"Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible." That was
Stonewall Jackson's motto, and even as his men carried his dying body to
the shady trees of Chancellorsville, I wonder who among them might have
felt the distant seismic tremors of ANTiSEEN, exemplars of a roaring,
sanguinary, and deathless Southern pride that continues to mystify and
surprise even after they're done spattering the stage with blood.
Sometimes I'm not sure what to make of ANTiSEEN, though they sure have
been thoroughly ignored by mainstream critics. This critical nonchalance
seems a bit like bigotry to me: ANTiSEEN are southerners, they love guns
and whiskey, and they do everything they can to invade the austere
confines of political correctness. Also, they were affiliated with the
cursed G.G. Allin, that one-trick-pony poop-tossing sleazeball who is
now viewed as the ne plus ultra of rock'n'roll insanity. (Indeed,
it was probably ANTiSEEN who brought G. G. Allin to Memphis in 1991,
thus inspiring the astonishingly beautiful Drive-By Truckers ode "The
Night G.G. Allin Came to Town"). Just like with P-Funk in the 1970s, I
think ANTiSEEN is a critical victim of its own singular ghettoized
worldview. I mean, on top of the political craziness, the lead singer
cuts up his face at almost every gig. It's almost too easy to dismiss
them, isn't it? And that's where the mystify-and-surprise comes in,
because these guys take their Southern blue-collar pride very seriously
and they dare you to peg them as dumb-ass crackers. No, they aren't
racists (their bassist back in 1986 was a black man), and no, they ain't
gonna sing anthems for Lyndon Johnson or George W. Bush. But they
will push your face in with some tunes about
solidarity-masquerading-as-individuality ("Stormtrooper", e.g.), and
they will keep you attuned to the stanky and bloody beer-soaked
netherworld that is their home. I like them. So should you.
Who are ANTiSEEN, then? They formed in Charlotte in 1983, and the core
of the band for the ensuing twenty years has been guitarist Joe Young (a
buzzsaw mastermind who should get more recognition) and singer Jeff
Clayton (his forehead now scarred by countless bloody gigs). Other
members have come and gone, but this talented duo has given their sound
a buzzing-growly definition that no rhythm section could seduce. The
ANTiSEEN catalog has been a shambles for years, and TKO Records is
taking on the admirable task of rationalizing it and reissuing it.
The
first installment in TKO Records' Vault of ANTiSEEN Rollout is
Drastic / E.P. Royalty, a reissue of their first two EPs (1985
and 1986). With 14 gruff tracks in 22 sludgy minutes, it's probably
gonna kick your superego right out the back door and get your id (and
gut) running for the hills. The muddy sound and rudimentary Black Flag
imitations don't score many points for originality, but you can hear
that crazy Jeff Clayton coming into his own by rattling the stalactites
in his whiskey-burned pharynx as if he were Yosemite Sam doing a Lemmy
Kilmeister imitation. And guitarist Joe Young was obviously learning a
lot from Tony Iommi and Greg Ginn. The debut Drastic EP is the
weaker of these twins, though I dig the shaking-cage anarchy of "Queen
City Stomp" and the psuedo-Stooges anomie-dirge "Nothings Cool". E.P.
Royalty, on the other hand, is non-stop fun, even if the jokes fall
flat and the politics start getting weird. The sound is a lot more
rhythmic, speedy, and funky, and I'm guessing that the presence of
bassist Marlon Cherry -- a black man in a southern redneck punk band --
has something to do with it. (For those who care, closet KISS fan Marlon
is now a member of the NYC experimental-rhythm troupe Mecca Bodega, featured
occasionally on National Public Radio.) The opening track -- an
inevitable anti-scene gripe called "N.C. Royalty" -- is a headlong
bass-heavy rush with a burly Jeff-Clayton bellow declaring that the
"N.C. Royalty are ruining my life". Whatever, 1986 was a weird year for
all of us. Still, you might want to listen to "WhitEtrasHbitcH" more
than once, because they seem to actually sympathize with the poor
sex-slave eternal-teenager whose husband keeps calling her a "white
trash bitch". It ends with the protagonist putting a gun to her
husband's head. (I betcha Le Tigre or the Gossip would do a job on this
tune.) On the other hand "RUBY, RUBY, get back to the hills" is Kenny
Rogers reversed, a noisy ruckus with ambiguous lyrics. I vote for the
stagedive favorite "Cop Out" as the best track here: hardcore
transmogrifying back and forth into a funky spatter of angry bile. On
the whole the Drastic / E.P. Royalty disc is mostly a historical
curiosity, a dirt-eating trip into the germination of the whole Southern
hardcore scene. I dig it, but I also dig Black Flag's Slip It In,
so be forewarned.
Part two of the ANTiSEEN rollout is their 1993 album Eat More
Possum, and this hunk of noise is an absolute masterpiece, one of
the greatest punk albums ever recorded. And if you're shaking your head
at my hyperbole, then you haven't heard this new remastered version.
Apparently the original release in '93 was a nightmarish sludgefest,
mixed with no definition or separation of parts. Just an amorphous sonic
mulch. After several remasters and reissues (detailed in the liner
notes), TKO Records finally hit the zone with this definitive version, a
spine-tingling concept album about eating meat and living large in
Dixie. Hell, purgatory spat the eternal soul of Stonewall Jackson back
onto the swampy earth just so he could hear this shit for a brief
second. For all I know, this is the first New South hardcore LP to take
its inspiration directly from George Clinton: it begins with a spacey
speech from the Cosmic Commander of Wrestling ("They have told me
rock'n'roll and wrestling secrets that no other human here has ever
heard") and segues directly into bracing cover of the Ramones' "Today
Your Love, Tomorrow the World". Well, they cover the first part of that
anyway: after someone counts down in German midway through it, they
blast off with their own raucous anthem called "Stormtrooper", a
bellowing hardcore tune like you've never heard. The rest of the album
wrestles across the mudflats, with conceptual interludes by Jack Starr
and some creepy Deliverance-type warbling oddball, and lots and
lots of noise. "Animals...Eat 'Em" is the album's centerpiece, a
thumping anthem for carnivores that takes a jocular logical viewpoint
("Animals, eat 'em / So you don't have to feed 'em"). Me, I don't eat
meat, but I much prefer the proud "fuck you " of this tune to the
quivering-lip sanctimony of the Smiths' "Meat is Murder" (and anyway
both songs just preach to the converted so there's no point in
condemning either for errors of moral dietetics). Other highlights
include the harmonica-inflected "Shittin' In High Cotton", the speedball
cautionary sex tale "Break It Off" ("I'll have to break it off in your
ass"), and the speaks-for-itself hooky punktoon "Trapped in Dixie".
Throughout, you can picture that burly nutcase Jeff Clayton "juicing"
his face (i.e. cutting up his forehead and letting the blood run down)
and leaning into the crowd as noise guitarist Joe Young keeps the
adrenaline riffs rolling. This was 1993. Cobain? He couldn't pour piss
out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.
ANTiSEEN are still going strong (check their website for a gig near you),
and though I ain't about to debate them on politics, I do dig their
righteous working-class rage all the way down to the carnivorous core.
So check out these albums: it's the "other side" of punk that you rarely
hear about while flipping through Maximum Rock'n'roll or
consulting the Trouser Press guides. Decadent, drowning in whiskey,
violent, dangerous, it's a pretty fucking necessary antidote to
political puritanism. And yeah, if I could recruit 'em to my left side
of the political fence, I would. Sometimes I think they're halfway here
already.
— 21 February 2003
