CARCASS CAKEWALK

Carcass Cakewalk. That was the band.

You have to realize, in my hometown, there were only two kinds of bands. An all-star conglomerate of local names who never went anywhere beyond our city limits. And splinter groups formed out of the mainstay groups that were always around. Carcass Cakewalk fit into neither of those two categories.

It was that sad era of music that was 1989-90. Hairbands and bad R&B wanna-bes in fluorescent colors. Apart from that, there wasn’t much. There was the flourishing "college music" scene that would eventually give birth to "alternative" that would eventually give birth to "utter crap," but that was a long way away. It was the college stations that gave bands like REM and Jane’s Addiction a boost. This was the thin thread of music that kept places like Groom’s Alley alive.

Groom’s was an old VFW that had been converted into the mouthpiece for a new invention of the day: the all-ages show. Since the death of punk and it’s resurrection as Hardcore, Groom’s had put on blistering all-ages shows for at least two years before Carcass Cakewalk ever graced its tiny, soiled stage.

On that particular night, the opening bands were Lykanthropos, a lumbering, sludge metal act, complete with strobe lights, a quirky, little, long-haired quartet simply called Slurpees and a fast, careening, teenage hardcore band called the Spastards. All three bands were unique in their own way, I suppose, balancing rapid-fire riffs with odd feedback in places. Then, Carcass Cakewalk took the stage. It’s like they came out of nowhere. No one had seen them in the crowd before, but as soon as they got on stage, it’s was like they’d been there all along. The drummer in bright orange tights and a Rembrandt Pussyhorse shirt, the bass player with tight dreads and clashing assortment of plaids, the guitarist in a plain t-shirt and jeans and finally, the lead singer. Shaved eyebrows, long, metal-laden, black trenchcoat, pink combat boots and to top it off, an army helmet with 14 rubber phalluses attached to it. One block away from Groom’s in any direction, this guy would’ve been showered with the epithet "faggot" as he walked down the street or worse, stabbed and left for dead in that get-up. Inside Groom’s, he was the closest thing to god status since the Perry Farrell-sighting in ’88 when Jane’s’ bus had broken down in an outlying suburb.

Carcass’ set was all over the map that night. The closest I could describe it would be math-rock, but that’s really pigeon-holing it too much for my tastes. They had the driving force of Fear, the strangeness of the Butthole Surfers and the complicated left-turns of the Melvins. The band itself looked like mental patients who had been turned loose on instruments. The phallus-crowned singer ran his vocals through a voice-processor, so no lyrics were audible, just high-pitched squeals and reverberated sound waves amidst psychedelic punk frenzies.

Their set was, maybe, 30 minutes and they were gone before any of us knew who they were. Apparently, apart from the voice-processor, they owned nothing onstage. The instruments belonged to the Spastards, so Carcass was able to make a hasty retreat after they blew our minds.

I never saw any of them ever again, as Carcass Cakewalk or broken up into other bands. It’s like they got together for the one gig at Groom’s, in this tiny town, inspired 20 or so people in the audience to start bands loosely based on their sound, then disappeared.

Carcass Cakewalk. That was the band.




-SLL