Editor’s Note: We have tweaked our This Show Is Tonight series to reflect the recent phenomenon of live music livestreaming in the age of social distancing.
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Nearly a year ago, we caught DJ Brian L. opening up Nitzer Ebb’s appearance at The Paradise Rock Club, just down the street from the Allston home base of Corrosion, his long-running monthly goth, industrial, and powernoise dance party. Since the pandemic wiped underground dance parties off the map and into the dustbin with all other surface-level public gatherings, Brian L. has passed the weeks with a Taste of Corrosion livestream every Friday night. But tonight (April 29), he gets his midweek thump on, and it’s featured by Wax Trax! Records.
The iconic Chicago electronic music label will host Brian L.’s tribute set livestream from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. EDT on Wax Trax!’s Twitch TV page. It will also be broadcast on Brian L.’s own Twitch, which has hosted his weekly Taste of Corrosion livestreams. Yes, it’s a Wax Trax! Wednesday.
“You can definitely expect the bands that have become synonymous with Wax Trax! like Front 242, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, and, of course, Ministry and their various side-projects,” Brian L. tells Vanyaland earlier in the week. “But alongside the obvious choices, there’s likely to be selections from artists you don’t often hear, whether it’s A Split Second, Controlled Bleeding, or Foetus. It’s a diverse range of acts that have helped define not just the Wax Trax! sound but industrial music, as a whole.”
Brian L. says he’s approaching the tribute set simply as a longtime fan of the label, which, like many others, helped shape his musical tastes since he was a teenager.
“To a certain extent, I’m still that same 18-year-old kid who bought the Black Box – Wax Trax! Records: The First 13 Years 3CD set at a random Sam Goody’s in New York City,” he says. “That was one of those life-changing moments that led me on this never-ending path to seek out all the music from this weird cast of characters. My hope is that people will see this as more than just a nostalgia trip but as a love note to Wax Trax! and its lasting legacy.”
Get a taste of Brian L. beat via a recent Taste of Corrosion mix embedded above, and darken up your Wednesday later on tonight. The full gallery from that Nitzer Ebb show, photographed by Ted Petrosky, is down below.
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