Dying Scene (DS) first caught up with legendary post-punk and industrial drummer Martin Atkins (Public Image Ltd (PiL), Ministry, Killing Joke, Nine Inch Nails, Pigface, Brian Brain) at the 47th anniversary celebration of The Alley, an historic staple of Chicago’s underground scene. Between July and September 2023, DS visited Atkins at his aptly named Museum of Post Punk & Industrial Music (PPIM) in Chicago. Atkins led tours, told stories, hosted a whiskey and pancake brunch, and sat for an interview over coffee.
Atkins was around for the beginning of punk rock, drove the beat in the development of the post-punk sound in PiL and helped countless punk, post-punk, and industrial bands hit the road and choose their own adventures with his own Invisible Records and his book, Tour:Smart, a road map to touring. Atkins settled in Chicago because he considered this the home of industrial music. In 2021, Atkins formed PPIM to preserve the history of these genres born from punk and steeped in its do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos.
An active participant in Chicago’s underground music scene, Atkins showed his appreciation for The Alley and their shared community. Check out the photo gallery below.
During DS’ first visit to the museum, Atkins led an informative guided tour and shared stories about many items in his vast collection of memorabilia stacked from the floor to the ceiling.
During the second visit, DS was accompanied by a guest who was in from out of town to attend Riot Fest. Atkins sat down with us and talked more about a few items of interest to DS’ punk rock audience. Check out the photo gallery below.
During the third visit, DS had another guest in town for the Cold Waves Festival. Atkins invited fans to hang out for whiskey and pancakes. This treat was served up by the talented Melissa Oquendo from DomiBakeTrix. It was an amazing visit in which Atkins shared details about when he stalked and auditioned for PiL and his time with the band. Check out the photo gallery below.
A Conversation With Martin Atkins
(The language in this interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Dying Scene: Why did you create the Museum of Post Punk & Industrial Music?
Martin Atkins: So, I..um…I’d spent part of lockdown in the basement doing Zoom sessions. Like a Killing Joke Zoom, a PiL Zoom, a Ministry Zoom, a Pigface Zoom. And pulling different pieces out of boxes to have behind me as a background. And I didn’t want to put any of the pieces back in their boxes, so I kept moving around in the basement creating these areas for Zoom sessions and it occurred to me after a while that I liked being around all this stuff. I like to have it be visible and not in boxes and I wondered what it would be like to set these things up, up here on the ground floor. And kind of, I don’t want to say, on a whim because I’d been thinking of this stuff for a while obviously way. Um, I announced I was starting the museum in a kind of a Nipsey Hussle way, where he had the hundred-dollar mixtape, I had the hundred and twenty-five-dollar founder’s t-shirt. And, I thought that I would see if anybody was interested and lots of people were interested. So, once you announce something, it was I think three months before we then started to set things up, up here on the ground floor and now we’re two and a half years in. Um, I’ve just been completely blown away by people’s enthusiasm, people’s tears, people’s generosity…um..and just the response from people just being in here.
DS: How is it going?
MA: Well, it’s…I mean…it’s so fueling to me. I’m an empathetic person…um…and so…just to sit here. I was sitting here yesterday listening to the Dandy Warhols really loud…just sitting in this space because I’m ADD…just to have stuff revolving and flashing, it just calms me down. Um…but…um…just to see people’s responses…people donating items that are significant and different…like um…Genesis P-Orridge’s (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) lederhosen from a video we did. These…these…the exhibits keep growing. Um, so, uh, it’s great. It’s turned a lot of ideas on their head. So, yesterday, we had 10 people, which is crowded in the studio, it’s not crowded up here. But, um, yesterday was like a fifteen hundred dollar day for us. So, whereas in the past, 10, 20, 30 years ago and still some people today you think how many people, how many people are we getting through the door. It’s not about the quantity, it’s about the quality, the experience, and we’re seeing how sustainable something like this is on what might seem to somebody like a ridiculously small scale. Like if I said, if I said to you, It’s going great. We had 10 people here yesterday! You’re like, oh, that’s 70 people a week. Lookout! Lookout MoMA! Lookout, lookout! But, it’s sustainable at that level, which is pretty wild.
DS: What has been the response been like from your punk rock supporters?
MA: Um…it’s been interesting. So, there’s a bunch of people on our advisory board and that’s been great to have their input and just them saying, “Yeah. we’ll help however we can.” What’s been surprising has been people I don’t know, like the Dandy Warhols, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nick Mason from Pink Floyd, um…like..fuckin…those people being interested. And um, so…so far, it’s been ridiculously supportive. But like anything, I’ve been doing this for long enough to know I’m sure they’ll be a “Who the fuck does Martin think he is to start this museum,” right? But it’s not the museum of me, it’s the museum of post-punk and industrial. I just happen to have, through all the bands I’ve been in, through all the bands who are on my label Invisible, which is Swans, Psychic TV, Einstürzende Neubauten, etcetera…um..Pig, Sow, Test Dept. I just happen to have this crazy collection of shit. So…so…so far, like I said, it’s been amazing. Um, I would be a fool If I didn’t expect some kind of backlash from some people who…who…uh…you know…I think people have different ideas about what punk is, what post-punk is, what industrial is. And, we’re trying to operate with a museum mindset, so we’re archiving, we’re preserving, we’re trying to enable cross-referencing and other lessons and connections be learned. But, we’re also trying to operate in a post-punk industrial way, so we have a whiskey pancake brunch, pop-up haircuts, which have hair all over the floor. Like things that are the opposite of what, perhaps, a dust-free museum environment should be.
DS: Your life and your museum’s collection has a number pieces related to important punk rock icons. Let’s talk about some of those items. Like John Lydon (Sex Pistols, P.I.L.). Tell me about the time he wore your hospital gown on stage.
MA: Well, he wore that for a whole tour. Um…New York at Roseland, which was a huge show. Uh…Harvey Keitel…uh…Harvey Keitel was there. John made him pay. Just being at Roseland, which is now demolished, um…uh…and he wore it throughout the tour in 82-83. Um…it’s great to see. So, we’re combining some video footage with these pieces to create context. And, um, it’s in better condition, of course, 30 years ago, 83…93…forty years ago. It was in better condition, of course, then. It’s a little bit faded now. But, um, yeah, there’s a bunch of those type things. We also have John screaming at me on my answering machine. You know, there’s all of these different…trying to create a breadth of experience, it’s not just things on a wall you can look at, you know.
DS: The next person is Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, Pailhead, Dischord Records). Tell me about the letter you received from him.
MA: Well, so, Ian…This is one of the great things about the museum for me is I don’t think I’d met Ian. I don’t think we had talked before but he spent an hour on the phone with me…um…helping to sort through the problems of some…um…some cassette tapes from the early 80s, specifically the two shows we did in Paris with PiL. Um…I was delighted to find this cassette and then you listen to it and it’s, “wub, wub, wub, wub,” unlistenable shit. And so he sent a really supportive letter and a cassette shell to transfer the tape in to with the metal spring with the felt pad that holds the tape against the head. He’s a cassette tape expert. So, it’s just another way in which the museum is this kind of…it’s like a dating service for me…of like introducing me…it’s like Bumble for industrial post-punk. It’s like introducing me to people that were aware of each other…uh…but we haven’t met. So, it’s nice to have that.
DS: So, Henry Rollins (Black Flag, Rollins Band, 2.13.61) Tell me about the ripped-up postcard from him.
MA: Um…I booked Henry to do spoken word in 88 for 60 dollars, which I don’t believe is his fee any longer…uh…in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And so, we stayed in touch and…uh…the postcard is…I’d asked him to be involved in the whichever Pigface album…uh…92, 93 and that’s him saying he regrets he will not be able to be involved. I don’t think he thought for a second I would frame his postcard but I did.
DS: So, I notice that it is torn in half. What happened to the other half?
MA: I don’t know. It wasn’t like a rip. Maybe it’s like I didn’t want my address on it, which is crazy because I haven’t lived in New Jersey for..uh…30 years. But it’s strange that I would do that but…
DS: The next person is Steve Albini (Big Black, Shellac, Electrical Audio). Tell me about the tape machines you got from him.
MA: Well…um…you know Steve was a fixture of alternative, dangerous music in the early 90’s with Big Black and his studio in his house on Francisco. And…um…Geordie Walker and I recorded Killing Joke demos at his studio. Geordie played bass and guitar. I used a drum machine and played drums. And then Steve produced the first Pigface album Gub. He produced my project Murder Inc., which is half of Killing Joke, Ministry, and whatever… Um, and so, somewhere in the 90s, I bought Steve’s 8-track tape machine, and his ¼ inch machine, and his recording console. I bought those from him…um…on condition he would come and help set everything up. So, and I still talk to Steve every once and a while because he has Electrical Audio now.
DS: Let’s talk about Gabe Serbian (The Locust). Tell me about his uniform, his passing, and his contributions to music and your museum.
MA: So, this is, it’s another place where it gets interesting. Two years ago I would never have thought there would be either a drawing of a quarter of the face of the singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders who took Cynthia Plaster Caster’s virginity and she would sketch pieces of his face for the rest of her life. Neither would I have thought that Gabe Serbian, drummer from the Locust, his suit would be here in the museum. But I know Justin Pearson from the Locust and Three One G Records and when Gabe passed, he asked and Gabe’s partner, Katie, asked if his suit, his Locust suit, could be here in the museum. And, um…of course, I agreed. It’s this…there are strange overtones here of almost a memorial garden, in some respects. Um, and of course, I asked Justin, “I’m like of course the suit can be here, do you mind, can I ask why?” And, he’s like yes, of course, we were inspired by all of this shit and so it just made sense for it to reside here. Yeah. And, if you’d seen him play drums…you know I’m a drummer…um, and uh, he would play until he puked. Not in a punk way like uh Rat Scabies from the Damned might do…buugh…you know but just physically almost like an athlete. He would push his body to the very limits of that…yeah.
DS: What message do you have for aspiring music historians, archivists, and museum directors?
MA: Well that’s a lot. Well, ok. So, so just let me add one to that, which is just musicians in general. I think it’s valuable for new musicians, old musicians whatever to come and look at some of this stuff and think about…it’s so easy to put a song up on Spotify now. There are no barriers to entry but there’s 110…120 thousand songs a day going up. So there are no barriers to entry but there barriers to exit…there’s barriers to…for…um…there are, there are physical, insurmountable limitations for people to actually hear your music because there’s another 119 thousand and 99 songs today! And that feels, to me, more significant of a barrier than however we made albums in the 80’s. You know, um, so I would say to musicians, “Come and have a look and think about your next album.” Like, of course, not every album can be packaged the way Metal Box is packaged but I think that’s a great example of pretty fucking ground-breaking music then, slightly now as well. But when you put that music on three 12-inch singles in a metal container with the band logo embossed on the lid it’s kind of one plus one equals 11. It, it’s, it explodes the importance of what it is. So, um, how is your album packaged? You look at the Durutti Column…the sandpaper sleeve. Bizarr Sex Trio, where every single of 750 albums has a completely different sleeve, which is crazy. It’s just time and a bag of speed probably. But, um, so how does your album measure up? I’ve, I’ve hit that point a couple times I think with, um, with the release from the Damage Manual album called Limited Edition. It has this raised plastic sheet sleeve that I’m like holy fuck that’s once in forty years since the Metal Box. But I’m always, that’s my yardstick, is to try like how do I get to this point. So, so I would say that to musicans, like come and have a look around and, and think about a museum of your band. Or at least a room where…are you making things with other creative people that warrant being hung on a wall? Or are you making short-term, strategic efficiency decisions that got nothing to do with creativity really? Are you making those decisions about a poster for your next gig? Are you saying, we’ve sold a hundred tickets, and the place only holds 120 people. We do need to do a poster because the show will do well. I would say you need to do a three-colored glow-in-the-dark, scratch and sniff, hand embroidered, um stained glass poster for five years from now, for 10 years from now, for 30 years from now. And, if you can have that kind of longevity mindset I think it will help you make more of an impact in the moment and more of an impact 10 years from now. Ok, who are the other people? Museum creators? Whew…I don’t know. I bought myself Museums 101 and I’m like I got halfway through it and I felt like I wanted to disrupt the mechanics of museums. But then I find myself slowly getting pulled into a cross-relational database, which two years ago I thought…ugggh…fuck that. But I built this room and I’m happy to sit in this room with other people, scanning things, talking about how this relates to something else, whatever, connecting the dots. So, um, I’m trying to do some dangerous things, one of which was to have Deaf Club stay here. I’m not criticizing Deaf Club. I’m not saying Deaf Club are dangerous. It’s Justin from the Locust. But I let them stay here overnight because I think that, so it’s about impact and experience. So, for a band on the road, you’re lucky to get a hotel room. Everybody’s lucky to get their own bed. And, so, to say, “Hey, you wanna hang out here?” I hope it was an absolute vacation for them to just fucking sit here amongst this shit and not have to pay for a hotel. Right? So, but, but if you think about it…what a crazy fucking thing to do. Have a band stay overnight in your museum? Right? I mean, you know, part of me I love Justin and I trusted him and, of course, they sent me Gabe’s suit. But you gotta say, there’s gotta be a voice in the back of your head waiting for somebody to call me to go, “Have you seen fucking Facebook Live? There’s a hundred, there’s a hundred people in the museum spray painting everything saying punk…fuck punk. It’s on…everything’s on the street and someone started a fire. You know, but, and I think, so I try and lean into those feelings. Uh, and then the next day, uh, Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs messaged me, like “hey we’re coming to town. Can we visit this museum?” And that was directly through, through Justin, you know, so um, so I’m slowly learning to lean into this frightening stuff, to not put everything behind plexiglass. And, uh, you know, I have the Durruti Column album over there in the gift shop and I’m always handing it around for people to, like, it’s weird, it’s obviously sandpaper. But, like, people are…people have to…I think some people think it’s a picture of sandpaper until I make them feel it, which at some point, you know, 10 years from now might be worn out with handprints. But, it’s like, well what else is the purpose of that if you can’t touch it and go, “fucking hell”? So, so it’s, it’s this weird thing like I don’t want the exhibit to wear out. But I want people to touch it.
DS: What is a big lesson you’ve learned from owning and operating a museum?
MA: Uh…the biggest lesson is I don’t know shit. Uh, I mean, uh…I think in the first year I would almost grab people by the hand and wheel them around and show them this…these are the drums from “In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up” and “Head Like A Hole!” Here’s this and here’s that and uh once you leave people alone the craziest shit has so much meaning for people and you can’t predict what it is. I had one guy and I remember thinking…I wanted to say, “Well sorry this wasn’t up to your fuckin’ you know fuck you know, sorry none of this was quite up to scratch.” And as he’s walking in the reception area there was a flight case with a banged up bumper sticker from a radio station in Toronto. And the case, the case was just on its way into the garage or whatever…there’s all kinds of stuff here. And he’s like, “Oh…my God.” And I wanted to say, “Oh my God, the bumper sticker…like, you’re kidding me, you know…are you fucking kidding me?” But it’s like, it’s like whatever presses your button and takes you back to that place. That’s what it is. So you learn to sometimes be quiet. And you learn that you don’t know shit. And I think, I’m like I wouldn’t have minded learning that 20 years ago but I’ll take it. I’ll take it now.
DS: What are your next music projects? Performing, recording, producing, whichever?
MA: Well, so, speaking personally for a minute. What a, what a luxury for me to go and sit in the studio and listen to a gig from 1980 or collage together 17 rolls of two-inch tape of PiL work-in-progress demos or demos and and get a better understanding of what I did and do as a producer with vocals, with lyrics, with arrangements, with strings, with horns, with all the rest of it. So, as part, it’s strange, I thought two and a half years ago, I honestly thought, ok then, this is what I’m doing now…occasional tour guide, “Johnny Rotten this…Trent Reznor ba ba ba…Al Jourgensen…I’ll never forget the day when ba ba ba…” And I honestly, I just thought this will be the end of the creative me and I’ll just be tour guide me. I mean I honestly felt that probably sitting here. And um, but then I wanted to get the Durutti Column sandpaper sleeve album and we have this relationship with Dark Matter Coffee and they wanted to do a special museum blend and I’m like, “Ok.” I want to screen print sandpaper and put the nice bag you made in a screen printed sandpaper bag and I just remember thinking, I just did something I don’t think anybody’s done. There’s reasons you shouldn’t screen print on sandpaper. It destroys the screen from underneath. It’s a nightmare but it’s fucking cool as hell. And I’m like, oh, ok, this is just a different phase of everything. And in amongst all of that, to make a long story short, there’s probably at least a decade where I didn’t go into my studio. And now I’ve been going into it archiving cassettes digitally, do this doing that, taking people in there. And then you go down there with the Dandy Warhols or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and you’ve just been in this room and you kind of connect the dots and go, if I was going to record something, I would want to record in this room, with all of this, literally with all the vibrations of this stuff, the smells, the unlocked vibe that’s in this room. I want to record in this room. I want to record to Steve Albini’s tape machine and I want to do it in this building. So, now we’re looking at throwing some tie lines downstairs to start…it’s almost been a two-year reminder to me of what, what I am when I’m at my most creative. Whether I’m working with another band on songs or producing, whatever… I think I got very nicely side-tracked by education, writing books, and public speaking for 20 years. And I loved it. I love doing that still. But that, the books and the public speaking was why I didn’t go in the studio anymore. And now I’m doing all of that stuff. Sorry, that was a really long answer.
DS: When should we expect your memoirs? And, what era of your life and career would you write about first?
MA: Uh…well…so, I’ve been asked to write, and I understand this from a marketing perspective, I’ve been asked to write the whole fucking thing, which I’m not saying, I’m not attaching any sense of importance to all of the things I’ve done because I’m just old. Right place right time. Um…stuff…uh but that feels like too much for me. I understand why somebody would want a book that’s PiL., Killing Joke, Ministry, Pigface, Nine Inch Nails, the Damage Manual, Murder, Inc., Gravity Kills, ba ba ba ba ba ba… You know that’s an easy book to sell…featuring chapters on ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. But that’s a lot. I’ve also started thinking in a complete opposite direction of not even doing as I’d planned to do at one point about my five years in PiL. I was thinking about doing my first eight months in PiL, because that’s Metal Box, Paris au Printemps, um…The Old Grey Whistle Test, American tour, American Bandstand, Jah Wobble’s solo album, my first Brian Brain single, which was in the Alternative charts. So much happened in a really short period of time from October to May, the end of May. So, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May…eight months. Like, that’s whirlwind shit and uh that interests me a little bit as well. So, I’m in a, I’m in a not a great point at the moment. I’m understanding 10…10 chapters of a large book I could write…I might want to take in in little stabs and then if it’s an easy enough thing to join all that together for something in the end.
DS: What are the top five punk, post-punk, and industrial bands you’re listening to this week?
MA: Well, I’m listening, I was listening to this Japanese band called Otoboke Beaver. Have you heard of them? Oh my God! Crazy! Also, Sleaford Mods, still. Uh…I’m going a Dandy Warhols phase…just because I just like them. Uh…I’m been listening to that quite a bit. Um…what are we looking for? Industrial? Um, I’m still very attached a Psychic TV album called Dreams Less Sweet, which I think was just questioning a lot of things. Um…yeah. Was that five? Well, um, the other thing that I’m listening to, strangely, is nothing to do with any of this. I’ve been listening to Steely Dan because my thirteen-year-old, now fifteen-year-old discovered them on his own and we’ve been listening together because he loves them. And so I’ve been strangely going all the way back to that, which I listened to as a 12-year-old before I got into punk…um…so I’ve been listening to some of that. What else am I listening to? Um…I’ve been listening to a lot of Skinny Puppy as well recently um but that’s almost like disassembling things that I have, looking at stuff. So, that’s almost part of my day job if you like.
DS: Do you have any last words for fun?
MA: Come visit. Come visit.
DS had an amazing visit with Martin at his museum. Don’t take our words for it, go check it out and experience it for yourself!
