In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up

The news of Barbara Bush passing away at the grand old age of 92 has me listening to Ministry’s 1990 live album In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up this morning – the connection being that the former first lady had the dubious honor of being included in Al Jourgensen’s infamous roll call at the conclusion of a particularly savage rendition of Stigmata. I’m listening to the expanded edition of the album released last year as the 2-disc Live Necronomicon, and it sounds fantastic, a more faithful document of the original performance without edits or added overdubs. If the new edition can claim to be definitive, I still think the original album, even with its post-production adjustments remains a powerhouse of incendiary post-Industrial rock, and it’s worth keeping if only for the artwork – a pity Ministry didn’t retain it, opting instead for what seems like a meaningless tip of the hat to The Evil Dead’s Book of the Dead, but then again the band have always indulged in appalling artwork. Regrettable too that the release of Live Necronomicon didn’t prompt a DVD upgrade for the In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up VHS tape, an extraordinary film of the Indiana show, augmented with a battery of psychedelic effects, different film stocks and speeds, hyper cutting, and layered with all sorts of found footage and surreal imagery, pre-dating Natural Born Killers by some 14 years. Thankfully it’s available on youtube