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Inked in Red
VISION VIDEO PROCESSES WAR, TRAUMA AND LOSS THROUGH GOTH ROCK
By Chad Radford music@flagpole.com
makeup artist Tom Savini’s
blood-spattered remake of
the classic horror film Night
of the Living Dead, the character Ben, played
by Tony Todd, delivers one of the most
chilling reckonings the zombie apocalypse
has ever known: “This is something that
nobody has ever heard about, and nobody
has ever seen before. This is hell on Earth...
This is pure hell on Earth.”
Midway through Vision Video’s debut
album, Inked In Red, the song “Organized
Murder” builds around this forebod
ing dialogue—Todd’s gravelly voice
oozes up from beneath an ominous
drone and drum machine, stirring
up layers of depth and texture from
which the group’s singer, guitar
player and principal songwriter Dusty
Gannon has carved out a gothic pop
odyssey.
The 10 songs that make up Inked
In Red are a survey of troubled and
complex emotions and an ecstatic
purging of mental and physical stress.
Songs bearing titles such as “Comfort
In the Grave,” “Static Drone” and a
cover of Ski Patrol’s 1981 post-punk
number “Agent Orange” are teeming
with abstract tales from Gannon’s
days spent crawling out of his skin
while deployed as a rifle platoon
leader in war-torn Afghanistan, work
ing as a metro Atlanta firefighter and
paramedic on the front lines of the
COVID-19 pandemic and watching a
relationship fall apart while coping
with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Night of the Living Dead intro
in “Organized Murder” is something
of a Rosetta Stone when it comes
to deciphering Inked In Red’s true
message. As the opening number on
the B-side, it’s a deep cut that brings
these various underlying dark themes
into perspective.
“There was a point when I was
in Infantry Officer School in Fort
Benning, rehearsing what’s called an
L-shaped ambush, when I realized
that this was literally organized mur
der,” Gannon says. “I went through
a really tough time leading up to my
deployment where I didn’t know if I
could do it. I kind of lost my mind for
about a year.”
He goes on to say that the whole
conversation from Night Of the Living Dead,
“talking about the zombie invasion, and
how nobody really knows what’s going on—
it’s all just chaos and pure hell on Earth—
resonated with how I felt. There is nothing
worse than war,” he adds, “It is the absolute
worst thing that humanity has committed
to.”
Throughout the album, these images
blend with a gothic snarl, new wave giddi
ness and campy horror film theatrics. The
band’s name is a nod to Athens’ once-great
video store, bringing something that all of
the group’s members loved back from the
dead—at least in namesake.
All of this culminates in a modern sound
that falls within a classic musical lineage
of bands including Joy Division and New
Order, the Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the
Banshees and the Sisters of Mercy.
And, of course, it isn’t all as dour it
sounds on paper. Inked In Red is propelled
by barreling dance-floor rhythms and
major-chord songwriting.
The look of Gannon in full make-up,
dressed head-to-toe in goth gear while per
forming in the videos for “Static Drone” and
the album’s title track, obscure the fact that
he writes vital music with Vision Video.
There is a sense of having fun here, albeit
steeped in layers of eyeliner and Aqua Net.
“Humor for us is incredibly important,”
Gannon says. “To be blunt, I don’t think it’s
reasonable to take yourself ultra seriously
as a goth band. I mean, we look like glam
horror movie monsters. I think it’s one of
my favorite parts of playing with people’s
predisposed conceptions of the goth sub
culture. People often expect you to be this
hilariously morose caricature of Bela Lugosi
or Dorian Gray or something. My experi
ence with goth has been full of people who
are vibrant and full of life, and it’s import
ant for people to see that.”
After forming the group in 2017 with
drummer Jason Fusco, singer and keyboard
player Emily Fredock and bass player Dan
Geller joined soon after. Geller is a co-owner
and Chief Technical Officer of Athens’
Kindercore Vinyl pressing plant and has a
long history playing in Athens indie, pop
and rock-and-roll bands, including Kinkaid,
the Agenda and I Am the World Trade
Center. He’s also a member of the Booty
Boyz DJ team.
Gannon’s nearly operatic voice rings out
as though he’s having the time of his life—a
cathartic reaction to confronting so much
hardship. Fredock’s soaring lead vocal in
“Comfort In the Grave” is an equally pow
erful counterpoint that emphasizes the
breadth and depth of the group’s musical
range.
Inked In Red was recorded and pro
duced by British-born Athens transplant
Tom Ashton at Sub Von Studio. Ashton is
perhaps best known as the guitar player
for Leeds’ early ‘80s post-punk outfit the
March Violets. He also did a stint perform
ing with the early ‘90s iteration of Clan Of
Xymox—simply dubbed Xymox at the time.
The two met one night at the Georgia
Theatre, where Gannon spun records under
the name D J WarDaddy for the “Make
America Goth Again” dance parties.
Ashton was in attendance on a night
when Gannon spun the March Violets’ 1984
club hit “Snake Dance” during his DJ set.
They were introduced by a mutual friend
and hit it off immediately.
Ashton has lived in Athens since 2001
and has operated a home studio since 2014,
working on March Violets material and film
scores, including one for an upcoming roto-
scoped dark medieval action movie called
Dwarfhammer.
“I built a room in our basement purely
as a production suite, but when we later
finished out the rest of the area I realized
there was now room to fit in a whole band
with a full kit,” Ashton says. “After a month
or so I thought I’d mention the space to
anyone who might be interested in coming
in and joining the experiment.”
The basement production suite was
christened SubVon Studio in 2018. In
recent years, a small but undeniable scene
of bands has developed around Ashton’s
production skills. He has worked with a
variety of bands, fleshing out the confron
tational death-punk of Tears For the Dying,
the cinematic gothic rock of Entertainment,
and the acerbic psyche-punk of Hip To
Death. Aesthetically speaking, each of these
bands approaches their music quite
differently, but are all bound by a
stylish and somewhat intangible sonic
thread that Ashton has honed.
“This scene kinda reminds me of
the special time back in Leeds/W
Yorks in ’81-’82,” Ashton says.
“Bands like Red Lorry Yellow Lorry,
the Sisters Of Mercy, Dance Society,
Southern Death Cult, Skeletal Family
and the March Violets all combined
and developed our own take on punk,
post-punk and goth but most impor
tantly, had our own way of doing
it. I’m lucky to be in the right place
at the right time not only once but
twice.”
After hearing an early version of
“Organized Murder,” Ashton started
working with Vision Video to record
tracks for the album.
“It was quite an intense experi
ence, as it should be,” Ashton says.
“We started the session with a literal
thunderstorming monsoon surround
ing the house. Dusty and Dan both
got zapped by lightning in the room,
and we all took it from there. But
seriously, I have to say that this band
is committed to its art and aesthetics
in a way that you don’t come across
often, and again, it reminded me of
the take-no-prisoners approach we all
had in Leeds in ’81.1 love that kind of
thing and respect it deeply,” he adds.
“These are the types of things that
make a great album.”
Inked In Red is out Apr. 16, pressed
on metallic red, black-and-white splat
ter and clear vinyl.
From the grave sprouts a new
beginning. Vision Video’s debut keeps
one foot forever lurching forward,
and the other planted firmly in the
macabre nostalgia of zombie flicks
and gothic pop, a sound full of ferocious
darkness and power.
“Goth is a good term for it, but at the
end of the day, it’s going to be what it’s
going to be. I suspect that the second record
is going to be a lot different,” Gannon
says. “I’m not interested in writing the
same music over and over again... I always
think back to Tony Todd’s line in Night of
the Living Dead. He’s so good at delivering
that sense of horror, which is really the
unknown. The whole idea for me is to chal
lenge myself and to pull out these complex
emotions. Moving forward, I don’t think
that it would be fair to those ideas if we just
did the same thing again and again.” ©
12 FLAGPOLE.COM | APRIL 14, 2021