(purchase)
Make a motorcycle
sound with your lips. My 1 1/2 year-old son does it whenever he sees a motorcycle, bike or
scooter.
Leave the saliva on
your mouth for the rest of the article. Let it dribble down.
The audacious industrial
label Wax Trax is one of Chicago’s most important contributions to music
history. Two Wax Trax bands especially-- Ministry and the Revolting Cocks-- are/were
revolutionary groups that were crowded under the industrial umbrella as a
result of their drum programming and sampling and the bands they toured with,
though neither band threw themselves entirely into the clank-on-steel sounds of
bands like Nitzer Ebb or Einsturzende Neubaden, the latter which literally
played with junkyard steel on stage.
Ministry followed
an interesting trajectory, from moody, funky synth-pop (Revenge), to nihilistic industrial (Land of Rape and Honey) and then onto industrial-metal (The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
and New World Order) before sliding
into stolid, straightforward metal on ensuing albums. They were/are politically
vitriolic and have always had a decent sense of humor, though they were never as
smart as they wanted to be. But at least in the 80s and early 90s, they were pull-your-pants-down-in-front-of-a-cop
reckless and a couple pints in front of everyone else who had cloudy visions of
making the industrial dance/metal music Ministry and Revco were at the time.
And it’s a hell of a testament to the creative talents in both bands that they
were as prolific as they were despite taking tons of drugs.
Each band had an
adventurous mixed cocktail of members throughout their tenures, though
mainstays were guitarist/vocalist Al Jourgensen and bassist Paul Barker.
Revco--the side project- was sleezier and dancier than Ministry, but far more formidable
than an alter-ego. As much as Al (referred to as “Uncle Al” in many circles)
proclaims to hate the nascent stage of Ministry and its funky synthpop (once
saying that most bands sell out after their first record but he sold out before
he even got started), the first three Revolting Cocks albums (1986-1990) and
parts of Finger Lickin’ Good (1993, “Cracking
Up” and “If Ya Think I’m Sexy”) pump a smug affection for dance music, though
Revco was always plunge- yourself-into-a-barrel-of-tahini and do a lap dance
kind of dance music more than chart busting stuff. Maybe this is Barker more
than Jourgenson for after Barker left Revco, Revco left the dance party and
settled for simple and tame electro-metal rather than anything with a unique,
dancy vision.
So let’s talk Barker
as Al gets most of the attention. He was tall with curly black hair and glasses
whereas other members of the two bands were in dreadlocks, mohawks , gelled
crew cuts or sometimes shaved clean on the crown. Barker came across like a
young, cool professor who preferred his students to his colleagues. His bass
lines were catchy, dark and eternally simple, the nerve from which every 5-8
minute Revco song was energized.
Revco was one dirty
bacchanalia and ever body was welcome, including their sometimes topless
dancers the Revolting Pussies. A few of the many contributors include Skinny
Puppy’s Nivek Ogre, NIN’s Trent Reznor, Chris Connelly, drummer William Rieflin
(now of King Crimson and REM), Belgium’s inimitable Luc Van Acker and Front
242’s Richard 23. The best exhibition of Revco’s wildness and rabid bite is the
live You Goddamned son of a Bitch (1998), the extended version including a
cover of PiL’s “Public Image” and two songs off of Beers Steers and Queers including the crotch-hammering “Stainless
Steel Providers.”
“Stainless Steel
Providers”, which debuted on You
Goddamned…. before showing up on 1900’s underappreciated Beers Steers and Queers is kick started
with the revving up of a motorcycle, a sound which sparks the rhythm
throughout. On the live version a menacing industrial din moans underneath.
Vocalist Chris Connelly, who includes the song on his personal favorites (Initials C.C. Outtakes and Rarities Volume 1),
delivers more attitude than on the album version. He’s a tripping and pissed
off neurotic delivering a diatribe on a couple empty cases of Old Milwaukee at
a party. And what’s it all about?
Quick locate and
detonate your public enemy
Stainless steel,
believe it’s real
It’s all you mean to
me
What’s that sound,
what’s that sound
It bleeds efficiency
Guns?
Steel. Revco and
Ministry usually paraded around in cowboy hats and leather. In some of their
videos they fired around Chicago in motorcycles, such as in the video for Ministry’s
“Stigmata” where Jourgenson is being dragged by a rope attached to a shiny,
steel hog driven by a near giggling Barker.
Vrrrroooom Vroooooom. I wondered if they actually rode motorcycles or if
it was some kind of irony being as close as they were to Milwaukee’s Harley
Davidson Plant. Motorcycle gangs and cowboys--two groups whose image exudes
maximum masculinity. But the two bands have always dressed like this. Al even
talked about retiring, moving to Texas and playing country music. But how long
can you be ironic until it becomes you?
In my late 30s,
some friends of mine started a bowling night on Sundays. They dressed in loose
and long polyester shirts, donned Blatz hats and drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. After
a few months, Sunday Bowling Night became Friday Bowling Night. They started betting
on their scores. They stuck by PBR while pale ales started becoming popular.
Then they stopped going to shows. Bowling was easier and more interactive. They
got home earlier and could watch tv.
My friends with a
broad taste in music don’t get this band. I have one high school buddy who
loved their work enough to pump it in his car on cruises past Dairy Queen and
McDonalds through our tiny downtown on Friday nights. He dug industrial music
but in truth, he loved anything with a huge bass: “Well, you might say this
song is tits Becker but lets see how its bass checks out on my speakers!” And
in his Honda Civic we’d go, me always in the back seat, where I felt more
comfortable than the shotgun in the front everyone competed for. I connected
with him for the first time in 20 years this summer and he still listens to
industrial music.
I never saw Revco
though I saw Ministry three times. Rieflin, Connelly, Luc Van Acker, Barker and
Richard 23 apparently did a short 6-date tour a couple years ago as just “The
Cocks”. I checked out the clips. Though it wasn’t as reckless as the 80s and
90s, you could sense a belief in the tunes endurability. Luc Van Acker was
comfortable in his royal tubbiness. Richard still had the gelled crew cut and
Kojak shades. Barker still geeked around
in back, hunched over the bass.
On the record, I
never saw the problem with bowling. I liked the dark lighting, the streaks of
neon, the smell and the clatter of pins knocking around. I think it’s a fine
way to spend a Wednesday night.
