Music of the Week – Christian Death – Spiritual Cramp
In these days I’ve been listening again, after a very long time, the incredible Christian Death debut album. A very young Rozz Williams, barely 19 years old at the time, with a punk legend, Rikk Agnew of the Adolescents, put together a wonderful disc of rare power.
They portrayed their own angst, uncertainty and paranoia and in the process extracted from it something essential, that still belongs to the world we live today, in spite of the changes made by the time flew by.
Only Theatre of Pain took the raw energy that punk threw outwards and made it going inwards, running in the labyrinths of the soul.
The band’s leader, Rozz Williams, did not have an easy life and career. The quarrels with Valor (who joined the band on their second full length and later took the monicker Christian Death for him, in spite not being a founding member of the band), the many stop-and-gos of his projects and the many many difficulties with addictions and drugs took the toll on him, until his suicide, on the first April of 1998. He hanged himself leaving a rose and the Hanged Man tarot card, but not a note…
I decided to share Spritual Cramp because I read a memorial wrote by a body artist, Ron Athey, who was friend with Rozz and shared some of the crazy days of their youths together. He thought this song to be very representative of Rozz and left a quote at the end of his memorial. The article made me remember Christian Death and made me listen them again…and now here we are.
I can die a thousand times
but I will always be here
With the powder skull secrets
of forgotten years
The hangman’s noose is drenched
with bloodstained tears
my hands are the killer that confirms
my fear.
Tags: christian death, music of the week, rozz williams
Music of the Week | Snake November 5, 2017