Imagine waking from your beauty sleep to find that your face had been grated off with a coarse wood rasp. The laxative you took the night before is only functioning at ninety percent efficiency leaving you stranded in that purgatorial tightrope zone between extreme gurgling stomach pains and desperately needing to bolt to the toilet. You’re drenched in sweat, you hate yourself and you want to die. You begin to question everything you believe in and you have that “Where the hell are my ear drums and why have they been replaced with pin cushions?” look on your face. That’s what it’s like to listen to Swans.
No one wanted to come and see Swans with me. I’m not sure why. There was one potential I was trying to bait prior to the gig but he just kind of stood there, not quite making eye contact with me and shaking his head in a get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here anguish as I played him their “Live at the Kitchen” bootleg from 1982. He pulled the pin. Seems he valued his health too much. Self-preserving bastard.
New York No Wave pioneers Swans are, to put a conservative lean on it, farken brutal. Their legend and reputation as live antagonists of the bowel precedes them. The excessive decibel level that spews through their tortured rig at their shows is so intense that back in the band’s fledgling years (the conservative, finger on the button Reagan 80s), police, on countless occasions, would be forced to shut down their sets just minutes in. This form of authoritarian censorship by molly-coddle fit in perfectly with lead singer Michael Gira’s ethos: confrontation through sound.
Gira’s stage antics, especially in those early days, make the mindless violence of No Wave’s west coast rivals (LA) seem more like a late 60s Haight-Ashbury love-in. His reputation for ordering the air conditioning in venues be turned off during a set to give that “Indian sweat lodge feel” is legendary. The physical assault of any crowd member who Gira deemed to be enjoying the show was quite normal too. He especially detested head banging and would duly punish anyone for doing so. Gira’s mission statement of provocation through sound was clear right from the get-go (the name Swans was chosen because swans are “majestic, beautiful looking creatures with really ugly temperaments”). His own frank assessment of his music is “soul uplifting, body destroying.” So, in light of all this, on a balmy early March Melbourne evening, I made my way to the totally awesome Forum Theatre. Alone. This is one band that I had been wanting/needing to see for the best part of two decades and, to be honest, as with so many other bands from the 60s, 70s and 80s, I had put a line through them. Born at the wrong time. Never gonna happen. (It’s at this point that I would like to thank Napster, Pirate Bay and all of their illegal torrent site cousins for ensuring that the very artists who have given us so much low-cost pleasure for so many decades are never to see even a hint of a royalty penny again through legitimate album sales and are thusly required to reform their acts and destroy their ageing bodies with endless touring just to be able to make enough money to buy a sandwich and a train ticket.) Thank you. Now I get to see Swans.
I wasn’t alone for long. A weird old dude I know from bumping into at other gigs (I forget his name) snuck up behind me at the urinals and poked me under the rib cage with his middle and index finger. I can’t get enough of that shit. In fact, I urge anyone to sneak up to their buddies while they are taking a leak when they are at their most vulnerable and poke them in one of their most sensitive areas whilst laughing maniacally. Trust me, they’ll love you for it.
My socially inappropriate friend was on his own too. Come to think of it, there were a lot of people on their own that night. Mostly male. Mostly middle-aged. Mostly either inwardly angry or socially awkward. The venue was only half full. A miserable smattering of loners methodically plotted into strategic viewing and listening positions; some front and centre but most ghosted toward obscurity at side stage as if they were expecting some sort of audience participation and were desperately trying to avoid it. Taking heed, I stood at side stage too. I wasn’t taking any chances. My buddy bought me a beer. I never got the chance to shout him back.
Swans hit the stage and the usual clamour of tunnel-visioned Johnny-come-latelys rush to the front. I look up just in time to see a seriously menacing looking derelict of a man with long hair and a Manson stare commence a brutal assault on some poor tubular chime bells. Mike Oldfield he ain’t. It’s the intro to “No Words/No Thoughts”, the opening track to their unrelenting comeback album from 2010, My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky, and it’s fucking loud. An even more menacing looking derelict of a man with an even better Manson stare pounces onto the stage and joins in with his hammer dulcimer. What a fantastically beautiful instrument this is! A totally mesmerising sound with such a deep, earthy resonance; so dramatic yet so ornate. The idea of the two instruments, isolated and without context (both are traditionally used in more “classical” arrangements) seem to contradict the spirit of brutality in which Swans aim to deliver, yet together, played with such urgency and cranked up to illegal volume, in the context of typical Swans soundscapes… well the whole bloody thing just took my breath away.
Swans – No Words No Thoughts (Official Music Video)
Gira skulks onto the stage looking like an uncle you’re not supposed to associate with. His hat is magnificent. It screams escaped mental patient cowboy who may or may not harass you on the bus. He lurches back and forward on his trailing leg and stamps his front foot in opposing time to the chimes/dulcimer combo. He scares me. This goes on for five minutes. I look around the room. The usual joy of seeing one of your favourite band’s opening number isn’t as apparent as it usually would be. No one is smiling, there are no hoots, whistles or cheers, not that you could hear them anyway. Just a lot of dropped jaws, the blown away shaking of heads and adjusting of ear plugs.
The obligatory involuntary squeal of feedback is usually semi-tolerable. Tonight it’s just downright agonising. With one final conductorial Gira lurch, the rest of the band kick into action with the most intrusive, yet perversely pleasurable, guitar and drum assault you thought could never exist. I immediately try to draw a physical comparison to the probing sound; being rhythmically sodomised with a whip handle by a hefty dominatrix in a bondage parlour comes to mind (I imagine), or, musically speaking; a slave ship rhythm based around one driving, relentless note. A stark, black drone. A meditation as the antithesis of meditation.
The megalithic wall of feedback created an almost tornado-like swirl and gradually became disorienting in its propulsion. The ambush continued for at least another ten minutes. This is the type of “shock and awe” George W. Bush has wet dreams about.
My buddy and I just kind of gawked at each other in equal part astonishment and fear. In that precise snapshot of time, he aged ten years. My face was wrinkling too. I could feel it. The necessary amount of blood required to keep the brain functioning at an appropriate level deserted my head to a point unknown. Cowering somewhere in my lower intestine was that surrendering feeling that my life expectancy had shortened significantly simply from bearing witness to this catastrophic event.
The dystopic ambience of the room was palpable; uncomfortable and retreating. Before Gira even began to sing, more than half the crowd had either gone outside for a breather or, at the very least, recoiled to a more respectable distance from the stage. It wasn’t just the sheer ear-splitting volume causing issues, now the “brown note” had also come into play. The fudgy squelch of feedback and drone not only gang-banged the eardrums, it finger-banged the bowel to near orgasm too. From that point on, me and my body were no longer simpatico; compadres we were not. This was intense.
This is no exaggeration; I am the stupidest man alive. I stayed. The ones who valued life, left.
My buddy was long gone too. I didn’t even see him leave, although I am pretty damn sure his exit was an inglorious one. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since. I still owe him a beer.
As the one-hundred-year-old Forum foundations quaked, I realised the absolute abstract weirdness of the situation. The condition of my stomach was actually worsening. This is uncharted territory, something the human condition isn’t really equipped to understand; physiological alteration through sonic frequency and an excessive abuse of sound. To this day I still don’t fully understand what went on but I comfort myself from time to time with this analogy: Imagine an explorer travelling in an infinite northerly direction; eventually he would reach Magnetic North and, even though he is still facing the same direction, north has now become south. This is Swans. The music is so fucking loud, the frequencies so obscene that what had been so painfully audible minutes before, now has delved beyond the threshold of hearing into a gut-churning sub-audible hum of violent laxative proportions. At any rate, my dodgy stomach made me forget all about how stuffed my ears were.
I watched the rest of the two hour show leaning against the stage next to one of the main speakers, clutching my chest in relief as each song ended. Silence became my best friend. I wanted the full Swans experience and I got it in spades. And you know what? It was bloody awesome. Soul uplifting, body destroying. I just wish I had taken a change of underpants.
The Brown Note
Originally, this article was to be a small intro crapping on a bit about the challenging live experience that is seeing a Swans show followed by an organic segue into the machinations, phenomenon and mystery that is the brown note. It was not meant to be an irrelevant live review of a Swans show from years ago. But things change. I had to purge. I had been holding onto unresolved feelings from that night for over four years and now, thanks to you, I am cleansed. I make no apologies. I must also clarify that whilst the voluntary status of my bowel movements during said Swans show remained clearly on the precipice, I can confirm, without hesitation, that said bowel movements did in fact remain just that… voluntary. In other words, full brown note deployment remained a negatory and thus, within a narrow scientific realm at least, remains a hypothetical theorem.
Now, the brown note…
The brown note is a perverse little frequency that certain sadistic musicians like to experiment with. Its sole purpose is to cause audience members to lose complete control of their bowels. You’ve heard of teenage girls losing their shit at One Direction shows? Well at Swans shows people nearly lose their shit too.
The optimum frequency levels required to cause such extreme physiological triggers are so low (between 5 and 9 Hz) that most humans are completely unaware of any audible noise. This is called an infrasonic frequency and it is usually accompanied by an excessive layering of more tangible noise.
Over the decades, musicians from all eras and genres have experimented with these particular frequencies and, depending on who you believe, some have enjoyed (skid) marked success (sorry). Brian May and John Deacon (Queen), Holger Czukay (Can), George Clinton (Parliament/Funkadelic) and Glenn Branca (Glenn Branca Orchestra) are but a few who have pleasured in the perverse joy of trying to make adoring fans crap themselves. Some even believe that certain governments are in the business of perfecting the brown note as a means of effective mass crowd control. Ewww.
Most experts in the field of sonic frequencies — including weapons experts — are of the firm belief that the brown note does not and cannot exist. This includes one Jurgen Altmann, who is a leading sonic weapons expert in Germany. He claims that there is no reliable evidence for nausea and vomiting caused by infrasound.
Well, to him I call bullshit. Here’s a suggestion for ya… put down your noise dosimeter and vibrometer, lift your head up from your calculus or however the hell you work stuff out, get 50 bucks from the wife and take in a bloody Swans show! You could even eat some Indian food beforehand to really kick things along. They’ll take you as close as you need to be fella.
Imagine the lucrative possibilities for musicians and underwear manufacturers alike: “Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready to rock as Chugg Entertainment in association with Holeproof, Rio and Bonds present to you… One Direction!”
Hell, let’s face it, 1D are halfway there anyway. They already make me physically ill.
*I urge you to listen to Swans’ most recent album To Be Kind (2014). It’s a remarkable journey.
Main photo image: Jennifer Church/Young God Records
