 | Loerke (46)
07/22/2007 |  I guess I will give them a "2" because they are not very forgotten, but I would give them a higher score to express my degree of interest in them. To call them a "one-hit wonder" is way off base, because they were not known for some smooth hit song, but for their over-the-top approach to rock, which resembled a low-rent version of GWAR. From their bandname to their live act, they were brilliant manipulators of the entertainment biz. According to a very funny chapter in Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life, The lead singer, "Gibby" Haynes, was a saavy young Texas businessman who had once been named San Antonio's "Accountant of the Year." An encounter with a Zappa protege and, later, with Jello Biafra led Haynes to take up a music career. Azerrad's chapter is helpful in describing what happened at their shows:
"Haynes had taken to making his stage entrance with a dummy duct-taped to his body so it looked like he was dancing with it--then he'd tear it off and start attacking it. He'd sing through a megaphone, an idea that was stolen ad infinitum over the next ten years. Often he'd wear several layers of dresses and peel them off one by one until by the end of the show he was down to his skivvies. He'd stuff his clothes with condoms filled with fake blood so that when he'd fall to the floor, he'd turn into a gory mess; he'd hurl reams of photocopied pictures of cockroaches into the crowd; he'd pour a flammable liquid into an inverted cymbal, then whack it, sending up a geyser of flame; he'd usually set his hands on fire. Then there was the time he made his entrance through a hole he'd cut in a mattress covered with fake blood. Often the whole band would rip apart stuffed animals onstage, like a frenzied pack of psychotic cannibals...."
I could go on, but you get the idea. One-hit wonders? I don't think so.
(2 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
