Top 13 (of the Week)

Sure,you know what's cool. But do you know what's really fuckin' FAR OUT? That's where Advanced Demonology comes in. Every week, (K)en and (S)wilson trudge through the murky waters of the pop culture hellscape, dredging up sparkly morsels of wonder. These are the result of our latest foray into the world of the weird, our wildest, wiggest-out picks of the week. Call it our 13 Point Program.

13. Sonic Flower – Black Sunshine
Blistering Japanese stoner-psyche freakjam that will cave in your skull. I like to wake up to this and then punch in a few windows. (K)

12. A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio by Paul Myers
I was in the mood to read a book about music again but I wasn't in the mood to read one about drugs and debauchery in the wake of music. It's getting to be an old story with the same old ending, ether death or recovery, the former being more interesting than the latter. I've always been a big fan of Todd's and I knew he produced a ton of records but I never knew the details.  This is a great book about music. Just music. This is just Todd in the studio, there is almost nothing about Rundgren's personal life, it's just about him making records, for himself and others.  Todd was the king at the controls behind some great records: The Band's  Stage Fright, Sparks' Halfnelson, Bad Finger, Grand Funk, The New York Dolls, The Tubes' Remote Control, XTC's Skylarking,  Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell and million other stunners and mega-sellers. If anything it makes you want to check out a for the first time or re-examine a ton of cool records.  A refreshing look at the recording process and I loved every minute of it.  (S)

11.  Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur
Everything about 70’s (and half of 80’s) porn was fascinating. I mean, the movies themselves are kinda gross/boring, but everything else – the promotional art, the cheap, funky soundtracks, the crackpot producers and druggy stars – all endlessly entertaining. This gigantic book collects some of the cooler/weirder posters from the era in eye-popping full-color, and it’s awesome. Raincoat not included, but recommended. (K)

10. Steve Hillage "L"
Produced by Todd Rundgren (big surprise) this is Hillage's second and maybe most excusable record. Playful, funny, deep and massively psychedelic in a 70's post hippie kind of way that only Gong's guitar play could. Great covers of songs by Donovan and the Beatles. Note the trumpet solo in the clip below by free jazz trumpet player Don Cherry.  Flying teapot Forever! (S)

9. Halina Frackowiak - Wodo, Zimna Wodo
Polish  psychedelic funk is great, because…I mean, who the fuck would expect Polish psychedelic funk? And Halina Frackowiak is the queen of Polish psychedelic funk. Which is a real thing. (K)

8. Hall & Oates - War Babies
Who knew  the smooth operators from Philly could make a record that fits perfectly in the Advanced Demonology pantheon? But They did it. With the Help of guess who? Todd Rundgren. He also helped them get dropped from therecord label for making a scary record. But it's great! By far my favorite thing I've heard by these guys. Weird as hell. It's sorta about how horrifying everything really is. Supposedly it was about New York but ya know….(S)

7. Comedian pisses himself
I’ve watched this a bunch of times, and I  dunno if this is extreme anti-comedy or just a guy having a nervous breakdown, but either way, holy smokes,  this is a long way to go for laff. (K)


6. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard - Eyes Like the Sky
These Aussie superstar garage rippers are already on the third full-length in 2 years. Eyes Like The Sky is a spaghetti western themed sleaze opera. They are teasing us with one song on bandcamp but I got my pre-order in and so should you. (S)

5. Berry – Le Bonheur
There is only one thing better than watching pretty girls twirl around in the desert singing folky  songs, and that’s pretty French girls twirling around in the desert, singing folky songs. (K)

4. The Ovations
It doesn't get much better than this. I'm addicted to soul and this is pure uncut soul, scored at the dope-spot. Because after hearing this version, I think this song is actually about Heroin…..I'm serious. (S)

3. Dead Malls
With the advent of internet shopping and the cratering of  the US economy, shopping malls have become less and less useful. As a result, many of ‘em are shutting down, and  the spaces are too big to do anything with, so “dead malls” are proliferating all across the country. Deadmalls.com is a website where you can check your state for any dead malls; urban explorers often take photographs of the decaying malls and there’s some pretty eerie videos on Youtube, as well. What will we do with these giant cavernous spaces? My vote is we bring back roller disco rinks. (K)

2. Mad River
A bunch of creeps from Ohio form a band in 1967 and head out to San Francisco for free love and revolution but end up taking too much speed which they thought was acid and accidentally play speed metal way before they or anybody else knew what it was. (S)

1. Ted Russell Kamp – Night Owl
Swilson and I have been going nuts over this guy this week. He’s the quintessential 70’s soft-rock/country-soul crooner, singing plaintive late-night ballads about long-lost loves, only he's not doign it in 1976, when it would have landed him at the top of the AM radio charts, he's doing it right now. This guy makes Dr. Hook look like GG Allin, but goddamnit, the songs are so good, and he clearly means every word, how can anybody resist? TRK, man. This motherfucker is the real deal.(K)

Top 13 (of the Week)

Sure,you know what's cool. But do you know what's really fuckin' FAR OUT? That's where Advanced Demonology comes in. Every week, (K)en and (S)wilson trudge through the murky waters of the pop culture hellscape, dredging up sparkly morsels of wonder. These are the result of our latest foray into the world of the weird, our wildest, wiggest-out picks of the week. Call it our 13 Point Program.


13. Marianne Faithfull: Dreaming My Dreams
Although I can't really deal with Marianne's later-career goth cabaret stuff, 60's MF was pearl: the doe-eyes, the mopey gloom-pop, the heroin, the black leather, all of it. This engaging doc from '99 - available streaming at Netflix- has lots of stories and vintage clips from her teenage smack goddess days. It's pretty stellar stuff. Plus, there's a clip at the very beginning where a 17 year old Marianne utters a line I am now adopting as my life philosophy: “No matter what they say about me, no matter what they do to me, my head is cool.” Awesome. (K)

12. Herve Attia’s Youtube channel
Herve goes around the world with a video camera, visiting the locations of famous movies like the Exorcist, A Clockwork Orange, Rambo, Goonies, The Good The Bad And the Ugly.  He than meticulously edits his camcorder footage with the corresponding scenes. The list of films is pretty long and the result extremely entertaining and informative. Great job Herve! (S)

 

11. Scorpion Child
Texan freak warriors channeling proto-metal godz from Zior to Pentagram. Best of all, their vocalist – almost always the weak point in dope-rock bands – is amazing! If I could pull off a denim vest at this point in my life, you better believe I'd be stitching a Scorpion Child backpatch onto it. If those exist. They must. Scorpion Child, please make some backpatches already, your legion is waiting. (K)

10. The Family by Ed Sanders
Ed was the main man behind the primordial punk band the Fugs. He wrote this book about the Manson gang in 1971 just one year after the trial. It’s mostly about the culture that surrounded The Family and Sanders follows every tripped out rumor he hears from every spaced out creep he meets on the street. The result is not all that factual, but man is it fun! It reads like a underground comic with Charlie making snuff films and conjuring up the devil. Monster Magnet could have written a rock opera based on this book. Try to get an early printing because our friends at the Process Church Of Final Judgment sued the publishers for defamation because of a chapter linking them to Manson. They won. (S)

9. Yoga
Who is Yoga? Where are they from? What the fuck do they want? I have no answers. All I know is this: this might be the ultimate couch-of-woe band. Like if you took every downer/bad-trip drug at once and washed it all down with a vodka from a plastic bottle mixed with Nyquil and then you spent all weekend watching Nick Zedd and Richard Kern super 8 movies on an endless loop, this is what the inside of your head would sound like. They have a new record, Skinwalker. You might want it. Then again, you might want to stay as far away from it as possible. Your call. (K)

8. Alex Harvey presents the Loch Ness Monster
Apparently Harvey took a break from his sensational band to make this spoken word album about the Loch Ness Monster. Wow! Alex Harvey is like an onion, man…. layers and layers.   Do you guys believe in the Loch Ness Monster? (S)




7. Computer from 1784
In the 1780's, a German engineer invented what almost has to be the first working computer. It was used to compute the volume of trees. You can't check Facebook on it or anything, but holy smokes, look at that thing! You can read all about it HERE. (K)

6. Boones Farm Commercials
Everybody knows fastest way to headache land and rainbow throw up time. I just wanted to see if they made commercials for it. They did! Don’t join the apple core kids. (S)

 



5. 4D  Space-Time Crystals
I've been reading up on these all week, and I still don't get what they are, but I think the important thing here is that “4D Space-time crystals exist, and we can use them to, among other things, create a clock that will keep time even after the universe dies. I don't know why we would need that, but perhaps it would come in handy at some point. Science is nuts. (K)



 4. Anawa – Anawa (1972)
Awesome Polish pop prog, if there is such a thing! Lead by Polish singer, saxophonist, actor, cabaret artist, and trained typesetter: Andrzej Zaucha. In the late 80’s he became a huge pop star in Poland until French film director Yves Goulais shot him dead after a performance in the parking lot of the concert hall along with actress Susan Lesniak with whom Zaucha was having an affair. He got shot nine times. (S)


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3. Porno Star
Tina Russell is a long-forgotten porn-princess from the early 70's “golden age” of the adult film industry. Back then, most of it was being produced in New York and backed by mobsters. If you've read Linda Lovelace's book, you get the idea that it was all harrowing exploitation and rape, but Russell's memoirs are a lot more gentle, and you get the feeling she really enjoyed her sizable ('70-'75) stint as a skin queen. Still, she didn't exactly escape intact. Russell developed a drinking problem during her porn days and died of liver failure in 1981.  

PS I don't know how many of her movies even exist at this point, but a lot of 'em sound amazing: “Joe Rock Superstar”! “The Erotic Adventures of a Male Chauvinist Pig”! “All in the Sex Family”!! (K)

2. Andy Pratt – Records are like Life (1969)
Yes they are Andy. Yes they are……….(S)

 1. Butter
Great little indie-com about competitive butter sculpting in Iowa. I've been to Iowa, and I can attest that Iowa is the kind of place that would have butter sculpting contests. Olivia Wilde is AMAZING as a down-on-her-luck punk stripper who wheels around town on a BMX bike. (K)

Got any picks of your own? Let us know below!

1972 was amazing.