Friday, December 28, 2007

Logo #138: Corrosion of Conformity

Another dystopian masterpiece by Brian "Pushead Lamort" Schroeder for the North Carolina hardcore band's "Eye for an Eye" LP in 1983. How many of these bands' names, in the euphoric slur of an altered moment, become all one word, concert after concert, embrace after embrace? Coachformdy! That's what the people in the streets call COC (have they ever opened up for BÖC?) after almost a quarter-century. And yet, mired in the stultifying, tobacco-choked wilds of Raleigh, four guys in 1982 (cf. the evolution of Bad Brains a few states away that might as well have been galaxies apart) truly and sincerely wanted a corrosion of conformity. They wanted substantive change - to paraphrase Kafka: to use their music as "an ax to smash the frozen sea of the heart." What's the alternative? A mutated radioactive skull, that's what - and really, without the prehensile tongue to go with it, who wants to be that on a Saturday night? Incalculable are the number of jackets upon which this design have been emblazoned. More than there are stars in Heaven, probably.

Conversely, Belle and Sebastian's "Electronic Renaissance" is the Song of the Moment.

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