Danzig - 4p
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Danzig has always been too stylish to be truly evil. From the Misfits’ and Samhain’s iconic looks to his skull logo and Verotik comic book company, Danzig’s imagery makes for great t-shirts. True evil, like its antithesis (“YHWH”), should not be effable. The tidiness of its presentation doesn’t detract from Danzig’s work, though. It’s just a reminder that he’s really Elvis Presley for the bullet belt set.
His most stylish moment was 4p, which turned 15 yesterday. It was one of the first cardboard-sleeved CD’s I bought. The artwork was like a Rorschach blot — horned alien, unholy insect, demonic pElvis. Across the bottom, Danzig’s name lay in strange runes, mocking in their inscrutability. The interior was as striking: 66 tracks (achieved through hidden tracks, long before that shtick got old), topped with an organ-fueled “Invocation” that actually sounded like an occult rite to teenage me. I would put it on to scare myself.
After Danzig became my all-time most difficult interviewee several years ago, his mystique disappeared for me. But that let me focus on an overlooked part of him, his songwriting. Sure, on 4p he had the classic (and best) Danzig lineup. John Christ, Eerie Von, and Chuck Biscuits executed his will with glorious crudenesss. (Afterwards, Danzig’s records suffered from musicians who played too perfectly.)
But more importantly, his songs had grown past bludgeoning with the blues. Clean tones and subtle textures made 4p stark and moody. Not only did Danzig write “Let It Be Captured,” he also played its guitar tracks backwards and wrote a new song with them, “Cantspeak.” Genius like this is why we still talk about him 15 years later.
Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3)
eMusic (MP3)
