The Nihilist Spasm Band at Les Foufounes Electriques, 1989

The Nihilist Spasm Band at Les Foufounes Electriques

Reviewed by Carleen Knowlton

The word that best describes Montreal's Les Foufounes Electriques night spot is "cold," both in temperature and in feeling. But when London's Nihilist Spasm Band took to the stage on Sunday night, March 12, [1989,] the atmosphere was transformed into kazoo heaven.

Located on Ste. Catherine Street, just east of The Main (Blvd. St. Laurent), the club is in the centre of the city's red light district. The sight of scantily-dressed women with long legs, knee-high boots, skin-tight jeans or shorter-than-short skirts, and waist-length fur jackets is not uncommon.

The corner of Ste. Catherine and St. Laurent is the Mecca of Montreal's street people. Vagrants of all shapes and sizes converge on this area like maggots on a piece of rotting meat. Some sleep in doorways while others root through garbage cans to select their evening meal.

A district where philosophies of life run amok is somehow the perfect spot for a band whose philosophy is null and void. The Foufounes, with its blackened walls, exposed plumbing, and nondescript furniture, is a most suitable venue for a group whose loud and raunchy sounds could wake the dead.

Greg Curnoe (drums) reminds me of a kid in a candy store. Whether beating wildly on his homemade sheet metal cymbal, or softly tapping the snare, he grins devilishly as he sets the pace for music which is both interesting and fun.

Murray Favro and Galen Curnoe—Greg's son, subbing for the absent John Clement—use their adapted guitars to create a sound you can feel from the inside out.

John Boyle plays a kazoo which resembles something one might happen upon in a junkyard. A cross between a mutilated trumpet and a deformed foghorn, Boyle's amplified kazoo adds to the overall theme of the band with its uniquely enchanting sound.

Contributions from the Casio electronic keyboards, masterfully plucked by Mark Favro—Murray's son, sitting in for missing regulars Hugh McIntyre (bass) and Art Pratten (pratt-a-various)—help to fill the bar with a strained resonance that pierces like chalk screeching across a blackboard.

The pièce de resistance of the evening is the totally bizarre object played by Bill Exley. An ordinary kitchen pot is transformed into a most unusual musical object. With intense concentration, Exley gives new meaning to the word "improvise." Filled with a bunch of marbles, its lid held on with masking tape, he holds the pot close to the microphone and shakes up a sound one is accustomed to hearing in a daycare centre. With a quick flick of the wrist, the tape is ripped off and the lid is used to bang the pot into total insensibility. Then, just as effectively, a shift to a slow tapping demonstrates the versatility of something as common as THE POT. In a final variation, a brief, silent pause is broken by a series of pangs as marbles are dropped individually into the pot.

Exley is also the vocalist of the group; that is, if you want to call the monosyllabic screams he conjures up vocals.

Adding up the sum of the parts results in a sound, or noise, which is capable of building from a whimper to a roar. The intensity of the music moves slowly up and down with the rhythm of a wave, or jumps erratically like an out-of-control Slinky.

There are times when the band produces a raunchy, evil-sounding cry that would scare the shit out of a wild animal.

The audience, mostly an under-30 crowd who prefer to dress in black clothes bought from the Salvation Army, liked the Nihilist Spasm Band. About forty listeners were on hand to catch the one-night show, appearing enthusiastic as the band played an array of original tunes which featured the requested "No Canada." At the end of each set, members of the audience came forward to buy the band's records and ask for autographs. It was a triumphant performance.

The band, whose next stop was to be a lecture series and performance at Obscur, a Quebec City art gallery, is a bit of an oddity in the late 1980s. Having been playing their distinctive distorto-music together for over 24 years, it is interesting how their music appeals to a new generation. A return engagement would be a delight to Sunday's crowd, and a treat for anyone who has not yet experienced the Nihilist Spasm Band.

— Montreal-born Carleen Knowlton was a freelance Montreal journalist when she wrote this piece in 1989. She later moved to New York City, and for several years has been living in France, near the Swiss border, where she has a wonderful view of Mont Blanc.

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