As you know by now we're throwing our annual ROZZ NIGHT this Friday. If you've been to this special night before you know exactly what kind of party this will be!
First we'd like to re-visit what Ron Athey wrote for the LA Weekly days after Rozz died...
Rozz Williams, 1963-1998..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />....
Wednesday, April 8, 1998 - 12:00 am....
Though it would make it easier for me, I won’t try to glamorize his death into an art statement. Rozz Williams hanged himself in his West Hollywood apartment on April Fools’ Day. Best known as the founder and front man of seminal goth band Christian Death, Williams played and recorded under the names Shadow Project, the Whorse’s Mouth and Premature Ejaculation. His memorial Sunday night at the El Rey Theater dragged out new fans as well as old collaborators and peers. ....
Back when he was a not-so-sweet 16 and I was 18, Rozz and I became involved in a love affair that lasted three years. Ours was a volatile relationship that revolved around music, art and monstrous public personas. We met in a garage in Claremont, where Christian Death was rehearsing prior to its first gig. We were true punk romantics — he pierced my nipple, I tattooed his name on my wrist and slashed his palms open with a straight razor. We started a performance collaboration called Premature Ejaculation made up of noise soundtracks and recited text we wrote together; I developed a knack for self-mutilating onstage. We took acid, speed and heroin, and read and wrote together. During that time we lived on and off with Rozz’s parents, and I discovered that his given name was, unsuitably, Roger Allen Painter. ....
From 1982 until his death, I had very little contact with Rozz. I did see him this last Christmas Eve; he had tattooed an "X" on his forehead, à la the Manson Family. I couldn’t handle it because it seemed out of character — Rozz’s personal style changed very little from the time I met him until this latest transformation. The last few times I saw him, I did notice that his health appeared to be poor, possibly as the result of his heavy alcohol consumption.....
Wedlock: Pure love is a deathwish — our right to bleed in public contract/Essential to life/Beauty has seen the marked Beasts born to die/lead all/They follow down/Accept end-world teachings/Blood consumption nurtures censorship.....
—Ron and Rozz, excerpt from Premature Ejaculation text published in NoMag, 1981....
Contradictory to Rozz’s isolation was the prolific rate at which he produced work in his last year. He created a multifaceted swan song and bowed out just before its release. For Triple X Records he had recorded a Shadow Project CD with his ex-wife of five years, Eva O., as well as Premature Ejaculation’s Wound of Exit, and The Whorse’s Mouth, a spoken-word collaboration with theater artist Ryan Gaumer. Close to the hour of his death, the final edit of a short film, Pig, had been completed; the film, which Rozz shot with Amsterdam-based director Nico B., is about the ambiguity of the role-playing in a killer/victim relationship.....
This was the life of an artist, a true Romantic who sacrificed normality, health and happiness for the sake of vision, and a man overcome and destroyed by the demons he lived with: a tragedy. Rozz was fixated on the year 1334 — the height of the Black Plague — and it seems apparent that he’d planned to commit suicide on April Fools’ Day of his 34th year. True to form, his life was dedicated more to symbology and art than it was to life. He’s finished now, but the recordings and the disciples live on.....
I can die a thousand times/but I will always be here/With the powder skull secrets/of forgotten years/The hangman’s noose is drenched/with bloodstained tears/my hands are the killer that confirms/my fear.....
—"Spiritual Cramp," Christian Death....
2nd - we'd like to revisit what our friend Doc wrote for his CLOSED CASKETS website that same year (1998) after the wake:
What I Learned from Rozz's Wake
For those of you who still do not know, Rozz Williams, one of the most important founding fathers of the LA Death Rock and Goth movements, committed suicide on April 1 of this year. A few of his close friends held a wake for him the following Sunday in Los Angeles, and I was privileged enough to be among them, though not as close as many in attendance. I took away many things from the highly personal service not only about Rozz, but about myself as well. I was not aware of just how profoundly a person I had only known briefly could affect my life.
A few people spoke of how, in 1979, Rozz was already forming the groundwork for what would become Christian Death, and how his experiments in ?performance art? almost single-handedly created a new medium in LA. A lot of bands and artists copied Rozz?s ideas and expressions, and made LA of the early ?80?s a great place to be, and a scene the way it was meant to be, without dividing lines. Only one or two of the speakers fit into the "goth" mold, that a lot of people (too many, in fact) attributed to Rozz. But Rozz was not willing to be limited to one form of expression, or one ?scene.? Even people who met him later in life were rather confused by the ?goth? labeling. Because he was FAR too original to be stuck in any one scene, and even at times seemed to resent the single-scene notion that a lot of goth followers wanted him to be. A lot of his later works upset die hard fans of Christian Death who never wanted Rozz to grow beyond "Only Theatre of Pain," but he would not work to please them over his own need to grow. But, I digress, because Rozz was eulogized far better by people who were closer to him that Sunday night.
What moved me the most, was the realisation of what a magical time LA was back in the ?80?s. and I thought about why it wasn?t the case these days. There are still bands working to play clubs, bars, or wherever they can. There are still clubs, promoters, magazines, &c, working to make the scene a better place. So why is the scene in LA so stagnant and disappointing? The answer is simple: Apathy and arrogance. Because LA has so many thousands of goths, a lot of people are not concerned about making the scene better, because ?someone else will do it.? In Rozz?s day, everyone had to work to make the scene happen at all, including getting cooperation from people with similar ideals, like early punk rockers. Also, there was a strong Do It Yourself ethic that required people to put effort into the scene to keep it going.
I have talked to some people who have been trying to get the scene back together, but they say there?s a problem with arrogance. I have been to other cities, and arrogance seems to be unique to LA. San Francisco has a small problem with elitism, but nowhere near the scope of the LA scene. When I meet people who have been in the scene for a long time, like Rozz, I see a person who put his heart into the scene, and is NOT at all arrogant. A lot of the other people from the same ?generation? are also free of this attitude that so seems to permeate the younger scene. These same people are trying to band together in an effort to take back the scene from those who are ruining it. I hope they succeed. Rozz would have wanted it that way. It?s a shame that one so important and giving had to die to sound the wake up call for those who care about the scene to try to save it before it?s too late.
As a postscript, I see in myself some of the failings of the LA Goth scene, and I take Rozz?s death as a wakeup call to myself. I am making a challenge to myself, as well as anyone in the LA scene who sees fit, to work harder to improve the scene, instead of trying to be so divisive. I don?t know what this entails for everyone else, but for me, I will support local bands who play local clubs and shows as much as I am able, even if it just means showing up at the gig, so they know that people support them. Also note that is NOT to be taken as an indictment of ANY one person or group of people in or out of the scene. All I am suggesting is that if you wake up and realise that YOU are part of the problem, instead of waiting for someone else to fix it, make an effort to DO something about it, instead of coming up with excuses why not to. This applies just as much to me, if not more, since I was the one to open his big, fat mouth in the first place.
Now with all that in mind - join us this Friday along with all the Death Rockers and Goths that do remember - in celebration of the work and legend of Rozz Williams - and the LA scene as a whole!
Last weekend was fun but now its time to remember WHY we are who we are.
RTB
4/24/1334