The first proper SCW performance occurred on November 30, 1984 at the Chandelier Room of the Mayfair Hotel in Kitchener, Canada. The show came about through a Fine Arts course that PnrH was taking at the University of Waterloo. The show was actually marked by his professor and applied towards his credit for the course!
Ticket for the show – by PnrH
The performers included all four members of SCW plus an additional four performers recruited for the show. SCW played in the background while the other four were up front using various mic-ed up domestic and industrial tools: Charles on vacuum cleaner/balloon, Jim on sewing machine, Claudio on power tools and John on heavy metal. Film projections and video were also part of the staging. All the performers wore masks cast from their faces with plaster bandages, similar to the ‘death masks’ dating back to the middle ages. The workers rose up against their slave masters but the power tools of the workers were no match for the media tools of their slave masters…
A mask being made for dWM – note the glasses underneath the plaster…
The masks as worn by Jeff-0 and dWM during the show
Video edit of the show
After the performance, SCW played a set that included Albert Ayler’s Ghosts and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, before the power was cut by the hotel proprietor. This excerpt illustrates SCW’s critique of the disco-industrial complex that would would be a central theme of SCW’s work right through until their demise in 1997.
Sucking Chest Wound 