BOSTON — Local 46-year-old musician Tim Reddy of the seminal one-person noise/grind collective 5CrpseFckPrty complained that you could no longer whip out your schlong on stage without making everyone feel weird nowadays, confirmed sources who were really hoping he wasn’t about to test that theory.
“Noise as a genre is supposed to make everyone in the room uncomfortable except me,” said Reddy while trimming his pubic hair. “What are we saying? That if I rub my bare genitals on an audience member without their consent, that’s not ok? Evidently, that’s now just called assault. What the fuck happened to the scene? As an artist, I should be able to jam an entire microphone up my asshole. After all, these people didn’t pay seven bucks to see me keep my underwear on the whole time. The whole point of noise and sound art is to express myself through my junk.”
Shannon Mallory, a member of the audience at 5CrpseFckPrty’s impromptu show, said she supports the arts but thought Reddy’s feelings were slightly misguided.
“Well, I agree that punk used to be actually dangerous and now it’s the soundtrack to Broadway musicals and winning Grammys,” said Mallory. “And yes, I do think our society’s overall prude-ness around nudity is silly and puritanical. But while I don’t really like to judge other people’s art, this is a 2:30 pm showing of ‘Wicked.’ So I’m not really sure what he was doing here, or why he had his dick out.”
Stella Chan, professor of art history at Boston College Stella, said that Reddy’s complaint points to larger and more unknowable queries orbiting punk and art spaces in general.
“The question of ‘what is art?’ is a nebulous one,” said Chan. “It begs the asker to think beyond the everyday occurrence of beauty and ugliness, life and death, and in the end, often presents more questions itself than producing anything remotely resembling an answer. That said, a solid 80% of noise artists are pretty much just flashers, and Tim is definitely one of those folks. Do not book this man for your birthdays, weddings, or graduation parties.”
At press time, Reddy also complained that you can no longer take a dump on stage during your set without the venue janitor having an absolute fit anymore.