skinnypuppy.eu - video samples from movies & official bootleg database

ATLANTA 1990:

David Courtney:
Hello I wanted to relay my experiences seeing Skinny Puppy . I saw the Too Dark Park show at the Masquerade here in Atlanta in november 1990. It was the most claustrophobic show I've ever seen , after it was over most of the people in the audience seemed worn out physically , and mentally. Sitting outside the venue for about an hour before the doors opened we heard the band rehearse some of the songs (mostly Tin Omen). The stage construction was intricate more compact than the Last Rights show . Cevin's drum ,and keyboard stand was raised on stage right with a huge video screen along the wall of speakers. Large video monitors were at either side of the stage just out of reach of the crowd. Dwayne's keyboard stand was on the left , and had these branch extensions coming out of it . Almost in the center of the stage was the famed "chair of no cares? featured in the Spasmolytic video. It was really cool like a throne extending out of the base of this gnarled tree , arm-like branches had syringe appendages on them . At the head of the tree there was another video monitor . Overhead of the stage a sheet had been placed that even more images could be shown . The opening band was a forgetable one named Tank Hog ( one would wonder how they were on tour with SP except if you saw their cd it was produced by Rave) who thankfully played a short set . When the lead singer says " by the looks of your haircuts I don't think you are going to like us , " you know you're in trouble . With that over it was a relatively short wait with a lot of talk going on in the audience as to what we were about to see . ( Up to that point I had only seen Puppy live on the AIDY video , and yes it was out then through the Nettwek catalogue since late 88' I paid $40 for it grrr) When the show started in was Choralone with the backing film starting up with the Too Dark Park header of the computer animated dogs , and people things running around these ruins then it blasted into Vx Gas Attack with an image of Saddam Hussein (remember this was right before the Gulf War) and the crowd went wild . Ogre had emerged with his face all bandaged up , only the tip of his nose was visible, and he twirled a gas mask around sometimes putting it on . All I saw of Cevin during the show was his hat occasionally he was high off the ground ,and his arms as he wailed on the drums. Dwayne was more visible with his spiky hair , and going from one keyboard to another . They played the track order you have listed , but one thing that I feel needs to be mentioned is the effect the videos had on the crowd . It was weird , but after the first few songs all the crowd surfing was over , and the slam dancers were pushed to the back of the club everyone up front were there to see the show . If you've seen the Too Dark Park backing film you know that it's a rapid succession of violent images , but that's only half the story . Missing from the tape , but played intermittently through the entire concert was a very disturbing film called " Flowers of Flesh and Blood" the second instalment in the super gorey japanese guinea pig series . At the time it was debatable whether this was a real snuff film , or not , and apparently the CIA thought it serious enough to investigate when Charlie Sheen saw it at a party , but that's another story . It had sort of a sedating effect on the audience , which no matter how horrible the images were you were drawn to watch . Literally a man dressed as a samurai kidnapped this young japanese girl off the street drugging her , and taking her to his lair . Strapped to a table he proceeded to operate , then dismember her before finally kissing her decapitated head . Needless to say I had never seen anything so real looking , and combined with the other images created a very nightmarish vision with all the footage of real animal experiments . The videos were only a fraction of the show , an important part , and even though it was almost ten years ago I remember the show vividly . The line between the performers/audience was more blurred than the other shows as there waslive video of the audience flashing up on the screens occasionally. Sometimes it was Ogre filming the audience through this nightmarish headpiece he put on , other times it was through cameras in the back of the club . After Ogre finally took off the bandages he seared a blood , and mud concoction on his arms . I remember about halfway through the show he came over to the video monitor in front of us , and wiped blood on the screen as the other person who emailed you about this show said . Then my girlfriend at the time, and this other guy ripped Ogre's shirt off of him . He didn't seem to notice barely even looking at the audience . Various masked figures came out , and tormented Ogre while he sat in the tree the arms moving around to attack him with syringes . One really cool part about the chair was the camera behind Ogre head in the seat . When Ogre sat in the chair there were these flaps that closed over his face obscuring it . On the inside of these there were mirrors , and Ogre opened and closed them so that every few seconds over the video the reflection of his face would pop up while he sang . During Spasmolytic , and Nature's Revenge he was outfitted with the stilts, and was hung from the ceiling . His chief tormentor was a bald headed character called Old Skin Beak who presided over Ogre's fate . It's a shamethat there's not really any good footage of this tour floating around out there as it's hard to explain how different it was from their other shows. I've seen a lot of SP videos , and even my experiece at the Last Rights show was exactly like the Miami bootleg , it was a bigger show , but Ogre didn't move around that much due to his knee injury . At the TDP show he was everywhere bringing to mind AIDY . The brap between the songs was real interesting , I remember a rendition of the All Eyes part with this loud machine gun effect . As for the rest of the show it was pretty much like the other emails have said , Worlock was fantastic , and they ended with Morpheus Laughing . I found it strange that they didn't play Tormentor as that was the single at the time , but I am glad they reached back and pulled out God's Gift a real surprise . It was the most exhausting , but impressive show I've ever seen one that I will never forget . I got to meet Ogre a few months later on the Spasmolytic promotional tour , and he was very nice , humble person. It was the capper on a great experience . Well I hope this helped flesh out the show some more for you thanks.

SAN FRANCISCO 1990:

From Brian Christman:
If I had to sum up this show in two words, they would be VISUAL OVERLOAD. I have never, before, or since, seen such a frenetic and unrelenting display of violent imagery. One main movie screen above the band, a slide projector on either side, and video monitors on both sides of the stage. My feeling at the time is that it did a disservice to Ogre's talent as a performer (since the stage was so dark you could hardly see what he was doing -- and I think Ogre is amazing on stage) and to the depth of the music itself (I get a LOT more from SP songs than just images of physical violence). In hindsight I think it was one the best shows they did, outside of the VIVIsectVI tour, but quite overwhelming. A big stumbling block for me, as probably more than a few other people, was the infamous "Guinea Pig II: Flowers of Flesh and Blood", a Japanese simulated snuff film. This was played after the first few songs on large video monitors on either side of the stage and it really messed with my head on whether it was real or not. It obviously had some editing and different camera angles, so I didn't think it was real, but the effects were convincing (e.g. -- the guy cuts off her hand and then pull the tendons inside so that her fingers close -- YAG!). I got a chance to talk to Ogre about it after a Pigface show a year or so later. I asked how he saw the film fitting in with the rest of the show (the Chair of No Cares, the Stilt Man, etc.). He said that he wanted it to shock people back to reality from the more fictional movie violence that was predominant on the main screen. Well, I'd say mission accomplished. Anyway, that aside, the stage show was nothing short of fantastic, if under lit. Last Rights may have had more sophisticated props, but TDP had a raw, industrial feel, which combined with the extreme visuals, made for the most intense SP experience ever. There were a number of different black SP shirts for sale, all different parts of the TDP album cover, presented in a large, white, rectangular halftone on the front and "Skinny Puppy Too Dark Park" written in white dripping letters on the back (I still have mine -- the bird skull one). I can't remember who the opening band was. Kicking things off was Choralone, played in the dark with the 3D animated running dogs vid clip on the main screen. Cevin was setup on the left, sitting behind a large drum set for the first time. The large Chair of No Case was in the center (a Geiger-esque looking construction as seen in the Spasmolitic vid), and Dwayne was on the right with a thin wall of bare branches slightly masking him from view. Ogre came out wearing tight black pants, black boots, black knee pads, white t-shirt, and white bandages wrapped around his head and arms. Through VX Gas Attack and Tin Omen he stabbed himself with an ice pick in his bandaged arm and head, releasing a fair amount blood (I think I remember an interview where he mentioned actually driving the ice pick about an inch into his arm during one show -- D'oh!). The bandages got messier and more disarrayed, leaving him with a blood-soaked hood over his face for some of the show. The sound was very loud and had an impressive low end. Ogre's vocals didn't strike me as nearly so harsh and barking as they were on CD (which I don't mind so much now, but back then I noticed it). Some folks mentioned seeing tubs of mud and blood that he used every so often, which I didn't catch, but he was a real mess for most of the show. I do remember him appearing to regurgitate blood onto the video monitors. He got strapped into the chair during Harsh Stone White, with the mirrored doors in the back of the chair being closed over his face and the syringe arms moving down towards him. During this the video would cut in live footage filmed within the chair itself, so the mirrors reflected him, or the audience if he tilted them outwards. For Testure he donned a sort of horse head mask with a video camera inside it (you can see this on the CD-ROM portion of Brap 3&4), which again cut in live footage into the main video. As expected, there was a fair amount of real (and real disturbing) vivisection footage on the main screen. Around about here I had to go out to the bar and catch some air, so when I returned he was already up on the stilts, his face covered by the bloody cloth, a cable attached to a harness around his middle. As Reclamation drove towards its climax, and the Budd Dwyer footage was looped (along with the suicide from Combat Shock, etc.), Ogre finally ended up limp, hung from the cable attached to his back -- his own death/suicide of the stilt man (?). Ogre cleaned up for the encore and they played TFWO. The video monitors on either side now just displayed the SP logo in white on black.

SAN FRANCISCO 1990:

NORFOLK 1990:

MINNEAPOLIS 1990:

from "Dr Squidd":
Too Dark Park was the night b4 halloween 1990 at 1st Avenue in Minneapolis and one of the first gigs in the tour. Where do I start....? Firstly I and two friends came down from Canada to see it. We smuggled Hash and LSD across the border and stayed the night b4 at my girlfriend's who lived in Fargo. The next day we drove to Minneapolis had chinese for dinner and hung out in the parking lot across from 1st ave before the show smoking hash, we drank the pepsi's we dissolved the acid into to take over the border - they were very flat. And we spoke with Ogre who was just walking around talking to people in line and in the parking lot. Later cevin, dwayne and al nelson (hilt) did the same and it was so cool that they just came aound and chatted we spouted shit to them as we were so wasted and they laughed at us. The doors opened and the crowd surged in. I can't remeber who the warm up band was but sucked and you could see all of SP's gear behind - Drummasaurus, the tree, a rolling fake grass hill and dwayne's gear behing a wrought iron fence up on a riser. once the warm up was done and the acid started kicking in they lowered a giant screen/curtain and for about half an hour palyed just heavy drum beats and a looped clip of Bud Dwyer blowing his head off at the press conference - this clip will mind fuck you even if you aren't on chemicals. The lights went out and the bass was unbeleiveable I was smack dab front and centre crushed! the first somg was choralone and there was a film with skinny puppy too dark park credits playing behind the tree and thunder and lightning, computer animated men running with dogs and horrid images on tv's and slides projected on each side of the stage, I had tears streaming down my face I was just sooooooo tripping then VX gas attack and ogre came out ban! daged up with a gas mask, mic headset and a knife. about 10 seconds into the song he got too close to the edge at the side of the stage and someone pulled one of his hanging bandages and into the audience he went. He came out really fast but was without the gasmask bandages or headset but he still had his knife and a roadie tossed him a new mic - awesome.the rest of the time he was in jeans, knee pads and doc martin boots slathered in blood and goo Now as far as the skin beak? maybe it was only in some shows on the tour or you're refering to last rights with all the rubber masks and the rubber flesh suit with all the faces and arms - write back and elaborate for me - but the stilts rocked - towards the end when they played spasmolitic he came out on stilts (marylyn manson is a ripp-off) and had hydraulic cruches and was roped to the rigging so he wouldn't fall - awesome! the tree opened and it had a chair and all the branches had surgical tools and there was a video of an asian girl being cut apart a soldier blowing his head off a child having it's throat cut lotsa snuff films which apparently were fake but they had to pull from parts of the tour - my head was going to explode - my girlfriend was bawling her head off I had tears down my face my frinds were freaking as they didn't know what to expect - fuuuuuuuuuuuck! If you ever see the backing tape on ebay, buy it! But some parts are missing! - the girl being dismantled cut out, bud dwyer blowing his head off - trimmed down but still a bit there, institutionalized children being experimented on in testure-cut out and replaced by the tame music video. 10 years ago and it's still burnt into my mind! still a few details are sketchy - I was quite wasted but what an experience! We later drove back to fargo that night- absolutely fucked in the head, it's a wonder we didn't roll the car and I lost my virginity that night, came 5 times and sustained a 5 hour erection from the lsd - wow! Last rights show was bland by comparison but still quite cool. If there's anything else you wanna know just ask.

MINNEAPOLIS 1990: