SIGNT
STORMS
Here's a pint-sized
power-packed
tornado of musical
mayhem. Five bands
in three pages-a
serious sonic storm-
front that will make
you want to bolt the
shutters and hide in
the cellar...just make
sure you bring your
tape player.
CREATURES
While most know Siouxsie and Budgie from their day gig as prime
movers behind the remarkably prolific Siouxsie and the Banshees.
their lesser known side-project, the Creatures glides along with com-
fortable anonymity. In existence since 1981, with two records in the
early 80's: Wild Things (1981) and Feast (1983), their dynamic duet.
of voice and percussion is described by Budgie as "uncontained and
buoyant, a lifting of the weights laid down on the Banshees and a total
ly different entity."
Written on sabbatical from the Banshees, Boomerang's lucid,
dream-like compositions were inspired by the duo's fascination with
Spanish culture, prompting them to record in a former eleventh cen
tury convent in rural Spain. "Spain affected us from day one. What
we ended up with is raw and spontaneous and direct and immediate.
That, of course, is what the Creatures are all about."
by Mike Gitter
"I wouldn't call us intense as people, but we are tense. We're tensed up and knotted
up. We're paranoid, weirded-out, maybe emotionally sickened by our environment."
by Mike Gitter
What a week. The city's been on the brink, waiting
for the Yusef Hawkins decision to come down. A mil-
lion or so voices all clamor for TV time; Rev. Al
Sharpton leads his congregation through the mostly
white streets of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, while Mayor
David Dinkins makes pleas for racial harmony. On the
Lower East Side the cops do their damndest to evict
the homeless who have settled Thompkins Square
Park. The usual murders, stick-ups, drug deals gone
bad, Earth Day all chopped up into easily digestible
news bits. Pop imperialism, tabloid news.
PRONG
STOP. EJECT. LOCK YOURSELF AT HOME.
TRUST NO ONE.
It's this web of social propaganda, TV- brain,
Orwellian paranoia that NYC power-triumvirate Prong
rails against.
"It is frightening and confusing," says guitarist
Tommy Victor, on line from Milan, Italy, where Prong is
currently finishing off a two-month Euro-tour supporting
Faith No More. "Just think of what they sell people
these days: violence. Is there a demand for it?
Probably. Are they trying to pacify us, especially those
of us who aren't living in it? Maybe. Maybe there's
some scheme going on that nobody knows about. It's
like the attraction of white middle-class suburban kids
to rap music. Why do kids in Topeka, Kansas listen to
NWA albums? It almost turns violence into escapism
and distances them from it."
Prong, according to Victor, "stands for things tribal
and primal, primal urge music in a modern context."
With bassist Mike Kirkland and drummer Ted Parsons,
they blast back the gritty, guarded, malevolent moods
that tie them to their Lower East Side home. Violent,
loud and merciless, bare-boned and furiously skeletal,
it's Hell House house music. Check out Beg To Differ,
their third and most recent album the sound of a million
voices juxtaposed and fused into what they fondly term
"Electric Hate."
Could Prong have come from anywhere but New York City?
"I doubt it," says Tommy. "I think if we're a product of anything
we're a product of this city; three people trying to assimilate the
quickness of this city, trying to absorb what we have to do. It gets
tiring. To survive here you have to be aware of different cultures and
the diversities between people. Ride the subway to work everyday
and you'll see what I mean..
"I wouldn't call us intense as people, but we are tense. We're
tensed up and knotted up. People have termed us claustrophobic'
but I think that's just another aspect of our tenseness and the pho-
bic nature of the band. We're paranoid, weirded-out, maybe emo-
tionally sickened environment."
sciously summoned the situation." Working as soundman at
CBGBs, he met Kirkland, a recent Salt Lake City transplant who
was working door at the Bowery club and as one of two bassists
with Damage. They eventually called upon ex-Cabbages & Kings/
Swans drummer Ted Parsons to round out their moody barrage.
Four years, one demo, a six-song Ep (Primitive Origins April '87)
and two albums (Force Fed November '88 and Beg To Differ
March 90) later, Prong is still struggling. "We're not aligned with any
particular subculture or musical tribe," says Victor, "not part of the
hardcore culture, the thrash or industrial cultures. Then again, there
was never a specific or contrived market for bands like the Bad
Brains, Jane's Addiction or Living Colour. Is it so important to be
safe and belong to a group? I don't think so."
Prons came together in June 1986 after Tommy, disillusioned Despite Tommy's cynicism, life in the Prong camp is looking up.
with the demise of his erstwhile outfit the Radium Boys, "subcon-
For Beg To Differ, they've signed with Epic Records, (con on page 84)
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