Skinny Puppy with Youth Code

 

 I don't even know where to begin collecting my thoughts and memories of this show in a simple music review type fashion, so I'll just walk you through the entire night. Grab some pizza rolls, shove something heavy up your ass, and read these words that I will put together to describe what the show. 

 Youth Code 

This was my first time ever seeing or even hearing Youth Code, and I'm very glad it was in this fashion. A few of my friends had mentioned that members had been involved in the hardcore scene and that I might like their sound, but that was it. Within seconds, I was completely fucking blown away. I was pressed right against the barricade, dead center. There was so much sound being produced by these two people that my eyes couldn't make sense of it. There were a few people dancing in the audience behind me, but mostly everyone was just standing there in shock of what they were seeing and hearing.

I realize it was heavily processed, but the sheer dynamic and violence of her voice was outstanding. I can appreciate heavy production on records, but sometimes it just doesn't work in a live setting. I of course had no frame of reference by hearing this band live for the first time, but I can tell that it was done well. She was spitting, dancing, and stomping around the stage like a fucking maniac. It was perfect. My only complaint on this band live is the backing vocals sounded really strange being the only thing not processed. It made them stand out in a sort of negative way.

... Then, after about 15 minutes and lots of fog build up, Skinny Puppy came squirming out on stage. I could see even from the Youth Code performance that Skinny Puppy had back-lined an array of weird props and equipment. It had been years since I had last seen Puppy, and I was more excited than you are to get this stupid blog post over with and to release that heavy object from your anal cavity.

Skinny Puppy 

As soon as the house lights went off, I smiled like a child on Christmas morning knowing what was about to happen. Usually once the room turns black for a headliner, people rush forward. I was pressed against the barricade, so I'm glad that wasn't the case for this show. The crowd was made up of various forms of goths. Your typical overweight Hot Topic goths, older goths you can tell still play Doom in their mom's basement on Windows 98, and so on.

Rather than going into exact details about things a normal human can simply google on the show (set-lists, photos, etc) I will attempt at explaining just what this show did for me personally. Simply put, these dudes are NAILING it. Maybe I'm just used to local shows where most bands toss their gear on a tiny stage, the sound guy makes you hit a drum or two, you play for 20 minutes, and people forget about your set in 30 minutes.. but this type of show really kicks my ass, in a great way.

Now before that gets misunderstood, not ever band translates well to an "epic" live show. If a hardcore band for example showed up with 5 projectors and costumes, they would be laughed off stage, rightfully so. 



I always have these "big" ideas for presenting my own music. Perfect case scenarios are these wild, strange assortments of visuals and sounds done in a unique setting. Skinny Puppy makes even my "dream show" look like finger paintings. Each tour these guys have done has always had a different look and concept to it. Their shows resemble more of a short film than they do a standard concert. During songs, what people would crawl out wearing gas masks with glowing red eyes and stick Ogre with large needles. His white suit (obviously different than the exact photos above) would excrete more blood through the clothes throughout the set. 

 The visuals varied upon what side of the stage you were looking at. They had the main screen behind them that most bands have their logo on, or maybe some type of Microsoft looking screensaver going on. These dudes had these bizarre images and color schemes going on on the far left of the stage, a different projector was projecting a completely different array of visuals on the right side of the stage, and each musician had projections of various colors/images on them as well. It was insane. 

While they're obviously a lot more "well off" than most bands that play basement shows, these guys are not funded by huge record labels to put on these shows. I've seen many interviews with Ogre where he explains that almost all of their money goes into their live shows. I can see why! This isn't a brand new band with young kids, this is a band that has been actively blowing your mind since the 80's with their wild shows and music. Most bands "grow up" and out of the scene the meticulously manufacture to gain popularity. They can become cynical, lazy musicians/entertainers. Not these guys! Look at these visuals!

That to me is the most mind blowing part to this. They could very easily just cash in on their legacy as industrial icons, play their recognizable songs, and toss on a movie behind them. Nope! These dudes are still challenging themselves and their listeners. Consistency is always key for me with these type of things. Is this the "most insane show ever put on ever in the history of the world?" No. Are they one of the very rare exceptions of bands putting on shows that are far beyond typical standards? Fuck yes.

Do yourself a favor and YouTube basically any live Skinny Puppy videos you can get your eyeballs on.

-Novak

Swervedriver

There is a foundation to everything.  An inspiration lying somewhere in the thought process of the creator.  Foundations are meant to be built upon, and when it comes to shoegaze, the foundation is Creation Records.  For the uninitiated, Creation Records was home to bands like Ride, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine, and released most of what you would now consider "classics" of the genre throughout the late 80's and early 90's.  In addition, they were also home to one of the most unique, and misinterpreted bands of the era, Swervedriver.

Where shoegaze giants My Bloody Valentine or Lush would shroud themselves in walls of feedback creating an almost dreamlike texture, Swervedriver coupled their guitar haziness with a more traditional structure, having more in common with bands like Dinosaur Jr or Husker Du than their label mates.  This uniqueness in style would continue to grow and become increasingly personified over time, especially on songs like "Rave Down" and "Last Train to Satansville".  However, despite the dissimilarities sonically, lyrically, and aesthetically from their Creation label contemporaries - the band would remain categorized as "shoegaze".

Swervedriver built something different with their sound, a type of attitude that would forever separate them from the melodramatic, soundscape-y bands of their time.  By conventional standards, Swervedriver were never a shoegaze band, and in my opinion they never sought out to be one. 

http://youtu.be/ro4Pc6snJMI

Historic Cleveland Shows

Iggy Pop and David Bowie: The Idiot Tour (March 21st- 23rd 1977)

This one undoubtedly takes the cake for me. This time period for Iggy and Bowie both were fucking flawless. Anyone who says otherwise needs to have something heavy and smelly glued to their face. They actually played three shows in three days, all at the Agora Ballroom. Iggy was heavily experimenting with a weirder tone than the Stooge's material under Bowie's musical wing, and Bowie was yet again reinventing himself musically in ways that paved the way for musicians all over the world. With Ricky Gardiner (who contributed to Bowie's Low album and Pop's Lust For Life album) and the Sales Brothers (who would later reunite with Bowie as his rhythm section for Tin Machine in 1989), these weirdos set off to make a whole new batch of noise. The songs had strange synth overtones as leads rather than screaming guitars, the vocals were lower range, and the drums made you want to fuck within minutes of hearing the grooves. This shit was good, real fucking good.

More interesting to me than who and what was played on this tour is that it was a once in a lifetime tour. Rare collaborations pulled off in a live situation is something worth remembering. In a perfect world, Bowie would do a few one off shows next year and play a few songs from this era.Sadly, the world we live in is anything but that.

- Novak

Best of 2015

Demo's are the life's blood of punk.  This is a fact.  Punk, and the relationship it shares with the internet is one that can breathe new life into both the obscure and the current.  No scene epitomizes this statement more than NYHC.  Countless demo's from bands like Altercation, Dynamo, and Fit of Anger are now considered essential listening when talking about the genre, and it wasn't always this way.  Many of these bands, and bands of today, would have remained shrouded in obscurity until someone stumbled upon them wondering what took them so long to hear it in the first place, had it not been for the internet.  Some more initiated types might scoff at this and say it was better that way...maybe there's some truth to that, but one undeniable truth is that whether you're scouring distro's and record stores, or simply visiting a message board - demo's are giving this subculture new life every day.

2015 was an incredible year for debuting bands demo's the world over.  A list normally reserved for 2 or 3 exclusively was extended to 12 (and could arguably be longer).  There is a line that I read recently that said "It's not enough to be different, different is the new normal.  You have to be better".  I believe these bands encompass this statement.