Music is responsible for some of the most interesting highlights of my life. A child of the late seventies and eighties, I grew up listening to Cameo, Earth, Wind & Fire, Barry White, Stevie Wonder, The Bee Gees, Slave, Bill Withers, and The Stylistics to name a few. In Eighth Grade I went on the infamous “church retreat” (if you never had the opportunity, ask a friend who has and you’ll find out why they are always “infamous”). Anyway, one night a kid there let me listen to Depeche Mode’s, Some Great Reward and I woke up a changed ma… err… boy. From that point on I couldn’t get enough DM, ABC, Howard Jones or any other synthetic act in a silver jumpsuit. Then it got worse.

When a buddy gave me a 12” of Ministry’s All Day, I had the equivalent of a pubescent musical wet dream. And, soon after, I went into a record store and asked a clerk to play Skinny Puppy’s First Aid. I thought their album covers looked cool and I kept hearing their name with the likes of Ministry and Front 242. “You won’t like it. It’s rock.” I realize she said that because I was Black, but I forgave her. “That’s OK”, I said, “Put it on anyway.” A reverberating explosion hit the speakers, the sound of a door creaked open, and Skinny Puppy sunk into a heavy groove.

A lump formed in my throat. Goose bumps crawled on my skin. I couldn’t believe it. Then Addiction hit - “How can these guys be so funky?” I thought. “I mean, Cameo is funky, Slave is funky, but who the hell are these guys?” I was as good as turned out. You may as well have put me on the corner of Sunset and Vine. The beats were so hard, the bassline so funky and deep, and the voice so… twisted… I loved it! “Rock”, this clearly was not. I had never heard a sound this intense without the use of guitars.

Before I knew it, I had contacted Nettwerk Records (Skinny Puppy’s label in Canada from 1982 - 1993) and started to get my hands on everything Skinny Puppy did from posters, to T-shirts, to music.

Years later, to test Skinny Puppy’s “funk quotient”, I had a girlfriend in college check out Dig It on headphones. She was jammin’ with a Cheshire Cat grin on her face… until the vocals started. Her eyes popped open with terror as she yanked the headphones off and shuddered. Then she looked at me like I had the plague.

I quickly found out that Skinny Puppy was not for the faint of heart. From their music, to their concerts, to their album covers (much respect to the artist Steven R. Gilmore), Skinny puppy chose to shock the masses and wake them from their slumber. Skinny Puppy is a bit of a political group. The lead singer Nivek Ogre (a.k.a. Kevin Ogilvie) is a vegetarian. They have spoken out against cruelty to animals (vivisection) and human atrocities worldwide. Sometimes their music would shock to the point of numbness.

I remember seeing their Too Dark Park Tour. The stage was designed like a mutated park. There were six large video screens about the stage showing (among other things) the goriest moments in horror films and news clips. Heavy stuff. The concert was good, theatrical, and intense as Hell – no pun intended. And the sound was incredible. Ogre, after wearing a pig’s head, and a make shift harness to resemble an impregnated belly, finally mutates into a creature and dies. An apparent demise at the hands of his own madness cultivated by the unforgiving brutality of the world. I saw a fan walking out of the concert, looking almost catatonic. I asked him if he liked it. His response was almost expressionless, ‘I liked it, but… during the end… it was almost too much.”

And that’s what Skinny Puppy does; they present a certain reflection of the world, throw it in a pot, and dare you to taste it. Most of the time it’s noisy. Often, it’s funky. But, invariably it’s introspective and layered.

by Cazembe Abena

My Top Ten Skinny Puppy Albums

1. VIVIsectVI (1988)
2. Too Dark Park (1990)
3. Cleanse, Fold and Manipulate (1987)
4. Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse (1986)
5. Last Rights (1992)
6. Rabies (1989)
7. Bites (1985)
8. The Process (1996)
9. Remission (1984)
10. The Greater Wrong of the Right (2004)

Check back next week as we journey further down the Skinny Puppy hole…