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PROLOGUE |
For a little more than a decade -- from the appearance of the EP Remission in 1984 to
the release of The
Process in 1996 -- the Canadian band Skinny Puppy infused the
electronic-experimental music scene with new life, and inspired a generation of fans and
fellow artists with their uncompromising sound and live performances. Utilizing
synthesizers, sequencers, samplers, every imaginable percussional instrument, guitars, as
well as found sounds and media samples, cEvin Key and Dwayne Goettel
created the sometimes beautiful, often grotesque, but always fascinating sound scapes of Skinny
Puppy's music.
The enigmatic vocalist Nivek
Ogre supplied the music with haunting and poignant lyrics that combined the personal
emotions and concerns of Ogre himself, with issues of universal socio-political
importance. He also conceived of and designed the band's graphic stage shows and videos,
drawing upon a vast catalogue of theatrics and horror movie tactic.
Instrumental in combining the
creative elements of Skinny Puppy to form a unified whole was David
(Rave) Ogilvie, who assisted the band throughout its life in the studio, as well as
on the road. He was often referred to as the fourth member of the band, but only received
credit as such on the 1988 release VIVISect VI.
As with all truly original music, Skinny
Puppy's sound defies categorization or easy description. Genre descriptions such
as 'industrial,' 'cyberpunk,' 'experimental,' and 'electronica' all hint at different
aspects of the band, but none of them do Skinny Puppy justice. Predicates
such as 'aural sculptures,' 'music for the eyes' and 'movies without images' come closer
to describing their sound. However, the only really appropriate word in reference to Skinny
Puppy is unique. |
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Front Page |
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Works |
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Credits |
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Reviews |
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Home |
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CHAPTER I:
The World As Seen Through The Eyes Of A
Pair Of Puppies |
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Skinny Puppy came about through the happy
coincidence of Kevin Crompton (cEvin Key) and Kevin Ogilvie (Nivek
Ogre) having a mutual friend in Images In Vogue -- the band Crompton
played drums for at the time. Both were fond of horror movies and the experimental music
of the time, and together they took to hanging out in Vancouver's art galleries and the
local bowling alley. On one such occasion, Crompton's imagination was fired by
the gurgling sounds that his friend would make to the songs playing on the jukebox, at the
diner they were sitting in. Crompton invited Ogilvie home to the small
studio that he had already managed to install in his apartment, and urged him to 'gurgle'
over some of the music he had composed. The eventual result of these early efforts became
"Canine," the very first Skinny Puppy song.
At this time (1983), Kevin
Crompton had already played in a series of bands, and had been musically inclined
since childhood. Apparently the Cromptons were very supportive of the artistic
aspirations of their children, all three of which ended up successfully involved in
various areas of the arts and entertainment industries. Kevin's interest in
electronically-based music came, when he was exposed to Kraftwerk's
"Radioactivity" in the early 70s. In an interview from 1996 Kevin
mentioned that after hearing Kraftwerk, he felt like throwing his record
collection out and starting over ("Weird Energy").
Shortly after this, Kevin's
father arranged to have his son travel to Japan through a Lion's Club student exchange
program. Kevin was seventeen at the time, and the confrontation with Eastern
culture left a lasting impression upon him. In various interviews, he has cited this early
stay in Japan as responsible for his subsequent love of travel, and things foreign in
general, as well as his assimilation of various ethnic percussion styles into his own.
During his stay he also discovered the music of Y.M.O., which furthered
his interest in electronically generated music.
Personally, Kevin's
musical aspirations saw him playing in a small punk band called The Fuck Brothers,
and later in Bastille, which played 'hard rock,' and featured the vocals
of Al Nelson, whom Kevin much later would work with again in Hilt.
Finally, he became involved in Images In Vogue, a Canadian 'New
Romantics' band, which played opening gigs for some of the big British bands of that genre
at the time: Duran Duran and Roxy Music. Images
In Vogue was being carefully marketed and musically manipulated to fit into this
movement, and the whole music industry game sickened Kevin, who was into music
for the music's sake, and not for the money as such.
Inspired by bands of the
experimental scene -- Throbbing Gristle and Nocturnal Emissions
-- Kevin began to compose and record his own music at home. When he met Kevin
Ogilvie, he had already been toying with the idea for a band based on the
premise of life as seen through a dog's eyes for some time. |
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Unlike Crompton, Kevin Ogilvie had never imagined that he would become
involved in music at all. He had written poetry for years, and appreciated the music of
such bands as Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen and Bauhaus,
but had never played an instrument himself. In a 1995 interview in Guitar World, Ogilvie
described the musical climate in Canada in the late 70s and early 80s as dominated by
heavy metal, but with a big underground circuit of tape-exchanging, through which he
became introduced to many of the experimental European and American bands of the
time. |
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Incidentally, the same
tape-exchange network would later bring Skinny Puppy's initial tape Back
& Forth to the attention of fans and people in the music industry alike.
The few references made by Ogilvie
to his childhood and youth, are sketches of a shy and secluded boy, who would loose
himself in books. In an interview with Andreas Veneris in 1996, he describes his
discovery of the book Maldoror (a work written by the mysterious 18th. century
writer Lautreamont, who disappeared at the age of 24, leaving behind his book to
be discovered in the 1920s/30s by the surrealists, who saw it as a forerunner for their
movement), as a life changing experience that "...influenced a lot of my views about
life, death and certain other things."
The discovery that he could express
himself through music has been cited by Kevin Ogilvie as therapeutic. "I
have a very bad problem with stress...," he said in an early interview, "...it
makes my mind hurt. I get reclusive, so this is the opposite of that and that's to push
you out and let it all out (Mandova)." At the same time, the prospect of performing
in an experimental band also represented a way for Ogilvie to escape the mundane
lifestyle that he later attacked in some of his lyrics. "Getting involved in Skinny
Puppy," he commented in another interview "...was just kind of a jolt
from life more than anything else. I think it was our need to not adopt to the norm
(Tywoniak)."
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< CHAPTER II
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