Cock E.S.P.

Deriving its name from a song by Japanese art terrorists Hanatarash, Minneapolis's Cock E.S.P. is one of the premier noise bands in the United States. The trio, which counts among its collaborators Thurston Moore and Merzbow, has inflicted its mixture of power electronics, field recordings, white noise and distorted ambient...

By Tom Murphy

June 18, 2009

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Deriving its name from a song by Japanese art terrorists Hanatarash, Minneapolis's Cock E.S.P. is one of the premier noise bands in the United States. The trio, which counts among its collaborators Thurston Moore and Merzbow, has inflicted its mixture of power electronics, field recordings, white noise and distorted ambient on audiences around the world. Boasting an exhaustive discography with song titles that read like Arabian Nights written almost entirely in penis humor, the band, beyond its cathartically chaotic live performances, is perhaps best known for a collaborative Monkees tribute album it did with Panicsville called Last Train to Cocksville. Cock E.S.P. makes creative use of sounds that would be rejected by other musicians as equipment failure, as if to point out that seeming disasters can become art as well as a source of humor.

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Tom Murphy is a writer, visual artist and musician from Aurora, Colorado. He was a prolific music writer for Westword and a documenter of the Denver music scene.

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