Mary Susan Littlepage

It's been almost ten years since Die Warzau's innovative dance-music producers Jim Marcus and Van Christie broke up after the release of "Engine," their critically acclaimed third album. Now back together again, they've just released "Convenience," their fourth album, on their own label PULSEBLACK.

Besides making industrial, house, acid house and genre-bending electronic dance music, Marcus and Christie used to light their naked selves on fire onstage. Now they're married with children.

At their hardwood-floored studio near Lake and Halsted, Christie wears a black leather jacket and leans back on the sofa while Marcus, who is rocking a dark knit cap and dark T-shirt, sits on a rolling chair. Both, still well-pierced, talk with enthusiasm about their children. Although fatherhood has affected their work schedules, Christie says it hasn't changed how they work much. Then he shakes his head and says, "My three-year-old is totally running me ragged."

Marcus adds that having kids has given him a renewed commitment to making the future better. "In the past it might have been easy to say `Fuck this shit, and I'm just gonna party,' and you really can't do that anymore," he says.

Like earlier Die Warzau music, "Convenience" is politically charged. Besides saying "fuck you" to President George Bush in the liner notes, Die Warzau dedicates the album to gays and lesbians in the U.S. armed forces. Marcus points out that you won't find a memorial for gay and lesbian soldiers who died in war, even though "gay and lesbians have FOUGHT and DIED in every war that this country has ever served, ever had."

In "Kleen" Marcus sings about how people distance themselves from those dying in war: "Those faces don't look like yours/Your days don't look like their wars/Like collateral they can die/For some political way of life/In the end you know it's true/Never meant that much to you." Meanwhile, catchy chords and urgent beats surround Marcus's vocals on "Terrorform," and Marcus's voice becomes an instrument, as lyrics are delivered at a hypnotic, rapid-fire pace. The song is so fast-paced that it borders on drum 'n' bass, and lyrics echo the group's distaste for people who don't care for the environment.

The band soon will release "Hitler's Brain" EP, which they co-wrote with George Clinton and his girlfriend, and Black Massive, a PULSEBLACK compilation featuring various artists' work.

In the late eighties, Marcus and Christie were performance artists creating visual mayhem. At one show they blew up part of the club Limelight, which was planning to remodel (the space is now occupied by mega-club Vision). Christie says, "A lot of stuff got broken--including, uh, the drummer."

Crazy rumors about the show inspired a rep from the seminal UK label Fiction Records to meet the pair and later sign them.

Die Warzau's first album, "Disco Rigido" (Fiction), soon followed, and included such popular dance tracks as "Strike to the Body," "I've Got To Make Sense" and "Money After All," a bass-thunderer that should be the test for stereo-speaker shopping. "Big Electric Metal Bass Face" and "Engine," their next albums, featured club-friendly songs and other music styles and moods. And then the breakup.

So, why did Die Warzau break up?

Blame it on the actions of the label TVT, which they say censored some of their singles and marketed them in ways they considered unacceptable.

They were ticked off that after "Engine" came out, TVT didn't consult them about placing Chicago Reader ads linking the band with Zima ("Not the same old drink. Zima. Not the same old tunes. Die Warzau.") and Camel.

When Marcus learned that TVT hyped "Engine"'s record-release party at now-defunct Shelter with Camel support, he got someone to print up and pass out anti-Camel fliers to clubbers.

Marcus and Christie say that Marcus' twice storming into TVT offices--to express distaste at how "Engine" was being promoted--probably resulted in a less-than-enthusiastic TVT marketing campaign.

After the band's breakup, Marcus lived in Boston, working on an anti-tobacco campaign, and he and Christie worked on music independently.

They collaborated when Marcus visited Chicago on vacation. Then when he moved back, things clicked again.

"It just seemed really easy again," Marcus says. "It was easy for us to work together, like we understood what we wanted to get out of what we were doing."

Die Warzau performs at Metro, 3730 North Clark, on January 7.

(2005-01-04)

Also by Mary Susan Littlepage

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