I think I’m a very lucky man because I have knowledge of the electro-hardcore-punk Tit Wrench since the early 90s. I put them beside the Ministry, but the Tit Wrench is standing nearer my heart. They split up in the late 90s.
The reunite was great news, and the new songs… are amazing. So I have decided to do an interview. The story started in the late 80s in Chula Vista (near San Diego), California.
OK MFs! This is Tit Wrench Country
Bob: Tit Wrench started as a solo project for me as Neighborhood Watch was ending. I was asked to do a song for the Amity Records comp. „Beautiful Music for Beautiful People„. It took a few months of learning the Yamaha TX16W sampler and the Roland R8 drum machine and finally recorded the song „People Like that Should be Spayed”. I spent a lot of time with Mike Down from Amenity/Forced Down [hardcore bands – editor’s note] sampling guitar riffs. „Spayed” was recorded a few days before Christmas and mixed on Christmas Eve, 1989. Released in early 1990. Shortly thereafter „Go Back to Europe” and „Pit Bull with AIDS” was recorded and released as a 7″. „Go Back to Europe” was a comment on border relations as we are located just a few miles from Tijuana Mexico. Tim Gonzales from Amenity had some sampled guitar riffs for Pit Bull. Artist Michael Schnoor had some nice field recordings of light up the border idiots and my friend Rosebud did a few backup vocals. A few others had bit parts as well but the „band” was mainly me and Mike at that point.
People Like that Should be Spayed + Go Back to Europe + Pit Bull with AIDS
I was always interested in electronic music, one of the reasons Neighborhood Watch was one of the few punk bands in San Diego with keyboards at the time. There were a couple Industrial clubs in San Diego at the time, my favorite was The Piranha Room even though I was probably not „cool” enough to be there. Always wanted to mix electronics with punk. Ministry/Lard would be obvious influences. But less obvious ones like Surf Punks, Wall of VooDoo [new wave], Oingo Boingo [Danny Elfman’s semi-theatrical comedy troupe and art rock band], Front 242 [electro-industrial, EBM], and Paul Robeson* should get some love too. Other influences would be politics and just the general rule of working/poorer people being exploited by the monied interests.
*He was an American actor, singer lawyer and civil rights activist. He recorded the Gloomy Sunday in English first in 1935. He was decorated with Stalin Prize in 1952.
RNR666: I think there was/is a musical collective under the umbrella of Vinyl Communications. Or not? Which bands were there?
Bob: Yeah, sort of. A loose „club” if you will. Especially in the mid 90’s. I’ll name some names but not all the releases they worked on. You can look that up or ask specifics later. Here’s some, apologies to who I leave out because I’m sure I will – Matt Anderson, Pea Hix, J Lesser, Michael(Miguel)/KID-606 [breakcore, techno, glitch], Vaughn from Custom Printing/Spacewürm [minimal electro ambient], Gunnar Lockwood [techno], Rob Crow [alt rock], Rosebud, Harpo, Chris Squire, Man Called Clay [ambient techno], George Rodriguez, Marco Anguiano, Pedro the Magic Dog, Jasper, George Impulse, Sam McPheeters [Men’s Recovery Project, Born Against, Wrangler Brutes], many others helped fold record covers, etc. Bands: Omnibot, Lucas and Friends, Heroin [hardcore], Lesser, KID-606, Spacewurm, Tit Wrench, Neighborhood Watch, Men’s Recovery Project [minimal synth/noise rock ], Bug Guts, Amenity, way more…….
There were two great bands, The Neighborhood Watch and the Lesser. Were those in any connections with TW?
J Lesser [minimal electro, breakcore, glitch] is a „lifer” even though we never had the VC logo rings made. I guess it’s not too late. J is one of the current guitarists and electronic gurus for Tit Wrench. He’s on the left here. Bob was the singer of Neighborhood Watch and founder of Tit Wrench. Barney Love and Marco from Neighborhood Watch were/are spiritual guidance for TW.
Then the Tit Wrench turned into experimental electronic. What was the cause?
Tit Wrench was always more of a „spirit” I guess than a style. We did what we could with what/who we had available. Always wanted to try new things and surprise the audience instead of letting them get old and comfortable.
Why happened the stop? Were there any musical projects during the break?
I had 3 kids between 1995-1999, and when they were very young I could still work a bit on the music but by around the year 2000 I had to focus more on them which meant focusing more on my plumbing business than the music. It was also a good time to take a break from the scene and do some other things. By that time J Lesser had moved to San Francisco and KID-606 had his Tigerbeat 6 label going in Oakland so in a way I felt we were covered.
How happened the reunite? Are the members the old ones or there are some new ones?
Frank from Tar Halos [psychedelic rock] (and others) put on these „Brainbomb” festivals and in 2011 it was a three day event at various clubs around San Diego. These are mostly „noise” artists but not quite in the Merzbow sense of the word. Anyway, our friend Travis from Cattle Decapitation [death metal] and formerly of UUM on the VC label asked us, I guess for Frank, if we’d want to get together and headline the event. I asked the guys and they all said „why not?”. Couldn’t come up with any reasons not to, it was a blast. Matt from Gravity Records who is in Tit Wrench met Prizehog [doom sludge] that night and agreed to put out a 12″ for them to boot! Total winning evening! That was October 15 2011 and we decided that this is fun again and we’re not quitting our day jobs, but we’re enjoying making music and noise again.
Me, Matt Anderson, and Pea Hix would be „originals” as we all played with TW in the early 90’s live lineup. J Lesser has since moved back to San Diego and plays guitar live and runs backing tracks. We’ve since added Rob Crow to the mix who also plays guitar. When we’re writing stuff anybody can be doing anything, we have a pretty weird style of making up songs.
Please write some words about the new album! When it will be released?
We have about 20 „songs” nearly ready to go. We plan on working hard to finish about 10 of them as soon as we decide what format and how to release it. We’re being patient because we want the sound quality to be better than it has in the past. Releasing an „album” is VERY different than in the days when it was committed to vinyl.
He Don’t Go To Parties
What the hell is your logo?
Our logo is a Plumbing Tool designed to open flat plugs on sewer lines so you can clean out drain lines when they get clogged. A great metaphor for our band I think. The name Tit Wrench also implies the parasite class needs to stop „hanging tit” on the working class, so again, multiple meanings like most of our songs.
You can buy 3 Tit Wrench albums on Itunes