Part I: The Awakening

Very rarely to almost never does a musical genre so perfectly fail to capture the mood of a time and place as Dickcore does. An oblique, underappreciated, and ultimately unnecessary overindulgence of the eternal Id, Dickcore by its very nature refuses to be contextualized in the same way as Punk, Rock, Jazz or Blues. In other words, it’s fucking nonsense. Any attempt to describe Dickcore is, therefore, also nonsensical, and a waste of time for everyone involved in the process – both of writing (me) and reading about it (you). But according to my generous estimates of UCLARadio blog readers, that amounts to 6 people, which leaves me, with a score of 5-1, in the lead at the end of this. So please, accept your defeat gracefully, and enjoy this unjustifiably convoluted journey through the rather straightforward history of Dickcore music.

Origins
Contrary to what many academics would surely never take the time to argue, the elements of Dickcore did not in fact materialize in the privileged suburban town of Danville, California, in 2005. Under close examination, it is clear that the essence of Dickcore – unsubtle, indiscriminate, silly sexual aggression – lurks within all musical styles. Medieval Gregorian chants, haunting odes to piety and faith, are at their base heavily coded tirades about dicks, farts, and humping, sung in such a manner as to reverberate throughout stone monasteries and create great discomfort for those attempting to pray. The works of Beethoven are rife with clandestine auditory boners – same goes for Mozart’s orally-fixated opuses, and hidden within the scales of Bela Bartok's studies in Central European folk traditions lie endless boob puns and bawdy peasant pick-up lines. Even the carefree ditties of R&B pioneer Little Richard demonstrate clear Dickcore tendencies, such as in the original lyrics to his 1955 hit, "Tutti Frutti":

Tutti frutti, loose booty / If it don’t fit, don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy

Seriously.
Therefore the spirit of Dickcore is no post-modern, upper middle class, adolescent male phenomenon borne of boredom and homoerotic humor, but is a timeless musical energy that has lain dormant for centuries in all great feats of Western music. What occurred in Danville in 2005 was merely the realization and reconstruction of this energy into what it is today, the nexus of aurally-offensive music currently labeled "Dickcore" by the faggy Ivory Tower college radio DJ powers that be.

This realization was first partly realized by the surrealist musical venture, The All Star Jam Band, remembered ultimately for two widely reviled performances at San Ramon Valley High School "Battle of the Bands" contest. Unlike the majority of their peers in the Danville scene – cheap Green Day ripoffs, screamo acts, blues groups led by the narcissistic nephew of Carlos Santana, and ska bands (of both the regular and Mormon varieties) – the All Star Jam Band took the inaccessibility of Frank Zappa as their starting point, and combined jazz-influenced technicality with a healthy disdain for the audience.


Their performance at the Spring 2005 Battle of the Bands alone proves their conceptual links to the Dickcore movement, with each performer clad in absurd attire, and drummer Kevin Olsson – dressed in a tutu, short shorts, and a rat mask from The Nutcracker – leaving the stage mid-show to throw confetti at students who were trying to eat their lunch. Clearly, the members of ASJB, in their general dickishness, had stumbled upon something ancient and inexpressible, something greater than themselves that they could barely comprehend, let alone control. Olsson and ASJB saxophonist Thomas J. Weeks bravely took it upon themselves to explore the abyss that they had uncovered, and with the help of relatively unknown and uncouth bassist, Chris Crowe, they would conceive an entity both horrendous and magnificent: Intergalactic Prophylactic.





EP Freely
Ladies and Gentlemen, you are about to bear witness to a meeting of the Gods. This meeting will help you gain insight into your own soul. May it bring prosperity to your family, and honor to your ancestry… I’m going to fuck you in the ass.
-An Evening on Swan Lake

The power of EP Freely, the first I.P. installment, can be measured in the number of times it compels a questioning of existence – which is four, and the number of times in which anal sex is threatened upon the listener, which is fifty-four. Recorded at a frantic pace and never given an official release, the work was from its inception deemed too dangerous to be dwelled upon for too long, the unabridged inanity of its five tracks too pure and volatile to behold. An infinitely challenging work, the prestige it holds in the Dickcore canon is completely justified, even if its existence, purpose, or proof of artistic merit fails to be.

Track 1: An Evening on Swan Lake



From the beginning, the record sets a course for uncharted musical waters, with tribal beats, shrill flutes, and guttural singing giving birth to pulsing no-wave keyboards, repetitive bass drones and aimless arpeggios. For several minutes this soothing, atmospheric jam builds upon itself, refusing to climax, and then, just as you are as comfortable as possible, everything falls apart. Without warning, the complacency of the track is torn asunder by a violent and haunting riff – a riff that changes everything. A simple, distorted chord progression explodes into being, topped by several layers of vocals, all telling you, quite casually, that you are about to be sodomized. As the vocals swirl and harmonize and the riff grows catchier and catchier, an internal division develops within you, between your sense of decency and sense of pleasure. Finally you give into the song, only to realize that you’ve just spent five minutes – only one half of the entire song – being told your bottom was going to be ravaged.
At this point, you’ll see that the title of the track provides a meta-commentary on the newly discovered spirit of Dickcore, for by juxtaposing the concept of the ballet Swan Lake with an extremely lengthy, juvenile, and one-dimensional butt sex joke, Intergalactic Prophylactic reveal that beneath even the most ‘cultured’ forms of art lies coarse, vulgar sensibilities. And maybe this will make you chuckle briefly, as the next song begins.

Track 2: Space Condom



This low-key, high-funk track represents a more traditional approach to songwriting, an ode to condoms in space. But beneath Weeks' sultry sax-playing and silky smooth vocals it is very clear this song is conceptually much, much more. The eponymous condom is entirely de-sexualized, protecting a penis that doesn’t exist, proven by the fact that the singer does not know where the condom is, i.e. "Space condom / where did you go?" Furthermore, the space condom "prevent[s] unwanted pregnancies / on Saturn", a planet inhospitable to life, where pregnancies are unable to exist in the first place – this paradox can only be explained by the immateriality of the condom. The space condom thus is found only in the ether, it is a condom that connects all of us. The space condom is also something that we all search for, as expressed in the line "Space condom / Come back to us / Space condom / We need you in our butts". What could be more internal, private, and essential to a person than their butt? The image of a spiritual phallic sheath being needed in one's butt truly reflects the nature of Dickcore.

Track 3: TK421 Do U Copy?



For the uninitiated, this song appears to be yet another pointless exercise – the layering of a brief audio clip from Star Wars over 4 minutes of heavy shredding and turntable scratching, but for true Dickcore connoisseurs, it is a revealing glimpse at Intergalactic Prophylactic’s musical vision. The track sets the tone for Dickcore's future musicality, with noise, fury, and relentless guitar lines being built around obscure, frivolous concepts. It also holds a very humbling message, like much of the future songs of the Dickcore genre. The Star Wars clip, repeated over and over again, is of an Imperial trooper searching for his partner, TK421, who cannot be found, thus this track is essentially the Waiting for Godot moment of EP Freely. Moreover, 421 is merely one more than 420, a number and symbol that will pop up again and again in the products of the Dickcore movement.

Track 4: Tribute to 1776



In this standout track, The Declaration of Independence, the birth of our nation, and the biography of George Washington are all subverted, deconstructed, and rebuilt stronger, more memorable and more patriotic than before. Over a rollicking version of Yankee Doodle Dandy, The American Revolution is completely reimagined by I.P., complete with Winston Churchill quotes, audio snippets from Harvey Birdman, an ear-searing guitar solo, all ending with an unforgettable tenor performance by Weeks as George Washington’s wandering ghost – essential listening for all. The lasting influence of Tribute to 1776 is the enunciation of another essential element of the Dickcore universe: Bold, unapologetic, uncritical jingoism.

Track 5:Why Am I Michael Bluth?



EP Freely ends just as perplexing and introspective as it begins, with an existential monologue questioning the influence of pop culture on identity construction. Bassist Crowe asks, over an upbeat funk track, why he is the character Michael Bluth from the television show, Arrested Development. No progress is made in answering this question, and as the song fades out into nothingness with Crowe still making the same queries, it is abundantly apparent that his search will never end, his sense of self forever lost, much like the 3 minutes you just spent listening to it.

Made of seemingly disparate parts, the sum total of EP Freely is in actuality an extremely complex, comprehensive integration of the basic tenets, beliefs, and values of Dickcore. Tapping into the previously unexplored reserves of Dickcore’s essence, EP Freely laid the foundations for further exploration, experimentation, and unadulterated bullshittery. As the base of the Dickcore movement swelled, new personalities and models of thought flowed into its conceptual offshoots, strengthening the movement and allowing it to develop with tantalizing speed, ultimately producing endless shallow, phallicly-themed sentences just like this one.

In our next analysis of the genre, we will investigate the Intergalactic follow ups to EP Freely, the now legendary full-length, The Lost Whale Sessions, and the more accessible, mainstream album that nearly brought the genre crashing down: NYPD: New York Penis Department.

8====D~~~ Steve