Flak Magazine: Review of Racebannon and John Wilkes Booze, 01-09-03

Both Racebannon and John Wilkes Booze hail from Bloomington, Ind., and both have released stunning albums. On first listen, it's hard to tell whether Racebannon's Satan's Kickin' Yr Dick In and JWB's The Five Pillars of Soul are stunningly spectacular and groundbreaking, or stunningly ridiculous and pretentious. But whatever opinion you end up with (and I'm of the former), these are two bands, and two albums, that will make your jaw drop.

Racebannon uses guitars and turntables to create a noisy sound akin to a Formula One racer shifting up and down a racetrack. John Wilkes Booze is a punk-funk combo that sounds neither punk nor funk; it's as if these white boys added white to funk and black to punk to create a unique, non-bass slapping sound. But it's the lyrical ambitions, which directly affect the music, that make an already compelling sound that much greater. On first listen, both are mind-blowing, and subsequent listens force you to put your head back together to figure out what you just heard.

Satan's Kickin' Yr Dick In, Racebannon's second release, is essentially a 35-minute, potentially room-clearing racket of a song, divided into seven parts, about an Indiana boy named Rodney Mitchell who, as Indiana boys often do, lusts for something greater than his boring life. So in comes the Prince of Darkness (Satan has to do the work himself now that Ozzy Osbourne is America's Favorite Daft Uncle) to grant Rodney his wish, for the promise of his soul.

That sounds hoary, but Michael Anderson, the lead singer and the writer of the libretto for this six-man rock opera, throws in a twist. A few minutes in, we learn that Rodney must also give up something more treasured than his soul — his, um, manhood, hence the album's title.

As Rodney, now re-christened Rhonda Delight, slides up and down the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll ladder, Racebannon speeds up and slows down to match the emotions of its protagonist, which is a good thing, because without the script provided in the CD, there would be no way of knowing what Anderson is saying. Anderson gives a cacophonous spoken-word performance — screaming-word is more like it. There's an implicit statement — OK, maybe not so implicit when your lead character gets his wang removed — in here about the emasculation of selling yourself out to be a star, but on the other hand there are ample portions devoted to Rhonda staring at him/herself in the mirror and reveling in the power of her womanhood like the newly born trannie he/she is. Of course, Rhonda loses her soul at the end, but then she had already lost it in her lust for stardom, hadn't she?

The beauty of the music is that the noise generated by the guitars and turntables (Racebannon doesn't do scratching or DJ tricks, instead relying on the devices to fill in sonic holes) is backed by a propulsive bottom end of drums and bass, so the effect turns from a chainsaw cutting a tree in your ear to the whole damn forest going down. It's a challenging listen, but worth it.

John Wilkes Booze is a bit easier on the ears, but its lyrics can be even more maddening than Racebannon's. The Five Pillars of Soul were released in five volumes, between February and November of 2002, priced between $5 and $6.50 for each three-to-five song EP. Each volume is dedicated to a person the band (Seth Mahern and Eric Weddle, backed by fellow Bloomingtonians the Impossible Shapes) and producer Paul Mahern (Seth's uncle) determined to be someone whom, if we lived life like they did, would make the world a cooler place. The band uses that person's life as a springboard to its music, giving each volume its own feel, although not so disparate that the series doesn't fit together.

"Soul" usually connotes "black people," but not here. Volume 1, already sold out of its 300 CD-R run, was filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, no big surprise. The first curveball comes with the choice for Volume 2 — Tania Hearst, better known as Patty Hearst. The band imagines the heiress, most famous for being kidnapped in 1974 by the radical-left Symbionese Liberation Army, as an actual convert to the group's views by the time she helped it an armed robbery of a bank and not, as she professed, a Stockholm Syndrome victim. Such bizarre politics lead to such bits as a campfire sing-a-long with the lyric, "Death to the fascist insects that prey upon the lives of the people," and a sample of such words taken from a 1970s porn flick inspired by the kidnapping. Given the band's total lack of irony, you can tell, they believe!

Volume 3 presents an interesting choice in the late jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, which provides the best song of the set, the free-jazz-inspired, funky "They Don't Like Me in This Town." Volume 4 is the late Marc Bolan, no surprise for a band whose first single was called "Marc Bolan Makes Me Want to Fuck." And Volume 5 is Yoko Ono. Yoko Ono? Instead of the she-bitch, Beatles killer Ono is often portrayed as, the Booze creates an image of Ono as a fiery artist willing to, as the copious liner notes (which come with every volume) put it, shoulder "the weight of the world's blame [for the Beatles' breakup] and let rock 'n roll rebuild itself again." Just in case that message is not clear, the Booze let loose with a song called "Yoko Saved Rock 'n' Roll."

Racebannon and John Wilkes Booze may not be saving rock and roll like Yoko, but at least they succeed at waking up the tired ears of a rock and roll listener. You may not like them, but if you hear them, you'll never forget them.

— Bob Cook (bobc@flakmag.com)