Fear, Power, God

FEAR POWER GOD The Birth of Tragedy magazine, with a title lifted from the book by Nietzsche of the same name, marked a certain sort of scabrous and profane looking into the garbaged heart of our present place in space. Simultaneously and unapologetically intellectual and resolutely probing, The Birth of Tragedy's examination of SEX, DEPRESSION, FEAR, POWER, GOD, LOVE and the almost-soon-to-be-never-released MADNESS issue formed a sui generis basis for reinterpreting the entire premise of spoken word recordings: how you said it mattered not, it was all about what you said. And pulling interviewed artists from the Fear, Power, and God issues of the Birth of Tragedy was easy, as was aligning their varied interests and approaches. Recording was full on guerilla style with everybody recording their contribution on whatever they had available. Art was generated by the inimitable and now artist of some renown Jim Blanchard and with its white vinyl [also initially released on cassette tape] on the US releases and black vinyl on the UK releases [the largely suspect Worker's Playtime Records], most of the heavy lifting was done. Right in time to have its distribution done in by the folding of distributor [Jem, Systematic, and Rough Trade, in pretty short order] after distributor. Fitful later attempts to reissue the record, most notably by the Swiss German label Skin & Speech, turned up little and in the intervening years since its 1988 release, in addition to the deaths of several of some of the original participants, no one's approached who was even remotely interested in resurrecting it in anywhere near to its original glory. Until now. And this Blackhouse-led initiativea rare and limited re-issue of a rare and limited issueÑmarks the last and fi nal chapter in this glorious and storied enterprise. Though Allen Ginsberg, Anton LaVey from the Church of Satan, Mr. V.O. Real, and Whipping Boy have all shuffl ed off of this mortal coil, the remaining participantsÑ LYDIA LUNCH, MATT HECKERT formerly of SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABS, CHARLES MANSON, JELLO BIAFRA and HENRY ROLLINS are still destroying anti-culture, one project at a time. And for this I have to say to some degree we're all a little bit better off.

A1 Lydia Lunch – The Human Animal (4:29)
A2 Matt Heckert – Untitled (2:51)
A3 Lawrence Ferlinghetti – The Lord's Prayer (1:13)
A4 Charles Manson – Prison Tape (3:49)
A5 Mr. V.O. Real – Balls In The Great Meat Grinder (2:11)
B1 Jello Biafra – Alien Orders (3:18)
B2 Jello Biafra – Space Shuttle (2:31)
B3 Allen Ginsberg – A Song (2:23)
B4 Allen Ginsberg – Dream About William Carlos Williams (0:54)
B5 Anton Szandor LaVey – Book IV (3:02)
B6 Henry Rollins – L.A. (7:53)
B7 Whipping Boy – The 3rd Secret (1:51)

• Fear, Power, God (1987) - 256 Kbps

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