Sounds from underground/File. N°001

 As promised new year brings new contributions. <<Sounds from underground>> is a column whose purpose is to bring you to the extreme lands of music and explore all that you won't find on NME. And neither on Pitchfork. 

We start with Figure With Meat, because as everybody knows the first important meal of the day should be a noise. 

0. What's the name of your band?

Not necessarily a band, it's really just me: Dakota Prince AKA Figure With Meat.

1.Where are you from?

I was born and raised in disgraceful Mansfield, Ohio. Never left, but plan on doing so in the future haha!

2. What kind of instruments/equipment do you use?

Well first off, I play drums and usually use anything that can make a sound the usual person would dislike. I use a Digitech Death Metal and a DOD Grunge pedal for the harshest noise, and sometimes a microcassette recorder for weird stuff such as loops or just found sounds. Found sounds because most of the microcassettes are found in thrift shops and they have wonderful and weird messages from answering machines. I also use obliterated cymbals i have sitting around and a small black filing cabinet i hit from time to time.

3. What do you think about the music context nowadays and how do you place yourself in? do you feel a part of any scene?

Music nowadays (if you mean the garbage they play on local radios) is well, garbage. The music that is HUGE around here is Hardcore, and it's bigger in Cleveland. It's a scene full of racists, sexists and queer-phobic people and believe it or not, I was part of it. I was the drummer of a hardcore band at one point and the members were all really rude and "high and mighty". Their attitude was: "If you're not as good as me and if you don't have the same belief as me, you're a piece of shit." Which is why I quit, because you have to be a sheep to think like that, and I'm a free thinker. 

Scene wise, I believe I fit in the growing experimental scene in Ohio. Dudes like Brandon from Interstates Etc. and Colton from Hostas/Parched Earth -who are from Mansfield- gave me so much inspiration, because knowing that there are people that make the same kind of music around this tiny little city shows I'm not alone in this little scene! Ha!

SHOUTOUTS TO DIVEBOMB CUZ THEY'RE ONE OF THE ONLY HARDCORE BANDS THAT ARE COOL AND NOT FULL OF BUTTMUNCHING DUMMIES.

4. What is your method of composition?

My albums are all purely pieces of complete improvisation. If I'm correct, 'Fire' is the only piece I've done multiple times to get what I want perfectly!

5. How is your record approach? Do you use some particular record technique?

I actually record with my phone, with cassettes, or through my computer. Ecco Terrorism, Regal Abuse, and Larengitis were all recorded on my phone, Seatbelts Smeared with Excrement was recorded through my computer except for the last rack with was though a cassette other albums I recorded with my computer being Self Mutilation and Folk Punk and Emo. Remover / Disposal was recorded with a cassette. Now Exclusive Terrorism was a weird one. I started out recording it all on a cassette with Dr. Dirty John Valby on it, and then recorded the sounds on the cassette with my phone and improvised other sounds over it. No shit I record a lot of these albums in a few hours haha!

6. Do you play live? How does the public react to your music?

I've sadly never played live before, but my first show is on the 16th of January and it WILL be recorded! I've played in front of friends and I'm 17 so I still live with parents and they.... obviously dislike the noise haha... but they're completely supportive and don't stop me if I do the noise while they're home. My friends think it's weird and they even think it's kinda scary! It's cool knowing my noise can strike fear into people!

7. Genesis P-Orridge said "Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.". What do your records represent to you? 

Great quote! I'm actually a very angry person and it came from the bullyingfrom kids at school and the constant gaslighting I would get from teachers and exes I've had, eventually leading up to mental breakdowns and the such from bottling up a lot of my emotions. These albums I put out are basically therapeutic, for they show the most animalistic, most human sides of me: anger, sadness, lonliness, and pure hatred for the people I dislike. My records are pieces of raw emotion I cut and paste from my mind to an amp. These albums... they represent me as a human being.