Tools
The Icarus Line
w/Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Thermals
Stranger Personals
Fri April 25, Showbox, 6 pm, $10 adv/$12 DOS (all ages).
The last time I hung with the Icarus Line, a deathly gloom hung over 'em as guitarist Aaron North pieced together broken instruments, grumbled about their zero-budget touring aesthetic, and summed up their destructive nihilism in terms of, "Well, I know I'm fucked, so fuck it, I might as well break everything."
Then there was the time we were all pressed to the floor of a minivan parked outside Austin, TX's Emo's minutes before their afternoon 2002 SXSW set, hiding from the local Hard Rock Cafe's bouncers, who were out to pound the boys after North's forceful "liberation" of a Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar at their show the previous night (a glorious vision of droning slow-mo hate-rock and random acts of goaded spite and violence that has burnt itself into infamy).
This time--backstage at a North London venue, moments before they play a magnificent set of septic Iggy ramalama and droning wah-driven epics of disaffection--North and singer Joe Cardamone radiate a beatific calm you might call happiness, were that emotion within the band's vocabulary. "It's because we were up all night snorting ecstasy," grins Cardamone. "It's a fresh start for us, we fuckin' fired everyone--manager, lawyer, everyone--and started over."
Cardamone's not lying. The Texas madness came at the end of a grueling six-week European tour, and marked a turning point for the band. The atmosphere within the group was, in Cardamone's words, "random and chaotic"--and it had been that way for too long.
"We ran it that way until the wheels fell off," surmises North. "And when the wheels fell off we had to find another way to do it."
The Icarus Line have carved a vicious red and black swath through rock 'n' roll since their formation in 1999. Shows were raucous, destructive, often bloody, as the band--then dressed in a striking black-shirt, red-tie uniform, like they'd been coutured by a slasher--played rock 'n' roll that lunged and lashed like a psycho intoxicated by his switchblade, Cardamone howling his black-hearted love/hate songs and North stomping about the stage and hurling himself into his speakers to wring more sheer, evil feedback. They held it together just long enough to record an album, Mono, which bubbled away with bad feeling and a hurtling, Stooges-meets-Murder City Devils attack and won acclaim amongst those who heard it.
But when the Icarus Line hit town, it was like a dark cloud was always hanging over their heads. Intra-band arguing and wrangling were par for the course and bad attitudes abounded, as they toured the world's seedier dives, generally living out the more grim chapters from Rollins' Black Flag diary, Get in the Van. Black Flag is a key reference here. Black Flag cover artist Raymond Pettibon designed the band's new tees, original BF vocalist Keith Morris works for their new record label, V2 (he joined 'em onstage at this year's SXSW for a vicious take of "Wasted"), and North's mom went to school with Black Flag members, fercrissakes. And if Mono was their Damaged, much dark brilliance and liquid-metallic punk is surely to follow.
"Our previous stuff was like a blind, vicious attack," muses Cardamone. "The new stuff's calculated. We've gotten serious about making art, y'know? Focusing, so we can fuck with people harder. I'm chomping at the bit to record the next album. It'll really fuck people up. It's darker; Mono was like a dramatic romanticism, this is more realistic. The new songs are waaaay more fucked up than Mono...."
Adds North, "The music's heavier, the subject matter's heavier, the vibe's heavier. It's evolved madness."
As well as lineup changes--legendary founding drummer the Captain returns to the stool, and bassist Lance Arnao has stepped aside for Ink & Dagger's Don Devore--the band's appearance has taken on a twisted Vegas skein. As they flail London tonight with their savage dirge-rock and black-flowering drone-punk slashes, the band members are a blood-splattered vision, Cardamone in particular reveling in strutting and shaking in a crimson silk tuxedo-shirt.
"These days I think about every element of the band," explains Cardamone. "How you present yourself is all part of the creative process."
"It's another way to fuck with people," adds North.
"If you come onstage wearing tuxedo shirts, people just wanna hit you," slurs Cardamone. "And that's just fuckin' awesome. I like to create an air of discomfort--that's where the best art is found. Extreme turbulence or extreme bliss, either way... I'm up for both."
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