(The) Monorchid - Who Put Out The Fire?

Monorchid (photo by Drew McDermott)

A monorchid is a being with only one testicle. (The) Monorchid was a brainworm I couldn't shake out of my head, with triple the balls the name would imply.

I came to Monorchid in a backwards fashion. I booked Wrangler Brutes into the Art Space, in no small part because Andy and Brooks from Skull Kontrol were the rhythm section behind Cundo from Nazti Skins and some dude named Sam. I liked Skull Kontrol (check the name of the blog, dog), and someone mentioned that Andy and Chris, the singer of Skull Kontrol, had done a band in DC before that called Monorchid. So I snagged a copy of their second and final LP, "Who Put Out The Fire?", and, well...

This is where I finally learned that if Chris Thomson was involved in something, I'd probably like it. The thru-thread spun through DC to Madison back to DC and on to Chicaog, from Ignition to Fury to Circus Lupus to Las Mordidas, on to Skull Kontrol to Red Eyed Legends to Coffin Pricks. It was going to be punk and weird and beyond cool and worth studying. When I sang, I wanted everything to sound like a glorious ad lib, no matter if it was stream of conciousness or written months before...to possess that sense of cool I always heard in Chris's voice.

"Who Put Out The Fire?" came out the same year as "Terraform", "What Burns Never Returns", and "Starters Alternators". It was a veritable murderer's row of great records from Touch & Go in 1998, which makes their infrequent releases in 2020 a goddamned shame.

Discogs

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