This blog has covered the legendary Chicago underground psych/performance group ONO before but a recap is in order anyway: musician P. Micheal Grego and mononymous singer/shaman Travis formed their theatrical anti-rock band in 1980, toiling in arty obscurity until throwing in the towel in 1986. Two decades later, they re-formed the band after interest in their two LPs Machines that Kill People and Ennui unexpectedly boomed. Since 2012, they’re released three new albums, and they finally toured outside Chicago in 2014.

They continue to tour today, with a greatly expanded membership that includes connections to other quality Chicago concerns like Tiger Hatchery and even Ministry. Travis has swapped his trademark dreadlocks for a clean-shaven dome and a brilliant white beard, and sports luminous white clothing to match—often wedding dresses. He’s a captivating sight; there a pitifully few frontmen as engaging and just plain watchable as Travis.

Last week, the band appeared in a concert on the loading docks of Cleveland, OH’s Museum of Contemporary Art, part of a far-too-short concert series that ends tomorrow night with a performance by concrète masters Form A Log. They shared the bill with a marvelous interactive dance performance by Space Beach and some jaw-dropping microtonal math rock from Baltimore’s Horse Lords, but ONO can’t really help but completely steal any show they appear on. Please enjoy my phone-cam footage of a delightful surprise they unleashed, a wonderfully droney nine-minute cover of the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” an apt choice for a band whose singer favors hand-me-down gowns.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
ONO: Vintage footage of the freaked-out ‘anti-music’ Chicago avant garde legends
Ministry’s Al Jourgensen guests on the new single by ONO: A DM premiere

 
Now that ONO’s second incarnation has lasted longer than its first, the theatrical gospel/avant-noise performance-poet/musicians (did I leave anything out?) seem to be picking up long-overdue steam. Dangerous Minds clued you in on them a few months ago, in a guest post by Plastic Crimewave Sound/Moonrises psychedelia pooh-bah Steve Kraków, so I’ll go easy on the history here and refer you to that post, but the tl;dr is that ONO’s singer/invoker of spirits Travis and sonic guru P. Michael Grego led the archly arty Chicago band from 1980-86. They resurrected the project with new and returning members in 2007, releasing the album Albino in 2012, and going on their first tour in 2014, in support of the album Diegesis.

I was incredibly fortunate to have been in one of the opening bands for ONO’s very first show on tour last summer, and it is to my lasting regret that I didn’t think to shoot any video. Travis, resplendent in white (he often sports a wedding dress, to match his white beard) cut a compelling and shamanic figure while the band’s improvisations lurched about dizzyingly and unpredictably. I could not help but think that if only they had gotten out of Chicago more in their original incarnation, they’d be so much better known today. P. Michael was quoted in an excellent 2008 Rocktober article as having said “We toured in our mind, but not in our feet.” Pity. An ONO show can be described, but only seeing one is seeing one. Frontmen like Travis do not come along often.
 

 
But cross your fingers, if we’re lucky another tour could be in the offing, as ONO’s third new album since their reactivation is due this fall. Titled Spooks, the album features contributions from Tiger Hatchery drummer Ben Baker Billington, OBNOX singer/guitarist Lamont Thomas, and I shit you not Ministry leader Al Jourgensen. Jourgensen contributed to the band’s first album, Machines That Kill People, and has significant behind-the-scenes history with ONO. P. Michael again, from the same Rocktober interview:

We ran into this guy that was skating that turned out to be Al Jourgensen. He was in the Immune System and then he left them and then he was going into Special Affect. One night they were playing with Naked Raygun. Somehow we knew Naked Raygun, probably by going out dancing. No, we hadn’t played any shows at all, but Naked Raygun saw us somewhere. Special Affect was playing at the Exit, and Naked Raygun was opening for them. They asked us to go on after them, like at two in the morning. So the first ONO show was me, Travis and Mark [Berrand, guitar]. After that, we had gotten shows at O’Banions, Lucky Number. We played a lot of these old punk venues little by little. Mark eventually had to leave town; that’s how Ric [Graham, sax] got into the band. Al, who by then had left Special Affect and was starting up a group called Ministry, his girlfriend was Shannon Rose Riley at the time. He said, “I got somebody that would really be cool for you guys,” and he introduced us to her. She sorta played saxophone and the accordion. She was a character. She joined up with us, and Al said “I got this record deal. Thermidor Records (owned by Joe Carducci and Joe Boshard, distributed by SST) wants Special Affect singles. They had officially broken up, but he had told Thermidor Records about us. So they were interested. Al was going to go into the studio with us. We were gonna make a single. We were able to get a hold of Al and his engineer, which was Iain Burgess, so we went out to Chicago Recording Studios to record two numbers with Shannon, and Al was the producer.

 

 

 
Shannon Rose Riley—who Jourgensen credits with launching his career in his autobiography Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen—is still involved with ONO, listed in the band’s Punk Database page as “Sax-Bass, Percussion and Keyboards.” The collaboration with Jourgensen is called “Punks,” and you’re hearing it here first.
 

 
After the jump a taste of live ONO that actually captures the chaotic feeling of being there… and more!

 
This is a guest post from Galactic Zoo Dossier’s overlord, Plastic Crimewave on an unfairly obscure group from Chicago:

Unless one caught them on their first-ever tour last year, non-Chicagoans might not know of the legendary avant-performance “anti-music” group ONO, who have been at it since January 5, 1980. The original line-up of sound-svengali P. Michael Grego, the dynamic “front man” known only as Travis (once Travis Dobbs, until he had it legally changed) and multi-instrumentalist Ric Graham packed it in at the end of the 80s, but Grego and Travis reformed the group in 2007 with new members after interest in their two obscure 80s LPs on Thermidor Records (home to Flipper, SPK, The Birthday Party, etc) exploded.
 

Photo by David Magdziarz

While recording excellent new material on Moniker Records, the Priority Male and Galactic Archive imprints jointly reissued ONO’s first LP, Machines that Kill People (which features contributions from a young Al Jourgensen of Ministry) thirty years later in 2013. Now their second LP Ennui from 1986 (which was mixed and recorded in a single night!) is available again to their masses of young fans, who pack house shows, club gigs and other happenings to see the contented freaks of ONO perform their utterly unique yet ever-changing sonic vision utilizing damaged electronics, fuzzed-out bass, multiple drummers, and theatrical vocal ruminations.
 

Photo by David Magdziarz

In the weeks before Ennui was released, the band was similarly prolific and unpredictable—practicing three times a week, doing performances at city-funded spots like the Chicago Cultural Center, and art space concerts that were meant to be performed on NASA’s Space Shuttle (!)—-but best of all, ONO was actually videotaping some of their events. Original member Ric Graham operated a camera which captured the band at their high-weirdest at Harper College in Palatine, IL in April 1985, a few months before they recorded Ennui.

This 1985 music video for “Ennui” from their 1985 album of the same title, was only screened one time at a local club a month later, until this “world premiere.”
 

 
More ONO after the jump…