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 ThingsAcid 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 SpineMinistry - I See Red
