fear engine II by shock headed peters

there once was a photo from way back when.  a moment deliciously captured, of this dude.  clusterbombs of light fired and frozen behind, silhouetting him, with henry-from-eraserhead hair and this goddam beard from another glorious era.  standing giant and angled and askewed, captured mid-something, limbs rigid, like the guitar he’s wielding just shot him full of e-lec-tri-city.  that madhaired bastard was karl blake playing live as (or with) shock headed peters.  looking like some industrial version of heinrich hoffmanns’ shock headed peter reimagined by david lynch.  it was an odd and vaguely violent image (at least in my head fourteenfifteen years later).  but it prompted the purchase of one of my favourite lost (until recently anyway) albums.  i bought fear engine II based on that picture.  unfortunately it went the same way as my birthday party hee haw ep (into someonesomewheres record collection probably) about a year later.

shock headed who?  well now for the complicated, incestuous musical tree.  karl blake, of lemon kittens (un)fame with daniella dax was (and possibly hopefully may still be) the main man, the blackpope, the frazzled cardinal of the shock headed peters.  the only other constant has been david knight (who sent me the last two cd’s) and co-wrote as much of their output as i’ve heard.  with ashley wales, mark rowlatt and clive glover they recorded the first two ep’s i, bloodbrother be (£4000 love letter), the kissing of gods and the not born beautiful album.  then everybody fucked off.  knight returned.  as a twosome they made several headed enemy, fear engine II & tendercide.  and that’s been it for twelve? years.  knight did and possibly still does play for shp, dax, and also lydia lunch as well as solo work and being part of amal gamal with blake and steven thrower, orlando harrison of alabama 3 and dave smith of guapo and miasma etc. blake recorded imp of the perverse & lunatic dawn of the dismantler as the underneath an ice age ago.  both of which i imagine are as easy to get a hold of as… well pretty much everything else previously mentioned.  he’s also appeared with alternative tv, left hand right hand, done some spoken word-y bits and more recently bassed/sung with current 93 and sol invictus.

listening now to fear engine it’s not what i remember, strangely.  or it’s not what i strangely remember.  my only contact with shock headed peters music over the past ten or so years has been i, bloodbrother be cropping up on various compilations and me thinking jesus i really need to try and track this shit down again.  you can hear this piece of skronking genius here.  it’s unsettling to hear fear engine with slightly older ears who don’t recall the kindof industrial sheen that’s settled over it.  it is still an incredible piece of music, powerful, emotional, intellectual but direct enough to appeal to the heart and the balls and the guts.  jeebus only knows why they’ve been hideously overlooked for so long.  it was certainly worth the decade wait to track down and i’m damn sure YOU, yes YOU dear reader should do the same. 

the black sabbath influences (an acquaintance asked me if i was listening to the new melvins album during remake/remodel (which is a roxy music cover for chrissakes)) are still there in the downtune(d)ful sludge of the guitars alongside the sixties seventies rock.

it’s odd to hear blakes english accent singing over this.  i hear a lot of them, probably inappropriately, in other bands, who chances are have never heard shock headed peters which either says something about the laziness of my ear-brain interface or more likely about the prescience of shock headed peters.  air:sludge of despond is spoken word and grinds like early jesus lizard or paper chase.  hate on sight reminds me of khanate playing really fast.  as if such a thing could ever happen.  conditional discharge has sam ireland of die cheerleader singing like grace slick fronting blue cheer.  we breathe the same air has that cramps rock and roll influence.  there’s a weird jazzfunk thing burbling underneath generation tool.  and it’s all broken up by 1-2 minute instrumentals and sometimes soothing sometimes threatening ambient pieces.

but the two tracks that for me encapsulate the grimly enjoyable, mad giddy disorientation that is the shock headed peters are 1) their cover of the yardbirds evil hearted you with lydia lunch on vocals which reminds me a bit of slayer which i’m certain they’d tell me to fuck right off for saying.  and 2) son of thumbs of a murderer which is a kindof rejigging of thumbs of a murderer with flamenco, disco beats, big-ass doomy riffs and an awesome (yes i said awesome) solo.

lyrically the usual blake obsessions crawl out the cryptic haze.  like if alan moore wrote about relationships and almostreal people instead of satanik arcane shit.  the booklet quotes shakespeare and alexander pope on the back which should give some indication where the words are coming from.

“maybe i’m the gap in a performance when the crowd don’t scream and shout.  and i’m stuck like a fly on a stick-strip or a bug on a honeyed pin.”

liars; religion; emotional sociopaths; self-hate; world-weariness; misnthropy; sexual conundrums; suicide; ballads.  not suprisingly, looking at karl’s myspace he seems quite the cranky bugger railing against exfriends, exbandmates, myspace scalphunters, right wing musicians, fascists, being an electronic advertising hoarding for rubbish, pathological liars, selfaggrandising creeps, homophobes, mysogynists and sociopaths.  i get heartburn reading it.  oh and for the love of christ don’t ever write shockhead peters.

there are a bunch of tracks available for download from their myspace

cd’s of arkkon (david knights solo work), shock headed peters albums and info on amal gamal can also be found at the arkkon site here

and here’s some videos of amal gamal ensemble – david knight (i’m assuming) on guitar and electronicky boxes, karl blake on bass and on the second one daniella dax muttering into some tiny microphone:

lovely lovely noise…