BAD
BRAIN
Throughout the eghties, the Bad Brains wee
recognized as one of the leaders of modern day
y continues to rock unt 1989
frontman let the group for good Many
wondered what would become of the Bad Brans
They he seen audit ans. But none were
never thought we
were going to a singer to replacency o
sora
tad to come through
answer my man irae Joseph
vibes
Set to on the spiritual battle of good over
ed, the Bad Brains rave released the sath
arody Ride a reflector of ther vetage rockieg
gae hardcore roots When asked about the
fun of BadBs Dry set taght can't
future. It would be foolish of metast he
and say we gonna do this c-trat. We have pow
intentions to carry on with our music ang
Acep out music progressing tough the nature
progression of ourselves. I just try to seep th
vibe moving and keep up on our masion of good
over evil, The key of music is the
-TE Mc
cop shoot cop
It's a few weeks after the bomb
bast at the World Trade Center
parking garage, the one that killed
fre and brought Manhattan to a vir
tual standstill. The four members of
Brooklyn noise terrorists Cop Shoot
Cop can't help but wax a little envi
ous about the whole shebang.
"I was jealous of whoever did
that, chuckles Cop main man Tod
Ashley, hunched over a beer at
CBGB's pizza bar on the Bowery, a
favorite Cop Shoot Cop hangout
"It made me think about how easy
it would be to paralyze Manhattan,"
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he says, "a few well-placed bombs
in subways, a couple of bridges, a
tunnel or two..."
Cop Shoot Cop's ominous urban
thud and grind is kind of like that.
Maximum City overload. New York,
New York, it's a hell of a town, liter-
ally. Their latest and first full-length
bit of corporate slabbage, Ask
Questions Later, is an unyielding
bombast of urban anger and indus
trial-strength irony spelt-out
amidst Ashley and Jack Natz's ten-
sion-wire dual bass assault,
"Cripple" Jim Coleman's mad car-
nival of synthesizers, and Phil
Puelo's sheet metal percussion.
Is their ominous sound of glori-
ously orchestrated collapse a prod-
uct of their environment? "Not
necessarily, Ashley disagrees
brusquely. "People are stupid and
pathetic everywhere." Forming in a
roach ridden NYC basement in '88,
the Cop legend has stretched to
truth-defying proportions. The tales
of getting arrested during a riot out-
side CBGBs for carrying a pump
action shotgun were apparently
concocted by an overzealous British
publicist. But the true facts include
being handcuffed and "detained" in
LA (ironically there on tour one day
after the riots) by the LAPD as sus
pected terrorists. "We walked in a
menacing fashion," Tod snickers.
"That was the official reason we
were told that we were brought
out of a restaurant with our hands
above out heads, put in handcuffs
and questioned for an hour and a
half. The National Guard who were
on duty were also under the impres
sion that we had planted a bomb in
our van and were planning to blow
up a police station. When they
searched the van and found a box of
our t-shirts, needless to say, they
weren't amused. Luckily, there was
a sergeant who found some humor
in our situation. He said that if we
ever wrote a song about it, we
should send him a copy"
"The punchline was we suppos
edly cost the city of Los Angeles
eight thousand dollars," Natzi
smiles. "That's including the bomb
squad, the helicopters and the
forty or fifty police officers."
Another famous New Yorker by
the name of Woody Allen said it
best when he explained that come-
dy is tragedy plus distance. Cop
Shoot Cop's songs ring with a
humor of the blackest kind. "Room
429 rues with an ominous reprisal
of "The Sounds of Silence," while
Everybody Loves You (When You're
Dead)," a song Tod wrote about a
friend who cashed in on a cache of
bad junk, laughs at death and dying.
"I know that it's a cliché, but Me is a
sick joke," Ashley says. "There's a
point where you have to laugh or
you'll go insane."
"That's just survival instinct," adds
Coleman. "If you don't have a sense
of humor, you're fucked."
-Mike Gitter
MONSTER
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MAGNET DESTROY
While opening for White Zombie in New York last night, Monster Magnet played
to such a ravenous crowd that the band had to cut their set short. All the stage-
divers were tripping over cords and disconnecting the group's effect pedals. A gui-
tar propped up by the side of the stage was knocked over, causing the headstock
to break, and the group were forced to play back by their amps, lest they too be
stomped upon. Needless to say, Monster Magnet loved every minute.
"By the end of the first song, half of our stuff was wiped out. At the end of the
night, I was down to one guitar and then that gave out, so we packed up and went
home. It was definitely one of the coolest shows we've done in a long time," says
guitarist/vocalist Dave Wyndorf.
Today Wyndorf is seated in the comer booth of a New York deli, groggily sipping
a cup of coffee. He seems upbeat, almost chipper, in a perpetually-stoned/eyes-at-
half-mass sort of way. Any why not? Monster Magnet's latest album Superjudge has
been well-received both critically and commercially, keeping Wyndorf and his
bandmates well supplied in musical equipment and recreational accoutrements. Not
that Monster Magnet need to worry about pharmaceutical purchases. The
retropsychedelic vibe of their music pretty much insures that their following is well-
stocked enough to share. "Everywhere we go people offer us drugs and stuff. It's
pretty amazing that just because of who we are and what we do, kids come running
up to get stoned with us," says Wyndorf.
The print on the inner-sleeve of the band's first album Spine Of God pretty much
sums up Monster Magnet's world vision: "It's a Satanic drug thing, you wouldn't
understand." Monster Magnet plays up the whole sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll aesthetic
to the hilt. According to Wyndorf, Superjudge was written in about three weeks while
the band were on the road in Europe, and the album's aggressive, hedonistic tone
is a direct reflection of the decadence that occurred on tour. "It was a truly psy-
chotic affair for sure. We got like no sleep. We met a million billion people.
Everyone was running around with their pants down eating free dope, and I think
we all found our particular limitations on how much shit your brain can hold before
it starts to rebel and you starts going insane."
Just how deranged did things get? Well, at one point during a show in Germany,
people in the front row kept shoving blotter acid in Wyndorf's mouth whenever he
would sing. By the end of the third song, he says colors were swirling so violently
around his head that he couldn't even see the other band members. It took him three
days to come back down. "People gave us so much dope, we would give it back to
the crowd when we played. Also, we had a lot of gorgeous women hanging around
us, especially in Holland. This one time there were a lot of naked women in a room
and they were all doped up. It was really cool. That's the sort of stuff that you
always want to happen, but you never think actually will." -Jon Wiederhorm
CAPITALISM
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