Also in this Issue
- Tomb Raiders Sifting through the bones of an infamous Halloween rave bust (Music)
- Living Out Loud The Dames blast ears from Duluth to the Twin Cities (Music)
- Smells Like Post-Teen Spirit A former Nirvana cover band member joins a local DJ (Music)
- Smokin' in the Boys' Room Fuckstorm flushes convention with a Gameboy concert in a lavatory (Music)
- More articles from this issue...
More Music Articles
- A Case Study Is Neko Case the queen of country music or just a faux Shania? (Oct 23, 2002)
- Retro Active (Oct 23, 2002)
- One Foot in the Grave A melancholic Beck waxes fatalistic on 'Sea Change' (Oct 16, 2002)
- Electroclash of the Titans Über-girl group W.I.T. sexes up New York's nu-wave boys club (Oct 16, 2002)
- Brixton Is Burning The laddish Brit-Hop of the Streets heats up England's clubland (Oct 16, 2002)
- Grand Folk Railroad Alt-country quintet Jack Gandydancer are headed down the right track (Oct 16, 2002)
- Leaving Las Vegas Oddjobs gamble on a new sound, a new city, and a new tour with DJ Shadow (Oct 9, 2002)
- Victor Victoria A rock band dresses up like an experimental instrumental outfit--or vice versa? (Oct 9, 2002)
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Cal Hopkins Amish Armada hold forth on the evils of modern music and technology
Song of Pet Rapists
Guess which beard is real: Cal Hopkins Amish Armada
They smash computer terminals onstage. They look like undead Mennonites. And they sell the husks of their enemies to dog-food companies.
Cal Hopkins Amish Armada are either the Creed of Luddite punk or the Gwar of Pennsylvania farm country, a careening cross between Slipknot and Witness that makes musical war on the world wrought by Alexander Graham Bell. In concert they sunder TV sets with chain saws and howl against the evils of photography. (Apparently amps and Gibson SGs are kosher.) They pause from their schizobilly racket only to dispense with one DJ E-le'k'tro, the embodiment of electronic music, who sometimes challenges drummer Jebadiah the Hunted to a live drum duel (man versus machine) and invariably gets his caves cleaned.
Hailing from Wisconsin and Minnesota, this octet (including various washboard players and hype men) has spent three years fleshing out an elaborate mythos. The story somehow involves a flag with a Misfits-like skull (complete with Abe Lincoln beard and flat-brimmed hat), an absent figurehead (Cal Hopkins), and a nemesis named Technolojesus, the savior of technology. As you can imagine, not every audience gives the Armada a Christian welcome. One Baldwin, Wisconsin, resident warned the Hudson Star-Observer, "They are targeting our young people with messages of murder, rape, violence, killing police, killing and raping pets, and many other atrocities as well."
Taking a break from churning butter in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, lead vocalist Living Dead Elijah Damned recently agreed to a rare phone interview in order to explain himself and his kin to City Pages readers.
CITY PAGES: So who is Cal Hopkins?
LIVING DEAD ELIJAH DAMNED: Cal Hopkins is the spiritual leader for the Amish Armada, the voice that guides us in our holy war against technology. He's a mysterious wanderer who showed up in our hometown of Villeburgston, Pennsylvania, more than a hundred years ago, and he fought the first battle against technology. Now he only talks to [guitarist] Ezekial the Maliced.
CP: What is Ezekiel maliced by?
DAMNED: The English, as in all non-Amish.
CP: What is the threat posed by Technolojesus?
DAMNED: He makes us blind to the way things really are. He makes us lazy, and fills everybody's life with sin, I suppose.
CP: What's the message you're trying to get across?
DAMNED: Our message is pretty unclear, actually. But at a basic level, the message is: Destroy technology and join the Armada in our fight against the English.
CP: What's the emptiest room you've played?
DAMNED: We've played to 10 people. They were super into it, though. We've also played to small crowds where one person is into it and everyone else is slowly moving away from the stage and trying to avoid looking at us.
CP: Do you have Amish fans?
DAMNED: We've had kids e-mail us claiming to be Amish, but that's probably bullshit.
CP: What's the most extreme response you've produced?
DAMNED: I've had people chewing on my boot during a show, grabbing me. That's happened at least once.
CP: What was the inspiration for starting the group?
DAMNED: We thought: Let's take the least threatening group of people and make a pretty offensive band, and make us a lot more threatening. We're pretty nice guys in real life.
About Peter S. Scholtes
From the Archive
- Me Gusta el Ghetto Libretto! The terrible, vicious, sweaty, wonderful thrill of Mexican sex comics (Arts Feature - Oct 23, 2002)
- Leaving Las Vegas Oddjobs gamble on a new sound, a new city, and a new tour with DJ Shadow (Music - Oct 9, 2002)
- Legends of the Fall All the leaves are green and the skies are blue for David Beckey's Autumn Leaves (Arts Feature - Oct 2, 2002)
- Mr. Shoah David Cross and Bob Odenkirk perpetrate a comic genocide on good taste (Theater - Sep 25, 2002)
- Minnesotan Idol Three Picked-to-Click talents face the music from a panel of judges (Music - Sep 18, 2002)
- The Chain Gang Want to change the world? Get out of your car and onto a bike. (Cover Story - Aug 14, 2002)
- Suburban Legends A Suburbs reissue in every garage! (Music - Aug 7, 2002)
- For Sayles The 'Sunshine State' politician remains worthy of running on the independent ticket (Film - Jul 17, 2002)
- More articles from the Peter S. Scholtes Archive...
