Alright, so usually when we start one of these
deep dives, I really like to ease you in gently.
You know, kind of set the scene for the listener.
Right, drop a little context about the era, the
vibe. Yeah, exactly. We might talk about the
state of pop music in 1996 or what the weather
was like. But today? Today I think we just had
to rip the band -aid off. We really do. There's
no easing into this one. No, we have to start
with the actual name of the album we're digging
into. Because... Honestly, in all my time looking
at music history and scrolling through archives,
I don't think I've ever seen a title quite like
this. It is a mouthful and a very deliberate
statement of intent before you even press play.
Statement is a very polite way to put it. So
we are looking at the August 6th, 1996 release
by the Noise Collective to Live and Shave in
L .A. And the title of this album is and I should
probably apologize in advance to anyone listening
with kids in the car right now. The title is
Helen Butt versus Masana Pussy Bad Smell. That
is the one. And honestly, I think just saying
that title out loud. gives you about 90 % of
the context you need for what we're about to
discuss today. It feels like a challenge, like
just buying the CD in 96, picking it up off the
record store shelf. It feels like a confrontation.
You're already participating in the performance
art just by holding the thing. Exactly. And that
is the entire point. Everything about this source
material, from that title to the liner notes
to the sound itself, screams that this is not
background music. Right. You don't put this on
while you're hosting a dinner party. This is
a noise album with a capital N. And we need to
be clear about what that means right up front.
Because when some people hear the word noise,
they think, oh, like loud rock music, like heavy
metal or Slayer. Or Nirvana, yeah. Yeah. But
no. We are talking about a specific experimental
genre that is deliberately challenging the very
definition of what music is. It's not about melody.
Not at all. It's about texture. It's about dissonance
and volume. If you go into this deep dive expecting
us to talk about a verse chorus, verse structure,
or a catchy hook to hum along to on your commute,
you are going to be profoundly confused. Probably
angry, too. Maybe even angry, yeah. So our mission
today is to really unpack this beast of an album.
We've got sources on the table describing it
as musical mayhem on one hand and then a predictable
gimmick on the other. It's incredibly polarized.
It is. We want to understand what happens when
you take heavy metal tape loops and suck them
into what one critic calls a black hole of a
mixing board. It makes for a fascinating case
study because it forces us to ask you, the listener,
where is the line between a masterpiece of the
avant -garde and just a total mess? Is there
a method to the madness? Exactly. Well, let's
start with the sound itself, because before we
get to the critics fighting over whether it's
genius or trash, we need to try and actually
describe what this thing sounds like to the human
ear. Which is not easy. No, but we have this
incredibly vivid description from critic Jeff
Bogato of the Washington City paper. Bogato is
great here. He moves past that initial shock
value and actually analyzes the ingredients.
He identifies their toolkit. Right, the actual
instruments. Yeah, which includes Moog synthesizers,
bass, guitar, and this is the crucial part, extensive
tape manipulation. I want to pause on that term,
tape manipulation, because for the listener who
lives in the digital age, who might be used to
just drag and drop in GarageBand or Pro Tools,
we aren't talking about copy pasting a digital
file here. Oh, no, not at all. This is the mid
-90s, but the technique they're using is very
old school, very tactile. Physical? Highly physical.
Tape manipulation means actually cutting magnetic
tape with a razor blade. You splice it back together
with sticky tape to create loops that repeat
physically over the tape head. or you're slowing
the reels down with your thumb. So it's a destructive
process. It's totally destructive. You are physically
manhandling the sound. And Bogato points out
a specific source for these manipulated sounds.
He knows that heavy metal records are particularly
in evidence. Right. But they aren't just playing
a metal record in the background while they do
other stuff. Bogato specifically says they are
being sucked into the black hole of Tom Smith's
mixing board. I absolutely love that metaphor,
the black hole. It implies this massive gravity.
It suggests gravity, density, spaghettification
of the audio. You take these recognizable elements
like a heavy metal guitar riff or a drum fill
and you feed them into this machine that just
warps and crushes them. Vigato describes the
final result as being condensed into piles of
slurred, guttural ranting, static, and broken
rock. Broken rock. That phrase really stuck with
me when I was reviewing the source notes. Broken
rock. It implies that the rock music is still
in there somewhere, but it's been smashed with
a hammer and glued back together wrong. And that
aligns perfectly with a description from another
source we looked at, Aiding and Abetting. They
characterized the album as a nice collection
of random musical violence. Random musical violence.
Which sounds aggressive, but aiding and abetting
actually meant it as a compliment. They absolutely
did. In this genre, violence is a texture. It's
a deliberate aesthetic choice. It's not accidental.
It's crafted. Right. But to understand how that
violence is crafted, we really had to look at
the personnel. Who is actually making this noise?
It's primarily a trio. Let's meet the band, yeah.
Because these aren't just faceless entities creating
static. They're specific people working in a
specific place. First up, you have Tom Smith.
He is really the architect here. The liner notes
credit him with lead vocals, tape, electronics,
engineering, recording, and mixing. So he's the
guy operating the black hole. He is the singularity,
yes. He's the one cutting the tape and writing
the faders. Yeah. Then you have Frank Filestra,
who is credited on the album under the spectacular
pseudonym Rat Bastard. Which is amazing. He's
playing bass guitar. Yeah. And finally, Ben Wolcott
on electronics. Rap Bastard is such a perfect
stage name for a project like this. It fits that
dirty, abrasive vibe perfectly. I mean, you don't
name yourself Rap Bastard if you're trying to
make smooth jazz. No, you certainly do not. So
you have this trio creating this massive wall
of sound. And interestingly, even though this
album came out in August of 96, The sources tell
us this wasn't fresh out of the oven. Right.
This material had been marinating for quite a
while. The recording sessions actually took place
much earlier, spanning from 1993 to 1994, and
they recorded at Sync Studios in Miami, Florida.
Miami in the early 90s. That is such an interesting
setting to me. Oh, why is that? Well, usually
when you think of this kind of gritty industrial
noise, you picture Berlin or the Lower East Side
of New York, maybe Detroit. You don't think of
Miami. Miami is sunshine, beaches, the club scene.
It really adds a layer of sweltering heat to
the mental image, doesn't it? Totally. Just imagine
these three guys in a dark, soundproof studio
in Miami. The sun is blazing outside, and they're
inside feeding metal records into a mixer, screaming
into a microphone, sweating over these tape loops.
It's visceral. It paints a very intense picture.
It's not cold, mechanical noise. It's hot, sweaty,
organic noise. And that intensity is exactly
what polarized the critics. This is where I want
to dig in, because when you release something
this abrasive, people are going to have incredibly
strong reactions. There was absolutely no middle
ground with this release. It's the classic dichotomy
of experimental art. One person's trash is literally
another person's treasure. On the positive side,
like we mentioned, we have the folks at Aiding
and Abetting. Right. They didn't just call it
musical violence. They noted that To Live and
Shave in L .A. already had a fine reputation
for this sort of musical mayhem and that this
album does not disappoint. So if you're a fan
of mayhem, this is the good stuff. They are delivering
on the brand promise. Exactly. The fans knew
what they were getting into and they were satisfied.
And Jeff Bogato at the Washington City Paper,
the black hole guy. Yeah. He also seemed to really
engage with it. Got it. He appreciated that broken
rock aesthetic. He saw the craft in the destruction.
He understood that breaking the rock was the
entire point of the exercise. However, not everyone
was willing to go along for that ride. Definitely
not. If we look at the review from AllMusic,
the tone shifts drastically. They gave the album
only two out of five stars. Ouch. Two stars.
That is a solid stay -away warning for any listener.
What was their specific beef with the album?
Well, where Bogato heard Broken Rock and these
interesting textures, All Music heard a disturbing
cacophony melted on in several short pieces.
A disturbing cacophony. Yeah. But the most cutting
criticism, and I think this is the one we really
need to unpack, was that they called it a predictable
gimmick that wears thin early. Predictable gimmick?
That's harsh. I mean, calling noise music cacophony
feels a bit like stating the obvious, that's
the genre. It's like complaining that water is
wet. Right. But calling it a predictable gimmick
implies that it's insincere. Or lazy, almost.
It raises a massive philosophical question about
the genre itself. What makes something a gimmick?
The critic at AllMusic seems to feel that once
you get the joke... Once you figure out the technique
of the tape loops and the statics, there's nothing
else there to hold your interest. The novelty
just wore off for them. But I have to play dull's
advocate here. For the fans of the genre, isn't
that wearing thin almost the point? It's about
endurance. It's about sitting in that static
and forcing yourself to find the texture inside
the chaos. Precisely. The disturbing cacophony
is the feature. Not the bug. It is entirely subjective.
If you are willing to engage with the texture
of the sound on a micro level, it just sounds
like noise. But if you do engage. If you are
engaged, it's a complex landscape of slurred,
guttural ranting and layered electronics. Well,
speaking of endurance, we have to talk about
the sheer scale of this thing. Because if AllMusic
thought it wore thin early, they must have had
a really rough afternoon reviewing this. This
is not a short EP. It is a monolith. The total
runtime is 70 minutes and 47 seconds. Over an
hour. Over an hour of broken rock, screaming,
and static. That is a huge ask for any listener.
It demands total attention. And it's not just
one long continuous droning track either. It
is chopped up aggressively. Right. I'm looking
at the track list here. There are 37 individual
tracks. 37. So the average track length is incredibly
short. Some of them are just rapid bursts of
sound. And looking at this track list, the titles
alone are a wild trip. We can't do a deep dive
on this album without reading some of these out.
They seem to be a huge part of the overall art
piece. The titles are essential. They frame how
you the listener are supposed to interpret the
abstract sounds. They range from the completely
surreal to the aggressively provocative. They're
designed to keep you off balance. Aggressively
provocative is putting it mildly. As a reminder,
we are just reporting these neutrally as factual
components of the art. I'm looking at track four
here, The Ass God. A classic of the genre. Simple,
direct, offensive. And then track 11. This one
has a strange rhythm to it. Crypt rocket, tomb
rocket, turd rocket. It's almost poetic in a
very scatological way. It sounds like a nursery
rhyme from hell. Then there's track six, Shit
If They Hit. And track 19, which I'm just going
to read as it appears on the page. Censorship
be damned. Want to bust up a virgin ass. It's
highly confrontational. It mirrors the sonic
violence perfectly. These titles aren't meant
to make you feel comfortable or safe. They are
designed to shock you, to disgust you, or just
completely confuse you. Right. It forces a reaction.
You simply cannot be passive when you read a
track list like that. But then right next to
all that vulgar stuff, you have titles that sound
weirdly academic. Yeah. Or abstract, like track
13 Mizrahi Speculum. Speculum obviously has medical
connotations, which continues that body horror
theme. Or track seven Spelvin the Righteous Bush.
Or track 21 Rexroth Cozy Cool. It creates this
disorienting mix of highbrow obscurity and lowbrow
vulgarity. Yeah. And it's that juxtaposition
that really defines the band. Are they avant
-garde geniuses or are they just making a mess
to make a mess? The titles keep that specific
question alive. And we should note, according
to the credits, almost all the lyrics here were
written by Tom Smith. Yes. Smith handled the
lyrics, while the music is credited to the entire
trio, Philestra, Smith, and Wolcott. So the sonic
landscape was a group effort, but the verbal
ranting and these wild titles seemed to be largely
Smith's overarching vision. Now, amidst all these
original tracks, things like I Learned to Inject
Morpheo or My Third Decade of Ultra Fuck, just
to name a couple more, there is one track that
stands out like a sore thumb because it's actually
not an original composition. Yes, track 28. Television's
over. Wait, this is a cover song. It is indeed.
It's a cover of a song by The Adverts, which
was a British punk band from the late 70s. The
original track was written by T .B. Smith. That
is fascinating. So in the middle of 37 tracks
of experimental noise and brutal tape loops,
they drop a punk cover. Why do that? If we connect
this to the bigger picture, it makes perfect
sense. Punk was always about breaking the rules,
right? About raw energy and untrained expression.
To live and shave in LA is taking that exact
ethos and just pushing it to its absolute logical
limit. So it's an homage. Covering the adverts
acts as a sort of nod to their lineage. They
are acknowledging their punk roots, even if they're...
processing those roots through a black hole of
electronics. It's like a little anchor in the
storm. For a listener, you might hear a faint
chord change and think, oh, wait, I recognize
a song structure here. And then presumably it
just gets eaten by the static again. Highly likely,
yes. It's also almost four minutes long, which
actually makes it one of the longer tracks on
the entire album. Many of these are quite short.
First pop novices under a minute. tina russell
free is barely over a minute it really is a barrage
just short bursts of noise one right after another
which again explains that cacophony melted on
in several short pieces comment from the all
music review it's relentless it deliberately
doesn't let you settle into any kind of groove
just when you think you finally understand the
noise the track changes and you're hit with a
totally new texture So we've got the sound, we've
got the track list, we've got the attitude. Let's
talk about the physical object itself, because
someone had to actually manufacture and release
this thing. You don't just find this at a standard
record shop. No, this is definitely not a mass
market product. The album was released on CD
by a label called Full Contact Records. The catalog
number for the serious collectors out there listening
is 9868 -63235. Full contact records. Again,
the name fits the vibe so perfectly. It implies
a physical altercation. You don't put this kind
of audio out on Gentle Breeze Records. It absolutely
does. And looking at the credits for the physical
release, it's clear there was a whole dedicated
team behind the presentation. This wasn't just
some bootleg cassette passed around a basement
show. Zolman Fishman is listed as the executive
producer. And visuals are always huge for this
kind of thing, right? The noise aesthetic usually
extends heavily into the album art and the packaging
itself. It does. We see photography credits for
a whole team here, Priscilla Forthman, Sam Patton,
and Angela Terrell. And we also have liner notes
written by Greg Chapman. Liner notes seem incredibly
crucial for a release like this. In experimental
music, liner notes are often vital. They give
the listener some kind of roadmap. or if not
a roadmap, at least a manifesto, something to
read and ground yourself with while your ears
are just being assaulted. It contextualizes the
chaos. It shows that despite the chaotic sound,
this was a carefully packaged product. They wanted
this to look and feel a very specific way. It's
a complete art object. Absolutely. So what does
this all mean for us today? We've looked at the
black hole production style, the random musical
violence, the totally polarized reviews, and
this absolute marathon of a track list. I think
what's most fascinating here is that Helen Butte
vs. Masana Busy Bad Smell essentially serves
as a litmus test. A litmus test for what exactly?
For the listener's relationship with structure.
Jeff Begato in Aiding and Abetting looked at
this and saw a fine reputation upheld. They saw
the broken rock and the heavy metal tape loops
as a brilliant, creative deconstruction. They
saw the skill required in the mixing board manipulation.
They recognized the labor. And the folks at AllMusic
saw a headache. They saw a gimmick. They saw
something disturbing and predictable. And in
a strange way, Both perspectives are completely
right. Noise music. is a gimmick if you're actively
looking for a Trudeville song. But it's a masterpiece
if you're looking for an exploration of texture.
It reminds me of that old idea that art isn't
necessarily supposed to be nice. It's supposed
to make you feel something. And whether that
feeling is, wow, look at this complex sonic landscape
or make it stop. This is pure cacophony. It's
certainly eliciting a very strong reaction. Exactly.
To live and shave in L .A., didn't spend a year
in a hot studio in Miami to make background music.
for you they wanted to grab you by the collar
yeah the fact that the album is 70 minutes long
with 37 tracks proves they are actively demanding
your attention they demand you sit through the
slurred ranting and the static they are daring
you to turn it off and honestly in a world of
polished auto -tuned pop music there is something
kind of refreshing about a band that just wants
to throw heavy metal records into a black hole
and see what spits out the other side it preserves
a certain raw human chaos that is so often polished
out of modern music. It's messy, it's ugly, and
it's completely unapologetic. So here's the final
thought I want to leave you with today as we
wrap up this deep dive. We talked about how all
music called this a predictable gimmick, but
I want you to really think about that word predictable.
Go on. When you look at a track list featuring
Crypt Rocket and the Ascot, and you hear relentless
take loops of Broken Rock, at what point does
disturbing cacophony cross the line? When does
the pure shock value actually just become boring?
That is always the danger of the avant -garde.
If you shock constantly, the shock just becomes
the new routine. Exactly. But maybe that's the
final layer of the experiment. Maybe the moment
you decide to hit skip or the moment you finally
rip the CD out of the player because you can't
take it anymore, maybe your breaking point is
the final instrument in their composition. You
become part of the noise. Right. So are you willing
to sit through 37 tracks to find out if track
36 is different from track one? I guess the only
way to truly know is to find a copy of Helen
Butte vs. Masana Pussy Bad Smell, clear 70 minutes
of your schedule, and dive right into the black
hole yourself. Maybe keep the volume down a little
bit. Or don't. Or crank it up. Depends entirely
on how much you like your neighbors. Thanks for
joining us on this deep dive. Catch you next
time.