January, 1992. The Pixies are making their penultimate appearance in the Twin Cities. (Their final Minneapolis show happened two months later, opening for U2, when they were known simply as Support Act.) The doors at First Avenue opened at eight, and we were there, only to find out that the opening act had been delayed an hour. Fair enough. We hung out by the barricade, swapped jokes, watched videos on the big screen ("Look! 'Rhinocerous!'"), and bitched about the wait. At ten sharp, the curtain swelled skyward back into its ceiling mouth leaving us with a view of Barkmarket, the opening band. "Never heard of 'em," I thought, "but if the Pixies like 'em...." What followed was 45 minutes of total shit. Scraping guitars that should have been left to die on the killing floor, dissonant drums, and vocals that got completely buried in the mix. Not one single fucking word was discernable. After that night, Barkmarket became the touchstone of how bad a band could be. Example: "Yeah, they weren't so great, but they were no Barkmarket, either."

Fastforward to 1996. I get an advance of L. Ron and every bad word I've ever said about Barkmarket dies with the opening track, "The Visible Cow." The sound of a tape recorder in a hollow, lonely closet splits with the sound of an unstable, slightly out-of-tune acoustic guitar. "It smells like fear in here," groans lead vocalist Dave Sardy, and you're hooked on the voice. You know something's going to happen, and it does. Within 30 seconds, Barkmarket hitches a ride on the greatest White Zombie riff never recorded and pummels that fucker into whalemeat, then takes it back into the closet before launching back into its groove. This is the single of the year, and if my stereo had a penis I'd be doing a tonsil dance on it, defying both my sexuality and the very fabric of reality. And you want to know the cool part? This album never lets up. "The Visible Cow" is part of a 1-2-3 punch, also comprised of the brutal, eye-jabbing "Feed Me" and snarling "I Don't Like You." "Shiner," "Is It Nice?" and "Bootless" also kick ass quite nicely, thankyouverymuch. The bass pops and yanks at depths that were previously thought unfeasible. The guitars sunburn and blister. The drums tie it all up with a bow made of flesh and call it a sick little birthday present. As you can probably tell, this isn't pretty music. Harder than a nine inch nail, L. Ron is one mother of a Hubbard.

Incidentally, when I review albums now, I find myself saying, "Yeah, it wasn't great, but it was no Cult of Ray, either." How times change.

-Jason Josephes

Sound Clip:
"Feed Me"
MPEG-LayerIII
64kpbs.44kHz.
244k.30sec.
converted from:
AIFF.3:1comp.22kHz.