Sunday, June 30, 2013

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. Arc Neon
There's a whole subgenre of retro synthwave bands making imaginary soundtracks to 80's exploitation films that never existed. Arc Neon are one of the best. These are fucking crazy times, man (K)


12. Harvey Averne Documentary
The Vice President of Fania records. Not the most famous recording artist, but one of my all time favorites. A jewish kid from Brooklyn becomes one of the most important figures in Latin music? Go figure. In New York city anything is possible. These filmmakers are looking for some funding so you rich Demonologists, reach into your pockets, man. (S)


  11. TOAD (Take Over and Destroy) - Endless Night
Blackened death n' roll is the new rock n' roll, at least for the duration of Toad's new EP. (K)



10. Danny Gerrard - Sinister Morning (1970)
I don't know anything about Danny, in fact I don't think there really IS anything to know. He recored this amazing acid Dylan type record, called it Sinister Morning, one of the best album titles of all time and vanished. Left us here to ponder it in 2013. You guys are ganna love it. (S)


9. Japan!
My bud Frankie Delmane from the Crazy Squeeze hipped me to the existence of this awesome performance vid of Japan in their glam days doing the awesomely funky/weird Adolescent Sex. Fuckin' awesome. If they didn't start playing art rock after the first two records, they woulda been LEGENDS. (K)


8. Morita Doji - Mother Sky (1976)
From her Wiki page: "She was 20 years old when a friend's death inspired her first album. All of her albums keep to tragic or morbid themes." Hard to find even on the the inter web. Five Fingerz Of Dust has got some copies. (S)


7. Urban Struggle
Cool, rough n' rugged mini-doc about the death of a now-osbcure punk club in LA during the heyday of early hardcore, when punk was for punks! (K)


6. CA Quintet - Trip Thru Hell (1968)
Speaking of Fingerz Of Dust, when I was digging around for the Morita Doji records I stumbled upon the C.A. Quintet - Trip Trough Hell. I forgot how much I loved that record and dug up my Sundazed reissue and jammed on it non stop this week. The major gripe people have with this album is that it's plodding and meandering, but I think that's it's strength. It was hot as hell and the air conditioner was broken so it's a perfect.  (S)


5. Z Machines
So, Japan invented the first all-robot metal band. They're not that good but, you know, what do you expect? They're fuckin' robots. (K)


4. Mortillery
Dude, what's up with all the Canadian bullet-belt bands these days? Every 22 year old up there is wearing a battle-vest and worshipping the devil. Did 1985 just happen there now? However it happened, I'm into it. Here's another gang of fresh-faced hesher-barbarians, femme-fronted this time, kickin' out the speed metal jams! Horns up! (K)


3. Josefus - Dead Man (1970)
So one Top 13 post leads to another for Swilson and right next to A Trip Through Hell rested Josefus: Dead Man. I scored it the same day as the C.A. record from the Sundazed table at the WFMU record fair many a moon age ago. Crazy heavy boogie from Texas. Perhaps inspired by the Guess Who, but most likely influenced by weed, wine, whites and women. Great lyrics: " I've been standing here waiting with my perverted ideas". (S)


2. Bloodwave!
Get into it before it gets into you. (K)


1. Rainbow Promise - Rainbow Promise (1970)
If anyone ever makes you a Rainbow Promise don't fall for it! This is great lost jesus rock from the 60's but isn't all Jesus rock from the sixties lost? (S)



Saturday, June 22, 2013

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. Demo archives
Wanna look at the covers of hundreds of obscure/underground/cult metal and punk demos from the 80's? I guess the bad news is, there's no download links to actually LISTEN to the demos, which seems like a glaring oversight, but anybody with any kinda interest in this stuff is such an obessive weirdo (ahem) that merely staring at xeroxes of the actual cassettes is probably enough to stir up the waves of nostalgia. This is like porn for advanced demonologists. (K)

12. Steve Hillage - Arzachel
Rocking a little Steve Hillage of Gong fame this week. On rotation is the the 1969 Arzachel record. The name Arzachel is the Latinization of an Arab astronomer. It's also the name of a really young creator in the south central part of the visible moon. (S)


11. Empty Palace
What if 1979 never ended? What would it sound like now? It would sound like this, motherfucker.(K)


10. Iron Dogs - Cold Bitch
Those of you who aren't on the facebook role call of Fenriz's Band Of the Week should get on it so you can turn on to blisteringly bad ass metal bands like Iron Dogs.Posted yesterday, listened to all day today by yours truly. (S)


9. Pink Smoke - No Party
Why’s there no party? There’s no party because Pink Smoke were here a couple hours ago and they fuckin’ burned the place down to the ground. (K)


8. New Swears - Funny Isn't Real
So after listening to Iron Dogs all day I decided to click on the keyword "Ottawa" on bandcamp. I mean what's going on up there, right? Turns out, other than old school metal revival, some damn good Black Lips brand  60's garage punk. Which is a cool. These guys can really write juvenile delinquent type songs with massive catchy hooks AND they dress like bank robbers. Schools out for summer, school's out forever.(S)


7. My dad was in a band blog
Every dude of proper "dad age" was in a band. That's a fact. I'm not even a dad, but I'm dad age, and I was in a band (Screaming Gore Guts, with the guy from Anal Cunt. We were 16). That's the premise of this fun/funny blog: younger folks digging through their parents' photo albums and finding pics of their fathers rocking out in regrettable and/or amazing rock n' roll outfits. Swilson will be in the blog someday. Go daddies go! (K)

6. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Long Hair Music
If Advanced demonology took over the U.S. Government this might be our national anthem. This or Where Evil Grows by the Poppy Family. (S)


5. Zeus comics
One of the most elaborate pseudo-hoaxes I've ever seen, Zeus comics is a never-was pre-code comics publishing company specializing in horror and smut who were going gangbusters in the 40's and 50's but were shut down by the Man during the comcis code crackdown, and all remaining copies of their comics were destroyed. You can't even find any today, man. Don't even bother looking. Luckily, a graphic novel telling the whole tawdry tale will be out soon! (K)


4. Lee Hazelwood Live
You guys ever see any footage of Lee performing live? Me neither! (S)


3. Agressive Mutliator
This is how rock n' roll sounds from now on. Deal with it. (K)


2. The Voices of East Harlem
Dig this 20 member group from well…East Harlem. They worked with Curtis Mayfield and put out records on Elektra and somehow, I don't know how, drifted into obscurity. They are supremely bad ass. (S)


1. The Movies About Girls All Summer Move Marathon
Check out the Movies About Girls blog all summer longs for podcasts about and reviews of all your fave weirdo summer flicks from Ken, Swilson, and our whole gang of misfits and unemployables. Good times and no hassles all summer long. (K)



Friday, June 21, 2013

Advanced Demonological Record Review: The Bamboo Kids - Safe City Blues


 
In 1976 Travis Bickel in Taxi Driver about New York City, said that someday a real rain is going to come and wash the scum off the streets. The rain he was talking about  has come and gone. What form it took is up for debate, be it money, corporations, authoritarian mayors, gestapo police tactics, or  white flock. Many, mostly Rock 'n Rollers, lament the death of the blown out wasted wasteland, and what used to be coolest place in hell. It's a truly romantic notion from where we sit right now, rocking our minds out in front of a computer screen. But it's a particularly honky complaint. It might be a drag that the poverty and disparity has been washed away, if your a white kid from the suburbs. But If your family just got here from an even tougher slum in Puerto Rico, it ani't too cool when the pimp is your cousin, the hooker your sister, and the junkie is you.  But let me dream if I want to, right?

I have to say that personally I have been pretty primed for this record. The last three live shows I've seen have been David Johansen, Todd Rundgren (producer of the Dolls), and Walter Lure. Let's face it the best music from the east coast in the 20th century has been 1970 to 1977 rock from New York City ( that's not really true but...). The Velvets (we''ll sneak 'em in), The DollsKiss, Blue Oyster Cult, the Dictators, and the whole CBGB's crew (lump 'em all in).  The Bamboo Kids are sort of  the last bastion of that tradition. Make no mistake, kids, they are not, in fact I'm guessing they are all over forty.Old blues men lost in a changed city and an extremely  changed rock scene evident in much of the records subject matter: Safe city, privacy,  money, playing the fool, forever dumb, I can't believe it's changed, what happen to the conner store, trying to make it straight but still finding another hung over morning.  Heads spinning they get themselves sober because thats what they have to do because it's a modern world. When they were coming up they thought the opposite, you we're supposed to be fucked up. Not no more as any one can attest, And Brooklyn ain't no substitute for the lower east side of the 70's. 
      
A double record might be a bit much, like 1963 the year 2013 is all about the single so this is a bit expansive. The tunes require listener investment and relay less on hooks and heavily on tight songwriting with substance,  another thing that has gone out of fashion.  A good album to kick back with a beer and little plastic bag of something (potato chips?) on friday night after a long week of work, cause it's mainly about getting older, change, and the loss of tradition. Rock 'n Roll tradition. (S)




PS: The lead singer kinda give me the creeps in this Video. Reminds of the weird dude at the end of the bar in Long Island City that's already there at 6:30 when you just got off work and he knows the bar tender a little too well. I mean this as a compliment, I don't think any band has really ever captured that guy.

- Swilson 

Saturday, June 15, 2013

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 takes over. 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. Ladymen
Blown out high energy boogie from Guadalajara. They just dropped these two songs this month so hot tamales yes they're red hot! (S)



12. Sex Before Suicide zine
"Let's talk about what is really happening, which is nothing." Fuck man, nothing funnier than a pissed-off French punk rocker! Sex Before Suicide is a great punk/trashfilm zine from Paris, cut and pasted and xeroxed just like you remember 'em, with an emphasis on 80's deathtrip culture. There's an interview in number 3 with the maniac behind infamous 80's psychozine Singin' Dose Anti-Psychotic Blues! That blew me away. I used buy copies from that dude and he would ask me to send him my girlfriend's old shoes instead of money. I can't believe they haven't locked him up yet. Anyway, if you like weird movies and snotty rock n' roll, pick this up! (K)





11. White Mystery - Telepathic
Fear drenched freak out from a pair of red-headed siblings with the last name White. Vacillating between pure punk abandon  & pop-tastic songwriting. Songs about secret gardens, spiders, cats, Martians, telepathy and pacts with Satan. What's happening in the youth for nothing underground? Sounds like some witchy shit is going on. I like it! It's their 3rd record. so check the back catalog as well. (S)


 

10. Theater of Life
You know that guy from the commercials where he interviews the kids? What are those even advertising? Anyways, this is what that guy does when he's not counting all this TV commercial cash: sitting in a lawn chair at the beach with his buddy and goofin' on the rubes. I can't believe Swilson and I didn't think of this first. Well Swilson, we can always do the Jersey shore edition. Like a franchise. (K)

 

9. Human Eye - 4: Into the Unknown
Timmy Vulgar hits the charts again with his punk rock space ace attack. It's the fourth full length in ten years and every time a record comes out by these guys I think's it's their best yet.  Proving somehow in 2013 that Detroit is still Rock City. (S)



8. Demon Pact
Long-lost NWOBHM band who released their first single a couple months after Venom and somehow got lost in the Satanic shuffle. There's a couple singles and EP tracks around, but even hardcore fans of the era don't remember much about 'em. Luckily, all the stuff they did has been unearthed and compiled on the seminal Released From Hell album, which you are gonna want, because not only is this great, raw, barely-contained NWOBHM, the singer is clearly either goofing or insane. Either way, fun times. (K)



7. Room 237
Did you ever get really baked and watch The Shining? Room 237 is pretty much every conspiracy theory, hidden meaning or crack pot message anyone could ever deduct, be it stoned or sober, from one the best horror movies ever made. I take an agnostic view of just about everything, including reality itself, so I was able to enjoy this without going off the deep end. (S)



6. Teddy Boys documentary
There are couple times in my life where I attempted the Teddy Boy look (17 and 22), but I could never keep up with the hair regiment. Still, those fuckers had style. As this mini-doc points out, they were also racist thugs who paved the way for skinhead culture, but nobody's perfect. (K)



5. Foxfur
Speaking of conspiracy theories, hidden meanings and crack pots going off the deep end, The new Damon Packard movie is "out" on youtube. It's a lysergic trip into the modern day world of information overload. I'm not sure what the hell it's really about but Damon might be the closest thing we have to Kubrick in modern times. Pretty goddam amazing! (S)



4Alice cooper band in audio recording ballad of Dwight frye
Wow ! Neal Smith posted this cool clip of the band at a German TV studio rehearsing to perform Ballad of Dwight Frye! Amazing! (K)



3. Rama Amoeba
I don't know what the any of  their records sound like, I'm guessing like T. Rex clones,  but I caught these guys live two weeks ago at the Brighton Bar in Long Branch NJ, opening up for Walter Lure. They ruled!  It's a complete glam rock rip off but they're Japanese, so they get a free pass. Also they achieved, to my round eyes, total androgyny, which can be a good or bad thing in certain circumstances. but in Rock 'n Roll that's a good thing. Rebel Rules! (S)



2. Alice in Chains wastes the record company's money 
When I interviewed them a couple months ago, they told me about this. Basically, the label gave them a pile of cash to make an "electronic press kit" about their new album, but instead, they went full-tilt Andy Kaufman and invented a bunch of alter-egos that deride, villify, and call out Alice in Chains as hacks, lame-os, and rip-off artists. Really funny and nearly as punk as the French fanzine editor. (K)



1. Rat King - Godsend
Lock up your daughters, lock up your wife, lock up your back door  and run or your life. You know a band with a name like Rat King is destined make the Top 13. Pure creep fest from Newcastle.  Unadulterated raincoat pervert rock, slow, plodding, and manic. Maybe one of the weirdest, wildest things on the black market. (S)

Sunday, June 9, 2013

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. Captain Beyond bitchin' live footage! 
A whole set, live from Montreux. Far fuckin' out. (K)

12. Super Ego 
These are my friends down in Brazil who make a most amazing cosmic witches brew of psychedelic free funk.  Like everything musical that comes from Brazil, it's awesome. Cosmic Moods / Mystic Groove is the latest, and I can tell you that the title is apt. Get down!! (S)


11. Camp Meeting Jubilee
From 1916. The first documented use of "rock n' roll" in a song. Pretty spooky, too. 1916 sounds nutty.  (K)


10. Wendell Harrison - Organic Dream
Wendell's organic dream is not the same as say, Whole Foods organic dream.  His dream is infinitely more cosmic and intensely sexual. Involving ginseng, love juice and a green meadow. Sounds like my kinda organic dream. Can you believe this space funk was recorded and released in the profoundly un-spacy year of 1981? It's sounds totally 1972. Speaking of 1972, Wendell Harrison put out a record called: An Evening With The Devil.  It just made this years Christmas list. (S)


9. Infandous
As close to a full-on nervous breakdown as I've ever heard in a "song". Outsider black metal from from the locked ward. (K)



8. Krypts - Unending Degradation
The first full length by Krypts is a never ending juggernaut of constantly interweaving death and doom metal.   For those of you who are hip to that world view but you can't decide if your more into personal individual death or the destruction of the entire planet and maybe even the universe. This record will help you figure it out.  (S)


7. Creepy 1920's Photos of the Boogieman
Ever wonder what was lurking under your great-grandparent's beds? Now you know. Sleep tight. (K)


6. Arrowwood - Beautiful Grave
This is sorta like if those two twins in The Shining that keep showing up asking Danny boy "to come and play with us" teamed up with Fairport Convention in an enchanted forest. Skip right to the title track, you're sold. (S)



5. Warning
Holy fuck, mask-wearing German early 80's death-disco freaks Warning have an actual VIDEO for their crazed "hit" Why Can the Bodies Fly, and it's as insane as you'd imagine. (K)


4. Keshco - The Blood, The Horror
They claim on the bandcamp page that they are influenced by Lalo Schifrin, NASA flight recordings, Elvis Costello, Lord Sutch and Iggy. I don't know but this is the closest thing we have to the Deviants in 2013 or maybe the Holy Modal Rounders. This thing get's more outside with each progressing track.  Is LSD still available on the streets of London? If it is contact Keshco cause they got it. This is real! (S)



3. Turmoil in the Toybox
Pastor Gary Greenwald was infamous for his 80's rants against backmasking and the "satanic" messages in songs as innocuous as Queen's 'Another One Bites the Dust'. He pretty much found satanic panic everywhere, even in kid's toys. This completely fucking bonkers show finds Gary exposing the terrible truth behind everything from He Man figures to Yoda dolls. Spoiler alert: God don't like 'em! (K)


2. Sabbath chopped and Screwed
Ever just drink too much cough syrup and smoke so many blunts that even Black Sabbath sounds too fast for you? I'm not sure who made this and to be honest I didn't bother to look into it. But whoever it is they did a great job, mixing in samples form movies, bong water bubbles and classical music fills. Wildly relaxing. (S)



1. Laibach documentary
The scariest joke band of all time? The world's most militant anti-militants? Tongue-in-cheek fascism? Disco for people forbidden to dance? The death and rebirth of rock n' roll? Yeah, all of that.


Friday, June 7, 2013

Advanced Demonology Podcast Lesson 16: Birds

This month, soar with the eagles, feast with the buzzards, and keep your eye on the sparrows as Advanced Demonology takes you higher than ever before!


Listen/Download HERE! 

Saturday, June 1, 2013

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. SOV Horror Garbage
Back in the 80’s there was so much demand for new product on the shelves of video stores that backyard DIY “movie producers” started churning out next-to-no-budget camcorder gutspillers and foisting them on the public as legit flicks. That used to drive me nuts back then – imagine paying $4.00 to watch Cannibal Campout! – but these days, I can appreciate the lunatic enthusiasm and high-80’s fashions. THIS GUY has uploaded dozens of ‘em on his Youtube channel, so for a weekend of blinding VHS delirium, look no further. My personal fave? Try sitting through the awesomely terrible Dead Girls, a stalk n’ slash about an all-girl “hard rock” band getting menaced by a sadistic killer. Let the warm ketchup flow! (K)

  12. Judge Bitch - Viper
I don't know what distinguishes Judge Bitch's brand of 80's style drugged induced trance music from other drug induced 80's nostalgia but I think they really got the album cover right on this one. Too bad it's a digital album. Like if you drank a whole bottle of cough medicine and tried to watch a Miami Vice marathon.(S)



11. Brutus – Personal Riot
What the fuck, do they give out degrees in Rock N’ Roll Motherfuckery in Norway or something? Oslo just has to be wall-to-wall denim demons. They must run out of beer and Thin Lizzy records constantly. Anyway, Brutus is bad-ass, they sound like Sabotage-era Sabbath, and they’ve got a new record coming out. Here’s a taste. (K)


10. Tucky Buzzard
A friend of mine/mind in Malibu brought this band up to me and I forgot how much I liked them.  They were former members of the The End, who put out a masterpiece of psychedelia produced by, of all people, the anti-psych Bill Wyman. They some how released five record between 1969 and 1973 but were still doomed to obscurity. I don't know how this popularity contest works. If I did, Advanced Demonology would have a coffee table book out by now. (S)


9. Raging Slab documentary
Everybody seems to have forgotten these downtown boogie merchants, but for awhile there, they were the only ones keeping belt-buckle 70’s rock alive in the 80’s. Found this back-in-the-day doc on ‘em earlier this week, and its goodtimes. Bring back the Dynamite Monster Boogie show! (K)


8. Sweet Gravy
True outsider metal from the bay area ( I think?), where outsider metal became insider metal and back again. If White Boy and The Average Rat band were around Sweet Gravy would open for them or him or it or whatever….(S)



7. Fucked-up Austrian Performance Art
Otto Meuhl died this week. He was one of several deranged performance artists from Austria who mangled meat and covered their audiences in blood to make some kind of statements back in the 70's. I remember reading about them in Apocalypse Culture or somewhere back in the 80’s. I haven’t thought about them since then, because tossing around sheep intestines no longer make sense to me, but Flavorwire did  a cool write-up on that weird scene a couple days ago, and it’s worth a look. My fave of that bunch was Hermann Nitsch, who basically invented every black metal gimmick a dozen or so years ahead of the curve. (K)

6. Mayumi Kojima
Run don't walk over to the Bodega Pop blog and grab your self a raging slab of this groovy as hell Jap-Jazz-psych-beat. This might annoy me if I knew what she was saying but all I know is that It's got the word "poltergeist" in the title so I love it. (S)


5. The Sunshine is Too Long
Mystic Siva was a short-lived heavy psych band from Detroit who released one awesome headspinner of a record in ’70 and then imploded. The weather went haywire this week and summer exploded all over the east coast, so Swilson and I have been basking in the life-giving rays of the sun all week. So far it’s been great, but you know how it goes, we’ll be begging for relief by next Tuesday. Mystic Siva knows what we’re talking about. Lie down in the grass and listen to this as your brain boils into soup. (K)



4. Spirit - Live 1971
It has been a big week of blog pilfering by Swilson. This one comes from a spot I ain't never been to before until now called…dig this…Rare Music.  Spirit is maybe the most underrated band to come out of the 60's L.A. pantheon. Headed by the Jimi Hendrix taught guitarist Randy California and his bald headed step-father, Spirit made some of the most original sounding rock of all time. Here is a great document of all the lysergic intensity you could ever want or need. (S)


3. Puke - Back To the Stone Age
A mind bending hybrid of  punk & metal. If you slam danced to Iron Maiden's Killers inside a blown out squat in Sweden. Do people still call it slam dancing? I'm guessing Puke did. (S)


2. Hexvessel: Masks of the Universe
Hexvessel have a new EP out. You remember those guys? Dudes from Finland, playing psychedelic death-folk. They just released a new video. It’s  13 minutes long and it aims to blow your mind. And it will (K).


1. A Band Called Death
Seems kinda impossible, really: an all-black power-trio from Detroit playing proto-punk in 1974? But that’s what happened. This is their story. Far fuckin’ out, man. (K)