| Issue
#67
Oct.
‘04
Raise the dead.
Through the gloom and shadows our eyes
strain to make out the figures. Against the
backdrop of a full moon is the silhouette of a cart being drawn across
the countryside by
the bones of what might have been an ox. At the reins, a skeletal
figure with a sickle is
relaxed and content with what surly is a grim mission. With what looks
to be 3 or 4 wooden
caskets piled in the bed of the cart, he seems to be heading for the
cemetery. From the
background comes a sound, a familiar sound in its nature, yet strange
in form. It’s
eerie and menacing, yet there is a sense of comfort, surprising at
first, but not all that
unexpected. We toss a puzzled glance at our hosts, The
Vivisectors, and
with a sly smile they utter one word: “Surf.”
For too long surf music has had no identity
other than that of the beach, the waves,
fun and sun, woody station wagons, surfboards, Go-Go dancing, and the
like. The sounds of
The Beach Boys, The Safari’s, The Ventures and countless
others. In surf it has been
the 1960’s for far too long because surf bands just
haven’t kept up. With Case
History Of John Doe, The Vivisectors
are staking this
century’s claim to the torch that was lit so many decades ago
by the legendary Dick
Dale. Taking the harder edge that Dick created (before all the pretty
boys dressed it up
and brought it to the party) and instilling a vision/feel of psychosis,
horror, and fright
to parlay the general view the world has on their native land of
Russia, The
Vivisectors offer up an invigorating musical metaphor of
life in a place that
people foreign to their culture and customs would never associate with
a beach (“There
are beaches in Russia?” is the common refrain when
told that The
Vivisectors are a Russian Surf band). They assume a lack
of sand, surf, and Beach
Blanket Bingo, while picturing that of something more cold, dreadful,
and tremulous, that
of something more significant and representative of The Evil Empire.
Wearing a frightening mask (the cover), Case
History Of John Doe opens
with a treat: five songs of instrumental surf that touch upon and
transport us to the Wild
West/Spaghetti Westerns as if The Vivisectors
are riding into town upon
Big, Phat “E string” Surf. Once the organ on
“Intro”
kicks in, there’s no looking back. “Big
Diff,”
“Cowboy Surfer,”
“Good Time,”
and “Hank, God Bless You,”
all trick us into this
countrified version of surf, of riding tall in the saddle on the sand
of the beach, while
the tiki torches flicker in the breeze and the grass skirts shake, but
once The
Vivisectors kick into their menacing cover version of
The Animals classic “House
of the Rising Sun,” capturing and
exposing more of the original’s
terror then ever before, well, we know we're not on Venice Beach
anymore (Toto).
It’s songs like “Mad,”
“Monkey Hunter,”
and “Alien In
Government” that then rip to shreds
all our preconceived notions of
what surf is. The Vivisectors slice and
dice and toss it all around,
injecting Garage Rock and Film Noir spy rock into the mix, with a sense
of dread and
urgency that somehow lifts the spirits. “Radio
Spell,” “Fried
Chicken,” “Cruel
Love,” and others open up the
Monster lo-fi sound that Mike
Antipow (Guitars, organ, drum loops, home PC) plays with
the furiousness of a man
possessed. We hear him ripping and shredding chords like the powerful
waves that crash
upon the board riders and the beach, intricately picking at huge Phat
bottom notes, that
run and slice through the heart and the waves. We surf through an
intriguing presentation
of a genre that has long been treated as dead, and is only recognized
by those who cling
to the past and exult the extinct. It teaches us that the stereotyping
of terror, evil,
and repression of the old USSR
blinds us in much the same way to the core, soul, and
general goodness of its people.
“Motorpsycho,”
“Russki Psycho,”
“Scary Song,”
“Midnight Travel,”
“Terrorfobia,”
and “KGB
Moscow Nights” assert all
the horror, terror, and dark, mysterious
ways of fear and loathing under a communist regime. But, it is the
sound that reaches in
and urges us to let it go, to wrap ourselves in the resurrected music
of a brighter and
happier time and culture, but not to forget what brought us to this
point and how much
farther we still must go. “Enigma Of
John Doe,” does
just that with a schlock-psycho-monster style narrative that draws us
like the curious to
an accident. Perhaps this is the sound we make when we want to see what
should in fact
repulse us. It’s human nature reduced to its most primitive,
a sullen fright that
confuses, yet identifies us all at once, the world mummified for all to
gawk and ponder.
Maybe that’s why “Cold
Waves” leads to the
closing of this CD. It finally lays the Russian surf scene out for all
to see. While the
waves are as friendly as they are frigid, they urge us to realize that
those fanatics who
practice and present it with revered vision should be warmly received
for all they’ve
done and accomplished. “Outro”
may close the mausoleum
doors, and while upon arrival the caskets may have been full of dead
expectations of a
genre and culture, we’ve been shown that we
shouldn’t be shoveling the dirt
– Raise the dead.
This is the Case History Of
John Doe
as told by The Vivisectors.
From the past, the future shall rise.
Case
History Of John Doe by The Vivisectors
Now available for: $10.98 +s/h*
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from Russia"
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