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Louisville Music News.net
September 1997 Articles
Cover Story
Vicky Moon
Features
Bill Conger
Jean Metcalfe
Scott McCormick
Paul Moffett
Columns
Berk Bryant
Decimus Rock
Mike Stout
Paul Carney
Vicky Moon
Vicky Moon
Keith Clements
Tim Roberts
Laura Spalding
Henry C. Mayer
Jimmy Brown
CD Reviews
Brent Starkey
Robert Gruber
Brent Starkey
Paul Moffett
Kory Wilcoxson
Roark
Brent Starkey
Brent Starkey
Bob Bahr
Bob Bahr
Brent Starkey
Bob Bahr
Brent Starkey
Kory Wilcoxson
Roark
Performance Reviews
Mike Stout
Paul Moffett
Leo Durham
Calendar
Staff
Paul Moffett
News Item
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Issue:September 1997 Year: 1997
this one

* images not included

VHS or BETA (independent)
VHS or Beta

VHS or Beta's debut release is available only in VHS, thank you — no CDs or tapes, yet. And while there are no actual video images to accompany the music, the sound quality is enormous (especially if you have one of those "surround-sound" stereo VCRs). So tune in the blue screen and prepare to be perplexed.

Musically, the band takes conventional rhythms — elements of industrial and hardcore — and dumps buckets of intense distorted weirdness over them. Vocals are electronically treated, then placed carefully within various parts of the mix, sometimes singing, sometimes screaming, sometimes flatly intoning. At times, VHS recalls Sonic Youth or Captain Beefheart, but the influence I hear most comes from things like video games, Japanimation, comic books, and ordinary household appliances. Songs bear titles like "Gamalan," "Creepshow" and "Swamp Thing." Guitars are made to sound like telephones, percolators, jackhammers and ray guns, among other things. One can get so out of it on the mental images produced by this music that the blue screen on the TV helps as sort of a neutralizing component — or maybe that's just me, I don't know. This is fun stuff. Use a head cleaner before listening.

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