Monte Cazazza
Monte Cazazza
Performance artist from San Francisco, musician, pervert, expert. He's the one who coined the industrial slogan for TG's Industrial Records.
Abridged discography:
TO MOM ON MOTHERS DAY 7" IR 005 1979 SOMETHING FOR NOBODY EP IR 010 1980 MONTE CAZAZZA LIVE C60 IRC 28 1980 CALIFORNIA BABYLON LP(Subterranean)1982 STAIRWAY TO HELL SS(Sordide Sent)1982 THE WORST OF... CD Mute 1992
Excerpt from New Wave #13:
Monte is a necrophiliac in action. Rather than stifling his nightmares,
he throws them in the face of the world. At the College of Arts and
Crafts in Oakland, his first sculpture consisted of a cascade of cement
that blocked the entrance of the school. He was dismissed the next day.
Passing from hospital into prison, he surfaced with pornographic collages
in San Francisco. In 1971, invited to a weekend of conferences on art in
the woods, he brought along an armed bodyguard and garnished the food
with arsenic. At breakfast he dropped bricks painted with the word
"Dada" on the feet of people convened to eat. And at the dinner table he
burned the partially decomposed, worm-infested body of a cat. His
bodyguard blocked the exit and several guests fell sick from teh stench.
In 1974, Genesis and Cosey were fascinated by a photo showing Monte
covered with blood on the cover of Vile Magazine. Together, they
fabricated the famous Gary Gilmore Memorial card, posing blindfolded on
electriv chairs. It was reproduced on T-shirts. Six thousand copies
were sold in Britain; it was the cover story of the Hong Kong Daily
News.
In 1977 Monte entered the studios of Industrial Records to record
"Plastic Surgery", "Busted Kneecaps", "Fistfuckers of America", "Hate",
and "To Mom on Mother's Day", his first 45 (out of print). A film was
made with TG where Monte and a 14-year-old boy were electrocuted. He
playes also in the film Deccadance of Kerry Colonna with razor
blades.
Monte seldom goes out, except on Halloween when he goes out with a cheap
plastic mask, a green army bag filled with livers and hearts (like
Hermann Nitsch) and the head of a body mannequinn (used by medical
students to learn mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.