June Cover Story: N.S.C.

We’re N.S.C., five people with very different views and ideas. Rather than having an interview, we’ve opted to present ourselves in our own way.

Sara

I don’t want to lecture about all of the fucked up things in this world—most of you know about a lot of them already. There are many problems, and many who claim to have the answers, but very few true solutions. Sometimes the best way to facilitate change is to become informed, share what you know and live what you believe.

I want this word to change many things. I feel the pain of the earth. It hurts to breathe. With work, cooperation and awareness, I believe it will change. The spirit of the Mother demands it. I don’t want to expect people to believe everything we say. I just ask them to think … and question. Don’t wait for others. Begin within yourselves.

Travis

The human condition: to fall down and scrape your knees, only to do it again. To feel the pain and not to learn. It’s the suffering that brings us to greatness. I can’t stop the world and it’s ways, but I’ll die screaming for justice. To do anything else would tear at the very fiber of my being. We must be honest with ourselves. Sing about politics? Why the fuck not? Isn’t it something that pervades our lives to such an extent that we can’t ignore it? I’m tired of hearing about reasons not to write songs about politics and things that matter more than friends stabbing you in the back or endless parades of love songs coursing through our minds. Enough of the frivolities of life. Let’s tear it all down and start from scratch. I don’t want you to look at me as someone who has any answers. I don’t—but I look for them anyway. I can’t forget that I have to make myself worthy, and release myself from the human condition.

KAJ

What is the reason for us (or possibly just my premonition) to be involved in the so-called “SLC scene?” Is it that we need some type of companionship? Or are we trying to change something that troubles us in our everyday lives? I think it is possibly these and many other endless points of interest that draws me into the rigors of getting out of my house, and attempting some form of communication other than what is shared among my friends.

Communication is the most essential role we can play in becoming more compassionate to others unique personalities. The major reason we have lost, is the ability to have a self-reliant role in our daily lives, is that we lost communication outside our various factions of our own personal communities. We have lost touch with what is going on around us! The dominant forces in our lives took control of the communal apathy we shared and twisted it into something that is beneficial to a small number of control junkies. We have become everything this small sect has imagined, and all the while we stand back and give thanks for the shit they feed us thinking this is what we deserve. I have never known anything other than the flag and safety though control and fear. It is the way I was brought up, and many other people in the world were raised in a similar mirrored fashion. I cannot understand I’m not allowed to make an autonomous and free-willed decision without being bombarded with preconceived or falsified information. We have to, in ourselves begin to see through the bureaucratic rhetoric we are fed, and start to question the issues and actions we find questionable.

At the beginning of next year, a number of people want to open up a club that is non-profit, volunteer, all ages and a collective run non-capitalist venue. It would be run by whomever decides to contribute and volunteer their time in keeping the club open. Further down the road, we hope to introduce a coffee shop, small soup & sandwich shop, and a place to gather, to practice the art of communication. If there is anyone interested in being a part of such a club, get in contact with us so we can begin brainstorming ways in making such an endeavor come about. Let’s take back our scene and then we can take back our lives.

Chris

Into the forum’s fire we that the fat rancid political spittle crackling and seething in the hot bourbon breath of intimate inspection.

Johnny was a good boy who never asked why. He let the status quo do his thinking for him. It was easy. But all was as it shouldn’t be. The groundwork had been done but times had changed. The ideas were shaking the foundations and the shingles had begun to fall, but proportionate to this there was a rise in hostility—the fear of upsetting a system the fear of the unknown. Authentic existence requires a responsibility to action.

The was a time when a man knew where he stood-morally, ethically, physically, whatever. His effective domain stretched only as far as a horse could ride in a day. He knew himself, his thoughts, his feelings. The wilderness was as yet, relatively unfettered and clean. It was his for the taking. Then agriculture and industry upset this delicate balance of creature and Earth which and here to fore been the wellspring of life. Our need for creature comforts overcame the need to maintain our mother granted we considered the Earth’s resources to be an inexhaustible supply. Don’t mess with Mother Nature lest she messed you back. Regardless of this, via the need to sell through our capitalist society, our over sized greedy brains nurtured the creation of imagery was inaugurated as our modus operandi. Space and matter were conquered to a certain degree time remains a more elusive critter, and since the capture of the atom’s power, we have fancied ourselves masters of the universe. Yet we are now awash in such a plethora of “progress,” ideas and dissenting opinions—that this uncontrollable technological tide of events threatens to annihilate our identity. All this and more—regardless of our desire to rest on our laurels and the stable lamity-orientated ideals of the 50s.

I thought that everyone should be allowed their individual world views no matter how complacent, judgmental or close minded they were I felt that to not accept their viewpoints as being a valid worldview in their own right was paramount to revealing my own closed-mindedness for judging them as they do me. Everyone is entitled to their own ideas, as conforming and judgemental as they might be—call it “the freedom of thought act.” For some reason, the concept that have the right to be wrong always appealed to me. Yet, now I feel vehemently opposed to such a blind acceptance of judgemental finger pointing. The pressure that I feel to be a normal, conforming and productive contributor to society is a direct assault on my own personal freedom. I don’t shove my personal beliefs down anyone else’s thought, so why should I be subjected to theirs? To rebel against this force is to rebel against the very societal constructs within which our government attempts to make us tow the line or be shunned in exile for being some strange individualist.

How true (and ironic) this army bumper sticker I saw is says that “Freedom isn’t Free!” We buy our freedom with blood, death and money! How much more blatantly contradictory could the basic patriotic fervor on which this country rests be that “Freedom isn’t Free?” Thus a note of caution: don’t look to closely at the tenets upon which our constitution rest, lest the lines of distinction blur, the red, white and blue borders grow gray and the terms swim in an ever-increasing morass of political hype.

Who are we to say that humans are the apex of living tissue? Who are we to say that animals (or plants) don’t enjoy more profound consciousness than we ever will? The presumptive, greedy, judgemental, holier-than-thou nature of the (American) human mind is galling beyond belief! Can’t we all just get along? Ha! No fucking way! You new age enthusiasts better get a fucking grip. Utopia ain’t coming until we tear this society a new asshole—or rip it up altogether. What does it take to galvanize you people? This town needs a peppy rallying point. I’ve never known.

Decentralizing is good for the government, because there is nothing that you can strike at that would debilitate a good portion of the whole burgeoning disaster-waiting-to-happen. But it’s not good for us because there is no cohesion what-so-ever. That’s why they want to keep us splintered Decentralized, mass marketed, macho materialistic, nationalist, money/business oriented, rock (boring), formulated, sexist. Vain people are naturally pitted to beat each other out. Gimme the antithesis of all this any day.

Oh yeah, I play drums for the N.S.C. I’m gonna do my best to blast some real freedom into that vacuum of mass culture betwixt yer ears any way I can. I’m a meat eatin’, sex slurpin’, anti-P.C. hedon hoodlum scum from hell. Mine is the true world of God and you can take that to the bank!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! I’m your worst nightmare! Any correspondence/hate mail/interaction with deviants, degenerates, political reactionaries, preoperative hermaphrodites or leather/latex bound, carnivorous, anti-P.C. demonatrix women is wholeheartedly encouraged. But me at Chris ℅ R.U. Dead Music. Will reply.

Dwayne

Run to the sand, to the cactus and back again, down a long paved road past the oil refineries, gas stations, power lines, automobiles all stolen and sold to you by the same people who have removed you from reality, tied your blindfolds, and waited your next payment. The predator grows as do its tools: televisions, sexism, racism, behavior. Fake, real, real fake. Money, selling you the idea that they are your only choice. You can see them high on the dead hill, or moving to one, still pristine, alive enough to kill … if you’re ever in doubt look at the billboards, they’ll help guide you to a better tomorrow called nowhere. God bless our helps. God bless our unborn troops. Build more walls and fences and computers and kill everything you see. We run to the sandy sand, to the cactus and back again. I went to the desert. We walked on the red rocks and through the waterfalls barefoot on earth.

N.S.C.

N.S.C. is: Travis and Sarah, vocals; Dwayne, guitar; Kaj, bass; and Chris drums. They recently were included on the “Our Choice, Pro-choice” 7”, “Word of God.” They are also on the “Big Mountain” benefit compilation. They will be touring the eastern United States in June. They can be contacted at N.S.C., P.O. Box 11015 Salt Lake City, Utah 841147.

Check out more from the SLUG Archives:
Cover Story: Dead Kats
Cover Story: One Eye