Blind Idiot God (1988)


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Blind Idiot God: UNDERTOW
by Sasha Frere-Jones

If you lived in New York and were interested in heavy music, what was going on in 1988?

“Good question,” says Blind Idiot God guitarist Andy Hawkins. “Music was still very compartmentalized in 1988. There wasn't a whole lot of boundary pushing at that moment. Most of my influences came from things before us. I was pretty into hip-hop and listened to both NYC radio shows on Friday and Saturday nights religiously. That's the most excited I got about anything contemporary.”

Hip-hop is one of the few things Blind Idiot God do not sound like. When their debut came out in 1987 on SST Records, it had the feeling of a one-off miracle. Three kids from the Midwest had started an instrumental trio with a sound split into thirds: dub, very loud rock, and funk. Rock bands simply didn’t play live dub, and it wasn’t a practice common to much live reggae. Groups like Red Hot Chili Peppers were covering the same American funk bands as Blind Idiot God (The Meters, Funkadelic) and taking it into a denatured party zone. Blind Idiot God simply turned these songs into another variation of a music heavy enough to knock over the plants but light enough to cross the room in the space of a single measure. And Blind Idiot God made guitar noise, in New York, that was not indebted to the New York No Wave scene that produced Live Skull and Sonic Youth. Their guitar tunings sounded like they might even be standard, though, in the roar, it was hard to tell. New York guitar noise was like a bent siren, a fierce strain of weirdness. Blind Idiot God brought a loudness that is wider, foamier and, frankly, louder.

Finding one Blind Idiot God album was strange enough; that there was actually a second album seemed newsworthy. Only available as an import, Undertow made a case for an entire universe of enormity and precision. The fact that the band rarely played live just made loving the band that much more delicious and tortured. Here were the names — Bill Laswell producing, and Martin Bisi engineering. We knew them, so this all had to be real. Apparently, they were so loud they cleared rooms. Someone said they had a truck, and their rig was twenty feet wide.

They had one song, “Rollercoaster,” that sped up and slowed down. “Drowning” and “Wailing Wall” just give the impression that they did. The band’s dub work was designed to skip the easy, sweet smear of an echo cloud. “Clockwork Dub” has the concentrated simplicity of the tracks on Joe Gibbs’ African Dub series. Just because it’s the closest to “mellow” the band gets doesn’t mean it’s any less surgical and intense. Funkadelic will always own “Alice In My Fantasties,” but it is hard to hear the original now and not want it to drop down into the ferocious rumble Blind Idiot God make.

The band stayed in New York. They kept making records. They got a truck and a big rig. And with sufficient coercion they still play live. They exist.


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ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

The band has shared the stage with artists like Helmet, Black Flag, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Die Kreuzen, Don Caballero, Jesus Lizard, Napalm Death, HR, Eekamouse among many others. John Zorn in addition to collaborating with the band also released their third album on Avant Records and has played with them live.

The thirteen tracks on Undertow, recorded in 1988 at BC Studios in New York City are 1. "Sawtooth," 2. "Clockwork," 3. "Atomic Whip," 4. "Watch Yer Step," 5. "Drowning," 6. "Major Key Dub," 7. "Alice In My Fantasies," 8. "Rollercoaster," 9. "Dubbing In The Sinai," 10. "Wailing Wall," 11. "Freaked" featuring Henry Rollins (long version), 12. "Purged Specimen" featuring John Zorn and 13. "Freaked" featuring Henry Rollins (title version).

Invisible Music plans to re-issue the remaining two out of print Blind Idiot God records (the self-titled album and Cyclotron) in the near future. The band is currently rehearsing the material for the fifth Blind Idiot God record, to be released in 2018. While the format of three stylistically different approaches remains in place, the lines are further blurred, and the music has a new urgency as the band explores a more improvisational approach to the compositional ideas.

Band members:
Andy Hawkins - Guitar (1981-present)
Tim Wyskida - Drums (2001-present)
Will Dahl - Bass (2012-present)
Gabriel Katz - Bass (1981-2012)
Ted Epstein - Drums (1981-1992)

Visit the band online:
soundcloud.com/blindidiotgod
facebook.com/BlindIdiotGodOfficial
indivisiblemusic.bandcamp.com



For press materials, to set-up interviews or request additional information on Blind Idiot God please contact Fly PR: T. 323-667-1344 E. flypr@flypr.net.