Killing Joke - Classic Or Dud, Search And Destroy

Trying again:

http://thepolywog.com/copshootcop/posters/images/livedemo-01.jpg

Martyn Atkins has some interesting things to say about Jaz....

To Alex -- okay, looks like what you're trying to do is put a picture here rather than create a link, correct? You've got the address, but you're not putting in the right HTML tags to make it work. Do this instead:

http://thepolywog.com/copshootcop/posters/images/livedemo- 01.jpg

Now, I've added extra spaces here so you can see the code -- when you try it, remove the space before IMG, both spaces on either side of the equal sign, and the final space between the end quote mark and the end caret. That should result in presenting the image as a post.

http://www.maliciousdamage.com/gallery/jaz/jaz86.htm

Only joking, Alex ;)

1) It's basically a proto-type for Jay-Z-Nas-Throwdown, innit? Except all the nutters are on the same side.

2) I'm not sure, but this may be the first recorded case of Alex in NYC using the word "pabulum" on ILM.

I wuv this board so.

Not that this means I loathe / love the Joke, mind you. The one clip I heard @ Amazon this morning (whilst shopping) didn't do much for me, except make me giggle a bit. (I'm on antibiotics, though, so don't mind me if I laugh @ inappropriate times.)

For the record, information on the offending symphonic records (aided & abetted by a Mr. Jaz "Not Pazz" Coleman) can be found here. And here. AND here. AAAAAAAAAAND ... oh, just check his list of credits. (Working for Disney - how's that for HONOURING THE FIRE!?!)

Anybody up for forming a band with me called the Fire Honourers? I'll play drums.

(ain't no hole in the washtub, jess.)

this thread took 25 minutes of my life and i want it baaaaack.

http://www.maliciousdamage.com/gallery/jaz/jaz83.JPG

I'm just reviving this thread, because I think the time for the return of the Joke is close at hand! Discuss.

...their material as of late is just too muddled for me...

Well done Dr C for withstanding the full onslaught of what reads like the Metal Hammer letters page. My Band Is Bigger Than Yours Is. And Tom for his well worded (and apparently effective) intervention.

I hope I don't relight the fire with the above comments...

I thought I'd join in at this point becuase I think KJ's first two albums are extraordinary. I can see why they might turn people off and am trying to think where I would point the unconvinved listener.

I give them credit in my personal listening biography for turning me on to the bass guitar, but I guess I could have 'found' it through several other bands you cite.

The one piece of music by them that I find truly uncanny is 'Requiem'. It's quite terrifying - which may not be your bag - but there's a martial beauty to the riff and an industrial groove to the bass that sets the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. I can see where the High Romantic classical comparisons come from.

The album version of 'Wardance' is a close second. I think the power of it can be compared to films like Apocalypse Now, in that it can take you right into the heart of something very violent and very evil: a neo-primitivist total war.

You may not want to go there, of course, but it's quite an achievement. The bass riff holds the song together, and is just a split second too slow: 'music to march to', indeed. The single chord guitar 'riff' does nothing until the last verse, when it goes up an octave, an extraordinary effect.

'Tomorrow's world' off that album has a kind of glistening, glass like beauty ... but only on the Peel session. So my fantasy c60 (sorry, fans) would go there next...

...and then into the version of 'Turn to Red' from the first 12" with the extraordinary (in 1978) statement that is a Diana Ross synth line over a lyric that is straight outta Nietschze.

Then, I guess, from the second album, 'Unspeakable' - for claustrophobia and wierd production - and 'Tension' - for a kind of post Nuclear sub Motown vibe. I've always enjoyed putting it after 'Knock on Wood' on mix tapes.

What were they about?

At this period at least I think they're very consistent and thorough in their ideology and I'd stick them somewhere in the highly individualistic/anarchistic (and, like it or not intelligent) post-Nietschzen Far Right. That is, there's was the ultimate 'free market': a world peopled by instinct-following supermen who have a right to ignore moral strictures and who exist in a state of total war. Those who cannot suvive in this Darwinian nightmare go sheep-like to the wall.

To these ears, it all turned to sub-HM mush after Jaz's little sojourn in Iceland and everything from Revelations on is ugly in the ugly way rather than ugly as in beautiful. But I might have missed something great as I lost interest.

I actually saw the Brighton gig at which Jaz 'lost it' and vanished to Iceland and it was one of the most uncanny experiences of my life - at a couple of moments I swear something supernatural was going on. If so, it didn't appear to do Jaz any good. The other three stood there as always, looking like a Sid Vicious/Syvester Stallone android studying for his A levels.

I also saw them on their pre-Revelations post-Iceland comeback tour and it was all horribly, horribly rockist, really.

I hope all this provides some insight.

Incidentally, if you'd really like to know what Jaz was on about, feast thine eyes (and prepare your aspirin bottle) for his original manifesto, "An Irrational Domain", which some poor soul handily transcribed:

http://www.an-irrational-domain.net/odic/aid-odic1.html

As noted, the band are purportedly back in the studio as we speak, with both Raven and Youth sharing bass duties, Andy Gill of Gang of Four producing and Ted Parsons on Prong on the drums.....rumors of a return of original drummer Big Paul Ferguson remain in the wind, but no concrete confirmation as of yet.