MONTREAL — The lead vocalist of longtime post-rock instrumental band Godspeed You! Black Emperor was reportedly mortified today after learning that his microphone had been left unplugged for nearly thirty years, sources close to the band confirmed.
“This is devastating. You’re telling me that for twenty years no one has heard a single one of my lyrics? For god’s sake, I wrote ‘Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven’ as a rock opera about a colony of ants rising up to overthrow their insect monarchy!” said guitarist and would-be frontman Efrim Menuck, burying his head into his hands. “No one heard the stanza about dissolving the fascist ‘antocrats,’ or the twist ending when the burgeoning anarchist utopia is tragically snuffed out by foreign interventionalists with a magnifying glass—and do you know how fucking hard it was to find a rhyme for ‘thorax’?”
Colin Charley, longtime roadie for the band, admits that the confusion stems back to a gig he worked almost three decades ago.
“I think this misunderstanding might be all my fault—you see, I forgot to plug in the mic for vocals for this show in Ottawa back in 1995, and the crowd went fucking wild. So I just always left it unplugged after that because everyone seemed to like it better,” said Charley, holding up a frayed cable. “See? Doesn’t even work. I don’t even pack one anymore, it’s just a bit of rope I tied to a kid’s karaoke mic. Ah geez, I hope the guys aren’t mad at me, it’s just that their instrumentals are so beautiful, but their lyrics are all weird and about bugs half the time.”
The revelation was reportedly a shock to hardcore fan Tom Boucher, who has seen the band dozens of times without realizing that there were words to his favorite songs.
“Wow, I finally listened to a bootleg studio recording of ‘G_d’s Pee at State’s End!’ that had lyrics, and boy was that…um, different. I mean, it was still great, I just didn’t expect it to literally be about God taking a fat whizz at the Four Corners Monument,” said Boucher, transcribing the lyrics on Genius. “There’s probably some symbolism I’m missing, but ‘piss piss piss from God’s mighty hose, mostly on Utah cause fuck those Mormon bros’ feels pretty straightforward. And what the hell was up with all the songs about ants? Fuckin’ hell, I kind of wish I never knew about this.”
At press time, fans created a petition for the roadie to secretly unplug Anthony Keidis’ microphone during future Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts.
Photo by Grywnn