So you're in your late 30s. You're getting older, fatter, allegedly wiser. Your years of gig-pigging, piss-sinking and hell-raising are long past. Anyway, all your favourite bands have given up and gotten fat (to paraphrase You Am I, who'd know more about that than most.) It's time to settle the fuck down and get on with life. It's no disgrace to grow old disgracefully. Better than the alternative, which is not to grow old at all.
So thought a late 30-something Pom called Tony Sylvester. Fat, beardy, balding, tattoos beginning to fade. His better days were behind him, and he was OK with that. He'd fronted a bunch of fleabag punk, indie and undie (ground) bands in his younger days, served as the president of his favourite band's UK fan club - notorious Norwegian deathpunks Turbonegro and their fearsomely loyal, denim-clad and demented Turbojugend (Turbo Youth) - and packed it all in to work behind the scenes in the music industry. Turbonegro, of course, had packed it in themselves, their iconic lead singer Hank von Helvete having finally succumbed to the drug addiction and mental illness that haunted his 17 years with the band, sadly meeting his end as a functional, rational human being - i.e. becoming a Scientologist and appearing on Norwegian TV's 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me A Herring Suppository.'* In order to honour the Turbojugend one last time, the remaining Turbonegroids decided to put on a comeback-slash-farewell gig with a bunch of different guest singers from their years touring around the traps, and called in their old mate Tony to catch up over a few beers and help sort the singer shortlist.
It turned out to be a very shortlist.
(1) Sylvester, T.
(2) No second placed dividend.
Seriously, if going from being the number one ticket holder for your favourite band one day, to standing out front of them bellowing your beardy hole off the next** isn't the fucking awesomest thing in the history of ever, then I'm made entirely of Cheez-Wizz. I love this story, not only because it's In The Worst Possible Taste IRL (and Turbonegro's lethal combination of (a) noise (b) filth (c) pisstaking is pretty much bang-on what I'd imagined Flange Gasket and moreover Hayabusa to have sounded like.) But what makes it an even better story is that the ensuing Turbonegro album, 2012's Sexual Harassment, is the best fucking thing they've done since their apex predator years of the late '90s. Sneering, swaggering, deafening, apocalyptic death-punk***.
...Though I can't see Angus in the hat somehow.
The Doctor is OUT.
* This bit may be made up, but Hank's definitely turned into a Scientologist and celebrity whore. 'Norwegian Idol' judge. Say no more
** Disclaimer: there may have been more than 24 hours elapsed between these two occasions
*** Yes, death-punk is a thing. Turbonegro invented it. If you want to be the best in your field, first define your field to include only you (Academia 101)
**** is what some newspapers write instead of fuck, which is less than informative. Cunts
***** is what Margaret and David generally award fuck-off-unwatchable arthouse films which go for weeks and are never about ancient Norwegian punk bands who still rock like a motherfucker, even if they do look like the Village People with a Spitfire supercharger down their trousers
3 comments:
Back in my uni tutoring days, I had two Norwegian exchange students pretty much lose their shit when Turbonegro were announced to play Livid. Never saw them again after that fateful day in October.
Great article. Awesome track.
Yeah, I was at that Livid. Didn't see TRBNGR though. So many acts at that particular Livid I wish I'd gone to see in hindsight. Ah well. You have to give up and get fat at some point.
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