Geek rock

Geek rock (also known as nerd rock or dork rock) is a musical subgenre derived from alternative rock within the nerd music group. It is a sister-genre to the chiptune-influenced rock subgenre nintendocore and related to other branches of nerd music such as hip hop's nerdcore and contemporary folk's nerd-folk. Geek rock is characterised by the standard instruments of rock music often combined with electronic and unusual instruments; references to geek culture and specialised, yet often mundane, interests; and an element of humour. Specific subgenres of geek rock range from those related to elements of geek culture, such as the Harry Potter-based wizard rock, and those related to elements of rock music, such as the punk rock variant called nerd punk.

Characteristics

Geek rock is characterised by strong use of both electronic instruments and more atypical musical instruments, such as accordions or ukuleles.

Lyrically, the genre is generally characterised by subject matter that covers topics such as geek media pop culture (including science fiction, comic books and video games), academia, technology and related topics. Kyle Stevens of Kirby Krackle expands this to include any passionate interest, saying in a 2013 interview: "To us now, what we consider or genre of 'nerd' or 'geek' rock means anything we are really passionate about, whether that be traditionally geeky subject matter or a song about how we’re really into tacos. In essence, they’re love songs directed to whatever we’re really passionate about."Irony, self-deprecation and humour are major elements.

Geek

The word geek is a slang term originally used to describe eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast or a person obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit, with a general pejorative meaning of a "peculiar person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual, unfashionable, or socially awkward".

Although often considered as a pejorative, the term is also used self-referentially without malice or as a source of pride. Its meaning has evolved to refer to "someone who is interested in a subject (usually intellectual or complex) for its own sake".

Etymology

This word comes from English dialect geek or geck (meaning a "fool" or "freak"; from Middle Low German Geck). "Geck" is a standard term in modern German and means "fool" or "fop". The root also survives in the Dutch and Afrikaans adjective gek ("crazy"), as well as some German dialects, and in the Alsatian word Gickeleshut ("jester's hat"; used during carnival). In 18th century Austria-Hungary, Gecken were freaks on display in some circuses. In 19th century North America, the term geek referred to a performer in a geek show in a circus, traveling carnival or travelling funfair sideshows (see also freak show). The 1976 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary included only the definition regarding geek shows. This variation of the term was used to comic effect in an episode of popular 1970s TV show Sanford & Son. Professional wrestling manager "Classy" Freddie Blassie recorded a song in the 1970s called "Pencil-Necked Geek".

Geek!

Geek! is the debut EP by the alternative rock band My Bloody Valentine, released in December 1985 on Fever Records. It is the band's first release to feature bassist Debbie Googe.

Track listing

All lyrics written by David Conway, all music composed by Kevin Shields.

Personnel

All personnel credits adapted from Geek!'s liner notes.

References

External links

OpenNIC

OpenNIC is an alternate network information center/alternative DNS root which lists itself as an alternative to ICANN and its registries.

As of 2006 users of the OpenNIC DNS servers are able to resolve all existing ICANN top-level domains as well as their own.

Like all alternative root DNS systems, OpenNIC-hosted domains are unreachable to the vast majority of the Internet. Only specific configuration in one's DNS resolver makes these reachable, and very few Internet service providers have this configuration.

History

On June 1, 2000, an article was posted on kuro5hin.org advocating a democratically governed domain name system. By the end of July, OpenNIC root servers were operating and several top-level domains had been introduced as well as peering of the AlterNIC namespace. In March 2001 peering began of Pacific Root and in September a search engine was announced which was dedicated to the OpenNIC namespace.

OpenNIC restructured its architecture to improve scalability and avoid single-point-of-failure issues. Each TLD has its own policies regarding acceptable use. New TLDs may be created subject to OpenNIC stated policies.