It’s a bit hard for me to write about these guys at this point. I have written about them before. Then I booked shows for them. Then I went on tour with them. I told them I probably wouldn’t write about them again: that the conflict of interest was too great, that we were friends, that we should let that be that. But there’s always something that keeps me involved, something that keeps me telling those around me about Clockcleaner (or Clockclean Er, however they think it should be spelled), and now it’s pretty much all about saying goodbye to John Sharkey III (the one with the bat) for a while.
This guy. He’s in love so he moves to Australia and starts working for VICE Magazine. That’s how you do it, I suppose. Meet somebody, quit your job, move out of your life, sell everything and bail. Get a Comsat Angels-themed tattoo. Let your inner Goth out and allow it to bleed black all over your noise rock band’s damaged sounds and GG Allin worship. If you’re going to flame out, this is how it should be done.
You should also anger as many people along the way as possible. I caught their final US show for some time at Southpaw in Brooklyn a few weeks back, opening for the reunited Negative Approach. What’s the best way to close this set, you ask? How’s this: cover NA’s “Ready to Fight” but get the rhythm section to slow it down to a crawl, the way Flipper would have done it, and let it roll for about 20 minutes. This show was bad enough–a band that had killed it at a reunion for Touch & Go’s 25th Anniversary concerts 18 months earlier had been ground down to a pop-up hardcore re-enactment that had all the personality of the animatronic puppet band at a Chuck E. Cheese, replete with the kids going nuts for tokens while the adults sat back with their slice of pizza and $6 Miller Lites, waiting for them to wear themselves out so they could go home. This is the bird in the hand, as it were, to a band like Clockcleaner, who live to irritate audiences and lambaste all who aren’t in on the joke. After a respectable set of their own material and a cover of GG’s “Hate City,” they laid into it–and would not stop, despite the consternation of the crowd. They clipped the fuse; made ‘em wait it out. They got booed and spit on and had beers thrown at them, but they continued to grind out one of the headliner’s most caustic songs to ashes. Brannon was mad. Everybody was mad. But it was hilarious, and had to happen. (The performance is being released on a 12” single later this year, along with a single of GG Allin covers, and a split EP with Deerhunter, contractually credited to Cockcleaner and Queerhunter).
There’s really not a lot to Clockcleaner’s sound, and never was, but their dark, nihilistic slashery has a place in my heart. Look for another full-length, entitled Auf Wiedersehen, due out in 2009, with a U.S. tour to follow. And enjoy the jams provided to Fuzz from their last release, Babylon Rules.
