IN THE MAGAZINE

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WHSSHKKKK! - PART 1

Rat Bastard Is the King of Noise

INTERVIEW BY LIZ ARMSTRONG

Some facts about a man named Rat Bastard: Born Frank Falestra and unceremoniously given his current moniker by a shitty punk band he recorded 20 years ago, he lives in Miami, three blocks away from the thong-riddled shores of South Beach. He’s 50 years old and nearing a nice retirement from a job he’s had at an airline since just after high school. He’s recorded Blowfly, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, the Silos, the Mavericks, Harry Pussy, and the Eat, none of whom anyone gave a queef about at the time, and he currently runs a recording studio in his tiny, immaculate, one-bedroom condo. He’s been playing improvised noise on guitar and bass and electric violin in an unsavory part of town at a lovable shithole called Churchill’s pretty much every Thursday night since 1983. As legend has it, one night a patron fed up with Rat’s incessant rumble stormed the stage and put a gun to his head. “Go ahead and pull the trigger,” Rat told him, “’cause I ain’t stopping.”

There’s no such thing as enough for this guy. He released a CD containing 36 hours of sound called Drunken Empowered. His longtime band, Laundry Room Squelchers—which consists of him and whatever hot chicks he can rope into playing with him (for the last couple years it’s been noise babes Val Martino of Unicorn Hard-On and Leslie Keffer)—surge through the audience with their instrument cables wrapped around their fists like they’re ready for a street brawl. Shows always end in dog piles, bruises, and blood.

Always after more, the purest of the more, the absolute nut of more, five years ago he started the International Noise Conference (“That sounds important, right?” he says), a free weekend-long festival of the most obscure harsh-noise acts you’ll find in the country who play 15-minute sets max on two separate stages so there’s no downtime between bands. The only rules: “No laptops, no droning, no mixers.” This last February more than 100 bands performed, 60 of ’em on the last day. It’s like a three-day rave for art-damaged dirtbags who comb South Beach for pretty shells, spare change, and drugs, partying nonstop except to crash on the sand or in Rat’s condo. Entertainment is the main emphasis—we have Rat to thank for the insurgence of chaotic performance art involving pizzas and balloons in a scene that for the last ten years mostly just sat there and stroked its graying beard, gently nodding its head to an imagined beat.

I met Rat when I joined the band To Live and Shave in LA in 1999 (and left shortly thereafter). I realized what kind of man I was dealing with during our show in Baltimore when almost all the guys—Tom Smith, Weasel Walter, Nondor Nevai, and, of course, Rat—were smacked out on a now-illegal body-builder bulking speed called Ripped Fuel (half of them also tripping on acid) and a local neo-Situationist group attacked the stage with chairs, pitchforks, hammers, ceramic plates, and figurines. Stuff was being smashed all over the place, even up my crotch; bodies were flying everywhere. The group kidnapped Weasel off the stage and tried to stuff him in the back of a pickup truck waiting outside. I helped him claw his way back to continue the show. We were all ready to begin again. Rat had never stopped, though. He was still rolling around onstage, scribbling on his electric violin, completely oblivious to anything that had just transpired.

Leslie Keffer’s post-Squelchers black eyes. Photo by Val Martino “The first time I saw Laundry Room Squelchers, I was cowering in a corner waiting for the chaos to end. I still got banged up amid the tumbling wires and falling bodies and amps, but the next night, something let loose in me. I jumped right in and picked up amps and picked up Leslie Keffer and seizured in euphoria on the floor. I just let go, that abandonment of fear was new to me, and I was sober during it all, a moment in time that gave me courage for the rest of my life.”—ANDREW BARRANCA (AKA GAYBOMB), To Live and Shave in LA contributor “Our third show on the 2006 tour, a guy was sitting on the floor and he realized he was not in a good position there. He got up and smacked the back of his head into my face. I played the whole set to the point where I couldn’t stand up anymore—I was really sick. I could see a tennis-ball-size bump over my eyebrow, and I said I had to go to the bathroom. ‘Whatever you do, don’t look in the mirror and you won’t puke,’ Rat told me. But of course I looked in the mirror to see what happened to my fucking face! And I puked everywhere. He was totally right. I had two black eyes for five or six weeks.”—LESLIE KEFFER “Rat’s the coolest person I’ve ever met in my life. From the day I met him he’s completely supported what I do and that I do it. The fact that he saw something in me that could add to his band—and still lets me be myself—has made me a more confident performer. I think he likes really strong women. He likes women who’re sexual but not willing to give it up. I felt like he completely trusted and respected us and encouraged us to do our thing.”—VAL MARTINO

Vice: Where does all your energy come from?

Rat Bastard: My thoughts.

Really? You’re motivated purely by your mind?

Of course. If your mind says move, then you’re gonna move.

But most people get tired. People half your age go to bed before you do.

I’d rather roll around and look stupid than sleep.

You play at Churchill’s every week. Is it just an unspoken agreement at this point?

Yeah.

How did it start?

I would go in there and play.

You’d just walk in with an instrument and plug in and play? And nobody stopped you?

No. Usually all the bands had played already. They were done. The owner doesn’t care what’s going on. He’d rather have something going till close than nothing.

What made you want to go up unannounced, no invitation, and just jam?

I do it all the time. I just wanna play.

Can’t you do that at home?

If you’re in a rock bar and people are there, you’re performing, whether there’s 20 people or two.

Your noise conference’s motto is “No laptops, no mixing boards, no droning.” What’s so bad about those things?

If you’re forced to perform for 15 minutes—only 15 minutes—and you have to use any of that, then you’re a self-promotional piece of shit and I don’t want you. I don’t care what you’re doing, but come up with something and you can’t use those three things because they’re fucking boring! You want to see a blue face or a green face staring at a screen for 15 minutes? Do you like that?

No! But what’s the problem with a mixer?

They’re just moving their hands—they can’t rock! How’re you going to entertain staring at a fucking mixing board? Any jackass can do that!

How did you start Laundry Room Squelchers?

Guys lose their attention span. After a while they get bored and walk away. They play like they’re trying to compose something. But girls have more intensity, they play like they wanna kill everything. They don’t care if they don’t know anything about instruments. I’d prepare the guitars—give them an open tuning—and I’d tell them they could do anything they wanted with ‘em. They sounded great.

How did you find these women, and how do you keep finding them?

They’re just sitting there at the bar, drinking beer with a jerk. I’m like, “Hey man, wanna rock? Grab a guitar! You don’t have to know how to play, just look like you know how to rock. Play your ass off!”

In theory, it almost sounds exploitative. Why would they trust you?

They just want to go up onstage and get their cigarette lighters out and slide them on the guitars.

But what do you get musically out of playing with young girls who may never have even held an instrument before?

I get this nice stage full of sound that I can’t get out of a regular four guys. The Red Hot Chili Peppers couldn’t get this sound—no way they can achieve that intensity, no fuckin’ way. But I got this incredible sound around me, girls screaming and strumming all around, and I compose my guitar into that, along with that. The result is something I wanna listen to.


TO BE CONTINUED
WHSSHKKKK! | 1 | 2 |

See all articles by this contributor

Comments

Anonymous, on Nov 15, 2009 wrote: no 31st of october. your wrong about everything you fucking idiot. you’ve just displayed your own pathetic issues with women for all to see. what a fucking douchecunt you are.

Anonymous, on Apr 13, 2009 wrote: if an accountant paid $65 for an AC/DC ticket? what column of the ledger does that entry fall under? b/c i don’t recall "dork" as one of them.

Anonymous, on Feb 15, 2009 wrote: this article totally sucks rat’s dick. it even reads unrealistic. there’s something of the truth in there but you don’t have to blow it up that much to make sense. i know the guy and i am sure a lotta people do and you can say "well that wasn’t right. this part sounds like him. this doesn’t." just another example of sensational writing that is so damn unrealistic as to lose the subject almost entirely. typical of journalism. shit, what’s WAY cool about rat is i saw pretty fall asleep while playing guitar. now that is cool! liz armstrong though, she sure is a cutie.

Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote: wow. guy who wrote comment on oct.31 needs to seek therapy quick.

Anonymous, on Oct 31, 2008 wrote: I’d respect this guy a lot more if he just came right out and said that he chooses girls to play with because they look good and noise music all blurs together and it’s a hook for his band, and he secretly hopes to have sex with them on tour. That’s why there’s a "no couples" rule. Christ, last time I saw Keffer play she was wearing this tutu... I wanted to give her a black eye, let me tell you what. Anyway, there is NOTHING worse than the Old Guy at the noise show. Nothing. Give me an accountant who pays $65 for an AC/DC ticket and has a great Friday night once a month over those sad saps. Guys like "Rat Bastard" are 180 degrees from what anyone should want to be like when they’re his age. Not getting laid, stuck in a rut (same lame show every week at the Churchill), convinced of their importance, naive, afraid of the world. At base, these people are afraid of the world. "Violence" and "chaos" are a lot easier to manage when they’re part of some person’s basement gig or an art gallery opening, aren’t they?

Anonymous, on Oct 25, 2008 wrote: we would all be so lucky to be 1/8th as cool as him

Anonymous, on Sep 29, 2008 wrote: he sounds like an arse.

Anonymous, on Jul 16, 2008 wrote: fucking awesome noise shows, LRS, INC miami Love Rat Bastard

Anonymous, on Jul 3, 2008 wrote: ive been seeing this guy around town since i had braces and a training bra & he NEVER takes off that scully

Anonymous, on Jun 16, 2008 wrote: any jackass can use a mixer, but it takes a real musical genius to roll around on the floor making unpleasant sounds?