Killing Joke

The wrong site, surely?

I think a certain somebody on ILM/ILX would be best suited to solve this, Matt!

You can borrow my cassette of it if I still have it... - what's the crack?

Great album, btw. Fond memories of wandering down Oxford Street in the pissing rain with it on headphones and wondering whether it was, actually, the end of the world. In a good way!

i'll do you the complete works (well the good three) matt plus 'psyche' the Bside of wardance, -- it'll help work off the ever mounting debt

WOEBOT said:

who's that then? is there a resident killing joke geezer there? and what's this "ILM/ILX" thing you mention

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Yeah - one of few things I know on there is that Alex NYC is a killing Joke obsessive. I think he drew most of the album covers in that microsoft draw contest.

i remember working on a fruit and veg stall and one of my customers came down in a killing joke t-shirt and i didnt know whether to talk to him about them or not. i chickened out in the end...

WOEBOT said:

its a Rip It Up And Start again thing Jonno.

I used to have this one:

which was really quite cool. the reason i remember getting rid of it was that (enters confessional mode) there was something quite frighteningly lumpen about it. now i really enjoy music like that.

reynolds is particularly good on revelations:

"Starting with their second album What's THIS For....! and reaching fruition on 1982's awesome Revelations, Killing Joke stripped away the mod-ish Metal Box-era elements and strood proudly exposed as what they truly were: a post-punk version of Heavy Metal, a death-disco Black Sabbath."

True innit!

And, hipsters, it should be duly noted that Conny Plank produced "Revelations". Seals the deal.

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Yeah, that first one is amazing - Wardance and all that mad hissing synth stuff. I've got the singles CD comp if you want a burn of that. Paul will be along in a minute to say they have absolutely no connection with goth, but I'm not so sure... oh and I think I still have the CD that Jaz Coleman did with Anne Dudley somehwhere.

I was a teenage Killing Joke obsessive. Absolutely loved them.

The best album is What's THIS for -- still killer. The first one is close, especially for the metal funk of Primitive and the industrial groove of SO36. Wardance is over-rated. Revelations is excellent but the Conny Plank production does take a little of the edge off, though his remixes of Eighties on the 12" are fantastic. Anyone remember their performances on the Tube around the time of Revelations? Fucking unbelievable.
My cousin Sally used to know them.

Sadly all my KJ records went into storage last week, alongside all my other records bar one box of reggae, so I can't sort you out with copies.

Jaz seemed to know his onions when it came to geomancy. BTW I definitely got the impression that the Killing Joke crowd, like the Tackhead crowd, were into acid house early.

2stepfan said:

Jaz seemed to know his onions when it came to geomancy. BTW I definitely got the impression that the Killing Joke crowd, like the Tackhead crowd, were into acid house early.

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Well, Youth became the brain behind the pioneer goa trance label Dragonfly, didn't he?

hamarplazt said:

Well, Youth became the brain behind the pioneer goa trance label Dragonfly, didn't he?

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Yeah, but that was a lot later. When he formed Brilliant after he left Killing Joke, it was like he was kicking his heels waiting for acid house to start for years.

hamarplazt said:

Well, Youth became the brain behind the pioneer goa trance label Dragonfly, didn't he?

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He was doing stuff with Jimmy Cauty and Alex Patterson in the early days of the JAMMS/KLF and is very much involved in the first few ORB releases. I think AP was KJ's roadie.

I was a massive fan of the first 3 albums and all the singles up to Follow The Leader...

Killing Joke are one of my all time favourites...

Geordie's guitar work is amazing and even when they're a bit cheesy (who isn't? come on) they're still great.

Wasn't Jimmy Cauty the guitarist in Brilliant? Alex Paterson was the KJ roadie, I think. Apparently Paul McCartney did a couple of albums with Youth as The Fireman. But to my mind the stars are Geordie and Jaz Coleman.

Yeah, they're a highly influential band - eg. Ministry/RevCo, Godflesh (aka Fall of Because), Nirvana, and erm... heaps of good bands! and yeah there's definitely a goth connection - at least with the goths I used to know. Wasn't "Love Like Blood" some kind of a goth anthem? My ex-girlfriend used to swear by Brighter than a Thousand Suns.

I got into them with the Extremities album which came out when I was discovering music in school. It took a few listens to get into but once I got there I've been stuck ever since. The early albums are classics yeah (nuff said) but I recently dug out their Pandemonium album with all the cheesy fractals etc on the cover - pretty good, worth another listen at least except I preferred the original mix of "Pandemonium" on the single (who on earth is Cybersank??). The new album is good too.

I worshipped them when I was in high school--up to the time of their first "reunion", 1990 or so

Later, though, when I actually saw them play, I found Jaz Coleman's stage presence mortifying--his gurning and playacting swerving way too close to metallish theatricality for my taste. Flinging fake money about and stuff

Do any of you remember Paul Morley's encounter with them, as recounted in Ask? He'd given them a bad review, when they were at the apex of their culty/thuggy vibe, and then had to interview them. Morley was sortof scared of them if I remember

juliand said:

when I actually saw them play, I found Jaz Coleman's stage presence mortifying--his gurning and playacting swerving way too close to metallish theatricality for my taste. Flinging fake money about and stuff

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yeah I saw them play for the first time a couple of years ago and yeah there was the same stuff which I found a bit corny... but I got over it. I guess Jaz must have lost his leather jacket

So metal's bad eh... Are you trying to say that there's no theatricality when non-metal bands play - and that's better? What would the other punks say?

juliand said:

Do any of you remember Paul Morley's encounter with them, as recounted in Ask? He'd given them a bad review, when they were at the apex of their culty/thuggy vibe, and then had to interview them. Morley was sortof scared of them if I remember

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No idea. Were they winding him up? Or were they just sick of doing inane interviews? Do tell: sounds interesting.

Is this the guy they claim(ed) to have gaffer taped to the PA when he turned up to their sound-check after slagging them off in a review? (I read this in an interview years ago - funny story but possibly bullshit)

D84 said:

No idea. Were they winding him up? Or were they just sick of doing inane interviews? Do tell: sounds interesting.

Is this the guy they claim(ed) to have gaffer taped to the PA when he turned up to their sound-check after slagging them off in a review? (I read this in an interview years ago - funny story but possibly bullshit)

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He'd given them a bad review and they were furious--soon after he had to interview them -at their house- where, upon entering, jaz shouted "the entertainment has arrived!" and proceeded to rant. The reason its funny is because the same thing happened with Bauhaus, and David J's line was "You'd have got your head kicked in if we were Killing Joke!" Morley is hilarious.