Doubtlessly rekindled by my recent re-exploration of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, I dug out my old copy of Male, the live album by Foetus, which features a surprisingly faithful cover of the SAHB’s signature tune, “Faith Healer.” It had been a long damn while since I last spun Male, which kickstarted a whole new Foetus rennaissance for me. This is also fitting, as today is J.G. “Foetus”/”Clint Ruin” Thirlwell’s birthday.
Recorded at CBGB in 1990, Male is a sprawling, splenetic blitz through J.G. Thirlwell’s catalog, at the time, but significantly beefed up by the addition of a fully fleshed-out band. Prior to this era, Thirlwell had worked predominantly with manipulated tapes and samples. Augmented with a roster of noisy all-stars including Algis Kizys, Norman Westerburg and Vinnie Signorelli from SWANS, Dave Ouimet from Cop Shoot Cop and Hahn Rowe from Hugo Largo, Foetus’ indelicate blend of industrial caterwaul takes on a burlier, almost metallic heft, at points. There is still an avalanche of samples (courtesy of Ouimet), but they fight for dominance with the sternum-worrying crunch of the rest of the ensemble. It’s a burly, bracing listening experience that I highly recommend. About a year after the album was released, they released the show on video which – thanks to the benevolent magic of YouTube, you can watch here now. Duck & cover, …..
This of course, led me back to many of Thirlwell’s other records, including the excellent compilation Sink, his blistering major label debut Gash, Gondawanaland by his side-project Steroid Maximus and a few others. The last record of Foetus’ I tracked down was 2009’s Limb. About as far as you can get from the stentorian wallop of Male, Limb is filled with more nuanced, experimental pieces, though the end results are no less compelling. But I originally picked this album up in 2014 on the strength of its inclusion of “NYC Foetus,” a video documentary that’s as close to a definitive telling of the Foetus story you’re likely to get – featuring testimonials from pals and peers like Matt Johnson of The The, Michael Gira of SWANS, Martin Bisi, Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch and other likely suspects. I first mentioned it on this old post.
And, once again, if you wait long enough, …. these things surface on YouTube. Here it is now it its entirety … for the time being, at least, until someone with an interest in copyright demands its removal.
Enjoy with a nice slice a red velvet birthday cake for J.G Thirlwell….
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