Neil Burke
New Work
April 8th-May 8th 2005

Neil Burke comes to Cinders from Providence, RI, armed to the gills with silk-screened mutant madness. When I first saw his old band Men's Recovery Project in Richmond,VA, the drummer and bass player performed completely covered under bed sheets the whole time until a stack of amps fell on top of the bassist.The guitarist played while having been totally duct-taped to a hand-truck and wheeled out and the vocalist was yelling things off stage over blurpy avant-tarde beats. With dance hits like "manhole" and "naked sailor" they were an instant success on college campuses in the mid-90s agitated indie guitar rock scene. Even more shockingly bizarre than music were their album covers and posters which were graced with fantastic planet meltdown landscapes, faceless fleshy characters interacting with other disfigured and masked misfits. They were unnerving drawings and yet the bright colors evoked a state of calm and reassurance, vaguely reminiscent of the drawing style in choking victim diagrams. People may recognize his vibrating and colorful "mutants in agony" imagery from countless album covers, show posters and t-shirts for his own bands Men's Recovery Project and Sinking Body, as well as Arab on Radar, Rah Bras, Landed, Thrones, and Six Finger Satellite. He has worked with Matt Brinkman (Forcefield) on countless posters and comics, one of which was recently featured in Kramers Ergot 5, as well as being a long-time collaborator/troublemaker with Sam Mcpheeters (Born Against,Wrangler Brutes). See Pics from the opening