SUNDAY

I don’t know whether my parents were enlightened or just oblivious, but somehow they managed to remain unfazed by most of the music I played as a teenager, no matter how shockingly unwholesome it was. The Dicks? No response. Maggot Fodder? Not a word. Venom? Nothing—even when I pushed my turntable the wrong way around so I could hear those backward-masked satanic messages. Only one band got my father into my room with his concerned-parent-who’s-also-a-psychologist look on his face: Berlin-based industrial-noise institution Einsturzende Neubauten. “Is this what your friend with blue hair likes?” he asked. “Or that girl with the white face?” He still bites his lip and shakes his head whenever I remind him of the incident. Poor Dad; he didn’t know that Neubauten was easily the most compelling stuff I was listening to then, and is probably the only loud ‘n’ obnoxious music from that sulky period of my life that I even vaguely care about now. Unlike me, the group hasn’t gotten wussier with age. On its new double album, Silence Is Sexy, the band spends 80-something minutes trying to refute that title in classic Neubauten fashion, which means, mostly, abusing the hell out of a wide range of Industrial Age detritus. Even if the disc isn’t really sexy, it’s surprisingly seductive—no one else can make jet turbines, pneumatic pistons, and T-beams sound quite so alluring. My father, I’m happy to say, would hate it. Neubauten performs at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 30, at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $25. (202) 393-0930. (Leonard Roberge)