Melody Maker : 17 November 1984
"The Politics of Junk"
SPK bang on pieces of metal and go spot-welding. Lynden Barber wants to know why. Pictures by Andrew Catlin
The pop press is like Communist politics in the Thirties. One
minute's a friend of the Soviet Union and Moscow's telling German
reds it's Be Nice To a Nazi week, the next they're fighting it
out in the streets.
The important thing to remember is that the change is swift,
total, and no-one is allowed to remember things were like before.
About two or three years ago the dominant pop press ideology
stated that the smart thing to do was to turn away from the avant-garde
and the independent fringes, soften the musical ardour and make
an all-out attempt for the pop-charts. In 1984 SPK have just been
hammered for doing exactly that. Huh?
"I don't think we've ever managed to fit in with whatever's
supposed to be the trend at the time," says New Zealander
Graeme Revell, SPK's spokeperson, tea-caddy basher and motivating
force. "In some ways I'm a bit masochistic, 'cos I almost
look at a trend and deliberately try and go against it, which is
self-defeating in a way, but it's what keeps me interested. I'm
really interested in situations which are extremely difficult."
Since nobody else is going to say it, I'll just have to politely
point out that far from some cheap sell-out, SPK's current single
"Junk Funk" is a fine pop record that represents a
considerable improvement on the unlistenable muck they'd been
spewing forth before. Starting in 1978 in Sydney, Australia, SPK
showed promising beginnings with their garage electronic thrash
EP "Mekano". Leaving the country soon afterwards they
rapidly slid into an unlistenable mire of self-indulgent mewling,
documented on such abominations as the LP "Leichenschrei"
and 12 inch "Dekompositiones", but since it was
fashionable to sit in squats listening to recordings of farts in
a bucket at the time they got away with it, gaining kudos through
their legitimate claim that they were early-comers in the metal-bonking
boom.
Naturally they don't agree that their former unlistenable kick
could be a little self-indulgent. "A lot of people didn't
find it unlistenable," says Revell. "It was no cause or
effect thing, but in pop music there's a hell of a lot of noise
albums coming out now that just didn't exist at the end of the
Seventies, early Eighties when we were going. Groups that were
doing it to pave the way in certain senses. Where would American
hip-hop be without European and English noise-making? It's all
the same noises."
Unfortunately SPK have been unable to maintain the standard of
the single on the rest of their new album, "Machine Age
Voodoo", a fairly tiring summary of modern studio techniques
that isn't helped by the lack of colour or projection from
Chinese-born singer Sinan. What I'm interested in - as are most -
is why they decided to make such a radical change. Last year's
crass "Metal Dance" single drew the critical flak, with
much suspicion of a cheap money-making scheme.
Revell speaks of their rejection of "an attitude of linear
development" and praises their ability tho change styles,
yet doesn't really get to the nitty-gritty.
When people do something that's going to net them more money
there's often hypocrisy involved simply because they won't admit
to wanting to increase their income. Accusing Revell and Sinan of
only being in it for the money would only produce defensiveness.
I tell them there's not necessarily anything wrong in wanting
more cash if it means maintenance of musical principles as well.
Would they like to earn more?
"Only to the extent it would finance the other projects
we've got in the pipeline, and also we've got a young son who has
to be fed somehow, I don't think he appreciates art for art's
sake," answers Revell. "The other thing is, I got
really tired of having to work with sub-standard equipment. that
was very frustrating. But as for richness and fame, who cares?"
Sinan: "No, we don't want riches and fame, but I mean as you
say, you've got to move on, so you can't live on the dole for the
rest of your live."
Revell: "We did a good five years on the dole, that's about
your dues, I think."
SPK's behaviour during the recent ICA Rock Week led to further
howls of condemnation. Unfortunately I was absent, but the
reports of their attitude that evening appalled me. Prevented by
a GLC fire officer from including a smattering of spot-welding in
their set, they played two numbers, refused to continue and
apparently walked off in a tantrum, leaving an ugly scene to
develop among the frustrated members of the audience.
"There's only one journalist bothered to come to us to get
our side of the story," says Revell. "There's someone
called Ted Mico on your paper who wrote the most ridiculous load
of garbage. Anyway, this fire officer came along that we'd had at
The Venue the year before. He grinned all over his face and said
'Hello, I know you, don't I?' So I said 'We've made all these
precautions, we've tried to be quite reasonable about it'. He
just said 'No'. Blank. There was no discussion whatsoever. I
really thought that if we'd be just reduced to standing up there
and going through the motions it would be like any other pop
group, it would disappoint people who'd come to see SPK as much
as it would not to play at all."
So wouldn't it have been easier to have asked the audience
themselves?
There's a pregnant silence before Revell replies. "We did in
a way. What most people were upset about was that the ICA took a
long time in giving their money back, which we'd already
negotiated would happen. The riot hting was not because we'd
played 10 minutes, people kind of understood that, 'cos I did
explain it twice, it was just that the ICA wouldn't hand over the
bucks."
If that incident raised doubts, the events at a gig they played
in Sydney last year provide an even more serious cause for
concern, making their complaint that they are the innocent
victims of a sustained campaign of harrassment from zealous
municipal safety officers seem somewhat lacking.
Apparently during a bout of heckling from a couple of members of
the audience Revell came down off the stage swinging a chain
around. Reports stated that people had been hurt. I've spoken to
people who were there who were horrified at what was going on.
So?
"I'll show you... I don't really want to go into this, but..."
Reveel stands up, takes off his shirt and shows off a wound
inflicted by glases thrown at the stage at the previous night's
appearance at the Camden Palace. "I'm the only f***ing
person, who ever gets injured. There's 44 stitches in my arm from
last night.
"In Australia I was doing glass percussion, which was oil-cans
full of wine bottles and so on - which is quite a nice sound,
actually - and has all this mosquito netting hooked up around the
place. And part of what I'm interested in is primitive rituals.
For example, have you seen those Leni Riefenstahl pictures of the
Nuba? they hit each other on the head.
"In just about every primitive society there's like this
visual display of violence which is an outlet for inter or intra-tribal
tensions. Which means there's blood let and it actually halts any
further spread of violence. the minute some blood appears in the
Nuba ritual it's stopped.
"I consider that if I want to spill my own blood - and what
happened was there were glasses all over the stage and I fell
over and got quite badly cut up. I swung this chain around, which
is pretty light, actually, and got down in the audience. It's all
mock. And the thing is, when a strobe is going it looks much more
active than it actually is, and what happened was that the blood
from me got on a couple of people's faces, and then really
reactionary types started writing up that this fascist flew into
the audience and badly lacerated girls' faces and thing like
that, which is utterly ridiculous."
Sinan: "In fact no-one in the audience was injured. the
press just misrepresented it."
Revell: "People don't understand what ritual or metaphorical
violence is. They see it and they think 'This really is
dangerous'. And perhaps it's a little bit dangerous - 'Live
Dangerously' isn't a bad motto - but we've never had anyone hurt
at one of our shows."
It's as innocent as that. Phew! What a relief! Until I check the
interview he did with a local journalist the day after the
incident and find he said: "I just got really tired of
people shouting stupid things, and got a little carried away,
that's all." So who's doing the misrepresenting now?
As for the pictures of the Nuba taken by former Nazi film-maker
Riefenstahl, US critic Susan Sontag puts the finger on this one:
"In celebrating a society where the exhibition of physicall
skill and courage and the victory of the common man over the
weaker are, as she sees it, the unifying symbols of the common
culture, Riefenstahl seems hardly to have modified the ideas of
her Nazi films... Fascist aesthetics flow from (and justify) a
preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behaviour,
extravagant effort and the endurance of pain."
When we turn to discuss the totalitarian imagery on their LP
sleeve - Nuremburg-type podium swept by searchlights and a parody
of a Red Chinese opera poster - Revell's explanations prove to be
no less elaborate.
We started off with that idea cos I do like that stuff from the
Thirties, and we looked at the posters and they always shoot from
below for the heroic angle - which is after all what pop music is
all about, that's what the stage is up there for. And what we're
trying to say is that in the Thirties the socialists and the
communists" (I think he means the fascists and the
communists) "had exactly the same chic - they have exactly
the same angles, the same banners the same architecture,
everything's the same. It's all a way of impressing by means of
spectacle. In fact it's not totalitarian, though people do
associate it with totalitarianism."
I can forgive the historical inaccuracy - Red Chinese opera
posters could not have been products of the Thirties, Mao Tse-Tung
didn't proclaim the People's Republic of China until September 24,
1949 - but find it hard to believe group's are still flirting
with totalitarian imagery so glibly.
By using this imagery doesn't it appear to many onlookers that
SPK are condoning it?
"No. I don't think so. What it ought to do is people should
look at the basis of it rather than have an instant memory of
'This is what Hitler did'. We saw a programme about a month ago,
China was celebrating it's anniversary. What was the difference?
There was no difference, there were the banners, the military
going through the streets - this is the most left-wing regime on
earth."
In point of fact even the most casual observer of Chinese
politics must have noticed that the country has been marching
staunchly to the right for years. "O Motherland O Motherland/You
are our inspiration/Our bodies are the lifeblood of the nation"
sings Sinan on the track "With Love From China". I want
to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they do mean
all this ironically, but how is anyone supposed to know?
Irony, to work, must be clever; SPK have clearly yet to grasp
this.
Arriving home I take another look at the album cover, realise
ther's not a low angle to be found on it and remember something
Revell had said near the beginning of the interview: "The
big danger with pop music is over-claiming for it."
No comment.
