Anal Cunt

Lore & Background

Anal Cunt was founded on March 1, 1988, by Seth Putnam, who had previously been in bands such as Executioner and Satan's Warriors. The name was chosen as an attempt to get the most offensive name possible. The band originally intended to record only one demo and do one show, but remained active until 2011 despite several brief break-ups. Early material contained no pre-written lyrics or music, relying on improvised, loud, fast, unintelligible screaming. The band gradually incorporated more riffs and pre-written lyrics, earning a reputation for being intentionally outrageous and obscene.

The band's first public show was a live radio broadcast at Brandeis University, scheduled to be their first and last show. After a few more shows, they embarked on their first tour, generally documented as occurring later than August 1988. The band briefly split up in 1990 and reformed the following year. Later line-up changes included guitarists Fred Ordonez, John Kozik, and Scott Hull. The band never had a bassist.

Reader's Guide

Anal Cunt's significance lies in their extreme approach to grindcore, combining intentionally offensive lyrics and album art with a noisy, flippant musical style. The band often referred to themselves by the initials A.C. (written as AxCx) due to censorship, but subverted even this by drawing the letters to resemble an anus and a vulva on most album covers. Their early work was essentially anti-music, without rhythm, beats, riffs, or lyrics, exemplified by the 5643 Song EP. Over time, they evolved toward more structured songs, as heard on albums like Everyone Should Be Killed and Top 40 Hits. Their final two albums, released in 2010 and 2011, were a cock rock album titled Fuckin' A and an album similar to their older material called Wearing Out Our Welcome. The band's legacy is tied to their uncompromising, confrontational style and their influence on extreme music, though their career ended with Putnam's death in 2011.

Did You Know?

• The band never had a bassist throughout its entire existence.
• The name 'Anal Cunt' was chosen by Seth Putnam as an attempt to get the most offensive name possible, and was not inspired by GG Allin's song of the same name.
• The band's first public show was a live radio broadcast at Brandeis University, not a rehearsal at Putnam's mother's house.
• Their early material contained no pre-written lyrics or music, relying on improvised, loud, fast, unintelligible screaming.
• The band's final studio album, *Fuckin' A*, was released in 2004, and their last release was the compilation *Wearing Out Our Welcome* in 2010.

Formation & the 'Anti-Music' Philosophy

Seth Putnam founded Anal Cunt on March 1, 1988, in Newton, Massachusetts, a city just outside Boston. The name was chosen deliberately as the most offensive, absurd title he could conjure, and a persistent myth links it to GG Allin's song of the same name—but Allin actually wrote that track years after the band already existed. Putnam, who had previously played in groups like Executioner and Satan's Warriors, conceived the project as a one-off joke: record a single demo, play one show, and be done. The early material was explicitly 'anti-music'—no rhythm, no beats, no riffs, no lyrics, no song titles. Their first 'performance' was a rehearsal in Putnam's mother's house, with an audience of his grandmother, two younger brothers, and a few of his mother's friends. The first public show was a radio broadcast at Brandeis University, which was supposed to be the band's final appearance. Yet the project refused to die, and what was meant to be a single night of noise stretched into more than two decades of activity.

The AxCx Brand & Subverting Censorship

Because of the band's name, they were routinely referred to by the initials A.C., often stylized as AxCx, to sidestep censorship on radio and in print. Many album covers simply displayed those two letters. But Anal Cunt turned even this compromise into a statement: the A and C were drawn in a way that visually evoked an anus and a vulva, a detail that appeared across most of their releases. The band cultivated a reputation for intentional obscenity and outrageousness, and their early recordings relied on improvised, loud, fast, unintelligible screaming rather than pre-written material. Over time they incorporated more riffs and structured lyrics, yet the spirit of deliberate provocation never left. They also navigated a web of misconceptions and tributes—recording a version of GG Allin's 'I'll Slice Your Fucking Throat (If You Fuck with Me)' later in their career, and covering George H. Brown's 'Foreplay with a Tree Shredder' for their album Top 40 Hits. The AxCx identity became inseparable from the music itself: a brand built on shock, humor, and a refusal to take anything, including their own name, seriously.

Chaos on Tour & the Evolution of Sound

Anal Cunt's live shows were as chaotic as their recordings. On a European tour in the early 1990s, drummer Tim Morse pulled out at the last minute, and the band scrambled to find a replacement while already on the road. Two auditioned drummers proved too slow, so the band had both of them play the same kit simultaneously for the opening shows before settling on the faster one. Most performances devolved into Putnam and guitarist Fred Ordonez—himself a former boxer—plunging into the crowd, punching people, and smashing equipment, partly from drunkenness but also to mask the fact that the drummer barely knew the songs. Putnam even filled in as drummer for Fear of God on one occasion. Musically, the band's trajectory shifted from pure improvised noise toward more structured compositions. Their final two albums, released in 2010 and 2011, bookended this range: Fuckin' A leaned into a 'cock rock' aesthetic, while Wearing Out Our Welcome circled back to the raw, older material. Eight full-length studio albums, numerous EPs, and compilations documented this arc from the 5643 Song EP's deliberate formlessness to something approaching recognizable songcraft.

Longevity, Breakups, and a Sudden End

What began as a joke meant to last a single night endured for over twenty years, though not without interruption. The band split up after their first European tour in 1990, and Putnam drifted through other projects—including the reformed blues-rock act George H. Brown, From Sloth to Anger, and Post Mortem—before reuniting with Tim Morse on March 1, 1991, exactly three years after the original formation. They reformed with a slightly more musical approach, adding guitarist Fred Ordonez and releasing the Unplugged EP, billed as the world's first acoustic noisecore record. Despite several brief breakups, the group remained active until 2011, when founder and frontman Seth Putnam died of a suspected heart attack. His passing ended the band permanently. Across their career, Anal Cunt released eight full-length studio albums alongside a steady stream of EPs and compilations, never once employing a bassist. From a four-track demo recorded in Putnam's mother's attic to a final pair of albums that spanned 'cock rock' and classic grindcore, the band's story is one of stubborn, absurd persistence that outlasted its own original purpose.