Flashback Friday #1 - Antiproduct

"Here's another message for ya, Slipknot Youth/Your nation is your god and your music is your truth/It makes you feel good, yeah, it makes you feel safe/NOW GET OUTTA OUR WAY, WE'RE TAKIN' OVER THIS PLACE!" - Antiproduct - "Better Than This"

So here we go, another new thing on this site. The aim of this (hopefully) weekly rambling will be as a bit of a flashback guide to some of the bands who you may have missed over the last 15-20 years or so. And there really seems no better place to start than Antiproduct, not least because they're one of those bands that you'll probably see linked to a LOT of the other groups who crop up in this column in the weeks ahead in some way or other...

I dunno how many out there remember the years 2000-2003 or so. Let me tell you, it was shit. Ignoring a few decent bands on the fringes like Silver Ginger 5, the Yo-Yo's and the Backyard Babies, the pages of Kerrang! were pretty much saturated first with godawful nu-metal neanderthals like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Crazytown, Slipknot et al, then with horrible whiny pop-punk fratboys like Blink 182, Sum 41, Alien Ant Farm, Wheatus etc. And don't even get me started on the godawful abomination that was emo that followed that. The pages of the NME weren't much better - the demise of the Melody Maker meant that genuinely good bands like King Adora and Easyworld were being ignored in favour of posh boy trust fund "garage bands" with cash from their CEO parents to buy their way to column inches - first the Strokes and a million and one dead-eyed clone bands that slithered across the Atlantic with them, then the Libertines and the Arctic Monkeys and the horrible wave of put on whiny accents and skaghead wannabes that followed them with all the glamour of a 50p chips and saveloy deal at a Barnsley takeaway.

Something needed to change. Something needed to exist as an alternative. Thank fuck we had bands like Antiproduct is all I can say. Imagine walking into a rock club in this era expecting some bunch of mopes with Phil Oakey fringes whinging about how the cute girl in their chemistry class won't go to the prom with them even though they're all a) well into their twenties and b) from somewhere like Peterborough rather than New York or California. And instead you get THIS...

Pretty flippin' good, eh? I first encountered Antiproduct via their frontman Alex Kane's short-lived two-man industrial comedy noise terrorism band Clam Abuse which he formed with Ginger Wildheart following the messy break-up of the 'Hearts in 1997 or so. Though even by then, Kane was a relative veteran of the music scene, having started as guitarist with LA via Chicago glam-shock-rock outfit Life, Sex & Death. LSD's main gimmick was that they had (according to legend) been searching for a singer for months and eventually recruited a random hobo called Stanley who wandered into their rehearsal space by accident. They put out one album, 1993's rather awesome "The Silent Majority" and if you listen to it you can definitely hear the genesis for the full on insanity that was Antiproduct therein.

Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly given the madness surrounding the band, LSD weren't long for this world and, after a brief spell handling guitar duties in Enuff Z'Nuff mid-'90s, Kane found himself over in England hanging out with Ginger Wildheart. The Wildhearts story has already been told many times elsewhere and suffice to say that without them, my musical education would've been very different. At the time, the Wildhearts had spluttered to a halt with the vicious industrial album "Endless Nameless", an under-rated album but one which was a complete departure from anything they'd done before and completely threw most fans for a loop at the time.

So what happens then when you mix "Endless Nameless"' industrial dynamics with LSD's brand of insanity. Why, funny you should ask, you get Clam Abuse consisting of Clam Savage and Clint Abuse (that'll be Ginger and Alex, I'm not sure which was which). I'm sure they probably deserve a Flashback Friday column all of their own but they kept it together just long enough to make one album, 1998's "Stop Thinking". Again, sane it very much isn't. Bloody good it very much is.

Clam Abuse imploded in 1999 with Ginger going off to form the more straightforward Silver Ginger 5 and Kane rechristening himself A Product, recruiting guitarist Clare Pproduct and Sack Trick's rhythm section of Chris Dale and Robin Guy and letting loose with Antiproduct's opening salvo of "Consume And Die...The Rest Is All Fun" The band quickly became known for their incendiary live shows with Kane, looking like a cross between Gene Simmons and Krusty The Clown, taking time out to scare the hell out of all and sundry.

The line-up would slowly evolve. Dale and Guy would quickly return to Sack Trick (Guy also drumming for countless other bands) and a new line-up would emerge with Argentinian Milena Yum on keyboards, Simon Gonk on drums and first Toshi (who would later join the Ga*Ga's and Slaves To Gravity) and then Marina Metallina on bass.

To those who never experienced them, it's kind of difficult to describe an Antiproduct live show - complete and utter chaos but chaos of the most thrilling kind. Gonk smashing his kit like he was building a shed, Marina and Milena the two cool-as-ice vixens at either side of the stage, Clare stalking the stage like a giraffe on stilts thrashing the hell out of her six string and Kane the tireless generator at the centre of the storm. Whether it was goading the whole audience into joining in with the opening bars of "Bungee Jumping People Die!" (those trying to hide out at the back were often quickly pointed out and had abuse shouted at them), spraying silly string (and occasionally spray paint) around on stage or even getting the whole audience to shout abuse at Trashlight Vision's roadie when they came onstage much to the concern of their unprepared singer Acey Slade (Leeds Met, 2005. I was there. It was probably one of the most awesome things I've ever seen at a gig), you wouldn't forget an Antiproduct gig in a hurry, trust me.

And they were a bloody hard-working band as well, playing anywhere and everywhere that'd have them. Christ, I even followed them to Hebden Bridge once. And that sort of persistence will earn you a seriously hardcore following - Antiproduct's APRA fan club were notoriously loyal even by metal standards. Add a tendency towards every daft publicity stunt imaginable from selling vials of their bodily fluids on their website to being interviewed in adult mag Mayfair, they really were a band outside the box in many senses of the word.

Antiproduct's second album "Made In USA" arrived in 2004 and is probably the nearest they came to capturing the full on chaos of their live sound on record with songs like "Turnin' Me On" and "If I Was Orson Welles". They put one single out from it, "Better Than This". Which had 15 tracks on it. Reviews were good and it should have been the record to put them over the top.

Except...it didn't happen for some reason. Instability set in with various members bailing out to new bands - Marina joined Eyelash and Milena joined Shush (who I'm pretty sure we'll cover in due course in this column as well) while Simon picked up a broken foot on tour and still insisted on drumming throughout. Inevitably at the end, he had to leave the band for fear of risking permanent damage.

The following months saw a revolving door membership with everyone from ex-White Lion drummer Greg D'Angelo to future Eureka Machines frontman Chris Catalyst serving with the band. Live gigs suddenly started to become rarer and rarer and Kane eventually disappeared back to the States for an extended hiatus.

A third Antiproduct album, "Please Take Your Cash" eventually surfaced in 2009 consisting of half new songs and half re-recorded songs. It was good enough but the lack of new material was a bit of a concern. They even came back over to do a few gigs supporting their old mates the Wildhearts in 2009 and 2010. But since then...nothing.

Various ex-Antiproduct members have resurfaced in other peoples' bands down the years. Both Alex and Clare have done time with both Richie and Marky Ramone's live bands while Clare has also served with the appropriately titled Noizee. Of other ex-members, Milena has also been part of electro-rockers Tecnotitlan as well as Shush while Toshi was last seen in the excellent Hey! Hello! with that man Ginger Wildheart again. Robin Guy is currently in Sham 69, Kitty Hudson and probably about three other bands as I write this and Chris Dale occasionally resurfaces with Sack Trick. Simon and Marina? No idea I'm afraid. Phone home if you know.

You know what? I miss Antiproduct. The music world seems a much colder and less entertaining place without them around. And I'm sure most people who went to their gigs would have their own memories that have lasted with them for the last 10-15 years or so. But you know what else? Something tells me we haven't heard the last of them. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when they come back it's with an album that's as wonderfully unhinged and heavy as only they can be. We live in hope and await the day...