Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Pitbull Daycare
Live Shots
Reviewed by Margaret Moser, Fri., July 28, 2006
Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Pitbull Daycare
La Zona Rosa, July 20
The bullhorn. The metallic punch and industrial grind. The crazy-quilt film footage. The charismatic lead vocalist. No, it's not the Butthole Surfers at Liberty Lunch in the Nineties, it's 2006 and Uncle Al Jourgensen got a wild hair up his ass while working on Rio Grande Blood, his full-bore attack on Bush America. While brain-frying that project, he commandeered the toughest of his side bands, Revolting Cocks, flaccid after a 12-year hiatus, released Cocked and Loaded – featuring former Austinite Phil Owen (Skatenigs, Choreboy) – then put both acts on the road. After a charmless opening set by San Antonio quartet Pitbull Daycare, the Cocks hardened with a vengeance. Jourgensen took a back seat to frontman and Johnny Depp look-alike Josh Bradford, of industrial quartet Stayte. Bradford stole RevCo's show from Owen, Luc Van Acker, and bassist Anna K, as he went from tux shirt and bow-tie during "Fire Engine" and "Let's Get Physical" to topless with a chic black skirt and opera gloves for "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy." Never mind that he stripped buck Satan nekkid for the finale "Purple Head" and modestly covered his genitals with a straw cowboy hat to exit the stage. Ministry's onslaught was less showy, though Jourgensen stepped up the punishing beat with brutal vocal menace, announcing that "Austin, Texas fucking rules!" (Whoa! Never heard that!) and laying waste to new songs like "Fear," "LiesLiesLies," and "No W" ("NWO" reordered, get it?). But the frenetic chanting of "Just One Fix" by an audience likely to be the next generation of hep C patients was creepy. Maybe the shock value of such things loses its worth with age, but Jourgensen was his own toughest act to follow.
