Shocking? Not so much. Pathetic? You bet. Photos by Tina Hagerling.
, demi-god of manufactured industrial, certainly is preceded by his reputation. Not only does he have an extreme persona, he’s also got so many side projects besides Ministry — the seminal speed-industrial band he re-birthed from its original synth-pop origins in the mid ‘80s — that it seems implausible that one might not run into a live show in which he appears at some point.
That’s why I was pretty excited to see (also known as RevCo nowadays) at on Sunday. I’ve been a fan of Jourgensen’s simple, sarcastically abrasive brand of industrial punk since I bought an original pressing of “Twitch” (Ministry’s first album that pointed the band in a more industrial than new wave sound) at age 18.
You can probably imagine that I was a tad disappointed to find out that Jourgensen wasn’t on tour with RevCo for their current “LubricaTour,” save for dates in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and El Paso — an ingot of information that was not very heavily publicized (and, really? El Paso over Denver? I get that the show was the tour kickoff, but come on…). Still, RevCo have significant history, Jourgensen or no, so I thought the show would still be extreme, or at least funny.
I was half right — the band put on a damned funny show. I wish I could say the same for the music, or for their schtick. The more they played, the more RevCo seemed to be more a Revolting Cocks cover band — or even a latter-day Ministry ripoff — than what I’d heard on record. The feeling behind songs like “Cousins,” “Robo Bandidos,” and set-ender “I’m Not Gay” seemed to fall flat.
Which isn’t to say they weren’t musically satisfying, just that the type of industrial punk they were pawning, infused with a cheap strip-joint aesthetic is more worn out, old and embarrassing than the strippers one might find at said strip-joint.
I swear I saw guitarist Sin Quirin pass more guitar picks to the few fans along the stage directly off his tongue than I heard complex licks performed on his axe. And while keyboardist Clayton Worbeck successfully feigned interest some of the time, more often than not he appeared elsewhere, merely hitting keys and spewing out samples from force of habit.
The only potential saving grace from the stage was frontman Josh Bradford’s performance. Envision a melange of two Crispin Glovers: the one from the Warlock Pinchers’ 1989 hit “Where the Hell is Crispin Glover,” and Glover’s unforgettable 1986 performance as Layne in the movie “River’s Edge,” and you’ll have a pretty clear picture of Bradford’s stage persona.
Still, gyrating and thrusting out his ass again and again, grabbing his crotch inside his pants (and calling on the audience to do the same), changing into a dress-and-cowboy-boots outfit — come on. At one time, this may have been provocative — even objectionable.
Sunday night, it came across as merely boring.
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Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s explorations at , and his giglist at .
Tina Hagerling is a Denver-based freelance photographer and web designer. See more of her work and jump to the next page for more photos of the show.
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