Current mood:

cold

UteroZZZAAA/Hecate/Despair throwdown

Since I spent the first part of the evening watching other people get their asses kicked, I figured it was only fair to offer up my own ass for the kicking also. So, off I went to this event called "Junk Baptism" [yeah, your guess is as good as mine, wtf Japan, etc] in Shinjuku with Kim0r. Had no solid idea of what to expect, had never been to the venue or this [very intermittent] event before but Despair was playing and if everything else sucks one can always fall back upon that. Anyway, it was actually kickass awesome and one of the best lives I've been to in a long time. Was in this tiny Kabukicho place called "Motion", on the same block as Marz on like the seventh floor of this concrete block. At first the smallness was offputting, but as the evening wore on it dawned upon me that the club had struck upon that perfect happy Aristotelian mean between overcrowded and depressingly sparse. Full enough to feel alive and yet enough room to breathe and make reflex saving throws against area effect attacks. Read on, this becomes important after a spell. No lolitas or silly gawthick persons were in attendance at all, which also improved my mood. Folks were super nice and friendly, no scene BS...people come to tiny obscure events like these for the music, not "networking" or "hooking up" or whatever. We were all business, and our business was ROCK. Chatted with the lovely Kazue, who is Despair's merch person/stern but kindly matriarch, and settled in. I did not hold out high hopes for the DJing portion of the evening, it was Kenzo Stigmatic from Gadget [basically a rock band] and Raveman from Aural Vampire [who are adorably cutesy synthpop], both of whom are good at what they do but didn't seem to fit with the zeitgeist. But, they actually surprised me, I suppose given the nature of the event they decided to bring the noise. Much good pissed-off electro and drum'n'noise goodness was to be had. Raveman is hilarious because he can't even do a DJ set without that silly mask on:



Hell, who knows, maybe he's horribly deformed, or, like, the King of France under there.

Kenzo was dropping some Ministry and Fear Factory from back when they were still good and various other things that made me happy in the pants, getting everyone all agitated and ready for the first act. I swear, there was this perfect moment of serendipity when I spontaneously decided that only "Speed" by Atari Teenage Riot could possibly fill the hollow void in my cold life, and within 30 seconds, what should come blasting out of the speakers but:



Awww jeah. I made friends with some anonymous Japanese punk rock dude during this song and we did synchronized fist-swinging and sang along like little kids. It was supreme. I was conducting a radical experiment that evening, that being to test my reactions to music and dance and young ladies WITHOUT drinking staggering amounts and becoming this mopey incoherent derelict like I usually am. It actually turned out pretty good...I didn't get all worn out and cranky and had happy energy all night, which became important shortly because the first band hadn't even gone on yet.

So, not only does UteroZZZAAA just run out with a tire iron and smack your momma, but they also shoot lightning from their crotches and could cure cancer, but CHOOSE NOT TO. This incomprehensibly-named Osakan outfight [I wanted to write 'outfit', but in an amusing Freudian slip chanced upon a word that suits them even better] has a similar sort of thing to Despair going on: boy and girl screaming guys all jumping off tall buildings trying to kill you while a bunch of electronic devices loudly attack each other. But while Despair makes some concession to "music" and actually does intermittently recognizable "songs", these people throw all that tired stodgy formalism out the fucking window and just go ballistic on you. The only real comparison I can make is Dissecting Table, not in terms of the sound but just the "anything goes I will make a beat out of a seventh-generation VHS porno tape dub and some migrating geese and a toy Casio and just you try to stop me you wankers" -type punk rock '82 mentality. Things were just exploding and disintegrating everywhere and no clear impressions of any of the songs survived the havoc, but suffice to say it was the performance that sold it. These guys must be partially composed of helium because they just WOULD.NOT.SETTLE.DOWN and kept flying off everything they could climb...speaker stacks, rickety metal rails not even slightly affixed to the floor, naked human pyramids at Abu Ghraib...the list of things these people were prepared to leap head-first off of goes on and on.

[forgive the bad pictures, they were all taken on my phone because there is NO WAY my camera would have survived that melee]



There is a word that is vitally important in Japanese culture, something that underpins the entire social structure: 義務, "gimu", which means "duty and/or social obligation". Every Japanese seems to have these powerful urges implanted in to them from a young age that basically compel them to think of other people and live up to what they imagine others expect of them at all times. You have to be good at imagining what people expect of you because it is a rare treasure indeed when they actually presume to tell you. This mentality extends to every aspect of human experience, apparently even anarchistic digital punk rock. The lucha libre springboard planchas off the scaffolding became so overdone and gratuitous that I had to wonder, is there like some unwritten code of binding social obligations regulating stage diving here, as there is for everything else in this country? Death-Defying Head First Stage Dive gimu? Is it like, "well, I have to ganbare and show my willingness to go all-out for the fans, so I must risk my life in some highly conspicuous public fashion"? After the third time crashing spiky jacket and boots-first in to that tiny crowd I was like, OK, OK, otsukaresamadeshita! We are entertained, please don't kill us!



But they are from Osaka, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised by such antics. Kansai people are way more demonstrative and willing to be just batshit insane than withdrawn, passive-aggressive Tokyo types. Kansai folk will laugh uproariously without self consciousness at a good joke and go drinking with perfect strangers, but they also don't take any shit and will fight you and all your friends right in the street if that's how it has to be. When I first saw the guy before the live I said in medium-formal everyday Japanese "thanks for coming so far to play for us, I'm looking forward to it" and he replied in slurred Kansai street drawl "nande sonna koto itten no kai, yari ni kita ze!", which basically amounts to "What you talkin' 'bout, fool? We came to do it up!" Osaka is seriously the NYC of Japan.



This guy is just barmy as hell and therefore great. He threw a lit string of firecrackers in to the audience at one point, and they landed on some guy's face to general acclaim. I don't think they cleared that with club staff beforehand, because they are THAT FUCKING PUNK ROCK.



This girl, when not screaming and trying to avoid being crushed by falling masonry, would strike this enigmatic pose for minutes on end, which in a universe of 2 minute songs at 800 bpm might as well be forever. It was all terribly mysterious. I later saw her sincerely bawling her eyes out at two separate points during that night, I don't know if she is just emotionally fragile or if her counterpart's instability worries her. It would worry me.



I once heard the Prodigy being talked up as "Electronic Punk". No, sirs, actually, this right here is electronic punk rock. All smashing on their kit like it has crossed them for the last time, drunk as a sailor with their Einsturzende patches and torn-up dead destroyed pants. Wild and furious and filled with genuine peril. What a great fucking show.

HECATE

EEEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVVVVIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL

That is the only way I can sum up this performance. It was darker than a black steer's tewkus on a moonless prairie night. None more black, seriously. Hecate is this nice young Swiss lady who loves breakcore and Satan and it is basically the most unlikely yet amazing thing you've ever seen. Outstandingly evil grim necro-blackened frostcore with tall silent Numenoreans guarding the obsidian portal with halberds in an arctic pine forest on the night of the winter solstice. That is how evil and black it was. Fucking neon black.



It was billed as a "DJ set" and I guess technically it was, as she was spinning and mixing her own tracks on vinyl, but she did live vocals over top and actually made a show out of it. Just huge devastating glacial masses of frozen noise and sludge colliding in the fjords while vikings battle it out with 808s and a stygian ooze of fluid torment rains from the sky.



How she came to enjoy both breakcore and Scandinavian black metal is never adequately explained but I wasn't in a mood to ask questions. It was sick and oppressive and therefore superb, with these splintered waves of beats ricocheting between massive walls of electro-grime and horror movie samples and general damnation. It is far too hectic and irregular for your "dancing". You just sort of hold on to the railing for dear life as these molten waves of devastation wash over you and scour you hollow, while this beguiling succubus woman summons you to your doom with otherworldly possessed shrieks. It somehow managed to be chilling and blood-boiling at the same time. My axe pitched and rolled like a ship on a storm-tossed sea of blood, and there was great slaughter for Khorne. Skulls for the Skull throne!



Having the stage bathed in arterial light was a strong thematic touch, in addition to hindering clear photography. Ah, hell with it, some things are better with a hint of mystery. Much like my ass.



My precious darling Ana and I exalting The Horned One.



Rachael Kozak expressing something of which the Pope likely would not approve. Seriously this show was awesome, the crowd was just turned up to 11 and she had them eating out of the palm of her hand within moments. Large numbers of animist pagans threw up the horns without irony, on command. The music was heavy and brutal and technical and interesting. I could honestly care less for "occult themes" in music or anything else, I reject Levantine superstition as a universally enervating influence on Western civilization from moment one, but its not like the lyrics were mortally comprehenible so she might well have been reciting lines from When Harry Met Sally and we would have been none the wiser. I just busied myself with rocking. Seriously folks, 500 Quatloos on THE BLACK GOAT.



Aaaaand she was not so hard to look at, which is always a plus. Normally I wouldn't give a shit if bands show up in a burlap sack and a gimp mask, especially for electronic performances, but hey. I'm only human, try as I might to evolve those theatrical bat wings and laser eyes by willpower alone. Not like it detracted from my attention to or my enjoyment of the music in even the slightest degree.

Then Despair. Seriously, I have written about these guys a conservative estimate of one million times so I will spare you the details. Suffice to say it was my girl Ana's last live and a sad, emotional moment in hateful screaming industrial history.



Rieu doing his thing. I didn't think it was possible for Despair to seem sedate, but next to the meat grinder that was UteroZZZAAA they were positively serene by comparison. I mean, Rieu only stage dived twice and ran out in to the crowd roughhousing everyone one time. Man, it was just like that time they did that command performance for the Queen.



Jude is hilarious, not only because he is a bubbling cauldron of hatred spilling over with caustic bile for all mankind, not only because he is the fiercest key-tar player since Duran Duran, but also because he has a mic, not for singing, not even for screaming, but simply for shouting challenges and abuse at the audience between tracks. Every band should have that. Especially Mark from VNV, you know, Ronan, the Bono of EBM, is up front holding forth on this or that for five minutes while he recovers the wind to re-sing a track for their fifth encore. Mark lets slip his long-suppressed raging id, apoplectic with rage after taking sloppy seconds on tour for years, by hoarsely shouting obscenities Whitehouse-style at all the girls with plastic hair and platforms. That would make me actually pay money to see that band.



Awww. She wants to go start her own band. I is sadded because she was perfect for Despair.



And because she is wearing my hat.



We'll miss you darling. I'll miss you.



Yeah so I have a big dopey crush on this girl and it is obvious to everyone. It is frustrating, though...whenever we see each other, we can't get enough of each other and rock out and hug a lot and hold on a lot longer than is strictly necessary:



But whenever I try to mail or call her to meet somewhere other than some dank nightclub, either she is working or no reply. I dunno. I cannot read women in general, but this one is an enigma. Japanese girls are black belts at coyness, I tell you. Anyway, good luck Ana-chan and don't be a stranger. As far as I know she is basically just a straight-up punk rock girl so I likely will not enjoy her new band but I will make the effort to see her anyway. Hell, for some reason she is one of those rare few girlies who I am attracted to but feel absolutely NO anxiety or crippling fear and self-doubt when talking to.

Oh yeah, after the show everything was very DIY community spirit and we helped tear down. I "found" Despair's banner somewhere and put it to good use:



I am the Industrial Lawrence of Arabia.



And now Hecate gets in on the act. After the show I talked to her for a long while. Discussing music was a mostly useless gesture as we come from totally different scenes, but she did enjoy my rendition of "Straight Outta Locash" by CB-4, and we got talking about extreme metal and I was like, "Yeah! I love Manowar!"

But then, come on, what's the first thing you think of when you see this shirt?



That's right.

RETURN OF THE WARLORD



Hahaha.

Anyway, she was a nice lady and I'm glad we got to meet and praise the adversary together. Hell, the whole weekend was sublime, I got brutal violence and noise and Kimor and all-you-can-eat Italian buffet. Aww yeah, that's the stuff.