Sunday, January 25, 2009

Daily Bread

In which I continue my journey through the gloriously tweaked world of early '90s Southern avant-metal... From Raleigh's Confessor, we head logically to Richmond's Breadwinner. (Confessor drummer Steve Shelton plays with ex-Breadwinner guitarist Pen Rollings in the godlike Loincloth.) Just discovered this here mother lode:



Yes, folks, a full live Breadwinner set from 1992. A very early sighting of modern math rock at its most pure and stripped-down. Wondrous precision and brutality. Check out Rollings's manic gyrations--cigarette in mouth, eventual shirtlessness, etc. For a quick taste of this long clip, skip ahead to 29:00 and behold "Tourette's," the lead track from the band's lone CD release, The Burner. Prickly, savagely controlled destruction, I tell you. And then head over to this *classic* Rollings interview at Chunklet, wherein he discusses his musical history, his aversion to black metal, his homosexuality, his affinity for weed and mucho more. Dude is a serious, serious character--absolutely hilarious.

1 comment:

Bruce Adams said...

I saw Breadwinner open a buncha shows for The Jesus Lizard and they were one of a very few bands who could hold their own. Bassist Bobby Donne went on to play with Labradford.