Shocking Artists

[Guybrush]

Avast ye maties,

What are some artists you know of that are considered shocking?

I'll start off with Rockbitch:



They were a kind of English witches coven / metal band who played concerts that mixed in live sex acts like fisting and occasional audience participation. They were active for some years around the turn of the century.

They'd also sometimes parody Charlie and the chocolate factory, tossing a golden condom out in the audience and whoever got it got to have sex with them backstage.

Kinda crazy, right?

If you want, you can watch concert footage here interspersed with some ritual / dungeon footage, but BEWARE that this seems to be hosted at a sleazy porn site: https://noodlemagazine.com/watch/-194820830_456239141

[Psy-Fi]

I'm somewhat surprised that I've never heard of 'Rockbitch.' I'd love to see a "where are they now?" documentary about them in 2023.

GG Allin is the one artist that always comes to my mind in this category. Probably the most obvious choice but there just isn't enough brain-bleach to ever scrub him permanently from my mind. 

[Meatwad]

GG Allin is the first one I think of too, but there is also Mayhem.

[larsvsnapster]

I actually knew GG personally.  If you treated him like a human being, he loved you.  If he thought otherwise he'd fight like a cat in a corner.  He was always a sweetheart to me.  I told him the deal to crash on my couch was I don't want to see any smack, and he'd have a shower immediately upon us arriving.  He responded by turning my loo into Better Homes & Gardens which surprised me.  The worst thing he ever did around me was stub a cig out on my kitchen table for being blocked up and missing the ashtray. 

[Lexi Darling]

It always kind of bugged me when people held GG Allin up as some kind of shining example of "true punk rock", usually in the context of them saying punk is too "safe" these days. Like, is GG really the kind of act you want to see more of in the music scene? Personally one of him was enough for me.

[Guybrush]

Okay, another one that you probably won't know about and which might not make sense to you is Onkel Kånkel.



Sweden has a fairly long history of some outrageously vulgar parody music. I believe it may have been influenced by artists like Thore Skogmann and got started properly with Eddie Meduza, but I think it was when Onkel Kånkel entered the scene in the late 80s / early 90s that this took off among young people and the könsrock genre was born. It was helped along to popularity by early internet and the invention of mp3s and filesharing.

So könsrock (genitalia rock) is a sizeable subculture in Sweden with bands making songs about things like banging corpses and eating them afterwards, people with cerebral palsy or smoking poo at school.

Most of these bands aren't very interesting, but Onkel Kånkel are a slight exception. Their humour is layered. It's not just stupid and offensive lyrics, but there's humour in the songs they parody, the characters and voices they do down to the way they play their instruments and the quality of their productions.

Their Christmas album, Old fashioned Christmas, is a good showcase of how they could be both offensive and funny. It starts with a song about raping children in Bethlehem (!), especially baby Jesus in the crib so that's offensive checked off right away.

But their usual target was making fun of homosexuality in some way. Here's I Saw Santa Sucking Daddy tonight:

And here's "The Gay Surprises the Butt":

These songs are of course in Swedish. The only song I can currently think of thats in English is their parody of Ray Parker Jr's Ghostbusters song, now gaybusters of course.

They have played concerts as well and there's some clips on YouTube. They're of course incognito with the singer wrapped up like a mummy and wearing shades.

So kinda interesting that something as juvenile and stupid could gain so much traction 🤔 but that was the 90s, I guess. People take humour a lot more seriously now.

I've no idea if könsrock lives on, but it might? At best it was funny and at worst it was just cringey and also rather racist at times. Some other bands/artists I remember were Slaskfittorna (The Slack Pussies), Apsvett (Ape sweat) and Tunnan och Moroten (The dumpster and the Carrot).

So that's what things are like in Sweden 😅

[larsvsnapster]

Okay, another one that you probably won't know about and which might not make sense to you is Onkel Kånkel.

Mancrush on Guybrush developing! I seriously love bands that obsess over gay sex (like Nanowar, Gayrilla Biscuits, Pansy Division and Gronibard).  I'm going to look around and add them.  Thanks, always looking for something super interesting like this. 

[Psy-Fi]

smoking poo

I sincerely hope that's just a Swedish euphemism for smoking cannabis or hashish.

[Lexi Darling]

I sincerely hope that's just a Swedish euphemism for smoking cannabis or hashish.

I mean they're already singing about necrophilia and cannibalism, I think smoking a bit of dookie would be the least horrifying of their subject matter. 

[Guybrush]

Mancrush on Guybrush developing! I seriously love bands that obsess over gay sex (like Nanowar, Gayrilla Biscuits, Pansy Division and Gronibard).  I'm going to look around and add them.  Thanks, always looking for something super interesting like this. 

Haha, thanks yourself! I'm flattered. But I assume you don't speak swedish? This must be horribly obscure 😅

They also made a parody of Disney's story about the ox Ferdinand, only Ferdinand is now a small wank-queer who prefers to just sit on a park bench to wank and gently tug on his balls. That is until the gay porn producers roll into town..

I mean they're already singing about necrophilia and cannibalism, I think smoking a bit of dookie would be the least horrifying of their subject matter. 

Yes, like Onkel Kånkel were obsessed about homosexuality, Tunnan och Moroten (The Dumpster and The Carrot) centered a lot of their music (8 albums now, I believe) around poop.

They had one of those early internet viral mp3s, a song called Bajs I Bastun (Faeces in the Sauna) which was a story about the two of them going to a sauna only to find the floors, walls and ceiling smeared with poop that they then slip and fall in.

Their songs can be fun, but are usually also horribly annoying to listen to.

Here's an example, a song about how poop and chocolate tastes exactly the same (and you can eat it straight from the ass with a big ladle):

More Eurodance inspired I guess 🤔 though maybe not the guitar solo around the 2 minutes mark.

[Psy-Fi]

These guys were outrageous and made me laugh out loud on many occasions when listening to their songs. They even had a connection to Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins...

The Frogs - Raped

[larsvsnapster]

What about those that shock but do it musically rather than transgressive, admittedly juvenile subject matter?  Maybe I'm getting prudish but I don't know about the Dumpster Carrot band.

I'm thinking more along the lines of early Pere Ubu and the shock that was hearing The Modern Dance and Dub Housing for the very first time. 

[Guybrush]

What about those that shock but do it musically rather than transgressive, admittedly juvenile subject matter?  Maybe I'm getting prudish but I don't know about the Dumpster Carrot band.

I'm thinking more along the lines of early Pere Ubu and the shock that was hearing The Modern Dance and Dub Housing for the very first time. 

I don't think Dumpster and Carrot are worthy much mention here 😄 just a side note to the Kånkel.

Musically shocking is interesting. Pere Ubu is a great mention! For myself, The Stooges and Suicide quickly came to mind.

And I love The Residents, if they count, especially their Duck Stab & Glen album.

[larsvsnapster]

And I love The Residents, if they count, especially their Duck Stab & Glen album.

Funny thing about the Residents is that if you go back to the late 50's and look at the outside stuff in popular culture you'll find a lot of things that sound like them.  Les Baxter, Esquivel, and Martin Denny come to mind immediately.  They weren't playing rock music but more trying to play the tiki-bar stuff but not really knowing how to. 

[Lexi Darling]

I think The Third Reich n' Roll is a masterpiece in deconstruction and a very fun listen. Never really listened to much else of theirs though. I take it Duck Stab is a good one to check out?