Cold Waves' industrial rock festival lineup crashes across three cities this year
Cold Waves, the industrial-rock/electronic-rock festival is looking to spread its once-dormant virus across three cities next month. The lineups feature old-school progenitors such as ohGr (featuring Skinny Puppy frontman Ogre), Front Line Assembly and former Ministry member Paul Barker’s Lead Into Gold, Meat Beat Manifesto and next-gen sonic apparatchiks HIDE and the Black Queen (featuring former Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato), as well as the slow-motion sludge of Author & Punisher.
Now in its seventh year, the festival is regaining momentum in a world where sonic brutality is no longer measured by “sick riffs, brah” and one’s ability to shred on guitars.
Read more: Cold Waves Festival jump-starts the fury of industrial rock
Beginning in NYC (Sept. 12-15 at Irving Plaza and Gramercy Theatre), arriving in the fest’s hometown of Chicago (Sept. 20-23 at Empty Bottle and Metro) and ending in Los Angeles (Sept. 26-29 at the Echo and 1720), Cold Waves’ ambitious aims were dictated by cities passionate for the kind of art and mania the festival represents.
Organized by Jason Novak six years ago as a tribute to his former bandmate Jamie Duffy, Cold Waves has been a flagship institution to celebrate various electronic strains of rock music from respected veterans to new acts putting their mark on electronic “rivethead” culture.
“When we bring bands overseas [to play the event], we have to bring them into New York,” says Novak about spreading the festival across America. “I’ve been doing bookings for Front 242 for a few years now, and when I would go to New York to greet them, I’d always see a lot of passion in the crowds.”
“When I asked friends of mine who were DJs and promoters, they thought the city would love [a festival],” he continues. “Personally, I’ve had the privilege of playing Irving Plaza often in my career, and a lot of the same people are still there. I think having Cold Waves there would be fun.” (Two of the four NYC nights will be at Irving Plaza, with the final night moving to the Gramercy Theatre.)
“We’ve noticed that for a lot of bands, the cost of immigration visas and overseas flights is really large,” Novak says. “So we try to book additional shows for them, and in the process, Cold Waves has become its own booking agency. It’s a lot of work for eight months. It’s funny: You lead up to it thinking, ‘I can’t wait until this is over,’ and the day it’s over, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait to ramp this up again.’”
“Cold Waves audiences seem to be made up of people who are there for very specific reasons,” says Chris Connelly, the vocalist known for his contributions to electronic-rock avatars Ministry and its adjunct band the Revolting Cocks. “It’s an event rather than a tour. It’s social, and I feel honestly that there is a great blend of fresh talent mixed with music from the past being brought to life again. The general vibe is really great, uplifting, friendly [and] respectful.”
As a frontman for mid-’80s Scottish dance-rock band Finitribe, Connelly was on the ground floor when industrial rock grew out of a mere post-punk designation into a genre of its own design. Moving to the U.S. to record with Al Jourgensen—as a member of both Ministry and the Revolting Cocks—cemented his status in that musical movement, but then he spent the decades following that distancing himself from industrial rock’s tightened-fist clamor and mechanized tension.
Connelly will be performing with Novak at this year’s festival as the frontman of Cocksure, an outfit he describes as “gross, overblown rapid-fire comedy and filth, with a sweeping darkness reflecting and distorting the environment around us.”
“A few things brought me back,” Connelly admits. “The main thing was the Retrospectacle”—the 2011 homecoming series of shows by artists associated with Wax Trax, the legendary i-rock label—“which gave me the sense that I belonged, or did belong to something that was valid at one time, exciting and urgent. I realized how much I enjoyed it—which, when I was younger, was not always the case.
“I am also proud of what I did and feel that if there are people who want to listen, then I will play. That said, nostalgia gets old pretty quickly.” –Chris Connelly
“It’s complicated, like reconnecting with a friend who perhaps you had a misunderstanding with that separated you for years,” he continues regarding signing up for the Cold Waves dates. “I am also proud of what I did and feel that if there are people who want to listen, then I will play. That said, nostalgia gets old pretty quickly.”
Considering the futuristic vistas industrial rock’s meshing of guitars and electronics sought out, nostalgia isn’t high on the priority list. Then again, when you consider how ahead of the game the genre was nearly three decades ago, maybe it’s right on time for a forward-thinking renaissance. But while this year’s CW circuit feels like a “friends and family” plan, there’s a significant amount of mutative strain in the mix.
“I think there’s a similar open-mindness at Cold Waves like we had in metal and hardcore,” says Puciato, whose role as the ultra-confrontational frontman of the Dillinger Escape Plan was a different beast from the kind of beguiling, alluring textures created by his current outfit the Black Queen.
“When [the Black Queen] played in 2016, I was concerned we’d get in front of a crowd wanting KMFDM or Meat Beat Manifesto, and they’d be like, ‘What. Is. Happening?’” he continues.“But they weren’t. It was [the mentality] of the way you can put on a post-rock band in front of a hardcore band on most punk-rock bills.”
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In addition to being on board for DEP’s various forays into electronics and programming (covering Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” and sharing stages with Nine Inch Nails), Puciato was the voice in Error, the short-lived 2003, hard electronic outfit featuring NIN member Atticus Ross and Bad Religion guitarist/Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz.
“I think right now, the whole industrial/noise/electronic/ambient scene in L.A. is second only to Berlin,” Puciato says. “The majority of my friend circle is in that scene. The other night I saw Drew McDowall of Coil play a noise set in a church at midnight. There were three cool things happening [in the city] that night. It’s a pretty exciting time for this scene to be out here. Right now, electronic-based music takes up about 60 percent of my listening time.”
In high contrast to the Black Queen’s urban contemporary electronic vistas, Author & Punisher’s Tristan Shone comes from the relentless slow-motion doom metal, played on synthesizers and triggered by physical controllers of his own design. Closer in intention to Godflesh than Nine Inch Nails, Shone’s appeared at several CW events for maximum carnage and minimum speed. Shone never considered himself an industrial fan, choosing instead to embrace the lumbering double-digit BPMs of sludgy doom metal than dance beats or digital hardcore overload.
“Cold Waves has a very heavy vibe compared to most festivals,” says Shone, who has played the event several times in the past. “Bands like Fear Factory and Godflesh have headlined previous years. I think there’s a group of people who like things like Ministry, Godflesh, Neurosis and Sunn O))) that aren’t into it for the gear or the fashion. The ones into it for the music are the ones I connect with. I know I’m going to see 100 people I know at this festival. It’s a small scene.”
While many of the headliners are veteran acts who propelled the genre, the festival has a good amount of new-school action, as well. In addition to Puciato’s smoov grooves in the Black Queen, there’s the highly confrontational scalding of HIDE fronted by Heather Gabel, Statiqbloom’s opaque darkness and Actors’ strident, minimalist rock.
Other outfits forging their own electronic environs from dance beats, hard noise and beyond include Winkie, Continues, Omniflux, Ganser, Anatomy and Kontravoid. You haven’t heard of them? Well, according to Novak, that’s the point.
“It’s important for us to pay attention to both sides,” stresses Novak, who says his “cutting-room floor” wish list of artists is both long and diverse. “You want to celebrate a genre of music that is seemingly always on its last legs, but the only way to keep it off the crutches is to bring in newer fans who have the bands they like and have done their research as to who those bands got inspiration from.”
“Our goal is to make it all-inviting, all-encompassing. We don’t care if you’re wearing white trainers and cargo shorts or you’re decked out in a gas mask and a black dress. We want to celebrate music.” –Jason Novak
“In addition, this music has fallen into a trap of being a huge fashion show,” he continues. “Our goal is to make it all-inviting, all-encompassing. We don’t care if you’re wearing white trainers and cargo shorts or you’re decked out in a gas mask and a black dress. We want to celebrate music.”
That’s not the only thing Novak’s focused on. He has spent two years getting Darkest Before Dawn—the mental health charity geared toward helping workers (bartenders, barbacks, sound workers, dancers, etc.) in the service industry in Chicago—official charity status in order to help people on a wider scale. (“There’s very little support, very little insurance and definitely very little mental health access.”)
Novak might be the hardest working man in industrial rock. In addition to performing with Connelly in Cocksure and coordinating all of the logistics under the Cold Waves banner, he’s promoting other shows (legendary U.K. noise/doom unit Godflesh’s upcoming appearances in NYC and Chicago), moving forward with the charity and running his personal business (a poke restaurant in Eagle Rock, California). Novak’s workload is grueling, but all of the things he’s doing are manifestations of his heart, from missing his dear friend to keeping alive the music he holds dear.
When asked what Duffy would be doing if he were alive right now (at the time of the interview, 11:30 a.m.), Novak volleys back, “He would’ve finished his 4 a.m. shift, and he’d be sleeping. Then he’d be working harder than everyone else, right along with us. The stamp he left us with was the hardest work ethics and the least amount of ego, when it came to any of it. Which is why the charity is so important to me.”
The vitality of the genre and its attendant community works two-fold and for different reasons. The old-school fans see Cold Waves as an exclusive psychic clubhouse of their own design, while a newer generation of listeners see it as a rampart to escape from today’s cultural mainstream or the sameness of once-favored genres. The truth of the matter is dead set in the middle.
“Why can’t it be about both?” Connelly asks, rhetorically. “None of us are particularly interested or in tune with what society may call ‘culture.’ That sounds so fucking pompous. But I mean it with a small shrug, not a sweeping hand and a turned-up nose. We just don’t have to be interested. We make our own fun, thanks.”
AP is teaming up with Cold Waves to give away tickets to select evenings in select cities. Find out how you can enter below:
? GIVEAWAY TIME! ?
Retweet using #ColdWavesXAltPress and we’ll select one lucky winner to get a pair of tickets to EVERY @COLDWAVES_ date – NYC, Chicago, LA
Good luck friends ? pic.twitter.com/D0l5Rn8x13
— Alternative Press (@AltPress) August 24, 2018
