The crooked, straightedge world of xHIKEx:
by David Obuchowski
Rock and Roll songs have a way of getting into your head and staying there. It doesn't matter if it's blues, punk, garage, or really bad 70's prog rock. That's one of the ways rock and roll works. And this is exactly one of the ways for which xHIKEx will NEVER be remembered. Yet, xHIKEx remains, and always will, as a being a major part of the Punk/Hardcore/No Wave scene of Champaign, Illinois.
With all the confidence in the universe, they presented themselves as a straightedge band. On stage, they would abuse those that smoked, drank, did drugs, ate meat, had sex, and a whole lot of other stuff. And despite rumors that the members of xHIKEx were not straightedge, each member vigorously stood their ground…even as they drank gallons of the worst whiskey, and did massive amounts of drugs, right in front of everyone.
I've seen xHIKEx many times. And it's not fun. It's violent. I've seen them play a Punk Rock Co-op show that took place at a church. Their singer, Isherwood (“Ish”) sacrificed a stuffed Teletubbie on the altar. I mean, he sliced this creature's neck and pulled out the stuffing like a crazed maniac. And it was truly disgusting.
You see, xHIKEx didn't really have songs. They had 25 seconds bursts of noise and screaming. And then they would beat on each other and the crowd. The shows were a race to injury of body and equipment. And they got their fast.
Even when they couldn't replace their equipment on time for the next show, they found a way to attain their goals. I saw them at an open mic night, were they played for a total of 2 minutes and 39 seconds before they were kicked off. A mere 3 minutes later they were forcefully removed from the venue and had received lifelong bans.
People did not like xHIKEx. How could you? They were pure abuse. And yet every show they played, they brought in masses of people. They opened for bands who were fixtures on MTV and played in front of 150. Meanwhile, the headliners would play for 12 people and walk off the stage out of frustration.
Their songs allude that part of your brain that constantly replays Black Flag's “Gimme Gimme Gimme,” but that's OK, there are plenty of scars and terrifying moments that will keep xHIKEx in the mind of many.
Late Sunday Afternoon Depression: Hey Bill, hey Andy, how's it going?
Bill Wood: Fine, dammit.
Andy Pishko: Well, it would be going better if we weren't still doing interviews for little shit rags like this one. Don't you know who were are, or, were, rather? Actually I'm doing all right given the fact that I just spent 8 1/2 hours doing absolutely nothing.
LSAD: So, you guys were in xHIKEx? What did you do in that band?
BW: Andy beat on stuff, and I was a bass machine. Kurteaux played guitar and said stuff between songs
AP: I was the layer of beats. The maker of the sonic tornadoes that rippled through your ear drums. The rat-a-tat-tat that'll knock yo' ass flat.
LSAD: Can you explain to everyone what those X's are? Because when you and I say xHIKEx, the X's are silent.
BW: To the readers who aren't familiar with the straightedge movement, the x denotes that we are a straightedge (sxe) band. That means no drinking, no drugs, no one night stands. Straightedge is cool.
AP: When I came out of my mother's womb, I was pure. When our band began, we also were pure. I feel that the X's represent a shield that protects us, as a powerful unit, from those evils that would attempt to subvert our mission of changing the world through chaos. We were straightedge through and through.
LSAD: Yes but, despite being straightedge, anyone who's even heard the name xHIKEx knows that you partook in a large volume of substances. How did that go over with other straight-edge kids? Cause from what I know of them, they can be pretty specific about what straightedge means.
BW: We made some enemies, but we made some surprising friends too. Especially when you conquer your enemies and make them slaves, then they play the music for you. Plus we still drink . How many kids do you know that are still straightedge? (score: xHIKEx 1, sxe 0)
AP: Well, as time went on, straightedge began to have a more flexible meaning. For me, the whole concept of being in a straight edge band that did nothing but get utterly drunk and high, stood for all the bullshit that I witnessed in the scene. Every little sub genre has to have something to distinguish itself from the people who haven't picked up on the hip band of the month.
I mean, the spock rockin' emo kids have their “shotgun blast out the back of the head” haircut, the crusty punks have their smell, and the straightedgers had those god-damn X's. I guess we figured that there was nothing that we were going to do about it, so why not just exploit them.
So, Kurteaux (guitar) got a haircut, Todd (broken guitar) maintained his habit of smelling like a hippie, and we all accepted the straight edge stance. As far as acceptance among the straightedge kids, you have to realize that this was a college town with the largest Greek system in the country, so straightedgers were few and far between. For the most part, they would be cool to us when we were around, but then talk mad shit about how we were assholes and drunks behind our backs.
LSAD: How would you label xHIKEx's music?
BW: Fuck music
AP: We were the innovators of free-form progressive hardcore.
LSAD: We hear you guys had some interesting song titles.
BW: Yeah, so?
LSAD: What's the story with that?
BW: Uh, you pick that one funny line that the kids you don't like repeat until it isn't funny anymore. Like Monty Python. That wasn't a title, But the movie. For real, though, the song "C. Everett Koop" was about bourbon. The lyrics, though mostly indecipherable, are actually the surgeon general's warning on the side of an Evan Williams bottle. And the rest of our song titles were lesser known Keats poems. We're into the 'fag poetry' 'round here, ya know.
AP: Our song titles were a reflection of our opinions on the current state of affairs locally, nationally, and internationally. For example, “I Hope I Don't Get xKurtx's Pinkeye” had to do with the national healthcare system that we were heavily lobbying for at the free clinic.
“Clown Jam” had to do with facing your childhood demons, and finally breaking away from an abusive situation. It's also about obsession.
Finally, there was C. Everett Koop. He was the Surgeon General of the United States. Anybody with a job as important as warning teenagers about the warning signs of chlymidia deserves to have a song especially for him.
LSAD: Talk about that music scene that xHIKEx was such an important part of.
BW: there was a scene, dude? The music was a part of us, not the other way around. We primarily performed with local gadflies M.A.I.S.S. the 3rd best band after xHIKEx and the Scorpions.
AP: xHIKEx was an integral part of one of the most cutting edge scenes in Champaign-Urbana, IL. We were fortunate enough to be able to share the stage with such trend-setting bands as Showoff, Midtown, some other shitty pop-punk bands, oh yeah, then there was that one time we played with Hot Stove Jimmy. All of those bands sucked. That's all we could get down in Champaign, fucking Hot Stove Jimmy.
So the more intelligent members of the community decided they had had enough. Bands such as ourselves appeared, along with new/ no-wave pioneers M.A.I.S.S., Silent Treatment, who were arguably the only kids at the show guaranteed to be as drunk if not drunker than we were, and I think we may have played with Canada once, that band just didn't care.
LSAD: Any significant moments, that you can remember, that stand out as being, I don't know, funny or really important?
BW: I don't remember the moments too much, but we did create some police action and nearly got beaten up for turning a Cinco de Mayo party into a anti-nafta rally.
AP: Well, every time we took the stage it was extremely significant. There was the set that last a minute and a half at the frat bar. We were surrounded by security and they put Ish[erwood] (throat) in a full nelson. We played a particularly memorable show in my cramped basement to approximately 150 kids. During the course of our show, which I believe only lasted about 15 minutes, Ish was lucky enough to spray mustard all over the crowd just before someone broke our hot water heater, burning part of the crowd and leaving the whole room smelling like hot dogs.
Unfortunately, I was so drunk by the time we started playing that I barely remember any more details. And who can forget the show we played during which Todd and Ish started fighting with dead fish, initially pissing off the vegans but eventually clearing out the whole room with the stench.
Oddly enough, this was the second time the room was cleared, the first being after M.A.I.S.S. lit their keyboard on fire and put it out by emptying two fire extinguishers.
LSAD: Your names are Bill Wood, and Andy Pishko, but did you have stage names, you know kind of like the classic punk bands?
BW: No, no Joey Ramone or Ben Weasel here. I went by Fo'rilla, but that makes no sense.
AP: Well, Bill was of course Fo'rilla, but I thought it best if everyone in the crowd knew as little about me as possible. Sorry, no punk rock names
LSAD: We understand xHIKEx was all about Journey. True?
BW: We covered a tune of theirs. It was better than the original, fo sho.
AP: Who in their right mind wouldn't be all about Journey? That hair, those mustaches, those big wieners...Truthfully, I still rock out to Journey, and not because it's supposed to be funny. People who do stupid shit like wear Warrant t-shirts because they think it will draw attention to themselves are socially misguided. You don't really listen to Warrant, nobody thinks you listen to Warrant, and for Christ's sake, if you're in a band, DO NOT cover Warrant.
LSAD: Why did xHIKEx split?
BW: Tits tours and tea bags: all that Def Leppard shit.
AP: The money that we had to spend replacing equipment was taking away from our money to buy drugs and alcohol.
LSAD: What rose from the ashes of xHIKEx?
BW: Smoke and asbestos particles. Also, The Blue Ribbon Fistfight was a fine band featuring three ex xHIKEx members, and real songs.
AP: Well, in an ideological sense, what came from xHIKEx was a complete re-assessment of what is possible in terms of music. A band shouldn't feel pressured to spend all of their time practicing and writing songs. Nobody will know the difference, just go out there and do your shit. If someone tells you that you suck, you probably do, but does that really matter? Those assholes already paid to see you play.
If your question was regarding current bands, don't worry about it, they all have already broken up.
LSAD: What are you guys doing now?
BW: Chicks, dudes sometimes. And whatever else you want to say "we were the best band ever and i still stick by that." That's what Kurteaux Mueller says.
AP: Drinking Old Weller and wishing that wizards were as popular as I want them to be [Andy is the father of an entirely new musical genre known as wizardcore].
If anyone is interested in hearing what xHIKEx, a dearly departed member of a long dead scene, sounded like, let Late Sunday Afternoon Depression know and we'll get you a copy of their newly re-mastered final release “Big Ups to Straight-Edge.” Get us here: latesunday@lsadproco.com
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