Jump to content
Jambands.ca

The Revolting Cocks


Patchoulia

Recommended Posts

Apparently, there's a band called "The Revolting Cocks"...or so says House of Blues productions.

I have a few questions about this:

If your cock was revolting (i.e. prone to causing disgust in others), would you advertise it?

If you decided that your most impressive attribute was your revolting cock and you then wanted to form a band based on the aforementioned appalling appendage, how would you go about recruiting other band "members"? ;)

If your cock (or group of cocks) are revolting in the rebellion kind of way--against what are they rebelling?

The possibilities are truly dizzying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good question, SP. William Ian Miller wrote a book a few years back called The Anatomy of Disgust, where, through some variety of polls, he discovered that the most disgusting thing among men, hands down, was semen (this point is no doubt worth a thread of its own). You gotta figure that that sort of norm has to work just great for any self-respecting punk band, however it's inflected (thinking here of gender breakdown among punk fans, though I may be totally off-base there).

It's a pretty clever name on any variety of levels, come to think of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i'd have to say that they are cocks that are not talking about their cocks.

think 'you're being a real cock today - what the fuck's up your ass?'

and then 'oh my god you're revolting! wipe that semen off your forehead, asswipe!'

not so much 'the band is comprised of 4 penises that cause great disgust'

but good luck with the discussion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Revolting Cocks Biography

In the Seventies a great party consisted of inviting some starlets into a hot tub with some dwarfs. In the Eighties, it meant a Twister board, some clear vistaline drop cloths and a whole lot of salad oil. It's 1993, and if you want a great party, invite the Revolting Cocks. But, for God's sake, hide the pets.

The powers that be at Sire/Reprise Records did and the result is Linger Ficken' Good And Other Barnyard Oddities, ten tracks of bad craziness from the same morally bankrupt Miscreants behind the sonic firestorm known as Ministry. But, while Ministry grabs you by the shirt and demands you to react, the Revolting Cocks grab you and shoot a urine-filled plastic lapel flower in your eye.

"Look at it this way," offers Al Jourgensen (a.k.a. Hypo Luxa, Buck Satan), "Ministry is Monday through Friday, RevCo is weekends. Ministry is roll up your sleeves and get the shit done, while RevCo is camping."

The Revolting Cocks story began close to ten years ago when Jourgensen met two Belgian foreign exchange students, Richard 23 and Luc Van Acker in a Chicago pool hall. The drunken Van Acker stumbled into Al during the final shot of a $500 pool game. Surprisingly, Jourgensen made the shot anyway, and the three men celebrated by trashing the club. The club owner called police and screamed, " Get out, you revolting cocks!" At that moment, a concept was born. Their first single, the tantric swirling "No Devotion," was released on the Chicago-based Wax Trax label and made the PMRC's Naughty 9 list for its potentially blasphemous lyrics. Big Sexy Land, the band's first album soon followed, featuring songs about industrial accidents, soccer fans killing each other and people who enjoy sitcoms, all wrapped in ominous bass lines, the accidental pressing of studio buttons and Van Acker's tourettes-inspired vocals.

Noted international musicologist William Rieflin joined the band in 1985 to assist in the making of their next single, "You Often Forget," which featured both "malignant" and "benign" versions, reportedly influenced by the news media's fascination with Betty Ford's breasts.

The band reached a turning point in 1986 when the trio, sans Rieflin, went on a promotional tour of Mexico City's black velvet art museums and bordellos. Upon leaving El Coco Loco, the band found themselves in the middle of that country's worst earthquake. A huge chasm opened up in front of their rickshaw-driven Winnebago, swallowing Richard 23. The band never heard from him again, but he was spotted a few years later, alive and well, sporting a severe haircut in Front 242.

Shaken by the tragedy, Al and Luc returned to Belgium in search of good chocolate and band members. Jourgensen met Chris Connelly on a train ride through Brussels. Connelly convinced Al that he was martial arts actor Jean-Claude Van Damme and that it was perfectly normal for a Belgian man to wear kilts. When they reached their destination, they ran into Paul Barker, a fine bass player and disciple of recording svengali G. Reid Hyams. Barker was on the lam for shooting a man that looked at him funny in a Taco Bell. The trio pitched him on joining and Paul, figuring that no one would discover him in a band called the Revolting Cocks, agreed. It was this line-up that recorded the half-live album, You Goddamned Son Of A Bitch (the band played in Chicago, while the applause was recorded in Detroit).

1988 saw the release of their menacing single, "Stainless Steel Providers." Critics hailed it as "'Born To Be Wild' for the next generation of cultural terrorists." The salute to American-made motorcycles involved driving a Harley into the studio's drum booth and a video showing the band stealing gasoline from an all-night filling station and dropping a flaming motorcycle off the roof of a prominent Chicago grocery store. The Cocks' second album, Beers, Steers And Queers, was released shortly thereafter. Influenced by a midnight showing of the film Deliverance and a diet of Jimmy Dean Flapsticks, the band explored such autobiographical sentiments as " Can't Stand Still," "Razor's Edge" and a savage yet salvaged version of Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." The band went out on tour with noted feminist activists The Mentors to the surprise of absolutely no one.

When the Wax Trax label demanded that the band change its name to RVLTNG CCKS to keep with the continuity of groups like TGT and KMFDM, the Cocks deemed the party officially over and found the Swedish Bikini Team stocking up the Sire fridge with imported beer. The Cocks, now absorbing Ministry team players Roland Barker, Mike Scaccia and Louie Svitek, figured that this was much cause for rejoicing.

Linger Ficken' Good And Other Barnyard Oddities is the pinnacle of scintillating sonics, pounding pressure and the equivalent of a whoopee cushion filled with battery acid on the President's chair. "Gila Monster" opens with a taunt from LSD high priest Dr. Timothy Leary that breaks into a ride on Hell's elevator down to the bottom floor. "Crackin' Up" was commissioned by ABC news reporter Barbara Walters for a 20/20 segment on inner city drug use, but was nixed due to budget constraints. (The kill fee paid for the last two Ministry tours.) Then there's "Sergio," a track that features arcing bass drums and the sound of vapor coming off guitars. By way of explanation, Rieflin intones; "Sergio exists, Sergio has always existed, Sergio will continue. It's up to the calm, centered person to find their own inner Sergio.") The violent "Butcher Flower's Woman" is a cocktail of napalm and cobra venom where Connelly viciously spells out the title. "The first time I did it," he recalls, "I belted it out with all this conviction and I could hardly breathe. Then Roland tapped me on the shoulder and said quietly, 'Uh, Chris? You spelled 'butcher' wrong.'" The single is a cover of Rod Stewart's venerable "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," that features a booty-movin' groove and special, socially aware lyrics by Mr. Connelly concerning dental dams and lubricants.

But the real gem here is the title track, a swaggering, bopping jazz vamp that chugs away while estrogen-dripping female voices inquire "Who's your favorite cock?" The track features a spry guitar solo from holy amphibian Duane Denison and a spoken word character assessment/assassination of the band from the blacksploitation film star DeWayne Buford. "He's a very nice guy," divulges Connelly. " But give him a 40 ounce and his mouth turns into a sewer."

Despite the time-consuming efforts spent on cleaning the guns of Ministry, the band are just as determined to see the Cocks flourish like a child playing catch with his father, even if Junior goes too far out in the street in the path of a flatbed truck hauling girders.

"If you are a studio musician and your experience of the particular piece of music takes place within that studio, when the record is done, your participation is over," illuminates the articulate, educated Rieflin. "If you can't find a nothing inspirational in it, then you're a total asshole because you're wasting your life."

Connelly agrees: "I'm happy to say that I've never been so satisfied with a project I've done. We played together and wrote together like a real band. That, and the fact that we have no qualms about inflicting our sense of humor on the public."

While people have used many adjectives to describe the Revolting Cocks, the most redundant is "industrial," a term used to describe fishnet clad hermaphrodites with lots of synthesizers and hair dye.

"ZZ Top have been using Fairlights for years," says the redoubtable Barker. "Does that make them industrial? If people think that, let them be lazy. If using sequencers and distorted vocals means industrial...well...I'm sorry, what was the question?"

Where the Cocks' next venture will take them is uncertain: there were plans to cover the Who's rock opera Tommy in its entirety, under Connelly's stipulation that "we'll persecute the deaf bastard the whole way through." Rieflin feels t hat Robert Goulet should play the deaf, dumb and blind kid while Jourgensen envisions Tommy played by country singer George Jones "on a lawnmower with a bottle of corn liquor making right turns for three hours." They will undertake a brief tour of major cities across the globe featuring a fifteen-piece, toga-clad horn section and several scantily clad serving girls peeling grapes while the band eats a buffet supper on stage in lieu of playing. According to Al, "We're going to practice our screw-in-the-lightbulb royalty-style hand wave. Plans are almost finalized for shows in the ruins of Pompeii, as well as the palace at Versailles.

"This is the greatest rock and roll swindle ever!" proclaims Jourgensen cheerfully. "We pay people to insult us on records and we'll eat dinner on stage. I'm sure we'll hear 'you guys are a sell-out.'...Absolutely, we sell out every weekend. Then we'll hear morons saying 'They're poseurs cause they don't work on Saturday!'"

Linger Ficken' Good And Other Barnyard Oddities. Wet-naps not included.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The single is a cover of Rod Stewart's venerable "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," that features a booty-movin' groove and special, socially aware lyrics by Mr. Connelly concerning dental dams and lubricants.

But the real gem here is the title track, a swaggering, bopping jazz vamp that chugs away while estrogen-dripping female voices inquire "Who's your favorite cock?" The track features a spry guitar solo from holy amphibian Duane Denison and a spoken word character assessment/assassination of the band from the blacksploitation film star DeWayne Buford. "He's a very nice guy," divulges Connelly. " But give him a 40 ounce and his mouth turns into a sewer."

That would be something to get your morning moving to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...