Premier Rock Forum

I'm curious, as his career has been quite varied. I will wait to vote, as he is a friend of mine.

I don't know, I have a friend who is pretty gothic and he's all abot Coil. Coil is pretty good though, I'm gona have to say not crap. I don't think I've actively listened to Skinny Puppy.

I am not so sure as to Chris' involvement in Coil or Skinny Puppy, but am familiar with his work with Fini Tribe and Ministry. I can say that his first solo record "Whiplash Boychild" had some great moments, especially the songs co-wrote with Zechman and Villines, about whom I proclaim absolute ignorance. I certainly would not lump this record under goth (darkwave as the kids call it these days...). Bowie comes to mind...
I followed his solo records throughout high school, and gradually lost interest, stopped after "shipwreck." I always wished that he would have done more with the style of "whiplash" though. It showed a ton of promise, and I am certainly not poo-pooing his career...

not crap

Mark

I was lucky enough to be in a band that toured with Chris's band, the Bells a few years back. I really enjoy Chris's music. I am much more a fan of that body of work compared to his 'dark' past. It was fun to see the old school goth kids show up for his shows with the makeup and the nail polish and the fishnets and all. It was interesting to then watch them during his set. I think half of them were disappointed it was not more like the heavy more 'evil' bands he has spent time in, etc. but half seemed to be able to follow him into this next phase of his music making, even though his music was very different in form than the many bands they had hand painted on their jackets.

One great moment was when a super fan showed up in Boston with Chris' first name freshly scraped into her chest with a blade. She was really proud to show him (and us all) the half bloody half scabbing letters. Lucky for her his name wasn't 'Ebeneezer' or 'Bartholomew' or something. She would have been too dizzy from blood loss to make it to the show.

Also, Chris is a really really genuinely nice and great person. It would be hard to not like him and what he does anyway.

Yeah, I was wrong about both associations, just found out, whoops.

Chris had played in:

Ministry
Revolting Cocks
Murder, INc.
Pigface
KMFDM (?) I think...

beyond his own solo records and the ones as the Bells.

For those of you who associate CC with the goth stuff, I would highly recommmend the album "Largo". It's with Bill Rieflin and it's just piano and voice basically. Real sparse and beautiful. I would also recommend "The Ultimate Seaside Collection" by his old band The Bells. In a perfect world, I could hear that on the radio instead of "It's your birthday". I think Chris has come a long way since RevCo, and I enjoy this later stuff so much more than the goth material.

NOT CRAP.

I don't know how I missed this one, but I'd vote NOT CRAP for The Bells alone. The Ultimate Seaside Companion is the most recent work of his that I've heard, and I really really was impressed with it. I was never a RevCo fan, but I liked a lot of his "gothier" stuff when I was younger. I don't return to it very often now, but it's much better than a lot of the stuff he was associated with. Whiplash Boychild and Shipwreck. His cover of Wire's "A Mutual Friend" is damned great. I'm assuming he was going for a Scott Walker kind of sound on it. Good stuff. Will listen to this Largo at some point...

Just saw him play again a week ago... very striped back... just acoustic guitar with the Vida brothers backing both on acoustic guitar al well... one song just voice, nothing else. It was great! Win Wenders filmed the set.

Chris is about to be a dad.