“Pivot on this” — from Grunge to Experimental

Hēran Soun
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

Right now, after spending 2 hours setting up my elaborate musical rig of all things electronic… I want to go back and pick up that old scarred, made in Mexico, telecaster, plug into some trashy Peavy transistor amp, touch my tongue to a 9V battery and power my 3-nob Boss od-1 pedal, re-dye my hair purple, regroup my grunge band and create that ugliness that was so fucking free.

Computer monitors used to be huge and heavy and thats why it was so surprising to see our 2nd guitarist and computer synth player holding one above his head. Our bassist was screaming the chorus to the Dead Kennedy’s “Nazi punks Nazi punks Nazi punks FUCK OFF”, my guitar went through the kick drum and the bald, steel toe’d, bomber jacketed dad’s of the headline band members (of which we were supporting) raged and tried to stop our homage to the Kennedy’s. Our bassist booked the gig, he was punk as fuck, he alone knew we were supporting a neo-nazi kid band. To the rest of us it was just another show. Stef, our bassist, wrote the set-list (which included the additional cover of ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’, a simple 3 chord song, didn’t need much rehearsing) he knew what this night was all about, he knew his band had his back. I miss having a band. I also miss having a band that would fight nazi punks together.

Not much remains from those days. That bassist killed himself, the drummer is now very far away (and an Australian national), the guitarist would now be holding the monitor above her head and the band van rusted into the ground. All this to say that things changed, I played grunge because I was grungey, I’m now more experimental because I now experiment. But still, one more time “Nazi punks Nazi punks Nazi punks FUCK OFF”.

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