Theatrical art rockers Not Blood Paint have been making a name for themselves since 2008, when they formed in Brooklyn. Combining elements of metal, glam, art rock, and funk for a live show that has to be seen to be believed, the band will be playing Brooklyn’s Rough Trade Records tomorrow (16) in support of their album Believing Is Believing, the band sent us a list of the genres and artists that inspire them. 

It’s easy to dismiss or misinterpret theatricality in live music performance. Why the makeup? Why the choreography? Why the ritual? Why THOSE symbols?

With this list, we’re interested in suggesting that these performative elements are frequently far from extra-curricular – they’re woven into the very fabric of the expression of various musical movements and individual musicians. Perhaps this is not a spectacle meant to fascinate, but an immersive environment with which to interact.

Below is a slim list of musicians or bands (there are WAY too many to mention) that have taught us something about our own motivations in performing good ol’ rock & roll music in a highly theatrical manner. With this list, we think we can discern one underlying motivation that connects each of these groups and performers together…a goal that Not Blood Paint has come to call “manifesting the Goldsmith”. One never knows what might happen when a room full of people begin manifesting the Goldsmith together. Take a look!

THAT DEVIL MUSIC

Marilyn Manson

Manson may be the best example we have of using external appearances, body contortion, and symbolism during music performance to do violence to the slavery of automatic identification. Not Blood Paint has come to call this practice ‘The New Suit Methodology’.

This practice can be highly therapeutic, particularly for the disenfranchised youth Manson tends to address through his music, helping them discover some sense freedom through ambiguity. He also nailed his public performance to the front doors of the church, never shying away from directly engaging and disarming the media and other narrative machines with gleeful boldness and mischief.

“Antichrist Superstar” LIVE (1996):

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s live performances hope to trigger a shift of position. If their organization wasn’t so staunchly anti-artifact, we would assume their work is about turning objects on edge until they reveal a new perspective. Then again, these tricksters HAVE been known to make their own instruments… giant swinging pendulums that could really clean someone’s clock if they got in the way. Tick tock. Da da against logic, da daagainst cultural constructs that bend acts of art into justification for acts of war. Tick tock.

Each performance is a chapter meeting with chaos. Humanity is eating itself alive. Maybe the Future IS bright! Da! Da!

Sleepytime Performing ‘Hymn to the Morning Star/The Donkey-Headed Adversary’: