Back around 1990 or '91, not too long after my arrival in Tampa, my roommate announced that we were going to someplace called Jannus Landing, to see something called Pigface. I had no idea what a Pigface was, but we were smack in the middle of the Golden Age of American Industrial Music, when the men all looked like women (or extras from Beyond Thunderdome) and the women all looked like dominatrices, and Trent Reznor was involved somehow, so I counted myself in.
Reznor wasn't there that night to recreate his breathy, hypnotic vocal turn on the Goth-club hit "Suck" – I want to say it was Chris Connelly of The Damage Manual and Revolting Cocks who handled the tune – but it didn't matter, really. What I saw that night, amid the freaks staggering on and offstage, and the amazing and terrible racket, and now-deceased guitarist William Tucker ending the show by announcing he was too drunk to stand up anymore, was something I hadn't seen at any of the stadiums or metal bars or house gigs I'd patronized.
It was a scene, a real scene, in both the insular and spectacular senses of the word.
It wasn't posed, or pandering, or unprofessional, or predictable, or green; hell, it wasn't even really a band. It was a sort of barely controlled chaos, a symphonic paean to sound and extremes, gleefully hammered out by an extended family of musicians that ostensibly wanted the audience to enjoy itself, but actually couldn't give too much of a shit about much more than getting off on creating a challenging racket together.
It was something unto itself.
And you definitely got the impression that that was at least part of the point.
Producer, drummer and industrial-music icon Martin Atkins originally cooked up the idea of a recording and touring project featuring an ever-changing lineup of underground all-stars with fellow skinsman Bill Rieflin in '89, while the two were on the road with Ministry. Ministry's somewhat fluid lineup must've provided some inspiration – and the industrial scene in general has always been a close-knit one, rife with side projects, guest spots and one-off groupings – but Atkins and Rieflin were gunning for something even less rigid, both structurally and stylistically.
Pigface introduced itself a year later with the seminal full-length Gub, an adventurous, difficult and wildly mercurial collection of tracks that bore little resemblance to the pounding repetition that had come to typify the industrial genre. Gub's credits read like a who's-who of the sound (Reznor, Ministry's Paul Barker, Skinny Puppy's Ogre, and KMFDM's En Esch all contributed to the songwriting), and set the manically collaborative tone for the rest of Pigface's existence, both in the studio and onstage.
The album, released on Atkins' own Invisible label, was embraced by fans, as was the live follow-up Welcome to Mexico, Asshole and the more aggressive material of '92's Fook. But the tours were what really got the subculture frothing – for years, each new Pigface road itinerary inspired rampant speculation about what lineup configuration would hit which town. By putting out its own records, remaining defiantly sonically unpredictable, and refusing to nail down membership, Pigface built a reputation for adhering to the methodology given lip service by so many "independent" concerns: The project operated almost completely outside the business, and made it work.
Eventually, the industrial thing fell out of favor with the amorphous, fickle throng that loiters between the deeply under-the-radar and the far reaches of the mainstream consciousness. Nine Inch Nails broke through to widespread recognition, and managed to keep the masses' attention; Ministry broke through to widespread recognition, and started to make extremely bad records; the clones and the trend-chasers moved on to electronic dance music, or metal, or faded away completely.
As with every musical movement that provides some truly compelling or original output prior to saturation, however, a core of lifelong fans remained. Groups like Pigface, KMFDM, and My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult returned to the big clubs and theaters that initially nurtured their early projects, and found enough loyalty to continue doing business as usual.
It's been years now, and some of them are still at it. And in the circles in which they travel, news of a Pigface tour still conjures excited exchanges about who'll take the stage this time. The lineup, still anchored by Atkins and, in recent years, vocalist and Tampa resident Curse Mackey, continues to shift, and to spotlight both well-known and up-and-coming artists. The current jaunt features former Atari Teenage Riot vocalist Hanin Elias, musician/Jim Rose Sideshow alumnus The Enigma, KMFDM and Slick Idiot's En Esch, Thrill Kill Kult's Charles Levi, Bile's Krztoff, and Lacey Conner from Nocturne, one of the tour's support acts.
The project continues to find new ways to distinguish itself from the music business' standard operating procedure, as well. Atkins' Invisible Records has teamed up with a plethora of other, equally subversive imprints under the umbrella of co-op Underground, Inc. And while it may be sponsored by Jagermeister, this year's road trip, dubbed the Free For All Tour, returns the ticket price to the patrons in the form of coupons good for discounts equal to the price of the cover when used at the Underground merchandise table.
Pigface was never intended for mass consumption. It's too grating, too adventurous, too fucked up, too joyfully subject to the whims of its participants. The project was and is about refusal and celebration – refusal to be tied to the conventions of format, of style, of structure, of tradition; and celebration of the frightening and remarkable results that freedom from the conventions wrings. And it might not have been cool in a long, long time, but it and its followers still remember exactly what it's for.
SCOTT.HARRELL@WEEKLYPLANET.COM
This article appears in Apr 20-26, 2005.