Anarchy Club

Do you like heavy music? Really heavy music? I’m not just talking about “too heavy for radio”, with heavy guitar riffs or some “heavy” lyrics. I’m talking about a “boot made of steel stomping your face into the mud of a blood-drenched battlefield during a thunderstorm on the final day of the apocalypse” kind of heavy. I’m talking about Ministry.

Ministry was formed by Al Jourgensen in Chicago in 1981. They began as a synthpop band that essentially catered to the underground, pre-industrial electronic music scene. With early songs like “Every Day Is Halloween,” Ministry’s dark soul could be heard even then, albeit masked by club beats and eyeliner. As Al Jourgensen would say in later years, “…I sold out first to get the exposure and money I needed to do what I really wanted to do (musically)…”

The first hint that things were heading for a change musically was the release of the album “Twitch”, in 1986. While as hooky as his earlier synthpop work, “Twitch” was darker than anything that had been released by the band at that time. According to Jourgensen, the “Twitch” release was more in line with where he’d wanted to take the music from the beginning, but was forced by his previous record label to keep it pop with the “In Sympathy” album (which Al Jourgensen openly despises to this day). Where “In Sympathy” sounded like radio friendly new wave dance music, “Twitch” was more in line with the sound of early industrial pioneers Front 242.

The next transitional release was “The Land of Rape and Honey”, in 1988. This album introduced heavily distorted guitars and blast beats to the mix, and at the time was considered to be some of the heaviest sounding music out there. Ministry’s club kid fans were getting scared, but punks and metal heads were beginning to take notice. The storm clouds were rolling in…

In 1989 the band released “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste”,  and essentially changed the sound of industrial, hardcore and metal. For its time, “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste” was downright corrosive in its intensity. This is one of the albums that was instrumental in the birth of the percussive, rhythmical guitar riffs that would chart the path for the groove metal guitar style of bands as diverse as Pantera, White Zombie, Soulfly, Nine Inch Nails, Lamb of God, Rammstein, Marilyn Manson, Dethklok and many others (including Anarchy Club ;-)). From the opening riff of “Thieves”, the album is a rhythmical assault of aggressive blast beats crossbred with almost hip hop groove drum lines, mixed with heavily distorted (but, in an odd way, almost funky) buzzsaw, relentless guitars. Add scathing, politically motivated lyrics sung (?) through heavy distortion, and you have the recipe for what would be Ministry’s everlasting tattoo on the face of rock and roll. While not a perfect album, songs like “Thieves”, “Burning Inside”, “Breathe”, “So What”, and even the trippy dreamscape of “Dream Song” make it an essential piece of the modern music puzzle.

I had the pleasure of seeing them live for that tour in Boston, at the infamous, long gone night club, The Channel (This club was Boston’s seedy home for all ages/18+ hardcore and metal shows). The few club kids that were there were petrified and hiding in the back of the club as the entire place became a giant mosh pit of flying bodies and beer bottles. The stage was surrounded by a tall chain link fence that was swaying back and forth to the music of Ministry as the rabid crowd grabbed at it, while Al Jourgensen paced and roared like a caged animal on the other side. I remember climbing to the top and jumping off, back into the chaotic crowd that would ultimately tear the entire fence down by the show’s end.

With the release of “Psalm 69” in 1992, the band’s sound had cast off the last remaining musical threads of their earlier years and had evolved to become, arguably, the first true industrial thrash metal band (as well as laying ground work for elements that would later be incorporated into death metal as it exists today). This album crushes from start to finish, and is a good place to start if you’ve never heard the band. It’s dark, not only because of its general musical and lyrical tone, but also because it openly marks the beginning of Al Jourgensen’s battle with the muse of so many tortured artists before him, heroin, with the song “Just One Fix”. The band played the main stage at Lollapalooza that year (saw that show, too). Their stage show that year could best be described as a post-apocalyptic punk/metal circus of the damned. And yes, I mean that in a GOOD way.

From 1992 until 2008, when Jourgensen decided it was time to put the beast to sleep, Ministry put out a number of albums, sticking to their patented, face melting formula of doom rock. 1996-1999 saw the band go through a spiritually dark downward spiral on the albums “Filth Pig” and “Darkside of the Spoon”, due to Al’s addiction to heroin, changes in the line up, and the suicide of former guitarist William Tucker (who slit his own throat in May of ’99). Though their song “Bad Blood” (from “Darkside of the Spoon”) was featured in The Matrix soundtrack and nominated for a grammy, this was a dark time for the band.

In 2001 Al Jourgensen was bitten by a venomous spider and almost lost his arm. This incident caused him to re-evaluate his life and kick his heroin addiction. The band released “Animositisomina” in 2003. While essentially flying under the radar of the band’s fans, it was a good record, and was their symbolic foothold for climbing out of the abyss they had fallen into.

2004 saw the Release of “Houses of the Molé”, the first album of what would be dubbed the George W. trilogy, a three-album collection of visceral political discontent with then president, George W. Bush. Ministry was back to form, and angrier than ever.

2006 saw the release of the crushingly bombastic “Rio Grande Blood”, the second album in the G.W. trilogy. With members of Killing Joke and Prong joining the band, this album was  (and still is) a tour-de-force of politically motivated, grooving thrash metal fury.

Ministry’s final studio album, “The Last Sucker”, was released in 2007. the final installment of the G.W. trilogy, this album is truly one of their best, a fantastic swan song that perfectly captured all that the band was and ever would be. “The Last Sucker” is a white-knuckle ride on a roller coaster straight to Armageddon and back. The album is crushing from start to finish, kickstarting with the riot inciting “Let’s Go”, and ending beautifully with the haunting “End of Days (Part 2)” which wraps a darkly enchanting groove around a sample from Eisenhower’s 1961 prophetic farewell speech that famously warned America of the dangers of a military-based industrial complex and the government control that we now find ourselves surrounded by. It worked for Eisenhower as a warning to the nation back then, and it’s a fitting “I told you so” that summarizes all that the band had to say throughout its long career.

If you made it to the end of this post, and have never heard the band before, I can say honestly that “The Last Sucker” is a must-own album. Thanks for the music, Mr. Jourgensen…

…And thank YOU for reading. So ends class for today.

Yours in Rock,

Keith

PS- I recommend checking out Eisenhower’s original farewell speech on the military industrial complex. Pretty heartfelt, intense stuff…

The following is the first of many looks into the magical rock and roll looking glass to bring to light some righteous tunage that may have slipped under your musical radar. Tonight’s lesson: The Bad Brains…

Slayer. Rage Against the Machine. System of a Down. Ministry. White Zombie. Nirvana. Beastie Boys. Janes Addiction. Deftones. Doctor Dre. Lil’ Jon. The list goes on… and on… and on, covering pretty much any heavy band that’s come out since 1987… They were ALL inspired/influenced by The Bad Brains.

The Bad Brains were one of the few TRUE fathers of the American Hardcore scene (though they themselves have never referred to themselves as a hardcore band). They influenced punk, hardcore, thrash, metal, reggae, and even hip hop and techno, on a level that will be felt for years to come.

In 1977, while most people were dancing away to disco and top 40, The underground punk movement was beginning to hit the shores of the U.S. It was then that a group of working class inner city kids into jazz fusion and reggae (with a soft spot for Black Sabbath) started listening to the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. And the Bad Brains were born.

Combining their love of punk with their jazz/rock time signatures and song structure, as well as reggae style grooves and a growing belief in Rastafarianism, they took the blossoming Washington DC punk scene by storm. Their live shows were best described as a tornado touching down in a mosh pit during an earthquake. They were faster (and tighter) than any punk band before them. And while everyone else was singing about hate and war, the Bad Brains preached PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). And they did it while kicking massive amounts of ass at every show they played. People had never seen anything like them before, especially given the fact that they were an all black, dreadlocked, rasta punk band. (At this point it should be noted that in the late 70’s/early 80’s, to be a punk rocker was effectively taking your life in your hands, as the whole world essentially thought you were the epitomy of antisocial scum. It was like wearing a target around your neck, and it was open season. There was even a term, “freak beat”, that was used by mobs of kids that went around beating up punks and anyone else who didn’t “fit in”. Now add being a black punk to this equation and well, you get the picture…)

The Bad Brains kicked so much ass when playing shows, in fact, that they were effectively banned from performing in any club in DC. This forced the band to move to New York City, where they were quickly and lovingly embraced (and copied…Oops! Did I say that out loud? Pretend I never said that!).

In 1982 they released their first, self titled album as a cassette only release on the legendary, long gone Roir label. This brought them to the attention of Ric Ocasek (Singer of 80’s superstar new wave band, The Cars), who produced their next album, the seminal, ground breaking/shaking “Rock For Light”. This was essentially a re-do of the first record, but with superior recordings (especially for a punk band). It can honestly be said that the release of this album changed the way the scene (as well as the critics) looked at punk bands.

After the release of “Rock For Light” the band began in-fighting with the singer, HR (short for Human Rights), who pretty much was beginning his downward spiral from what most of us might call “mental stability” (let’s just say he was becoming “eccentric”.) The band eventually broke up.

In 1986, they reformed and and released “I Against I”, focusing on a more mature, metal sound this time around. With “I Against I”, The Bad Brains did to metal what they had done to punk just a few years before, effectively turning the concept of what it “could and should” sound like on its ass. The album was critically praised, but HR had become even more of a loose cannon (he recorded the vocals for “Sacred Love” over the phone from jail, after getting locked up for marijuana possession, and that was while they were still making the record), and the band soon broke up again.

This trend has continued for over 20 years, with the band reforming just long enough to make a killer album, only to break up shortly after it’s released. In the interim the band has even tried recruiting other singers (at one point, I auditioned, but that’s another story for another time), but the chemistry was never the same as it was with HR at the helm.

Anyway, these guys are amazing, and were a huge influence on Adam and I growing up. You should check ’em out… Or not… Whatever… I don’t care… Your loss…

Albums to check out-

Rock For Light

I Against I

Quickness

God of Love

Build a Nation

(And if you feel like going WAAAY back, you can check out “Black Dots” a collection of early demos and stuff…)

Yours in Rock,

Keith