| Home
cKy bio
cKy Discography
cKy lyrics
cKy Tabs
Pictures of the cKy crew
cky Vol. one songs and lyrics
News
Guest Book
Link's Page
Contacts
|
|
|
The Band
Deron Miller | guitar, vocals
Chad Ginsburg | guitar
Jess Margera | drums
Vern Zaborowski | bass
"You don't need to be so shallow
Turn your head prepare to follow"
- "Attached At The Hip"
|
Downtown philly
starting from the left: Vern,Chad,Jess,Deron. |
|
To get things started...
First message, received Tuesday, August 13th at 2:52 p.m.:
"Yo, it's Chad again. Email-me-if-you-can't-un-der-stand-what-I-am-say-ingæbut I wanted to say, you can start it out with something like, ‘If you haven't heard of CKY, then you are out of it and do need our help.’ Okay. Cool."
Last we left outspoken Chad I Ginsburg and CKY, the band was set to reissue its classic-in-waiting, Volume 1, and he'd promised to "take over the name of rock and roll and piss in its face." Well, hear that? It's a zipper, this time on the ascent. CKYæthe band, the allianceæhas laid out a next plan, scripted in the piss of four angry men: Infiltrate_Destroy_Rebuild.
Written and recorded on CKY's uncompromising time and vision, Infiltrate_Destroy_Rebuild finds them on message and backing up every bold word with more audacious, expansive, laser-sighted rock and roll. During the sessions, CKY's purity of vision was held at a premium and done completely devoid of outside influences. "We had no record company involvement," states Ginsburg. "We mixed it, produced it, everything. It's exactly the way we wanted it, exactly the way that we handed it in. We put a lot of passion into the album and we won't settle with anything less than perfect. What you get is a CKY album. The real shit."
|
|
The Real Shit (the-REEL-shit): n. authentic, inspired, peerless, usu. in a creative endeavor. See also CKY.
Across ten tracks, from the portentous "Escape From Hellview" to the cautionary "Flesh Into Gear" and "Attached At The Hip" to the not surprisingly heartfelt "Close Yet Far," CKY cuts a threatening musical and philosophical swath. Ominous, futuristic, brutally precise riffs, built on a style Miller pioneered, remain a trademark, fortified by Zaborowski and Margera's stoic rhythms and Ginsburg’s natural production/mixing talents. Miller's melodic vocals and lyrics wax surrealistic, examining/condemning the "dissected and pretentious" wasteland that is the music industry.
It's ballsy, almost biting the hand. Like CKY really cares...
"If it has to be through our mouths," says Ginsburg. "If we have to be blacklisted from the industry for conveying the messages, then that's what happens. That's CKY's philosophy."
To catch up the uninitiated, CKY formed in 1998 in Pennsylvania and it's their music you hear in episodes of MTV's Jackass, in addition to their own films, directed by skateboarder/filmmaker Bam Margera (yeah, Jess' brother). Their debut album Volume 1 was originally released in 1999 and its actual followup, Volume 2, came in 1999. With each new record and film, CKY's message further saturated the mindset of its fans, whom CKY view as peers and who view CKY as a fountain from which the vast knowledge of the new generation spews. The consensus among the two is CKY is a means to an end, the anti-society. Infiltrate_Destroy_Rebuild is album number three, and a major offensive in the war against sock-puppet rock and roll.
"We have smart fans who are spread out all over the world," says Ginsburg. "There's an uprising coming. They're spreading the word. They want the revolution and they want it in the name of CKY. And we're proud to represent them. And the only way to do it, as far as I'm concerned, is to be real with your fans and make a connection. I'll spend a whole day online talking to them. It's helpful for us and to them to know where we're all at in our heads and what's going on as we're trying to organize the revolt. We'll reinvent the mainstream. It's already begun."
Again, it's more than rhetoric. CKY has the goods to back it up, both in the studio and on the stage. And they mean every word. You can see it in the intensity of CKY's live performance, the fuck-you look in Miller's eyes, Ginsburg's unrestrained acrobatics, Margera's punishment of his drums, Zaborowski's wild-eyed stare. In every facet, one thing is clear: CKY is The Real Shit. What they preach, they deliver. They're leaders and perhaps the only real rock stars left on the landscape, consummate showmen worthy of packed arenas, playing music that will endure.
|
The disc, having already sold 40,000 units on word-of-mouth with little promotion and distribution, throbs with the potential to change the face of rock. The band's synergy and Chad's production talents are manifest throughout, especially on "96 Quite Bitter Beings," the driving, anti-"Must See TV" disco-ditty "The Human Drive In Hi-Fi," the jazzy, atmospheric sorta-ballad "Sara's Mask," and the vitriolic Manson-esque dirge, "Rio Bravo."
"There's a couple little mix things I did with ["Rio Bravo"]," says Chad. "But generally, the bulk of the song is the first rough mix, and the first song we recorded together. When that hit, I knew it was fuckin' the shit, 'cause I just spent a lot of time on it - we all did. I used that song to demo the studio to other bands that I recorded, like, 'dude - check out what our studio sounds like!' And the studio sucked. It's just the record we made that sounded good."
|
"It just comes from wanting to do this," says Miller. "Bands aren't entertaining onstage because they're there for the money or somebody told them they should stand a certain way or how they should play, and they don't like to do it anymore. We make it a point to not listen to what people want us to do, because it takes away from the power. We know what we wanna do, so we get up there and we do it. And we're passionate about it. There's no fakeness or phoniness. It's truth. It's honesty. It's exactly what's there. There's no smokescreen whatsoever."
The world needs CKY's help, reiterates Ginsburg, and to that end, the band has formed the CKY Alliance, a group composed of CKY and its fans that will confront industry leaders and call for reform. "It's the start of a revolutionary band and revolutionary music lovers; people that are interested in entertainment. As miserable as we may seem, fans of truthful entertainment are absolutely discontent and miserable as well. We and the CKY Alliance are these fans. I deem the previous generation, that of pre CKY, officially labeled Generation Overdone. CKY and their fans are revolutionaries of the new Generation of Change."
Says Margera, "People reach a point where they're sick of hearing copycat stuff. Scenes get oversaturated and then rock music turns to a new direction. I think we're a new direction."
"So we're just gonna make sure kids decide that it's worth paying attention to rock and roll," concludes Ginsburg. "'Cause it really isn't, right now. The music industry is wasting our time. They should just follow CKY and figure it out."
Love CKY or be unjustly stupid and hate CKY, there are no in-betweens. Either way, you’ll always have to deal with CKY.
|
|
|
