COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS
Examination of the...
By: Josh Schafe
With their Relapse debut Olidous Operettas, TCME are prepared to again celebrate CARCASS by spewing forth a collection of atrocious accolades to the godfathers of grind. This trio of aficionados is breaking down the understood anatomy of the legendary gore-grind outfit and reassembling it to create their own symphony of sickness, all the while, still keeping their doctor-ly duties over at the morgue in check. Recently, I got the chance to cross-examine Dr. Morton Fairbanks and ask him what we could expect the new album to bring to the autopsy table.
Resound: Dr. Fairbanks, I have recently been listening to the demo you shot over to the Relapse compound. I am digging it quite a bit and I was wondering what you and the other Doc’s had in mind for the production and track listing for the final product, will it stay the same or have you got some ideas yet to throw in there?
Dr. Morton Fairbanks: “Those are the rough assembled tracks I’m assuming you heard; they’ve since been mixed, sonically scrubbed, balanced, and hopefully put into a somewhat releasable form. We’re definitely going for a Symphonies of Sickness production, but a touch cleaner. It’s much better than we’ve ever had before, but that’s not saying a whole lot, considering the poor production our previous releases have had. It’s gore-grind and as such won’t be anything shown on MTV, if you catch my meaning; come to think of it, it’s not even very typical for Relapse, for that matter. It’s niche and I’m sure the majority of casual metal-heads would do best to steer clear of it in stores, as I’m afraid they might be disappointed about the rough, underground quality to it – it’s an acquired taste- and we’ll be plastering it with an artfully offensive gore collage to really hammer that fact home, if all goes as planned. It’s for, of course, only the most diehard gore grind and CARCASS fans. The album is titled Olidous Operettas, and there are eight tracks—half an hour of music—with some titles being “Blunt Force Flight,” “Casper’s Dictum,” “Maturating Decompositional Gas,” “Morgagnic Anatomics,” and “Necrotic Apologues.”
Resound: For the people that aren’t as familiar with TCME, try to give a history of how you and the other doctors got together to form this power trio of this CARCASS worshipping, gore-grinding, side splitting, hack attack?
Dr. Fairbanks: “THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS are myself - Morton Fairbanks on guitar, Guy Radcliffe on bass, and Jack Putnam on drums, with all of us spitting out vocals. I started the band with Jack and a young woman named Michelle Hayes back in 2001 as a sort of CARCASS tribute band, except that we play new songs in their style, like one of those “What If…” comics that imagines an alternate reality where perhaps some inferior B-sides are unearthed. TCME cannibalizes early CARCASS songs, disassembles them, mixes them out of order, turns them backwards, and sews them up. In no way are we even attempting to compare ourselves with their brilliance—we’re just humble fans who can’t help striving our hardest to sound as close as we can, a sort of imbecilic flattery. So Ms. Hayes went to university on the east coast, and I recruited my friend Guy for bass duties. He wasn’t familiar with CARCASS, gore grind, or even death metal, but he’s a good sport and a quick study with a sense of humor, so he enlisted; give credit to the man: He’s in his sixties now.”
Resound: With all of the responsibilities that come with playing in a band, do you and the other doctors still have time to work inside the morgue or does TCME take up all of your time now? And if you are still inside the morgue, do you ever get strange reactions when the other doctors find out about your musical accomplishments?
Dr. Fairbanks: “We keep our jobs and our hobbies separate, and manage to maintain both. I’m struggling with years of informal classes and forensic seminars, and Jack is working his way up the hospital pathology track. But the secret identity thing must be mentioned—these aren’t our real names and facts have been blurred. We want the mystique… from the hospital administration, from the fans. TCME is a strange project and warrants it, I feel. If hospital administration discovered a group of their staff playing this sort of music, an argument could be made of our unprofessional behavior and misrepresentation of the medical profession. And if metal fans like the music more because of a gimmick, regardless of whether we’re really doctors or garbage men, then even better. I guess we’re to the point where the music is most important to us; surely, a strange thing to say considering that by all rights it’s firmly owned by CARCASS in one way or another. But that’s what it’s about.”
Resound: Your lyrics are focused more towards the medical side of things, rather than the usual necrophilia and gore that goes with most other music of this genre. Is this a way of trying to teach everyone to understand and respect your everyday County Medical Examiner?
Dr. Fairbanks: “We do stray from the typical malign pathologist tact, it’s true. THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS offers an oddly beautiful take on life through a sobering look at death, with an affection for science and medical progress, an ode to all things morbidly educational. We’re intricate machines, us humans, and when those around us die, we should be reminded of our lives; and when those around us die horribly or are murdered, we should take comfort in the fact that a decedent can speak from the slab and point with bloody finger at its killer. Medicine and science exalts us, and coupled with ethical considerations, ascends us to a godhood over our own destinies. When life is framed by birth and death, ennobling it with brief temporal beauty, and we master the understanding of its terminating end, well, we’ve achieved something wonderful. TCME tries to keep the lyrics firmly in the CARCASS realm, but with a penchant for medical history and discovery (we’ve three new songs on this album dealing with the lives of early trailblazing anatomists and pathologists) and medico criminology, as well as a reveling in the disgusting aspects of death, because while revolting at first, you’d be surprised at the art involved with putrefaction; the colors alone—detailed in our new song “Kaleidoscopic Malacia”—can rival that of an Impressionist oil painting. There’s a sublime economy to death and dissolution. It’s absurd, but so is death, and while there is gravity in the topic, there is also great joy. All this makes for plenty of song topics.”
Resound: And lastly, what made you and the other docs want to start a band like this? It is quite a stretch from what you would think that mature professionals such as yourselves might jam on?
Dr. Fairbanks: “Simply that Reek of Putrefaction and Symphonies of Sickness are, in my opinion, the finest, most startling, most strangely poignant and profound, masterworks of extreme metal ever crafted, and—like any other music movement—we wanted to contribute our efforts in the clone scene that was inspired and nourished by CARCASS’ genius. Only taking it a bit farther than is tasteful. Our apologies.”
The County Medical Examiners’ second album, and Relapse debut, Olidous Operettas is slated for a winter ‘06/07 release.
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