A very interesting topic---especially in bringing forward some areas of overlap for several users here.
"Getting into noise" was something that sort of happened without me realizing it during my late teens. At that time, I was being exposed metal music (within which I quickly moved from Metallica and Megadeth, through Slayer and onto black metal) while simultaneously being introduced to modern and contemporary art through a local community college/museums.
I first realized that noise was a genre after realizing I was accidentally making it in my attempts to record "ambient" music using field recordings. (I wanted to play black metal like Burzum, but I didn't have drums or a bass, so I thought I would try making ambient like him. However, I also didn't have any synths! Therefore I was left making recordings of birds and washing machines, amongst other things, and manipulating the recordings with a computer...) After that experience, I discovered that something called "noise music" existed, and it was onwards from there.
I think the dual exposure through metal and art really shaped and continues to shape what I looked for in noise then, what I continue to look for now, as well as what influences the work that I try to create---not to mention some of the frustrations that I have with the genre/scene. I definitely shared the desire to find the "most extreme" sounds that I could, but I also realized very quickly that there is no substance to copy-cat projects who mime the clichéd aesthetics cultivated by more seminal acts. For me, extremity should go along with novelty and some sort of authentic relationship with the art that you are creating. There has to be art there too. (I think this is also why noise/industrial have pointed me outwards to so many interesting works of literature, film, and visual art.)
Filth & Violence became an early favorite for these reasons. I think the label and associated projects are sold short fairly often when people characterize them as brutal, crude, etc. when they actually consistently developed in increasingly complex ways.
While I understand that noise, as a genre, should also question traditional artistic norms of intentionality, authenticity, and uniqueness in certain ways, I think there are critical ways to do so that only a few can manage to accomplish.
In many ways, I think my first expectations for noise have continued to be my expectations now, though what I personally find interesting is that those same expectations have led to a broadening in what I listen to rather than greater specificity. Noise led to free jazz, improv music, and so on.
While I read above that we are not meant to talk about thwarted expectations, I did mention some frustration in my post here. I think the sole drive towards extremity, which I see many people to claim to share (here, in the physical scene, and in other online forums), tends to lapse into redundancy and conservatism. While I have problems with Bizarre Uproar (that are separate from my evaluations of the sounds he makes---which have been consistently strong and reflect a serious dedication to craft), I really have to wonder what people who listening to (let alone making!) third-generation Bizarre Uproar "tribute" acts are getting out of it besides an opportunity to play-act as perverts. As with any artistic genre, there are exceptions to this, but there is some truth nonetheless, I think.
In the last few years, I have been reading a lot of information and systems theory about noise on a more theoretical level. In that context, noise is, essentially, uncoded, non-redundant information. Its manifestation in a communicational context injects diversity, change, and provokes the necessity of evolution. I think this is a more theoretical way of articulating what first excited me about noise music. At bottom, what I look for when I purchase a new album or decide what shows to check out, I ask myself: Does this add something new to my life? If not, then I can go without.
