From U-TURN magazine, January 1994 (some grammar and spelling problems fixed) Course of Empire by Mike Metzger It's 8:30 P.M. on the first Monday of this new year, and I'm among the current lineup of Dallas' Course of Empire. As we approach the band's studio, hidden in one of the city's less than sanitary settings, I am warned by the newest half of the band's two drummers, Michael Jerome, "Watch your step!" (Jerome and I have known each other since high school and we've always looked out for each other.) But on the first Monday of 1994, Homey caught me slippin', right into a pile of Fido's finest. Little did I know that this embarrassing incident was a segueway into one of the seldom-told mysteries the band encountered in this past year of woodshedding, as recounted by guitarist Mike Graff and vocalist Vaughn Stevenson: "Okay, there's a funny story we have to tell you about. There's no bathroom in our rehearsal studio. Since we're here for long periods at a time, and since there aren't any public facilities nearby, we started going back behind the studio to take a shit in this cardboard box. We did it on a number of occasions, and we all started noticing that each time we went back out there, the shit we took the day before was gone. For the longest time, we couldn't figure out what was happening to our shit! So I (Stevenson) go around back to take a shit, and the same place where I had been going, there's this note, stuck up on the wall, that said, 'Hey Shitters! Please, don't shit outside. My dog eats it!' We figured it was this guy that works near the studio and brings his dog, and we put up a sign that basically said: 'stay out of our shit!'" (Graff) "Why do dogs do that?" (Jerome) "Cause it's got good food in it." (laughter) "I'm serious! That's a gourmet meal, compared to the dog food they normally have to eat." I'll never think of gourmet foor the same way again. Which, in a twisted sort of way, is what Course's new record, Initiation, is about: the typical perception of the senses; how you normally consider sight, sound or even taste is only one of the many ways senses can be interpreted. The title track from Initiation, consisting of accidental feedback, ended up creating an unspoken theme that ties the album together. "We had just watched Hellraiser," says drummer Chad Lovell, "and I went over to the board; I was going to try to fuck around with this processor, and make my voice go (Lovell does his lowest Hellraiser-grindcore growl). Something was hooked up wrong and it just started squealin' out this weird noise." Stevenson adds, "It was like the sound of nothing, just air moving around." "It's one of those things where at first you hear feedback and you think ah, that's bad, and you turn it off," Graff explains, "but if you stop and listen to it, there's a tonal center to it, and there are all these sounds floating around in there that are constantly generating melodies." Course of Empire hopes that the vision they found in this epic looping of sounds (created from recorded silence) will be understood by listeners as proof that silence isn't always quiet, and that they have the ability to expand the way they normally interpret life. Of course, the guys probably wouldn't mind if you just liked the new record because it rocks. At its best, Initiation does rock. On songs like "Hiss," Course still delivers their traditionally dark wall of sound, but more interestingly, they mix in a Middle Eastern influence into a lot of songs. The first single, "Infested," creates the most peculiar hybrid of music genres, with its big-band era beat, a rock- abilly guitar feel, and shouting, industrial-esque vocals. Even though Course's sound on Initiation is parallel to the sound of the band's 1990 debut, the band is much happier with this recording. Lovell explains his opinion of COE's debut; "It's like when you write letters to a girl you're freaked out about, and for whatever reason, you forget to mail one of those letters. You find the letter two years later and then when you read it you're like 'what was I thinking?" So a long period of hibernating, recording, auditioning drummers, and more importantly, a period of redefining a sound, has given Course plenty of time to think about what they had written two years ago, and what they wanted to say in 1994. Enticed from the buzz surrounding Course's CMJ performance last October, and anxiously awaiting the results of the band's first big- time video shoot, Zoo releases Initiation on the 18th of this month. After its release, Course of Empire's plans include extensive touring, topping alternative radio/video playlists (well, probably not the playlists of Dallas' KDGE, but the playlists of every other alternative radio station in the country), and somewhere on the road to fame and fortune, upgrading to a rehearsal studio with plumbing. Join the only rock band from Texas to play with rappers Public Enemy, not just once, but twice, as they celebrate Initiation's release at Deep Ellum Live, Saturday, January 22.