The aural abuse begins at three minutes to midnight.
A band called Iron Bitchface starts to create what can
only be called music by the loosest, most incorrect definition
of the word.
Vocalist K-Rot, his hands and face smeared with blood --
fake, presumably, but real wouldn't be surprising -- screams into
the microphone.
"Sklaaadge!" he shouts, or something like it. "Schnudge preeee braaacht!"
If he is actually squealing real words, they're mangled beyond
recognition by excessive volume, electronic distortion, lousy acoustics and K-Rot's
own ragged vocal cords.
Meanwhile, the other member of Iron Bitchface, Deevon666, assaults a
guitar. The guitar, in return, emits some very angry-sounding noises.
This "song," according to the set list, is called The
Grimmest Most Frostbitten Necro Birthday Party. The audience at the
Circus Room -- a couple-dozen masochists who have opted to
spend a Saturday night being deafened by Iron Bitchface --
looks suitably appalled.
Here's the thing about Iron Bitchface: they suck. Just ask
them.
"People say we suck all the time, and we're with
them," K-Rot, a.k.a. Kyle Martin, a 24-year-old laid off B.F.
Goodrich worker, said before the concert. "We're the first to
admit that we suck. A lot."
K-Rot and Deevon666 don't know how to play any instruments.
In the five years that Iron Bitchface has existed, the
band has never rehearsed.
What's remarkable about Iron Bitchface is that, in spite their
worst efforts, people come to their shows.
Not many people, mind you. The band plays small clubs,
basements, and once at an outdoor fountain in downtown Copenhagen.
Yes, that Copenhagen. The band has performed in dozens of
cities across Canada, the United States and Europe.
"We don't understand it," K-Rot said. "I don't know how
we got an audience, but wherever we go, people are
there."
Deevon666, who is actually a friendly 21-year-old temp worker named
Devon McNeil, added: "It confuses us."
Really bad music, it seems, is a viable genre.
In fact, Iron Bitchface has recently become associated with a
Toronto-based movement known as The Bad Bands Revolution -- a
kind of fraternity of groups who flaunt, rather than hide,
their talentlessness.
The movement flips a collective middle finger to Toronto's vibrant
music culture, which was recently praised in New York Times
Magazine for spawning acclaimed, member-swapping bands like Broken Social Scene.
The unofficial leader of the Bad Band's Revolution, Dollarama, uses
instruments bought at the bargain store of the same name
(and performs this Saturday at the Jane Bond in Waterloo).
The bands in the collective are connected through their pages
on myspace.com, where fans everywhere seeking terrible tunes can find
them.
At last count, Iron Bitchface had 1,767 "friends" linked to
its myspace page -- hardly an army, but lots for
a band whose site boasts "We are a scam."
By popular demand from fans overseas, Iron Bitchface will soon
head out on a 10-date tour across Europe, from Hamburg
to Paris, with a long stretch in Sweden, where obscenely
heavy music has a devoted following.
"I can't believe we're doing Europe again," K-Rot said. "But
they're begging us to come back."
That anyone at all enjoys Iron Bitchface is perplexing for
K-Rot, who never intended for anyone to hear his sonic
experiments when he first started goofing around on his computer.
"I gave a tape to someone, they gave it to
someone else, we got a gig, and it snowballed from
there. And now it has gone way, way too far."
Since then, he has recorded 10 or so albums, all
self-produced none-hit-wonders that have garnered almost universally negative reviews.
Metal-observer.com wrote that the latest Iron Bitchface album, Pulse Pounding
Cyberslam, "isn't music at all," and that readers should "be
grateful for not having to listen to this."
Exclaim! magazine praised the album Grindwhore666 for one thing: that
it is really short.
But positive reviews are out there. One, on wavelengthtoronto.com, lauded
the band's latest album as "the Sgt. Pepper's of our
time." Seriously.
"The positive reviews are so weird," Deevon666 says. "What are
these people
hearing?"
The band's set at the Circus Room is mercifully brief
-- about 15 minutes of earsplitting noise that K-Rot likens
to "someone throwing a toolbox down a flight of stairs,
then screaming."
The audience applauds, possibly in appreciation of the music, but
more likely in appreciation of its cessation.
K-Rot heads to the men's room to wash off the
dried, fake (?) blood.
"It was a good show," he says, scrubbing his face.
"Well, not a good show."
As bad bands go, Iron Bitchface proudly ranks among the
worst.
"The thing is, if we knew how to play our
instruments, we'd just be a real band getting nowhere," says
Deevon666.
"We don't even try, and soon we're going to tour
Europe again. It's pretty strange, when you think about it."
chunter@therecord.com
