In 1984 SCW managed to gain access to the video production facilities at the local cable station, courtesy of our friend and collaborator Michelle Geister (aka DJ Force MG). This resulted in a series of experimental videos created by PhrH and dWM. For more info on these videos check out the Sucking Chest Wound YouTube channel…
Sucking Chest Wound produced this video in 1985 to promote their first two cassette releases: Arbeit Macht Frei and Model 152 Blowgun.
SCW’s second release on cassette came out in mid-1985 and was a mixture of new material and live recordings from the Sweet Children of the West show in April that year. The new material continued in the same techno-industrial post-punk style of the first cassette, with added horns in some tunes. This release marked the end of SCW’s use of analogue synths, and drum machines – all future work was done using either ‘real’ instruments played live or digital samplers, drum machines and effects.
Bass, tapes and drum machine…
Same as above but with added synths
SCW gets jazzy. Horns would become a bigger part of SCW’s sound in subsequent incarnations, first as a free jazz ensemble and then as a disco-jazz-funk- punk band.
Sit see the puppy on the table…
Sequenced drum machine and synths plus tapes
Hitler invades Poland – ’nuff said…
SCW also produced a video to accompany one of the new tunes, Capacity 330. Most of the video footage was recorded at SCW’s Willow St. practice/living space
The second side of the Model 152 Blow Gun cassette is a live recording from April 17, 1985. See the previous post for some video footage of the show.
On April 17 1985 SCW returned to the Mayfair Hotel in Kitchener, Canada for another performance. This time they performed upstairs at a club called Level 21. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear they performed as Sweet Children of the West; the name would be resurrected later on when they were banned from performing as Sucking Chest Wound. The focus of the show was on videos prepared beforehand and played back on video monitors located throughout the performance space, along with slides projected onto the stage. SCW performed largely behind screens, occasionally venturing out onto the stage to tweak knobs etc.
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!
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…
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.
By mid-1984 SCW had established a living, rehearsal and recording space at Willow St. in Waterloo, Ontario, and had access to the electronic music labs at the University of Waterloo. In August of that year they released their first cassette, entitled Arbeit Macht Frei.
The cassette was 90 minutes long, with over 30 individual tunes. Here’s some highlights:
All you wanna do is kill yourself
All you wanna do is kill yourself
Why’re you trying to kill yourself?
Why aren’t you trying to…
Kill Pigs!
Kill Pigs!
Kill Pigs!
SCW salutes their punk roots…
Featuring vocals from our dearly departed friend Geoff Hendry. He hated people using his beer bottle as an ashtray at parties. Geoff was SCW’s sound man, recording engineer, roadie and #1 fan. He took his own life in 1994 and is still missed:
This piece shows the influence of other bands that were using found audio at the time, such as Throbbing Gristle and Caberet Voltaire:
This piece was done using the pause/rewind buttons on a consumer cassette recorder, several years before SCW got their hands on digital samplers:
SCW was strongly influenced by funk, disco and go-go music. In fact, in the late 80’s SCW became a live disco-jazz-funk-punk band. More on that later. In the summer of 1984 James Brown played a week-long residency in Kitchener, preparing the band for his North American tour. SCW came out several times to see the Godfather, and at one show our band was mistaken for Cano, who were apparently also in town. This tune is SCW’s dada-ist take on the Ohio Players’ Love Roller Coaster, featuring Mr. T on guitar, who would later join SCW for their final live show in 1997:
More disco influence. This tune used the Roland TR-606 driving the SH-101’s sequencer:
…and a less disco/more rock instrumental version…
Like everybody else, SCW was heavily influenced by reggae and dub.This was the SCW theme song…
I don’t wanna work… Dub and acid. 10 years after recording this tune, the dub influence took hold on SCW in a major way…
This tune is based mainly on SCW’s Moog modular synth experiments. Also clearly influenced by My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
In 1984 the four members of SCW were all students at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Jeff-0 and dWM had enrolled in David Huron‘s computer music course, thereby gaining access to the electronic music studio in the basement of Conrad Grebel College. The studio was equipped with recording facilities, a grand piano, a Roland Juno-60 synthesizer, an E-mu Drumulator, and a huge Moog modular synthesizer (either a model 55 or 3C). SCW had absolutely no idea what they were doing when they were using most of the gear, especially the Moog. However large portions of the first SCW tape release were created and recorded in this studio.
Here is a raw recording of experimentation using the Moog modular and Juno-60 (with the Moog sequencer triggering the Juno arpeggiator). Some of this material was used on the first SCW cassette tape release.
In the summer of 1984 PnrH, Jeff-0 and Roba all moved into a house beside the railroad tracks on Willow St. in Waterloo, Ontario. Chemical tankers would pass within a few feet of the house during the day. The damp basement of the house was designated as a sound experimentation laboratory, and various musicians and weirdos would come by to participate in jam sessions with the trio. One of these was dWM, who SCW had seen performing in a multimedia show, and who quickly joined as an official member, thus forming the first stable incarnation of SCW. Roba purchased a Fostex 4-track cassette recorder and a Roland TR-606 drum machine. Jeff-0 purchased a Yamaha CS01 synthesizer, then sold it and bought a Roland SH-101 synth (later supplementing it with an MC-202) that could sync to the drum machine. dWM brought in a variety of musical junk including a trashed string machine of unknown make, and an empty oil drum. Electrical shocks were common and served to further inspire the four members.
At this point SCW started recording seriously, and began a series of live performances and happenings. More on this to follow…
Sucking Chest Wound was hatched out of the acid-drenched brains of PnrH and Jeff-0 in the winter of 1982-83 in Waterloo, Canada. After many all-night listening sessions absorbing the likes of Throbbing Gristle, The Residents, Cabaret Voltaire, 23 Skidoo etc., the two decided to form a band. The logical first step was to come up with a righteous name. PnrH – having served in the cadet corps of the Canadian Armed Forces – happened to have a military first-aid manual describing a particularly nasty form of bayonet injury: the Sucking Chest Wound.
The next step was to produce some music. Having no instruments or musical abilities presented a challenge. After some initial experiments with a 3-head cassette deck in a feedback loop, Jeff-0 purchased a Mattel Synsonic drum machine, and Pnrh dug up a guitar named Pokey and purchased a Mysto Dysto fuzz pedal. They then set out to recruit some additional members. The first incarnation of SCW consisted of Synsonic drum machine, Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer, guitar, bass and vocals. No recordings exist of this proto-version of SCW and only one live gig was ever performed, in the summer of 1983.
By this time Roba had joined the group, and would remain as a member of SCW until 1991.
Sucking Chest Wound 