Customer Reviews

Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible + Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Connelly is articulate, surprisingly humble and filled with anecdotes. From that standpoint, it's an excellent book for anyone who wanted to know what was really going on in the WaxTrax scene of the late 80's and early 90's. He pulls no punches, nobody is painted as perfect, there's little hero worship, and yet all the major players are humanized to a degree that, despite many flaws, they still seem sympathetic. Al Jourgainsen particularly - he gets ridiculed for his affectations and self-involvement, lambasted for his spiralling drug problems and fondness for sycophants, and yet it still seems that Connelly regards him with a bit of genuine affection (even if they haven't spoken for years).

What's particualrly refreshing is his candor about his own problems and career trajectory. It could've easily slumped into a sex/drugs/rocknroll hardcore aggrandizement, or a paen to now-clean living, but it manages to avoid either boasting or becoming maudlin, no easy feat. Connelly tells it like it was - chasing the highs, chasing the booze, chasing the girls while fully realizing the ridiculousness of the situations, and he doesn't preach about how he's cleaned up his life.

His writing style, though could've used an editor. It reads more like a blog, complete with bursts of all-caps, the occasional dangling sentence fragment, and the sort of onomotopoeia one doesn't usually find in a memoir. Not that this is bad, mind you, but it can be a little distracting to be reading a detailed narrative of a Pigface show and have to stop and go back to parse out a sentence that didn't seem to make sense.

All told, though, it's a fun, quick read. Dodgy stylistic choices aside, it is a fascinating no-holds-barred look into a side of alternative music that most only have a passing familiarity with. If you grew up in the suburbs, you at least knew of Ministry, and probably had at least one black-clad friend who owned all their albums. Ministry, RevCo, Pigface, etc though, were enough on the fringes that they never generated the kind of press mythology that many of their alterna-rock contemporaries did, so this is a look into a story that has largely remained untold until now.

I always felt Chris Connelly was one of the more articulate, interesting, and diversified members of the cyber-biker 'industrial rock' circus swirling around Ministry's Al Jourgensen, and so I'm excited that he was able to get a book-length bio of that band's most interesting years into print before Jourgensen did. When THAT happens, this will surely provide a valuable alternate history to the inevitable grand-standing and historical revisionism coming from Ministry's overlord of aggro (and hair extensions, which Connelly describes in a hilarious manner that I won't give away).

I have a very tangential but still kind of intimate connection to this scene, so the nostalgic effect I get from reading a litany of hallowed Chicago nightlife institutions like Smart Bar, ChicagoTrax, Cabaret Metro etc. will not be replicated in every reader. Closeness to this culture has increased the "page-turner" quality of this book for me, but only by a little- it's still an eminently great read in a literary world swamped with boring paint-by-numbers rock confessionals written by, say, someone who was Bowie's keyboard tech for 3 shows in 1981. There's often nothing more tedious than listening to someone else's 'drug' stories, or even someone else's detailed descriptions of their soundchecks and daily road routines, but Connelly re-animates this age-old format with wit, conviction, and even healthy doses of humility. Some of the pharmaceutical hijinks are actually laugh-out-loud funny, and there's an exhausting scorecard of such described: even one experience outlined in this book would be a life-defining event that you warn your grandchildren about, for the Revolting Cocks it's just what happened to them on that particular, er, Wednesday evening.


Connelly also never lets us forget just how varied the individual personalities were that made up Revolting Cocks and Ministry in their heyday: there's the cool and professional Bill Rieflin and Paul Barker, the belligerent Martin Atkins, the dark and elusive Ogre, and of course the endlessly yelling and exaggerating man-child Jourgensen. Any one of these characters (besides dozens more profiled in this book) could have their own tragicomic book or documentary film, and it's a testament to Connelly's discipline that he doesn't linger on any one person for too long...of course that is my primary complaint about this book, too, that it's just TOO SHORT to perfectly illustrate the epic-scale psychosis and trouble that the RevCo/Ministry axis seems to welcome with open arms. I would welcome at least 50 more pages; while the 'tour' sections are fleshed out admirably enough there seems to be less attention paid to Connelly's actual creative process while writing and recording music. I think he is selling himself short in this regard- the man is an incredible lyricist, and I also would have welcomed some reproduced lyrics from the records in question (although there might be legal hurdles to clear in order to do this).

The Ministry machine was never quite as intriguing without Connelly; perhaps one reason why 'Uncle Al' is hanging up his Stetson hat after one final tour and one last middling album of industrial metal. Do yourself a favor- pass on the ticket for the next Ministry show and buy this instead, it's cheaper AND more inspiring.

Chris Connelly (ex-Fini Tribe, Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Pigface, Murder Inc., The Damage Manual) gives a vivid, fascinating behind-the-scenes account of his experiences in the Chicago industrial music scene between the years 1987 - 1995, and his roller coaster relationship with Ministry's Al Jourgensen. For fans of the above-listed bands and anything released on Wax Trax! Records in the late 80's, there is an invaluable amount of information detailing the creation of several songs from The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, Beers Steers & Queers, Linger Ficken' Good, and more. Chris recounts his relationships on and off the road with a who's who of industrial/alternative musicians, from such bands as Skinny Puppy, Killing Joke, and Cabaret Voltaire.

The book details rampant drug/alcohol abuse on tours and in the studio, wild post-concert parties, damaged relationships, personal tragedies, musical highlights and lowlights, written to make the reader feel like he/she was re-living the whole experience with him. Chris paints a very fair, but disturbing picture of a drug-addicted, out-of-control tyrant in Al Jourgensen, whose unpredictable personality makes for unlimited tension many times throughout the book. The book is not all 'doom and gloom', however, and boasts several funny stories that at times will have you laughing. Chris gives detailed tour journals for Ministry's Mind tour in 89-90 and Psalm 69 tour in '92, the Pigface tours for Gub and Fook in '91/'92, and RevCo's Beers Steers & Queers Tour in 90-91. There are also details from band rehearsals and 'one-off' shows that were performed. Popular Chicago clubs Medusa, Exit, and The Metro/Smart Bar (among others) get plenty of mention.

At 223 pages, it's a fairly quick read. I spent a weekend enjoying this book, and found myself captivated by the seemingly non-stop wild stories, and rewarded with a goldmine of information on Ministry, RevCo, and real life in the Wax Trax circle of musicians. The price listed is a bargain for this book, and I can only hope that other musicians from this circle, such as Paul Barker and Bill Rieflin, someday decide to share their memoirs as well. Highly recommended.

An excellent first-person perspective of Chris Connelly's exploits - beginning with his introduction to Al Jourgensen and his revolving-door of musicians, collectively known as, and most notably, Ministry and The Revolting Cocks - to his eventual demise within the Chicago Waxtrax Records circle and ultimate dissolution of the great industrial rock scene of the mid '80s to the late '90s.

I had the the opportunity to meet Ministry at their peak of popularity during the Psalm 69 tour and talked with all of that particular line-up at the time, except Connelly, which lead me to believe was a jerk. This book has completely changed my opinion of him - which probably has something to do with his current by-gone status, and is clearly shown in the written tone of this self-depreciating introspection.

Nonetheless, this book is a great read for anyone who has followed and loved the Chicago industrial scene, or anyone else who loves the debauchery held within great rock stories. The book is fast and well written and ranks up there with the best of 'em in this genre.

Having been a big fan of the industrial screaming of Chris Connelly in the late eighties when I saw this book for sale I had to give it a read. Some of the stories are familiar, having been touched upon in various interviews etc...but Chris gives them a first hand perspective and writes in a conversational manner that keeps it entertaining page to page. His honest and often hilarious look at the industrial machine that was Al Jourgenson and the Wax Trax circus makes this book a must for anyone who thought Ministry, The Revolting Cocks, etc...were the thinking man's keyboard and drum machine driven answer to metal only to discover in the 90's that Jourgenson had burned up all his talent with his addictions and became just another metal band. Fascinating and funny, a must for all industrial music fans...I haven't stopped listening to the Damage Manual since I finished this book.

You can see the author's attempt at honesty and to steer away from the romanticizing sentimentality in the current deluge of memoirs on the market. And that is to be appreciated.

But it's redundant, and even boring after a point. We toured, we did drugs, people had issues, Al is a bit of a superficial egomaniac. Repeated over and over. There's not a lot of gamble or joy in the book. Ministry's music had some magic, so did RevCo, and I suppose that is legacy enough.

But the book isn't great. It's tedious at times and self-indulgent. I started eagerly, but finished the last two chapters sitting on the shitter hoping to finish it. By no means is it awful, but it's not great --> and it's debatable whether it merits a 'good.'

A firsthand experience of a time and people who shaped a subculture. Funny, whiny, insecure and articulate. Chris Connelly is well spoken and able to clearly reconstruct his memories of decadence and creativity. I have two reactions to this book, one reaction is as an avid reader, the other is as a fan of the Jourgensen collection of sound and music.

As someone who who like to read, I found Connelly's firsthand account of the events surrounding Ministry, RevCo and other side projects fun, witty and very engaging. The story flows well although it does seems to get a little uneven in some places, where he will greatly detail the evens of a few particular days, then gloss over months of time with passing references to activity (to be fair, I suppose you can only recount repetitious drug abuse for so long before getting to the next interesting story). Chris tells his tale in a blog style of writing, which is to say conversational and informal, but it's a good thing that really personalizes the story.

As someone who is a fan of the Wax Trax! family and sound, I was very excited to read a personal behind the scenes account of what those times were like during Al Jourgensen's most productive and prolific days as a leader in the industrial music scene. While the book, from a fan perspective, is awesome, it became very tiresome early on to push through Chris's obvious resentment of the music and the people creating it. On numerous occasions Chris refers to his own jealously and insecurity, and it remains apparent in his writing that he still feels envious that he did not enjoy the success that Jourgensen did, as Chris spends a great deal of time belittling almost everyone's intelligence and integrity, Jourgensen in particular (he never misses an opportunity to exhibit his vitriol, and it gets to be childish at times). Now, I'm sure egos and bad behavior were rampant on everyone's part, but Chris works diligently to cast himself as a naive or reluctant participant of the events, while painting images of everyone else as barely competent, reckless substance abusers - which they all were, but Chris makes overt attempts at putting so much distance between himself and the rest of the folks that it starts sounding like an apology rather than an indifferent account of what occurred during the late 80's and early 90's. Maybe that was the point, but despite the annoying and overt petty jealousy and outright whining on Chris' part, it's a truly fun book that is a must own for any fan of the Wax Trax! years, or just likes to hear a good yarn about bad behavior.

Love.This.Book. It brought back so many memories and I wasn't even in the book nor was I a part of any of the bands or people involved. I was, however, a part of the scene, in particular there is a scene or just a point in the book where he discusses the show at City Gardens (Pigface) and I was there and it just all came flooding back. I remember how my friends all left at the end thinking it was over and I stayed behind, lingering, for God-only-knows what (probably because I hate crowds and wanted to wait for people to shuffle out)and while I was standing in front of the stage Chris came back out and started to just read from a notebook. To me, at that age (I think I was 19 or something) he was doing something that just blew my mind. I wanted to be so bold and so out there and I remember just staring at him as he read and when it was honestly over, I went out to the car and laughed at my friends and told them they missed the best part! Chris really writes in a way that you can really feel like you're there in the moment that he is writing about as you read it. While this book is not long, nor is Chris' writing thick and difficult to read, it took me a long time to read this book. I had to read it one or two chapters at a time because he is so good at writing about the drugs, booze and lifestyle that I felt like I had a hangover after each read. It's that brilliantly written. I feel honoured to have been taken on that ride.

I really enjoyed reading this one. I was a young punk hanging around Clark & Belmont in the era this book took place and was/is a huge Ministry fan. I saw them live a few times at the Metro and later the Riv. It's interesting to read Connelly's perspective on things... he does not seem to have much love for Jorgensen or Ministry/Pigface in general. My impression (and I could very well be wrong), was that he mostly was involved for the opportunity to expose himself in the music world and it was just something to do... drugs and women being a motivating factor among other things.

His writing style is journalistic and draws you in. I laughed out loud at times. I agree that his proofreader needs to be fired. At times I became slightly annoyed with his condescending tone... I would also have liked to read more background about himself.

This book gives an insightful look inside of the Wax Trax scene in Chicago in the mid 80's and visit inside the world of Al Jourgensen. If your were ever curious of what it was like back in that era I would recommend this book highly before Al puts his book out ( ????? ).