Industrial Music and Culture

Industrial music, historically, has always been hard to describe... It dates back a quarter century, yet few people have ever heard of it. Music journalists toss the name around frivolously, referring to anything harsh as "industrial". Meanwhile, fans of industrial music, the so-called "rivetheads", can't seem to agree on what industrial music really is, anyway. Industrial music sprang from the same urban disdain of pop music that led to the foundation of punk in the mid-1970's. It was a strange sister genre of the punk movement: the clubs were the same, the clothes were the same, it was the message that made all the difference. It was more frightening and visceral, less musical; 50% performance art and 50% noise. Those who consider themselves industrial music historians can't seem to agree on much of anything, but the general consensus will admit that "industrial music" as a term came from the seminal industrial performance art terrorists Throbbing Gristle. Their leader, a British ex-hippie going by the moniker of Genesis P. Orridge, designed an idea of a new musical genre, based not around the African-inspired rock and roll music, but something truly modern, what he considered modern slave music for slaves to factories and industry. So, this music integrated the factory noise of daily life into screeching tributes to urban sprawl, decay, and the pestilence of city life. This was a true soundtrack for Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and ideals that went beyond insipid love songs and the "make love, not war" anthems of earlier in the decade. Interviews with P. Orridge are contradictory, but he seems to have come across the name "industrial" during a lunch with friend and artist Monte Cazzaza to whom he was explaining his musical theories. In telling Monte of his "industrial music for industrial people", Monte pointed out that "industrial music" was the title he was searching for. At the same time, another British band, Cabaret Voltaire, began a similar path with slightly more musical performances and less bizarre theatrics. Between the two, they managed to make a surprising mark onto the musical consciousness of the underground. Modern industrial, of course, bears no similarities to the original forms. The evolution is hard to follow, but it is a subtle trail of continued influences and ideals that have made industrial music "industrial". The next wave of industrial music, by far, had the greatest effect and influence over everything that would come afterward. In North America, Skinny Puppy began releasing its brand of industrial, using strange electronics, harshly distorted vocals, and Burroughs-esque cut-up, trainof-thought lyrics to start making their mark on dancefloors. The opposite was taking place in Europe. Front 242 was pioneering a techno-influenced style of industrial-dance, later to be called EBM, much more appropriate on the dancefloor and nowhere near as harsh as anything previous.

The mid-1980's introduced the noise artists, such as the German band Einsturzende Neubauten, and British industrial-rock musicians Nitzer Ebb. But the greatest strides were happening in America with bands like Ministry. Not yet slave to Al Jourgensen's guitar fetish, Ministry was creating amazing new industrial-dance, which was only intensified in the music of Al's sideproject the Revolting Cocks. As Al was turned on more and more by the rock aspect of music, other tones came into play in the industrial genre. The days of pure noisiness had passed into harsh dance music akin to new wave, but now came bands like Nine Inch Nails, that fused the mainstream rock and industrial in the most palatable fashion. Most industrial fans, having their own favorite subgenres, their own musical agendas, and an unusual subcultural elitism, will often refute Nine Inch Nail's true claim to being industrial. The same would later become true of such other mainstream successes as Marilyn Manson, Stabbing Westward, and Gravity Kills, but the integration of industrial textures and ideals into the music of these bands is undeniable and such nay-saying can usually be attributed to a fear of losing the "underground" to the "mainstream", a fear of a loss of individuality by having it co-opted by the masses. This industrial-rock revolution bred many subgenres, such as synthcore, torture tech, and coldwave, none of which seemed to possess the marketability of Nine Inch Nails. Unlike other genres of music, industrial was not dragged into the daylight by one pioneering artist, like rock was exposed by Elvis or pop by the Beatles, but instead left the underground buried. This is almost unheard of in all other musical genres, but seems to be the fate of industrial music. The late 1990's have seen the rise of EBM, an electronic dance-oriented form of industrial music, stemming off from the school of Front 242. Bands such as Funker Vogt, Velvet Acid Christ, Haujobb, VNV Nation, Noxious Emotion, and :wumpscut: have picked up where Front 242 left off during an early-1990's disbanding and hit the dancefloors hard with electro beats and distorted synths. America's industrial music scene still flounders in the wake of the collapse of most of America's independent industrial labels. The mid- to late-1990's saw the disbanding of a plethora of very promising industrial-rock, synthcore, and coldwave acts that has left America very barren of industrial music, leaving the EBM of Europe as the only strong choice for industrial

industrial fans, though a growing number of fans reject any guitar-based or rock-oriented industrial music as being "true" industrial. In the end, from all of this, what can be understood is that industrial music is not just one kind of music. The music is not JUST noise or electronics. One CAN characterize industrial as having electronics, but so does techno, which is very removed from the tone of industrial. Industrial, as is obvious from the name itself, should have the quality of industrial-noise, something grinding to its sound. But moreso is the idea that it is a comment on our modern

society. Above all things is a commentary, a social perspective being displayed. A disillusionment with our society and a desire to change things. Industrial always has been and always will be the true music of rebellion, the ideals that the hippies failed at, to point out society's ills and man's folly, to deride religion, and to defy oppression of any kind... Or maybe that's giving it too much credit. The copyright of the article What Is Industrial Music? in Industrial Music is owned by Ryan Speck. Permission to republish What Is Industrial Music? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Scraping The Surface

of Industrial Music and Culture

Deftly-D (a.k.a. David Dodson) is a specialist in Industrial Music. For five years, he has been spinning radio shows dedicated to electronic/experimental music including Industrial, Ambient, Experimental-Techno, Noise, Uncategorizable. He runs the Electronic Experimental Industrial DJ List, a big guide about Industrial Music radio shows from around the world (including electronic, experimental, ambient, techno, performance art, goth, noise, & anything remotely categorized as Industrial Music)

Industrial music is a complicated genre of music with a history dating back at least to the 70's
and a roots dating as far back as the roots of electronic music itself. With the publicity that has been given to artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, KMFDM and Chem Lab as "industrial artists" or "the industrial revolution" it is easy to see industrial music as the latest trend of music. Seemingly a simple fusion of speed metal and techno. This view completely misses what industrial music is about because it is based on the artists who seek publicity in the mainstream of alternative rock music.

Most will agree that the origin of the term Industrial Music came
in 1976 when Throbbing Gristle founded Industrial Records as a distributor for deviant artists including themselves, Monte Cazzazza, William S. Burroughs, ClockDVA, & Cabaret Voltaire. Monte Cazzazza continued the idea with a slogan

"industrial music for industrial people." The idea of industrial music was intended as a joke aimed at corporate rock, mass pressing of music in factories, records being synonymous with files, etc. The name industrial became a category for deviant musicians and artists associated and influenced by the artists on Industrial Records.

The imagery that comes to mind from the term industrial music influenced artists like
Einstruzende Neubauten, Test Dept, and SPK as well as TG and ClockDVA to explore factories and machines as musical instruments, atmospheres and performance art. Although there are certainly predecessors at least as far back as John Cage and musique concrete, Neubauten could be said to have started one part of industrial music. Including found sound, the use of junk, and particularly the use of heavy machinery and scrap metal in performance and composition of music, Einstruzende Neubauten have on occasion been called the "godfathers of industrial music." TG and Cabaret Voltaire among others have also explored William S Burroughs' & Brian Gysan's cut up theory as applied to sound. Due to these experiments they were inventing their own samplers and keyboards in the 70's before digital sampling became common in either synthesized pop music or in rap music.

TG broke up into three very different projects that continued exploring

new forms of music. Psychic TV moved from noise to dark soundscapes to cut up theory to psychedelic rock to acid house to techno and made the Guinness Book of records for putting out the most albums over a period of time. Genesis P-Orrige, the TG member who formed Psychic TV, also created (and destroyed) a cult called the Temple Ov Psychic Youth. Before it's destruction TOPY directly influenced the techno project The Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia among many other experimental musical projects. Chris + Cosi, formed from Chris Carter and Cosi Fani-Tuti of TG, explored exotic music and subliminal messages among other paths. Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson (who in the opinion of this writer possesses artistic and technical genius on par with John Cage, William Burroughs, Hank Shocklee and Brian Eno) joined John Balance in the formation of Coil, participated in Steven Stapleton's experimental project Nurse With Wound (the same could also be said here) and has directed videos (for Coil, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Van Halen, Rage Against The Machine, and Front 242 among others) and short films. Both Coil and Nurse With Wound are very twisted and technically innovative projects that sounds like no other band out there and change the way they create music constantly. Although the work was not used for the film, Clive Barker originally requested Coil do the score for Hellraiser, but the producers rejected Coil due to Mr. Barker describing them as "the band whose records I have to take off because they make my bowels churn." The scores have since received better reviews than the film they were intended for.

With the onset of digital sampling and sequencing industrial

music joined at the roots of house music in Chicago. Artists like

Front 242, Meat Beat Manifesto, BiGod 20, Cabaret Voltaire, Kraftwerk and ClockDVA are just some of the pioneers and innovators who have permanently altered the path of techno's development. Chicago's Wax Trax Records during the 80's held releases by almost all of the great industrial artists of it's time including releases by pioneers and early industrialists Coil, Psychic TV, Chris & Cosi, Test Dept, Laibach, Controlled Bleeding, ClockDVA to the newer prolific artists including Frontline Assembly, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Greater Than One, KMFDM, Meat Beat Manifesto, Ministry/Revolting Cocks and the multitude of side projects. Around the same time Skinny Puppy originated a branch of industrial music that has continued expanding and influencing modern industrial artists including Haujobb, Project Pitchfork, Mentallo & The Fixer, Oneiroid Psychosis, and Alien Faktor. Skinny Puppy also in loosing one of it's members early on allowed the formation of another highly influential industrial project, Frontline Assembly. Both of these projects have had multiple side projects with separate identities.

In the late 80's Ministry became the first "industrial group" to become highly exposed. With
many being introduced to Ministry (who had just changed from the synth industrial dance music of Twitch to the programmed Speedmetal of Land of Rape & Honey) as their only industrial influence, a host of rock artists began forming similar bands that they called industrial without knowing about the roots, while ironically Al Jourgensen of Ministry was proclaiming they were not industrial artists at all and was recommending Neubauten and Test Dept in countless interviews.

Since Ministry has attained the spotlight there have been a small
handful of other artists who have moved into the mainstream including Front 242, Frontline Assembly, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, and KMFDM. Since it's origin industrial artists have touched nearly every form of music from symphony orchestra & world music (Test Dept, Coil, Foetus Inc.), to disco (My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Electric Hellfire Club, Coil), to speed metal (Foetus Inc., Controlled Bleeding, KMFDM, Ministry) to rap music (Meat Beat Manifesto, Consolidated, Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy), techno (Meat Beat Manifesto, Lassigue Bendthaus, Frontline Assembly, Coil), and musical forms that have uniquely evolved from industrial music (Skinny Puppy, Einstruzende Neubauten, Haujobb, Abstinence, Negativeland, Laibach, Evilution Control Committee, 31337, Nurse With Wound, Severed Heads, Chem Lab, Emergency Broadcast Network, Laibach).

Unlike most musical categories Industrial music is not defined by musical similarity but rather
philosophy. The industrial musicians who follow the spirit of the artists on Industrial Records are not focused on sounding like them but rather trying to do something completely different derived from their own experiences. Because of this there are vast disagreements as to what Industrial Music is. There is however little doubt that industrial music has played a strong part in the growth and influence of most modern forms of electronic music from the synth pop of the 80's to rave, and alternative rock.

Some good resources to learn more about this music include RE-Search's Industrial Culture
Handbook which covers many of the originators of industrial music and performance art, The FAQ for Rec.Music.Industrial, The Industrial Page, and although it is now out of date and has many flaws Dave Thomas' book Industrial Revolution gives information and history behind many of the important artists in the industrial music scene. I have many direct contacts with artists, labels, dj's and publications in the industrial music scene and also associated with other genre's of the electronic experimental underground listed at Zero Times Infinity.

Industrial music comprises many styles of experimental music, especially but not necessarily electronic music. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists. Since then, a wide variety of labels and artists have come to be called "industrial." The first industrial artists experimented with noise and controversial topics. Their production was not limited to music, but included mail art, performance art, installation pieces and other art forms.[1] Prominent industrial musicians include Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, NON, SPK, and Z'EV.[1] While the term initially referred to musicians signed to Industrial Records, it broadened to include artists influenced by the original movement or using an "industrial" aesthetic. The broadening of the term's definition has led to a number of subgenres and lines of influence. Industrial Music for Industrial People was originally coined by Monte Cazazza[2] as the strapline for the record label Industrial Records (founded by British art-provocateurs Throbbing Gristle, the musical offshoot of performance art group COUM Transmissions). The first wave of this music appeared in 1977 with Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and NON. These releases often featured tape editing, stark percussion and loops distorted to the point where they had degraded to harsh noise. Vocals were sporadic, and were as likely to be bubblegum pop as they were to be abrasive polemics. Early industrial performances often involved taboo-breaking, provocative elements, such as mutilation, sado-masochistic elements and totalitarian imagery or symbolism, as well as forms of audience abuse. Swedish rock act The Leather Nun, were signed to Industrial Records in 1978, being the first nonTG/Cazazza act to have an IR-release. Their only IR-release, Slow Death EP (IR 007, nov '79), climbed the alternative charts in the UK and was often played on John Peel's BBC1 radioshow for two weeks in December 1979. Bands like Test Dept, Clock DVA, Factrix, Autopsia, Nocturnal Emissions, Esplendor Geometrico, Whitehouse, Severed Heads and SPK soon followed. Blending electronic synthesisers, guitars and early samplers, these bands created an aggressive and abrasive music fusing elements of rock with experimental electronic music. Artists often used shock tactics, including explicit lyrical content, graphic art and Fascistic imagery; at the forefront of this was Laibach. Industrial Records experienced controversy after it was revealed that it had been using an image of an Auschwitz crematorium as its logo for a number of years.

Across the Atlantic, similar experiments were taking place. In San Francisco, performance artist Monte Cazazza (often collaborating with Factrix and Survival Research Labs) began working with harsh noise. Boyd Rice (aka NON) released several more albums of noise music, with guitar drones and tape loops creating a cacophony of repetitive sounds. In New Zealand, art rock groups sprouted from the underground, such as The Skeptics, Ministry of Compulsory Joy/Death Korporation, Fetus Productions and Hieronymus Bosch (NZ). In Italy, work by Maurizio Bianchi at the beginning of the 1980s also shared this aesthetic. In France, early artists influenced by Industrial Records included Vivenza, Art&Technique, Pacific 231, tant Donns, and Die Form. In Germany, Einstrzende Neubauten and Die Krupps were performing daring acts, mixing metal percussion, guitars and unconventional instruments (such as jackhammers and bones) in stage performances that often damaged the venues in which they played.

Rivethead
A rivethead is a person associated with the industrial music scene. Although industrial music emerged in the post-punk period, the identifiable stereotype of an industrial fan emerged in the 1990s.[1] The associated dress style is typically militaristic, with hints of protective gear normally worn by assembly line workers.

Origins of the term

Chase, founder of Re-Constriction Records, is responsible for the term's current meaning.[2] In 1993, he released Rivet Head Culture, a compilation including several Industrial acts of the American underground music scene. The same year, Chemlabwhose members were close friends of Chasereleased their debut album, Burn Out at the Hydrogen Bar, which had a track called "Rivethead." Chemlab singer Jared Louche said he did not remember where "Rivethead" came from, although he states that this song title was in his mind for years.[3] The term had been used since the 1940s as a nickname for American automotive assembly line workers.[4] The term hit the mainstream with the publication of Ben Hamper's Rivethead: Tales From the Assembly Line,[5] which is otherwise unrelated to the subculture.

Aesthetics
The dress style of rivetheads is inspired by military aesthetics, complemented by modern primitive body modification (tattoos, piercings and scarification) or borrowed visual cues from goths (fetishism, morbid-themed jewelry and imagery, and black hair dye), as well as punk fashion elements such as the fanned Mohawk hairstyle. Below are some of the main characteristics of the rivethead dress style.[6][7][8][9][10]

Footwear: Combat boots, tanker boots, Jungle boots, knee-high military dress boots, steel-toe boots (such as Dr. Martens), Transmuters (or other platform boots), Gripfasts or Grinders. Pants: Cargo pants or Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) pants; often but not always black or urban camo, usually tucked into boots, rolled at the bottom cuffs or as cut-off shorts. Also, leather pants and 'bondage pants'. Tops: Industrial Band T-shirts, black wifebeaters, flight jackets, leather jackets, bulletproof vests and trenchcoats. Hair: Cyber dreads, shaved bald, partially shaved (undercut), crewcut, Mohawk, Bihawk, Trihawk or deadhawk. Sometimes long hair la 1990s Trent Reznor. Headgear and facegear: Sometimes masks, such as respirators or gasmasks; helmets (usually in band promo shots rather than as streetwear) and welding or flight/military-style goggles Additional Accessories: Leather gloves (sometimes fingerless); Wool or cotton fingerless gloves; BDU-style belts; spiked or studded belts; spiked or studded chokers/collars; dog tags; jewelry that incorporates industrial elements such as nails, screws, cogs, gears, computer parts or other hardware. Body Mods: piercings, tattoos, etc. Female Rivets: May dress along with the femme fatale look: sexuality as power. Common are short skirts, military wear, knee-high stiletto heel boots, vinyl, leather or PVC bustiers and corsets, and lip gloss with less makeup than Goths. Often long dyed black (sometimes red or purple for example) hair that is long, short, spiked, shaved bald, partially shaved (undercut), Bettie Page bangs, or other. Colorful synthetic pony falls or hair extensions and colorful vinyl are seen, but are more known as Cybergoth wear.

Comparison to goth subculture

Rivetheads are different from goths in ideological and musical terms, as well as in their visual aesthetics. Confusion regarding the boundaries of those two youth cultures has heightened because of recent (mid-1990s onwards) hybridization, which has led some people to believe that rivetheads are a goth offshoot, which is untrue.[11][12][13] The Canadian novelist Nancy Kilpatrick calls them "Industrial Goths",[14] as does Julia Borden.[15] Borden locates the period of crossover as beginning in the late 1980s and becoming entrenched in the mid-1990s.[15] The rise of Cybergoths, at the turn of the 21st century, further contributed to this crossing of boundaries.[15] As Valerie Steele puts it:

In contrast to the old-style goth look, which was androgynous, the male industrial look was tough and military, with a sci-fi edge. Industrial men often dated goth women. The men wore goggles, band T-shirts, black trousers or military cargo pants in black, military

accessories, such as dog-tags, heavy boots, and goggles. Their hair was short. Industrial women, who were fewer in number, tended to wear waist-cinching corsets, small tank tops or 'wife-beaters,' trousers, and sometimes suspenders hanging down off the pants. They also wore goggles and sometimes shaved their heads.[15]

Goths are an outgrowth of the punk subculture, while rivetheads developed from the industrial music subculture, which came to be in 1977 after Throbbing Gristle's debut album, The Second Annual Report, released in November of that year. The goth subculture developed around London's Batcave club in summer 1982.[16][17][18]. Rivethead culture is highly violent and sometimes totalitarian in its visuals, but not necessarily in practice. Goth culture is generally devoid of any appreciation for violence.[19][20] The most important difference is the related types of music. According to musicologist Bret D. Woods in his Master Thesis about industrial music, "It is (...) important to note that some industrial artists use Marxist, socialist, and/or communist imagery in a shocking and satirical way to represent tyranny and their protest against tyranny. These are not to be seen as endorsements of particular ideologies, but are to be taken in context to their intent, a commentary on oppression". Bret Woods-

Tetsuo: The Iron Man From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Japanese cult film Tetsuo: The Iron Man. For the character from the Akira anime and manga, see Tetsuo Shima. Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Directed by Produced by Written by

Shinya Tsukamoto Shinya Tsukamoto Shinya Tsukamoto Tomorowo Taguchi

Starring

Kei Fujiwara Shinya Tsukamoto

Music by Cinematography Release date(s) Running time Country Language Followed by

Chu Ishikawa Kei Fujiwara July 1, 1989 October 5, 1994 67 min. Japan Japanese Tetsuo II: Body Hammer

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (: Tetsuo) is a 1989 Japanese cyberpunk film by cult-film director Shinya Tsukamoto produced by Japan Home Video. This, his third film, is an extremely graphic but also strikingly-filmed fantasy shot in the same low-budget, underground-production style as his first two films. Tetsuo established Tsukamoto internationally and created his worldwide cult

following. It was followed by Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) and the upcoming Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2010).[1]

Synopsis
The film opens with a man (called only "the man", or the "Metal Fetishist"), cutting open a massive gash in his leg and then shoving a large threaded steel rod into the wound. Later, upon seeing maggots festering in the wound, he screams, runs out into the street, and is hit by a car. The driver of the car, dressed as a Japanese Salaryman (a businessman played by cult actor Taguchi Tomorowo), and his girlfriend try to cover up the mess by dumping the body into a ravine, but the dumped man gets revenge by forcing the Salaryman's body to gradually metamorphose into a walking pile of scrap metal. This process starts when the driver finds a piece of metal stuck in his cheek while shaving. He tries to remove it, but realizes it is growing from the inside. The scene shifts to the Salaryman at his home having breakfast, with a bandage over his cheek. The Salaryman receives a phone call, consisting of nothing but him and the other speaker (possibly his girlfriend) continuously saying "Hello?" to each other and thinking back to having sex after dumping the Metal Fetishist. The first of several highly stylized chase scenes starts with the driver pursued through an underground train station by a woman whose body has been taken over by the Metal Fetishist. The Salaryman seems to win this encounter by breaking the back of the radically transformed woman (she begins the sequence as a demure office worker and ends it as a wild metal-infected woman) after he has erupted with even more metal on his ankles and arm. The next segment is a terrifying dream sequence where the Salaryman's girlfriend, transformed into an exotic dancer with a snake-like metal probe, terrorizes and rapes the Salaryman. After waking from this dream, the Salaryman and his girlfriend have sex at his apartment and eat erotically. As she eats each bite given to her, he hears the sounds of metal scraping. The Salaryman suddenly discovers his penis has mutated into a gargantuan power drill. A fight ensues where the Salaryman terrorizes his girlfriend, and acquires more and more metal on his body. She both fights back and in the end impales herself on his drill and dies. Helpless to do anything, The Salaryman (now having become the Iron Man) is paid a visit by the Metal Fetishist. The Fetishist uses his power to terrorize not only Iron Man, but turns his cats into grotesque metal creatures, and comes in through the corpse of his dead girlfriend and shows him the vision of a "New World" of nothing but metal. The Iron Man flees and is followed by the Metal Fetishist into an abandoned building. After the Metal Fetishist explains to the Iron Man how both of them became what they are, a final battle ensues. The Iron Man ends by attempting to merge himself with the Fetishist into a horrific two-headed metal monster. The two agree to turn the whole world into metal and rust it, scattering it into the dust of the universe by claiming

"Our love can put an end to this fucking world. Let's Go!" The duo charges through the streets of Japan. The film ends with the words "GAME OVER" as opposed to "The End" after the closing credits.

Cast

Tomorowo Taguchi - Man Kei Fujiwara - Woman Nobu Kanaoka - Woman in Glasses Shinya Tsukamoto - Metal Fetishist Naomasa Musaka - Doctor Renji Ishibashi - Tramp

Cinematography
This was Tsukamoto's first movie to be shot on 16mm, all of his previous work being done with Super-8 cameras. The camera work was split between himself and Kei Fujiwara both of whom also play the roles of major characters. (Fujiwara has since directed several of her own films.)[2] -Video radovi i spotovi...na primer throbbing gristle, skinny puppy, einsturzende neubauten, clock dva svi imaju dosta video radova koji su definisali "industrial" estetiku...