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. Vinyl
Alan Zweig's amazing, depressing, hilarious documentary about hopeless, helpless vinyl hoarders. Between self-loathing monologues, Alan kills mice infesting his apartment and talks to people even worse off and lonelier than him. Love it. (K)

12. Royal Thunder -CVI
Doom rock sludge-prog fronted by a southern belle named Miny.  Moss hangs on the trees and the ghost of hush hush sweet charlotte lurks behind the doors of the decrepit plantation manor. Savannah metal, my man. Get stoned! (S)

11. Black Pussy - On Blonde
Just found about these dudes when Glitter Wizard posted on Facebook that they bailed out on a show a few hours beforehand, causing the Wiz to put out all-points-bulletin to find a replacement band. And I said to myself, "There's actually a band called Black Pussy?" I mean, that's kind of a career-staller, isn't is? It's perfectly fine for you and I to hang out here and go, "Oh yeah, I'm totally into Black Pussy. In fact, I just can't get enough Black Pussy", but that's not gonna work in polite company. And I'm sure as fuck not gonna saunter around town in a Black Pussy t-shirt, no matter how into Black Pussy I am. And to be honest with you, I am seriously into Black Pussy. Anyway, regardless of the snicker-baiting name, these provocative young men spew a righteous racket. Essentially, on their debut album/EP On Blonde, they sound like Supersonic Storybook-era Urge Overkill, which means they'll sound like Saturation-era Urge on their next record, which means in a year or two, Black Pussy is gonna be your favorite band. And god help you then. Anyway, Black Pussy is awesome. That's the takeaway here. (K)



10. Guitar Wolf - Invader Ace
oh yeah! oh yeah! Oh Yeah! This song has been on repeat all last week, in my head, because I haven't had any tunes on hand. I wouldn't have been able to move mountains 3,000 miles with out it. So when I finally got my mitts on an ipod I played it 100 times in a row like some kind of rock 'n roll exorcist. (S)

9. The Buddha Machine
So it's a neon colored box that plays loops and drones. You can manipulate the pitch to create, basically, a never-ending tone-poem. This is either the key to bliss or the modern day equivalent of those annoying "bag full o' laffs" from the 70's. Either way, they are awesomely weird, and would make for totally perplexing Xmas gifts. (K)

8. Le Samourai
I'm still waiting for all my belongings to arrive,  no cable, no inter-web, just some old DVD's laying around my new abode in New Jersey. This fantastic french film is one of 'em. Haven't seen it for years and I forgot how absolutely cool this flick is. Stone cold hit man Jef Costello is a master that never get's caught. Until  he blasts a night club owner in front of a few witnesses and his game is unraveled. Worth it just for all the slick 60's french fashion (maybe the height of fashion for all mankind) and a jamming jazz soundtrack. (S)

7. Lovebug Starski - Amityville (House on the Hill)
Remember when rappers mostly rapped about sneakers and food? This is from that era. It's about a haunted house. And maybe sneakers and food. 1986 was nuts. (K)

6. Curtis Mayfield - Billy Jack
My favorite tune from There's No Place Like America Today (1975).   "It can't be no fun to be shot with a hand gun".  Like a lost character from Superfly, a down home cat moves to the city and becomes the king of the streets, for a while at least. Nice live version, super smooth. Dig the bass solo. (S)

5. Fuck Yeah Girls With Vinyl Records
Here's a tumblr that manages to mash up two of me n' Swilson's obsessions: hot girls and dusty records. This is pretty much why they invented the internet, you know. (K)

4. The Incident
Filmed in 1967 about a couple of crazed boozed up punks who terrorize a subway car. It was Martin Sheen and Tony Musante's first film and it's a pressure cooker.  It's got a cast like a disaster film: Ruby Dee,  Brock Peters,  Ed McMahon,  Thelma Ritter, Jan Sterling,  Soap Star Diana Van Der Vils, a young super soap star Donna Mills, and many other familiar faces. (S)

3. Lord of Garbage
While recovering from bladder cancer surgery, rock n' roll's greatest supervillian Kim Fowley scribbled out his autobiography, figuring he'd better get it all down on paper, just in case he croaked. Well, Kim's still with us and his mammoth autobio is being dribbled out in three installments by Norton Records book imprint Kicks. Much like Mark "Zodiac Mindwarp" Manning's crazoid memoirs, it's impossible to tell how much of any it is true and how much is self-mythologizing bullshit, but I can guarantee you that Kim believes every word, even if he's lying. Really fun (and fast) read, can't wait for the next installment. (K)

2. Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison
The Swedes made this great documentary about the Johnny Cash live album. Way more interesting than the behind the music about Frampton Comes Alive. (S)

1. 8 Track Museum
Finally, a museum I'd really like to go to. Bucks Burnett keeps the 8 track dream alive. God, what an awful format. And yet, what an amazing format! 8 tracks are love/hate sort of affairs. (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 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. Abandoned Suitcases of Insane Asylum Patients
Well, the title says it all, really. The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane in Willard, NY, served and housed mentally ill patients from the 1910's until the end of the 60's, when it became the less sinister sounding Willard State Hospital. While clearing out some rooms in 1955, employees found a stash of suitcases brought there by patients and kept under lock and key for many decades. For some patients, the suitcase and its contents were their last connections to the outside world. In 2011, photographer Jon Crispin began a project: to photograph the suitcases and their contents. Fascinating, eerie, sad, and compelling. (K)

12. Viper Cobra
Glowing yellow and green raptors, sex dazed stoned blondes, the virgin mary, cool skulls, a flying rabbit shooting lasers out of his eyes at a moose! I'm describing the cover to Dinosaur Nation. The music itself reminds me of the Replacements on a date with Monster Magnet. I didn't think that would ever happen. Viper Cobra are from Rotterdam, so that might explain it.  (S)

11. Cerrone's Paradise
There once was a man named Cerrone. He was a weird, pint-sized Frenchman with a terrible mustache and a fondness for tinfoil tracksuits. Cerrone had a dream: to be the (French) King of Disco, and to have a harem of beautiful (French) Disco Chicks. If Cerrone had attempted such folly today, he'd be laughed at, humiliated, dismissed. But he did not attempt it today, he attempted it in 1977, and all of his dreams came true! (K)

10. Mother Dust - Volume 2
Outrageous bloody guitar freak-outs from modern day Krautrockers. I'm not sure about where Volume One resides, but you can score Volume 2 over at bandcamp. No other info avails.  (S)

9. Still-working 16th century monk automaton 
Looking for proof that demons once ran amuck amongst an unwary populace? Watch this. And then don't sleep for a week. (K)

8. Wire Demos 1976
Further proof emerges that Wire anticipated where punk was going  before it even really started. This is pre-razor sharp-ness Pink Flag. Young, loud and snotty. Heaping spoonfuls of Johnny Thunders, the Ramones and Black Sabbath.  One more cup of coffee brothers and sisters, head down to ghostcapitol and nick it. (S)

7. Idris Muhammed
Muhammed's 1977 album Turn This Mutha Out is heavy as fuck and smooth as silk all at once. If you dig flutes and the 70's and bad-asses and jazz-funk, you're gonna wanna ride this soul train hard. (K)

6. The Falcons
The soulful well from which Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett, Robert Ward, and Mack Rice sprang. What more do you need to know? (S)

5. Tina Aumont
Been awhile since we featured a Hippie Death Goddess. Tina Aumont (RIP, 2006) was an American/French actress who starred in many memorable Euro-spy, giallo, sexy-schocker and far-out art films in the 60's and 70's (Modesty Blaise, Torso, The Howl, Fellini's Cassanova, etc.) and was even in Jean Rollin's freaky Two Orphan Vampires in 1997. She was wild, beautiful, exotic. A true 70's supergirl. Check out Mondo-Macabro's mini-doc/interview below. (K)

4. Starbuck - Rock 'n Roll Racket
An apartment complex in Hollywood. Every thursday night is a potluck by the pool. Casseroles, California wine, California Grass, a little Bolivian, and a jello mold for dessert. You're 34, look like Burt Reynolds, and can score with some of the younger tenants.  (S)

3. White Hex
I can't figure out where they're from: Italy? Berlin? Australia? But then again, this is not the kind of music that stays grounded to one place. White Hex are narco-goths, playing a kind of drawling, intoxicating hypno-darkwave. This is probably what porn sounds like after you've gulped down a teacup full of hemlock. (K)

2. Aquarius Rising: The Rock Festival Years by Robert Santelli
Sure everybody knows about Monterey, Woodstock, and Altamont.  But what about the Festival Of Life, or the Atlantic City Pop festival? This book is an amazing study of all the major rock fests in the USA during the late 60's and early 70's. It's no wonder we didn't see these kinds of events reappear until 30 years later. They were all a mess. Financial and musical disasters. The baby boomers really knew how to misbehave and they all thought they were entailed to a free ticket. It's a riot of a read. An important edition to any Advanced Demonologist's library. (S)

1. Tomita
Isao Tomita is/was an early pioneer of electronic music. He began his career creating soundtracks for Japanese sci-fi cartoons in the mid 60's and then went on to reinterpret classical pieces with analog synthesizers. In 1974, he created his Grammy award-winning masterpiece, the Snowflakes are Dancing album. The album features Tomita's all-Moog renditions of Claude Debussy's tone paintings. I have no clue who Debussy is or what a tone painting is, but I am telling you that this record is THE FUCKING JAM. (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. Sacred Alien 
I've been on an NWOBHM tear lately. The best NWOBHM is the most obscure NWOBHM. I don't know why, that's just the way it is. I used to see ads for Sacred Alien gigs in Kerrang! back in the early 80's. Sacred Alien? Sacred Alien?!  I think they used to wear make-up, like KISS. I didn't figure I'd ever actually hear them. You didn't get to hear everything in the world back then. Now you do. And what do you know? Sacred Alien are...well, a mess, but a fun one. Far as I know, they only ever released this single. (K)

12. Wicked Lady - The Axeman Cometh
The combination of Whiskey and LSD can only be the explanation for the stone grooves that emanate. Culled from demos and what not's from 1968 to 1972. British? I didn't bother to check but I'm taking a wild guess. It's Like a back woods black mass for lorry-drivers. (S)

11. Blank City
Swilson and I both wanted to be brooding NYC underground filmmaker Nick Zedd when we grew up. But who did Nick Zedd want to be? This excellent documentary traces the history of the "transgressive" super 8 film movement in NY to it's post-Waters 70's roots. It's filled with lots of vintage footage of Steve Buscemi and Vince Gallo and Debbie Harry acting in bullshit death hipster home movies in their early daze and interviews with all the heavy hitters. Really makes me want to make a Super 8 movie! (K)

10. Workin' Man Noise Unit
Speaking of lorry-drivers, run don't walk over to band camp and fork over your two pounds for these two releases. The most recent, Serious Power Hour and the almost just as recent, Drinkin' Stella to Make Music To Drink Stella to.  It's blasting no holds bar weirdo rock. A friday night of doom, gloom, noise, fun, sun,  dope, tits, ass, beer, hash, glam, guns, fucking in the streets and than back to work on monday morning. (S)



9. Huntress
I am sorry for this week's Top 13 being so metallic, but I've been writing a lot for Metal Hammer lately, so what the fuck, it rubs off. Anyway, heavy metal is at its best when it's at its most ridiculous, and Huntress is awesomely ridiculous. Thrashy power metal fronted by a woman in a barely-there superhero outfit? YES PLEASE. (K)

8. Neil Young & Crazy Horse Live At The Hollywood Bowl
Ok so it's not all obscurity here on Advanced Demonology. I love Neil Young and I wanted to go see him play with Crazy Horse and I wanted to go to the famous Hollywood Bowl. Neil was great. For a guy his age he's still got it in the voice and his guitar playing is amazingly psychedelic and searing. The band was full of energy and would blow away most bands half their age. The set was dominated by the newer stuff off of his upcoming Psychedelic Pill record. It's not all that inspiring and he's starting to rip himself off, maybe. So the songwriting is slipping a little. As for the Hollywood Bowl, nice place but made for classical music not rock and roll. It's too constraining with the orchestra seat set up, and it's tough to boogie down. Not that this audience wanted to boogie down, or get up on the good foot, or even bop till you drop. They seemed kinda pissed to be there? I don't go to many "arena" shows and this is going to be the last one for a long time. Nothing makes you feel more insignificant and part of the heard. Maybe that's good for the baby boomers but not for us Loner Rockers. (S)

7. French Accordion Music
The other day I picked up an album called Bal Musette by Andre Beauvois, His Accordion, and His Orchestra. It's got a couple dancing in a cafe on the cover. The guy's wearing a beret. The record cost me one dollar. I thought to myself, there is no way this record actually sounds like it does in my head. Then I brought it home, and it turns out it sounds EXACTLY like that. And now it is my favorite record of all time, and French Accordion Cafe Easy Listening (whatever you call it) is now, officially, where it's at. Break out the croissants and fromage,  c'est une bonne soirée! (K)

6. Dave Tarras - Yiddish-American Klezmer Music 1925-1956
This music speaks for itself and if you need an entry point into the ecstatic world of Klezmer than start with Dave Tarras. (S)

5. The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema
This week's Advanced Demonology book club selection is Nikolas Schreck's exhaustive and authoritative guide to diabolical cinema. Packed with groovy photos, this unholy tome pretty much features every significant appearance of the devil in film up until it was published in 2001. Like many of Creation's books, it gets fairly academic in places, but what the fuck, where else are you going to find a whole chapter on Satanic silent movies from 1913-1929? Awesome stuff. As far as I know, it's out of print, but copies can be had on Amazon for about $25 and there's PDF's around. (K)

4. Halloweencollector.com
Mark B. Ledenbach is a serious Halloween collector. He runs a blog dedicated to help people find strange and exciting Halloween decorations from the past. His focus is mainly on the 1920's when Halloween wasn't a children's holiday it was for adults. So the decor form that time is particularly scary.  With it's dazzling gallery of pictures and it's informed histories I highly recommend browsing around this site even if you don't plan on buying anything. Scary eye popping stuff (S)

3. The 924 Gilman Street Project
Hardcore punk was the last non-commercial musical movement. Most of it was just a buzzy headache, but some of it was amazing (Misfits, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, DRI, DKs, GBH, Verbal Abuse, Discharge, Minor Threat, etc etc), and more importantly, it gave a whole lot of misfits and freaks something to believe in. the Maximum Rock n' Roll affiliated all-ages punk club Gilman Street is one of the longest-running, all-volunteer punk venues in operation, and if the spirit of hardcore punk is still alive, you can find it in there. This low-watt, high-energy doc is available from Jello Biafra's label. It's fun and informative and a lot easier than actually going to the club and getting kicked in the head by a 14 year old. (K)

924 Gilman St. Trailer New!

Scarred Films | Myspace Video

2. Timmy's Organism
My hip next door neighbor hipped me to this beautiful strangeness. Timmy Vulgar fronted some other weird rock bands and apparently is a well known artist. I don't know anything about that but Rise Of The Green Gorilla rules. (S)

1. Salem's Pot - Sweeden
This is a great way to spend the next 35 minutes. Just lay down on the floor and crank this until your mind snaps. (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. Stoned Jesus
How many times have you almost gotten off the couch (of woe) and formed a band called Stoned Jesus? Me too, man. Well, these lude snorting behemoths from the Ukraine have gone and fuckin' done it, and the results sound exactly how you'd expect: like a snowblind Sabbath lost in the woods, getting their frostbitten toes chewed off by mangy wolves. They have a new(virtual) record out, Seven Thunders Roar. You should get (download)  it. As we sometimes say here in Boston, wicked sick. (K)




12. Effects Database
Monster website dedicated to the wild wonderful world of guitar effects pedals. Outsider rock and roll would be nothing without these cool looking devices that basically fuck up your guitar sound, creatively of course. There are thousands of different pedals out there and the boutique pedal making market has really exploded in the new millennium. Navigating your way to the right choice of pedal for your stoner rock meets cuddle core death metal band can be daunting. This is your road map. (S)

11. Bonnie and Clyde 2012
So, Serge Gainsbourg has a hairy kid named Lulu (!). His music is bascially the same as his dad's: breezy, smoky, and sinsiter. And, also like his dad, he likes to collaborate with sexy blonde actresses. So it should come as no surprise that he would cover dad's classic “Bonnie and Clyde”, and that he would cast Scarlett Johannson in the Brigitte Bardot role. Tres cool, daddy-o. (K)

10. Camel - Mirage
Camel is becoming my go-to prog-rock band when I'm looking to feel really stupid by listening to smart music. Does that make any sense? Anyway… this record is amazing. It's as good as any Pink Floyd record of the day. Check out the last two minutes of "Nimrodel-The Procession-The White Rider" Awesome!  And for all you guys born in the 80's I included an 8-bit version that some psychopath did.(S)

9. Enceladus almost certainly has life on it
Forget Titan. Astronomers now think that Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is the most likely place in the solar system to find some form of alien life. It's only 310 miles around and encased in ice, but there's water, water everywhere (even shooting out of the surface), and the water's got organic compounds in it. I'd say it's time to stop with all the fuckin' wars already and build a rocket to Enceladus pronto! (K)

8. Sylvain Sylvain (1979)
The New York Dolls are the like the Beatles for scumbags. All the members of this band are super cool in their own right. Sylvain Sylvain is basically the George Harrison of the bunch. Johnny and Johansen have always eclipsed Syl and although I've seen him live a few times and he rules, I never really got one of his records. It doesn't have the same swagger to the production (or lack thereof) as, say, L.A.M.F,  but the tunes are boss. Teenage News will have you and you girl/boyfriend dancing around the portable turntable. (S)

7. The earliest known recorded music...in existence.
It's an Edison tube recorded in 1888.  It's an excerpt from Handel's “Israel in Egypt” sung by a chorus of 400(!) and recorded (for whatever crazy reason) from the distance of 100 yards. I know, you want it to sound like something David Lynch would come up with. Well, it does.

PS: Some folks will tell you that this is not the earliest music in existance, that there's a paper recording from 1860 of someone singing vocal scales. While this is technically true, it's not actually music. And it sounds like some kind of terrifying ghost. (K)

6. Black Sabbath Live In Asbury Park New Jersey 1975
I've been a Sabbath fan since I was twelve. I wake up every morning and I wish that they made 20 records between 1969 and 1975 instead of five. But they didn't. I have even learned to like Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die.  This is the closest thing you'll get to a lost Sabbath record. It's a bootleg that sounds like it was pro recorded. The band is in top freak form and the concert took place about 4 miles from the town I grew up in New Jersey, but I was too young to go…..bummer. If you know anything about Jersey you can imagine the sea of feathered haired, doper, dirt farmers, that made up the audience. A tear comes to my eye.(S)

5. Bear Hunting in Siberia
This is a photo of a bear hunting unform used by maniacs in Siberia in the 1800's. Put all of that stuff together in your head: 1800's/Siberia/fucked up leather suit covered head to toe in spikes/bear hunting. How did anybody ever survive back then? Also, now that everyone knows this exists, how long until kids start showing up at Slayer shows dressed like this? (K)

4. Gems Off The Cutting Room Floor
I've been on the hunt for homemade super 8 films of kids in the 60's and 70's smoking pot.  It's an image that I find relaxing. Like some people like to watch sports, I like to watch people get high, I guess. So I'll be posting my findings on the Top 13 from time to time. This week's installment comes from Long Island, believed to be filmed around 1969 or 1970. (S)

3. Lui Magazine
Basically, Lui was the French Playboy. I'm sure you understand the implications of that. I don't understand it, but I LIKE IT. (K)

2. Drugs Are Like That
This really is the weirdest Anti-drug film ever made. It's like to Kill A Mocking Bird meets a Hasbro commercial made by NYU film school hippies on acid. I really don't know what to say about it. It's slightly abstract? What the fuck? I guess drugs are like that.(S)

1. A dingo eating a shark.
Just when you think Australia has run out of what-the-fucks, this happens. (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. Cucumber - The French Job
Cucumber is a French dude who may or may not be a member of  the pop-psych instro-jammers Stereoscope Jerk Explosion. He might not even be French. He might not even like vegetables. All I really know is that he's got a new record, “The French Job”, and it's crazy groovy, full o' fat organ riffs, trippy sitar freakouts, and 70's cop show funk. Far out! (K)



12. The Beguiled (1971)
The crowning achievement of the Eastwood/Don Siegel team up. Maybe because being trapped in an all girls school in the south is one of my fantasies, but I think this is one of the best movies of the 70's. Our friend Lalo Schifrin does the soundtrack and Clint sings one of the tracks.  This is a good candidate for a Movies About Girls episode if they haven't done it already (S).

11.Danuta Lato
Spectacularly top-heavy Polish 4-foot-11-inch“glamour model”/actress turned 80's synthpop singer. She's well-known in Europe for a long-running series of prank TV shows. All the pranks involving her also involved her boobs. Hard to find her stuff stateside,  but if the gleefully cheeseball/softcore “Touch My Heart” video is indicitive of her talents, she's my new fave singer of all time, ever. (K)

10. I'd Rather Be The Devil: Skip James and the Blues by Stephen Calt
Skip James is a mean mother fucker! You think gangsta rappers are bad asses this murdering, pimping, bootlegging, piano playing, guitar picking,  blues legend puts them all to shame.  You might not like Skip all too much after reading this book, you could argue that he's a product of the horribly racist Jim Crowe south, but that wouldn't explain all the rest of the people who didn't commit such atrocious acts like oping up a juke joint dance floor, indiscriminately  with a double barreled shotgun.  All this murder and mayhem aside this is an amazing book about the blues and music in general. The fascinating thing is that James was not all that successful a blues man the first go round. His voice was often too thin to be heard above the rumble of the Saturday night partiers and his style a bit idiosyncratic. Not until some white collage students unearthed his recordings in the 60's and played them up against all the other recordings made at the time, was it realized he was a true musical genius. (S)

9. Ball of Fire (1941)
Barbara Stanwyck stars in this fantastic comedy as the awesomely named Sugarpuss O'Shea, a showgirl on the lam who hides out with a geeky professor and his seven weird colleagues. They're writing an encyclopedia and they're stuck on the “slang” entry, since they haven't left the house in nine years and don't know how “regular” folks talk. She teaches them some way-out words and a lot more. Amazing dialogue, kooky characters, lotsa laffs, and plenty va-voom. It's the bees knees, daddy-o! (K)

8. The Plastic People Of The Universe
Legendary in there native Czech Republic, this band, influence by the Mothers and The Velvet Underground was  born out of the Prague Spring and the musical Inspiration to the underground resistance to the Soviet control of Czechoslovakia . They faced all kinds of hassles from the eternally buzz killing Red Army and were basically forced under ground until the Velvet Revolution in 1989.  Kinda reminds me of what's going on in Belarus now. (S)

7. G.L.O.W. documentary
What if I told you that, back in the  mid 80's, every saturday afternoon, there was a TV show where hot girls in ridiculous outfits whaled on each other? It happened. It was called The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, and it was glorious. And now, coming soon to a theater near you (maybe hopefully),  there's a documentary about the whole crazy phenomenon. Mostly I'm glad the 80's are far behind me, but G.L.O.W., that I miss. Holy smokes, what a show. (K)

6. Savoy Brown Is just not any good..except the song Hellbound Train.
I tried guys. I tried all week to get into Savoy Brown. I mean I really tried. Logged in the hours. But that's my job, right?  They got alot of things going for them. They dress pretty cool, have great heavy metal looking record covers. Play flying V guitars, and wear orange tinted sunglasses. The intros to the song all start out cool, but then they quickly devolve into the most boring chicago blues derived nothing you've ever heard.  It was almost incredible how boring they could make a rock song, l was starting to wonder if it was aspecial talent that I should be appreciating.  So you can skip Savoy Brown. Well,  except for "Hellbound Train", and you can just listen to it once here and move on with your life.

5. The Tyrant of Clipperton Island
Clipperton Island is off the coast of Mexico. It's about six miles long and uninhabited. At least it is now.  Once, back in the 1910's, a couple dozen folks lived there, in relative peace. They even had a governor. And then, one day, the lighthouse keeper went nuts, and took it over. And then things got weird. A crazy, creepy story!

4. San Diego 2012, 4th of July Fireworks Malfunction
 I love the fourth of July. It's a pagan summer solstice festival. That's what it really is anyway, right?  I love fireworks. I live across the street from one of the richest men in the world, in the worst section of one of the best areas of the City. Lucky for me the billionaire across the street parks a barge full of explosives 300 feet in front of my house. It's incredible, you can smell the gunpowder. Just one of the perks of living in close proximity to people way outside your economic strata ( I used to live in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Philadelphia, I didn't belong there either, and that had it's perks, I just can't get into it now). Anyway…. in San Diego all the fireworks went off at once, kinda like a Steppenwolf song, and the display only lasted 15 seconds. Now while that was probably a bummer for most, it did make for some beautiful photos.  I also think setting all the fireworks off at once is one of the most American things to do. Maybe the start of a new San diego tradition.(S)

3. Satan runs amuck in the Philippines
Last episode of the Advanced Demonology Podcast, we reported on a wave of Satanism in South African grade schools. Well, now the devil is digging his claws into kids in the Philippines now, too. During Sunday mass, no less! (K)

2. White Manna - White Manna (2012)
Bombastic space rock from Humboldt county California, an extremely credible place to make bombastic space rock, fronted by an Ex-New Jersey gang leader, who was once part of an 80's hip hop duo opposite Swilson ( yes that's 100% true). If AC/DC drank copious amounts of cough syrup and lived in the redwood forrest. If Hawkwind played a Vietnam Veterans Against The War rally. If John Muir had access to a wall of Orange amplifiers and a Telecaster.  If I could only take this thing back in time with me to 1991 and eat the "blue telephones" all over again!!!! Get it now on vinyl from Holy Mountain records, then dub it down to 8-Track.  (S)



1. The Lavender Panthers
Led by openly gay minister Reverend Ray Broshears, The Lavender Panthers were a vigilante group who prowled the streets of San Francisco in the early 70's. Trained in martial arts and armed with chains and brass knuckles, they sought out gay bashers and...well, bashed 'em. What bad-asses! (K)