If you've ever asked yourself, "When is it OK for a band to self-reference itself in pretty much all of its songs," look no further than 20-year veteran industrial rockers KMFDM. They played Sonar this past Thursday night, promoting their latest album, Hau Ruck (something like "heave ho!" in English). On the whole it was a thumping good time. As with most industrial music, it is necessary to suspend one's disbelief, so to speak, at what can be considered music--doubly true if you only listen to indie crap. With KMFDM, this is not difficult. With lyrics like, "KMFDM / better than the best / Megalomaniacal and harder than the rest", they're pretty much the authority on cool. On top of this, frontman Sascha Konietzko kept saying, "Are you Baltimore? Or Balti-less? Or Balti-shit?" It probably makes more sense if German is your mother tongue.
KMFDM started out sounding like a high-school metal band. The male and female vocalists Konietzko and Lucia Cifarelli, were pinned down under the soul-shaking electronics, drums and twin guitars. They never did seem to totally emerge out of that maelstrom of sound. As a side note, both guitars play the same arrangement for each song. If you have to ask, "So why not just have one guitar player?" you'll never understand anyway.
It was loud. I regretted not having earplugs or a thicker skull. Combichrist had been loud, but KMFDM will simply not be outdone, under any circumstances (that's probably one of their lyrics already). It's a rare night at Sonar when the woofers move every cubic inch of air in the room with a single, thunderous bass peal; but KMFDM at times seemed to be willing sonic murder upon the audience. For which, of course, it loved them.
Speaking of which, if not for the audience, I wouldn't have realized KMFMD was founded before I was born. A lot of the crowd's dancing -- if you can call it that -- was done without moving any feet. There was something oddly light-hearted about the entire thing, as if it were an old, familiar routine, and everyone was tired of the circle-pits, the rough-housing, etc. Probably the outrageous $20 ticket price had kept them away from the bar as well. Sans whiskey-cokes, things seemed a bit saner than what the music called for -- a disappointment if you happened to be feeling the power that night, as some elbow-throwers obviously were.
I must admit, KMFDM are the first band I've seen who sell skateboard decks as part of the normal merchandise. That's just one indication of how ridiculous (excuse me, ridiculously awesome) their fans are.
Somewhere in America, a thirty-something is wondering, "Why did I buy this? I don't even ride the skateboard." He has fulfilled his purpose as a fan, which means KMFDM will let him into heaven now. The rest of us are SOL.
