Part 1: Human DiseaseSkinny Puppy are my Beatles. By this I mean their discography is one I return to every few years, seemingly discovering it for the first time, and being flabbergasted by its brilliance. Getting caught in some sort of fan boy trance, I spent the entire day of 26 December looking at interview and concert clips on YouTube, meticulously scanning discogs and tour playlists, Googling for hi-res scans of rare singles covers. I really couldn't stop myself. It was like a part of my brain just turned on and overtook the more higher functioning parts. Maybe I just really needed a vacation, and my neurosystem was just ensuring there was at least one day where I did nothing but vegetate (meditate?). It saddens me to think this group, like so many others, was torn apart by drug abuse and lead singer disease. They succumbed even to the cliché of reforming, replacing dead members with new personnel, than releasing new studio albums with an "updated" sound, which ired long time fans (yet we dutifully buy these albums anyway.)
I was happy to learn ćEvin Key (long-time core member) was never satisfied with the mastering job done the CD version of
Rabies. An album which many a pop critic site as the classic "industrial" album, and one of the best albums of the 1980s. Anyone who knows me knows I've always thought Rabies needed remastering. Apparently, a "standard" dolby noise reduction once over gave
Rabies its muted tinny sound (okay, so it's not that bad). Key remastered the CD for Canadian stores in '93 and this version became widely available in the US in '98. Well, guess which version I have: the shitty sounding one. The hunt begins.
All Puppy fans realize the absurdity of
Rabies going down in the pop canon as their definitive record.
Rabies is a perverse toy, an idiosyncrasy in their catalog. Though nearly their entire oeuvre, spanning
Remission to
The Process is outstanding, two of my favorites are
Mind: the Perpetual Intercourse and
Last Rights.
Mind added the melodic ear, keyboard skills, and sequencer knowledge of Dwayne Goettel. Their sound took a huge leap forward. The most invisible member of a band that turned anonymity itself into a PR point, he was integral to their musical output but very rarely did interviews or took any credit. I've heard fans get together and mourn on the the anniversary of the death, 23 August 1995. Mind defined the band's early sound and has too classic songs to mention them all: "God's Gift (Maggot)," "Stairs and Flowers," "Burnt with Water," & "Dig It" (a track Trent Reznor admits he blatantly plagiarized for for his song "Down In It.")
Classic line up (right to left):
Ogre
ćEvin Key
Dwayne Goettel
Last Rights is the penultimate chapter of an epic novel. The result of a decade's worth of experimentation and perfectionism, it's an avant-garde electronic volcano, the damage from the magma of which has yet to be fully determined. A dense production, every poly(machine)rhythm, every pitch-warped melody, every blistered-throat sprechstimme is pristinely placed, and perfectly mixed for maximum effect. Have you ever had a nightmare? Do you understand the work of Max Ernst? Have you listened to
Last Rights? It's one of my favorite records of the '90s, or any other decade for that matter. (I realize as I write this that anyone not familiar with Skinny Puppy's work or those whose tastes are poppy, giving a listen to
Mind: the Perpetual Intercourse or
Last Rights, they'd be in for atonal fist fuck. Of
Last Rights I've often asked myself, "how was this ever on a major label?")
Rabies likely has the reputation it does because of the powerhouse single "Worlock," a song genuinely popular with fans and nonfans alike, and the song's copyright-infringing,
heavily-censored video. Possessing one the most melodic choruses in Skinny Puppy's entire oeuvre, it made neural inroads that their more challenging work would not. When Puppy reformed for a one off reunion show in Dresden Germany in 2000, they released the show as a live album,
Doomsday. My friend Ben played this album for me and when I heard the chorus on "Worlock" I cried. (I also cried when Ben played me
Sketches of Spain. Realizing my penchant for sensitivity, Ben has tried to make me cry by playing other albums, but it never worked. Fuck you Ben.)
It would be remiss of me not to talk about
The Process, their final (pre-reunion), much maligned, album. Much maligned by who (besides the band themselves) I'm not so sure.
The Process was ending up being their
Let It Be, their
Strangeways, Here We Come. Indeed, producers changed three times, one member quit, another died, and their record company terminated their contract. That's a fucking disaster! As is typical with such situations, the final result was stunning. The sound was somewhat different than their previous records. For one thing, Ogre's vocals were not totally distorted (more on that later). The production was more digital and mix more clean. In a lot of ways a radical turn from their previous album, the thickly layered
Last Rights. Some of the melodies were brighter, some of the beats were "dancey," and this gave the record a
slightly, more pop sound. After 13 years together, a new producer(s) and a new studio, and constant evolution between albums in the past, who would have expected The Process to sound the same. So many Puppy-esque elements are still there: mutant song structures (molesting the sonata), noisy intense instrumentals strewn with moments of horizon-wide ambient peace, stream of consciousness lyrics whose meaning are suggested rather than given. "Amnesia" was their best 'normal' song since "Worlock." Again, the combination of creativity, intelligence, and high production values resulted in an album that is incomparable with other popular 'industrial' records.
The Process too sounds like it was created by a band in a studio, as opposed to the post-breakup recordings which need to pull their ears of their laptop-induced arse.
The Process was my first Skinny Puppy album. I can remember sitting at the kitchen table of sister's trailer (I'll out white trash any of you any day) listening to it for the first time on headphones. My head spun. I don't think I'd ever really heard hardcore techno beats before. Or at least hardcore beats used as a single element within a song, as opposed to just a continuous beat you would hear in a dance club. I was young, but "Hardset Head" was unlike anything I had ever heard before. That album was like a scythe cutting through the wheat of my mind.
One of things I wasn't going to talk about in the blog were why Skinny Puppy were intrinsically so good in the first place. (My justification being the "this is my blog I'll write what I want" simplex.) Circumstances have forced my hand: Skinny Puppy are the one band that continually fused noise and melody while retaining the positive effects both throughout their entire discography. They utilized pop song structures only to pervert them, and never denied themselves the right include experimental instrumentals on all their LPs. Though always employing guitars and drums, these were always heavily processed and the bands sound and legacy remain firmly in the electronic realm. Tapes, sequencers, drum machines, live keyboards haven't been used this creatively this side of Stockhausen (okay, maybe Brian Eno). A trained drummer, ćEvin Key is a rhythm chef of uncanny talent. Producers will be catching up to his drum treatments and arrangements for years. Dwayne Goettel's contributions have previously been mentioned. Far too often the extreme distortion on Ogre's vocals have led casual listeners to assume lack of talent or production expertise on the band's part. Formal extremity equates ideological extremity. Ogre's mangled vocal sound was integral from the very beginning. Production values were always high, but the vocal sounds were always deliberately distorted. Deciding from the get go that the vocals would be processed opened all sorts of avenues for aural exploration. Regardless of this, on The Process and his many solo records, Ogre has proved himself a fine singer by pop standards. His stream of consciousness lyrics and rhythmic intuitive phrasing, remind me of, well... I'll just say it: Bob Dylan (at least his stream of consciousness period, and not just because they are stream of consciousness, but because they are good). For my money the record he created with Martin Aktins,
Bedside Toxicology, is by far his best solo disc.
Skinny Puppy are the industrial band that set the blueprint for all others. The horror themed imagery, the vocoded vocals, the mechanical beats: they authored the popular stereotype. Of all the uninspired disinteresting bands that stole their look and, very unsuccessfully, tried to steal their sound, Skinny Puppy remained musically head and shoulders about the pack. Yes, Skinny Puppy had influences with association to the word "industrial" but Skinny Puppy's approach, intention, and result were something far different. Probably to the chagrin of their influences, Skinny Puppy created something(s) new. Without Skinny Puppy there would never have been, for better or worse, a genre called "industrial." (If you are looking for a record that encompasses and transcends the formal dictates of the aforementioned imaginary genre, besides Skinny Puppy, look no further
SPK's Leichenschrei.) And really people, as far as the rhythms go, at least on the upbeat numbers, its called disco. Do you're fucking homework morons.
As popular as Skinny Puppy are, how intense their cult following is, and how readily available their discography remains today, I've never met another fan. I've met people that like Skinny Puppy, people that acknowledge their influence, but never another true blue blood red Puppy person. Maybe I hang out with wrong people. The same is true with another band I love and whose discography I obsess over,
Coil. But with Coil it makes a little more sense because their discography is in and out of print, the group never toured, they were never on a major label, and they dealt with subject matter that was actually transgressive. Perhaps my ego just likes being an island to myself.
A lot of the instrumental wizardary I've been harping about was continued on ćEvin Key's work post-Puppy; i.e. albums released under his own name, his Download project, his platEAU project, and the Tear Garden.
Strange fact: I do not own a legit copy or a bootleg of "Left Handshake." I mean what the fuck? I wonder what those are going for these days on Ebay.
memento mori, never forgotten Dwayne, 1964-1995
Do the dirty bird! Ogre, live 2005:
========================================
One of things I didn't
write about the thematic content of Ogre's lyrics, or the band's
complex symbolic stage show. That's another entry for another day. I've
decided to write a book about Skinny Puppy, along with my book about
David Lynch's version of
Dune.
Part 2: Vivisection
It
felt arbitrary only writing about Mind and Last
Rights. I have so many thoughts about all their albums. I
know every lyric, note, and beat on Vivisectvi.
That's a seriously fucked up album to know every note of. The CD
version includes the "Punk in Park Zoos" b-sides which are
only music I've every heard that has genuinely scared me, and that I
didn't want to listen to alone or at night.
ćEvin
Key's most focused solo work it is definitely his Download project. The Eyes of Stanley Pain is one the best IDM
records ever, if it fits in any genre. As with all things Puppy, the
sound of this project changed with the death of Dwayne. Compared to
Download his solo work feels like outtakes and b-sides. Though
spotty, there are brilliant tracks. The most fully realized of his
solo albums, the one that feels like a cohesive whole and not just
studio scraps, is The Dragon Experience.
The
two post-Doomsday reunion albums are The
Greater Wrong of the Right and Mythmaker.
Both are good records by industry standards but for some reason Mythmaker got a lot better press. For me, The Greater Wrong of the Right has more stand out tracks. They
band was clearly trying to get back to some older elements which got
cut from The Process, i.e., a thicker mix with
more keyboard washes and Ogre's vocals being slightly more distorted.
Regardless, The Process is still a more successful
effort. I think they need to ditch Pro Tools and get back to the
mixing board. Heaping and slicing a hundred little elements in a song
with a predictable structure does not make it any less predictable.
Before they were always mixing analog and digital technologies. It
was like soup, it slowly boiled. There were, occasionally, what
sounded like happy accidents. The new records sound completely
digital and I think the band's notorious perfectionism has finally
become a negative. All the soul is gone. As many a fan has pointed
out, they sound more like Ogre solo albums than Skinny Puppy records.
Of course, the person mainly replacing Dwayne is Mark Walk, Ogre's
producer of choice. Though when they tour now they do a career
spanning set list that has gotten nothing but raves.
There
were a few other extra-musical things I wanted to write about but
left out because the goal of the blog was create a better musical
appreciation of their work. But since this blog has gotten the
highest number of hits of any blog I've wrote since the bondage blog,
here goes:
1.)
The video for "Worlock" is a compendium of censored sections of
films the band admired. Despite any copyright issues, the video is
still graphic enough to remain censored in most countries considering
its entirety is censored content to begin with. For this reason the
video remains absent from commercially released collections of their
videos. It's ironic that the content of the video is so horrific
because sonically, if not lyrically, the song is rather soothing and
pleasant (at least for a Puppy song). In high school I can remember
reading an article about a psychopath who tied someone down and poked
their eyes out with a paperclip while "Worlock" played on loop.
When I started writing I couldn't find the article again, so maybe it
was just an urban legend. I believe the gist was that part of the
psychopath's defense was that "Worlock" made him do it ala the Judas Priest Stained Glass case. The band has
always had problems with censorship, especially in their supposedly
progressive home nation of Canada. There is a lesson to be learned:
if you have weird hair and you are political active your voice will
be marginalized. Formal extremity equals ideological extremity.
2.)
The band was initially signed to the Nettwerk label in Canada. Puppy
were the label's flagship artist for years. Nettwerk's in house
designer Steven
R. Gilmore cut his teeth designing Puppy's sleeves.
Eventually, the independent Nettwerk started scoring major hits in
Canada with Sarah McLachlan in the early 1990s. From that point on
the label was more interested in pushing female singer songwriters
and not electro goth acts. Soon Skinny Puppy had left Nettwerk and
signed a three record deal with Rick Rubin's American Recordings
which led to the tempestuous Process sessions.
Since then Nettwerk has been willing to use Puppy's fan base as an
occasional cash cow. They've reissued the live performances and the
band's videography on DVD, but the production quality of these was so
poor that fans usually seek the original VHS tapes on Ebay. Nettwerk
released the Doomsday live record, and a DVD of
that show was edited but never released after a cost benefit analysis
on Nettwerk's part. Today, Nettwerk's flagship artists are Sarah
McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, and the Bare Naked Ladies. (They are
also the home of Old Crow Medicine Show! N-ville represent!) I once
dated a someone who was personal friends with someone who was Chantal
Kreviazuk's personal assistant. I unashamedly requested, and was
promised, some vintage Skinny Puppy schwag, but we broke up and I
remain schwagless.
3.)
While recording the song "Knowhere?" for Last Rights
Ogre overdosed in the mic booth after mainlining cocaine. As he
convulsed the other members of the band kept tapes rolling and,
allegedly, this take appears on the album. I imagine they let him
twitch because, even at that point, the other members of the band
hated Ogre so much they really didn't care, as opposed to some
sophomoric "drugs are cool" gesture. Led Zeppelin eat your heart
out.
4.)
"Left Handshake" is the missing track 10, mysteriously absent on Last Rights. It features a clip of Tim Leary
giving advice on how to have a positive LSD experience followed by
Ogre's hysterical response. The audio clip in question was take from the film Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out. Though the band got permission from Leary
himself, the producer of the film, Henry J. Saperstein, would not grant permission for the clip to be used. It has since appeared on various bootlegs. A CD single
of the track was pressed and sold at the Doomsday
reunion show.
5.) And then there is this.
=======================
There is so much more to write,
but those will have to wait for the book. But I have to write the
Dune book first. The Dune book will be titled Dune.
It will be referred to as Meredith Widnoon's Dune
along side David Lynch's Dune and Frank Herbert's Dune. A film, a novel, and a work of nonfiction.
Much like those other Dunes my book will be a
bulging bag of shit.
Part 3: It Ain't Dead Yet
First and foremost the SP book
will be a rigorous descriptive analysis of every officially released
SP album, including Ogre's lyrics and vocal treatments. It will also
include a meticulously detailed discography, including bootlegs, and
foreign versions of domestic releases. If at all possible I will try
to get the involvement of all band members past & present,
including Bill Leeb (aka Wilhelm Schroeder), Greg Reely, Ken
Marshall, "Rave" Ogilvie, and Mark Walk. To name a few. So far I
have bypassed Ogre's stageshow, as a rule of thumb I would try to
dedicate 25% of proportionate length to the stageshow of each
corresponding album. The convoluted Last Rights would likely
take more. (As I write this I realize I could write one of those 33
and 1/3 books about Last Rights, or maybe Vivisectvi.)
The above would be primary goal
of the book and represent the far majority of its content. Of course,
there are extra musical things that fans want to know about, and
which would serve as break from the formal dissection. Such topics
include the following in chronological order of album release dates
(not that any this is particularly secret, or not dealt with
elsewhere, but if possible I would like to get as detailed accounts
as possible from as many points of view as possible):
Mind: The Perpetual
Intercourse
Details about Bill Leeb's
departure from the band and Dwayne ultimately replacing him. Specific
details about Dwayne's knowledge of samplers and sequencers, and how
that evolved the bands sound.
Vivisectvi
All great stories about CHUD the
taxidermied dog Ogre would vivisect on stage during that tour,
including: being arrested in Cincinnati after an audience member
thought Ogre was vivisecting an actual live dog on stage. And the
time a teenage girl stole CHUD from backstage as a souvenir. Being
central to that tour's stage performance, Ogre followed her back to
her parents house and confronted them in the middle of the night
demanding CHUD be returned. Considering for almost all SP shows Ogre
is covered gore and on fuck-knows-what drug cocktail, I imagine this
encounter to have been a memorable one.
Rabies
Details about how Al Jourgensen
was brought in to help produce. In a lot of ways his whole approach
is somewhat contrary to of ćEvin, Dwayne and Rave. Details about
Ogre's decision to tour with Ministry for the Mind's a Terrible
Thing to Taste as opposed to SP having any tour for Rabies.
Details about shitty mastering job done on the original CD version,
and how ćEvin convinced whoever to let him remaster it.
Too Dark Park
This record has always
sounded/felt like a drug-fuelled-improvisational-back-to-basics
exercise after the formal experimentation and intraband strife of
Rabies sessions. I want to know if my perception is true.
Last Rights
Is the "Knowhere?" mic booth
overdose story true? Details about the legal squabbling over the Tim
Leary recording. Details about Ogre's knee injury that forced the
band to cancel the European leg of that tour. Thoughts about the 21
July 1992 Chicago gig as it was last SP live performance before
Dwayne's death, and band 2.0 reformation. They wouldn't play together
again until 20 August 2000 in Dresden, Germany.
The Process
A book could be written about the
making of this album alone. This record's creation is a story of
mythic proportions, and were SP more popular it would hold rank with
other real-life-opera-transmuted-to-great-studio album history ala
Rumours or Let It Be. After the release Last Rights,
SP decided part with Nettwerk, or at least shop around to see would
sign the most outlandish check. Thanks to the success of the Nine
Inch Nails "industrial" was suddenly a hot pop commodity.
Ultimately the band signed with the schlockmeister himself, Rick
Rubin, and his American Recordings in October 1993. The band
relocated to a new house/studio Malibu, California refitted with
completely new equipment, I'm assuming on Rubin's bankroll. The
residence in question was the noted Shangri-La studio, the recording
place of many a rock legend. (This should have been a sign.) Within
five months of moving there the band was subjected to Malibu's
notorious acts of social justice: fires, floods, and earthquakes
(literally.). And the guys is the band hated one another. Somehow or
another, part of deal with American was that they would use a new
producer instead of long time friend "Rave" Ogilvie. The band
choose ex-Swans drummer Roli Mosimann. The details of this
arrangement I would love to unearth. Mosimann left the project within
the first two months. Then industrial scene mogul, and friend of
Ogre, Martin Atkins took over production duties. In
April of 1994 Atkins gave a version of the album to American
that ćEvin & Dwayne publicly disowned. Rubin gave the master
tapes to ćEvin & Dwayne and told them to go to town. In May
ćEvin and Dwayne moved back to Vancouver and commenced
(re)constructing the album with long time friend Greg Reely acting as
producer. Even these sessions went nowhere and where abandoned.
Things didn't feel right until they gave up and began working with
Rave again, the album's fourth official producer. All of this was
taking place in Ogre's absence, the band's traditional way of
working. ćEvin and Dwayne worked on numerous side projects, signing
a deal with Cleopatra Records as Download. Ogre recorded a solo album
called "W.E.L.T." with Mark Walk. Never ending Puppy-drama had
become a money pit for Rubin and he wanted to renegotiate the bands
contract down to one album. ćEvin and Ogre disagreed over the band's
financial future and Ogre officially quit Skinny Puppy on 12 June
1995. By accident or design the band's splitting up dissolved their
ties with American Recordings besides the unfinished album the label
had pumped over a half a million dollars in to create. On 23 August
1995 Dwayne was found dead of heroine overdose. A month later a grief
stricken ćEvin delivered a final mix of The Process to
American Recordings. On message boards he claimed the album wasn't
finished but he didn't care anymore. Ogre reflected later "Dwayne
was looking for a home, and we gave him a war zone."
So that is the rough sketch of my
Puppy book.
There is more to every story. A
mutated octopus sucks fluid from the a lot different vaginas. Ogre
signed a deal with American to release the W.E.L.T. album. From the
outside looking in it appears Ogre and Rubin had an inside deal to
jettison the other Puppy members and release an album that (maybe)
Rubin felt was more commercially viable. Indeed the perceived
marketability of The Process had been a matter of much
contention between bandmates, producers and the label. In the end
Ogre may have regretted resigning with American, as with so many
artists on their roster, projects were squashed and back catalogs
placed in limbo while Rubin renegotiated distribution schemes with
major labels for what was in effect his high profile vanity label.
Eventually Ogre had to re-record the entire album, release it under a
different name, OhGr, and on a different label, Spitfire Records.
Rubin is currently co-president of Columbia Records. It is good to
know that the music business works like any other business in that
seemingly who rises to the top depends on how many projects you have
go belly up and how many people you throw under the bus along the
way. But think about this way, if your goal is to make as much money
as possible, then hiring the snake oil salesman that convinced Johnny
Cash, a devote Baptist, to cover a Nine Inch Nails song isn't a bad
idea. In Rubin's defense, SP totally strung him out and rung him dry
during The Process sessions, and arguably they bit the hand
that feeds.
ćEvin always had a lot of
different side projects: The Tear Garden with Edward Ka-Spel and Hilt
with Al Nelson. ćEvin and Dwayne had also released instrumental
recordings as Doubting Thomas. Ogre's W.E.L.T. project had been on
and off again for years. Dwayne had began releasing solo techno
records under the moniker aDuck. ćEvin & Dwayne's most focused
side project Download was conceived during The Process sessions
when Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle) and Larry Thrasher of
Psychic TV stopped by Shangri-La and everyone jammed cosmic old
skool. (Originally masters of this were later released as Puppy
Gristle in limited edition.) The sessions seemed remind ćEvin
and Dwayne how life affirming music making could be. At the same
time, their focus on Download may have sped up the disintegration of
the band. Here's Rubin throwing money at them in hopes of releasing
the next Downward Spiral, the album is nowhere, and 2/3 of
band are signing a deal with another label. What the fuck is paying
them for? Did he buy them that Malibu studio so they could record
albums for other labels?
Why any project Genesis involves
himself with dissolves into disillusion and bitterness would be a fun
topic for dinner discussion. Congrats to Throbbing Gristle for
playing the mainstage of Coachella this year. Maybe Rick Rubin will
be there hanging out in the green room. But Gen's involvement brings
up back to SP's relation to the "industrial" genre and band that
started it all Gen's own Throbbing Gristle. Peter Christopherson (of
TG, Coil, et al)has stated that SP "didn't get it." I would ask,
didn't get what? Didn't get the memo that artists inspired by TG's
were disallowed to attempt something different? Didn't get that some
professional musicians would be proud that's how they made a living
instead of denying that's what they were? When Gen was working with
SP in Cali it was the height the bitter personal feud between Gen and
Christopherson. It's no accident that Gen would publicly associate
with artists Christopherson had denounced. Gen's "friends"
creative output via SP really had no formal relation to his own work
during-or-post TG anymore than Christopherson's. Rarely though did he
probably have access to studio as sweet as Shangri-La. Throbbing
Gristle were just one of many experimental groups were part of the
late-80s tape trading scene that birthed SP. It is not SP's "fault"
that music writers turned the name of TG's vanity label into a genre
tag. Indeed, ćEvin has said that to people his age the word
"industrial" in relation to music refers solely to TG's label and
not much else. Respectfully above such horseshit are Chris &
Cosey whose ice castle electronica has probably had more positive
influence in music than any other TG-family project. (Of course I
perpetuate such horseshit myself by writing this paragraph.) When
Chris & Cosey toured Canada in 1985, Ogre and ćEvin opened for
them under the name, I kid you not, Hell-O-Death Day. They wrote new
songs for this tour and designed their first horror themed stage set.
Goth now cometh. I would love to know what Chris and Cosey thought of
them then.
SP's earliest work possesses the
harshness and freshness the experimental tape trading scene that
spawned the group. Most these recordings are documented and Back
and Forth Series 2 (a reissue of their first limited edition
cassette) and the first disc of Brap: Back & Forth Series 3 &
4. On these archival recordings you hear two punks in a warehouse
with a drum machine. Their learning the use their equipment and they
have a concerned interest in fucking shit up. The remastering job on
these reissues is stupendous. Though the music is primitive the
production values are high.
Since the start of this blog I've
had a chance to give a listen to the remastered version of Rabies
and other cleaned-up expanded reissues as well. First, Rabies.
ćEvin's mastering job definitely elevates the album out of the
perverse anomaly category I declared it to be a member of. With a
fuller sound, you hear all the drums up front, and all the Dwayne and
ćEvin's synth embroidery are in plain view. Like cleaning a dirty
window, things that were once obfuscated are now in plain view. If
there is one minor flaw with ćEvin's mastering job it is that the
drums on "Worlock" are so prominent that the song is almost not
as soothing I as I remember it. Also made more apparent is the
production hand of Al Jourgenson. Jourgenson's decided less subtle
rhythm-loop and guitar sample mixed in the red approached is obvious
on about half the songs. If the play Ministry's Land of Rape and
Honey and Rabies back to back you can hear the parallel
methodology. Particularly in the simple over-amped bass and snare
clack loop. Rape and Honey, more so than Rabies,
deserves its place as one of the most best and most influential
albums of the 1980s. Though now mostly cited for its addition of
gee-tar riffage, it is the harsh techno that defines the album for
myself. It's a record that influenced Underground Resistance as much
as Chemlab. The canon has already began to decide which formal
elements were more critically relevant. Yet, as if in protest to
Jourgenson's audio mugging, Rabies ends with 15+ minute
near-formless space rock sludge fest "Spahn Dirge." Who guessed
it would be SP to enact Krautrock revenge on a major American label
in 1988?
The remaster treatment is also
utilized to great effect on the pre-reunion Nettwerk release B-Sides
Collect. Though clearly a label cash-in of its back catalog,
there are some gems are here should be sought. First, "Tin Omen 1"
a remix of the sans numeral uno "Tin Omen" from the
aforementioned Rabies. The original "Tin Omen" is a
Jourgenson-induced barn burner, the first proper single from the
album. "Tin Omen 1" first appeared as a b-side on the "Worlock"
12". The only difference is
the vocal and what difference it is. Instead of ultraharsh somewhat
sped up vocal, "Tin Omen 1" vocal is slowed down and less
distorted and put way out front in the mix. It's scratchy and warm
like a wool blanket and serves as a cushion for the lurching beat.
One of Ogre's most poetic lyrical performances, why this mix not used
on the album proper (Al Jourgenson) will never know. "amped out
amped out amped out / changing guns for brooms / the guards change to
clean up crews / ha ha ha the joke's on you / the dark corner in the
square / you bath once a week / distorted viewpoint / way back in 68
/ everything as so great / no way wrong state / keep up the trade
balanced charade / closed circuit truth used to remove / keep the
camera alive." I love you Ogre. I hate you Ogre. Appropriate this
mix appears on the "Worlock" 12" as it rivals that song as one
of their best singles ever.
The
other sick highlight of B-Sides
Collect is the dub
remix of "Mirror Saw." The original version of the song appeared
on Last Rights, and
the remix as a b-side on the "Inquisition" single. Essentially an
extended instrumental, it is far superior to the vocal version. It's
a precursor the swooping drum symphonies that constitute the early
Download albums. A hybrid of live percussion and post-production
reverb painting, its further evidence that SP were at their best when
practicing restraint. So much for Ogre.
Early
on ćEvin and Dwayne had avenues for their instrumental prowess.
During the winter of 1988 they were snowed into their Toronto
apartment. With just an Akai S-900 sampler, an E-mu Emax sampler, an
Ensoniq Mirage sampler, an Ensoniq ESQ synthesizer, a few analog
moogs mixed on an Atari with Steinberg's Pro 24 software with one
large mono speaker for a monitor they smoked up and jammed to pass
the time. They could tell that music they were making was not SP.
They released under the moniker Doubting Thomas. That they could
create music with such intricacy and sculptural depth without a
stereo monitor is a testament to their talent. Of all the reissues
and studio scraps that ćEvin and remastered and released via
Subconscious Recordings, the double disc Doubting Thomas is one not
be missed. Later when they began releasing instrumental records again
I suppose the stopped using the Doubting Thomas name because of
different energy that was flowing at the time. A lot of water had
flowed under the bridge between Toronto in 1988 and Malibu in 1994.
They also had began using a lot of digital equipment around that time
too. Inspired by Aphex Twin, Dwayne had began recording his aDuck
project. Of course the initial conception of Download included other
members, namely Phil Western and Mark Spybey. We should also not for
get the title of the mystical avalanche closer on Last
Rights , "Download."
That album was the beginning of everything. That album was the end of
everything. There is some retroactive poetic justice to there being
this missing key piece, "Track 10" aka "Left Hand Shake,"
that is floating out there like sadizmat manna. The holy grail. A
golden key. A bootleg b-side fan boy totem fetish. The title of the
album was taken to lyrics of the song - Leary: "quiet dormant sea
of light;" Ogre: "visual betrayal, last rites denied."
Since starting this blog I've
also revisited some of SP's live documents. The It Ain't Dead Yet
live album and concert film captures them mid-career on the tour
for Cleanse, Fold & Manipulate. IADY has a deservedly
strong reputation among fans. The production values are high and
performance is off the hook. It will remind you that "industrial"
used to invoke images of abandoned factories and not fishnet
stockings. There's a significant amount of improvisation, an aspect
of the band that is often overlooked. Ogre's stage show is a
testament to what can been done on a tight budget. We also get to
witness the lowest of SP's low art tendancies when Ogre throws an
M-80 in a baby coffin. Nettwerk has corrected most of the flaws
associated with the original pressing of the DVD, and most of the
other "flaws" can be attributed to original recording format.
Their other live concert film, The Greater Wrong of the Right,
documents their set for the tour of the album with same name. It's a
two hour career spanning affair. In other words, everything the
Doomsday DVD was supposed to be. It's professional filmed,
edited together from two shows in Toronto and Montreal. I find it as
close to perfect as a concert film is going to get. The 5.1 surround
mix is impeccable. Ogre remains as charismatic as ever. Their back
catalog has never sounded better live. They hit classics from every
album between Cleanse, Fold & Manipulate and The
Greater Wrong of the Right. Every song breaks my heart, but
breaking my heart even is the absence of Dwayne. His absence on
Greater Wrong of the Right make his footage on It Ain't
Dead Yet all the more memorable, tragic, valuable.
I can't close without speaking of
Terry McBride, founder and CEO Nettwerk records. I would love to know
how he feels about SP. Without Nettwerk Records there would be no SP,
and without SP there would be no Nettwerk Records. I'd love to know
both sides of the story when the band decided to leave when their
contract expired after Last Rights. In the 1980s Nettwerk was
not nearly as large and successful as it is now. Throughout this
piece, I've referred to SP being on a "major label." Nettwerk at
the time did not have international offices, so they penned a deal
with Capital Records to distribute and market SP in the United
States. I would love to know how much money Nettwerk vs. Capitol put
into SP and how much each respective party got back. Since then
Nettwerk has made massive financial gain and expanded greatly.
McBride has styled himself, a poorer, hipper Richard Branson. A
number of SP projects on other labels continued to be associated with
Nettwerk through different distribution themes. SP cut ties with
Nettwerk totally after the Doomsday DVD renege. Perhaps to
McBride artists have a life cycle and SP had lived through their
cycle. He probably knew first hand about the band's personal disputes
and "lifestyle" issues. He proved he didn't need SP to continue
to be successful even if they were integral to his initial
success. Nettwerk is as big as label can be and not be considered a
"major." In Canada, I think it would hard to consider them indie
seeing as the are home or manage Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, and
the Bare Naked Ladies. In Nettwerk's defense, the company has taken
an active stance against the RIAA's random illegal downloading
targeting. The label also sells mp3s and FLAC files of their artists
music at the same price as Itunes, but with no digital rights
management attached.
Skinny Puppy's new album is
scheduled to be released in Spring of 2009 on SPV.
Do not go see Ogre in Repo: The Genetic Opera. That movie is TERRIBLE. Terrible.
