I have to confess, I was completely in the dark about Wax Trax! Records, which seems criminal to me now considering my music tastes. So, what better way to learn the whole story than a documentary screening followed by a concert?
To rewind a bit, Wax Trax was a record store that set the bar for tastemaking record shops like Amoeba, but they took it a step further and created a record label that was pretty much solely-responsible for the influx of European and American dark wave, post-rock, and – ultimately – industrial. I honestly can’t paraphrase the incredible story of Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher better than the documentary so if you get a chance, grab a copy and watch it. Their story seems crazy enough via Wikipedia, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What I will say is that the screening was quite joyous, with fans cheering as interview subjects varying from Jello Biafra, David J, Trent Reznor, Paul Barker, Al Jourgensen, En Esch, Frankie Nardiello – I think you get where I’m going with this – appeared to share not only their place in the over all story, but the nurturing effect of Nash and Flesher’s label.
A brief question-and-answer with Julia Nash – co-director and current label owner – Nardiello, Barker, and others led in to the concert portion of the event: Cold Cave and Ministry. I only recently got into Cold Cave, but their style both musically and physically seems like they would have fit in perfectly with the Wax Trax folks. Clad in all black and taking the stage with an array of Korg synths and crunching guitars, they played a quick 40 minute set of high energy dark dance music to an enthusiastic crowd. They seemed perfectly suited for the intimacy of The Teragram Ballroom, a venue, which in all honesty seems a bit small for such heavy hitters, but that only makes the shows there that much better.
Ministry’s set, however, was the more anticipated of the two. While the 2018 AmeriKKKant tour contained a set of older material – with some fan favorites in the later half – it prominently focused on new material. Such was not the case for this evening. The entire set from start to finish consisted of songs dating no further than the 1992 album Psalm 69 and while the band was probably considerably tired from the whirlwind six performance tour in promotion of the documentary, it sure didn’t show. Jourgensen and his cohorts were in high spirits and played a thunderously-loud set that included a number of deep cuts including encores of Revolting Cocks’ favorite “No Devotion” and the 1000 Homo DJs cover of Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” and for anyone who missed out on the AmeriKKKant tour, “The Land of Rape and Honey” and the acoustic version of “Every Day Is Halloween.” A hell of a close to a hell of a night.
