Here's the thing about Gira. The man had some serious pipes.

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Here's the thing about Gira. The man had some serious pipes. He had a 2 octave range and he excelled in any octave. He wrote brilliant songs. And his stage presence was only matched by Adolf Hitler. Seriously, listen to them play Money Is Flesh on Public Castration Is A Good Idea and then watch a video of the Nuremburg rallies. We had better thank our lucky stars Mikey G didn't go into politics or he would have taken over the world.

But Swans as a whole had a brilliant dynamic. It wasn't just the Michael Gira backup band. They all made huge creative contributions to what made Swans what it is. Yes, Gira wrote The Sound, Oxygen, and Blood Promise, but Jarboe wrote Yum-Yab Killers, My Buried Child, and Mother/Father, Norman Westberg wrote Big Strong Boss, Cop, and Avatar, and some old emo dude wrote Love Will Tear Us Apart (The Swans cover).

Other bands like Nirvana for instance were not like that. Nirvana was basically just the Kurt Cobain backup band. Swans was this perfect storm of legendary talent, and Gira was the face of it all, the delicious cherry on top of an already delicious sundae. He was the ambassador that allowed the amazing talent of combo that was Swans to be brought into our lives. He was the prism that focused the lazer beams from the brains of Jarboe, Norm, and whats-his-name, and amplified them until they were powerful enough to blow our minds out through our ear holes.

Yes, he was the most incredible front man who ever lived, hands down.