Tormentula

“Whorrorcore,” was the reply that I got from Tormentula drummer / vocalist Alice Bludgeon when I asked her to describe Tormentula’s music. I’ve wanted to do a story on Tormentula ever since their CD, Submit You Unworthy Soul, came out last summer. Not a pretty record and occasionally not easy to listen to, but nonetheless a superior record of enraged estrogen recorded for all of the world to hear and one of the best hard rock CD’s to come out of Wisconsin. So impressive is Submit Your Unworthy Soul, that the CD was stolen from my office while I was setting up this article.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from these women with faces made up better than KISS, playing music to stomp gonads to. What I did find was an intelligent and articulate woman (drummer / vocalist Alice Bludgeon) whose love for rock and roll music is as passionate as Angus Young. “I think that music should be challenging to the musician and to the listener,” said Bludgeon.

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Boris The Sprinkler

When you think of Green Bay, there is only one thing that comes to mind, it’s the hometown of that zany punk rock band, Boris the Sprinkler. These Pop Culture abnormalities are so endeared in their hometown that the mayor has proposed to change the name of their obscure football team to “The Green Bay Sprinklers” and the name of the stadium to “Reverend Norb Field.”  Who the hell is Reverend Norb and Boris the Sprinkler, you may ask?  Well sit down, pop a beer, light a cigarette and read on, but I must warn you that after you’re done reading this article, you may know less about the Pride of Green Bay than before you picked up this paper. Formed by vocalist and former writer for Maximum Rock and Roll, (not to be confused with Maximum Ink – the paper in your hands) Reverend Norb, super guitarist Paul #1 and a revolving door rhythm section in 1992.  They were and still are influenced by the more zany side of punk rock music, The Dickies, Rezillos and The Ramones.  “Every talentless idiot like me,” confided Reverend Norb, “learned how to play music by listening to The Ramones.”

They released an uncountable number of 45’s, split 45’s, EP’s, LP’s and CD’s, [Although, research put the number at 6 full-length albums and 19 singles].  “For awhile there,” said Mike Sykes, former owner of Milwaukee’s Stinky Record Exchange, “it seemed like Boris the Sprinkler were releasing a record every week.  I couldn’t keep up and had to dedicate the entire store to them.  I went out of business one month later.”

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Man… Or Astro-Man?

Give Alf an electric guitar and a few Dick Dale records, lock him in the attic for a night, and the results might just rival Man or Astro-man? and their musical barrage of space-age surfscapes. The members of Man or Astro-man? aren’t quite as furry as television’s Alien Life Form, but they’re also trapped on earth until they can fix their interplanetary wheels.

“Originally we came from a place, not a planet,” began founding drummer Birdstuff, backstage after a recent show in Providence, R.I. “Planets are very archaic devices, we actually came from a grid sector, grid sector 23-V61. Star Crunch and I took the intergalactic starship-your guys’ station wagon-out on a joyride, and somewhere we mis-vectored.”

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Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson knows a thing or two about fire and brimstone. His music scorches the earth like flames from the fingertips of an angry God, blazing through anything in its path and pulsing with an industrial-strength rage and heavy metal-inspired bravado, offering the perfect rough-and-tumble accompaniment to vocals that spray from the speakers like a hailstorm unleashed from the heavens, pelting the skin and piercing the psyche. Driven by equal parts rebellious fervor and spiritually charged dogma, he knows no path other than that of the philosophically profound and socially rehabilitative, but to hear his critics offer their take on his rock ‘n’ roll tantrums, he’s a disease in which every one of society’s self-serving watchdogs has a cure. His Portrait Of An American Family debut laid the groundwork for a band that would revolutionize the face of modern music with Antichrist Superstar, a release that gave the American youth a figure to rally behind, and American powers-that-be a figure to rally against. Manson shifted outward gears from religiously tempered to sexually shape-changing with Mechanical Animals, but his message stayed the same within music that took on a more refined and high-polished sheen. He’s been one of the most chronicled artists of the past decade, but consider it all the calm before the storm. Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is his outfit’s most ambitious outing yet, swirling their heaviest music to date within a soundscape that turns the hypocrisy of an American culture on end. His physical image is eerie enough to scare his Omega character into submission, and the music has hooks that scrape the skin with an infectious blend of heavy metal thunder and punk rock lightning. Marilyn Manson offered this exclusive look at the vast array of forces that shaped his entertainment Eden Holy Wood and its shadow-filled photo negative Death Valley. Welcome to Holy Wood…

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The United Sons Of Toil

Describing themselves as “noisy Midwestern math-rock delivered by populist theoreticians,” THE UNITED SONS OF TOIL blend hyper-literate lyrics with pounding instrumentation on their upcoming record. A veritable Madison super-group (even though they’d most definitely hate that appellation), their lineup consists of guitarist/singer, Russell Hall (of POUND WI and P’ELVIS), bassist Bill Borowski (from THE ARGE, ATALANTA, and gorilla-suit wearing surf-rock masters, KNUCKELDRAGER) and drummer Chad Burnett (who doubles in guitar for COLONY OF WATTS.)

According to Hall, it started because he “was a huge fan of Colony of Watts and would go to all the shows”, he says. “With their guitarist, I found a shared love of mid-to-late 90’s Touch and Go, AmRep, and Dischord bands.” He describes their influences as “Stripped-down, aggressive, indie-rock post-punk Chicago sound. Like a Big Black, Jesus Lizard and Tar vibe. Chad and I became friends because we shared similar aesthetics. I asked him if he was interested in playing in a noisy, math-rock band”.

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Slightly Stoopid

With a laidback attitude and stoner swagger, SLIGHTLY STOOPID, is set to release their seventh album of party music July 22nd with Slightly Not Stoned Enough To Eat Breakfast Yet Stoopid. Hailing from Ocean Beach (a gorgeous surfer enclave near San Diego that perfectly fits their music) and formed in the early Nineties, the band’s two front men, Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald, have been playing together since their early teens. Discovered by Sublime’s Brad Nowell and signed to his Skunk Records label, the band released their first record in 1996 (a highly sought after collector’s item by Sublime fans because of Nowell’s appearance on a hidden track) and while the duo at the core hasn’t changed, their lineup has shifted in and out over the years. This latest incarnation is the most solid according to drummer, Ryan Moran (affectionately known as RyMo to fans), adding horns and congas to the mix. With diverse instrumentation like that, they fit their music to whatever suits their mood, according to Moran, “We play a lot of different styles and throw them into the pot. We might play 3 or 4 punk tunes, 5 or 6 reggae tunes, blues-rock, 1 or 2 hip-hop feel or ska feel. We just kind of wing it; don’t write a set list or anything, we just go with the moment and the energy of the crowd.

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Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock arrives November 3rd, 2007 to Madison’s High Noon Saloon, playing solo but carrying overstuffed bags of interesting history. From his post-punk Soft Boys beginnings to a three decade career mixing solo stretches with bands, films, published poems and painting, Robyn is a post-modern Renaissance Man who’s songs and speech dabble in riddles, scribbles, neurosis and culture. The newly minted five CD set, I WANNA GO BACKWARDS bonuses up three of his older solo albums and includes an incredibly strong double CD of rare works. We emailed Robyn to ask about his past and present state of affairs.

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