Arguably the most deranged techno band making records today, Combichrist is the side project of Icon of Coil’s Andy LaPlegua. The wickedly heavy beats propelling their power-noise anthems implicate Jim Thirlwell as an influence, the synths are utterly brutal and the rage expressed makes Trent Reznor look like a Backstreet Boy. Each of the songs – with such titles as “This is My Rifle” and “Who’s Your Daddy, Snake Girl?” – are odes to stripped-bare ruination.
I expected LaPlegua to be a string-haired, vicious New Yawker who would just as soon bite off my ears than deal with me, but it turned out he’s a fairly well-behaved Norwegian. We chatted for a bit about the shows he’s done here in the states before I spotted DJ Imprint from Lowell’s Dark Intentions club and dragged him over to meet The Man himself.
The creme de la creme of the goth/industrial crowd was there: here a girl wearing a sexy white ultra-glamorous Ginger Grant evening gown over black pants from Target, there a couple of bespectacled goth chicks carrying stuffed-animal monkeys on their backs. In walks a fellow dressed up like Riff Raff followed by a young miss in 10-inch pink clogs. On the (many) TV screens, Evil Dead II and Forbidden Planet are playing, their soundtracks drowned out by The Cure and Haujobb. Ah yes, all that was missing were a few bats
