WHIP IT: Holy Fuck gettin crazy wit the Cheez Wiz, Starlight Ballroom, Last Night
Five Things You Should Know About Holy Fuck
1. Holy Fuck is a hi-tech electronica band that relies solely on low-tech means, purposely eschewing any digital looping, splicing and/or programming. You won’t find a Macbook onstage with these guys.
2. Holy Fuck’s live show is completely improvised and last night they introduced Philadelphia to at least two new songs last night that in all likelihood were made up on the spot. They hope to record some new tracks soon.
3. Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh (both keyboards and turntables) were set up on stage facing one another like chess players, both pressing buttons and turning knobs to manipulate, mutate and, in some instances, completely mutilate sound itself.
4. Holy Fuck is also known for using non-instruments to make their music, like circuit-bended toy keyboards or toy phaser guns. Brian Borcherdt is also usually seen playing a 35 mm film sequencer. He pulls strips of film back and forth to manipulate the sound. Last night, during one of their only “real songs” according to traditional standards, “Lovely Allen,” Borcherdt was seen playing a lap steel guitar with what I’m pretty sure was a butter knife. Yeah, a butter knife.
5. Holy Fuck usually has two drummers, which helps keep the energy of their shows super-high and, also, if one asphyxiates on his own vomit, they don’t have to break up, necessarily. Last night Holy Fuck only had one drummer. Perhaps, as Stephen Malkmus once posited, “the second drummer drowned.” Or perhaps the whereabouts of the missing drummer is, as a wiser man than me once said, a mystery “best left unsolved.”
PHOTO & TEXT BY TIFFANY YOON