Politics, Punk, and Power: Rob Moss' Timely Sonic Strike

With all due respect to Jethro Tull, there’s no such thing as being too old to rock ‘n’ roll.

Just ask Rob Moss. As one of the original participants in the legendary D.C. underground music scene of the early ’80s, he honed his sonic craft through stints in Assault and Battery, Artificial Peace, and the mighty Government Issue before leaving band life behind as other pursuits took hold. After 35+ years (and at an age when most musicians consider the retirement he initially embraced while still a young man), Moss resurfaced in 2020 as the leader of a new project, Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin, and has remained creatively active ever since.

Moss chose an interesting time in history for his unexpected comeback. While the early ’80s had Reagan to rally against, the 2020s have … well, take your pick. With today’s world providing so much for a once-and-future punk like Moss to comment on, it’s no surprise that his first solo single, “And The Lies Go Round,” packs a punch in its messaging. Featuring Moss on vocals and all instruments, the track delivers pointed (and sadly, timelessly universal) sociopolitical commentary that sums up 2026 with urgency and indignation. Musically, the engaging piece falls somewhere between Flip Your Wig-era Hüsker Dü and Halfway To Sanity-era Ramones, offering a chorus that sticks in one’s brain for days.

So, what’s got Moss so fired up? Well, the lyrics available on the song’s Bandcamp page say it better and more directly than any review ever could.

Had Moss stayed off the musical map after Government Issue’s ’83 summer tour, as he had initially intended, his place in punk history would already have been solidified. His reactivated creative spark in recent years has been a welcome reminder that the real thing never fully fades away.

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Modern Melodies for Maxwell's Memories: Miss Ohio’s Perfect Pop

Miss Ohio (Source: https://missohio.bandcamp.com)

If you think the New Jersey underground music scene of the ’80s and ’90s was a cohesive phenomenon, you’re remembering it wrong.

For every Wretched Ones, there was a Wake Oolo. For every Blanks 77, there was a Smithereens. A grimy, riotous Niblick Henbane gig at The Pipeline in Newark was matched by a more collegiate-leaning Hypnolovewheel performance at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. The Pipeline had the burly B.T. holding court at the bar every Thursday, and Maxwell’s had the bookish Bob Bert mingling in the crowd and taking in the tunes. The dichotomies were delightful.

I was lucky to live on both sides. I was a Pipeline kid who played his last gig there mere days before the place was finally shuttered ... and just a few short weeks after promoter extraordinaire Anthony Trance checked out and went upstairs.

Losing The Pipeline was tragic, but it also proved to be a catalyst for exploring infinitely cleaner pursuits. Where does a college-age guy go when stumbling around drunkenly to the sounds of Oi! has lost its appeal (and its home)? Where does he go to check out great live music and, you know, maybe take a girl out for a nice dinner at the same time?

Thus arrived my Maxwell’s moment.

I spent years at that place before pulling up stakes and shuffling off to Los Angeles. Eventually, I moved back to the East Coast in time to catch the club’s last hurrah before it devolved into an artisanal pizza place or some other bullshit. The smell of coffee and raw sewage that permeated the air outside the place will forever linger in my nostrils — and in my heart.

If Maxwell’s hadn’t succumbed to society’s insatiable need to eradicate everything cool, Miss Ohio would’ve made the perfect house band for the joint. Fronted by singer/guitarist/writer/teacher David Wilson, the Jersey City–based band has been churning out insanely melodic and instantly memorable indie pop for more than 20 years now. Perfect for the type of people who’d instinctively choose Slanted and Enchanted over Nevermind as the best album of the ’90s, the group’s sound provides a rocking (but never too raucous) foundation for Wilson’s Westerberg-meets-Waits wordplay.

Want another description in more direct, Garden State–centric parlance? Miss Ohio would exist in the same space as Shirk Circus or Melting Hopefuls in your record collection. In broader geographical terms, you’d probably play them after a Big Star binge.

Yeah, this stuff is that good.

For a quick intro, check out Miss Ohio’s recent singles “Bad Ear” and “Autumn Feeling” (both courtesy of Jersey label Pyrrhic Victory Recordings, which has lovingly cornered the market on this sort of thing in recent years). If you’re old enough to remember long nights on Washington Street, they’ll recapture that vibe for you immediately. If you missed that boat entirely and have no idea what I’ve been talking about for the last few hundred words, these songs are still worth a listen as a masterclass in perfect song composition.

As much as Miss Ohio reminds me of 1998, the band also makes me glad to know that music this special is still being made in the here and now.

And with that, it’s time to grab an espresso and stand outside a portajohn.

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A Chat with PHILIP SHOUSE (ACCEPT/ACE FREHLEY/GENE SIMMONS/SOLO)

Author/journalist Joel Gausten talks with veteran musician Philip Shouse (Accept/Ace Frehley/Gene Simmons/Lucifer/John Corabi/Rodney Atkins/Solo) about his fantastic debut solo EP (Side 1), his experiences touring and performing with Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons, Accept's longevity in Metal, and more.

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Hallucinated Hymns and Chemical Comedy: A Trip With the Butthole Surfers

If Tripping Balls were a musical genre, the Butthole Surfers* would be its Beatles.

While I’ve never dropped acid, I imagine the experience would be similar to the one I had when I first saw the band perform during the 1991 Lollapalooza tour. In an act of either pure genius or absolute lunacy (or perhaps both – 'sup, Perry?), the Butthole Surfers’ set followed (get this) Rollins Band.

Naturally, the juxtaposition was glorious. As soon as Henry and Co. wrapped up their set of Avant-garde Jazz-meets-adrenalized Nuge Rock angst anthems, the Surfers – singer Gibby Haynes, guitarist Paul Leary, bassist Jeff Pinkus, and drummer King Coffey – hit the stage with a performance that left audience members either utterly dumbstruck or convinced they had just witnessed one of the greatest, most surreally perfect gigs they’ll ever see. (I’m writing about these fuckers 35 years later. You tell me which camp has my membership card.) On that day, the Surfers were sonically adventurous and atmospherically shambolic – enough to make one envision Don Preston giving them a respectful nod and the late Nik Turner suggesting they may want to tone down the drug use a bit. 

Fast-forward to last spring, and the band issues its latest live collection, this time recorded in … fuck knows. According to legend (or at least the accompanying press release), nobody seems to know for sure when and where the 21 songs that comprise Live at the Leather Fly were recorded for posterity – a mystery made even murkier considering no venue called the Leather Fly exists.

"Back in the ‘80s, Gibby used to fantasize about a nightclub called the Leather Fly,” Leary explains. “He wanted it to have a stuffed leather fly hanging in front of it.”

Uh huh. Very Gibby.

Considering the track listing, it’s fair to conclude that Live at the Leather Fly was recorded at some point during the band’s brief dalliance as MTV darlings of the let’s throw everything against the wall and see what sells era of mainstream Alternative music circa 1993’s Independent Worm Saloon. 

So, does a Butthole Surfers live album culled from decades-old recordings have any relevance whatsoever in the here and now, especially without the benefit of a visual component presenting the band’s trademark crazed onstage histrionics? Oh, hell yes!

Here’s the thing: Bands don’t survive more than four decades on schtick alone, and the glorious goofiness heard throughout Live at the Leather Fly doesn’t hide the stellar musicianship within. Leary’s guitar work doesn’t once let up, Coffey’s masterful playing somehow manages to anchor the cacophony surrounding him, Pinkus easily strikes fear in the hearts of bassists the world over (particularly on “Bong Song” and “Dancing Fool”), and Gibby is … Gibby (which is always more than enough). 

Highlights, you ask? My votes are for “Gary Floyd” (off 1984’s Psychic ... Powerless ... Another Man's Sac and featuring Leary taking a turn at the mic while gargling a mouthful of Biafra-flavored Jello); “P.S.Y.” (off 1991’s piouhgd), “Booze, Tobacco, Dope, Pussy, Cars” (off 1989’s Widowermaker! EP); and the Black Mothers of Sabbath Invention freakout of the Independent Worm Saloon track “Alcohol.”

Yes, the band’s moniker is juvenile. Yes, they always come off as total wackjobs. But the Butthole Surfers have always been smarter than they act, and they’re an infinitely more innovative band than they get credit for. If you need proof, give Live at the Leather Fly a listen. Doing so with a tab on your tongue is entirely up to you. 

For more insight into the crazed world of the Butthole Surfers, check out the book Let's Go To Hell: Scattered Memories of the Butthole Surfers by James Burns, available through DiWulf Publishing House.

*Is it Butthole Surfers or The Butthole Surfers? The answer is quite hazy (because of course it is). The “The”**  is missing from album covers and the press release that accompanied this album, but some folks (including King Coffey himself) call the band The Butthole Surfers. I elected to split the difference, keeping “the” lowercase to make it slightly less definitive. Yes, this is the sort of thing that keeps writers up at night. (**Matt Johnson and Johnny Marr were unavailable for comment.)

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Beyond the Brutal: Shane Embury’s Dark Horizon

Photo by Gobinder Jhitta 

The evolution of music is a funny thing.

British Grindcore godfathers Napalm Death are undisputed legends in the global Metal scene, but it can be said with all due admiration and respect that they’re not the what the ever-loving fuck was that? noise innovators they once were. Now, that statement isn’t meant to suggest the group somehow lost a step during its 45(!)-year journey. Rather, it shows that the world somehow caught up to them while the fellas were still alive to experience well-earned accolades and see others follow their blastbeat-laden blueprint.

That said, there was nothing — nothing — as crazily inventive and incendiary as Napalm Death circa 1987 … and the proof is in the Peel Session pudding.

In September of that year, the quartet recorded a dozen songs (total running time: five minutes and 40 seconds) for its inaugural appearance on famed DJ John Peel’s show on BBC Radio 1 (a session engineered by Mott the Hoople’s Dale Griffin, no less). Depending on one’s musical sensibilities, the recording is either ridiculous or revelatory. Drummer Mick Harris’ whirlwind timekeeping (a charitable word in this context) is punctuated by his high-pitched shrieking, lead growler Lee Dorrian bile-belches his way through lyrics about God knows what, and guitarist Bill Steer unleashes the sonic equivalent of cats attempting to claw their way out of a sealed sack.

Taking all the above into account, it was the bass supplied by 19-year-old Shane Embury that truly sealed the sleazoid deal. A distorted barrage of knife-sharp brutality, the sound that emanated from that bloke’s four strings produced an aesthetic by which all heavy bass performances should be measured. (That’s not hyperbole, dear reader. Just take a listen to the fucking thing.)

Fast-forward to the present, and Embury (now 58) is still moving music a step ahead of the rest of us. In addition to being Napalm Death’s longest-serving participant (no easy feat considering the revolving-door band had lost all its original members by the time its debut album, Scum, was released in 1987), he has spent recent years producing captivating clangs in the decidedly unGrindcore world of experimental Electronica.

Initially conceived during the downtime of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dark Sky Burial finds the Birmingham-based musician creating landscapes infinitely more aligned with the likes of Chris and Cosey than Carcass. More than a mere side gig, the endeavor has already yielded a staggering array of releases and a major tour (last spring’s epic North American jaunt opening for Napalm Death and The Melvins). Most significantly, it has allowed Embury to explore new creative horizons.

“It’s all a very evolutionary experience and something I find inspirational,” he told me earlier this year while catching his breath on the road. “It’s unpredictable and, after years of performing almost the same kind of sets every night, liberating.”

That liberating unpredictability heavily informs the project’s latest outing, The Sacred Neurotic. Released December 12 on the Consouling Sounds label, the nine-track album is the result of a deep collaboration between Embury and his long-time friend Carl Stokes, whose eclectic résumé includes stints with Cancer, cult British act The Groundhogs, and (appropriately enough) Current 93. Storming from the speakers like something from the darkest recesses of the Wax Trax! catalog (or, as a more direct description, like Godflesh’s Streetcleaner mixed with “Born Slippy”-era Underworld and a dash of Depeche Mode), The Sacred Neurotic is a glorious goddamn thing and unquestionably the strongest, hookiest, and most memorable collection of songs from the Industrial/Ambient realm to reach my ears this year.

The Sacred Neurotic’s arrival marks the conclusion of a notably active year for Embury, who also released a solo album, Atonement, in March. Both albums display a clear influence from Coil, the alchemical, occult-informed project founded in 1982 by former Psychic TV members Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Jhonn Balance (both sadly deceased).

“I have loved Coil since around 1987, 1988 — countless hours after a pub session or whatever, immersed in their loops,” Embury says. “I feel it’s become embedded in my way of composing, even when I stray into slower tracks with Napalm Death. There are many ways to reinterpret their wheel of influence, I find, and it’s also for my self-satisfaction. I find peace and meaning with the music I make, as I do with Coil and other artists in that loop-based ambience.”

Considering the varied musical palettes of the many artists who have drifted in and out of Napalm Death over the years, Embury’s appreciation for Coil and the like should come as no surprise. Following their respective departures from the band, Napalm Death founder Nic Bullen and drummer Mick Harris resurfaced in the early '90s as the Electronic/Post-Industrial duo Scorn. Scum-era guitarist Justin Broadrick, meanwhile, built a name for himself as part of the menacing, dark, drum machine-driven hellscape known as Godflesh.

For Embury’s part, he was the only Metalhead in attendance to adorn a KMFDM T-shirt when I first encountered him on the New Jersey date on Napalm Death’s 1991 U.S. tour. As perhaps the more learned ears among us have known for ages, there has always been much more driving the Napalm Death machine than extreme Metal for extreme Metal’s sake.

“I think Justin and Nic were very much influenced by Industrial music — Mick, too — when I met them. They got me into SWANS and Test Dept, and Coil followed for me. Then I suppose around 1989 or 1990, we were getting into Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Lead Into Gold, KMFDM, and — for me — Front Line Assembly and Front 242. I tend to love all music, so once I was hooked into Industrial, with the noises and beats, it was full on. I was searching out obscure Industrial music as much as I could.”

(Interestingly, Napalm Death’s earliest Industrial-adjacent moment on record is also one of the group’s least known. In 1989 — right before a major lineup overhaul would lead the band to gradually shift from groundbreaking Grindcore to more traditional Death Metal — the group contributed “Internal Animosity,” a five-minute-plus slab of uncharacteristically midtempo droning more akin to Filth-era SWANS than Napalm’s then-current album, From Enslavement to Obliteration. The track was featured on the rare Pathological Compilation, a genre-blurring hodge-podge of boundary-pushing underground acts released by the U.K.-based label of the same name. Tellingly, other artists on the comp included Silverfish, Godflesh, Terminal Cheesecake … and Coil.)

Naturally, Embury’s already looking forward to the road ahead. In addition to fulfilling tons of live dates already booked for Napalm Death in 2026, he plans to keep moving with Absolute Power, a recurring side project in the vein of classic Metal acts like Scorpions, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. Contributors to Absolute Power include Napalm Death’s John Cooke and Mission/Peter Murphy/Tricky veteran Mark Gemini Thwaite.

Shane Embury w/ Mark Gemini Thwaite/Absolute Power (Photos by Ashley Bad)

When asked what else we’ll see and hear from the man in the new year and beyond, he provides an answer that reflects the current state of his artistic impulses quite beautifully:

“Lots of stuff on the horizon … and not the obvious.”

Dark Sky Burial Official Website

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Past/Present Members of Prong, Pigface, Test Dept, and Others Join Forces for Animal Rescue EP

December 5, 2025

For Immediate Release

 

Past/Present Members of Prong, Pigface, Test Dept, and Others Join Forces for Animal Rescue EP

 

Rise Reign Revolt, an 11-member collaboration between various veterans of the international Industrial/Metal scene, has released a two-song EP, “Vultures,” available on Bandcamp. All profits from the sale of the EP will be divided between PAWS Chicago and Greyhound Trust Harvel in loving support of animals. 

Founded by drummer Joel Gausten (Pigface/The Undead) and saxophonist Roger Ebner (Pigface/BILE/EBNR), Rise Reign Revolt was started in 2017, shortly after Gausten met Ebner and most of the other participants as part of Pigface’s 25th anniversary shows in Chicago in 2016. The pandemic halted the project’s progress considerably before it was rejuvenated earlier this year. Ebner served as Rise Reign Revolt’s producer and musical director.

 

The EP marks the first time former Prong members Ted Parsons (drums) and Troy Gregory (bass) have appeared together on a musical release since the early 1990s. Gregory contributes the “Blue Goblin” remix of the EP’s title track.

 

Rise Reign Revolt:

Greta Brinkman (Pigface/Moby/Debbie Harry/L7): Bass

Roger Ebner (Pigface/BILE/EBNR): Sax

Dirk Flanigan (Pigface/77 Luscious Babes): Vocals

Joel Gausten (Pigface/The Undead): Drums

Troy Gregory (Prong/Flotsam & Jetsam/Killing Joke/Swans): Remix

Martin King (Pigface/Test Dept/Dogtablet): Drums

Joe Kopecky (Imperial Fall): Guitar

Jesse Hunt (Pigface/Cyanotic): Oil Drums

Ted Parsons (Prong/Swans/Godflesh/Killing Joke): Drums

Karen Righeimer-Schock (Bellhead): Bass

Mimi Wallman (Ampyre/ONO/Deodara/The Joy Thieves): Vocals

 

The “Vultures” EP is available now at https://risereignrevolt.bandcamp.com.

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A Chat with GENRE IS DEATH

Author/journalist Joel Gausten talks with New York-based Noise/No Wave-inspired duo Genre Is Death about their sound, work ethic, recent work with famed producer Martin Bisi, and more.

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