One More Knife
Text from the album


Livers Of Steel


A true account of the events surrounding the recording of 'One More Knife'.

Madrid, June '94: The ultraviolet violence scars through the ozone, burns our skin and makes our nuts itch. Even Cobalt and Robbie's supersonic, cosmic karate skills cannot protect them from the macho sun. We were hanging with mad dogs and drinking too much cerveza. Nobody had told us about siesta. My skin was peeling like a lobster and I was pissing all the time. The gnarled old engineer, Scotchy B, takes us to his favourite watering hole: El Onanorama Bar. He forgets to tell us we can look but not touch. The girls oil up and get greasy on the tables. According to Scotchy, these were the classiest dames in Madrid. Sperm stain Jane and Piss-flap Mary wrestle around in a bath of eels conjuring up some hot lesbian action. Jungle-snatch Kate and Analita da Sphincter are performing solos with the bigger dildos I've ever seen. Seafood Sally is spreading her platter and smearing it across Tex's sweating face. Over in the corner Melody Colon is giving Cobalt's private display of her amazing telescopic anatomy. Robbie attracts the attention of the one-eyed bouncer when Suzy Ringslinger screams as Robbie attempts to suck her bum hole through her knickers. All hell breaks loose. Fortunately, the bouncer death squad are unaware of Robbie's hard-earned status as The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Warrior and, beefer they are, Robbie has decapitated all five of them, ripped out their still beating hearts and set them on fire. Mary, Suzy and the rest of the girls stare at Robbie with open mouthed awe and doe-eyed admiration. They all immediately offer to let the violent hero suck their bum-holes through their knickers. We finish our beers, piss on the smouldering remains of the bouncers and head off to the Corrida to see some more death. Robbie's fine pyrotechnical violence had erected our bloodlust and we were in the mood to some animals being treated cruelly. If we were lucky we might even get to see a Spanish guy being killed. Tex rubbed his dirty hands.
We are in luck - fighting today is the magnificent El Cordobes, a fine psychopath with balls the size of Mars. Cordobes strolls confidently into the arena, the crowd go crazy, he spreads his arms and soaks up the glory. The fanfare sounds and the magic begins. Our hero dismisses the picador and places all six of the bandalliros himself. The bull - seven hundred kilos of fire breathing, black bastard death, faster than lightning and with horns like razors - charges. Cordobes smiles and steps casually once inch away from the horns of death. The bull looks from side to side, breathes black ectoplasm and prepares for the next charge. Cordobes raises one eyebrow and places one hand on his hip. He looks fantastic and not the slightest bit homosexual. The bull charges in a cloud of blood and beastly testosterone. Cordobes does a triple somersault the length of the animal, lands perfectly and kick the bull in its huge, swinging nuts. The bull howls in agony. The crowd howls with delight: it's showtime! The bull swings around to face the matador; its eyes ablaze like two electric amber jewels. The muscles in Cordobes' neck stiffen and our brave hero headbutts the satanic beast directly between the twin peaks of its horned death. The bull drops for a split second, but soon recovers its balance and starts clawing the ground with its powerful foreleg. They are getting it on. Cordobes kicks the beast full in the face. The crowd start whistling and jeering: this move is considered bad form, the corrida is about art and science, not the pugilistic language of the street. Cordobes acknowledges the commentary of the aficionados, strokes the bull's horns and takes out the beast's eye with a graceful back-handed swipe of his little finger. The crowd roars its approval; our hero has recaptured their discerning hearts. By now the bull is insane with rage, its deafening screams and howls echo around the theatre of blood. The matador keeps up the punishment driving martial arts-style punches hard into the animal's nerve centres. Deadly accurate karate kicks and chops gradually knock the bull into a confused submission. All around us women are having orgasms. Although on a surface level the corrida appears to be a barbaric and brutal spectacle, it is in fact a precise science and a good matador will spend years perfecting the art of kicking the shit out of dumb animals, starting with chickens and slowly working his way up through pigs, goats, horses and, finally, the most challenging of all, The Mighty Toro. The dazzling primal tragedy continues. Man and beast are both covered in the animal's life force; the bull is unsteady on its feet; the tension in the arena hangs like a red frog. The crowd literally holds is breath as Cordobes adopts the slaughter position. He stares hard into the bull's remaining good eye and sticks out his manly jaw. The bull waivers slightly from side to side and then makes a final charge. Cordobes leaps into the air between the bull's horns and bites down hard between the bull's head, severing its spinal cord. The brave beast's front legs gives beneath it and it slumps to the ground as if stunned by electricity. Cordobes, the supreme showman, rips out the bull's spinal cord with his bare teeth and, smiling bloodily, holds it aloft for the approval of the ecstatic crowd. The noise is incredible. Women are screaming and waving their panties in the air. In the confused frenzy, some of the men have also removed their underpants and are frantically shaking them up and down. This is the traditional afficionado's demand to the President of the Plaza de Toro to grant the matador his trophy. If the matador has performed an exceptional corrida he will be rewarded with one of the bull's ears. If the crowd continues to wave its underwear and the applause is unabated, the President awards the matador the bull's other ear. The highest award, given when the crowd continues to express its admiration, is the bulls tail. This, however, is an extremely rare occurrence is seldom given. It is considered the pinnacle of a fighting career. Cordobes receives the tail. The crowd is still not satisfied and the frenzied knicker waving and cacophonous cheering screams on. The President looks worried. Then, in a split second, El Cordobes the man, make bull fighting history. For the first time in seven hundred years of Tauromachia the President solemnly announces that El Cordobes not only gets the bull's ear and tail, but he shall receive the animal's bollocks and its huge dick as well. The trophy official quickly appropriates the animals genitals and hands Cordobes the dripping bovine tackle. The matador runs to the centre of the arena and holds aloft the historical ball bag and glorious todger. He is covered in blood and beaming like a gory saint. Cordobes soaks in the awesome glory.
The crowd goes insane. The matador is showered with flowers and women's underwear; the atmosphere is primal, like raw electricity; the atmosphere dionysian. We leave the corrida satisfied. We had witnessed what we had come to see: style and danger, poetry, blood and a beautiful death. What more could a man desire from life? Tex mentions sex, drugs and alcohol. We set off fore the Morrison Hotel seeking floozies and oblivion. The Morrison Hotel: 'You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave'. The old Eagles' song swirled sinister as we pushed through the battered swing doors of Madrid's most infamous drinking den, a few pools of light flickered around the solitary candle strategically placed around the small, dark room. There is a single, dim light bulb hanging above the rudimentary bar. The ominous shadows of a few lost souls cling to the walls, their faces glow red occasionally when they rein in hard on whatever dragons they are chasing. The scent of oblivion curls around the room like a wounded snake. I slide across the room to the bar and ring the tarnished brass bell. From behind twinkling glasses beads glides Cyanide Mary, the most beautiful girl in Madrid. She fixes me one of her notorious homicide shots, eighteen parts vodka, one part tonic. At first I though Mary loved me; it was only when the floor got up and punched me in the face a couple of times that I realised the bitch was trying to kill me. Mary may have been the most beautiful girl in Madrid, but she was also the most dangerous. Smiling Jack is at the other end of the bar polishing his dirty shot glasses. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. On the rare occasion when he speaks, it is through gritted teeth with an unshaven Mexican accent. Smiling Jack is a knife artist. Jack can take out your liver without you even knowing about it. You find out later when you go to take a piss and it's the wrong colour. Jack never takes those terrible black shark's eyes off anyone in the bar. He stands there showing you the back of his black shirt, staring at you in the cracked and dirty mirror, that creepy death's head smile hanging like a slit throat on his jutting blue chin. Thirty five years ago the devil fucked death in hell, and they called the baby Smiling Jack. On the drinking side of the bar, hunched over his stool, sits Smoking Cocaine Joe. He fires up his pipe and starts talking Joe's often told story - has was on the lamm from Guatamala, he had murdered his wife (which isn't much of a problem in South America, unless your wife happens to be the beloved sister of the Don of the major Guatamalan drug cartel). Joe gets jumpy when strangers enter the bar. Dick Whiskey, the toxic DJ, does his stuff. Me and my hombres shoot the shit. Cobalt is excited: there's a rumour that the legendary Johnny Space and his keyboard player Acid Jones are going to play an impromptu jam session later this evening. Cobalt is Johnny's biggest fan. In fact, it was after hearing Johnny's classic 'Space Rock Cowboy' as a young man living in Chorley Wood that Cobalt first picked up his sleazegrinder guitar. Sadly, these records are no longer available. Apart from 'Space Rock Cowboy' Johnny only ever released two other albums, 'Space Caravan' and the seminal classic 'Astrological Days'. Shortly after the release of 'Astrological Days' Johnny had a terrifying experience with rare psychoactive drugs during a shamanistic ritual in the Amazon jungle. Johnny spent the next ten years in a private mental institution in Barcelona. Shortly after his release in the late seventies, Johnny deleted all the records on his own Venus Records label, located the remaining copies and destroyed them. Johnny gave an explanation as to why he did this. He has remained a recluse ever since. The night unwinds, the homicide shots pour like, intoxicating waterfalls.
Dick Whiskey is in the house, Scotchy B is on the floor, Joe, Tex, Cobalt, Robbie and me are on the ceiling. Tex and Robbie decide to invent some new dances to Dick's rocking beats. They invent several new funky steps - the Pinball Ricochet, the Multiball Crawl, the Spiral Crab, the Belligerent Insult (Robbie is particularly good at this), the Sexual Molestation, the Toilet Bowl Howl, the Rubber Neck Shuffle (another of Robbie's favourites which he practised on me for hours, nodding in time to Dick's incessant beats) and, finally, the Dead Fly Drop (my favourite). It was about four o'clock in the frazzled morning when the mysterious hombre arrived. Cobalt was the first to spot him. He gave off intense vibes. A tall dude, well over six-and-a-half feet, his black top hat covered in astrological signs made him appear even taller. He was wearing a long black velvet cloak that reached the ground fastened at the front with a clasp. The dude appeared to glide through the opium smoke. He was wearing tiny undertaker shades and had a long white beard. His expression was inscrutable, Buddhist monk style. He produced a shimmering crystal guitar as if from nowhere. Johnny Space, for it was he, plugged it into a glass Marshall stack. Something melted out of the shadows. Acid Jones was wearing his trademark gold loon pants and psychedelic Viking helmet. He was bare chested, covered in authentic Maori tattoos. He was wearing dayglo sunglasses decorated with a spiral pattern that seemed to rotate on both lenses. Acid waved a large ceremonial magic dagger seriously in front of his face; he said something in Latin and then leaned on the keys of his Moog synthesizer. The whole pantheon of pagan gods and children's dreams swirled ethereally from Acid's hands like heaven and hell and everything in between. Johnny stuck a majestic chord and the dynamic duo started to blow our minds. It was 'Power Kind in the Hall of Fairies' from the bootleg album 'Live from Disco Beach' (a famous cosmic beach front in Goa where the mountains meet the sea). We were entranced. Johnny's music made you believe in God. It was a tantric overload supertime sensation that no mere words, not even poetry, could describe. Johnny and Acid jammed for twelve solid hours. It seemed like minutes, such was the collective enchantment of his ecstatic audience. He played extended versions of all his classic songs, 'Space Babies of the Millenium', 'Star Fuhrer Godhead', 'I Am Love', 'Kiss Me and Vanish'. Johnny and Acid disappeared into the afternoon sunlight as mysteriously as they had appeared, leaving their audience drained and inspired. It was an experience I shall never forget as long as I live. Cobalt said nothing. He gave me a serious look, and I knew: it was time to rock; to space rock. Tex, Robbie, Scotchy and myself followed our inspired guitarist. Riffs were leaking from Cobalt's fingertips and I could feel fire in my lungs. Robbie was humming drum patterns and Tex started slinking. Scotchy B was sober. We recorded the album in a mammoth six days and six night sessions. None of us left our instruments and none of us slept. On the seventh day we mixed. It was like a strange, sliding dream, like a season on another planet, a second in eternity whirling through a surreal Guiness advert. Although Johnny and Acid were physically not present, their vibe was floating on the ether. Strange joss stick aromas wafted mysteriously from the NS-10s, Cobalt's crystal necklace glowed mysteriously during the guitar solo on the album's title track. Odd bits of celestial music would turn up on the multitrack and then strangely vanish. I swear I heard Johnny's voice in the headphones. He was talking in his thick Spanish baritone, something about how the universe and digital recordings, about CDs and atoms and stars and the space between album tracks. It all made sense until I found out that nobody else had heard this telepathic message. Robbie was seriously weirded out in the bathroom - he had seen Acid Jones in the mirror but when he turned around Acid, of course, was not there. Robbie screamed, dropped his copy of 'Backside Girls' down the toilet and fled the shithouse. Despite the spookiness of these events, instinctively I perceived that whatever magic Johnny and Acid were weaving, it was benign. The recording completed, we decided we earned our fiesta. We swagger into El Onanorama. The DJ, El Wankiero, greets us with a buck toothed smile. Analita, Mary and the rest of the girls smile and stick their hands down our trousers. Soggy Alice slips under the table and Scotchy B smiles. The new bouncers show us respect. The patron, Cottage Cheese Face, and his partner, Lovie, send over complimentary drinks - five Serial Tequila slammers. Two hours later the Livers of Steel glide into the silver night. The stars are shining and the smell of woman rides on the back of a perfumed breeze.

3 June 1994

This album is dedicated to Jesulin de Ulbrique, El Cordobes, Emily Bronte, Johnny Space and Acid Jones

Drums - Robbie Vom
Bass - Tex Diablo
Guitar - Cobalt Stargazer
Lead Vocals and Moog Synthesiser - Zodiac Mindwarp
Backing Vocals - Cobalt Stargazer/Barry Sage/Lucrecia Garx
Programming by Zodiac Mindwarp/Cobalt Stargazer/Barry Sage
Additional Bass - Marcelo Fuentes
Organ - Tito Davila

All songs written by Zodiac Mindwarp/Cobalt Stargazer
Produced by Cobalt Stargazer and Barry Sage
Engineered by Barry Sage
Recorded at Whitfield Street Studios (London) and Estudios Fairlight (Madrid)
Mixed at Estudios Fairlight (Madrid) Mastered by Ray Staff at Whitfield Street Studios
Technical support by FX Rental (London), Fluge, Circus and Red Led Studios (Madrid)
Production co-ordination and management by Carol Waite for ID Management

Many thanks to Wolfgang Rott, Mathew and Denise (Whitfield St) Alejo Stivel (Fairlight) and Eduardo Lowenberg (Red Led) for their support. Thanks also to Tatina, Marcelo Fuentes, Tito Davila, Marcos Sanz, Tito Fargo, Flecos, Lucrecia, Pure Pressure, Jonothan and Kate Hodges.

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Author: Daniel Lowe & Jules