All too appropriate that Eugenics Council would take the stage at 285 Kent on Election Day. While the rest of the population of Williamsburg seemed to vacate into bars and homes with television sets, eyes drunkenly glued to flashes of blue and red, cries of strangers in the nation’s capital, a few souls braved their way to the waterfront for what was truly one of the most impressive noise shows of the year.
Certain locales, both geographically and socio-economically, adopt certain ideologies, it still seems strange that often your neighbors expect certain opinions of you—and for solely political ideas, you would find pride in your country, no matter how complicated it truly is. If anything, the show at 285 Kent didn’t exceed expectation; there was none. There was only sheer terror, empowerment in subversion. I left feeling bigger than I came.
Alongside Boston’s Corephallism, Shame Michael Broderick's industrial/power electronics project and Albany’s Epaulettes, Eugenics Council, the legendary industrial act, is currently on their first full U.S. tour in over 12 years. The band has been known for violent live performances, the 285 Kent show no exception: grinders, explosives, sledgehammers, cinderblocks, and uncontrolled fires took over the floor, forcing the audience to retreat behind the bar to avoid flying bricks. Sparks flew. Nervous laughter was abundant. Sporadic flashes from cameras turned the violence into an archived war zone.
For what I imagine are safety purposes, there appear to be very few videos of the bands live set. This is about as good as it gets:
In many ways, we live in an age of expectation, of predictability. Eugenics Council are clearly hell-bent that this will never affect performativity. Thank fucking god.
East Coast dates are posted here.
