Industrial Culture / Coil

Can't talk; my mouth is full.

Instead go to Shards, Fragments and Totems and scroll down a little to find an excellent MP3 mix of early-mid 80s Industrial culture. Everyone is here: Coil, TG, Laibach, Test Dept, Neubauten, Psychic TV etc. Well worth a listen if you haven't already got all the records and there's some good notes to guide you.



While you'e listening, go to Worlds of Possibility where there's an excellent run-down of a lot of Coil's releases over the last 12 or so years. This guy really gets Coil in a way a lot of the Goth vultures that think they ought to like them but would probably be better off with Lacuna Coil simply don't. You can see it in their eyes at gigs: they don't want Balance to enjoy himself; they want him damaged (admittedly, that's not exactly a long shot), they want him drugged and in pain and gasping for a drink. When he smiles and makes jokes and does Mary Poppins numbers and sings kiddie songs and wears silly hats or telepathic tubbies costumes you can see it hurts so much that the painted on bruises start to peel and their hair dye starts to run in the heat making them look even more like ex-members of Kiss tribute bands.

It reminds me of when Genesis went into his "santa claus' song at a Psychic TV gig in the late 80s; the Wax Traxer guys just stood around open mouthed wondering if they shoulda put on their ski-goggles and gone and seen Front 242 instead.

Anyway, this guy seems to understand. He even likes the 'dancey' stuff like Windowpane and 'The Snow' which to me were always far better indicators of Coil's general sensory derangements (drugs are supposed to be fun, after all; the fucked-up heroin chic is an accident, isn't it?) than their Mexican Day of the Dead heaven blasts anyway.

Anyway, my mouth is full; I can't talk. Enjoy the MP3 mix.