Kooks are infinitely more interesting than modern geniuses. Take Helios Creed, for example. If this particular guy didn’t play music, he’d probably be shuffling around on your street corner chewing tinfoil and yelling about the space aliens that bugger him on a daily basis and plant painful transmitters in his tongue. Some kooks can make an art form out of self-destruction, but it takes a rare individual indeed to make a career out of it.
| HELIOS CREED with GORCH FOCK and BOXCAR SATAN 10:30pm Monday, August 11 Taco Land $6 103 W. Grayson 223-8406 |
Helios Creed joined the Bay Area experimental outfit Chrome in 1976. Dark, chaotic, cerebral, slightly psychedelic, and totally genre defying, Chrome helped introduce a Burroughs-like, sonic cut-up approach to the punk rock movement. Helios Creed went solo in ’83, drawing with him a small but enlightened following that still considers him to be one of the categorical pioneers of noise and progenitors of post-punk space rock. Despite having the reputed drug tolerance of an obese oxen, the man continues to be frighteningly productive. In the last two decades, he has released no less than 17 solo albums, four singles, and 19 compilations on labels like Man’s Ruin, Cleopatra, Staticwhitesound, and Amphetamine Reptile. He has also collaborated with the likes of Hawkwind, Skin Yard, Butthole Surfers, Psychic TV, Bill Laswell, and Genesis P-Orridge.
On Monday, August 11, Helios joins Gorch Fock from Austin and San Antonio’s own Boxcar Satan at Taco Land. Rumor has it that projectionist Lori Surfer (who used to tour with the Buttholes) may also join the lunatic gambol. •
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2003.