Hippie Death Goddess (of the Day)

Whoever this chick is.

PS: Have a groovy New year from Advanced Demonology!

Advanced Demonology Podcast Lesson 2

This month's lesson: Demons. And what better time than Christmas to play songs about Satan's gremlins? Christmas brings out the demons in everyone. Thusly, a night of demonic bellowing awaits you. But that's not all! We've also got long-forgotten acid-folkies, demented loner-rockers and psychedelic outsiders, groovy dollybirds and Detroit freakrockers, drug-damaged punks and mustache bandits playing flutes through giant stacks of Marshall Amps. All this and more in Lesson 2 of Advanced Demonology!

Download/stream/listen HERE! 

Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

Hippie Death Goddess (of the day)

Shimmering, ghostly Italian beauty Silvia Dionisio acted in a pile of 70's Italosploitation flicks, including Andy Warhol's Dracula, The Young, the Evil and the Savage, and Holiday Hookers. In 1975, she married Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, House by the Edge of the Park), one of the most notorious filmmakers of the exploitation era. Sensing the 80's were not to her liking, she quit acting before they could get their dayglo grip on her. Silvia's last acting gig was a liquer ad directed by Fellini!

- Ken

New Demons - Bell Witch

Syrupy, cinematic doom-rock from the witch-infested forests of Washington.

Turn it up, guzzle some cough syrup, and you'll forget it was every Tuesday in the first place.


- Ken

Nixon Now

Altamont Express (2005)

Hamburg's shame Nixon Now were like a speed king iron biker Spacemen 3, drug fueled droners that amp up their heavy lidded groove with enough murder city pyrotechnics that you can't help but to see stars and fall down dizzy when the Express comes thundering your way. A big part of Nixon Now's global domination scheme was their snake hips tambourine n' cowbell shake appeal, and it's in full effect on ANE, rivaling even the Thee Hypnotics for that low down Detroit rubber-legs action, and this entire album is a heaving, dripping mess of sexy slither and flying fuzz grenades that doesn't let up until the last mind's been thoroughly blown.

Where are they now? The world clearly wasn't ready for this in '05, but everything's so fucked at this point that I'm pretty sure German blow-out rock is gonna be the new thing. Tell 'em to grease up those tambourines if you see 'em.

- Ken 

1972 was amazing.

New Demons: The Yankees Of Moor

The Yankees Of Moor

Let Children Play

Fighting for the right to party. Belarus might be short on human rights, judging the book by the cover; there is no shortage of booze and beautiful woman in Minsk. The revolution goes down in one-room flats, presumably hiding from the not so secret police.

If Rock ‘n Roll is illegal in Belarus than these guys are public enemy #1. Soul riffs hurled through fuzz, Q65 Euro creep swagger, death from within, all that shit rules. They want to be free to ride without being hassled by the man and they want to get loaded. Nothing sounds derived from anything other than the demon itself, it’s all full speed ahead, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and it's only political because it has to be, not because the Yankees want it that way.

Download the record for free and spread the word. They might be the greatest band in the not so free world. We take the right to nihilism for granted here in the states. No sleep till Minsk!

The Dead Brothers

Day of the Dead (2002)

Voodoo Rhythm Records

The Dead Brothers are a funeral orchestra, consisting of banjo, tuba, guitar, accordion, two jugs of moonshine (one empty, one getting there), a drum, and possibly a few kneecaps and thigh-bones. "Day of the Dead' was recorded, amongst other weird places, in a haunted TV studio in Zurich. The songs range from a squashed up, corrosive, chicken clucking version of the Cramps' "Human Fly" to traditional French folk ballads and ancient American blues, all of it either directly related to death and dying, or just sounding that way. And it's amazing, ghoulish and funny, and like nothing you've ever heard before, unless you've been to a lot of funerals in Switzerland. Highlights-or lowlights, deadlights, whatever you want to call them- include the lurching suicidal French Cabaret of "Entre Chien Et Loup" ("Between Dog and Wolf"), which sounds like the kind of thing Jim Thirwell would write, if he were 150 years old; the entirely creepy boogieman ballad, "Closer to You"; and the rootsy, banjo driven swamp killer anthem, "Things You Hide", an obvious choice for Nick Cave's next round of murder ballads. My personal favorite, though, has got to be "The Angel of Death", quite possibly the most inappropriate, psychopathic lullaby you'll ever hear. Forget death metal and horror punk- for truly perverse musical morbidity, the Dead Brothers are the real underground. Pun intended.  

- Ken 

New Demons: Ice Dragon

One: They're called Ice Dragon.

Two: Singer wears skull face paint. 

Three: Sabbath!

Let's do this.

Check 'em out at their Bandcamp page!

15 days until Lesson 2!

On Christmas Day, we will unloose Lesson 2 of the Advanced Demonology podcast! Four hours of acid folkies, demented loner-rockers, psychedelic outsiders, groovy dollybirds, Detroit freak rockers, and demonic bellowers galore!

It's gonna be nuts. Be here on Xmas day for all the magickal conjurings you can handle. Swilson and I are bashing out the details as we speak. So far it sounds like this:

Gird your loins now!

We don't always crochet...

...but when we do, we crochet EVIL.

A Lonely Singing Doll

Holy smokes, do I love Twinkle.

A doe-eyed, bleach-blonde early 60's Brit warbler who specialized in seriously depressing songs about her imaginary (and often dead) ex-boyfriends, Twinkle subverted the chirpy dollybird image enjoyed by her peers (Lulu, Petula, Dusty), finding more in common, thematically, with death-song enthusiasts the Shangri-Las. Her biggest hit was one such bad-ender, 1964's motorcycle crash epic, "Terry". It's awesomely bleak, as is this endearingly low-rent live clip of her performing it.

Imagine if it really was about her boyfriend, who died in a fiery bike wreck, and she was forced to dredge up those memories every performance? What a nightmare. Anyway, Terry's just the tip of the iceberg. She's got a million of 'em. Do yourself a favor, pick up the definitive Twinkle collection, Golden Lights. It's the most fun you can have in the company of a teary-eyed adolescent*.

- Ken 

* I realize there's a joke there, but I'm not evil enough to tell it.

This week at the Advanced Demonology Book Club

This one's a real page-turner. We meet at midnight. BYOB*.

*Bring Your Own Blood

- Ken

Hippie Cult Leader (Of The Day): Pastor John Rydgren

Pastor John Rydgren was a Lutheran minister who was trying to reach the younger members of his flock, by speaking the language of the pepsi generation. Maybe he thought they were going to follow pied pipers like Tim Leary unless he freaked out the gospel a bit. He delivered the good news in a pimpish, sexy, deep throated, baritone on his show "Silhouette" broadcasted on New York City radio in the late 6o's.

Get hip to the church of the cooler jesus.

Dwonload a link at Mondo Diablo or WFMU's beware of Blog.

-Swilson

Hippie Death Goddess (of the Day)

American born Penelope Tree was one of the most prominent British "supermodels" of the 60's, bigger than Twiggy and much more emblematic of the counter-culture movement. Her London flat was ground zero for the glam-hippie crowd, a  decadent, celebrity-speckled oasis of weed-smoke, acid-rock, and mind expansion in an already zonked-out scene. Although largely forgotten by now, for a brief window in the mid 1960's, she was  the face of the turned-on and dropped-out.

By the mid 70's, she dropped out of favor among the taste-makers, and dedicated her life to various charities. That's not your  typical Hippie Death Goddess coda, but what the hell. That's the way it went.

- Ken 

New Demons: Hypatia Lake

Hypatia Lake

Ouroboros

The Eclipse on the Horizon has the Wings of a Demon, Suicide (will not save you from this darkness that comes for us all). Driven by some inner mythology, Hypatia Lake are like Giles, Giles and Fripp descending into a Sabbath warping, fuzzed out, ampeg brain on drugs scramble. From the lyrics, it sounds like these 21^st century schizoid men are legitimately excited about the end of the world. 2012 is right around the corner and there is only 100 copies of this record available, adorned in a very beautiful Hawkwind horror silk-screened cover, orange swirl vinyl. It would make a nice doomsday Christmas present for a loved one.

Proto Hippie Death Goddess (of the Day)

Zorita was a burlesque dancer from the 1930's. She had a taste for the ladies and a snake routine and she could make men walk into traffic if she wanted. And she sometimes took her snake out for a walk in the park. She basically invented goth girls.

- Ken 

Hippie Death Goddess (Of The Day)

Iggy The Eskimo Girl

New Demons: Jon Wolff

Jon Wolff

The Nook n Boots EP

If you think too much with your heart, here is a warning: you might end up dead. Fuckin' Dead!!! Grass, gas, or ass no one rides for free. Hit the road in an appropriate style, a foxy chick on the passenger side. Jon Wolff apparently is a highly musically educated person, but he has not let all that fancy book learnin’ get in the way of his Steppenwolf like ID. He needs to get out of city, kiss public transportation goodbye, stuck it to the working world. Let your body and mind unwind girl. Skinny-dipping, His guitar is on shore but he wants more, what he really wants now, you want it too.

Like a rocket from the velvet tin mine of rural, Pennsylvania. This self produced EP is Jon’s 8^th mesmerizing release. He dabbles in just about every musical style known to the self-proclaimed free world, but most of his recordings are in the Joe Satriani (be forewarned) guitar instrumental vein. On Nook 'N Boots its glam damage sex rock.

-Swilson

New Demons: King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard

King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard

Willoughby's Beach Ep

They want danger money and I want danger money. They make me get up in the morning, morning, morning. Millions are grasping at the branches of the tree of life, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard stab right at the root. You say god is on your side? I stumbled across this band because I’m always on the hunt for musical endeavors that involve wizards and witches, and yes, lizards. Some kind of Australian, Trans Love Energies / Fun House living situation paved the way to this amazingly catchy cluster fuck. They claim to be into pavement, and they didn’t let it crooked rain on everyone’s party. Amazing feat boys. Run don’t walk to bandcamp, and get yourself a copy the Willoughby’s Beach Ep. Only Three hundred something copies.

-Swilson

Rory Gallagher: the Beat Club Sessions 1971-72

Rory Gallagher is one of the many guitar gods of the 60’s and 70’s, back when it mattered. It doesn’t matter very much now and it hasn’t mattered very much since at least the late 70’s. He is not very well known over here in the United States .

None of Rory Gallagher’s records blow me away, they are not bad, seeming on the surface to be straight blues, with lyrics about mean woman who mistreat, bullfrogs, hollow logs, and lonely roads. I’ve never been all that taken with the white man’s take on the blues unless they tweak it out a little and I’m sure Rory tweaks it, but I just don’t pick up on it, not on wax anyway.

But live is another story. Guitar gods are normally pretty boring. Seeing footage of this guy it’s clear something bedsides the blues is going on. Maybe it’s because he’s from Ireland, and Ireland in the 70’s was crazy. Watch ten minutes of the “The Beat Club Sessions 1971-72” , this man has total dominance over his guitar and plays somewhere between pilot like control and frenzied wolverine abandon. He never slacks or leans back or mellows out like some other noted “gods”. He’s always right up front nose to glass, slow or fast. Really fun to watch!

When Jimi Hendrix was asked in 1969 what it was like to be the world’s greatest guitarist he replied: “ I don’t know, ask Rory Gallagher”

You can Enjoy The Entire Beat Club Sessions Below. Also highly recommended is the Irish Tour: 1974 DVD.

-Swilson

Air Checks: KZAP Sacramento & KSAN San Francisco 1968

Enjoy these very mellow station breaks from some of the very mellow, presumably stoned, Dj's of early progressive rock radio. KZAP in Sacramento and KSAN out of the San Fran.

-Swilson

Hippie Death Goddess (of the Day)

Mondo Hollywood (1967)

"Hollywood is super-real." 

Not sure how much of this head-spinning "Hollywood is fucked" doc from '67 is real (Swilson would know, he lives there), but there are some fairly insane bits here, most of them courtesy Valerie Porter, "Former B-actress" (one credit!) and sculptress, who bathes with underage girls and lives with an ex-silent film star with cake-y make-up. She's pretty amazing. Speaking of underage girls, there's also a fashion show featuring "topless" bathing suits for toddler girls (!). And speaking of topless, if this movie is any indication, every cocktail bar in Hollywood in the late 60's had an all-topless waitstaff. There's also movie stars (Jayne Mansfield! Ann Margret! Brigitte Bardot! Telly Savalas! Kate Jackson!), Hollywood weirdos (the seriously annoying Gypsy Boots, Rodney  Bingenheimer, some guy who dresses up like Dracula all the time, former Manson/Kenneth Anger associate Bobby Beausoleil), group LSD trips,delusional cross-dressers, snotty hair-dressers, acid rockers, hippie death goddesses, satanic rituals, freaky poolside dance parties, strippers, gratuitous Zappa, The Mugwumps, a seizure-inducing light show, and goofy/weird/alarming bullshit galore. Pretty amazing. X-Rated. Banned in France! Check it out, there's some amazing footage to delight any vintage pop-culture/mondo/occult/demonology enthusiasts. Free to watch on Youtube and Hulu.

- Ken 

Thanksgiving Demons: UFO featuring Larry Wallis

Happy Thanksgiving coven members. I Stumbled across this footage of the great Larry Wallis playing with UFO before Michael Schenker took over.

Galactic Love!!!!

-Swilson

Hippie Death Goddess (of the Day)

Judee Sill. 

She looked like Shelley Duvall,  was married to one of the Turtles, and she made cosmic hippy Jesus freakfolk. She was like a nun with a predilection for nudism and weed.

And Crayon Angels is a soul-shattering masterpiece.



- Ken

Hippie Death Goddess (of the Day)

Anjelica Huston.

New Demons: Lantern

Lantern

Summer EP 2011

Electric Voice

Sometimes Lantern sounds like James Williamson, Randy Holden and Darby Crash formed a Hasil Adkins cover band, to play a one off gig at a Delta Tau Chi fraternity party. Sometimes they sound Japanese. Sometimes they sound like the ‘65 Stones on lean. All advanced demonological street jive aside, what does it all mean?

Nothing. It just means that these new demons sound like a really sweaty, American (From Canada by way of Philadelphia), full tilt, rock ‘n roll band, out for a good god dam time. Don’t think. Drink! Kill!!!

-Swilson

New Demons: Tweak Bird

Tweak Bird
Reservations
Volcom Records

Two bros (real life ones, not beer-guzzlers-on-the-couch) from LA bashing out classic tree-trunk stomp-rock with psychedelic flourishes and slightly creepy dual-vocals that sound, at times, like your stereo is slipping out of phase just to fuck with you. Produced by a Melvin and fairly reeking of late 80’s Northwest sludge, Reservations sounds like Tad stoned to the tits with an axe in his hand. With his brother, if he has one. And that’s pretty awesome.

Ka-chunk!

- Ken

Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Osore-zan / Doo No Kenbai (1976)

Audio black mass, dragged up the mountain to be sacrificed, heart held high by high priest than thrown into a mouth of hell and ripped apart by demons and devil’s angles and people who did bad things while they were alive. Each Chamber a nightmare, than a stone fuckin’ groove, ‘Cause they can boogie down in hell.

It begins with the best opening scream on the east side of T.V. Eye or Number of the Beast, a sonic horror film, this record should be listened to and not heard. You can’t hang out, work on your car or clean the house. You need to prepare for the ceremony, light the incense and candles, close all the lights, put the tin foil on the windows and recite the banishing ritual of the lesser pentagram. Luckily it only lasts about 40 minutes. That's a little longer than a real nightmare and a lot less than a bad LSD trip.

Geinoh Yamashirogumi is described as a music collective that, not unlike hell, consisted of over a hundred people from all walks of life. They are responsible for the “Akira: Original Soundtrack”

Get a hold of it at the legandary Mutant Sounds.

-Swilson

We are the Hellcats nobody likes

The Eye Popping Sounds of Herschell Gordon Lewis
Birdman Records

Sure, there's Jaws and Halloween, but this side of Hollywood, has there ever been a more memorable movie theme than the creepy two-note kettledrum death drone of Blood Feast? Sheep guts king and exploitation pioneer HG Lewis not only dragged the rotting meat and Karo syrup gag out of the gutters of German performance art and onto American drive-in screens with nothing but pocket change and an eye for shameless opportunism on his side, but he also did it all to the cock-eyed rhythms of his own hillbilly-skewed compositions, and if the self-penned liner notes on this amazing collection of songs from the abyss is any indication, than on-the-fly songwriting was one of his favorite parts of the trip. "Eye Popping Sounds" encompasses a vast array of his film music, from the aforementioned faux-Egyptian human sacrifice tunes from Blood Feast to the immediately recognizable ("Yeehaw!") redneck hoe-down mutant bluegrass of 2000 Maniacs. Herschell's son Bob even gets in the act with his high school buddies in Faded Blue for Get Off the Road, a ramshackle slice of 60's fuzz pop from She Devils on Wheels. Elsewhere,they perform the hilariously dated Blast Off Girls theme, and there's plenty of Lewis penned C&W and incidental tracks, as well as a few choice radio spots and dialogue snippets. If you're looking for actual good soundtrack music, well, you're in the wrong place, Jack. But nobody ever looked to HG Lewis for good, anyway. He's always been about cheap, fast, and out of control, and there's plenty of that action here. For fans of Lewis' notoriously sleazy world of trashfilm, or of cheap thrills in general, this collection is as about as mandatory as they come.

- Ken McIntyre

It is for the hearts of blackness to unite!

Sometimes,  when I find myself standing around, waiting for something to happen, and there's a record store or newsstand in the area, I invariably pick up a black or death metal magazine. Not that I listen to extreme metal, mind you - that would be masochistic -  but I love the pictures of scowling Norwegians all dressed up in corpsepaint and bullet belts, and I dig reading their crazy talk about the devil and such. Although it's hugely popular in the rest of the world, extreme metal's not much of a sensation stateside, so even though they're all in English, most of the magazines I check out are from another country- Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, places like that. Couple of weeks ago I'm wasting my time at ye olde record store when I spot a few (very) back issues of Black Hole magazine, a corpsepaint rag from Brazil. Now, let me get this straight- they're Portuguese speaking cats writing in English about Scandinavian bands? Sounds like fun, right? Well, it is. At first I didn't even notice. Metal journalism is so oddly formulaic that they all read pretty much the same. But here was something off/awesome about the arrangement of words in Black Hole, so I just kept reading it over and over again. After a while, the slightly broken English began taking on an almost poetic tone. Some of it was (fittingly enough) funny as hell, too, which made me think that maybe the Black Hole boys were doing it on purpose. Probably not, but it's a riot anyway. Here is a sampling of some of the amazing pieces of prose in the issue I read, dated 2002:

"For your safety no drum machine was found." - Vincent Necrosadofucker, on Virus

"I hope these freaks are preparing another sick stuff like this, anyone who wants to get it don't will stay disappointed, I'm sure !!" - Andre Luiz, on Reinfection

"This band will change it's name for "Are You Shit?" I hope that not." - Jaime Amorim, on Are You God?

"The mixture is so well done that you will forget why you are alive." - Fernando Comacho, on Disavowed

"I have no doubt that Blackened Moon put his money on the right place releasing this CD, and Chicago's scene I think is also going insane to have these freaks playing around and making victims on their life performances." - FC, on Corpsevomit

"What a shit!" - JA, on Krueger

"Well, if you are into this stuff here's a great motive to have a headache." - AL, on Brutal Mastication

"They are from London- a tremendous trouble for the Queen, because they are insane." - Chacal, on Infected Dissaray

...and so on.  Dunno if issues are still available, but check out their website.

- Ken McIntyre 

Do What Thou Wilt :The Satanic Rites Of British Rock 1970 - 1974

Wow man, like the drummer can’t keep up cause he’s stoned on Mandrax and the guitar player can’t play a solo to save his life but he’s playing that thing like his life depended on it. The bass player is only in the band because he’s got a van and the singer is only the singer because he’s a loud-mouthed freak with wild hair and doesn’t get stage fright like the rest of us. I might be describing the Swilson band but I’m not, well not exactly, but a little.....

The grey sky, soot stained, post-Sabbath, pre-punk world of early 70’s England comes alive in this collection of acetates by heathen scum rockers that NOBODY has ever heard of until now, collected on the limited edition, vinyl only, hand painted cover: Do What Thou Wilt: The Satanic Rites Of British Rock: 1970-1974

Just when you think all “the van goghs” of rock ‘n roll have been exposed another petrified dinosaur turd is unearthed. Let your ears melt with wonder.

For fans of proto-punk, proto-metal, brain damage, polyester shirts, polyester pants, brown acid, boones farm, baked beans, the dole, the Irish Republican Army, cold water, no heat in the winter, unshaved beaver, and Grand Funk Railroad played on a fisher price record player just to annoy your Joan Baez loving older sister.

You can read all about it and get it on Fuzzywasabi

-Swilson

Jandek on Corwood: A Documentary

Caustic rock writer Byron Coley (who I used to rip off blind, stylistically speaking, back in my teenage sleazegrinder days), figures prominently in this creepy-crawly documentary about tuneless spacecase Jandek. He was one of the first scribblers to ‘discover’ the infamous outsider, so he gets to opine at length about the many moods of J. Which is cool, I mean, I’m not arguing. I’m just mentioning him because that’s how I came to know Jandek, by loitering in the store he worked at/co-owned/whatever in the 80’s, In Your Ear, in Allston Rock City (still running, I was there yesterday).

In Your Ear carried all – or at least plenty – of Jandek’s ugly ass records. They all had blurry black and white covers and they smelled weird, like old people, or rash ointment. I never once even considered buying one, but I figured must have had some kind of sizable following, since IYE carried so much of his junk. I also figured that every other record store in town probably sold his albums too, I just never checked, because what good J bands were there in the early 80’s, besides Priest, and maybe Joan Jett?

Turns out that In Your Ear was probably one of the only record stores in the whole country that carried his nightmarish releases, and the reason they were always fully stocked is because nobody ever bought them. By Jandek’s own admission, he’d only sold 150 albums, TOTAL, 7 releases and ten years into his ‘career’. And that ain’t much, even in the weirdo-slacker-punk-rock loserdom world of Lisa Suckdog and Eugene Chadbourne and whatever other loonies that snagged hipster ink in the 80’s.

Come to think of it, they were big on playing endurance-test records back then – I distinctly remember when the first Melvins album came out, and you could walk into In Your Ear on any given Sunday afternoon to hear the great crashing kinghellnoisedoom of “Gluey Porch Treatments” rattling the windows. So they might have played Jandek’s retard blues at some point, I dunno. All I know is that once around 1984 or so, Byron Coley said to me, he says, “Hey, why don’t you move out of your mom’s basement?” because I was buying a Truck Stop Women poster, which might have been suitably snarky if I was 25 at the time, but I was only 15. I mean, where the fuck was I gonna move to, Byron? Juvey? Fuck you, pal. And fuck your unlistenable Jandek bullshit, too.

But I digress. For the uninitiated, Jandek is a reclusive, possibly insane creature from Texas who, since 1978, has been releasing a cuppla albums a year that are filled with what sounds like a guy with iron claws for hands trying to kill an acoustic guitar while he bemoans his pitiable plight in a ‘singing’ voice that brings to mind a mental patient in the throes of violent hallucinations. Like, 20-30 album’s worth. Now, I realize that when anyone describes Jandek’s music, it sounds fun, like a hearty laugh at some fool’s expense, but it is not fun, it is SICK and AWFUL, and will only make you feel like crying. And if all you had to go on was how Jandek’s trainwreck musick sounded, then we would not be speaking of him at all. He would have been forced to melt all those awful records down and go back to muttering to himself on the bus. But because he so shrewdly marketed his music as the strange and mysterious ramblings of an otherworldly loner from Nowhere, USA, a cult of awe and reverence formed over the years, made up of over-educated rock scribes and desperate-to-be-cool college radio programmers and (presumably) hardcore masochists.

And so, a documentary, artfully shot by first time director Chad Freidrichs. Only one problem, though – the subject is nowhere to be found. About the closest Freidrich gets is a close-up of Jandek’s post office box, an audio interview from 1985, and an anecdote from writer Katy Vine (Texas Monthly), about the time she drank beer with Jandek, but was not allowed to ask him about his music. Compelling and puzzling evidence, to be sure, but the rest of the 89 minute doc is filled with talking heads like Richie Unterberger (Unknown Legends of Rock n’ Roll) and Dr Demento, who pontificate on who this bizarre anti-musician really is, and what, if anything, could this nonsense really be about?

And of course, nobody knows, not even Jandek. The tape of John Trubee’s ’85 Spin interview with J closes out the film, and it’s something of an anti-climax, because he sounds relatively normal, if not a little aloof and…well, kinda boring. Just another hopeless, tone-deaf rocker trying to move units. No wonder he refused to do interviews after that one, he would have blown the whole suicidal weirdo shut-in aura completely. Since the doc's release in '05. Jandek even made a few appearances in public, played a few awkward gigs,and basically admitted, yeah, I'm real. Weird, but real. And the world shrugged and went  back to work.

So, it's a Use Your Illusion situation, really. You can walk away from Jandek on Corwood (Corwood is his one-man record label, by the way) fully convinced that Jandek is some sort of high priest in the church of the gonzo freakvibe sent here from Planet Thorazine to enlighten us all in the pleasures of sticking our heads in the oven, or you can take the more cynical approach, and just assume he’s a slightly imbecilic prankster with too much time and money on his hands, who doesn’t know when to quit. Either way, there remains a man named Jandek making miserable, scary puke-folk in Texas, and a whole buncha graying smart-asses in the rock-crit world that think he’s some sort of demented, reclusive genius, and this documentary will tell you all about it. Unless you like the sound of small things being eaten alive by bigger things, then there is very little chance that it will convert you to the cult of Jandek, but it will creep you out for days, and I can’t imagine the strange, elusive man behind it all would want it any other way.



- Ken McIntyre

Jacula

In Cauda Semper Stat Venrnum (1969)

I used to write for Metal Hammer magazine. Basically I'd pitch ridiculous story ideas and they'd laugh and assign me sensible ones. I think my biggest problem was that I only wanted to write about metal bands that existed between 1968 and 1974. So anyway,  if you flip through old issues, you'll find me interviewing belligerent lunatics like Slipknot and Lamb of God. Ugh. So it goes. But I had some sweet ideas. One story I pitched that landed with a thud was my theory that Jacula invented Hellhammer. 

Hellhammer was the (very) early 80's proto-extreme metal band that eventually became Celtic Frost. They were known mostly for a disgusting guitar tone that sounded literally diseased, like it was stricken with some horrible tumorous malady and was angrily snapping away at the guy playing it, like a vicious, cancer-stricken attack dog.

But see, that guitar sound already existed. It was actually invented in 1969, by an Italian teenager named Antonius Rex. He had a band called Jacula with two other nerdy Italian boys, one on the church organ (!) and a singer/keyboards guy. They mixed heavy occult rock with classical flourishes and, apparently, had a strong ecology/anti-war message. That part I never got. They just souned like Satanists to me. Anyway, you've gotta hear Antonius's guitar on their In Cauda Semper Stat Venrnum album from 1969 (same year I was hatched, incidentally). It's intense. The whole record is nuts, it's like  Celtic Frost wrestling with Vincent Price in a burning church. In Italian!

Holy smokes (ahem), is it good.

Plus, their name rhymes with Dracula. Not many things do. Also, if this picture is accurate, hot chicks, fur coats, and what looks like Oliver Reed with a bowl haircut, were involved.

Check out  Cauda Semper Stat Venrnum at Oldish Psych and Prog or just listen below. Also below, a little Hellhammer, for comparison.

Black candles optional, but encouraged.

- Ken McIntyre