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Click the following Icon for Mentallo & The Fixer 2006 Live Show Tour Information:

2006 TOUR DATES

The following was a radio interview done while in Germany; it contains English and German versions of the actual audio, with photos:

The follow review was OCR scanned from a free publication released in June 1996, with "free" copyright - reformatted here as close to the original text and layout as possible. OCR SCAN V 1.0 2/20/06

FREE! vol. l, no. 10, June 1-15, 1996

Mentallo and The Fixer

May 25, the Bat Cave NYC

Review by Erik the Soul Manager

Now, here was a show that I was really truly anticipating. As you many already know, my tastes in industrial music are 98% electronic. I hate most of those so called industrial groups that constantly use guitars. The point I'm trying to make is that I've always found Mentallo and the Fixer to be the hardest group in industrial music. They have always shown that you can make harsh, aggressive sounds/noise without the use of guitars.

The Dassing brothers, a/k/a Mentallo and the Fixer

First off, let me review their music. Mentallo and the Fixer create a vast collage of grinding, nerve-,grating cluster-fuck of sounds that can actually throw you into an angst ridden state of confusion. But not all of Mentallo and the Fixers' songs are a barrage of chaotic fury. There are some really beautiful smooth flowing instrumentals, like Virtually Hopeless and Battered States of Euphoria, with Perish in Peril + Acoustikal sounding almost classical.

One thing you will always notice - with M+TF is that this stuff is not thrown together. Their aggressiveness is carefully composed and meant to strike a mental chord. In essence, even their harsh "noise" is also smooth and flowing.

Mentallo and the Fixer's CDs are all high quality recordings. Unless otherwise heavily distorted, the voice comes right out at you crystal clear, despite the furious fusion of energy that is in the sound. The equipment is a blend of old and new. Dwayne on keyboards is truly a genius. The sounds produced have range, depth, and clean bass lines that vibrate and penetrate your body like a nuclear aftershock.

Their CDs are also always filled to the brim with material. Every CD is over an hour long, so even if you paid import prices, you will undoubtedly get your money's worth.

O.K., so now finally on to the show. The show itself was held at the Batcave, which is a very small place for industrial acts. The cool thing about it is the you really get the feeling of closeness to the bands when you're up front. You're just one small step down from the stage. You get a real feeling of intimacy here, which I love.

It was a pretty weird night. It was Memorial Weekend and there was some type of rockabilly hillbilly shit going on first which caused quite a bit of delay. But immediately after the Hee Haw shit was over and all the doo wop fuckers left to get a shake and put a dime in the jukebox somewhere, the neuobashing creatures of the night moved in.

I quickly placed myself front right center and waited. M+TF came out and quickly set up. Gary looking completely unrecognizable with his totally shaved head. For a moment I actually thought it was a different singer! During the set up there seemed to be a problem. No Vocals! During the sound check, everything else was fine, but still NO VOICE! Gary and Dwayne quickly tried to find the problem, but still nothing. They were getting signals, but nothing was coming through to the monitors. This went on for a short time until finally ...Gary seemed to be a bit worried and even I though "Oh shit! What if they cancel?" The crowd was very patient and no one gave any shit, which I thought was cool.

Dwayne aka The Fixer

Whatever the problem was, it was fixed. It was now close to 3:00 am, and because of delays you can see some things were left out. There were two open cases on stage which seemed to contain a laser light show. So it appeared that things were getting off to an iffy start. But that would quickly change.

When the vocals finally came through, Gary vented his frustration by yelling TEST TEST TEST into the mic like a demon ascending from the bowels of fucking hell! That pumped up the crowd and gave us all a sign that this was going t0 be DOOMSDAY ACCELERATED. The show opened up with that crunching eeriness of Gargantua, and that was it ...it was as if WORLDS COLLIDED, the gates of Hell opened up and Gary was awoken. This once seemingly quiet, easy-going, relaxed person who was calmly setting up stage was suddenly transformed into a writhing, screaming maniac having a CEREBRAL STATIC OVERDOSE.

Gary, barefoot and adorned in a hindu-type robe, never stood motionless and he made sure we moved too. After tearing into a few numbers and throwing us into a BLEAK SECLUSION, Gary knelt to the side of the monitors and we were given a very unexpected, pleasant surprise (unexpected to me, anyway)-the appearance of Michael Greene of the M+TF side project Mainsthai. While Gary was taking a breath and watching the crowd, Michael started us off again with Wartime. He also helped to ignite the crowd by telling us that there was supposed to be a light show which they couldn't hook up, so it was up to us to provide a show. Enough said! After that, the front part of the crowd went haywire, bodies whirling about as if they were getting sucked in to the now opened gate of hell courtesy of Gary and his demonic disciples. Also performed was Exit, another Mainsthai song. After that, Michael jumped back off stage and Gary, looking like a crazed messiah, was summoned back to further our sermon on depraved insanity.

Decomposed, was one of the best performed tracks was presented with much intensity and emotion, almost sounding like the album. This song has short but very powerful lyrics. Pulse Hemorrhage (which gives you just that!) was another powerfully performed track. For anyone to be just standing there you would have to have been one dead fuck.

The show came to a near end with Grim Reality, which in itself was a with various cool visuals and second, Gary was the fucking show! I think all eyes were transfixed on him and his wild theatrics.

As I said earlier, I was wondering how such music would be pulled off live and I more than got my answer. I think that with all the delays, it was more than worth the wait, and if need be we would have waited longer. There was a little something performed from every album, which was great for anyone just discovering Mentallo and the Fixer.

In closing, I would like to say that as a performer, Gary undoubtedly possesses a very unique and powerful presence (on stage as well as off) which so many performers lack.

Presence is a very important element for me. Although I like many groups, there are few that move me. Mentallo and the Fixer are among those few.

It will not be soon enough until M+TF play New York again, and although they would very much like to, there are no immediate plans. But hopefully in the fall/winter, with the release of Burnt Beyond Recognition, there will be another tour. By then, we should have recovered, and like the crazed Jim Jones, Gary will lead us again to the promised land and BURN US BEYOND RECOGNIT'ION.

Until then, we can look forward to an all new Benestrope, the preMentallo project with vocals by Rich Mendez. It is called simply Vol II and is due out shortly It is their first disk in six years, and is all new material.

Vol I kicked ass. I'm sure Vol II will kick harder. Also look forward to an in-depth interview with Gary by me in an upcoming issue of Cyberia. Until then, enjoy, and I hope you enjoyed this review.

For a free copy of Cyberia, send a first class stamp to Snevil, JAF Box xxxx, New York, NY 10116