They live in the high-speed cultural blender of New York City and try to make sonic sense of late 20th Century information fallout. Their freeform tunes - even the painfully scrunched 20-second ones - transform hardcore's howling nihilism into beautiful, liberating thrill rides. They are the best white band in America and, boy!, do they hate the clapped-out, self-congratulatory lads-club called rock.
"You really need blinders on to walk down the street and only hear rock," sneers Yale-educated band founder and lethal guitarist Craig Flanagin. Craig protests that even explicitly gay lyrics like 'Straight Not' from current GodCo EP 'My Sinister Hidden Agenda' are only political in a society which judges simple tales of homosexual and heterosexual lust by different standards.
"What pisses me off more than anything is not just the 'Oh, I don't mind homos as long as they don't rub your face in it, but people who say 'Who cares who you sleep with, why do you have to make such a big deal out of it?' If that were actually the case, and these songs were no novelty at all, I would be so happy."
On the astonishing GodCo album 'Speed Yr Trip', Sharon Topper howls like killer-lesbian flick Basic Instinct on fast-forward with Sharon Stone's notorious crotch shot blown up to billboard proportions to terrify the sexist scumbags who put it there in the first place. She was ecstatic to see Huggy Bear same-sex kissing in NME because it looked like the cover of her own 'Gender Is As Gender Does' EP and was tickled when someone at Huggy label Catcall phoned demanding "Are you a dyke?".
"I'm just wondering if it was an invitation," she teases. GodCo recently played a Riot Grrrl NYC benefit and Sharon raves about its positive energy. "The audience were just so excited to see girls onstage and scream at you and interact with you. I know it's different in the UK, where it seems a lot of the press is attacking them, but in America it's more of a real grassroots organization."
But Riot Grrrl only accounts for one of their nine lives. The flexible fivesome have also composed backing music for dance troupes and recorded brain-melting speed-jazz with John Zorn. Mostly they just "shred for 40 minutes" on New York's "hardcore matinee" scene centered around venues like the Knitting Factory.
This week and next, however, they become gender-blurring terror-jazz tourists in Britain. See them and change your life forever. Now that is an invitation.
Date created: 20 August 1997 Last modified: 20 August 1997