Well, I’ve moved on from Wax Trax! Records artists and trying to find as much of that as I can, to Skinny Puppy. Now, I have quite a few of their releases and albums already, but there is a treasure trove of albums and their “Back & Forth” series on YouTube... and I’ve been really enjoying listening to that stuff and finding stuff that I haven’t heard of theirs! I’ve been really interested in the “Back & Forth” stuff that they’ve released over the years, cause typically it’s all old demos, rough versions, live cuts, or unreleased stuff... I love hearing that stuff, cause it’s really inspiring to hear it, and try to figure out how they did it with all the old synth gear they had at the time, and it’s also really cool cause, once again, like the Wax Trax! Records back catalogue, there is a time and place associated with it... and it’s interesting to hear where some of the songs started and then also hearing the final product that was released! If you've read my blog (here) about Skinny Puppy's "Back and Forth: Vol: 3 & 4" you would know that it is my favorite Skinny Puppy release, and you would know that the reason is cause it has this bleak sound to it... there is a certain quality to it that they don't have on the other albums and releases (probably due to tape saturation). A lot of this back-catalogue and the various "Back and Forth" volumes upon listening to for the first time have a certain quality to them, each release has a sound character to them, and they are different from each other... which I really enjoy and they evoke visions, and highly inspire me in the musical sense (for my own project)! I don't know why Skinny Puppy inspires me... I remember seeing one of their tour videos waaay back in 1996 or 97 or something like that, at an all ages goth event in Saskatoon... and I loved it! It seemed so fuckin industrial, and so visceral... Ogre looked all fucked up, I'm sure he was drunk or on drugs of some kind, he had blood all over him... there's all these props and shit, his voice... Cevin Key is in the back surrounded by synths, a drum kit and other shit... If I'm not mistaken Mr. Goettel was in the back somewhere as well... I don't think at the time I owned a piece of Skinny Puppy music... but just being in that environment (the club), with the goth/industrial community, I loved it... It made me want to dig further in the scene, find more music and really explore what all this industrial was! It was inspiring... some point afterwards I picked up "Back and Forth: Vol: 3 & 4"... and then eventually picked up "The Process" which I think is excellent, I would put that album up there in my top Skinny Puppy albums! Anyway, yes... gushing here, but I find this shit sooo inspiring, and every time I listen to it, I try and decipher their mental state (I'm sure a lot of drugs were involved, I mean they invented the term "Brap", which is to get fucked up, and write music... not that I would do drugs anymore [gave that up a long time ago], but I find that idea inspiring [although, I've found when I've written music when I was drunk, and I come back to it a day later after I'm sober, it's garbage... So, I don't do that anymore])... trying to decipher their lyrics is also fun too... what the fuck are they talking about, when Ogre strings his words together, it's quite abstract... Yeah, inspiring!
If you are new to industrial music, or are unfamiliar with Skinny Puppy, check this stuff out! Maybe you hear what I hear! OR... If you are not new, then maybe you have some thoughts regarding your musical listening or musical writing journey that you might want to share here!
Listen to Cevin Key's latest Back & Forth Volume "Brap and Forth: Vol:8"... excellent!!
What's your favorite Skinny Puppy album? And if you are a musician, what music inspired you to dig deeper and really discover what kind of bands are in the goth/industrial scene?
And hey, if you wanna hear some of our shit, you can listen to our "20 Years of Twitch" Retrospective here!
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