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| Damo Suzuki Detroit Art Space, Detroit May 15, 2003 I used to believe Damo Suzuki to be a werewolf. This theory was the result of long immersion in the dank castle atmosphere of prime '70s Can albums Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi. There certainly seemed to be some monstrous secret hidden among the clanking drums and creeping keyboards. When Suzuki’s blood-gargling gibber burst into my headphones, I concluded that the band had replaced original vocalist Malcolm Mooney with a wolf in human clothing. News of Suzuki’s current tour heightened my suspicions. Endlessly wandering the globe, playing wholly improvised sets with a different band each night: these feats would seem to require the quick and hardy nerves of a lycanthrope. Suzuki’s Detroit appearance gave him the perfect opportunity to show his fangs. Outside the Detroit Art Space, the full moon was shining on the cratered streets. Inside, the ad hoc band was setting the stage for a monster. Members of folk-rock orchestra the Immigrant Suns were building a dark Carpathian village out of accordions, clarinets, ouds, tragatos, and qytelis. Troy Gregory, of the Witches, was calling dark spirits out of his cello and double bass. The Dirtbombs’ Mick Collins and Outrageous Cherry’s Matt Smith were using their guitars to create the kind of cheap but potent buzz usually found in movies depicting battles between masked wrestlers and kung-fu wolfmen. When a smiling Suzuki strolled onto the stage, however, I had to concede that he was not a werewolf. He was, instead, a rock star of the old school, as he proved with each toss of his hair and shake of his microphone stand. His shamanistic shimmies and faded denim poses might have been anachronistic, but they were completely without irony or pretense. Equally antique and authentic: Suzuki’s voice, a relic of the post-war years when young German musicians ran screaming from their predecessors. With one of humanity’s darkest moments hanging over them, Kraftwerk tried to become robots, Can fled into a monster movie, and a Japanese expatriate rose to fame on the strength of an inhuman shriek. I could hear those desperate days reverberating in Suzuki’s howl, but I could also hear a genuine affection for the small crowd that had gathered to hear him. Suzuki is a sincere and warm-hearted human, and though few of us had seen such a rare and fabled creature in the wild, when he leapt from the stage and began wrapping us in sweat-soaked hugs, no one tried to escape. |
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—Ethan Cronkite June 2003 |
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Photo by Ethan Cronkite
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