Columnist Geoff Carter: Music, makeup, clothes not responsible for mass killings

I'll come around, so please bear with me. Not long after the Columbine High School tragedy, in which two sick young men murdered a dozen-plus innocents, the news staff of local KVBC Channel 3 interviewed my sister to give the story a Las Vegas focus. My sister graduated from high school some six years ago, has never been to Littleton, Colo., and doesn't have a homicidal bone in her body, but nevertheless the news staff interviewed her -- and her friends -- in conjunction with the murders.

Here's what my sister did to deserve this singular honor: She cultivated a love of fine wines, she collected pre-Raphaelite artwork, she wrote poetry, she listened to the ethereal music of Dead Can Dance and Bel Canto, she wore black-on-black clothing. In other words, my sister surrounds herself with the trappings of a Gothic. Hell, she even owns a black trench coat. (So do I.) As far as the whiz kids at Channel 3 are concerned, she's part of the extended family of those sick individuals who committed those atrocities in Littleton -- they wore black trench coats, listened to Gothic/Industrial music. ...

Even my father thought the connection tenuous. "Every generation makes its own reality, music-wise," he said, as we left a screening of "The Matrix." "My great-grandparents hated my parents' music; thought it was demonic. My parents didn't like rock 'n' roll. And of course," he went on, "I think everything that's come out after Buddy Holly is noise."

Of course, he didn't mean that. (Though I think the last band I got him to enjoy was REM.) And I know that, logically, the media doesn't really believe the music of KMFDM, Rammstein and Marilyn Manson drove these boys to kill -- not in a moral climate where our government drops a solid ton of bombs on Eastern Europe every day. The problem lies elsewhere -- somewhere deeper, darker that we cannot find. And being a pragmatic society -- or pretending to be one, at any rate -- we seek to assign blame.

Funny, then, that all these years after McCarthy, we still give the raw end of the deal to artists, and those who follow their work.

Let me sum up Marilyn Manson for you: ACTOR. Not one of my favorites, either -- his transsexual libertine has been done before, and better, by David Bowie, T Rex and nearly every other icon of the English Glam rock era. The most potent object I've ever seen him wield on stage was a giant black phallus. Not exactly Doris Day. But you can't kill anyone with acting, and anyone over the age of 11 would recognize it as such. As for keeping very young children away from Manson and "The Matrix," well, I'd have to say that's a matter of parental control.

And the demonizing of KMFDM and Rammstein amounts to little short of racism. Did anybody at CNN actually listen to their music before dragging their names through the mud? A German/English outfit, KMFDM is one of the most wickedly satirical outfits I've had the pleasure of reviewing. (One of its most incisive songs, "Sucks," skewers only the music industry and itself.) Their members crunched metal and disco beats together and wore black clothes, but as one of their own press releases declared, "it's a shtick."

The title of Rammstein's "Hierate Mich" translates to "Marry Me" -- wouldn't you know, it's a love song! Unfortunately, its members garb themselves in black, employ Gothic theatricals and -- Mein Gott! -- speak and sing in German. "Members of Rammstein have children of their own, in whom they continually strive to instill healthy and nonviolent values," the band members stressed in a statement made shortly after the tragedy. Hey, can they do that?

Sadly, the chances of the Gothic subculture convincing the rest of America that it is blameless are thin indeed. Harassment will continue, from peers, teachers and reporters. The metal-machine muzik of Rammstein will continue to be suspect. Gov. Kenny Guinn will make other efforts to block Marilyn Manson from performing, above and beyond a polite letter to his tour manager. Suspicions will grow and double, black trench coats will be confiscated, kids will be told to "go home and wash that makeup off."

Meanwhile, killers will continue to walk free. And we won't be able to spot them by the color of their clothes or the music blasting from their cars. It just doesn't work that way.

Stereo Dynamics: Jump With Joey, "Swingin' Ska Goes South of Th' Border," Will Records.

On select Friday nights, some friends and I go to a local bar to hear a swing band assembled from real veterans of the era -- the guys who backed Ellington, Basie, Butera. There's not a one of them under 70, but they still sound better than nearly every young swing band out there, because they've been to the source. The Royal Crown Revue can try all they want, but they'll never sound as natural, as real.

Joey Altruda's Latin swing outfit, Jump With Joey, reminds me of those fellows. Its stuff is authentic -- straight from Xavier Cugat's mind to its collective consciousness. Its members sound like they've been there. And on "Swingin' Ska," they go there again and again.

Drawing on a range of styles from mambo to cha-cha, bassist Altruda's six-man outfit burns through a set lean on filler and heavy with nostalgia. "Calafia" recalls all the Cuba Libres you've ever had, while "Fun at King King" will remind you of the old neighborhood, no matter where you're from. That's how personal this stuff is. This disc is already yours; it's just waiting for you to buy it.

Get Out, Act Up: This is too good to pass up. Catch up with the local music scene and indulge your lust for handouts at once Saturday night at the LVLOCALMUSICSCENE.COM Compilation CD release party, not surprisingly at local music epicenter The Boston. Featured: Seminiferous, Trip, Inside Scarlet, Kickwirmz, Floor Thirteen and Epstein's Mother. And the first 100 bodies through the door even get a free copy of the 18-band CD. Call 368-0750 and go native.

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