charlieclouser
Senior Member
Just when I thought I was out, they keep pulling me back in....
On Saturday, May 11, 2024, I will be joining pioneering industrial band Ministry as a second keyboardist for one very special show at the Cruel World Festival at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. What's so special about this gig? A couple of things:
- For the first time in more than 30 years, Ministry will be playing songs from their first two albums, With Sympathy (released May 10, 1983) and Twitch (released March 12, 1986), and for many of us in the dark electronic / industrial scene, these albums were a blast of dirty air that changed the direction of music. Ministry frontman and main brain Al Jourgenson has resisted playing these songs live for decades, and fans had almost given up hope of ever hearing them performed again. But good things come to those who wait, and Uncle Al has finally relented to years of pestering from friends and fans, and worked up a killer set including favorites from those first two albums. Should be one to remember.
- But on a more personal note, this gig will be special because Ministry's live keyboardist and studio programmer for the last 18 years or so is one of my oldest friends in the world, John Bechdel (aka JB). JB and I went to college together, where we met in 1982, and we instantly became friends because we were just about the only two knuckleheads out of 1,200 students at our tiny, freaky, liberal arts college who liked synthesizers. JB was the guy who first brought Ministry's Cold Life 12" single over to my dorm room, saying, "You've GOT to hear THIS!", and he also introduced me to Nine Inch Nails' first album Pretty Hate Machine. Once the two of us got the keys to the entire Music Building and its Electronic Music Studio, and could run wild literally all night long, it was game on for both of us.
We played together in college from 1982-1986, both moved to NYC afterwards and became roommates there, and both got jobs at the Sam Ash store on 48th street. He was the sampler guru, I was the software guru. Needless to say, these jobs led to bigger things for both of us - he's been a member of Fear Factory, Prong, Murder Inc., Killing Joke, and now Ministry, and worked with many more bands in the heavy scene. I wound up joining Nine Inch Nails and also working with White Zombie, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Killing Joke, Prong, Jamiroquai, David Bowie... and doing a couple of movie scores here and there.
JB and I have collaborated in the studio tons of times over the last four decades; when he joined Prong, he recommended me to Prong frontman Tommy Victor as someone who could bring the pain on some remixes (which I did, and I’d like to think that playing these remixes for Trent Reznor helped secure my gig as the keyboardist and programmer in NIN), and then recommended me to Prong’s producer, the legendary Terry Date, who then brought me along to do the drum / samples / synth programming on the next record he was producing, White Zombie’s breakthrough double-platinum album Astro Creep: 2000, and then Prong’s next album Rude Awakening.
Of course, Ministry and NIN were compatriots / friends / rivals in the heavy / industrial music scene since the beginning, and have collaborated in the studio and shared the stage plenty of times, most recently at the NIN + Ministry + Nitzer Ebb show in Cleveland a couple of years back, when NIN was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame... so JB and I have been on the same stage on the same night before - but since 1982, we haven't been in the same band at the same time.
Until now.
What makes this gig kind of special for us is that JB actually found photographic proof of the last time we performed in the same band together, at the dining hall of our dinky little college in 1982 (no, I'm not posting that photo!). So in a couple of days we will finally close the circle and both be playing in the same band together for the first time in FORTY-TWO FREAKING YEARS. Not bad for a couple of 60-year-old synth geeks.
Crazy how things work out sometimes, innit?
On Saturday, May 11, 2024, I will be joining pioneering industrial band Ministry as a second keyboardist for one very special show at the Cruel World Festival at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. What's so special about this gig? A couple of things:
- For the first time in more than 30 years, Ministry will be playing songs from their first two albums, With Sympathy (released May 10, 1983) and Twitch (released March 12, 1986), and for many of us in the dark electronic / industrial scene, these albums were a blast of dirty air that changed the direction of music. Ministry frontman and main brain Al Jourgenson has resisted playing these songs live for decades, and fans had almost given up hope of ever hearing them performed again. But good things come to those who wait, and Uncle Al has finally relented to years of pestering from friends and fans, and worked up a killer set including favorites from those first two albums. Should be one to remember.
- But on a more personal note, this gig will be special because Ministry's live keyboardist and studio programmer for the last 18 years or so is one of my oldest friends in the world, John Bechdel (aka JB). JB and I went to college together, where we met in 1982, and we instantly became friends because we were just about the only two knuckleheads out of 1,200 students at our tiny, freaky, liberal arts college who liked synthesizers. JB was the guy who first brought Ministry's Cold Life 12" single over to my dorm room, saying, "You've GOT to hear THIS!", and he also introduced me to Nine Inch Nails' first album Pretty Hate Machine. Once the two of us got the keys to the entire Music Building and its Electronic Music Studio, and could run wild literally all night long, it was game on for both of us.
We played together in college from 1982-1986, both moved to NYC afterwards and became roommates there, and both got jobs at the Sam Ash store on 48th street. He was the sampler guru, I was the software guru. Needless to say, these jobs led to bigger things for both of us - he's been a member of Fear Factory, Prong, Murder Inc., Killing Joke, and now Ministry, and worked with many more bands in the heavy scene. I wound up joining Nine Inch Nails and also working with White Zombie, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Killing Joke, Prong, Jamiroquai, David Bowie... and doing a couple of movie scores here and there.
JB and I have collaborated in the studio tons of times over the last four decades; when he joined Prong, he recommended me to Prong frontman Tommy Victor as someone who could bring the pain on some remixes (which I did, and I’d like to think that playing these remixes for Trent Reznor helped secure my gig as the keyboardist and programmer in NIN), and then recommended me to Prong’s producer, the legendary Terry Date, who then brought me along to do the drum / samples / synth programming on the next record he was producing, White Zombie’s breakthrough double-platinum album Astro Creep: 2000, and then Prong’s next album Rude Awakening.
Of course, Ministry and NIN were compatriots / friends / rivals in the heavy / industrial music scene since the beginning, and have collaborated in the studio and shared the stage plenty of times, most recently at the NIN + Ministry + Nitzer Ebb show in Cleveland a couple of years back, when NIN was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame... so JB and I have been on the same stage on the same night before - but since 1982, we haven't been in the same band at the same time.
Until now.
What makes this gig kind of special for us is that JB actually found photographic proof of the last time we performed in the same band together, at the dining hall of our dinky little college in 1982 (no, I'm not posting that photo!). So in a couple of days we will finally close the circle and both be playing in the same band together for the first time in FORTY-TWO FREAKING YEARS. Not bad for a couple of 60-year-old synth geeks.
Crazy how things work out sometimes, innit?
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