Ultra-violent New York hardcore group Crisis claim they got some message coming from the old tick-tocker about different races and sexes comin' together for more than shuffling with nozhes and bike-chains. This bein' that bootcrush-style guitar player Afzaal Nasirudden is comin' from Pakistan, bloody bassist Gia Chuan Wang is a native of Taiwan, and lead singer Karyn Crisis is a raving horrorshow baboochka.
Old Karyn says, "Lyrically and musically we tend to deal with darker subjects but seeing as we're all people from different walks of life, genders, and individual problems -- it makes it hard to get the group of people to work. We're a positive example of people breaking gaps. We're acting out our frustration through music and communication, through the physicalness of the show, it's a very cathartic situation. We're not avoiding our problems we're dealing with them head on, right on stage. A lot of female rock groups bash men -- but we're male and female, and recognize both sexes are causing the problems. However, none of our songs are really preaching about anything."
Crisis muzak -- a riff a riff again and another, ringing in my Gulliver. Karyn and her droogs make me shiver like me throat cut. This music is not like pop music about zoobies and groodies, but horrorshow shagging and fagging and fashing and bashing. In comparison Slayer are a bunch of slumbering bumbling bullocks. Hardcore gets a bad rep, but while alternative rock gets the viddy from the kiddies this fists life skorry on the rot. So why is my sister Karyn so all of a fever and like drowning in red hot blood?
"I grew up in a family that was the picture perfect patriarchy and my grandfather ruled everything. It was the men who got to have all the fun, follow their dreams, play sports and instruments. And my interests my whole life have always been in the creative and athletic departments. I constantly had people around me telling me to act like the little girl who worries about her looks and plays with dolls. Everyone was discouraging me from following my own dreams. I have asthma and a lot of allergies, and -- although I take care of myself pretty well now -- it used to be I'd wake up every two hours every night with an asthma attack. It felt like I only had an inch of space to breath in my lungs, and I'd have to slowly crawl to the bathroom and slow my heart rate down; which takes about 40 minutes to do 'cause if I moved I would die. It was a very mind vs. body experience and it was very hard to win that battle. People in the band have dealt with racial prejudice and I've dealt with gender prejudice"
One wonders, O my brothers, if this group feels, and their fans alike, alienated from having to rabbit in society's grahzny hellhole and human zoo?
"As far as being alienated goes I don't have a chip on my shoulder, yet I have no affinity towards conservative society. Being that I'm an artist and am driven towards things of a creative nature -- that's where my problems solvers lie. Spending my life doing computer work in an office does nothing for my brain and body."
And does, my dearest baboochka Karyn, horrorshow metal and brutal bully genres of muzak make young malchicks ultra-violent; or do they just bang their gullivers until they're ready to go back to being malenky bit poogly rabbits?
"It's hard to speak in general because I've been to heavier shows where certain bands stand on stage saying really provocative things and encouraging violence. Then there are bands that use that medium as a way to deal with the violent feelings they have, which I feel is more positive. They're filled with rage but don't want to take the responsibility of actually killing someone. Some people really are looking for trouble, so for them to get on stage and cause fights is a good thing for them."
And will humans and the like keep cavorting and rabbiting or will we slash and fash and bash until there's only blood -- not song nor vomit?
Karyn chuckles. "Frankly that's the way I see things going. There are definitely bands, artists, writers, out there who are dealing with issues and are trying to make changes by bringing them into the public eye. But there's so much work to do I don't think anything will really change before I die. Things tend to get worse before they get better, which is what our music is about. If you're in a situation of turmoil before you have peace there usually is a war because people don't know how to communicate at all. The whole idea of peaceful communication hasn't really been put into practice by anyone."
My sweet sister, are you really so "in the need to dismember the ruinous joint of you?"
"Sure, I've always had extreme feelings."
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Issue Seven