Rabies (album)

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Rabies
Studio album by Skinny Puppy
Released	November 20, 1989
Recorded	1988 - 1989, Vancouver (Vancouver Studios) & Chicago (Chicago Trax Studios)
Genre	Industrial
Length	40:51 (original) 60:54 (re-issue)
Label	Nettwerk
Producer	David Ogilvie, Alien Jourgensen & cEvin Key
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
Skinny Puppy chronology
VIVIsectVI (1988) Rabies (1989) Too Dark Park (1990)

Rabies is a 1989 album by Skinny Puppy. It was released on CD, cassette, and LP by Nettwerk Records in Canada, licensed for release on the same formats to Capitol Records in the United States, and released on CD only by Nettwerk in Europe. In 1993 the CD edition was reissued by Nettwerk to correct mastering errors in the original release.

[edit] Track listing

1. "Rodent" – 5:48
2. "Hexonxonx" – 5:24
3. "Two Time Grime" – 5:38
4. "Fascist Jock Itch" – 4:58
5. "Worlock" – 5:30
6. "Rain" – 1:26
7. "Tin Omen" – 4:36
8. "Rivers" – 4:48
9. "Choralone" – 2:43
10. "Amputate" – 3:40
11. "Spahn Dirge (Live)" – 16:23

All songs by Ogre/Key/Goettel. "Amputate" and "Spahn Dirge" are CD-only bonus tracks. Times listed are for the remastered CD.

[edit] Personnel

• Nivek Ogre (vocals)
• cEvin Key (production, engineering, mixing, various instruments)
• Dwayne Goettel (production, engineering, mixing, various instruments)
• Dave Ogilvie (production, engineering, mixing, backing vocals)
• Alien Jourgensen (production, engineering, mixing, guitar, additional vocals)
• Greg Reely (additional engineering, special thanks)
• Marc Ramaer (additional engineering, mixing)
• Ken Marshall (additional engineering)
• Cyan (vocals and lyrics on "Rain")
• Keith Auerback (mixing on "Fascist Jock Itch")
• Jeff Newell (mixing on "Fascist Jock Itch")

[edit] Notes

Cover art by Steven R. Gilmore.

The original CD release on Nettwerk (and the licensed version on Capitol) was mistakenly mastered with Dolby B noise reduction, which resulted in a muffled sound. In 1993, at the insistence of Key, the album was digitally remastered and re-released on Nettwerk. Besides the dramatically improved sound quality, the remastered version can be distinguished by the position of the track marker between "Choralone" and "Amputate" -- in the original release, at the end of "Choralone" there was the sound of a thunderclap. In the remastered version, this sound is at the beginning of "Amputate" instead.

Only one promotional video was produced for Rabies. The "Worlock" video was mainly a rhythmically-edited string of horror movie clips and well as clips and outtakes from the band's earlier video, "Stairs and Flowers" (from the album Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse). The video, which opens with an old-school type "Rated X" graphic, was intended to be a critique of the concept of censorship in America. Many of the movie clips featured in the video were from films directed by Dario Argento, a European horror director, who has a reputation of being "the most censored film director" in the world because his films are routinely heavily edited by US distributors to remove gore and violence so as to gain an "R-Rating" from the MPAA. For their video, Skinny Puppy included footage, deleted from the US versions of said films, from the following Argento films: "Deep Red", "Suspiria", "Tenebrae", "Dune", "Phenomena", and "Opera". Other films included in the video include: "The Beyond", "Hellraiser II", "Bad Taste", "Dead and Buried", "Luther The Geek", "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", "From Beyond", "Death Warmed Up", and "Altered States".

Due to the graphic violence of the horror film clips used in the video, "Worlock" was banned by MTV. In 1992, Skinny Puppy released a compilation of their music videos, but "Worlock" was noticeably omitted. According to Nettwerk, the video was omitted partially due to copyright problems and also because of fear that the video would be banned by other countries that might find the video's content obscene. However, in recent years the video has been widely bootlegged among fans, thanks to the advent of the Internet.

"Backing" videos for "Tin Omen" and "Choralone" were produced for the Too Dark Park tour in 1990, and have also been spread on the Internet.

On the song Rodent from the album Rabies the electric guitar kicks in at exactly 4 minutes and 20 seconds (see 4:20).

[edit] Additional information

Rabies is significant in Skinny Puppy's history for a number of reasons; not as much for the music, but for the events in and out of the studio involving the band members. Most of their previous albums had been mixed and produced by the group's "fourth member" Dave "The Rave" Ogilvie. For Rabies, lead singer/songwriter Nivek Ogre brought in friend and Ministry frontman, Al "Alien" Jourgensen. Jourgensen and Ogre had toured together with Ministry (Ogre can be seen and heard on the In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up video and CD). The other two members of Skinny Puppy, drummer/programmer cEvin Key and keyboardist/programmer Dwayne Goettel did not approve of Jourgensen's takeover, creating friction between the band members.

Key, upon being asked what his favorite "Dwayne moment" was, selected the strings on "Worlock". He came home to find the strings recorded on a tape and constructed the rest of the song from it. Ogre has also stated the opinion that Worlock "rivals Killing Game" as one of their best songs. The song has been played on every single tour after its conception. A Roland Harmonizer was used to create the vocoder-effect during the chorus. Samples of the song "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles are mixed with Charles Manson singing the song within "Worlock".