Make-Up / After Dark by Brett Lider Dischord Records I first saw the Make-Up last winter in a pleasant refuge from mainstream conformity: the basement of a restaurant called Tokyo Rose. It was the fulfillment of a six-month quest. I was supposed to have been converted the summer before, but (you guessed it) a brainwashed minion of the franchised record store industry intervened in their special and confused bureaucratic manner and sold us the wrong tickets. After this long delay, I witnessed the spectacle of Ian Svenonius and the ministry behind him sparkling in black polyester suits, several pounds of hair gel, and the attitude it takes to stop history itself. The ministry was deadpan throughout the show, an attraction in and of itself given the emotional content of the music, yet managed to put the focus where it belongs: on Ian. The James Brown influences were obvious, from the knee-drops to the high falsetto. Indeed, the mastery of timing, pause, and the use of "baby" and "momma" indicate a well-versed student of the Godfather. How the man can walk or talk after a performance is a mystery. No performer puts as much into a set as he does, reinforcing the idea that the Make-Up spread their ideology solely through music and performace -- not through the propaganda whose subjugation led to the demise of Ian's old band, The Nation Of Ulysses. The Make-Up seeks to build a new sonic architecture (called Gospel Yeh-Yeh) while tearing down the constructions of the corporate mainstream, the "spies from the other side," and the "they" that try "to keep me locked up and tied ... put me in a bottle ... stick me with a needle." And it isn't passé, for the Make-Up refuse to recognize the "cynical reserve the culture has propagated as the defense against belief." Their new live album follows suit with pre-song intros and conversations traditionally left out of most live pressings. After Dark also has much more energy, fullness, and speed than the Make-Up's new studio record, Sound Verite. Only the better souls will be able to appreciate the work being done here, with tracks entitled "We Can't Be Contained," "Make-Up Is: Lies," "Vs. Culture," and "R U A Believer." Since the Make-Up relies so heavily on their performance, their experience, it is hard to predict what an infidel might get from the purely audio sensations of After Dark. All I can say is try it at high volumes to bring out the perfect hiss of liveness and knee-drops to jar one's inhibitions against change from one's soul.

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