TFD/TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS RELEASES NEW ALBUM COMMUNICATED TO THEM
VIA A GREAT VOID, PLAYS DISASTROUSLY IN HELSINKI, SEEKS NO
REDEMPTION
The venue is small. Just as well because the Helsinki audience is
emphatically not enormous, the quality of youth amongst them
unpronounced, the weather depressingly uncrisp. Before global
warming it would have been as cold and sharp as an 808 snare. But
there is still a grey excitement, a grizzled hope that the (mostly)
Canadian provocateurs (more "provo[ke]-" than "-a[u]teur", if we are
to be frank) might, somehow, tonight, dip their electronic buckets
deep into the well of a better past, and pull out a clear drink of
the old TFD joy. Hope is in the audience's watery Finnish eyes,
under their grey eyebrows.
Doors open, audience filters in. There is plenty of room to move
around. The local opener cancelled because they had to record a
podcast. So an hour goes by in silence until finally the lights dim
(it's still quite bright outside). TFD does not so much take the
stage and collapse onto it. Torquil Campbell, still uninjured,
prances out and screams TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS into a microphone
over and over until some laconic Finn or other turns the microphone
on. Campbell keeps screaming into it. Stephen Ramsay is also there,
as close to stage left as possible. He desperately tries to plug a
suddenly malfunctioning and badly bent MIDI cable into some other
dented piece of metal. For some time there is no music at all, just
Campbell's voice (a great voice, somewhere between purloined maple
syrup and marbles in a can). Also here is Tom McFall, the
synthesizing Pooh to Campbell's seizure-prone Tigger and Ramsay's
electronic Eeyore. Unlike the others McFall seems—this is hard to
explain—as if he has chosen to be here. His skin is good. He has a
kindness. Used to the disaster, he simply stands behind his devices
and waits for circumstances to improve.
Campbell, now amplified, starts to complain that the microphone is a
cheap knockoff, that it "tastes wrong." Finally Ramsay gets his
difficult wire to connect. He hits "play," his major contribution to
the evening so far (and his second-major contribution forthcoming,
as well). McFall does a series of complicated maneuvers with quiet
authority. This is "Desolation Boys," one of their truest classics.
The crowd musters what it cans. Campbell dances, aims for Bez, hits
Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd in SCTV. The elklike, barely-moving
Ramsay seems to be trying to hide behind his drum machine, which is
perched precariously on a stand and suffused with wires. The rumors
of his perpetual exploitation by Campbell—decades of late payments
and evictions—make you wonder how willingly he has come to the
stage. The song, as all songs must, ends. They segue straight into
"California Sun." McFall radiates a surprising contentment .
TORQUIL CAMPBELL, legendary member of STARS, and STEPHEN RAMSAY, the
vast soft mind behind YOUNG GALAXY, partnered with legendary studio
genius and synthesist TOM MCFALL, to celebrate the GREAT VOID into
which all TRUE MINDS must stare. TFD was created when the GREAT VOID
demanded to be fed LATE 80s/EARLY 90s HOUSE MUSIC. This is the
source of TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS. The band is the NAME OF THE VOID.
The story of TFD is eternally the story of two thwarted Canadians
with unresolvable Anglo-industrial fantasies—men yearning to return
to the post-industrial Manchester of 1992, to once more rave with
twenty thousand former football hooligans on ecstasy in a sheep
field. And yet somehow, on the way to London, the plane always lands
in Winnipeg. Or, in this case, Helsinki, a Winnipeg of Europe.
McFall, the fifth synthesist to join TFD and the only one not to
die, came on board in 1997, after the overdoses and evictions, as
things were looking up. It falls to McFall, along in good spirits
with a spanner in hand, to remind the other two that their lives are
okay, actually, and that Manchester in 1992 was a lot of bright
spots amongst an enormous amount of Thatcherian bleak. They never
listen.
They play "Attack Decay Sustain Release." The crowd is unmoving so
far but this is more about self-preservation given how many of them
have obvious, mild infirmities brought on by too much salted perch
and licorice-infused Salmiakki Koskenkorva. To dance might mean
injury. All proceeds in this vein, the technical issues gradually
being worked out. Ramsay is dressed in a one-piece jumper too tight
in the crotch. McFall, multiple times, leaves some arpeggiator
running in his immaculate setup, wanders to the confused Ramsay,
places his hand on Ramsay's high, slumped shoulder, and then with
his other hand twists some knob into behavior, returning Ramsay to
relevance. Campbell notices none of this, whirling nonstop, and his
accent gets unaccountably more British with each song until finally
he sounds like he's choking on a Scotch egg. He asks the audience to
put their arms up, and they do—he still has that wattage—but it's
slowly, with Finnish reluctance. This is a crowd that rarely raises
its arms.
The set touches on the entire catalog, picking and choosing over the
last 30 years of TFD—"Good Song," "Private Club," "Him," until
finally, 160 minutes in, during the 19th minute of the extended club
version of "Beaten to Write," which features a new, unexpected set
of verses deeply critical of the Mulroney Administration, Ramsay's
drum machine starts to shoot sparks. It's such a radiant shower that
it must be a special effect, and at first people yell with
enthusiasm—at last something is happening. But it's soon clear that,
no, once again, Ramsay's entire world has gone up into flames. And
whatever part of Campbell's clothing, or his hair, or his genital
prosthetic, was flammable, is not really relevant, but soon he, like
the drum machine, is burning. Lightly. McFall of course untouched.
It does not devolve into tragedy. It could have been if they were
actually from Manchester, but Canadian Tragedy? You can't put those
words together without laughing. The best Canada can hope for is
irony. Anyway, we're in social-democratic Europe. There is wonderful
fire suppression. A laconic-yet-brisk Sulo or Eino shows up with a
fire extinguisher, and she sprays Campbell down as he writhes, as if
it's a normal Wednesday evening. McFall, as always, is trying to put
out the fire, batting at Campbell with some random winter coat.
Ramsay doesn't quite cross the stage to help. Ramsay's drum machine
continues to shoot sparks for a full minute, even when unplugged,
until finally it doesn't, and only a black lump is left. All lights,
unaccountably, go off. Only the smell of mildly burnt Canadian and
melted machinery remains. Total Fucking Darkness.
Then the house lights come on—someone rebooted the system—and what
the band must see from the stage, through the blue smoke, and
through Campbell's pain, is that a couple hundred Finnish eyes are
gleaming with joy. The truth is that this is as much a TFD show as
any ever—the dildo show (1998), the nipple hooks show that left
Ramsay hospitalized (2002), the ritual video of the burning down of
Le Studio (2017), the vomiting live eels show in Japan (1995), all
those legendary years spent trying to break through to something
that might be identified, broadly, at a distance, as success. It's
up to Campbell to summarize all of this, now that he has all of
their attention, every eye on him. "Fuck you, Helsinki," he says. He
won't bother with a doctor.
Why are we here? That attempt to scale the mountain of pop glory is
long over, of course; the mountain won. Base camp is full of
skeletons. The disaster rolls on, bones clanking. Is it over? It
seems to be. Campbell is limping but McFall has, typically, found
both bandage and balm and is gently applying both to Campbell's
exposed, red thighs—which appear more chafed than burned. He returns
to his workstation with his small smile. Ramsay stares unspeaking at
the lump of drum machine that was, obviously, the last thing of
value left to him, but when he looks at Campbell, who is obviously
in pain, he finally smiles. At the best TFD shows one accepts that
the music doesn't matter, the stagecraft doesn't matter, technology
and talent do not matter, nor success. All that matters is the
darkness. You go for the stubbornness and leave knowing that one has
seen something, or more accurately, absolutely nothing. The purest
of voids for the void lovers. Toss a penny into the deepest well and
never hear the splash. They close with their signature song—the
eponymous song that is also the name of the band. The lights are up
for the encore. Total Fucking Darkness.
—Paavo Pakettiautot (1974-2019)