Jonny Numb

My first thought was, can they do that? They can’t do that, can they? How can they do that? They have to keep going, don’t they?! It’s clearly outlined in the Fan Agreement, Section C.1.a, etc., etc.! What the fuck is this shit?!

Am I being dramatic? Is this the end of an era? Will I ever see them in the flesh again? (Maybe. See the Footnote at the very end.)

These were my thoughts when long-running Canadian Industrial band Skinny Puppy made a vague announcement earlier in the year that quickly bled into a reveal of their Final Tour.

This wasn’t some idle threat or inflammatory statement sparked by knee-jerk emotion; no, it was plastered all over the promotional materials and social-media posts. The lack of irony spoke volumes.

“Final” sounds so definitive, doesn’t it? (Of course, Jon…it’s supposed to. That’s why it’s definitive! – Ed.)

Of their 40 years in existence, I’ve considered myself a fan for 26 (I purchased The Process on CD from The Wall at the York Galleria back in January 1997), which is a rather astonishing number in and of itself. That’s over a quarter-century…and when you can start measuring your history in decade intervals – let alone some fraction of a fucking century – one comes to the profound realization that none of us are getting any younger here.

And when I figure I’ve been on this troubled sphere for 42 years and counting, I think of the extended head-start my musical heroes had on this mortal coil – to rise to a certain level of notoriety by the time I finally discovered them.

While keyboardist Dwayne Goettel passed in 1995 at the far-too-young age of 31, frontman/vocalist Nivek Ogre and chief programmer/noisemaker cEvin Key remained. For their live shows since 2015, they’ve been joined by guitarist Matthew Setzer and drummer Justin Bennett (ex-Professional Murder Music).

The last Skinny Puppy LP, Weapon, came out a decade ago. It’s something of a paradox: I’d spent years pining for another proper album from them, but 2013 also doesn’t feel like that long ago.

As fans, we tend to get greedy. When something is good, we want more of it (and more often). When it’s bad, we still want it, because there’s the hope that it will once again get good. Loyalty and fandom are not mutually exclusive, but loyalty tends to be rewarded (or betrayed) in its own unexpected ways – more so than the folks who stick around for a hit single before peace-ing out.

The thing with Skinny Puppy is: they’ve never not been good. Sure, some farty old “I-was-there-when-you-were-in-diapers” lifers will insist they were good only up to a certain point, but fuck those senile dimwits. I’ve long considered them my favorite band, so the feeling of enthusiasm at seeing them live “for the last time” commingled with a distinct sense of melancholy.

In any case, I pounced on the VIP package for their Philly show as soon as it was announced. The April 18 performance was initially slated for the more intimate Theatre of the Living Arts (located along bustling South Street), but a frankly unsurprising surge in ticket sales quickly led the show to be moved to The Met – a bigger (and far swankier) venue.

Fast forward to April 17, when the band played Pittsburgh – or would have, if Ogre hadn’t come down with a severe, debilitating virus that led them to cancel their performance after opener Lead Into Gold finished their set.

Enthusiasm and melancholy quickly gave over to worry and, interestingly, resignation.

Perhaps it’s the “wisdom” that accompanies old age, or the perspective that comes when you’ve undergone a myriad of life experience (good and bad), but I was able to acknowledge something important: if they cancel Philly, at least I got to see them 4 or 5 times since their reformation.

Yeah…this wasn’t Puppy’s first “ending.” After Goettel’s death and the behind-the-scenes acrimony between Ogre and Key that led to the unhappy completion of The Process (which even denotes “The End” in the liner notes) in 1996, the band reformed for a one-off live performance in Dresden in 2000, which then snowballed into brand-new material (a song on the Underworld soundtrack), culminating in a fresh LP in 2004, followed by an extensive tour.

What all this boils down to, is: I initially got into Puppy after they’d disbanded. I spent some time mentally coming to terms with the fact that any live experience I’d get would be relegated to online video clips and the excellent, pro-shot Ain’t It Dead Yet? performance. When they announced a tour to accompany The Greater Wrong of the Right in 2004, I realized that me and Lizard were being handed a rare opportunity to witness something that, had the creative winds blown differently, might never have happened.

Owning Puppy’s discography was (and remains) a treasure unto itself; but being able to actually share a room with Ogre and Key was gravy on the already-tasty mashed potatoes…the whipped-cream-and-cherry atop a slightly melted peanut-butter-and-fudge sundae…(and other delicious food metaphors).

To return to April 17, the news of Ogre’s then-undisclosed malady crossed my social-media feed before I went to sleep. After waking up on the 18th (I’d taken the day off), I kept checking the Facebook pages for Puppy and The Met to see if there had been any updates. There were none. Given the early-afternoon check-in for the VIP portion, me and Lizard decided to proceed like the show was still happening, holding out hope that, you know, it would.

When we arrived at The Met, we were the second and third people in the VIP line, which had formed next to the box-office window. The person who’d arrived before us reminded me a little of Sophie-Anne, whom me and Lizard met purely by chance during one of our festival-trips to Montreal eons ago. We talked for a bit about where we all were from (she resided in Philly, but was originally from Lititz), shared our previous experiences of seeing Puppy live, speculated on what had happened to Ogre and, before the tour manager and her assistants came out to explain the logistics of the VIP session, discussed who was at fault when an impromptu accident occurred at the intersection of Broad and Poplar Streets, near where we were standing. (I think the lady who was cursing and wielding her toddler like Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone was at fault for running a red light…but that’s just me.)

In any event, I saw our line companion once more, giving us a wave as she exited the pit area after the show was over. I meant to catch up with her and get her name for the purposes of documenting it here, but too many people got between us, and she was gone by the time we reached the lobby.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The tour manager was very cool, laying out the logistics of the VIP session in a step-by-step manner. Everybody was given a physical ticket(!) for re-entry later on. She also explained that Ogre was feeling much better, but was sitting out the VIP to rest up before the show (which seemed more than reasonable).

The 50-some VIPs huddled in the pit area, where the band was set up for soundcheck. The members of the stage crew were introduced, which was a nice touch. Matthew clarified Ogre’s condition for the public record, and cEvin fiddled with the AM/FM radio on his cool, welded-together rig as the band went through two songs (‘Pedafly’ off 2007’s Mythmaker and ‘Candle’ off The Process). After that, the VIPs lined up for photos with the band, followed by a trip to the merch table for first crack and shirts, hoodies, hats, and…stretchy pants?! (Hey, why not?)

It was a great experience and opportunity to peek a little behind the curtain. But something more significant was the unanimous respect among the gathered crowd, as if everybody had the same consistent emotions coursing through their veins. It’s a bit difficult to put into words: a sense of love seemed to radiate outward toward the band, and I realized I was in good concert-going company. Knowing these were likely the folks I’d be sharing the first couple rows with during the performance proper put my mind at ease.

We were released with enough time to dump our merch at the car and catch dinner and drinks at a nearby pub. Upon returning to The Met, we were let in at 6:30 (a half-hour ahead of regular doors) and, after debating whether to brave the pit or take a seat, I decided to get in the front row with Lizard.

In an interesting twist, the guys from Silver Walks – who we’d seen open for the likes of <PIG> and Front 242, among others – huddled up next to us, which led to some enjoyable conversation as we killed time. I mentioned the shows we’d seen them at, and band mastermind Daniel McCullough passed us both “business cards” with Bandcamp codes for a free download of their various positions album. (This subsequently led to an amusing aside about how, at one time, you’d couldn’t turn a corner in Philly without finding one of DJ Mighty Mike Saga‘s CD mixes.)

This encounter pulled a long-lost memory to the forefront of my mind: the first-ever time we saw Puppy was at the 9:30 Club in DC (where we were also right up front), and we were standing next to a guy who’d attended the show with a few friends. We struck up a conversation, and he revealed it was his birthday. We wished him a happy birthday and the chatter went from there. This is notable because me and Lizard typically do more talking amongst ourselves than with those surrounding us. (I imagine most folks who attend shows confine the conversation to ‘the bubble’ they arrived/met up with.)

There was “a feeling in the air” at that show in 2004; there was a similar vibe at this one.

The lights went down at 8pm sharp, and Lead Into Gold took the stage. I had been jonesing to see Paul Barker’s primary post-Ministry project since first witnessing its formidable force at Cold Waves 2018 (New York edition), and he didn’t disappoint. Even his forays into frustration with his gear (including an unwieldy mic stand), while amusing, didn’t interfere with the performance overall.

Furthermore, I liked the historical significance of the Lead Into Gold and Puppy pairing: after all, Ogre toured with Revolting Cocks in their heyday, and Barker was a founding member of that Ministry offshoot.

That, and I was rather tickled with the pun-tastic irony of a guy named Paul BARKer opening for Skinny PUPPY.

It was 9:15 when the lights went down, the crowd rang out in applause and cheers, and Puppy took the stage. The time had come, and everyone was ready (or as ready as they could hope to be).

A cacophony of discordant noise eventually led into ‘VX Gas Attack’ (off VIVIsektVI), with Ogre doing shadowplay behind a curtain. The crowd wailed and screamed at the performance, as Ogre – along with a member of the stage crew – contorted into increasingly abstract, seemingly impossible configurations.

Ever the showman, Ogre stretched out the reveal of his ‘final form,’ as it were. A consummate performer who uses masks and costumes (and sometimes fake blood and jizz), he’s assumed a variety of personae over Puppy’s extended career.

He emerged from the curtain cloaked in an oversized hooded robe that bore a slight resemblance to the Grim Reaper (sans scythe), and in hindsight, maybe there was some prophecy to his chosen appearance. As he eventually shed the layers to reveal an oversized alien visage (complete with large, glowing eyes), a black-clad “tormentor” wove in, out, and around the singer – beating, scrutinizing, and – in a setpiece that came near the end of the performance – extracting his brain and putting it on a pedestal for all to see.

Puppy’s performances have always been designed to make audiences stand (or sit) up and take notice, and perhaps – taking the tour’s tag line, “When nothing is true…anything is possible” to heart, they aimed to hold a mirror up to the diseased gawker culture that has come to define American life. Whether the use-once-and-forget vestiges of social media, mass shootings so frequent they fail to make headlines anymore, and the seemingly hopeless plight of empathetic individuals, Ogre positioned himself – as he always has – as The Other…giving all the other “Others” in the audience a symbol to latch onto for almost 2 hours.

This taps into one of the paradoxes that has made Puppy interesting for all these years: how abrasive, discordant songwriting and anguished, hostile vocals can coalesce into something that, through all the noise, comes across as distinctly human. I don’t know that I could commit to words the “what it is” about Puppy that makes their music connect with me so well, but it clicked with me in my teenage years…and hasn’t stopped clicking yet.

There was an enormity to that night as big as The Met itself. A longstanding cliché about the live music experience is that, at its most profoundly rewarding, a group of people can hum with the same shared mood, thus giving back to the performer the energy said performer is expending. A mutual exchange of visceral energy, in other words.

The audience offered their canine-like howls of approval between songs. There’s a video where you can hear me yell, “OGRRRRRRRRRRRRE!” over the noise pouring out from the stage. As the kids these days are fond of saying, everybody was going hard (in the figurative – and probably literal – sense) for what was – maybe – Puppy’s historic final stop in Philly.

I think there was a duality to this enthusiasm: part of it was the finality of things – the end of an era, the closing of a door of artistic possibility – and the other part was the fact that Ogre, horribly ill less than 24 hours prior, had bounced back enough to perform. Excitement, love, gratitude, and – yes – compassion flowed through the crowd’s response to every song.

Another thing that any live experience should be is emotionally transformative – where the senses commingle and the feeling of the reverberations from the amplifiers thrumming through your body, rippling your skin and vibrating your ribcage, leave your synapses firing like the cannons in the ‘1812 Overture.’

And I say the crowd was on a shared wavelength because there was no pit. We didn’t need to steel ourselves against a bunch of rowdy assholes a few rows behind us – everybody kept their interaction with the music respectful of those around them, which conveyed that taking in every moment of the performance – visually, aurally, and viscerally – was the true priority. Taking snapshots – of the literal and mental sort – to fuel memories for years to come.

After Alien-Ogre’s brain “exploded” on its pedestal, the band exited the stage, to which the crowd responded with foot-stomping, rhythmic applause, and shouts of “WOOOOOOOOOO!” to draw the band back out for an encore.

Several minutes later, they re-emerged to an even more thunderous audience reaction, and Ogre – sans costume – imparted some words of gratitude to the huddled masses while cEvin made the “smoke” gesture (clearly looking forward to his after-show date with The Green Guy). From there, they went into ‘Deep Down Trauma Hounds.’

But it was the second and final song of their encore that hit hardest: ‘Candle,’ off The Process. The album that had “The End” explicitly printed in the liner notes. The album that had me thinking I’d never, ever see my “new” favorite band perform live. The album that, for all intents and purposes, I still love with all my sclerotic black heart, because it was the first Puppy album I ever purchased. Extreme sentimental value aside, I acknowledge that it was a product of contentious circumstances while the band dissolved, but I still think it’s a goddamn masterpiece.

And ‘Candle’ was the first song I remembered hearing by Puppy and thinking, with great clarity and resolve: I love this. The fact that the band also played ‘Hardset Head’ during the main set indicated that not all memories from that time were mired in the dark cloud of Dwayne’s death and the compromises that led to The Process’s final recorded form.

While some tour stops received a longer encore, the ‘Candle’ climax was perfection. Ogre used the song’s extended instrumental outro (extended even further for this performance) to “present” the band – Matthew, Justin, and – quite touchingly – an extended and reverent bow to cEvin (whose literal elevated stature subtly emphasized his position as the noise-making mastermind behind the band for all these years).

Watching Ogre wave goodbye and disappear backstage – seemingly dissolving into the bluish-purple darkness – while the rest of the band carried through the song – with the crowd hinging on every note – is a memory I’ll hold until my brain starts to betray me in old age. If this is truly the end for Skinny Puppy, it’s been one hell of a run, and it’s with extreme gratitude that I look back on not only the times I’ve been fortunate enough to see them live, but also the wealth of material I will return to, time and again, to be reminded of the greatness of the band that molded my musical taste and changed my life.

(Photos from the April 18 Philly performance by Yours Truly)

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Footnote (via Justin Bennett’s Facebook, circa early July):

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