Black Helicopter


Couple months ago, I received a suspicious package in the mail. After dousing it under the sink, I carefully unwrapped it, and dumped out it’s contents- a self-released cd, a bottle of hooch, and some candy. 'The Black Helicopter survival kit', the instructions read. It’s always bad form to drink anything you get unsolicited in the mail, but their disc was a sweaty, scary piece of work indeed, all hand wringing and head banging, bad -mood music for dusty trainspotters. Rumbling down the rock highway like a three-wheeled rig with a one-eyed driver, the ‘Copter’s greasy diner blues and concrete mixer post-punk belie their sleek, sinister band name. It lurches in and out of the lanes, breathing heavy, intermittently crying it’s eyes out and laughing its head off. Black Helicopter’s music is dangerous, slightly mad; rock without the comfortable, placating roll. Imagine a yankee Nick Cave mixing it up with Big Black, or maybe a tin box fulla angry cats being tossed off the roof. The lyrics stood out as rather amazing slices of true to life lousy luck and sniffling regret, and the claustrophobic brood rock amplified the harsh, ‘suburban wasteland’ vibe into the kind of rock and roll nightmare that I just can’t keep my hands out of. Next thing you know, I’m in a dank bar on an even danker Sunday afternoon with three -quarters of Black Helicopter. Regular guys playing highly irregular music, Black Helicopter have quietly forged a legacy of brutality, having split like noisy atoms from their previous bands, the gnashing snarl —core of Kudgel, and the wiry indie-freakout Green Magnet School to form this unlikely supergroup. These cats are like four Mr. Pinks in a world of Mr. Blondes- sure, they’re in on the crime spree, but they’re not gonna gun down the citizens for kicks. Their music, however, is an altogether different story.

Bass player Zak Lazar is the culprit behind the Helicopter’s media campaign.

So what was in that bottle, anyway?

"Piss."

That’s what I thought.

"Only the ones for the press, though. Regular people get whiskey."

I talk with Zak and drummer Matt Nicholas for awhile about the dangers of naming your band after one of the more alarming conspiracies of our time." When you do a search on us in the internet", Matt says, "You come up with some truly amazing websites." "You look at these archival threads they’ve got going, " Zak adds," and you are one inch away from being sucked into that as a religion, for the rest of your life."

Well, that’s the beauty of it. You have all these people looking up black helicopters on the net, and now you have all these new fans that you didn’t even expect.

"Or want. All these people coming down from the hills out of their shacks to our shows…it’s like, ‘what’s in that bag, sir? Why is it ticking?"

Given the band name, you pretty much have your touring vehicle built in to the contract.

"We want to start out small. Maybe a Humm- V with a gun turret. The kind Nikki Sixx would get."

Vocalist Tim Shea walks in, all furrowed brow and distraction, grousing about computer viruses. It strikes me that this is one of the first times I’ve ever held court with a bunch of rock stars and the conversation hasn’t degenerated into a flurry of blood, tits, and motherfuckers. Crazily enough, Black Helicopter actually want to talk about their songs.

"The story behind these songs is that me and Tim used to work at this convenience store in Framingham, and every night, sometime between 8 and 11, this guy would come in drunk off his ass," Matt says. "He would start espousing his opinions on just about anything- sexual technique, the stock market, life, regrets. He was in his mid 50’s,and he was on disability. After a while, we just thought we should start taping this guy, because these stories were so funny. This was in the early 90’s. Fairly recently, we went and turned these stories into songs. They blended perfectly with the music, even some of the emotions in the stories come out in the songs." What, did you think every rock and roll story starts off in a strip club or an emergency room? I ask them about ‘Little Davey Bowditch’, the title character of Black Helicopter’s signature song. "The only thing we know about Davey Bowditch is what we hear through this guy," Matt tells me. "He was this guy’s arch nemesis as a kid. He always got the girl, was always the captain of the team. You could tell how much he really wanted to be this guy, but he always came up short." Zac has a simple theory. "Davey Bowditch is probably why this guy ended up an alcoholic that hangs out at the convenience store." I wonder then, if what we have here is a cautionary tale. Have Black Helicopter taken the triple 6 misery of this nameless, obscure nobody and burned it on tape for all the world to see to mock him, or to teach us all a lesson? "Everything we’ve done, do the exact opposite," Zak warns. Tim elaborates. "We’re just talking about a working guy, the American experience and the American dream gone wrong." "We’re just telling stories and having fun", Matt concludes, but if there’s a message to it, it’s like putting your failure on the table, and saying, ‘look at this- don’t do this." Point taken. But beyond the heady message lies a thunderous, heavy breathing rock band. What’s in store for the live witness? " A multi-media multi-sensory experience", Tim tell me. The band begins discussing the various ingredients that add up to a Black Helicopter show- smoke, strobes ,fire… chicks? "The Natick high cheerleader team usually shows up", Matt promises. Jail bait notwithstanding, Black Helicopter is one of those most visceral, engaging live shows in Boston. Bring your crash helmet and proper government credentials. For further updates from the disinformation frontlines, go to www.black-helicopter.com.