Antagonize this

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must have spilled—even unintentionally—at some point in the show. Often, the singer would goosestep through
the crowd, everyone in the audience climbing atop one another to flee from his naked body, glistening with the
slime of ejaculate and uncooked poultry. One townie in particular—a talented bassist who we
knew had once played a show in a plastic-wrap dress, in which he eventually defecated—loved it. He catapulted
around the room, slamming into people, grabbing for and tackling the singer whenever he came near, trying
his best to incite the madness further. It must have been 45 minutes before we realized were free to leave
at any time.“We should go.” “Yeah.”
We left and drove away without saying much, the Magnetic Fields or T.Rex dribbling from the car stereo;
back at home we felt empty, unmoved. Antagonism is nothing new to music. For every
guy or girl who learns three guitar chords with charttopping, touch-the-world intentions, another does so
for the base delight of watching hands cover ears— pissing off your parents, neighbors or total strangers.
Dan Kroha, guitarist and singer in the Gories1, reminisced during a recent reunion performance about
his group’s earliest shows in its hometown of Detroit. We wanted to make such an awful noise that it cleared
the room, Kroha said with a smile. “You’re all still here,” he continued, gesturing toward the audience, “so we
obviously haven’t done our job yet.” MF Doom2, whose rap persona wears a metal mask that
covers most of his face, habitually books shows and sends out a disguised imposter—greeted by boos and
jeers, and leaving a wake of furious fans and promoters— in his place. Souring an audience can be selfish and
indulgent, but often witnessing such distaste from the crowd, whether it rises from the performer’s behavior
or through the ear-shattering din that’s being created, can become the spectacle fans want to see—particularly
when it’s manifested through the threat of violence. Wielding bracing frequencies, blinding strobes and
frontwoman Alice Glass’ temperamental stage-roaming, Crystal Castles3, for instance, have built a reputation for
confrontational showmanship that regularly sells out larger venues. Thanks to frontman Anton Newcomb’s
history of onstage flare-ups and one instance, captured in the movie DiG!, in which he kicked a heckler in the
head, Brian Jonestown Massacre4 shows are often plagued with instigators looking to incite an outburst.
Newcomb, however, seems to be keeping a cool head lately: During a show in Brooklyn, he ignored the crowd,
performing primarily with his back to the audience; it was not one of the band’s better gigs.
As listeners, the spectacle of danger can make music more exciting and lend an adrenaline rush to
the art presented onstage. In 2008, a video circulated online of Jay Reatard5 grabbing a fan by the T-shirt and
slugging him in the face during a show. At a performance later that year in Williamsburg’s tiny Glasslands Gallery,
several fans got wide-eyed at the opportunity to get a rise out of the late garage-rock icon. As the final song
hurled to a close, Reatard slammed down his guitar and barreled his way off the stage and out of the venue.
Clearly the hooligans were pleased with themselves; Reatard, in fact, was preoccupied with other concerns
and not retaliating because of their antics. Regardless of his intentions that night, Reatard was an expert at
constructing an engaging mood of active antagonism. His music, particularly live, was brutal, sloppy and fullthrottle,
and Reatard performed it with such fuck-you bravado that his curmudgeonly charms were undeniable:
The emotion was honest, and the outpouring was naked. The friction was necessary and effective to make you
feel what he felt. A lot of people laughed before the boos. Because it seemed like a joke. Two men and two women
took the stage, three of whom positioned themselves behind
an array of synths, samplers and drum machines. The fourth, a tallboy in hand, plopped down and dazedly
began swaying as the music—an amalgam of ethereal synth rock (à la M83) and Southern screw tracks—
poured forth from the speakers during 2010’s SXSW Music Festival. Salem6, a band created in part because
making music looks like an appealing alternative when you’re selling you’re body for drug money, seemed set
up to fail that day, performing its nightmarish bottom frequency sounds during the daytime on a poorly mixed
festival stage. Furthermore, the musicians seemed offbalance, unprepared to deliver their songs live.
As the crowd slung its jeers toward the group, band member Jack Donoghue turned briefly to the
audience before leaving the stage and, recognizing the discontent he’d created, gave a flash of a smile and a
small laugh. His satisfaction was only apparent for a moment, but it gave me something to hold on to, sparked
my curiosity about the music. Salem hadn’t intended to antagonize the crowd, but the fact that it did so, that its
ambivalent, “whatever” attitude toward its own songs could incite a chorus of boos from fans otherwise sated
on free liquor and fattened with delicious BBQ, made me pause to reconsider the group-think verdict.
I took a picture of Donoghue when he smiled; the metal fronts on his teeth glistened in the stage lights. It’s
not a photograph of someone entirely content with this response, nor is it of someone who’d been looking
for a fight. It’s an image of indifference—it is what it is. Salem’s debut, King Night (I Am Sound), is in fact one
of 2010’s better albums, corroded in junkie resin and purveying a rare breed of aural darkness and despair
that’s still shocking to even the most desensitized listeners; never has an album made me want to do more
drugs and just completely let go. In the discussion of antagonism, however, Salem
is an odd contender, as its stance appears passive. The intention isn’t conflict and confrontation. And maybe
that’s the allure, that we’re pressed with such spine chillingly macabre music while the three musicians
presenting it don’t even flinch. There’s no pose, now ager or argument for coolness. It’s shocking because
it’s real. And sometimes that’s all you really need. T h e G o r i e s
Formed in Detroit in the mid-’80s, the trio was one of the first groups to sling garage rock with a heavy
kiss of the blues and R&B. After splitting in 1993, the Gories reformed this past year and have been playing
shows throughout 2010. Recommended listening: I Know You Fine, But How You Doin’ MF D o om
Rapper Daniel Dumile got his start in the group KMD under the alias Zev Love X, and adopted the Doom
moniker as a solo artist, with the release of the hip hop standard Operation: Doomsday. Since then, Doom
has been best known for his collaborations with Madlib (Madvillain) and Danger Mouse (Danger Doom).
Recommended listening: MM.. Food C rys ta l Cas t l e s
Canadian electronic duo Crystal Castles is composed of producer Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass. In
2008, the group performed on season two of a pivotal episode of the BBC show Skins, and its lives shows
have garnered a rabid cult following. Recommended listening: Crystal Castles
T h e B r i a n J o n e s town Mass ac r e The long-running group led by Anton Newcomb has
gone through many permutations since forming in 1990. It was filmed, alongside friends and rivals the
Dandy Warhols, in Ondi Timoner’s 2004 documentary, DiG! Recently the band has reunited with several of
its original members. Recommended listening: Tepid Peppermint Wonderland
Jay R e ata r d Born Jay Lindsey, Memphis icon Jay Reatard
released some of the most essential garage rock of the past decade on labels such as In the Red, Goner,
Matador and his own Shattered Records before his untimely death at the age of 29 this past January.
Recommended listening: Blood Visions Sa l em
A Michigan-via-Chicago trio composed of John Holland, Jack Donoghue and Heather Marlatt,
Salem grabbed attention with its four-song EP called Yes,
I Smoke Crack, which was limited to 500 copies on white vinyl. The band’s proper full-length debut, King
Night, is out now on I Am Sound. Recommended listening: King Night