The 17 Series: Justin Broadrick

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From Glen Grefe

When I first heard Godflesh (Slavestate EP, 1991) it was like a beautiful kick in the face from my speakers, hurling me down a catharsis mountain of hammering spikes... I had found a new impossibly extreme genre:  beautiful extreme crushing metallic, electronica - a moment akin to Indiana Jones finding the Raiders of the Lost Ark golden idol.
The second time I experienced this was completely by accident. I had moved to California and flew to visit fam and friend I believe in May or July of1992; I went to First Avenue and wandered into the 7th St. Entry and was hit with a wailing wall of sound.. Godflesh was playing.  No barriers - Justin playing right in front of me, melting my head off.  I was addicted.

I know what you're thinking - "but I don't like loud headache inducing music!".  Well... you're in luck.  

Don't be afraid of this 17!

There's some gorgeously lush sweeping environments and tapestries of mysterious magical music to tour - just beyond the scary door of the opening track!



Continuing... After my Godflesh introduction, I kept seeing his name pop up so I began the hunt to taste the Broadrickian smorgasboard; I dug into his body of work (and continue to dig)... and time and time again it was revealed Justin Broadrick is not only prolific - he is, in my opinion, a FORCE OF NATURE.  His importance to music - yes, I will say - may equal the likes or even overshadow (in certain areas) geniuses such as Frank Zappa, Robert Pollard, Merzbow, Prince, Sun Ra, Mike Patton (you get it, you name it).

I invite you to step into the vast world of Broadrick, adventure deep into an aural jungle and your own personal, radiant, shimmering idol (or macguffin!) will emerge and capture your gaze, mouth and ears and soul agape with wonder.

Nothing I say here can really sum up how amazing this guy is.  

I'm going to have to rely on others.  Example: (from Revolver:" Michelangelo of extreme noise, a gifted sculptor of guitar dissonance who's reinvented his approach three times over ..."  )

Bands: Napalm Death, Godflesh, Jesu
Justin Broadrick is the Michelangelo of extreme noise, a gifted sculptor of guitar dissonance who's reinvented his approach three times over (not counting his other projects: Final, Techno Animal, Greymachine, etc.) and never failed to reach higher and higher planes of sonic majesty. First, he set the foundation for grindcore as a primary songwriter on Napalm Death's Scum, but he quickly abandoned the full-speed-ahead approach, pioneering instead the scrap-pile-on-fire industrial metal with Godflesh. From there he segued into Jesu, reupholstering the thwacking drum machines with waves of smoggy shoegaze riffs and a more downtrodden and vulnerable vocal approach.


Reading his Wikipedia page is MUST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Broadrick  And can be overwhelming.  Just start here with this excerpt and you get who your dealing with:

Childhood and first recordings (1969–1983)[edit]

Broadrick was born on 15 August 1969, in a council estate of inner Birmingham.[7][8] For the first four years of his life, Broadrick was raised by his mother Gabrielle Fern (a.k.a. Lucy Nation) and stepfather Robert Fern (a.k.a. Bob Allcock)[9] in a hippie commune in Shard End.[10] In the late '70s, Broadrick's mother and stepfather were members of Anti-Social, a band infamous for live shows involving blood and faecal matter, as well as for soliciting people to commit suicide via guillotine live on stage. Anti-Social were dubbed "the world's most violent rock group" and released one single, Traffic Lights/Teacher Teacher which is now one of the rarest UK punk record releases.[11] During a period of heroin addiction, Broadrick's biological father was mostly absent from the family home.[12][13] According to Broadrick, his maternal grandmother from Germany was a "witch" who was into the occult and black magic.[14]

By the age of ten, Broadrick was surrounded by the punk-rock that his parents listened to. "There was Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but it was always the stuff that wasn't so standard that grabbed me. I was always playing things like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music when I was about eight! Stuff like Can, the weirdest parts of Pink Floyd, Hendrix", says Broadrick. "The first thing I probably heard out of the house, when I was about 11 years old, was Crass", says Broadrick. Shortly after seeing them as his first concert, he recorded his first demo tape at the age of 11.[15] "By the age of 12 I fell into early industrial music, stuff like Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse". Broadrick began to play with his stepfather's guitar, who was then into Roxy Music and Brian Eno.[16]

In 1982, he started publishing tapes with..."


ENJOY,

Glen





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