Zine Urban Kulture
GONE BALD tour 2003
KSET (Zagreb) 30.01.03. & GARAZE (Vrbovec) 01.02.03.
Noise-rock is changing with the seasons, this one bringing us probably the only noise band that tours also smaller places of Croatia. Of course, Peter Brotzman, GVSB, and others like, are gonna come and fill the KSET club in Zagreb, but none of them are gonna serve their music to thirsty ears around Zagreb.
Razorblade J.R. did it again, on a tour the band made partly to record new material in studio COSMO in Zagreb. Second part, more interesting for us, until the album comes out, is GB gig in club GARAZE, in Vrbovec. Why? In spite of KSET being in Zagreb, where there is more GB and noise-rock freaks and in spite of KSET having superior equipment, gig in Vrbovec was a spectacle.
In KSET, two days earlier than in GARAZE, we could of seen new GB, which formed after their split in may, just after finishing 2002 tour. After one week they were together again with Razorblade as lead, and Marc (ex Blisters) on drums, and Dixonn (ex SGP) on bass. Gig in KSET was professionally done, crowd was clapping, two reappearing of a band, one to play old song from LITTLE SONG OF LOVE, tears to an eyes for old GB groupies...
Club Garaze
GARAZE altogether a different story. Crowd of highschoolchicks singing along DJs specials of SYSTEM OF A DOWN and ACDC, big gathering of fake alternatives, hevymetalheads and old rockers (well, hey, Vrbovec is a small place, grown around meatslughter factory). It's cold in the club, there is only one heater, wooden burning occasionally. Bad conditions with sound system, which is close to none. Mic on drums is not working. Razorblade is putting his Marshall too high, lights are in our eyes, beer is too expensive for an alternative club like this one, nobody has cigarettes, and so on...
GB starts playing, people are coming nearer, try to listen, but something’s wrong. Second song GB has to start from the beginning, Marc is late on the drums, mic is plugged out. A tendency is that people are gonna disperse. Only the patient ones stay, and their patience repays.
Why did GONE BALD took that name?
You may think of bald people, gathering together in sort of association. RAZORBLADE J.R. took a notice on that one, and was sure to remind people he was not bald, he is cutting his hair that way.
BALD means hair-loss, but also being without any decoration or adornment.
From the times when people started looking at themselves in the mirror a lot, when not only the burguasy, but also working class was getting a buying power to make themselves pretty, there is a bigger and bigger consuming policy in looking after yourself, making yourself more decorated or putting more ornaments on self. (I remember my granny telling me that each gentleman in Austro-Hungarian times had its own nail-file). People are getting massive on making it a global priority of getting more embellish. Not a strange thing, it's rooted in our minds that we have to look good, that we have to have role models, idols to worship and follow.
This fact was always used by the beauty industry, making it normal that everybody dresses like music stars, or use the same perfume, same hats... The industry of beauty has its own rules, which are same in music industry, film, and all the cultural-consumption industries.
Back to GONE BALD: to be bald, or to be without any decoration is to be represented in most sincere way, the one that doesn’t fall under influences of corporate or industrial laws, the one that keeps it’s soul clean, who doesn’t do the music to please, but to revel feelings.
And the exact thing happened after begging troubles on Garaze gig in Vrbovec. GONE BALD wakes up, and in the half time rises and sends a tickling sensations up our spines, all the way to top of our heads. (Which brings us back to helping a bald people by this playing this music. The tinkling sensations must help dead follicles in your skull, helping your hair to grow.)
GB instruments suddenly don’t sound like they are not in tune, the amps are not squiiking no more, mics on drums are working suddenly. Marc is working like a machine, drums are steady and imperial, bass gets you right in guts, guitar is cutting and falling back in cacophony, to post rock monotony which gets you anxious, wondering: should I listen to this boring nonsense? Guitar is played missing strings on purpose, post rock gets out of crystal clear to noisy. People are getting nervous. New wave of noise blasts of. The tinkling on your neck and head is again there. RAZORBLADE is falling to the floor, standing up again, all over the place, kicking mic in the trans, which tips over, falls on floor and dies. GB improvises, waiting for sound man to connect mic, and like in bad american movies mic is connected just in the sec to be ready for another scream. Every rhythm stops to be filled with squiii, squii, than again back to music that waves you back in riding mood. Nobody is standing still any more, everybody just like waves, half down in knees, back up, smiles on faces, sprinkle in eyes. I can here somebody behind me: “This guys are nuts, totally nuts, totally nuts totally....”

That much for easily satisfied with lyricism.
The truth is that there is even more quality in GB’s new set of people, that their music sound clearer, and that it's without any unnecessary decoration. Its BALD, right there, in your face. The style of RAZORBLADE J.R. is defined: easy melancholic parts which end in heavy noise rock, through angular rhythms comes a bit of free jazz taste of montypython.
Vocal is in love, it feels, and does something that was not noticed before in GB: becomes funny, active, makes you feel good.
New GB is going with the new trend of rock, noise pop. We shall see if this season noise rock goes popnoise.

Kruno Jost / ZUK - / spring 2003 - original text
Live @ Garaza