Members of freejazzcore performance art duo Penis Hickey describe themselves as an “improvisatory endurance piece about masculinity and violence,” in which the band plays their instruments as hard as possible until they collapse from exhaustion.
A collaboration of two UCSD grad students, Penis Hickey features drummer Leah Bowden and bassist Clint McCallum (of gender-bending tuba/vox dragcore noise duo Aquapuke), imploring passages of minimalist ambience that occasionally dwindle into silence framed by cathartic free-jazz convulsions, metallic noodlings, screeching, sanatorium falsetto wails, slam rants, OCD inner monologues, and impromptu theatrical lyricism revolving around the eponymous refrain: “I am my typical self/ excited, scared, yeah...”
“The piece is violent not only because of the aggressive sound,” their Facebook bio continues, “but also the ways that the band sets up. One never knows when and from where Penis Hickey might stage an ambush.”
“As middle-class white people deprived of a more violent social milieu, we feel it is important to get in touch with our more primitive, uncivilized roots and act out against the musical establishment,” the bio concludes.
Their debut full-length My Typical Self was released in 2012.