Welcome to Sadisco, boys and girls, specifically "World War III Sadisco," which took place on a recent Saturday night in Mardi Gras' cavernous brick expanse, and featured two bands, a "Sadisco Does Breakfast" room with your choice of post-imbibing victuals, from eggs and ham to brisket with baked beans, a makeshift hookah lounge, and, of course, all of the usual debauchery, filth and drunkenness for which this "Sadistic Disco" is renowned.
As you may know from having read Inferno's previous forays into the sweaty, oversexed funk of this bimonthly industrial-noise-EBM-goth freakforall, Sadisco was hatched a coupla years back from the twisted noggins of Generalissimo Toby Heidebrink (a.k.a. DJ Squalor) and Field Marshal Donnie von Burbank (a.k.a. DJ Dr. Father, or Dr. Fun). With the assistance of their demented minions, an army of pierced and tatted, stimulant-snorting inebriates fond of anonymous dance-floor frottage, and bisexual pairings, triplings, and quadruplings, each Sadisco soiree boasts a theme: from the fisticuffs-lovin' Fight Club Sadisco and the Hunter S. Thompson-esque Fear and Loathing Sadisco to the sublime majesty of Crime Lab Absinthian and the unbridled butchery of the Serial Killers Convention.
Tonight, camouflage nets, fake shrubbery, olive-green attire, and gas-masked cuties help the Third World War theme flower, like a black orchid fed with human blood. Jugheads on McDowell Road in Phoenix was the original home of Sadisco. And after a brief run at .anti_space and then a disastrous foray into The Sets in Tempe, Sadisco currently is trading off venues back and forth from Jugheads to here at Mardi Gras, a squat brick building larger inside than it seems outside. I don't know if Mardi Gras' A/C is busted, nonexistent or if it's trying to re-create the broiling swamp humidity of a summer on the bayou, but you'd need a Ginsu knife to cut the air in there. From jump, I'm sweating like Jack Black in some Mexican wrestler getup, and the AC/DC Tila Tequila of the PHX is perspiring as if she were Rosie O'Donnell in a Russian bathhouse. Thus, the first order of bidness is procuring libations to replenish our precious bodily fluids. This is way before my getting pinched, by the way.
"Order me a Long Island, Kreme," commands the Jettster. "I need something sweet and cold."
"A Newcastle for me," I tell the barkeep, wiping my brow. "And a Long Island for the lady. Sorry, I mean, this broad here beside me."
"One of these days, Kreme, I'm gonna sock you right in the nads," she informs me.
I decline to remind my hood-rat hoochiemama sidekick that I'm the putz who nabs the tab on these adventures. We grab our glasses, then proceed to survey the scene. Black bustiers, scarred flesh and glow-in-the-dark contact lenses are de rigueur for this crowd. And should you look like David Blaine following the last time they buried his scrawny rear alive, no worries. Even if you bathe before attending, your skin's bound to end up with that Sadisco layer of scum all over it. Sadisconauts revel in the tawdry trashiness of their profane events. The band onstage upon our arrival, Dawn of Ashes, fits right in, what with red and black liquid latex poured all over themselves and their clothing, making 'em look like a crew of the undead from a Rob Zombie flick. The L.A. trio cranks out a thumping techno beat with distorted, slightly monstrous vocals coming from the front man Khris. Artist/photographer Dayvid LeMmon, in the hizzouse tonight with his gal Colleen, calls it "goth booty music." Seems as good a description as any.
This tall, thin, bald dude in a long white shirt and sandals that make him look like a Sufi mystic passes by, and we follow him outside, where we enjoy cooler, drier air and can have a relatively civilized confabulation. He tells us his name is Gary Dassing, who along with his brother Dwayne make up the Austin industrial-electro duo Mentallo and the Fixer.
"Gary, tell us about this robe, mon," I state.
"A Muslim friend of mine brought it back for me from the Middle East," he explains. "I have a lot of robes like this from different religions. But I like this one because it's comfortable."
"Whatcha got on underneath there?" wonders the Jettster. "Or are you lettin' it all hang out?
"I'm wearing underwear tonight," he relates. "But I've had some pretty scary incidents in Europe. Once in this town in eastern Germany, I was in this hall, and the place was packed. I was reaching my microphone out over the audience, kind of an audience-participation thing, when all these people grabbed me and yanked me offstage. I was wearing this, but I wasn't wearing anything under it. I thought I was going to end up naked in front of all these people. Fortunately it didn't happen."
"Looks like something they'd wear in Saudi Arabia," I offer of the garb.
"I believe my friend did get it in Saudi Arabia," the vocalist replies. "There's a lot more to the outfit, like four different layers of stuff you're supposed to wear over this. This is actually part of the outfit for Muslim clerics. But if you have all of it on, that's when it can get hot."
"Anyone ever fuck with you while you're wearing it?" I ask.
"Not in Austin, which is where I live," he responds. "Now if I wore this out in San Antonio, where I'm from originally, I might. I wore this in Frisco: No problem. I probably could wear this in New York, too. Well, maybe."
"Yeah, as long as you don't hang out where the Twin Towers used to be," I crack. "So, for the record, you're not Muslim, you just like the way it feels."
"Right," he says.
We'd like to conversate with him about things other than his Islamic pimp suit, but Brother Dassing has to hit the stage, and the J-unit and I have to score another beverage. We're ready to reenter the building when the zombified Dawn of Ashes doods stumble outside and stop to chat. Khris, Joey, and a Lurch-lookin' cat named "Bahemoth" usually play spots in Hollyweird, but they seem to appreciate the Sadisco steelo.
"I think more people out here are into the live band acts," observes Joey.
"Yeah, more people in L.A. are into the DJ acts," says Khris. "It kinda sucks, but whatever. No one's into the music anymore."
"It's more about the fashion in L.A.," claims Joey. "And what you look like when you dance."
"So do you guys always look like this?" queries Jett.
"We're always like this, because we're a band based on horror and violence," Khris responds. "So we get the whole zombie-fuckin' thing going on. We're humongous horror fans."
"What kind of films do you like?" I ask.
"A lot of Italian movies, stuff by Dario Argento, like Deep Red," says Khris. "We're big Alien fans. We like the artist H.R. Giger. And Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the original. These new movies are all CGI bullshit."
I'm in complete agreement with that sentiment. Argento's Suspiria still makes me wet my friggin' nappies. The DofA boys gotta load their gear into the van, but not before letting us know that they just signed with the German label NoiTekk (www.NoiTekk.de) and have an album due to be released soon called In the Acts of Violence. The cover art is of a garish, bloody knife, beside what looks like a schoolgirl's body.
Back in the bar, we touch base with Toby and Donnie, the latter now fully recovered after the incident at Tranzylvania where some bouncer supposedly broke his arm. The DA's not going to file charges, Donnie tells us, because all of the witnesses against the bouncer are Donnie's pals. But at least Donnie's back in action, and we're happy for that. Toby lets drop that Jugheads will be the scene for "WW IV Sadisco," to take place Saturday, May 27.
We also spot our bud Shelley, a.k.a. DJ ///she///, whose own industrial/noise event Club Hell pops off at Chaser's Nightclub in Scottsdale this Saturday, May 20. With doms from the Den of Iniquity and hella-hot fetishy go-go dancers promised, it sounds like a must-attend soiree.
Ultra-sex kitten Satanic Angie, a Sadisco regular who loves gettin' nekkid for fun and profit (she's a dollar-ballerina at one of the PHX's fine strippaterias), accosts us, and especially the Jettster. They run off to some skuzzy cranny together so Jett can snap Angie's glorious glutes. I ease over to the main stage to observe Mentallo, et al., do their thing, and as you may recall, this is where you came in up top.
Looking like a cross between Zippy the Pinhead and a Hare Krishna, Gary Dassing's warbling some incomprehensible but alluring tune, when I feel the aforementioned fingers pinch a goodly piece of my flab. Why, it's none other than my Jett, hopped up by some illicit substance she scored in the ladies' room.
"We should get you an outfit like that, Kreme," she snorts. "Tell you what, I'll cut a hole in a bed sheet and you can wear it for Sadisco's WW IV. C'mon, you know it'll fit you, big boy."
