GROTUS
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GROTUS General Info
GROTUS
- Lars Fox: vocals, percussion, tech
- Adam Tanner: 6-string bass, guitar, synthesizer, samples
- John Carson: bass, synthesizer, samples
- Bruce Boyd: drums, turntables
Latest Releases
- Mass (LP), Currently available.
What's Happening with GROTUS
Due to financial duress brought on by label disinterest, Grotus will not be
touring for the indefinite future. Look instead for increased recording
output in the next year, possibly with individual members putting out
recordings with different side groups, as well as band efforts. The band
encourages all other groups to think carefully before going to major
labels, and to really figure who can and will do what for you. Trust no
one!
GROTUS Biography
As we hurtle towards the millennium, it's clear that we have a lot
of amazing new technology that lets us do whatever we want: it's also clear
we're just using all this new stuff to push the same old crap. Grotus has
been dealing with this dichotomy, in both its medium and its message, for
several years now--as borne out on Mass, the band's debut full length
London release. On it, the San Francisco-based quartet has forged a
remarkable sonic bond between flesh and machine, between passion and
detachment.
"We've been categorized as industrial, which is fair in some ways,
but we're more organic than that term usually implies," says frontman Lars
Fox. "If Grotus is a cyborg, its skin is encrusted with tech but its guts
are still human. See, the human groove is essential to what we do. On
the other hand, we still want to take a computer and clobber you with it."
Although Fox chortles a bit at the vague Spinal Tap redolence of
that last statement, Mass makes it clear that there's more than a grain of
truth to it as well. While the self-described "locomotive rhythms" that
propel songs like "A Bad Itch" (a reminder to check yourself for creeping
racism in your own thoughts--especially timely in the post-O.J. era) and
"White Trash Blues" are positively hypnotic, they also ooze with spastic
noise and sub harmonic bombast. Sonically, Mass spans the range from the
tech metal "Ebola Reston" to the Latin percussion flavored "Sick", with a
good measure of wheezing blues thrown in throughout the proceedings.
"That's Entertainment" bitches about the dumbing down of everything, while
"Ain't Nobody's Business" takes a feel of the nation's pulse--TV talk
shows. And at the heart of it all is the band's first single, "Hand to
Mouth", a stripped down crusty-sounding sample and beat autobiography,
unlike anything the band has ever done before.
In the five years since Fox, Adam Tanner, and John Carson first
hunkered down for some serious sonic experimentation, Grotus has evolved
with both rapidity and unpredictability. Initially renowned for
avant-noise multi-media events (aurally captured on the dizzying 1991 debut
Brown), the band took a more organic turn by adding Bruce Boyd, a drummer
made of flesh rather than the mechanical model that preceded him.
The newly cemented four-piece Grotus spent much of 1993 and 1994 on
the road across the U.S. and Europe--including a long stretch with kindred
spirits Mr. Bungle. The group joined the Alternative Tentacles roster for
its second full length release, Slow Motion Apocalypse, a noisy ethnic
stew, featuring loads of non-western instruments and samples, sounding at
moments like an Indian industrial punk band, at others like the soundtrack
to the Cartoon Network. At various points since, the group also put out
three diverse EPs: the bass-fest Luddite; a Slow Motion remix record called
Opiate of the Masses, and the limited edition London release Handjob, with
three songs from Mass and a pair of "Ebola Reston" remixes, one each from
Meat Beat Manifesto mastermind Jack Dangers and KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko.
The band did two pre-Mass tours, one in late '95 supporting Korn in the US,
and then a European headlining tour in February and March '96. Touring
behind Mass begins in May, with two weeks supporting The Young Gods in the
western U.S., followed by relentless touring over the rest of the year.
"Lately, I think we're turning into some kind of weird
heavy-blues-tech-appropriation mutation", says Fox. "Probably has
something to do with Attention Deficit Disorder. It mostly boils down to
the fact that there's so much calculated mind-numbing crap handed to you on
a platter in easy bite-sized bits that anyone with even a shred of a soul
has a responsibility to create some stimulation."
- Dave S.
Review from the Seattle monthly magazine Pandemonium
Grotus: Mass
It's about time.
San Francisco's one-of-a-kind creators of enthralling powerful
electro-grind punkadelic joy are back with one helluva release. A bit less
trance-inducing than the amazing Slow Motion Apocalypse, Mass makes up for
the acid deficiency with some downright thumping, throbbing grooves. While
you're losing your body to the pulsating beat of tracks like "That's
Entertainment" and "A Bad Itch," you get a first rate lyrical tour of
poignant sarcasm--something the Tanner/Fox song writing duo is quite adept
at (check out the apt artwork on this thing).
Throughout this album, you begin to realize that the heart of
Grotus is embedded more in the blues than in the industrial genre they've
been tagged to. While the electronic treatments and hypnotic beats augment
the swill to a great degree, it's the often blues-based grooving soul of
the band that hooks you. You're hard pressed to find a more interesting
album, let alone one which will satisfy your mind and body to the extent
this one does.
- Dave Sheldon
GROTUS Tour Dates
No new dates scheduled yet, check back later.
GROTUS Discography
Brown -- Mother of Pearl -- Edward
Abbey--Brown Club Product -- Luddite
Slow Motion Apocalypse -- Opiate of the Masses -- Handjob -- Hand to Mouth -- Mass -- Compilations
Brown
©1991 Spirit Music
Industries
- brown 3:50
- malthusela 4:21
- a city of the dead 0:45
- las vegas power grid 2:45
- pharmaceutical 3:42
- edward abbey 3:26
- daisy chain 2:46
- valhalla's celtic robbie 2:45
- you fit the suit 0:26
- full metal grotus 2:31
- new york strip 5:22
- rust 2:34
- morning-glory 4:20
Total time 39:46
Mother of Pearl
©1991 Smelly
Records
(7-inch record)
This Side
- Mother of Pearl
Edward Abbey
©1991 Spirit
Records
(7-inch record)
Brown Club Product
©1992 Spirit Music Industries (12-inch EP record)
Re-mixed
by Mark Pistel and Philip Steir of Consolidated for Mindless Productions.
Side A
- Brown (mindless mix 1, vocal) 6:43
- Brown (mindless mix 2, instrumental) 6:43
Side B
- Pharmaceutical (Extended Club Mix) 5:32
- Las Vegas Power Grid 2:46
- Full Metal Grotus 2:32
Luddite
©1992 Spirit
Music
Industries
- Luddite 4:32
- Marginal 3:12
- Shelf Life 3:53
- What in the World 3:53
Total time 15:42
Slow Motion Apocalypse
©1993
Alternative Tentacles Records. Virus 118CD
- Up Rose The Mountain 3:52
- Good Evening 1:04
- The Same Old Sauce 2:12
- Hourglass 3:43
- Shivayanama 4:41
- Complications 3:54
- Kali Yugo 3:22
- Clean 4:39
- Sleepwalking 6:04
- Medicine 3:22
- Slow Motion Apocalypse 3:55 plus Brown (remix) 6:04
Total time 51:08
Opiate of the Masses
©1994 Alternative Tentacles Records (12-inch
EP record)
Re-mixed by Trans-Global Underground
Side One
- Visnu Fulfilment
- Rasa Bliss Mix
Side Two
- Banasura's Arms
- Afterglow Tantra
- Hanuman the Protector
Handjob
©1995 London Records
- A Bad Itch 3:24
- Ebola Reston 4:12
- Ain't Nobody's Business 4:00
- Ebola Reston (Beat Meat Mix) 5:05
- Ebola Reston (Touch My Monkey) 6:02
Total time 22:48
Hand to Mouth
©1995 London Records
- Big Bottom Mix 2:56
- Bongload Mix (Mass Version) 2:56
- Bongload Instrumental 2:56
Total time 8:48
Mass
©1996 London Records
- That's Entertainment 2:32
- A Bad Itch 3:20
- White Trash Blues 3:56
- Ebola Reston+ 4:12
- Hand To Mouth 3:57
- T'ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do+ 4:04
- Sick 3:04
- Collect 'Em All 4:25
- Wild Bill 3:30
- The Bottom Line 3:31
- Back In The Day 4:10
Total time 39:50
Compilations
Komotion International Vol. II -- California
Cybercrash
Compilation -- From The Machine
Komotion International Vol. II
©1991 Spirit Records
- Josef Brinckmann and Conspiracy of Equals - Then the rain stops 3:14
- Bedlam Rovers - Count to 20 2:42
- Micheal Franti and Charlie Hunter - Socio-Genetic experiment 3:46
- Consolidated - Censorship is Just a Smokescreen 3:46
- Vampyre Mike Castle - Genetic Poem 1, 2, and 3. 1:53
- Pamela Z - Pearls:The Gem Of The Sea 1:53
- Grotus - Obscene 1:59
- Eskimo - Bughead 3:02
- Steve Yearkey - Just Haven't Laid Down Yet 4:43
- Enormous Ensemble - So It Is Said 3:28
- Patricia Reagen - Boggerel 3:42
- Political Asylum - Not for Tomorrow 2:47
- Fuzz Factor - The Way Men Look At Women 3:39
- Sachiko and Culture Shock - Live Or Die 3:08
Total time 46:48
California Cybercrash Compilation
1992 COP
- Switchblade Symphony - Mine Eyes
- Diatribe - Tantau
- Xorcist - Hallucination
- Battery - Eternal Darkness
- Death Line International - Run
- Meat Locker - Sex On The Cross
- Kode IV - Accelerate
- Bleeding Stone - Mindfuck
- 2nd Crust - Die
- Grotus - Pharmaceutical
- Biohazard PCB - Ingest
- Factor One - Controlled Reality
- Blast Conservatory - Chrome Identity
- Consolidated - This Is A Collective
From The Machine
LP (Index 1990)
- Retina - Exorcize
- Blast Conservatory - Structures Collapse
- Switchblade Symphony - Mine Eyes
- Carbon 14 - Corpus Delecti
- Stash Krohl - Tell Me A Lie
- Constant Velocity - Buy The Lie
- Iao Core - Time Ghost
- Diatribe - Cockeyed Mf
- Grotus - Pharmaceutical
- M.N.L.F. - Ruined Forever
- Sharkbait - Feel Steel
GROTUS Pictures
Album Covers
Photos
Grotus live at the DNA in San Francisco, March 26, 1995.
- gl1.jpg (18k) John, Lars, and Adam
- gla.jpg (44k) Adam
- gll.jpg (12k) Lars, New
- glj.jpg (15k) John, New
Other internet resources
Last updated August 27, 1996.
Thanks to Joel D. Gomer for live photos in Orlando.
Webpage built by den with help from Lars and Grotus. Thanks.
email: den (at) bmxweb (dot) com
Brown
Mother of Pearl
Edward Abbey
Luddite
Slow Motion Apocalypse
Handjob
Hand to Mouth
Mass
