I first heard of the World/Inferno Friendship Society when I was an undergraduate student in the late 1990s. I occasionally booked shows for bands at my university, letting my friends’ bands open up for the touring acts. Around this time Charles Maggio of Rorschach and Gern Blandsten Records wrote me to ask if I could book a show for World/Inferno. The problem was that they had a guarantee that I couldn’t pay, mostly because there were so many members of the band. I had to decline, because my little show space might not make the money back to pay them. I kick myself for that decision now. I’d have come up with the cash somehow, had I known what I was missing.
I first saw World/Inferno in 2000, at the Middle East in Cambrdige, MA. My friends were in a band called Kolya that opened for them. I was mesmerized by the audacious, energetic live performance. The audience was in rapture, like the crowd at some kind of early twentieth century revival worship. I remember Jack Terricloth spitting balls of fire off the stage. His eyes glowed a fierce red, his skin pale as a ghoul. The other members thrashed and turned out their circus punk orchestral hymns. I was enamored.
Since then I’ve gone to see World/Inferno every chance I can get, first in Boston and now in Atlanta. Last spring they managed to score a slot on Charleston, South Carolina’s prestigious Spoleto festival. We drove up with some friends and spent the weekend at the beach, culminating in World/Inferno’s rendition of “Peter Lorre’s 20th Century,” a theatrical performance of their Addicted To Bad Ideas album. It was a fantastic show. The kids were all up front while Charleston’s elderly elite watched from above, confused about whether this counted as “high art.” Several people stormed out, but next to me sat a grandmotherly old woman in her eighties or maybe even nineties. She was frail, but her head bobbed along to every tune. She smiled broadly and clapped between the music with the same passion as the young punks up front rollicking around. Her enjoyment made me feel better than any World/Inferno show I’d ever been to.
I’ve written before about how singer Jack Terricloth was an inspiration for the character M.P. Skulker in BORDER CROSSINGS. Apparently, some of World/Inferno’s fans found this and have been discussing our comic over at the band’s web forum.
“‘M’ Is For Morphine” is from Addicted To Bad Ideas, part of their examination of Peter Lorre’s life and story. You can listen to it here while watching stills from Peter Lorre’s Twentieth Century.
The World/Inferno Friendship Society’s “‘M’ Is For Morphine” is the eighth track on my 2009 Retrospective mix at 8tracks.com.