Return-Path: From: rsgour@aol.com X-Mailer: America Online Mailer Sender: Reply-To: To: bzs@world.std.com Date: Sat, 09 Oct 93 01:01:25 EDT Subject: Chaos Control #3 part 1 Chaos Control Issue #3 Chaos Control is a bimonthly electronic magazine that exists in both Macintosh Hypercard and text formats. The focus is on electronic music, particularly those who use technology in new and creative ways. Occasionally, the magazine will cover other types of music, but only when it is equally innovative. Chaos Control strives to cover both major acts and underground talent. Chaos Control is published on a bimonthly basis. The next issue, due out October 15, will feature articles on Front 242, Sunscreem, EON, EBN, Instinct Records, Havoc Music, Chem Lab, Orbital, and more. For Mac users, the best way to get Chaos Control is in the Hypercard format, as it also features graphics, photos and sound in an interactive environment. Currently, this version is available from America Online or on disk by mail order. FTP information will be sent out over lists when the Hypercard version is posted. Feel free to Email for more information. -Bob Gourley Chaos Control Digizine rsgour@aol.com Rgour@world.std.com Unless other wise noted, all articles are written by and copyright 1993 Bob Gourley CONTENTS -New Order -Skin Chamber -Big Catholic Guilt -Billy Idol -Miranda Sex Garden -Prayer Tower -Clockdva -808 State ------------- NEW ORDER By taking chances and pushing the existing technology to the limits, New Order proved to be pioneers of electronic music back in the early 80's, before wide spread use of computers, sequencers and samplers in music. And unlike many bands of that era, New Order have been able to progress rather than burn out. The group has always managed to stay in touch with the dance music scene and incorporate elements of it into their own sound without "selling out." With the collapse of their long time label Factory, New Order have moved on to London and released Republic, their first album in four years, which also marks the first time the band has worked with a producer. Despite the label problems that the band was having at the time, Republic shows New Order still in top form. While the acid house influence that dominated their last outing (Technique) is not as evident, the band still proves that they are masters at fusing electronics with more traditional guitar and bass oriented music. It's been a long wait for new material, but Republic is well worth it. "We actually started writing it about two years ago, sort of very quietly, little bits, and then moved on a bit and picked up the pace," says bassist Peter Hook on making the LP."Of course, we've all been doing the solo stuff." Those solo projects were Hook's band, Revenge, vocalist Bernard Sumner collaboration with Johnny Marr, Electronic, and, most recently, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert's The Other Two. The latter saw the first signs of Factory's downfall when they ran into problems getting their Other Two and You album released. The members of New Order feel that taking the time off and doing other things has helped keep the band fresh, though they do admit that it was a bit strange going back and working together. It was also strange for the band to be working with producer Stephen Hague, as in the past New Order had produced themselves. "The fact that we used a producer on this record, that was the main difference," explains Morris. "When we started writing for this record it was always done with the notion that we'd be using a producer. Basically, one of the things that happens when you've been together as long as we have is that you know each other very very well and then when you're producing yourself it's very hard to take criticism, everything's personal basically." While their previous incarnation, Joy Division, had a pretty standard guitar/bass/drum set-up, New Order's incorporation of electronics has blurred the picture in terms of who actually does what in the band. Using electronics was something that the members had wanted to do since the beginning, but it wasn't until shortly before singer Ian Curtis's suicide prompted them to re-group as New Order that the technology really became available to them. Gilbert recalls one of the group's first ventures into the realm of non-traditional instruments and their effect on the band. "I remember when Stephen was doing Close, he said 'we've got a drum machine, they don't need me!," she says. "And he was like dead upset, but of course he's seen that you shouldn't take that attitude; Stephen plays keyboards and everything." Starting to use electronics and the more varied sound they provide allowed New Order to go beyond the Joy Division sound that everyone seemed to be copying at the time. "In England, after Joy Division ceased it was like every band on the John Peel show sounded just like bloody Joy Division!," explains Morris. "It was like, oh god, the idea being that it was great to inspire people to get together and make music but not to clone it. They should be trying to do something a bit different." But as an attempt to stop people from copying them, the change was not effective, as Morris says that "it didn't work out because 'Blue Monday" was copied bass-drum-riff." From the start, New Order were willing to risk taking the electronics on stage with them instead of using backing tapes. When asked if this was a cause of frustration at the time, Gilbert lets out a sarcastic "no, why?", with Morris following suit, laughing as he asks "how can you tell." "When computers first came out, you wouldn't dream of taking them anywhere! But we did," explains Gilbert. "So it was like a really big hassle every night and we used to check all of the leads, because it was just like plugs and wires then, and I used to go on and sound check all the gear before we actually played the concert, which is stupid, you just don't do that now, but we had to. The gear kept breaking down so we got like second stand ins and we ended up with four lots of stand ins on the stage because they were so unreliable." At one time, New Order would go out on tour with all of their material prepared for live performance, giving them the chance to pick and choose which songs to play each night. But starting with the last US tour, the group realized that they had to skim things down as it was getting to be a bit too much. Given the fact that everything is running live, their soundman ends up having 24 - 42 tracks to mix on each song. "If you think about it, it's like him mixing an LP as it was going along, because every song is different," says Gilbert. "It's like juggling." But while the band has been forced to streamline their set list, they still strive for spontaneity, something missing from many electronic band's shows. "Most bands do 'a performance' which is essentially the same set to a certain extent choreographed," says Morris. "It shouldn't get away from a gig-type, spur of the moment type feeling which is hit-or-miss ,basically." Another difference in making the new album was the band's getting away >from the cryptic song titles, which often have no relation to the music. "Basically, the New Order method of titling is just writing down words that are completely abstract and don't relate to anything, and then when you've written the songs, it's just like pin the tail on the donkey," says Morris. This time around, the band got away from this to some degree. However, New Order are still not about to make things easy. "We said let's do something different, let's name the songs!," Gillian says. "For instance, 'Regret' was always 'Regret'." Unfortunately for listeners, the band was not as direct with the naming of the rest of the album. While they did have about half of the tracks titled before making the album, they felt the need to switch most of them around just to confuse matters. The bands' problems with Factory stem from the fact that New Order did not have a normal business relationship with the label; they were friends, or at least had personal involvement with those who ran it. Morris explains that while it was great not having a contract in some ways, in the end "the unspoken obligations you have to each other are sort of like the ultimate contract." So when the band was getting sick of all the meetings regarding The Hacienda, which the label and band were part owners of, they couldn't just walk out. And when Factory started to experience difficulties, it turned to the band for assistance. "Every time they had a problem they used to come to us to sort it out for them," explains Morris. "But we just don't say 'well look, if we've got a problem with music, what do we do, come to you? Can you explain MIDI to us? I don't know why this lead isn't working, could you fix it for us?' The other way around would just be completely ridiculous." On the other hand, Morris feels that New Order may not be around today if it weren't for Factory. Being with that label enabled the group to exist outside of the main stream music industry, and it gave them a great deal of freedom. Now that they are on London, New Order are getting their first taste of the confines of the mainstream music industry. "That's one of the funny things about London, it's like 'well you can't do any solo stuff unless you ask us first. If you appear on any records you've got to have a 'guest appearance'," explains Morris. "With Factory, it was do what you want, really." Had they followed a more traditional path of signing directly to a major and not having the freedom Factory allowed, the group may have burned out and become another casualty of the 80's. Still, at this stage of the game, New Order see the incident as the dawning of a new era and a relief in some ways. "The only good thing about the demise of Factory is it's like a great burden weight off the shoulders in the way that we were involved with so much business rubbish, I never wanted to be a business man, I never wanted to own a club," says Morris. "Now that's all over, it's sort of a fresh start and you can sort of concentrate on music again." Special thanks to the Reader's Digest Foundation for covering the transportation costs that made this interview possible --------------- SKIN CHAMBER Back in the early 80's, Controlled Bleeding were one of the pioneers of dark, electronic music on this side of the Atlantic. The group's extensive body of work encompass three distinct styles; aggressive, electronic dance music, gothic, soundtrack-like work, and harsh, wall-of-noise compositions. While Controlled Bleeding were between labels, members Paul Lemos and Chris Moriarity started up Skin Chamber, a side project that further explores the latter. Skin Chamber's music is much darker and noisier than Controlled Bleeding's recent work and reminiscent of "Knees and Bones" era of Controlled Bleeding. Their debut album, "Wound" came out in late 1991, and now they have followed it up with "Trial". The following is a telephone interview conducted with Lemos about Skin Chamber. Q.Why did you start up the Skin Chamber side project? A.Skin Chamber developed when Controlled Bleeding had left Wax Trax!. It was a tough situation for Wax Trax! and everybody involved and so the band took a rest for about 11 months - we just stopped. Chris and I have always had a very volatile relationship, from the time when we were recording Knees and Bones together and I think this kind of level of frustration that started out in our early music was very much happening at that time. We had just gotten together, playing drums and bass, no programming, no keyboards and were just playing. What started developing would become Skin Chamber. It really was just a different face. To call it Controlled Bleeding was very inappropriate and it kind of harked back to the early music that we did in purpose - it had that same kind of venting. We just had a need to do something that was completely different and much more visceral and maybe a different emotional level. Q.When you originally started up Skin Chamber, did you see it as a one-off or a continuing project? A.Oh yeah, Skin Chamber to me is at least as dominant, maybe more so in the major market. I think Skin Chamber is something that's new, it has no history behind it, there's no big catalogue of obscure releases. And so it's kind of in a way a fresh start in a whole new orientation for us. Because none of us are tech-heads, and we don't really like computer music that much in terms of creating it, and so Skin Chamber is the way we like to work in an organic manner. I don't know if we'll be working with Roadrunner anymore, but we'll certainly pursue the group. Q.Why don't you think you'll be working with Roadrunner anymore? A.They dismantled a lot of the Third Mind label so Controlled Bleeding at this point will probably be label shopping, even though the last record did so well for us. They've just got big problems there, and I don't think they're going to support Skin Chamber either because they don't really understand the music. Their main interest is metal and even though they experiment with genres outside of metal, they don't handle them particularly well. Q.How would you describe the new Skin Chamber LP? A.It just kind of continues where Wound left off. It's a lot more focused than Wound. There's not nearly the variation on the record. But I think the songs are straighter in certain ways but sonically a lot better. I think the production is a lot more interesting, and within it are certain structured frameworks; there's a lot of experimentation going on. I'd say there's much more experimentation than on Wound. The textural aspects of the record are much more interesting. Q.Do you keep the different projects completely separate or do you tend to come up with ideas and then decide which project to develop them for? A.Oh, never. Controlled Bleeding can go a number of ways, it's like Controlled Bleeding is almost three combinations. Joe and I work on semi-choral, progressive music, the Controlled Bleeding music I work on myself is generally very noisy, very experimental, and the stuff Chris and I do under Controlled Bleeding tends to be more ryhthmic-yet-melodic, like what's on Penetration. Skin Chamber is a completely different entity; it's a completely different creative process. Q.Do you see the two groups aimed at the same audience? A.Well, I suppose. I don't really think about audience very much when I do any kind of music. I mean Roadrunner being a metal label, even though Trial is not a fucking metal record, they're going to market it to a metal audience. That's the audience that they know, that's their tried and true audience. I would say that people that are interested in any kind of noisy guitar-driven music would find Trial interesting, but I don't know it those same people would find Controlled Bleeding interesting. I tend to think that the Controlled Bleeding audience has found Skin Chamber maybe a little difficult to deal with. Q.Will you be doing any live dates as Skin Chamber? A.We want to, it's just hard going from two people to the necessary six or seven people. It's real hard to find a band for the live setting that can commit to going a month or two on the road. So it hasn't been easy getting the thing off the ground. We did one show, and we really want to go on tour this summer. We might go out as Controlled Bleeding/Skin Chamber doing music >from both, but it's been hard getting the number of people involved that we need for a long term tour. Q.What is the current status of Controlled Bleeding? A.As far as corporate music, we're quite possibly going to sign with a major label or another large indie sometime in the next five to six months. We'd like to be able contractually to be able to continue the smaller kind of maybe more artistic projects that we've been pursuing. ---------------------- BIG CATHOLIC GUILT As anyone who has seen them live can attest, there are few bands that can come close to matching the intensity and innovativeness of Big Catholic Guilt. The Boston-based group has often been compared to Ministry because of their combination of thrashing guitars and samplers, but that comparison is not really accurate. Big Catholic Guilt are more concerned with writing strong songs, not just piling on the noise. With the extremely intense, almost possessed looking Sam Jordan as frontman, the group has proven to be one of the strongest live outfits around The group was started up in 1990 by core members Jordan and sampler/programmer Tim Osbourne, who are responsible for the basic songwriting. Guitarists Jason Kahn and Jon Walsh and drummer J. "Bodo" Potts were then brought in to round out the sound and adapt the music for live performance. The current line-up is Jordan, Osbourne, Kahn, Walsh, M Crazz (bass) and Perry James (drums). Big Catholic Guilt have a self-released CD, Possession, and now have a new EP, Judgement, out on Cherrydisc (distributed through Relativity). "We felt that now was the time to get something out, we wanted something out now," says Jordan on the release. "We wanted to not have to go through a lot to get something out nationally so we went ahead and went for it. It was easy to negotiate with Cherrydisc, John Horten's a great guy and was very easy to work with." The first Big Catholic Guilt radio tapes hit the airwaves in August of 1990. By the next spring, Big Catholic Guilt was rapidly gaining recognition, earning a nomination in the WFNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll, and audiences started wondering whether the outfit was just a studio project or a full live band. So the duo put together a band and quickly became famous for their strong live shows. Sonically, Judgement is superior to its predecessor due to improved recording conditions. While the first CD was done in producer Lamar Lowder's home studio, the new release was done in state of the art 24 track recording facilities. This time around, the group used all 16 bit samplers, and the improved technology allowed the group to push the medium to the limits. Electronics figure prominently in Big Catholic Guilt's music, and the group manages to use them in a very creative fashion. For example, the remix of "Silence," off the new CD, was created by Big Catholic Guilt sampling their own music. "There's technically no live performance," says Jordan of the track. "But the samples are of our own guitar loops, of my voice off of tape, all off of our own tapes ... so you get this live thing that still heavily deals with technology and sampling." For live performances, Osbourne stands behind an elaborate set up of MIDI triggers, playing virtually all of the samples live. Technology constraints have made this difficult, but the group is almost to the point of being able to do everything live. "And when we say that, that's to say that there's still a lot of sampled stuff, but it's 100% triggered. If it be a bass line, it's a bass line that he's triggering note by note of measure by measure, but it's performed live, it exists because Tim makes it exist." "In the past, tape would take over some overflow, because our gear just wouldn't handle that amount of information," Osbourne explains. "That's been minimalized and will disappear. Our goal is to remove that element so that everything is live." Early on, Jordan would use vocal processing to distort his voice, but is now getting away from that, primarily because it has become over used. "The emotion that's there is more important than the effect, at first is was kind of fun, we basically just did it because it was fun and it had a cool feel to it, but then as we did more performance we realized that there was more depth without the effect." Another reason for getting away from the effects was to avoid sounding like everyone else"It's become cliched," explains Osbourne on the use of distortion. "I think the effects actually strip away the nuances and angst and the real emotion in the vocals and you sound like Nitzer Ebb" Although they use technology and create aggressive music, Big Catholic Guilt do not feel that they are not "industrial." As Osbourne explains, the current crop of bands being slapped with that label are a far cry from such "industrial" pioneers are Throbbing Gristle. Rather, Big Catholic guilt see their music as a healthy fusion of styles."It's no sin to use guitars blended with samplers, I think more and more that's happening," says Jordan. "All elements are starting to cross over more. "I think cross over is a natural part of popular music at this point." Jordan goes on to say that like any new technique being incorporated into music, electronics were looked down upon at first but are now gaining acceptance within rock music. "People made just as big a stink when the first guy came walking our with the Fender Precision Bass. Because you don't do that, it's just wrong to do that," he says. "Bob Dylan gets booed for playing an electric guitar at the Newport Jazz festival. It was much the same type of rebellion over anything new, it takes a lot for someone to break out." Now that they have a national release, Big Catholic Guilt are eager to hit the road and do more extensive touring in the future. But Jordan stresses that the group is not really looking to get away from the local music scene. "The Boston local scene is much more vibrant than people give it credit for," he says. "There's a lot of bands who are getting signed and doing well in Boston.....You go down to New York, and I defy somebody to find that many bands in New York who do that well. It's a much more vibrant scene then in a lot of places." ------------ BILLY IDOL On his new LP, Cyberpunk, Billy Idol has re-defined his approach to creating music without really changing the music itself. The album was created in Idol's home studio, which is controlled by a Macintosh computer and makes extensive use of other electronic gear. But despite the samples, dance beats, and strange electronic noises, Cyberpunk is musically more in tune with Idol's early work than his last few albums. The electronics have enabled Idol to re-embrace the DIY ethic of the punk era and come up with his best album is years. Idol does not allow himself to be overcome by the electronics, as all of the songs on Cypberpunk would be strong enough to stand up with more traditional instrumentation. Idol's fascination with technology does not end with the music, as he is also put out a limited edition Cyberpunk computer disk and is getting into computerized video. In addition, Idol has discovered the Internet, which was the medium used for the following interview. Q.Some people see computers and sequencers as just an extension of traditional studio recording, saying that there is no difference in recording a track to computer or tape. But others like to look at it as a completely new medium and use it to come up with things that would not be possible with traditional recording techniques. How do you see it? A.I've always wanted to blend rock and roll with technology. Back in early '80 I started doing dub mixes of my songs just to stretch the boundaries of the norm. "White Wedding" was released in two parts--one with my live band, one all machine. In 1987, I tried to take this to an extreme with the recording of WHIPLASH SMILE. But I wasn't right, the technology wasn't right. And it was a painful album to make. Then for CHARMED LIFE, I went back to the process of recording in a more traditional rock and roll fashion. Again, it was painful.So much so that I literally threw myself into the jaws of death with my motorcycle accident. While I was recovering from the leg surgeries, punk rock journalists Legs McNeil interviewed me and called me cyberpunk because of the muscle stimulator on my leg. It looked like man merging with machine. Legs kind of reaffirmed my punk rock beginnings and picked up that I was still thinking that way--it's just that the process of making music had escaped me a bit. Q.Was their anything in particular that influenced you to start using more electronics in your music? A.I still really wanted the DIY think, and I wanted to start to command the recording process. I was tired of being someone who had to go through a producer and an engineer and their interpretations. I wanted to be right in the action. I just needed a little help to do it. Robin Hancock, my producer, really helped. With today's computers you can really capture the personalities of the people playing the instruments, or playing the computers for that matter. Mark Younger-Smith (my guitar player), Robin and myself were the core of the project, but we also used my drummer Tal Bergman on a few tracks and my bassist Larry Seymour on one track and Living Colour's Doug Wimbash on quite a few tracks. Computers have become more human as they work with you. You hear a real band on CYBERPUNK. Through the computer, you're listening to a live, little garage band flailing away. And it was done in my house. No money wasted at the big studios. DIY. Punk rock. Cyberpunk. Q.What equipment did you use? A.I used Studiovision and Protools programs for the Macintosh. Q.You obviously started making "Cyberpunk" before the media really started latching on to "the Cyberpunk movement," but are you afraid at all of people thinking you're just cashing in on a trend? Don't you think that naming the album "Cyberpunk" might fuel this type of thinking? A.I have never given a fuck what people think of me. Isn't that obvious? CYBERPUNK is my reality, my passion and my journey. And I'm sharing it with all my fans. Fuck anyone who doesn't get it. Q.How long did "Cyberpunk" take to make? A.The good news is that CYBERPUNK took 10 months to make. A miracle for me. The last two album took three and four years to make. And they hurt. Q.Did you have a good grasp on the technology before hand or were you experimenting with it as you made the album? A.After Keith Forsey and I parted ways, I went to Trevor Rabin's studio to do some work for my new album. He had a virtual studio set up. I was excited because I felt that I finally found a way to record that would be true to my original ideas. Most of what you hear on CYBERPUNK are original demos done in the home studio. I incorporated the virtual studio idea at my home. I didn't know how to use it. Robin Hancock educated Mark and me. I had to learn about computers. I learned about graphics, recording, the WELL. I hooked up with Mondo 2000 folk and Mark Frauenfelder of boing boing. We tried recording with BiNaurel Heads, Roland Sound Space. We wanted to expand the limits of where sound is thrown. Q.Can you elaborate more on the "Blendo" video? A.I loved "Lawnmower Man" and through a group of friends ended up meeting Brett Leonard. He and I swarmed various images with Hi-8 cameras--me at the accupuncturist, me at Aha Spa--a mind gym, various LA landscapes, "Heroin" related images--and fed them back through a band of desk-top computers. The operators of these computers act as musicians, for as they hear the music played back in real time, they edit the images, one on top of the other. I've been building a blendo bed of footage to use on the tour. Additionally, I'll have folk out in the audience with Hi-8s swarming the crowd, and we'll swarm the stage, as well. There will be another person on stage, editing the blendo footage--he'll be like another band member-- and throwing it on the in-house screen. So, in essence, this will be an interactive show. Q.What else can we expect from the live show? A.Rock and roll, mate. Rock and roll. Q.Will your new interest in computers affect the way older songs are performed? A.When I get back from Europe at the end of June, my band and I begin rehearsals. I'll see then how we will be playing the older stuff. I haven't really got that sorted yet. Q.When will you be touring? A.The U.S. tour begins in late October. I'll be doing a warm-up stadium tour in the late summer in Europe. [note:the US tour has since been postponed until early 1994]