The latest in Live Skull’s continuing saga of depravity and redemption: Saturday Night Massacre! Icon of 1980s New York, Live Skull has reformed and completed work on its first new album in 30 years!
Live Skull formed during the Reagan administration, who’s right wing, anti-progressive agenda ushered in what Mark E. Smith dubbed “the new dark ages.” It’s only fitting that we reunite thirty years later in the midst of a new era of burgeoning anti-enlightenment forces; motivated more than ever to amplify our concerns for the preservation of social and artistic freedoms. Current members, Rich Hutchins, Mark C, and Kent Heine joined forces with former members, Thalia Zadek and Marnie Greenholz to record Saturday Night Massacre.
The title references that infamous evening in American history which led to the demise of the ultra-corrupt Nixon administration, but it also serves as a warning, going forward.
Back in the day, Live Skull exploited the imagery of gore movies to express our disillusion with society’s turn toward darkness; now the facts are gory enough on their own.
Together with Sonic Youth and Swans, Live Skull defined the term “noise rock” in the ’80s, spearheading the post-No Wave underground music scene in NYC with a series of legendary live performances and eight groundbreaking records released over the course of that decade.
Live Skull’s sound was influenced by British post-punk – but was located squarely in the depths of Downtown Manhattan. The band’s ’80s recordings buzz with the danger, depravity, and creative freedom that defined NYC sound aesthetic in those years.
On songs with titles like “Mr. Evil,” “The Corpse Also Rises,” and “I’ll Break You,” Live Skull chiseled out its style and its worldview. Dual guitars chimed and slashed; basslines drove; drums pounded and hypnotized; male and female vocals intertwined to conjure serial-killer imagery to match the intensity of real life in ’80s Gotham.
“A reunion, after almost 30 years of inactivity, of the seminal New York
noise guitar band Live Skull. 100% of a piece with their better-known
contemporaries, Live Skull conjured a massively discordant squall of
guitars and a creepy, desperate vibe.” Dangerous Minds
“Of the scowling noise-rockers peppering downtown Manhattan
throughout the 80s, Live Skull was the leanest and meanest around.”
VICE
“With each new record, New York’s Live Skull delivers a more
concentrated brand of emotional intensity, a more ferociously disciplined
sonic assault. Live Skull’s music – a high-wire act played for keeps,
without a net – is as challenging, as spiritually corrosive, and ultimately
as transcendent as Albert Ayler’s mid-60’s free jazz or the implacable
drone-dance of the early Velvet Underground. It’s one of the essential
sounds of our time.” -The New York Times, Robert Palmer
“The most startlingly original array of guitar sounds and approaches
since Jimi Hendrix. They make guitars do things you’ve never
imagined.”-New Look magazine