The Hawaiian Shirt Mafia

about

On Saturday October 23rd 1999 at the AS220 in Providence, RI, a gang of inebriated industrial musicians from various bands around New England played their first show together as The Hawaiian Shirt Mafia or HSM, and were subsequently banned. HSM played 4 shows during their short existence between 1999 and 2000 and where banned from all 4 venues due to a barrage of destruction and health safety and fire code violations. Only one song, Pre-ejaculation Makes Girls Feel Pretty, was ever released (on Digital Hardcore's Don't F**k With US compilation) which was recorded at a party in 3 hours and featured Deftly-D (Nau-Zee-auN, Zero Times Infinity, Orgy Of Noise, Terrorfakt), Jason Macierowski (Suicide While Driving, Grenadier), Stacia Tucker (Infrastructure, mindFIELD, Provocateur), Roland Adams (Battery Cage, Grenadier, Zero Times Infinity), and Morpheus (now known as deadform). Other HSM members include Machinerygod, Cosinzero (Gasr), Gary Suarez (Gasr), Luis Brito (Gasr), Brad Rhodes, Phat Mike, Tyler Newman (Battery Cage, AEC, Informatik), Chris Castiglione (Ukuphambana, Zero Times Infinity), and Rach31 (Tonikom, Tonik). The Massachusetts release party for this compilation was the last performance and subsequent banning of Hawaiian Shirt Mafia. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

why this is interesting

# The Hawaiian Shirt Mafia This project merits curiosity as a fascinating artifact of late-'90s industrial music's anarchic margins—a deliberately chaotic collaboration that prioritized spontaneous creative destruction over commercial polish. Existing primarily as ephemeral live performances rather than recorded work, it captures a particular moment when regional noise musicians valued transgression and community disruption as valid artistic statements. The single surviving track, recorded casually at a party, carries an authenticity that challenges conventional notions of how music "should" be produced. Understanding HSM requires examining not just sonic experimentation but also the cultural attitudes that once tolerated—even celebrated—art that willfully violated institutional boundaries, making it historically significant for those

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