REVIEW: LAST CRACK – Sinister Funkhouse #17

 

LAST CRACK – Sinister Funkhouse #17 (1989)

Roadracer Records / Roadrunner Records

A €2 Discovery of a Cult-Level Oddity

There is a particular thrill in crate digging that no amount of online searching can quite reproduce: the dusty bargain bin, the forgotten corner of a record shop, and that unexpected moment when a couple of euros suddenly open the door to an obscure chapter of metal history.

That was exactly my experience with Sinister Funkhouse #17. I stumbled upon an original 1989 pressing for just €2—a ridiculously good price for a record that represents one of the strangest, most individualistic and genuinely unpredictable debuts to emerge from the American underground during the late ’80s.

Formed in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1987, Last Crack were hardly a conventional proposition from the beginning. Their early reputation was built not only around their music but also around volatile, emotionally charged live performances, which eventually brought them to the attention of Roadrunner A&R man Monte Conner. The label signed them and sent the band to Minneapolis to record their debut at Prince’s legendary Paisley Park Studios.

Released in the United States on June 19, 1989, through Roadracer Records, Sinister Funkhouse #17 is a fascinating snapshot of a band that clearly had no intention of fitting comfortably into any established category.

 

And despite what its title might suggest, this is not some misguided attempt at funk-metal. The word “funk” here is considerably more important to the band's mythology than to any straightforward description of their sound.

A Tale of Two Sides

One of the most fascinating aspects of the original vinyl edition is how naturally it divides into two contrasting halves.

Side A – Progressive Chaos and Acid-Drenched Imagination

The first side is where Last Crack's eccentricity really comes alive.

Opening with the brief and unsettling Good Mourning From The Funkhouse, the album quickly launches into Gush Volcano Crush (G.V.C.), before moving through Blood Brothers of the Big Black Bear, Concrete Slaughterdogs, Slicing Steel and Saraboyscage.

The songwriting is restless, unpredictable and frequently disorientating. Riffs appear, mutate and disappear; rhythms change direction without warning; and the band seems perfectly comfortable allowing a song to become strange rather than forcing it back into a conventional structure.

Concrete Slaughterdogs is one of the clearest demonstrations of their ability to combine muscular riffing with an almost manic sense of movement, while Slicing Steel introduces a darker, more atmospheric quality.

There is a psychedelic quality to this material, but it never becomes lightweight. Last Crack were far too heavy for that. Their music sounds as though progressive rock, traditional heavy metal, alternative rock and a particularly unhealthy imagination have been thrown into the same basement and told to work things out among themselves.

The result is messy—but deliberately so.

Side B – More Direct, But Still Unpredictable

Flip the record over and the band suddenly seems a little more disciplined.

The Last Crack, Shelter, Terse and the seven-and-a-half-minute Thee Abyss retain the band's eccentric personality, but the riffs become more immediately recognizable and the structures somewhat more grounded.

The Last Crack has a swaggering, riff-driven quality that makes it one of the album's more immediate moments, while Terse delivers a compact dose of muscular heavy metal. The real centerpiece, however, is Thee Abyss, an extended closer that allows the band to stretch out and explore the darker side of their sound.

Calling Side B “classic heavy metal” would perhaps be too simplistic—the band's personality remains far too strange for that—but there is certainly a stronger traditional metal backbone here.

And that contrast between the two sides is part of what makes the original vinyl such an interesting listen.

The Musicianship Is No Joke

Behind all the bizarre titles, surreal lyrics and Buddo's theatrical persona, there is a seriously accomplished band.

The twin-guitar attack of Paul Schluter and Don Bakken provides much of the album's identity, moving effortlessly between chunky riffs, atmospheric passages and surprisingly sophisticated lead work. Todd Winger gives the material a solid low-end foundation, while drummer Phil “Philo” Buerstatte plays with both precision and aggression.

Buerstatte's subsequent career makes his presence here even more interesting: after his years with Last Crack, he joined White Zombie, touring with the band from 1992 to 1994 and appearing on several recordings, including Feed the Gods, I Am Hell and White Zombie's version of Children of the Grave. He died in 2013, aged 46.

At the front of this peculiar machine stands Buddo Xavier Rank, whose vocal approach is almost impossible to separate from Last Crack's identity. He doesn't simply sing these songs—he performs them.

His delivery can be aggressive, theatrical, sarcastic and downright unhinged, often sounding closer to an actor inhabiting a deranged character than a conventional metal vocalist. It is not polished in the traditional sense, but it is unmistakably his own.

What Exactly Is the “Sinister Funkhouse”?

The title becomes considerably more entertaining once you know where it came from.

The Sinister Funkhouse was reportedly the band's rented practice/storage space outside Madison, where the musicians spent long hours rehearsing in hot and cramped conditions. Buddo would apparently write poetry, phrases and potential lyrics directly onto the walls with a marker.

In other words, the album title was not some calculated record-company attempt to manufacture an eccentric image. The eccentricity was already there.

That detail also explains something about the record's atmosphere. Sinister Funkhouse #17 sounds less like a carefully designed commercial product and more like a document smuggled out of a strange creative bunker.

“Blood Brothers of the Big Black Bear” – A Trip into the Madison Underground

One of the album's most memorable and bizarre tracks is Blood Brothers of the Big Black Bear.

The song is connected to The Black Bear, a basement bar that functioned as a hangout for members of Madison's metal scene during the late ’80s and early ’90s. The track turns that real-world environment into something much more surreal, with Buddo's lyrics constructing an almost hallucinatory barroom mythology.

It is a perfect example of what makes Last Crack so difficult to classify. There is genuine heavy metal muscle underneath it, but the lyrical imagery is bizarre enough to make the whole thing feel like an underground theatre piece performed by people who have spent far too much time in the same basement.

And perhaps that is precisely the point.

Recorded at Prince's Paisley Park

Another detail that adds considerably to the album's historical appeal is its recording location.

Sinister Funkhouse #17 was recorded at Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis, the studio complex owned by Prince. The album was engineered by Jim Rondinelli, produced by Randy Green, and mixed by Genya Ravan, with David Cook and Deanna Hewitt also credited in the mixing process.

The unlikely combination of a Madison underground metal band and Prince's studio is almost as strange as the music itself.

Yet the recording doesn't sound excessively polished or sterilized. It retains a raw, slightly unruly character that suits Last Crack perfectly. The musicianship is strong, but the production never completely removes the feeling that something dangerous and unpredictable is happening inside the room.

And Then There Was That Cover...

Of course, no discussion of Sinister Funkhouse #17 would be complete without mentioning its infamous artwork.

The original cover features Buddo naked, posed in an archer-like stance against a blood-splattered background. It was provocative enough to attract considerable attention when the album appeared, and the imagery became one of the band's most recognizable calling cards.

In retrospect, it is almost impossible to imagine a better visual representation of the album's personality.

Strange? Absolutely.

Subtle? Not remotely.

Forgettable? Certainly not.

A Cult Classic That Never Quite Found Its Audience

Last Crack followed Sinister Funkhouse #17 with Burning Time in 1991, a considerably more focused but still highly distinctive album produced by Dave Jerden. The band appeared to be heading toward something bigger, but internal problems and mismanagement contributed to their eventual collapse.

Their story, however, did not completely end there.

The original members reunited for a performance in Madison in 2002, documented on Burning Funkhouse Live, and later returned for further performances, including a 2009 reunion celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their debut. Last Crack eventually became an active band again and released The Up Rising in 2019.

There was also an unexpected European chapter: Last Crack toured Europe in 2005 and appeared at the Headway Festival in Amstelveen, Netherlands, on the same bill as Fates Warning.

That history only reinforces the strange trajectory of the band. They were never quite mainstream enough to become household names, yet they possessed enough talent and individuality to keep resurfacing among people who had discovered them years earlier.

The Verdict

Sinister Funkhouse #17 is not a flawless masterpiece, nor does it need to be.

Its value lies elsewhere.

This is an album made by musicians who were clearly capable of playing technically demanding metal but were unwilling to let technical ability dictate their artistic boundaries. Progressive passages collide with traditional heavy metal, psychedelic ideas rub shoulders with hard-rock swagger, and Buddo's bizarre theatricality ties the whole thing together.

It is eccentric without being pretentious, heavy without becoming predictable, and experimental without losing its physical impact.

Most importantly, it sounds like Last Crack.

And that is probably the greatest compliment one can give an obscure late-’80s metal album.

Finding an original copy for €2 makes the story even better. For that price, I didn't just buy a record—I bought a small, beautifully strange piece of American underground metal history.

Final Score: 70/100

A fiercely original, unpredictable debut from a band that refused to belong to any particular scene—and became all the more interesting because of it.

Nick Parastatidis