The Culture Bunker
by William Ham
illustration by Kevin Banks
Ah, yes. The sky is pitch black, the wolves are howling and swinging golf clubs, all is black, foreboding, forbidding – it must mean only one thing – it’s showtime in the Culture Bunker.
Welcome to the depths. From this subterranean (disad)vantage point, all things are visible. No, sorry, I mean risible. Civilization is steadily declining, hope is just an ugly backwoods burg in Arkansas, and somewhere Nostradamus is smiling and collecting on his bets. “Told ya.” And what better way to survey the wreckage and try to pile it up prettily than to spit it all back out in the form of easily-smudged newsprint?
No way at all, I say. So hear this and every issue until the figurative plug is literally pulled. I will take you by the hand through this blackest of all possible forests, find a nice isolated place, then leave you to find your respective ways back, armed with only a Cracker Jack compass, a butter knife, and a copy of Reader’s Digest Bhagavad-Gita. Sound like fun? Just you wait.
First off, is it just me or is rock (pardon the euphemism) losing its bearings faster then the directorial career of Dennis Hopper? Sure, new bands are popping up like uranium orchids and spreading through the fields of indie consciousness, only to be plucked up by benevolent-seeming corporate aesthetes in matching suits; then placed in overheated greenhouses where they are overfed and badly nurtured, eventually abandoned to wilt and die when newer buds burst out of the soil. The bloom is off the rose, mofos. (Agricultural metaphors are way cool.) The downfall of the alternative nation (and please kill me if I happen to utter those words again) has begun. And then what?
I mean, yeah, it was cool for a while – the sky was open, the youth were speaking and waggling their hirsute skulls in shaggy triumph. It was our time. But then it went terribly, horribly wrong. I think it all started at Altamont ’94, when Strychnine Logic, who had stopped by in the midst of their six continent uber-tour in support of their trillion selling debut album, Uh… (Sony/Hirohito Music), lost control of their instruments and motor functions halfway through their set, letting fly a 38 minute squeal of feedback that deafened two-thirds of the crowd. This sent the local branch of Purgatory’s Agnostics (who had been hired to work the smart-drinks concession) into a frothing frenzy; fists, chains, and flannel flying, finally taking eighty-six concertgoers hostage and releasing them only when their single demand was met: “Bring us the head of Jerry Garcia.”
The media, predictably, went to town on this: Rolling Stone devoted three entire issues to the tragedy (Death, Destruction, And Sub-Par Refreshments, RS#698-700), CNN, C-Span, MTV and all six major networks suspended their regular programming for three weeks of coverage of the Congressional Subcommittee on Those Damned Youngsters. We were treated to the sight of Rush Limbaugh devoting his entire half hour TV show to shaking his jowls and muttering incomplete, indistinct sentences (“Kids today… get the birch rods… I miss Roy Cohn… final solution… pass the Bromo …”) to the confused but emphatic applause of the Evian-crazed yupsters in his audience. Then national hero Frank Perdue was indicted on bestiality charges and it was conveniently forgotten.
But the damage was done. Contracts were torn up left and right. Spin Magazine suspended publication and returned as a klezmer/bossa nova journal. What fragments remained of the once burgeoning sub-culture petered out, having depleted their store of Black Sabbath riffs and black high-tops. Lollapalooza ’96 was a sorry sight indeed – who could forget Eddie Vedder with shaved skull, in saffron robes, chanting quietly without even a microphone and only a table for accompaniment? Or Perry Farrell writhing in analgesic withdrawal while his new combo, Ephasia for Eunuchs, desultorily slapped their instruments and each other with rotten haddock? Or Barry Manilow stalking the stage in thrift store bondage gear, shouting profanities into his vocoder as the remaining rock critics in the country scribbled notes about how they had foolishly missed the catharsis and despair in “Weekend in New England?” That was the signpost – rock was dead.
For a time, anyway. The rise of the next generation of disenfranchised youth (tagged by the media as “Generation H” for no good reason at all) gave voice to a sound that was fresh, new and scarcely co-optable: NEO-ZERO. This went beyond the parameters of previous trend-and-flesh-mongers the world ’round: This was music whose sole intention was to annoy, injure, maim or kill, depending on your tolerance level. It was the ultimate – no longer could you turn “they can’t play their instruments” into a devastating sally – it was a sign of neo-zeroic virtuosity to even hold one! “Death to the song,” n-zilchers would proclaim, hooks raised in defiance (we tastefully refrain from further description of one of the more extreme applications of n-0 extremity – self-inflicted limb-hacking is still a felony in most states), and music without hook, melody or coherence became the new craze. Zilchers (as some called themselves) could be recognized from blocks away. Their manipulation and adaptation of the traditional skinhead look, except with (sometimes mock-) radiation burns spotting their otherwise smooth domes. It germinated in the underground, centered in cities like Truth-or-Consequences, NM and Cape Disappointment, Oregon, then broke through with the release of 1998’s premiere anthem, Defense Wound’s “Grruullghh,” with its classical chorus, “Ouch, man/my colon hurts.” The resulting explosion of zilch-rock garnered more than its share of detractors (best typified by the New York Times op-ed piece, “What the – ?” (April 14,1998)) and imitators (Stone Temple Pilots’ final release, Look! We’re Zilchers Too! Honestly! (DGC/QVC)). Neo-Zero became the scapegoat for everything from pre-natal tattoos to the self-immolation of an entire junior high school class in Zanesville, Ohio. The only difference was, this time they were right.
Desperate measures became necessary. Reform schools and boot camps were judged to be insufficient, so President Duke closed off the state of Utah and made it into an internment camp for young Nada-Americans, a move praised by Henry Rollins, contributing editor of the National Review, as “just the blow to the kneecaps these young you-know-whats deserve.” Commercial Neo-Zip radio stations across the country were shut down and replaced by computer-programmed Windham Hill mini-disks laced with lulling subliminals exhorting listeners to eat their greens. Society heaved a collective sigh. The N-Z menace was said to have passed.
That was, until a group of four nattily-dressed gentlemen appeared at the White House, claiming to be Jehovah’s Helpers, a synth-based Christian pop group who specialized in rewritten ABBA and Flock of Seagulls tunes turned into soul-dulling propaganda (admittedly not a difficult task), entreating the President to put on a benefit concert at the camp, with all the proceeds going to cut-rate corkscrew lobotomies for those afflicted with the zilcher virus.
The chief exec immediately agreed, and on December 31, 1999, “No Aid” was mounted in what was formerly Salt Lake City, with worldwide satellite hookups and quadraphonic simulcasts on every radio station in America. After a brief opening act by Joan Baez (cut short when she was stoned to death during the first line of “Diamonds and Rust”), Jehovah’s Helpers took the stage and revealed themselves to be Defense Wound in fake wigs and synthetic leisure suits, announced to the world that their operatives had secured homemade atomic devices in every corner of the state, rose to a chaotic crescendo and,,,
Well, I won’t spoil it by giving it away. But suffice to say, it sure beat the hell out of a light show.
