PTP - Rubber Glove Seduction

Think of this as the precursor to the WaxTrax! post that will appear next week, as part of what made that label so unique was it's incestuous relationship between it's artists and their various projects. Probably the most productive of the label's artists was Al Jourgensen who was best known for recording as Ministry, often with Paul Barker, but after signing with Sire Records they began releasing excess recordings and side projects under varying aliases at a ridiculous rate via WaxTrax! Records. Some of these other groups, most of which consisted of the same people who worked as Ministry, were Revolting Cocks (with Luc Van Acker), Lard (with Jello Biafra), Lead Into Gold (primarily a solo vehicle for Paul Barker), Pailhead (with Ian MacKaye), 1000 Homo DJs (with Jello and Trent Reznor), Acid Horse (with Cabaret Voltaire) and PTP (with Chris Connelly and Ogre). Revolting Cocks, 1000 Homo DJs, Lard and Pailhead are pretty well known, but PTP and Acid Horse are sadly overlooked gems among these alternate identities.

PTP is short for Programming The Psychodrill, a JG Ballard reference which I suppose one doesn't need get to enjoy the music. I'd read in an interview with Jourgensen that PTP was intended as a new solo vehicle for himself, one where he'd tour by himself, playing small clubs, with nothing more than a Marshall Stack, a Fairlite, and one would assume a guitar, but apart from one ridiculous 12" very little came of that promise. Of course, we're talking about Al Jourgensen here, a guy who has been known to tell interviewers tall tales about whatever came to his mind, for instance answering when asked where they got their synths and guitar equipment that Ministry merely picked up things from Radio Shack without any prior knowledge to the instruments and their abilities. There is a neat myth built with those stories, but unlike Kurt Cobain talking about living under a bridge (didn't happen) or Bob Dylan recording albums' worth of material in a basement while recovering from a broken neck (totally happened!), these ones are easy to write off or ignore in favor of the music's depth, which is clearly far greater than the supposed ignorance involved in it's creation.

Rubber Glove Seduction featured two tracks, both primarily helmed by Jourgensen with help from longtime collaborators Chris Connelly and Paul Barker. Supposedly, Rubber Glove Seduction was something of an underground club hit, which is believable, although I can't find any proof of it. Chris Connelly's haunting monotone, talking about a kitchen clock, a wife and a knife, feels like some kind of ridiculous drug joke, and probably would be thoroughly unsatisfying on it's own if it weren't for Jourgensen's bizarre disco beat and crazy sound effects. There are sped-up recordings of cops from a television show, sirens panning from speaker to speaker, people talking about who knows what running underneath the track, and the song ending with someone forcefully tearing the needle off the record. All together, it's strangely funky, danceable, hilarious, kinky and bizarre, and as such earns a special place in my heart. Would've been nice if the project had continued, but I suppose, like most things Jourgensen-related, the brilliance at hand was related to whatever chemicals were present at the time.

The b-side was My Favorite Things, once again featuring Connelly's vocals, albeit in a very goth way, not dissimilar to Jourgensen's own vocals throughout his early works like Halloween or the Twitch album, which has led to many assuming incorrectly that Jourgensen was indeed singing here. The track started it's life as I See Red, a Ministry contribution intended for a PETA compilation that was recorded during the Twitch era. Unfortunately, Sire Records, Ministry's then-label would not allow them to appear on the comp which was to be released on WaxTrax!, so the track remained unreleased until circa 1989, when Connelly wrote the new, Sound Of Music cribbing lyrics, thus making it a new and different song. It's a great example of Jourgensen's automated war-machine music with it's pounding drums, glam-sounding guitar solos and Connelly's vocals.

Those two songs were the sole releases by PTP until 2004 when Ryko, who had licensed significant chunks of the WaxTrax! catalog after TVT Records' demise, briefly released a compilation of Jourgensen's shorter-lived side projects from the WaxTrax! days as a Ministry compilation named Side Trax. Upon this gem was a previously unreleased PTP track, Show Me Your Spine, which featured Ogre from Skinny Puppy on vocals in his first collaboration with Jourgensen. The song, otherwise, only made a brief appearance in the first Robo Cop film as a replacement for a Ministry track that Sire was asking simply too much money for. It dates from 1987 so it's more akin to Jourgensen's sound from the Twitch era as opposed to the more refined, mechanized warfare of Rubber Glove Seduction and it's b-side.

It's worth noting that the PTP line-up recorded at least one other song that saw release, although not as PTP. Rather, Ministry collaborated with Cabaret Voltaire to record No Name, No Slogan, which saw release under the name Acid Horse. A different version of the track was featured on each side of the single, the first being a Luxa/Pan produced version, the production alias for Jourgensen and Barker, with the second being the Cabaret Voltaire version. The Luxa/Pan version strongly resembles the production of Rubber Glove Seduction, even featuring Connelly's dry monotone all over again, although the track isn't nearly as insane and therefore doesn't hold the same charm, instead coming off almost as though it were unfinished. On the other hand, the Cabaret Voltaire version is electric and intense, with samples from Clint Eastwood westerns and vocoder running throughout it's nine minutes, giving one the funky heebie-jeebies! Both groups took writing credit for both versions of the song, though who knows how the song actually originated. With a title like No Name, No Slogan, it sounds like they decided how they wanted their collaboration to go over, but probably had to pick a better sounding band-name before releasing the final product. Acid Horse, one would assume, is either a joke about acid house or a list of the collaborator's favorite chemical substances, something that sounds believable either way.

Most of these events all occurred circa 1989, smack in the middle of Ministry's golden age spanning the releases of The Land Of Rape and Honey, The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste and Psalm 69. Sadly, while the post-Psalm 69 era of Ministry releases weren't horrid, they certainly weren't nearly as inspired, probably in large part to Jourgensen's growing chemical addictions. Arrests, overdoses, and rumors of adult diapers circulated from Filth Pig onward, until Jourgensen apparently got clean, found himself in the middle of a vicious divorce, got dropped by their long-time label and eventually rediscovered himself by returning Ministry's sound to that of an electric biker band bent on destroying everything in it's path and focusing it's attention on Jourgensen's obsessively unhealthy disdain for George W. Bush. On top of all this, Paul Barker left the group for undisclosed reasons, which changed the dynamics thoroughly, eventually leading to Jourgensen retiring the Ministry name in favor of continuing to record as Revolting Cocks, now generally referred to as RevCo. As much as it sucks that inspired side-projects like these of his WaxTrax! days are never to reappear, at least what saw release is thoroughly unforgettable.

For your listening pleasure, I've included downloads of both the PTP and Acid Horse singles here, but I've also posted extra downloads of PTP's Show Me Your Spine and a version of Ministry's unreleased I See Red. Show Me Your Spine sounds wonderful, but please forgive the lack of fidelity on I See Red as it sounds like someone recorded it with a hand-held tape-deck. Essential listening though, as it's all very funky!


PTP - Rubber Glove Seduction



01 Rubber Glove Seduction
02 My Favorite Things


Acid Horse - No Name, No Slogan



01 No Name, No Slogan (Luxa/Pan Version)
02 No Name, No Slogan (Cabaret Voltaire Version)


PTP - Show Me Your Spine

Ministry - I See Red