Intro and outro by Duane Davis
[Editor’s note: GWAR stopped by the shop a few weeks ago to reign terror (and murder) on our employees…check out the video to see the horror with your own eyes.]
When I took these photos of GWAR at the Gothic Theater in 1991, I was not a fan of the band. To me, it seemed they had put most of their talents into prop and costume design with little left over for the music they played – which I considered to be, at best, cheesy (but fun), or, at worst, clichéd and shallow.
This is not to say that I didn’t appreciate the band’s penchant for a kind of Mad Magazine take on Conan The Barbarian romping about in a lurid, comic-book Cimmera and fighting off the demons and ghouls of American violence, censorship, political hypocrisy, and moral panic. After all, fighting the good fight can take many forms, and this one, with its buxom babes in leather and fur bikinis, and intergalactic warlords looking like mutant linebackers who had mugged H.R. Giger behind a 7-11, was pretty entertaining.
My lack of enthusiasm for GWAR was not, however, shared by my fellow Wax Traxian, John E. Graves, or, John Glaze as he was known behind the counter of Across The Trax (the Wax Trax t-shirt and poster store). John was all in on the band and his delight and excitement are infectious, as you will find when you read the article below.
GWAR: SCUMDOGS OF THE UNIVERSE? Or COSMIC PRANKSTERS?
by JOHN E. GRAVES of DARK SHADOWS (formerly U.G. LEE)
[Originally published in Waste Paper, May 1991]
GWAR ARE NOT pseudo-60’s Neo-Flower Children running through fields of daisies reliving the Summer of Love.
GWAR ARE NOT pretty boy sex symbols with perfect hair and teeth.
GWAR ARE NOT sensitive whining songwriters with smeared lipstick or depressed sissies with James Dean obsessions.
GWAR ARE NOT an “industrial dance band” shouting over their disco backing tapes.
GWAR ARE NOT for the squeamish, overly serious or close minded.
GWAR ARE hysterically vulgar, disgusting and crude.
GWAR ARE loud, fast and fun.
GWAR ARE one of the most original bands of all time.
GWAR ARE going to EAT YOU ALIVE!
A GWAR concert is like nothing else on this planet — it’s like a XXX-rated comic book come to life before your very eyes. It’s definitely NOT for everyone, but then again, what is? For me it was one of the funniest times I’ve ever had at a concert. I couldn’t stop laughing. It took two days to completely wash off all the stage blood. And my blood-stained, autographed shirt? I’ll never wash it and it’s hanging on my wall at home. How did they ever get the walls clean at the Gothic Theater? There was blood fifteen feet high on the walls near the front.
The latest GWAR release is SCUMDOGS OF THE UNIVERSE and it’s wild. It has one song, “Horror of Yig” that is produced by Hypo Luxa and Hermes Pan (Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker of Ministry) so that may be an extra push — but be warned: no dance beats on a GWAR record. They also have plans to re-release their first album, HELL-O.
They also have a home video cassette (available at Across The Trax) called LIVE FROM ANTARCTICA and it contains their first video, “Sick Of You” — but don’t look for it on TeleTunes or MTV. GWAR ARE NOT a safe band!
GWAR dig wrestling, splatter flicks, John Water’s movies and they like local legends, The Warlock Pinchers (who opened for GWAR on their last appearance in Denver). They feel the Pinchers have the right attitude.
Prior to their recent concert here I had the pleasure of talking to Sleazy P. Martini, and here are his thoughts and feelings on Fans, Touring, Groupies and more! (Special Thanx to Don Draculich):
ON INFLUENCES
“We are NOT a take-off on Kiss or Alice Cooper. If anything we are a mixture of Horror Movies and the World Wrestling Federation. Spectacle is ALL. We like those bands, but that’s not really where we are coming from.”
ON LIPSYNCING
“It’s a terrible thing; we’re very much against it. Once someone accused us of lipsyncing and it really pissed us off. Why fake something so terrible — ha ha — can’t they hear the mud?”
ON THE LIVE VIDEO
“We’re somewhat dissatisfied with it. Overall the lighting was terrible in the front of the stage and some of the editing was poor. Also, the new show is completely different than the one on the tape.” (I personally love the tape, poor lighting or not!)
ON TOURING
“There’s good and bad to it of course, but overall we love it. We have a huge crew of people — fifteen members (including the band). We have so much stuff that at some shows we’ll have one set up — then a different one at the next show. For instance, we have to choose between Techno & Bozo Destructor or Grambo.” (We got Grambo here.)
ON FANS
“Lately with us getting airplay on ZROCK and some of the other metal stations, the ‘idiot faction’ has increased which is unfortunate but unavoidable. We satirize violence but unfortunately some people take it far too seriously. Luckily there are always a few intelligent fans with a sense of humor that understand us and our overall ‘thing’. We love our fans — for dinner, for stage guts — we love ’em.”
ON RECORD DEALS
“I tell ya’ — if there is a shitty, fucked up contract out there in the world, I think we’ve signed it. The distribution deal we signed is totally fucked — the company got so much here, and so much there and then they folded. So all the record companies still get their money, but out of our hides. We won’t see a penny ’til ‘x’ amount of units are sold. The same with our t-shirt deal, we’ll have to sell like 2,000 shirts before we receive profits. It sucks.”
ON MOVIES
“We love state of the art gore and splatter flicks. One must see is a movie called SOCIETY — it’s done by the same wonderful people who brought us RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND. It’s about a kid who suspects his parents of being members of this cult that is all over his little hometown. I highly recommend it, especially for the scene where he walks in on his parents’ mid-ritual and his dad is turned inside out and his head comes out his ass and he says ‘See — you always knew I was an asshole!!!’”
ON GROUPIES
“We get fewer groupies than probably any other band in existence — no one recognizes us out of costume and they’re usually frightened away when we are in costume. One time myself and a few of the others were cleaning up after a show, basically in our underwear, and these girls were like ‘Ooooh — no wonder they wear masks!!’”
GWAR were recently on the Joan Rivers Show and a few articles are popping up here and there in various mags. They are planning their newest sonic assault and undoubtedly coming up with bigger, better and gorier stuff for their next tour. Not bad for a band that started as a few costumes for a movie project!
“WE LOVE OUR FANS… FOR DINNER!”
— Sleazy P. Martini
So here’s the kicker: more than three decades after that Denver bloodbath in 1991, GWAR is still out there rampaging across stages like a post-apocalyptic drag show run by interstellar sociopaths. The original warriors have mostly returned to whatever black hole spawned them, but the myth refuses to die. New beasts don the armor, the jaws, the claws; the storyline mutates; the gore cannons stay locked and loaded.
Even with the old guard gone, GWAR remains and, sure, the spilled blood is cherry Kool-Aid and the cosmic prophecy mostly dick jokes, but the band soldiers on.
The faces change. The fluids still fly. The joke keeps landing.
GWAR endures.
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