homemade j0nes -- background and description

[The following is excerpted from The Sim Club, a popular interview program for upcoming media.]

[Lights come up on a set of leather chairs in a stark white void. In one chair, a woman in her late 30’s desperately trying to look younger. In the other, a matrix persona. The persona depicts a young black male wearing a mask. The mask is pure white, with a number 0 printed on it. The woman speaks:]

Alice Madness: -so, for those just joining us, Jones is a member of Seattle art collective Marymoor-- [She's cut off before she can finish.]

Homemade Jones: Redmond.

AM: Excuse me?

HJ: We’re a Redmond art collective. I get it, but without Redmond the group loses its meaning.

AM: Could you explain what you mean?

HJ: Like, the music, the visuals...it’s all rooted in Redmond. The name of the group, Marymoor Park--that was a real park. It’s all smashed storefronts and industrial waste now, but that’s part of the group, too.

AM: How do you mean?

HJ: Like...it’s Redmond. Redmond is hell, but it’s also where I was born. It’s home. Or it should be home, but something’s missing. People don’t go out, don’t talk to their neighbors. There’s church and there’s policlubs, but people barely go to those anymore. People don’t leave their block unless it’s to get high or to rip somebody off.

AM: There’s no community.

HJ: Exactly! Redmond used to be a community, years ago-it was there! Now we got people growing up there, people growing up who’ve never known that community! Oblivi0n, R0semary and me, we’re all too young. All we’ve known is strict parents and stricter curfews. Gang power trips and our breakers constantly tripping. That’s why we all rock the 0. We’ve got an empty integer in our...code, man. [He chuckles dryly.] That sounds corny as hell. We exist to..to try and give the people of Redmond an alternative to the culture that they have now. Something to be proud of, a space to come together in.

AM: For a group looking to foster community, there sure seems to be a...dark current running through your music. The Sim Club’s review noted as much, stating, "Through the eyes of these young artists, urban decay is recontextualized and rechristened, yet it remains unchanged at its core." Do you think your music falls short in that way?

HJ: In what way?

AM: Well, you said you’re looking to rebuild community, but there’s an undeniable bleakness to a piece like "l0ssless", and its accompanying visuals, the ones with the row of business packing up and shutting down.

HJ: OK, first, I didn’t say rebuild or community. Don’t misquote me. [A long silence passes.] So, if I use your example, "l0ssless": that isn’t anything new to people from Redmond. That’s life. It’s not some grand statement, it’s a casual observation. Were not trying to rebuild, we’re trying to build a community out of what’s already there. To create art that allows people where I’m from to share their feelings with each other."

AM: Would you say that your work then is inherently exclusionary?

HJ: Nah, not so much. It’s not made with the people of the world in mind, but it’s valuable to experience something that wasn’t made for you. It provides insight. Context.

[End of excerpt.]

[Entry taken from worklog of former Lone Star Patrol Officer Timothey SXXXXXX.]

Entry 0001397, 17 December 207X, 04:17:39

Responded around 0100 hours to a call from Sony Entertainment offices. Call came in from the building’s Host Security Officer XXXXXXXXXXXX. Something had tipped of GOD but the power cut off immediately after, meaning he was working his way through the host the long way. He figured someone was in the building trying to jack in. No surprise, but that doesn’t explain why they’d cut local power.

Me and Patrol Officer FXXXX made the scene, with a backup team ready to deploy if we gave the signal. After a quick perimeter search, we found a sewer grate left off its hinges. I sent FXXXX down to investigate, while I swept the office floors with my rifle scope. Nothing. We regrouped and waited for the maintenance men to get the power up and running while staking out the exits. From down the street, we could hear a commotion, as three kids, no older than their teens, came streaking down the road. I noticed an unmistakable stink about them, but seeing their clothes I understood why: these were Barrens rats. I leveled my rifle at one of them, a human kid all scrawny limbs and baggy hoodie. They stopped dead.

I noticed the other male member of the group, a bigger kid, maybe an ork? He held an open bottle of champagne way too expensive for barrens kids to have nicked back near their hovels. I told them to hand over the bottle, but the kid dropped it. I let him off with a mild admonition, to put it one way. I made sure they could walk back to their bus stop, but didn’t book them. Barrens kids are still kids, they’ll have plenty of time to get themselves arrested later. I guess I'm just a good samaritan.

[End of excerpt.]

[Excerpt from underground hip-hop newswire Illmatic.]

Marymoor Park member among dead in Redmond bombing.

Redmond--Among the 22 killed in the Redmond tenement bombing earlier this morning, "oblivi0n", instrumentalist and vocalist for Redmond-based collective Marymoor Park, has been identified.

Oblivi0n--born Elie Klein--was discovered under a collapsed pillar meters from where fellow member "r0semary" said she dragged herself free after three floors collapsed beneath them. "Fire," the young elf recounts, "He said something like, ‘Do you smell fire?’, then as soon as he said that, we were falling." R0semary herself was hospitalized with serious injuries, but her condition has since improved to stable.

The buildings, a complex series of apartments, flophouses, storerooms and places of business were primarily inhabited and patroned by Redmond’s troll and ork community. The attack is believed to be racially biased--this morning the Troll Killers gang released a video taking credit for the attack. Crude nitroglycerin bombs were placed in garbage receptacles throughout the bottom floor of the building and detonated with a wireless signal. The fire was slow to spread, but the bulk of casualties are believed to have from inadequate emergency exits and stairwell space.

The embattled art collective gained press notoriety over the summer when, just days after the release of their surprise summer jam "New June", they loudly decried RCA, their own record label and were summarily dropped. A series of blogs from each member seemed to indicate they would pursue self-publishing for a number of projects, including a gallery at an art space located inside the eventual site of Oblivi0n’s death.

Group member "homemade j0nes", in a post on his blog, "homemade’s cookin", eulogized the victims on his blog, then posted this immediately following:

"to those that have been with us since the beginning: thank you.
to those that have been with us for ten minutes: thank you.
Marymoor Park is gone forever
they paved it over
with asphalt and broken windows

love forever or as long as you can

-hj"

Oblivi0n was 23 years old.

[End of excerpt.]