DISLOCATION

DISLOCATION "Theme One" MP3
DISLOCATION "Duck on Acid" MP3
DISLOCATION "Hemidemisemiquaver" MP3

Speaking of bands that never were, here's one from the depths of that restless summer/early autumn of 1992.

We/I killed Devilcake after a masterful & triumphant gig in Dayton, Ohio in a warehouse. I personally felt that after I had played the entire show in the nude and finished it doused in whipped cream, fake blood and other people's sweat, there was nothing left for the band to accomplish. There were upwards of 13 people in the band at any given moment, control was becoming an issue, factions were becoming polarized. Plus, I was leaving for Boston in the fall, so we might as well quit while we were ahead. But that was in May. That still left 3.5 months of music to be made!

Immediately we tried a few different Devilcake variations, such as .... all keyboards, but with Gourley singing exclusively about boobies. I wonder why that never happened. I also started playing drums with Earwig around that time, but that was just playing other people's songs. I still wanted to have my own band, to play my songs. I just didn't know it yet.

Eventually we came back around to the all keyboards idea, but this time it would just be me, Todd and Jeff Hubbell. Jeff had the sweet two thousand dollar keyboard synth and I had the four track. Todd and I were both writing a lot of songs that were very dark and Swans influenced. I think eventually we had a jam or two in the basement with the three of us playing things like the E dirge that I ganked for Samarkand & called it "ftmch", Todd's "Duck on Acid" and "In the Temple."

I have to say, Todd's demo of "Duck on Acid" still gives me chills. He really tapped into something there and it's just as affecting as late period Syd Barrett or Swans or Nick Cave to me. I might be alone in thinking this!

I wanted to experiment with the power of dirge. This was before it dawned on me that playing one note for five minutes can also be very boring for people.... I just thought it was intense, dude.

So I clabbered together two sequenced pieces from Jeff's keyboard and called them "Theme One" and "Theme Seven". I believe I overdubbed guitar and effected drum machine to "Theme Seven", giving it a Skinny Puppy "Spahn Dirge" feel. I slapped those together on this tape, along with Todd's "Duck on Acid" and "Hemidemisemiquaver," which he did with sequencing software, and my own "Mortality".

The demos sound very sketchy of course and obviously the band was doomed before it even began since we were doing this stuff like six weeks before I bailed. Maybe I was thinking that it would be something we could all still work on together when I was in Boston. Reconvene during holiday breaks? I don't know. The other obvious thing is that the demos are pretty far flung and we had no obvious direction for the band. I'm sure we all immediately would've wanted to assert ourselves and it would've messed up the whole thing. Or would it? We'll never know!