Monday September 27th
Red 7 outside stage
$20 tickets
Atari Teenage Riot is back and as chaotic a as ever! Don’t think they could still possibly possess the same in your face political backlash power they once did? Consider this, Apple was trying to push back, and then prevent, the release of the ATR IPhone app earlier this year in fear that it will cause actual riots.
In 1992, Original members Alec Empire, MC Carl Crack and Hanin Elais hit Berlin hard as nails in response to an increasingly neo-nazi influenced trance techno scene. Armed with their own brand of noise, a mix of anti-facist, anarchist, and anti-nazi punk style lyrics with a new brutal and abrasive techno they called Digital Hardcore that included funk influenced break beats and extra heavy guitar workings (the term later coined by Alec as the name of his record label in ’93). These early tracks sent waves of controversy througout Germany.
Nic Endo joined the band in 1997 during a tour with Beck. Her talents as a noisescape artist only proved to intensify ATR’s sound to near hysteria with stomach turning clouds of white-noise and deep running industrial influence with lots of improv work, making for a dense and heavy listening experience. ATR continued to tour and they’re live shows became notorious as an outlet for political unrest from both the audience and the band. Instances of rioting crowds clashing with police and the arrest of the entire band for ‘inciting violence’ at one particular show are just a few examples.
ATR was disbanded in 2000, followed by the overdose caused death of MC Carl Crack. Hanin left to form the Fatal Recordings label and release solo work. Alec has been releasing solo music well before the formation of ATR, as well as while the band was a working entity and continues to do so with Nic Endo helping on production and live shows.
In 2009, Alec was contacted by Hanin with the idea to reunite for some shows, this did not end up working out and in January 2010, Alec announced a short reunion for what was supposed to be a few London shows. This has now turned into a full blown multi-country tour for ATR. The lineup consists of Alec, Nic Endo and MC CX Kidtronik ( DJ’ d for Kanye West, Saul Williams and has done some collaboration work with Trent Reznor).
The live shows are still turning up with amazing moments such as the crowd ending up on stage with the band at Fusion Festival, seeing the pictures and watching the videos gave me chills, that’s what a live show should look like and feel like. Alec recently ended up in the hospital after collapsing backstage and having a bee-sting senstation throughout his body (what he described as feeling like a bio attack on his twitter), he promptly ended up right back on stage the day after being released ready to give hell. He and this band really are that hardcore. The honesty and realness of ATR’s music and live shows is utterly refreshing and is needed as much now as it ever was.
This music is just not for the faint of heart. It’s like ‘The Book’ in 1984, you’ve been warned. Get ready for an intense rocking out straight to your core.
Leave a Comment