PUPPY LOVE
by Bhargavi Mandava

Picture this: singing Ogre, chainsaw burning water, maggot's pit, gutteral groans, digging graves, primal therapy, manipulation, crunch, crunch, crunch.

That's just a sip from Skinny Puppy's vat of bubbling drives. "I have a very bad problem with stress," reveals vocalist Nivek Ogre while eating a cup of Dannon's strawberry yogurt. "It makes my mind hurt. I get reclusive, so this is the opposite of that and that's to push you out and let it all out. It's very much therapeutic."

On their tour supporting their latest LP Mind The Perpetual Intercourse, the three Canadian canines (Ogre, Cevin Key, Duayne Goettel) have been often shrugged off as a shock rock band because of their, uh, stimulating conceptualized show. "It triggers a whole bunch of processes whithin a person: either 'that's shocking, that's garbage, that's gory' - in a positive or negative way, it's making people think." says Ogre (as his friends call him). "It's not trying to pound a statement into a person as much as trying to open up blocked channels."

And the stage show? Dancing shadows projected on scrm cloth, a baby doll with a fuse dangling from it, pistols, films of slaughterhouses and more! "The most expensive thing to maintain on this tour has been having blood, because we use a LOT of blood," says Ogre, who makes all Puppy props from junk he finds. "But it isn't used as... you know BLAH! blood. It's used quite tastefully." Certainly.