Re: (idm) re: aliases

From rab
Sent Thu, May 20th 1999, 03:34

At 1:49 PM -0500 5/19/99, Mark Kolmar wrote:
>On Wed, 19 May 1999, Irene McC wrote:
>> WHY oh why do people have to hide behind so many different
>> monikers and aliases?  This criticism has often been levelled
>> against >our< kind of music - the facelessness of the people
>> behind it, but they obviously want it this way.
>
>I have never been able to understand aliases either.  I can come up with
>at least three decent reasons:
>
>1. To attempt to remove a sense of continuity from one release to another
>(If that is your thing.  I prefer the opposite, e.g. Psychic TV.  Or even
>when no continuity is intended but they keep the name anyway, e.g.
>Underworld mk1 vs mk2)
>
>2. Signing a contract that says you can't use a certain name except on a
>particular label
>
>3. To become a different artist in some metaphorical way, to take a new
>approach (not sure why that would require a new name though, unless the
>goal is also #1 above)
>
>4. In order not to confuse or anger people who think "bleep-blop-biddy-
>boom-bop" is entirely unrelated to "boom-blop-biddy-bleep-bop"

5. to prevent clods from buying it just because it's done by so and so.
furthermore said clod becomes disappointed because it didn't live up to
expectations (despite it being an alter ego!--there will always be that
comparison is the true identity is known). i think some artists would
rather have a record sell out because it was ace, than have a record sell
because it was him. in other words, the artist prefers the concentration on
the music over the artist...