Chris recently participated in the WaxTrax! Auction and Show Fundraiser. Rather than playing a few tunes, he treated the audience to a few readings from his autobiography, Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried: My Life As a Revolting Cock (because what would be more appropriate?).
Listen to Chris read selections from “Concrete”
Haven’t read “Concrete” yet? Buy it! (Seriously, you’ll love it.)
Chris will be reuniting with Luc Van Acker and Paul Barker to perform as the Revolting Cocks at this special two-night event! Tickets go on sale Saturday, February 19 at noon via the Metro Box Office or online at www.metrochicago.com.
UPDATE (March 10): A third show has been added on Sunday, April 17! Tickets for this night only are $40 and go on sale Saturday, March 12 at noon.
WAX TRAX! RECORDS RETROSPECTACLE COMES TO METRO APRIL 15 & 16, 2011
In honor of the 33 1/3 year anniversary of Wax Trax! Records and the legacy of its creators Jim Nash & Dannie Flesher, The Nash family is producing a 2 night multimedia concert event that will celebrate the legendary Chicago record label and store on April 15th & 16th. The event will feature friends & artists of the Wax Trax! label and store including Front 242, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Luc Van Acker, Paul Barker, Chris Connelly, En Esch, Guenter Schultz, Raymond Watts, Rights of The Accused and more. In addition to the live performances, there will be special guests as well as an all star cast of Chicago DJ and VJ’s to commemorate the label and store. More information.
The Bicycle Music Company issued the following press release on Wednesday, October 20, 2010. The news was picked up and published by Billboard.biz as well.
Los Angeles, CA – October 20, 2010– The Bicycle Music Company and its affiliate the AF Circle C Fund are proud to announce that they have acquired a significant interest in the catalog of singer, songwriter, poet, novelist, and industrial music pioneer Chris Connelly. As part of the comprehensive agreement, Bicycle will also publish Connelly’s future works.
Chris Connelly started his musical career in his native Scotland in 1980 with his first band The Fini Tribe. In 1988 he moved to the U.S. to become a full-time member of The Revolting Cocks and Ministry, fronting the former and contributing songwriting to both ground-breaking industrial bands. He quickly started collaborating with other artists such as Killing Joke, Jah Wobble, KMFDM, Cabaret Voltaire, and Shirley Manson, among many others. He has also been front-man for numerous industrial super-groups including Pigface, Murder Inc. and The Damage Manual. At the same time, Connelly has enjoyed a long solo career with his work often compared to David Bowie and the latter works of Scott Walker. Since his 1991 solo debut release “Whiplash Boychild,†Connelly has released 12 solo albums and continues to be a prolific songwriter. Recently, Connelly authored two books: Concrete Bulletproof Invisible and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock, the tell-all memoir of his days in Ministry and The Revolting Cocks, and this year he published his first novel, Ed Royal.
“It is a pleasure for us to be working with Chris Connelly and his diverse catalog of songs. From his early work with Ministry, The Revolting Cocks, and others at the vanguard of industrial music’s crossover to the mainstream, to his most recent acoustic and experimental solo record ‘How This Ends,’ Chris’ music is storied, impactful, and always on the cutting edge†said Bicycle President and Chief Investment Officer Roger Miller. “I look forward to the new opportunities we will create together through our partnership.â€
On his new relationship with Bicycle Connelly says, “I am more than thrilled to be associated with Bicycle and its roster of great writers and song catalogs. It is a real pleasure working with such knowledgeable people who believe in what I do and have such vision for the future of my works.â€
Check out the full press release (PDF).
Two Chicago-area book readings are coming up!
Thursday, September 23 at 7 PM
At Bucket O’ Blood, 2307 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
Saturday, November 6 at 7 PM
At Quimby’s, 1854 W. North Ave., Chicago, IL, 60622
Keep up with future book-related events via Chris’s BookTour page.
Chris recently spoke to The A.V. Club Chicago about all of his recent work. Here’s a taste of the article, but be sure to check out the full interview!
Chris Connelly has a wife, two small children, a demanding job managing Reckless Records in Bucktown, and, at any given moment, seemingly half a dozen artistic projects underway. This month alone, he released an ambitious solo album (his 12th), How This Ends, the debut from his new band The High Confessions, Turning Lead Into Gold With The High Confessions, and his first novel, Ed Royal. It’s an impressive feat, especially considering the adventurousness of the results. The experimental How This Ends is divided into two half-hour tracks that eschew traditional songwriting conventions. The High Confessions—featuring Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Sanford Parker of Minsk, and engineer Jeremy Lemos—follow a similarly cavalier muse, improvising their debut, with three of the five songs stretching beyond the 10-minute mark. (The band has already recorded a second album.) Perhaps strangest of all of Connelly’s projects is Ed Royal, simply because it plays the straightest: a psychological thriller that draws heavily from his experiences growing up in Edinburgh. The A.V. Club went over all of it one night at Connelly’s home in Rogers Park.
The A.V. Club: In the press sheet for How This Ends, you said your focus is more on words now and less on music. What does that mean in practice when you make an album?
Chris Connelly: It means, in the case of How This Ends and [2008 solo album] Forgiveness And Exile, I wrote the words before I had the music, which is really unusual for me. I usually do them in tandem, or I do the music first and the words come later. Sometimes it’s hard to do. Sometimes the words take a long time to come, sometimes they come really quickly. How This Ends started, and by the way [so did] Forgiveness And Exile, as did The High Confessions, for me on the CTA. I write on the train. What I always say is that it’s my time to write.
God, I hate love July! Chris has been a busy, busy bee and the fruits of those labors will be available in a month!
Available on July 13 from Lens Records. pre-order! 
Available on July 20 from Relapse Records. pre-order! 
Chris’s first novel! Available in July from Shipwrecked Industries. more info 
The Confessions are (left to right): Sanford Parker (Minsk, Buried at Sea), Jeremy Lemos (White/Light), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), and Chris Connelly.
As Chris reported back in February, this foursome spent some time in the studio (see photo). They now have a name, The Confessions, and their work will be mixed next month (no release date, yet). It’s possible that they may play some shows during the Sonic Youth tour, so stay tuned!
Chris’s new album, Pentland Firth Howl, will be released by Busted Flat Records on May 26, 2009. A very limited edition vinyl pressing will be released at the same time, on Adenda Records.
Chris says, “Pentland Firth Howl is a song cycle about my native Scotland and has 10 tracks. It was produced by my friend Zak Boerger, who also plays guitar on it along with me.”
Shipwreck was released to critical acclaim in 1994 and has long been a favorite of many a Connelly fan. Now, over a decade later, we can hear more of that album, thanks to the availability of the master tapes!
As part of this 6-disc set are some album mixes, alternate mixes and instrumentals (great for karaoke!). There’s also a cover of John Cale’s “Close Watch”, which is a different recording from other versions made available on this site previously.
All tracks are available in MP3 format as well as FLAC format (lossless audio, for you audiophiles out there).
Many thanks go to Mark Weddle for doing all of the work needed to make these tracks available and to Chris for allowing these to go public.
The Marjorie Kovler Center is a facility in Chicago, Illinois which provides counseling, therapy, aid, housing, and resources to help refugees and victims of torture who have come to the USA.
I first learned about the Marjorie Kovler Center about 10 years ago from a doctor I was seeing at that time. She was an amazing woman, whose name unfortunately escapes me. In addition to being a doctor and the mother of two children, she found time in an incredibly busy schedule to avail herself to the Kovler Center to give her services free of charge.
I was profoundly touched by her, and who wouldn’t be? She told me about the Center, about the refugees that came, who were traumatized in ways that I cannot begin to imagine, having, luckily, no frame of reference except the media for the kinds of inhuman atrocities these people have suffered. She spoke frankly about what had happened to people, and how they found themselves in a new country, often without any language skills and penniless, as well as suffering physically and mentally from their ordeals. Needless to say, it shook and chilled me to the core, and I wanted to help, but at that time did not feel that I had anything constructive to offer.
It was not until the spring of 2007 that I realized I might be able to do something. I had started writing for a new album, and what I was writing was heavily informed by what I had been listening to on the BBC world service, and also by things I had been reading. Slowly, over about eight months, I finished what was essentially a long poem, “Forgiveness & Exileâ€, which, without trying to explain too much is my own impressionistic view of countries and peoples torn to pieces by war, of prejudices and intolerances, of families destroyed, murder, imprisonment and torture. At the end of the writing process, and during the recording process, I realized that I had said what I set out to say, but was unable to justify my luxury of using language and music to talk about something I felt strongly about, but certainly knew very little of, and was lucky enough to never have experienced such brutal inhumanities. It was at that time that I remembered my conversations with the doctor, and of the Kovler Center, and realized that now at last was my opportunity to do something tangible, and in this respect I am donating all the money I make from sales and royalties of this album to the Kovler Center. Perhaps I can make someone’s transition a little easier and their quality of life a little better.
Chris Connelly
Chicago
June 2008
