0:00 mark (just take all in).
In 1988, avante garde jazz composer John Zorn was living in Japan and decided he wanted to "test the limitations of a rock band format". This led to the formation of Naked City, a band that actually tests the limits of the human ears instead. Most of the players on Naked City's records are John Zorn's usual go-to guys, except for singer/screamer/psychotic wailer Yamantaka Eye, at the time of Japanese noise/performance art band, Hanatarash(i) and later of the Boredoms.
Eye is notorious in Japan for his wild stage antics and general insanity such as having sawed a dead cat in half on stage, strapping a circular saw to his back and almost severing his leg and even partially destroying a venue by driving a bulldozer through a rear wall and onto the stage. His performances with Naked City are no less strange vocally, although his disregard for public safety had dissipated. The vocals on these records are some of the most ear splitting caterwauling heard this side of a burning NICU. Drummer Joey Baron is also notable as being fast as lightning and despite playing mostly jazz, his blast beats put most drummers from that and any era to shame.
The music, is equivalent to driving down a New York City sidewalk, with all the windows down at high speed during mid day rush hour. An amalgamation of jazz, grind, surf, lounge music and numerous other genres thrown into a blender. Dropping the needle on this one is like opening the lid to that blender while it is still running, spraying its contents all over the room.
All of their output is different, yet shares similarities and is of course aurally challenging. But Naked City's influence is clear once you make it half way through the record, as you can hear the foreshadowing of bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan in the short less than one minute blasts. Mike Patton was so influenced by the band that he fronted the band for several shows in 1991 and 2003 in addition to guesting on Naked City and Painkiller (another Zorn band) records and forming a side project called Hemophiliac with Zorn.
If you are able to make it through Torture Garden, try out some of these.
Also, Here's a slide show of Hanatarash(i)'s bulldozer gig as a bonus.
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