They’re lost out in the fray. Somewhere in the seething world of the Thinkin’ Fellers and Doo Rag, and other incredibly well networked bands they sit as the dark lords of expression. No deliberate connections with any established format. The drums come to you as your master forcing the truth within to the surface.
Rumors fly around the antics and experience of their shows, and enough of them are true to create a legend. Never to be pigeonholed by any particular schtick for too long, the group evolves and grows, trying new devices of liberation, espousing purity of body and mind, doing battle with the forces of alternative apathy who stand so cooly for their three chord guitar crunch heroes. No one stands still at Crash Worship.
The dilemma of their interface with the pop culture machine surely must taint all that is chaotic within the group. What will the A&R man from Arista think? Is it possible that the phenomenon will not be controllable? Into the heat of the dark ages, the corporate power establishment should have a hard time swallowing this pill. At least someone isn’t going down easy.
The fratboy, male-dominant sexuality, that hopefully will be eradicated by the communal throb, poses a threat. The threat that the mis-programmed males will come in the expectation of satisfying their control needs. It’s not about control, release it man, let go of the burdensome boy weight.
With every action being an instigation of an infinite number of consequences, the entity defined as Crash Worship changes the universe with every breath. Flowing out from a center into an ever increasing quantity of new centers, and outward, and inward....ad infinitum...
We’re all sitting with each other. Your personal beliefs are the topic of conversation. Delving into the mind set of the unnecessary illusions. Pouring tea in the morning, it is not the same reality that poured tea yesterday. Straining to reach targeted objectives. You’re never even born. There’s not enough time to be anything more than an embryo. Hell is not created by your sins; hell is bowing down to the sins of others.
When Sassy Magazine covers them. When the adolescent girl prison puts out a memo on the experience. When the sheriff of some town accidentally kills a tripping audience member. “For every ship launched, every plane flown, every rocket fired; is stealing from the mouths of the needy.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Albert Hoffman walks into a Crash Worship show. He sees what’s going on and calls his friend at the National Institute of Mental Health. They’re all psyched about getting more funding to do “research.” Aliens. They’re from the future.
In a few years we’ll know whether the millennial madness was just that. The apocalypse seems to me to be another rationalization for non-action. Part of the fun of the magical world of hyper high technology is the mystification of it. I think it’s good to think of your cellular phone as a magic wand. People should use their imaginations more, anyway. What’s real? Fuck if I know.
Just go. Don’t look back. The party will exceed your expectations. Don’t lose focus, and never give over your personal power. Each small resistance is magnified a million times. If the kiss is deadly, then you better make it a good one. It’s earlier than you think.
In Italy there is someone with something to say to you. They are in a small cafe and they are waiting for your arrival; you can join them in the dance of both your lifetimes over the underground astral net. Hidden treasures of interaction are all around you. The goddess has been leaving messages on the machine. There are no ultimate truths. Beep. Each passion should be considered carefully. Beep. You walk the earth. Duh. Beep. Fire burns, and when it rains you get wet. Beep. Come and join us. Come and be with us. Come and Crash Worship.
By Melody Jordan – The first time I saw Crash Worship, the bill was set like a three-way cock fight; Crash Worship, Grotus, Hitting Birth. I stood outside the Melody Ballroom, with the knowledge that this crowd was an acid dealers dream. What started to look like a band unloading is now a rag-taggin marching band forming. The drums hit low and approach. I follow as do others. Fireworks and flares start up. Instead of taking the stage the band plays on the middle of the large floor. I stand back from the crowd that is now dancing around them, back all the way to the bar actually. I’m feeling rather protective of my white shirt and cash in pockets. The dancers form into a wonderful spiral dance that almost looks rehearsed. Myself and about a dozen others hide behind this. Experience. The distance between myself and the band grows smaller, the center seems aggressive, angry, challenging to the audience, people start moving further away some with black facial burns and others with just bad trips. Fire! Fire! Fire! Stand back. I am intrigued by this flame, but remain simply a viewer. In retrospect, both myself and the band were perhaps plagued by a little too much intention. The show goes on, my life goes on. It sticks with me as one of the better shows I’ve seen. It also sticks with me as more than a show.
My friend plays me a track of theirs off a more obscure compilation album, that I can’t remember the name of but it was part of a series and had other noise silence noisy splitting liquid genre bands on it. I tell my friend I saw them, he seems sort of impressed, but at the same time unbelieving. I tell him I’ve heard rumors they are coming to Reed College soon. He gets giddy as a schoolgirl, and I realize there is a lot of magic in having a reputation precede something. The crowd looks more familiar at the Reed show. There is a party atmosphere. I’m introducing people being introduced, going to the store with strangers. Anticipation and killing time kissing a charming young woman outside with black hair and blue eyes. My timing is perfect as I walk back inside to introduce my new friend to the person I was seeing at the time. Loud fireworks and drums. My hearts races as the audience is covered with wine. First jars of a dark bitter wine from a half clothed woman moving quickly through the audience. Then a tall slender man stops in front of me with a silver bag of vino, I tilt my head and kneel lower sinking down to my knees with my mouth open. Closing my eyes as they sting. I stand again and he is gone through the audience. The crowd pushes towards the stage. Someone else can wear my wine soaked shirt. The pushing towards stage isn’t violent. I’m close and dancing with the occasional thought that my boyfriend’s missing out, standing back in his leather jacket and looking at me and others dancing with our shirts off. It’s a situation where I think a person would feel sort of silly sweating underneath clothes and warm wine bellies. The college students have left now muttering their sanity as they leave in phrases like, “Hey, this isn’t peaceful”. As soon as a crowd has sweated towards the front, the group picks up its drums and moves into the audience, keeping the beat alive. The band becomes the center, the audience performers in the dance, the performance feral, the dance circling as two men prowl around the band moving in circles, the dancers in circles. I am grasping others to maintain my balance in the moving around this circle, some portions are holding hands, most touching the backs of the person in front of them. Everyone in the room remains at a point in motion, a part of the dance wherever they move. My eyes catch others like grapes in my mouth.
Before midnight the crowd lines up outside the X-Ray. Out of cash, ready to celebrate a personal victory, I get in early with dinner I bought for the band. I find one of the members in the basement. We eat cold gazpacho, salad, and bread together. I offer him a drink of wine; he tells me he doesn’t really like to drink too often. We talk for a while about Crash Worship and Portland stuff. I ask about the cool repetitive twang noise on the Espontaeo! CD and he shows me his one string guitar. He strikes me as an intelligent, well-spoken, and polite person. Thanking me again for the food, it’s time for him to get ready for the show. Upstairs the room is starting to get packed. Usually this is storytelling time at the X-Ray. A regular of the show is Masau, the drunk Japanese business man who likes to tell tales of his penis, and on particular nights has tried to set it on fire. He is now standing on stage. Some people start yelling his name: "Masau, how now brown cow," for most it is a nonsensical chant. The mic is turned on. Masau babbles into it. Set it on fire Masau! The band sets up behind him; the room is very tight. Set it on Fire! Scene like my scene too close to know who you’re standing next too. Seeing people in flashes, in better halves and smaller pieces. My shirt is off, sliding over bodies for meeting lips. Bodies meeting on stage. Growling tongues speaking. Hallelujah Kali uga. If you think nudity leaves nothing to the imagination, you have no imagination. Drum driven screams, fucking on the floor, blinded vision until four in the morning.
Getting high in the bathroom with a group of nubile young women at Satyricon. We start talking about the last Crash Worship show. I tell the women I think instead of star points for live reviews there should be symbols of people fucking on the floor. Crash Worship receiving the highest rating thus far. She says, “ I know who to stand next to,” with a wink. The show is starting. Leaving the bathroom, I say, “everyone” with my own contrived wink. The room is hot already– it’s a midnight summer night. Are you ready to Rock and Roll? Think about the symbols of male and female; Crash Worship begins. It’s the movements of all forceful and swaying. Knowing people in a room and no knowing if it’s them behind you. The hands, the bodies, I am up against the stage, the girl from the bathroom is having sex with someone, my tongue circling flickering in her nipples, her hands. She saying, “beautiful, beautiful." The crowd is slowly moving me across the stage, kissing. Kissing a girl at the other end of the stage, boy-girl bodies melding. Wine and my body becoming slippery, with rooms of sweat and splashes of water as I’m leaning into bodies and sweat into an endless curve. I am lifted on stage and into the singer's body. The singer and I are lifted above the crowd, crucified together. Lifted by hands of everyone of the tattooed, pierced, black-braided, groping, annoying, drunk hippie guys in back. I give you food. I give you food. We float back to the stage, I walk and prowl, more alive. When the show ends there are kisses and, "has anyone seen a nipple ring," and looks of "what now," and annoyed employees and "what now?" We put our clothes back on. I walk into the night I have become.
What can I say? I can’t describe this in terms of a Gilligan’s Island episode or Star Trek. See them live. Buy their CDs. For more info, write to Charnel House, P.O. Box 170277, San Francisco, Ca 94117-0277.
Crash Worship can be found on the internet at http://www.meer.net/%7echarnel/crashwor/crashpg.htm.