Ministry – Fix (Siren Visual)

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It’s perhaps the quote from occasional rival and sometime Revolting Cock Trent Reznor that best sums up this tour documentary from US film-maker Doug Freel. “Are you sure Al wants this out?” It certainly sets the tone for this unremitting grim yet strangely inspiring account of Ministry‘s 1996 ‘Sphinctour’, which saw members of the band entering their worst periods of drug addiction at exactly the same time the massive audience generated by the Grammy-nominated ‘Psalm 69’ was starting to move off in other directions after major-label industrial rock’s golden sales years of 1994-1995. Gone are the limos and private jets in favour of cramped tour buses, and ‘functional’ backstage areas. There’s certainly plenty of unflinching depiction of hard drug abuse thrown into ‘Fix’s 96 minute running time, but above all there’s more of a sense that the unrelenting repetition of touring interchangeable cities is the biggest numbing narcotic of all.

Narrated by then-current drummer Rey Washam, this documentary focuses primarily upon Al Jourgensen himself (understandably, as he’s remained Ministry’s one constant figurehead amongst an ever changing cast of collaborators), though there’s also a hefty dose of interviews and testimonies with peers and collaborators such as Korn’s Jon Davis, Lemmy, Maynard James Keenan, Dave Navarro and the aforementioned Trent injected in along the way that adds additional weight to the enduring scale of Ministry’s influence. In person, Al Jourgensen himself comes across as exactly the puzzle of contradictions that you’d expect. One moment he’s rampaging around the backstage area like a hyperactive nine year old while his bandmembers sit by with the patience of saints, the next he’s throwing together musings on the nature of making a success out of your individual nature with a clarity that’s frankly startling…all the while tying off.

What’s perhaps most strikingly apparent is the complete lack of embarrassment or apology expressed by Al for his increasingly debaucherous antics (witness the roast chicken scene), and there’s a sense of wide-eyed glee and almost innocent honesty to the way he acquits himself when placed in front of Doug Freel’s camera and allowed to elaborate at length. By the end you’re alternately wincing whilst also just starting to appreciate just how and why Al came to count the likes of William S Burroughs and Timothy Leary (both interviewed here) as close confidants and intellectual peers.

Those looking for an insight into Ministry’s working methods here are going to be disappointed (indeed there are no full performances of live tracks here). What ‘Fix’ captures more is the often chaotic yet intimidatingly sharp intellect guiding Ministry’s sonic maelstrom – indeed, if this documents Al’s supposedly worst drug period, the fact that he managed to hold together a band this fractious more that hints at the iron sense of indomitable commitment lurking beneath. You’re left with the impression that after the apocalypse, Al’s going to be left standing there, giving everybody the finger. It’s curious though that the Australian release of this DVD comes packaged with a bonus CD of new music from former bandmember and recent lawsuit target Paul Barker, as it feels a bit like buying Axl Rose’s biography and getting Slash’s new album thrown in.

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A dastardly man with too much music and too little time on his hands

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