Beyond The Pale No. 2 : May 1982
sonics for manics
On 24 April, the Australian collective SPK made another of its rare live performances -- this one in Los Angeles at Al's Bar. They had told me in San Francisco the week before that the L.A. show would be much harsher.... IT WAS. Yessir, certainly a night of uncompromising new music at its best. After the show, the following interview was conducted amidst a background of conversations, Neu, and Faust. A. Injeyan asked the questions, Grahame gave the answers....
BTP: You've done performances in San Francisco and Los
Angeles; where else will SPK be playing in the U.S ?
SPK: Phoenix, Minnesota,Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New
York, Rhode Island.
BTP: Then you go to London ?
SPK: Yea.
BTP: Have you got gigs planned there too ?
SPK: Yea, we'll do a few gigs in London, then we hope to
play in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium.
BTP: You've actually got quite an extensive tour lined
up, huh ?
SPK: It'll keep us vaguely interested until the end of the
year.
BTP: Then, at the end of the year, SPK will be
quitting, right ? What's the reason for stopping at this point ?
SPK: What's happening is that when we started, we had
decided on only putting out two albums -- the first one ideas and
bad realisations; the 2nd one good realisations, to think of an
achievement. After that I think we haven't got the money to do
something really different from our 2nd album. Before we would
come out of retirement, we would want a lot of money to realise
certain ideas. We know what we want to do -- we just can't get
the money. We're thinking of starting up another group, James and
I. And if we get a company -- a major independent company --
backing us, then we'll be able to do it.
BTP: And what will your new project consist of ?
SPK: hmm... metal rhythms programmed into a rhythm machine
and hopefully a CMI Fairlight -- a good synthesizer system. We're
also going to get into video and soundtrack material.
BTP: And the soundtrack material will vary with each
project ?
SPK: It'll vary with each; it"ll vary during the
project as well.
BTP: Are you happy with the new equipment that's
available nowadays ?
SPK: Well, we don't use much equipment, as you can see. As
we're touring we don't use much electronic equipment. We use a
lot of taped material, sheet metal, and things like that. We're
now going into an electro-acoustic mode really.
BTP: Yea, it was really interesting; and a lot
different than last year's gig.
SPK: A lot different. Last year was kind of getting on top
of the electronics. Now we've thrown out the electronics and are
concentrating on a tape-type approach.
BTP: I had read once that you're writing some sort of
book.
SPK: Actually, I'm in the process of writing three.
BTP: What are they about ?
SPK: The first one is about the electrologist creating an
inorganic subconscious as opposed to the organic subconscious...
just trying to bring the unconscious up-to-date with modern
imagery, modern symbolism and archetypes. The second one is the
'history of philosophy as the history of syphilis'. The other one
is the position of viruses as an alien life force -- on that is
superior to humanity; and which also fills in the gap between
life and death. Sort of a piece of genetic information that has
been found in our space ships, wandering around; and they don't
actually need human hosts, but they have a great deal of fun when
they find one !
BTP: How far along are you -- on the books ?
SPK: I got halfway through the one on the inorganic
unconscious, but I have to start it again; and I've done some
research on the other ones.
BTP: When you first started, you were named after that
group of German mental patients Sozialistes Patienten Kollectiv.
You once mentioned that the fact they had failed -- when they
blew themselves up at the embassy in Hamburg -- that was very
important to your work.
SPK: Yeah, it was important because they were in a no-win
situation. That's what we're dealing with -- all these people who
can't win. That's what I felt when I was a psychiatric nurse --
that you can try to help but inevitably you're always just a
general warden. And if you try to do anything to help -- the only
way you were allowed to help them was to bring them back to
normality. And normality destroyed them; that's why they were in
there in the first place -- because they couldn't measure up to
the ridiculous standards of supposed normality.................
BTP: When you start the new project, where will it be
based ?
SPK: Commuting between San Francisco and London. We
wouldn't mind living in SF 'cause the gear is so cheap and we've
got a lot of nice friends there. We'll just get married and live
off the social welfare system. (laughs)
BTP: Your slide show was excellent -- really striking.
SPK: It's nice when it's big isn't it ?
BTP: Oh yeah, and where do you draw a lot of the
content of your visual show from ?
SPK: Forensic books, medical books, stealing or breaking
into medical schools, porno mags... things we didn't show which
we also have on slides like nuclear engineering, oh God -- all
sorts of things, specialized research, university libraries,
breaking into dead body collections, museums -- things like thta.
BTP: Since nowadays, SPK is considered one of the
earlier... what... 'industrial' groups, do you like any of the
newer stuff you've heard ? Anybody you think is taking their
music in an interesting direction ?
SPK: I like Esplendor Geometrico -- they're from Madrid.
They're nice -- good rhythm treatments... and New Order, I like
New Order, some of their stuff, but hate Joy Division. Funny,
everybody likes it the other way around. New Order build on some
kind of ambient experimental thing, whereas Joy Division was the
most over-rated rock band.
BTP: Yea, I think New Order's good. It's funny though,
most of their lyrics deal with... you know, you can link the
lyrics to their feelings about Ian still....
SPK: Yea, they are sort of derivative in that sense, but I
always thought that Ian Curtis was a bit of a wanker.
BTP: I've got negative feelings myself for people who
turn to suicide as a solution to their problems.
SPK: A lot of people commit suicide.... that's the main
thing. I'm more interested in all these people who commit suicide
& nobody gives a shit about them.
