British-born industrial music impresario-drummer Martin Atkins got his start with Johnny Rotten’s Public Image, and bailed to launch Pigface and the pioneering Chicago label Invisible Records. There he released albums by seminal genre linchpins Killing Joke, Revolting Cocks’ Chris Connelly, Sheep on Drugs, plus his side projects Murder Inc., Rx and Damage Manual. He’s also played with Killing Joke, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, making him an industrial Jim Keltner. With more than a quarter-century in the biz and a credits list long enough to choke a blowhard like Tom DeLay, he continues with Pigface, thus pushing industrial beyond the rock-dudes-with-samplers-and-sequencers cliché. Here are his monomanias of the week:
5. Words to Live By: My favorite quotes of the decade: “Don’t blow smoke, Start fires” — Pigface’s Curse Mackey. And sitting here with Curse we just remembered “If you’ve reached the Neon Jesus Saves you’ve gone too far.” Which sounds like a passage from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but is actually directions to a Thai restaurant. While we’re on the subject of quotes “Welcome to the music business, you’re fucked.”
4. Jesus on a crutch: When you get where you’re going, where will you be? (Stolen from a Christian handout forced into my hand somewhere in Texas.)
3. What’s the frequency, Kenneth?: Does anyone really believe that the news is news and are there really any careers in broadcasting?
2. Stiff conversation piece: I wonder if anyone bought a plaster cast of my penis from Cynthia Plaster Caster? And what did they do with it after they bought it?
1. Epistemology 101: What is Art? What is groovy? What is vibe? What does any of it mean without sacrifice?
Pigface appears Saturday, April 16, at the Magic Stick (4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-9700) with Sheep On Drugs.
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