Note from HAKATAK International President-for-life Paul Robb:

What Shall It Benefit a Man, If He Gain the Whole World and Lose His Own Soul?

Well, kiddies, seems like Papa has pulled it off again. Even as you read this, Brother Sun Sister Moon is finalizing a six album deal with Virgin Records America, and their subsidiary, U-Ground. The hope is for a single or an EP in the Fall, with a remixed, revamped version of The Great Game to follow in early 1998.

What does this mean for HAKATAK International? Damned if I know. But I will tell you this: running a record company sucks! What I have discovered is that record companies exist to sell records. Elementary, you say. But for a namby-pamby sensitive artistic type such as Yours Truly, it comes as a rude awakening. I mean, as far as the business side is concerned, HAKATAK may as well be selling screwdrivers or catalytic converters. I guess that’s why record company people call it “product”.

Now in case anyone indie-types start shouting “sell-out,” let me remind you that my first band was INFORMATION SOCIETY, not exactly a world-renowned hotbed of credibility. As a matter-of-fact, Kurt Harland is in the middle of a multi-year process of trying to turn InSoc into a credibility band. At least I think that’s what he’s doing…At any rate, unless you’re talking to someone from the Mentors, don’t believe anyone who says they’d rather be on an indie; it’s all hype. Although, there are some groups, like THINK TANK, that could never be major-label material, so the indie world is just fine.

Speaking of which, the TANK is still selling and still getting decent airplay, and Mandroid recently entered the PROGRESSIVE dance charts. But something tells me TT will be a side project from now on (you know how us artistes love to have side projects).

Both PJR and HAKATAK will be moving to L.A. in September, the one city in the world I swore I would never inhabit. So we’ll be changing our corporate motto from: “It ain’t where you’re from, It’s where you’re at.” The new motto will be: ” It ain’t where you’re from OR where you’re at, it’s where you’re hoping to be after you get the hell out of Los Angeles.”

As a parting shot, here is my assessment of the current state of the world of electronic music:

INDUSTRIAL: A dead horse, getting deader by the minute. Various offshoots of techno have co-opted and improved on all the decent parts of industrial, leaving a warmed-over and pallid version of heavy metal behind. I personally feel that EBM never really had its day in court as a viable style, but I think it’s a little late now…

ELECTRONICA: As a press-hyped label, this word doesn’t bother me that much. But as someone pointed out in one of the newsgroups, people don’t really talk about Guitarica, do they?

DRUM & BASS: I’m sorry, but I can’t stand this stuff. Some of my friends keep telling me I just haven’t heard the good D&B, but in my mind, this style was invented by DJ’s, for DJ’s, and paranoid music writers, always afraid of not seeming to be in the know, have jumped on the band wagon.

GOTH: Somebody please wake me up when it’s 2000, so we can finish this fin de siecle shit for a few decades. My girlfriend Ramona was listening to Sisters of Mercy in 1987. I think Goth hit its peak about the same time as industrial. I still like to check out the little goth-girls in black capes, though.

TRIP HOP: As a practitioner of the genre, I prefer the term Downtempo, but at least Trip Hop acknowledges the debt to Hip Hop. For anyone who cares, it’s my opinion that Hip Hop is the foremost contribution by America to world culture since its only other contribution of note, Jazz. In the year 2525 (if the earth is still alive), Hip Hop will be classed next to Tango as one of the most important and vital musical expressions of the twentieth century. Hip Hop was and is revolutionary music of the masses, less in its content than in its very structure. I mean, let’s be honest, Hip Hop DJ’s invented sampling before there were samplers. Scratching is analog sampling, folks, and the subversive use of sampled material in Hip Hop is far ahead of anything being done in Techno or Industrial. And for me, Trip Hop is nothing more than some white people who don’t have a feel for rapping, making Hip Hop music and then singing (or sampling) over the top of the same beats.

TECHNO: Like Hip Hop, Techno will survive, but most vitally in its hundreds of micro-styles. Like, Electronica, Techno doesn’t so much describe a style of music so much as a means of producing that music. I mean, do the Orb, Autechre, and Gabber really belong to the same genre? At the moment, the hottest techno groups (at least in the States) are only techno in name, anyway. The Prodigy is Pop-Punk with loops, and the Chemical Brothers are sped-up Hip Hop.

HOUSE: Disco will never die.

And In Conclusion

Just let me say that this is still Frank’s world.