comment_310188 2011-09-24T08:54:45-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 icelandbob http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5250

And of course there was thing called "garage" that came over the speakers in London in the late 90s when i often went down to visit to my brother...

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310191#Comment_310191 2011-09-24T09:11:47-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

Oh fuck, I just remembered Acid Jazz. Wonder if my health insurance will pay for more therapy?

Wonder if my health insurance will pay for more therapy?]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310210#Comment_310210 2011-09-24T13:18:53-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 icelandbob http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5250

there's no hope for you there. Although i'm not that much better. I saw the James Taylor Quartet in '94!

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310213#Comment_310213 2011-09-24T13:42:10-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 eDave http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4771

if you're talking grebo, you can include pop will eat itself whose album this is the day this is the hour is one of the best of that decade in my humble opinion (altho wikipedia informs me it came ...

Here's 'def con one' from the coolest harcuts in stourbridge:




loved seeing aeon flux again - looked at a few of the others on you tube - the ones without dialogue are way more interesting.

oh, and the second half of the nineties was all friends wasn't it? I think it was underrated at the time because it was so popular. I still think joey's 'the line is a dot to you' approaches genius.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310214#Comment_310214 2011-09-24T13:49:40-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 dorkmuffin http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6719

There was some fucking bomb-ass kids' TV (I was 2 when the nineties arrived and 12 when they disappeared, soooo....) BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL

BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310219#Comment_310219 2011-09-24T15:26:18-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Jason A. Quest http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5192

The pop culture of the 1990s doesn't mean a whole lot to me; I was aware of it, but at the time I was mostly fixated on 70s-80s punk and hardcore myself. In the early 90s I had a poster which I'd ...

They called the 1890s "the Gay Nineties". To me that's what the 1990s were too. I'd lost my virginity shortly before, and at the end I was a couple years into a serious relationship. In between was a lot of sex. But by the end I'd gone from a self-centered punk kid to... a grown-up, capable of having my heart broken a few years later. Maybe I'm projecting a bit, but I think the gay rights movement went thru a similar transformation, from the diseased pariahs that politicians did their best to ignore, to a standard checklist item on every politician's issues scorecard (for/against), on par with immigrants or fetuses. That's the key legacy of the 90s to me.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310222#Comment_310222 2011-09-24T15:48:55-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 ALE http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6123

Awesome all on it's own, especially because (not in spite) of everything that was wrong with it, this flick took on a whole new meaning if you were also an avid Mage: The Ascension player.

Awesome all on it's own, especially because (not in spite) of everything that was wrong with it, this flick took on a whole new meaning if you were also an avid Mage: The Ascension player.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310223#Comment_310223 2011-09-24T15:54:53-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 BrianMowrey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1709

Can't believe no one has addressed* Vidya games - My summary of the 90s is that video games had a fucking brilliant decade: if you leave out how it totally forgets to include females and old ...

Vidya games - My summary of the 90s is that video games had a fucking brilliant decade: if you leave out how it totally forgets to include females and old people as consumers.

On the positive side, you have huge leaps of technological advancement, with the N64 bringing the polygonal Mario into our (well, not my) homes in 1995 as the centerpiece. You have truly timeless gameplay from Nintendo -- Mario Kart and MK64, the Super Mario World and M64, Goldeneye, people say that Ocarina game is good too -- you have groundbreaking in the home stretch on the Playstation -- the super-hyped FF7 jump in 1997, MGS, Resident Evil, etc -- and you have a quiet accumulation of classics in the PC world for the super-nerds. Add to all of that the fighting games: SFII, DoA, the other ones which I didn't like. Basically, video games did not do much to transcend the genre like they would in the 00s, but instead displayed perfection in everything that defines the genre.

On the negatives, you have bad voice acting until MGS, a general mediocrity in art direction and style, and the fact that women were basically left out. I mean the only game that truly reached out of the committed audience to win over neophytes in the 90s was Windows Solitaire.

Still, this is the only element of culture where I give he 90s an A

*probably someone did and I missed it]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310226#Comment_310226 2011-09-24T16:12:48-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 razrangel http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2075

OOooh Mage: The Ascension Not a strictly 90s thing, I started gaming around 97, but mainly to say - hey I did that too and it was my favorite White Wolf game! Ok, complete tangent. I'll be quiet ...

Ok, complete tangent. I'll be quiet now.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310227#Comment_310227 2011-09-24T16:18:09-07:00 2011-09-24T16:19:23-07:00 ALE http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6123

I'm getting to the games, but I'm in the middle of a project...also you forgot the Dreamcast. @razrangel: I wasn't touting Mage as strictly a 90's phenomena, though I could. It simply gave Hackers a ...

@razrangel: I wasn't touting Mage as strictly a 90's phenomena, though I could. It simply gave Hackers a new layer of meaning if you were into it: Virtual Adepts end.Tangent.

forgot one:

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310228#Comment_310228 2011-09-24T16:19:55-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

As long as we're talking video games, how about the amazing stuff LucasArts was putting out in the 90s? Grim Fandango Full Throttle The Adventure Game genre has tried to come back several ...

Grim Fandango

Full Throttle

The Adventure Game genre has tried to come back several times over the last ten years, but it seems to have sputtered out towards the end of the last century. My theory is that these games were made by much smaller teams - look at the opening credits for Full Throttle, for example, and then compare them to just about any game made in the 00s - and particularly with adventure games, you don't want too many cooks in the kitchen. The 90's were maybe the last time that major companies could put out games that still had a personalized stamp on every aspect of its creation, were everything wasn't polished to a textureless sheen. I'm not saying those games don't exist anymore (obviously things like Portal and Braid have that kind of individual focus), but they are rarer. Small teams were once a necessity because games were not the gigantic, eclipsing industry they have become.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310244#Comment_310244 2011-09-24T21:17:46-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Argos http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=7792

I was a kid watching Hey, Arnold!, Rugrats (which I later discovered was animated by Peter Chung of Aeon Flux), Ahhh! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, and other such cartoon... also playing ...

also playing Sonic on Sega Genesis. And playing with pogs.

I was too young, hence too stupid, to know good music. My sisters never listened to good music so all I was really exposed to then was pop shite.

That pretty much sums up the 90s for me. I remember them fondly, mostly the cartoons and the sega genesis.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310246#Comment_310246 2011-09-24T21:28:38-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 LokiZero http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=368

sigh.

sigh.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310292#Comment_310292 2011-09-25T10:12:50-07:00 2011-09-25T10:13:45-07:00 Scrymgeour http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4141

how can anyone forget this

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310293#Comment_310293 2011-09-25T10:13:58-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Scrymgeour http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4141

the nineties were pretty amazing musically, britpop (early days) was amazing, listen to kinickie or suede if you disagree..... you also had dirt by alice in chains, the fragile by NIN, loads of ...

britpop (early days) was amazing, listen to kinickie or suede if you disagree.....
you also had dirt by alice in chains, the fragile by NIN, loads of stuff by massive attack.....

its also when britain became a modern country again, christ we can get halloumi now.....]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310301#Comment_310301 2011-09-25T13:16:21-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Greasemonkey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4625

We're discussing the 90's, and nobody's mentioned Duckman yet. Go look it up - it was twisted, insane and fucking brilliant.

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310304#Comment_310304 2011-09-25T14:26:29-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 johnjones http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1052

What? All this mention of 90s TV and not Babylon 5?

]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310310#Comment_310310 2011-09-25T15:19:36-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 joe.distort http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1173

im not really able to be nostalgiac about the 1990s as it seems pretty recent to me. a lot of cool stuff happened but more shitty.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310312#Comment_310312 2011-09-25T15:38:45-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

I have this image that sticks out in my mind, whenever I think of the 90's. I was living in Los Angeles for a while, when my dad got stationed in San Pedro, and there was this skate park not too ...

I was living in Los Angeles for a while, when my dad got stationed in San Pedro, and there was this skate park not too far from the Air Force and Navy housing where we lived. Most of the place was just gray cement and slightly rusted iron bars, but each one of the pits, which looked like someone had taken a giant ice cream scooper to them, had been spray-painted with these insane, intricate murals. In my memory, someone is always playing Sublime on a giant boombox (remember those? Maybe they were called ghetto blasters where you grew up, but we called them boomboxes). "Whoa I don't cry, when my dog runs away," it said "I don't get angry at the bills I have to pay." I never skateboarded myself, but I went there all the time (almost certainly a lot more often than my mom would have liked me to), just to watch the older kids skate and look at the murals. There was one that was the brightest oceanic cyan I'd ever seen, and memory has only made it more intense, just swirls and whorls of slightly different shades, each seemingly brighter and deeper than the last.

Now, I'm sure I was imagining this part, or that I constructed this in my memory later, but one time I saw a kid 'board down into that pit and shoot back up, and what I remember is the paint suddenly becoming wet, and this kid had his own bow wave of sea foam, like he'd suddenly quite skateboarding and started surfing. The paint flipped up with his board, and then fell and splattered back down onto the gray cement above it.

It was just this weird moment of hallucinatory harmony, to little-kid-me. If I'd had the vocabulary for it back then, I guess I would have called it a spiritual experience, a micro-vision quest. I dunno, that weird memory just seems to distill my entire childhood, and my whole experience of the 1990s, down. A kid on a skateboard, breaking reality to turn cement into sea, with no more effort than it took to keep his balance and momentum.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310317#Comment_310317 2011-09-25T17:23:25-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Darkest http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4849

I was born in '88 so I didn't get to do much fun in the 90's. Mostly it was a trial by fire since I didn't know I had Asperger Syndrome and English primary/ secondary schools. I'm surprised no ...

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Phantom 2040 yet? That was a great program. I used to love Street Sharks too but I watched a clip on you tube and was kind of dissapointed. Also the New Adventures of Jonny Quest.

I remember Playing lots of Tomb Raider (Playstation) and Super Mario Land 2 (Gameboy). Remember when Gameboys were green screen, also games consoles you can carry in a pocket/bumbag! Also Streets of Rage and Sonic on my cousin's Master System.

I remember watching Ghost in the Shell on video (I think, it may have been a little later).

Warhammer was a big thing before I hit double digits.

Mostly I sort of Phonogram memory kingdom and watch/ listen etc. to stuff I missed first time around.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310335#Comment_310335 2011-09-25T22:11:01-07:00 2011-09-25T22:14:54-07:00 chrisanthropic http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6373

Like many others here the music is what stands out the most for me...you could hear NIN, Nirvana, Sublime, Alice in Chains, Bjork, Tool, Blind Melon, Prodigy, Marilyn Manson, Rancid, etc. all on the ...

You had the rise and fall of Lallapalooza and the Warped tour.

Of course I remember the death of Kurt Cobain, the rise and fall of Manson, the death of Bradley Nowell and Shannon Hoon.

I spent a lot of the 90's with my face buried in comics too. I was first exposed to Transmet, Preacher, Hellboy, and the Dark Horse prints of Lone Wolf and Cub which rekindled my dying interest in comics.

Then there was the joy of RPGs. DnD 3rd edition came out, Rifts was still around, L5R was becoming big, and of course Vampire/Werewolf/Mage and Whitewolf in general.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310344#Comment_310344 2011-09-26T03:47:26-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Oddcult http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=214

Doom and the X-Files. That was the 90s.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310347#Comment_310347 2011-09-26T05:03:47-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Fauxhammer http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=27

I remember hanging out with the Bad Kids one afternoon. It was 1991, I was about to become a senior in high school, and it was ALL METAL, ALL THE TIME for us. We'd hang out in the school parking lot, ...

One of the kids put a tape in the car's tape deck; the cover had a naked baby swimming, or something.

The first few chords of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" had displaced the Iron Maiden and Anthrax we usually played. It felt like a Copernican shift.

It felt like what the first mammals felt when they looked up, saw the K/T asteroid screaming Earthward. This was NEW.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310378#Comment_310378 2011-09-26T12:45:01-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

@Fauxhammer - I read 'it felt like a Copernican shift' as 'I felt like a Copernican slut'... my bad... @Oddcult - I never got into Doom, but the bloke I was sharing a house with tried to put a ...

@Oddcult - I never got into Doom, but the bloke I was sharing a house with tried to put a bootleg copy on my crap old 386 with 4mb RAM. It ran, but literally so slowly that you could fire, make a cup of tea, and the bullet would still be on the way. Twat.

Music - how did I forget Portishead?]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310386#Comment_310386 2011-09-26T14:10:29-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 sellmeyoursoul http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=9518

For good or ill, I am a product of the 90s. I started high school in 1990, college in '94, my first "grown-up" job in '98, got engaged and had my first back surgery in '99. Yeah, that ...

Someone made a comment about there being nothing to rebel against and therefore a general sense of apathy and I think there might be a little something to that.

I'm not really sure I'm in the mood to whip out my alternapeen and play that game (yes, I've been listening to NIN since Head Like a Hole was "the new single" blah, blah, blah). I think the internet changed everything and we were the first bastards to try and make sense of it. In the 80s and before, you knew what your friends knew. Bands, comics, fashion, it required word of mouth to get to anything worth getting too. My cousin gave me a mixed tape and some copies of MRR and suddenly I had treasures to share. That's the way the 90s started, but by y2k you didn't even need to know your friends personally. That's the other thing to remember. Things were good and only getting better. All the way up to the dot com bubble bursting.

Although really, culturally the second half of the 90s was very different. Nu Metal replaced Grunge for God's sake. The mid 90s is when the bottom dropped on the comics industry. Marvel and DC had whored themselves out for several years and the bubble burst. Variant covers and "events" didn't go away, but I and many of my friends did. The ones who still bough comics didn't collect them. The only reason I read any Transmet or Preacher or whatever is because a buddy would leave them laying around when he was done with the latest issue.

And with that kids, grampa SMYS has noticed that it's beer o'clock so I'll be off.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310403#Comment_310403 2011-09-26T15:47:29-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 BrianMowrey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1709

As far as comics, I was lured into buying (for the first time since the 6 issues of Batman I bought at the Navy Exchange in the 80s) by the X-Men cartoon like a lot of people, then like a lot of ...

Then in high school I tried to get into MTG. Would you believe, that although I went to the fucking magnet school, I could not find many people to be a nerd with? So I ended up spending my time in limbo between counter-culture and pop-culture, not committed to either. This is one of the reasons I am sensitive to the fact that 90s art and culture didn't have a lot of great shit! The coolest thing my TV ever did was in 97 when I flipped to Bravo (old school Bravo) and some black-and-white-ass fence was being looked at in loud, blurry rain. This was Seven Samurai. In other words, I have nostalgia for nothing.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310408#Comment_310408 2011-09-26T18:11:55-07:00 2011-09-26T18:12:32-07:00 government spy http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6088

Mid nineties, I started playing around with BBS's. There was a free one from the local newspaper, I used the handle Reverend. Occasionally I would go on, and rant about something, called them my ...

So this girl asks me to meet up at a local coffee shop, where the Goths and hippies hung out, called The Source. I went, and her name was Mary Jane, she was a little older than me, she was about 5 feet tall, 100lbs if she was soaking wet, had a few tattoos, and I was very, very naive.

She wanted to take me to the local punk rock skate park/live music place, The Pit, and I obliged. We hung out for a little while, and she told me she wanted to show me something, but I was having a hard time hearing her correctly. She took me by the hand and walked me down this really narrow hallway. She opened up a door to a very tiny room, and as we walked in I realized it was a bathroom. She sat up on the sink and hiked up her skirt, and showed me her g-string.

Now, I'm no fashion genius by any means, but personally, if you are into wearing g-strings, and like showing them off to strange guys in bathrooms, personally, I would think it would be appropriate to shave the area in question. I hope I'm not coming off misogynistic or anything; believe me, I thanked the nice lady for showing me what I was sure was a vagina in there somewhere, but said no thank you, and went home and never met anyone from the internet ever again.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310409#Comment_310409 2011-09-26T18:44:18-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 SBarrett http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=7820

I didn't really discover music until I was in college, which wouldn't be until '98. The 90's were all about video games for me. We didn't ever have a console in our house, but we did have a ...

The 90's were all about video games for me. We didn't ever have a console in our house, but we did have a PC.

Sid Meier ruled my video game life for much of the 1990's. Kicking it off in 1990 is Railroad Tychoon, a game my dad bought because he was picking back up his model train hobby from when he was a kid. Civilization hits in 1991, a game series still kicking 20 years later. Colonization comes along in 1994. My mother would worry about me playing these "violent" games as I bragged about wiping out civilizations and native americans (in colonization).

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was in 1994 and it was like the greatest thing ever for me. Warcraft II comes out a year later. I think Orcs and Humans was also the first game I ever played "Online". Playing a friend of mine from down the street with our dial up modems. Shouting for my mom not to pick up the phone when it rings because it was my friend's computer calling us. It set up my love for RTS games. I remember the awesome bad live action acting scenes for Command and Conquer: Red Alert.

I remember playing Shareware (remember that!) versions of Duke Nukem. I remember playing and beating Doom in co-op over our modems. God I can't even imagine how I played FPS games with no mouse and no WASD setup. You had to look up and down with PageUP and PageDown.

The Space Quest series was really firing on all cylinders in the late 80's to early 90's. I can remember sitting around the computer with the whole family to solve some of those puzzles.

In 1997 I had Fallout. In 1998 I got Baldur's Gate. The Baldur's Gate series is still my favorite video game series of all time.

I was all about strategy games and RPGs. Then 1998 came along with two FPS games that set the standard. Rainbow Six comes out in May then six months later we get Half-Life. Thus began my love affair with FPS games.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310413#Comment_310413 2011-09-26T18:59:00-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Greasemonkey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4625

Another fun little PC game from 1991 was Atrain, a Maxis/Artdink production which was the predecessor to Simcity 2. The other truly great game of the period was UFO: Enemy Unknown, the first and best ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310415#Comment_310415 2011-09-26T19:05:05-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 allana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4019

So, wait. What's the point here? The '90s mean nothing to me, personally; I was born in '86, and up until I was 14 I wouldn't really consider myself a person. (I had my moments when I was 11, sure, ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310416#Comment_310416 2011-09-26T19:10:22-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 BrianMowrey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1709

I... generally consider myself a person as of age 5?

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310421#Comment_310421 2011-09-26T20:23:57-07:00 2011-09-26T20:27:25-07:00 Greasemonkey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4625

The early nineties were a blast for me. I was in my mid to late twenties, singing with a terrible punk band on the fast-dying Sydney pub circuit (almost all the pubs were replacing their performance ...

On the minus side, information and reference materials could be a pain in the arse to procure. If I needed a picture of, say, a lawnmower for a painting, I had to either go and take one myself with my optical camera and wait while the photolab developed it, or go to the library and hope to find a book with the relevant illustrations. FInding out what films were on, or what bands were playing, or what was on TV, required buying the relevant magazine or newspaper. Music CD's were about thirty dollars apiece in Australia because of the corporate stranglehold on the industry.

Oh, and there were no budget airlines, so it cost an arm and a leg to fly anywhere - although terrorism wasn't the hysterical buzzword that it is today, so flying didn't involve being photographed naked or having your crotch fondled by government employees, and nobody swiped your nail clippers or pocket knife before you boarded the plane.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310426#Comment_310426 2011-09-26T20:59:54-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 chrisanthropic http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=6373

Perspective, I guess, is what I'm asking for. In the early 90's,the summer before I started high school I moved from Southern California to a suburb of Portland Oregon. I had a shitty attitude ...

Perspective, I guess, is what I'm asking for.

In the early 90's,the summer before I started high school I moved from Southern California to a suburb of Portland Oregon. I had a shitty attitude and had no desire to live in a place that resembled things I'd only ever seen on TV - people in cowboy hats/boots/and buckles, "preppies", and frighteningly devout god-faring folk. I stood out a bit given that I had a 6-7 inch green mohawk at the time. I remember my first day of school and was shocked that I was the only person with dyed hair. The only one. I'd had dyed liberty spikes since 7th grade thanks to my mom and skater friends in California.

By my senior year I'd gotten far too lazy for knox gelatin dipped spikes and manic-panic dye jobs but there were many dozens who had taken my place. And some of them had even abandoned their cowboy hats or tommy hilfiger to do so. This was the rise of Hot Topic.

I'm not claiming that I influenced them at all, so please don't take it that way. What I'm saying is that in those 4 years there was a cultural shift that pretty much killed off the stereotypical redneck and birthed the stereotypical whatever-the-fuck you'd call it.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310430#Comment_310430 2011-09-26T21:33:30-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 StefanJ http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=961

@Greasemonkey: I'm currently playing X-Com: UFO Defense. Talk about staying power!

X-Com: UFO Defense. Talk about staying power!]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310438#Comment_310438 2011-09-26T22:37:30-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Greasemonkey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4625

I still play Enemy Unknown on my machine, using a dos version with mediocre sound.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310450#Comment_310450 2011-09-27T02:54:12-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Scrymgeour http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4141

i remember sitting in the computer room at school and comparing shitty qbasic programmes with other kids, waiting ten minutes to see a picture of the prodigy in crappy resolution, and it taking ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310466#Comment_310466 2011-09-27T09:01:36-07:00 2011-09-27T09:12:59-07:00 sneak046 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4574

I spent the '90s in school, being 13 in '90 and I started uni in '99 (maths heads out there will realise that those numbers don't quite add up there - I will say that there was a 'lost' year and ...

Musically @bob and @J0n managed to dredge up a number of items I wish had stayed un-dredged, but I also fondly remember the '90s for being the birthplace of my hip-hop love - it's still known as Hip-Hop's golden age for a reason....

The early 90's were dominated by the likes of Eric B and Rakim, EPMD, KMD Pete Rock and CL Smooth, with De La Soul making inroads into the mainstream. three Feet High And Rising was the first Hip-Hop album I owned.

In the mid 90's The Wu burst out of staten island to shake a few people out of their comfort zones, Gang Starr held court (shit, you weren't anyone unless you got on a GS posse cut). NWA and Public Enemy scared middle america, Nas released his still classic first album, And of course there were the two great Beastie Boys albums Check your Head and Ill Communication.

The late '90s saw the lyrical/intelligent/backpacker revolution with Rawkus Records' entire roster, and their seminal Lyricists Lounge and Soundbombing compilations, and also the mini-resurgance of the UK Hip-Hop scene - records like TaskForce's New Mic Order, Braintax was active, Jehst's early EPs, shit I recall Mark B and Blades "You don't See The Signs" getting played at football stadiums....advertisers and clothing comapies fell over themselves to get attached to all these underground rappers in the hope some of their cool would rub off.

B-boy dancing made a reappearance on the dancefloors too - do you remember to video for the Jason Nevins 'it's like that' remix?

As hateful as it was, it brought B-boying into the mainstream

Edited to add - @MercurialBlonde mentiones on page one about the 90's now having passed some buffer period and becoming almost cool again..

Well in my hometown the Eighties Retro themed bar recently closed for renovation, and re-opened as a muvva fuggin '90s retro themed bar.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310478#Comment_310478 2011-09-27T10:31:54-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Bankara http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=5723

@sneak046, hells yes! I remember party hip hop and I miss that shit. Hip hop takes itself so seriously these days but the mold hadn't been set then and it was an exciting frontier. Now hip hop is ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310481#Comment_310481 2011-09-27T10:37:45-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 sneak046 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4574

I've got a lot of love for das racist too..

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310485#Comment_310485 2011-09-27T11:27:09-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 sellmeyoursoul http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=9518

Allana - I don't know if I can top GovSpy's g-string (as an asside @GovSpy, if we ever meet, I won't flash my g-string until the second date. That's a promise from me to you), but the things that ...

Or, I worked in the college library. There were computer terminals to get to the digit card catalog. I knew that was also accessible over the school network, so I played around with the terminal behind the desk (and I'm talking amber screen dumb terminals) and figured out how to get to my e-mail. My boss caught me and I was almost able to trade the secret for the password to the registrar's system. She got as far as going to the log in screen before realizing that it probably wasn't a great idea to give me the power to change my grades. She of course ended up making me show everyone else we worked with (under threat of not letting me do it anymore). About a month or two later, every single terminal in the library had a little sign saying they were NOT for checking e-mail.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310502#Comment_310502 2011-09-27T13:13:43-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 oldhat http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=75

@allana can't it be both?

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310503#Comment_310503 2011-09-27T13:21:57-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Sonny http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1167

I was born in the mid-80s, like a lot of you. So I was growing up in the 90s (hell, I'm still growing up). The Batman and XMen cartoons molded me into a comics reader... which looking back might not ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310532#Comment_310532 2011-09-27T15:48:18-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Jim Massey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3204

Living in Seattle, being in my late 20s/early 30s in the '90s, I was pretty grunged out by the time NEVERMIND hit. I fell hard for Britpop for a few years. Apart from that, my music was mostly ...

The '90s, for me, was the World Wide Web. I was working in desktop publishing/design when this Web thing came along. I mucked around a bit, and created a site where I gave away original "clip art" and garish buttons and doo-dads. A tech agency saw it and I was caught in the great Microsoft hiring frenzy as the company built up their internet offerings. I stuck with them for a few years as a web designer, then joined a successful startup, and saw the bubble burst as the decade closed. But it was a crazy ride until then.

So much money. So many parties with much food and drink. Space Needles, yachts, and aquariums were rented for our pleasure. As a thank you for a big project, about 30 of us got a three-day vacation in Vegas, staying at the new Mandalay Bay, everything covered. And seeing the technology and business models change under our feet was exciting.

The decade is almost perfectly bracketed by Berners-Lee on the front end and the dot-com bubble burst on the back end.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310539#Comment_310539 2011-09-27T16:30:40-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 StefanJ http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=961

Unwarped by nostalgia, because I grew up in the 60s and 70s: The Nineties were a great decade. Began with the death of the Cold War era and the birth of the Web. Ended with the joyous (and End ...

The Nineties were a great decade.

Began with the death of the Cold War era and the birth of the Web. Ended with the joyous (and End Of Civilization Free) new-decade / new-century / new millennium celebration.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310548#Comment_310548 2011-09-27T18:02:08-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

Holy shit. Anyone else remember these? I had a collection of about a dozen of these things in middle school, even though my "game" was really more Goldeneye, and less b-ball. One of ...

Anyone else remember these? I had a collection of about a dozen of these things in middle school, even though my "game" was really more Goldeneye, and less b-ball. One of those shirts, a pair of torn-up JNCO jeans, and sandals that were probably made out of car tires... that was my school uniform for about four years.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310563#Comment_310563 2011-09-27T20:12:16-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Corey Waits http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=453

Born early 80s, so I was too young for grunge, but my older sister was going through her rebellious teen phase and was majorly into Pearl Jam and Nirvana. One Sunday in April 1994 my family went ...

One Sunday in April 1994 my family went to church as per usual. I somehow caught the news about Kurt Cobain's death but nobody else did - maybe I was sitting in the car alone with the radio on waiting for everyone else, I can't quite remember. What I do remember is that as we were pulling out of the church carpark I said to my sister something along the lines of "That guy you like is dead." Seriously, that's how I broke the news to her. After some questions she figured out what I was talking about and spent the rest of the drive home in silence staring out the window.

I kind of feel sorry for her - one of the biggest events of her young life was narrated to her by her stupid kid brother.

A friend and former-lecturer of mine has recently published a memoir that touches on what it was like to grow up in the 90s, The Casuals. Being a memoir I'm not sure how it would read to someone who doesn't live around the area that she lived, but otherwise it's a fantastic read.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310565#Comment_310565 2011-09-27T20:19:35-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Alan Tyson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1299

Corey, that book sounds perfect. It's going on The List.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310572#Comment_310572 2011-09-27T22:16:01-07:00 2011-09-28T17:22:33-07:00 Greasemonkey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4625

It's impossible to overstate the changes the internet has wrought since the end of the 90's. Anybody can get published now, potentially to an audience of millions if they're witty/funny/inflammatory ...

For most of the the 1990's there was little scope (meaning compared with what's available now; I know it wasn't the fucking Dark Ages before the internet took off) for communicating with people in other countries, or even in other cities or states, unless you cultivated pen friends or kept in phone contact with expat buddies overseas, or joined a ham radio club to talk to other random nerds. The net is a Big Fucking Deal.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310635#Comment_310635 2011-09-28T13:31:46-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

@Greasemonkey, yeah, that's true - I tend to forget sometimes the changes that have taken place since the mid nineties brought on by the Net and by technology. In '96 when I started work everything ...

And I remember the wonder when my father bought a minolta film scanner in about 1998 and I could start working digitally - that was amazing, I'd drive the 180 mile round trip every few weekends just to scan and print pictures, because I could do that to a much better standard than I could work in by improvised darkroom. Remember scanning a picture I'd taken from the Alhambra of Granada, and zooming in on the picture, to me it felt like I was in that scene in Bladerunner when Deckard analyses the picture, I was awestruck that I could see my pictures in that much detail from scanning a negative. And I could get rid of the dust with the clone stamp, not by spotting the prints... bliss.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310639#Comment_310639 2011-09-28T14:36:55-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Greasemonkey http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4625

Very true. The internet and associated technologies are as significant as the introduction of the printing press was in the fifteenth century. The social revolution we've seen in just over a decade ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310647#Comment_310647 2011-09-28T15:41:27-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 StefanJ http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=961

I had a brief stint as an adjunct professor, teaching an introduction to computing course, in the early 90s. It was a hopelessly outdated, badly thought out course -- essentially, BASIC programming ...

It was horrible. These were unmotivated "Grade 13" commuter students at an admit-anyone private college. The vast majority didn't want anything to do with computers, which still had that nerdy "what the hell will I do with one of those?" taint.

I remember trying to tell my students about the online world, and how things would be changing, rapidly and dramatically, as a rsult.. The campus had no Internet connections (the IT department were utter cowards and control freaks) so it was kind of tough to give the kids an idea of what I was talking about.

I did plug my PowerBook into a phone jack, dialed into a BBS, and showed them Gopher or some such primordial text-mode stuff.

I hope my cranky enthusiasm did some good.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310742#Comment_310742 2011-09-29T15:27:35-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 256 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4827

What I remember most was: War. The Bosnian War, both Chechen Wars, Northern Ireland. Srebrenica, Grozny, Omagh. Just a torrent of atrocity. I know it's not a cultural item, but it's worth remembering ...

wasn't it better when. It was certainly the background to my childhood, and all the culture I encountered in it.

I was born in 1987, but I feel like I recall less about the '90s than a lot of people my age.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310784#Comment_310784 2011-09-29T20:14:46-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 imaginarypeople http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=7661

not sure if anyone mentioned this but anyone remember sega channel?

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310861#Comment_310861 2011-09-30T12:41:07-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 AmableSim http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=10352

I had the sega channel - unfortunately it never worked for me more than a couple hours. I don't think the cable people quite understood it at the time. A Best Buy flyer from 1996. Seems like ...

A Best Buy flyer from 1996. Seems like yesterday and yet looking at these computers, so far away. There's even a whole section for the Macarena.



]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310866#Comment_310866 2011-09-30T13:00:18-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 joe.distort http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1173

oh christ i would have nevereverever remembered that NEUROTIC OUTSIDERS shit-fest without that hahahaha

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310904#Comment_310904 2011-09-30T22:34:06-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 SBarrett http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=7820

Oh god...the macarena. I remember my Dad bringing home our new TV/home theater system in what must have been '91 or '92? TV, record player, dual cassete player, VHS and CD player. I thought the ...

I remember my Dad bringing home our new TV/home theater system in what must have been '91 or '92? TV, record player, dual cassete player, VHS and CD player. I thought the CD player was the coolest shit ever. I didn't know much about it, but my Dad told me it had a laser in it. A LASER! It was officially the coolest thing ever.

Also...my parents still have it and it all still works. It is an RCA.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310931#Comment_310931 2011-10-01T12:15:19-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 joe.distort http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1173

also related to that ad, some friends of mine opened for 311 right about the time they started to blow up, but before they were super-huge. that show was (oddly enough) actuallyin a smaller space ...

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310963#Comment_310963 2011-10-01T16:46:10-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 256 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4827

Also, pogs.

http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=310996#Comment_310996 2011-10-01T22:51:41-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 Fishelle http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=8854

Regarding the Macerena: When that song was first getting to be super big, one of the teachers at my elementary school would play it at recess, and all of us would go to the place where we could ...

When that song was first getting to be super big, one of the teachers at my elementary school would play it at recess, and all of us would go to the place where we could hear it, and just dance that stupid dance. All of the children in grades 1 through 3, putting our arms out and turning in unison.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=311008#Comment_311008 2011-10-02T05:00:36-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 magnusisasillyname http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=10358

It started with school uniforms and divorcing parents. Everything seemed quite shit. Then, while staying with relatives in Australia, I heard "Teen Spirit" on the radio. By the time I got ...

I miss the days when I didn't carry a telephone.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=311024#Comment_311024 2011-10-02T09:16:57-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 sneak046 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=4574

I consider 1994 to be the point The UK stopped being a liberal or even friendly place to live..because of the The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 - also known as the repetitive beats law. ...

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 - also known as the repetitive beats law. Fuck the tories into a thousand hells for that single law.]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10231&Focus=311027#Comment_311027 2011-10-02T10:20:35-07:00 2013-05-18T00:26:27-07:00 JP Carpenter http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2485

Fuck the tories into a thousand hells for that single law. Don't try and jump the queue... there are innumerable reasons to do that to the Tories. Although I guess that could be the specimen ...

Fuck the tories into a thousand hells for that single law.

Don't try and jump the queue... there are innumerable reasons to do that to the Tories. Although I guess that could be the specimen charge...]]>