Advanced Demonology 53: Blest Mess

This week, Ken and Swilson talk to Miss Chris from Jersey punks Blest Mess!

Plus: sweet jams galore!
Listen/download HERE!

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.Precious Metal: Decibel Presents The Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces
Published back in 2009 I stumbled across a used copy online the other day for like 3 bucks.  Boy was it worth it! You get the inside scoop on some fantastic extreme metal records. All told in a first person interview style. Stories about some of my favorites like Sleep's Jerusalem  and Magnet's Dopes To Infinity had me nostalgic. Metal massives like At The Gates, Emperor,  Darkthrone, Sabbath, Kyuss, Obituary, and Entombed are all covered. If your not familiar with all the records, like I wasn't, this works as a must have list. My favorite part about the used copy I bought was that it belonged to some guy named Brian Trainauskas and on the Contents page after number 25, Converge's Jane Doe, He wrote in ball point, number 26: Divine Rite. Is that a band that he was in? Well I googled the guys name and I came up with a murderer in Illinois.  (S)

12. Valerie Harper Blogathon
You probably heard that the great Valerie Harper  - AKA America's
mid-70's TV sweetheart – recently announced her likely imminent demise
from this world. She vows to live until she's dead, which is not as
easy as it sounds, and we're all pullin' for her. In the meantime, our
pal Amanda By Night, editrix at the world-famour Made for TV Mayhem
Blog, has organized a week-long Valerie Harper blogathon, wherein
like-minded TV casualties wax rhapsodic about their fave Harper
memories, from Rhoda to trauma-inducing TV flick Don't Go to Sleep.
Awesome lady, awesome memories. Check it out. (K)

11. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
I don't know the first thing about this outfit but I just scored a 3 disc box set. I figured why not, that's a good way to get into a band. It seems at clear and present time, and I've only had the thing for a few hours, that this is some mad genius early 70's inventiveness that was probably too smart for 1974, it was certainly too smart for America in 1974. They also remind me a little of 10cc meets Mott The Hoople. I believe this will be getting some serious captured rotation.  (S)




10. Circus 2000
Been jammin' on this long-gone early 70's Italian occult-prog band all
week, and was psyched to uncover this fantastic live clip of 'em from
some festival, shot by the director of Cannibal Holocaust!
“Doochu need some sonchine yeah?” Sweet! (K)




9. Repulsion - Horrified (1989)
A record I never heard before and nicked it off the Precious Metal list.  Wow! These kids recorded a demo tape, invented the blast beat, tried to get signed, didn't get signed, they broke the band up, joined the Army, had kids of their own, the tape got traded around the underground without them knowing it, and they changed the face of heavy metal forever. (S)





8. Alan Partridge The Movie (The trailer)
Steve Coogan's BBC series “I'm Alan Partridge” was an amazing,
hilarious, and frequently painful mockumentary/fake talk show about a
delusional asshole and his non-career. And now he's getting his own
movie! I can't wait to see it in the theater and hear all the groaning
from the audience. Steve Coogan makes Larry David seem like Tom Hanks.
(K)




7. Atlantic City 
I've been spending allot of time in the Jersey shore hell-scape known as Atlantic City. This movie was cool because it was shot when only two casinos where up and they were about to tare the place down to build more. It's a good story too. It got nominated for a million Oscars the year it came out and won none. Too bad. (S)

6. Day After the Sabbath Volume 85
It's always exciting when a new volume of this insane, sprawling,
proto-metal online comp series is released. Volume 85 is based on Tel
Aviv rock writer Ra'anan Chelled's book 'Demons Fairies & Wailin
Guitars: The best 100 obscured rock acts 1968-1976', which sounds like
a fantastic read. As always, even the most advanced Demonologist will
find some surprising new gems...like this one! (K)





5. Bwana
Amazing latin funk grooves from Nicaragua 1972. A much need relief from all this extreme metal and euro-prog we've been listening to huh. A much needed break in antatimaption of the spring equinox right around the corner. (S)



4. Dust mini-doc
For the past week, I've been interviewing the various members of
proto-metal legends for a story in Classic Rock magazine. If you want
the short version, here's a great five minute primer on the band with
interviews from everybody and some crazy rare live footage! (K)




3. Reyner Banham Loves Los Angles
It's just cool to ride around L.A. in the 70's. This 1972 BBC documentary is an awesome look at the strange Architectural landscape of City of Night.  (S)





2. Blood Tsunami
If I was asked to review Blood Tsunami's new album, 'For Faen!', it
would only take two words: holy fuck. Probably the most violent thrash
metal record I've ever heard. Lyrics that make you wanna crawl into a
fetal ball (“In order to ejaculate, he has to stab a child!”), singer
who rolls his r's in a fantastically obnoxious manner. From the guy in
Emperor who killed a guy in the 90's and the host of MTV Norway's
Headbanger's Ball, which must be a hell of a thing to see. HOLY FUCK!
(K)





1. Bathory - One Rode The Asa Bay
Great collection of Bathory stuff. Kicking it off with the amazing viking metal masterpiece One Rode To Asa Bay video. A few cool interviews with Quorthon and some weird behind the scenes footage. It's a must for Bathory fans like you. (S)

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. Rolling Stone All Access
So here's something awesome: if you subscribe to Rolling Stone (you have to subscribe to the print edition for some reason. There's no digital-only subscription. Still, it's only $20 a year), you get instant access to EVERY ISSUE they've ever printed, going back to the late 60's. There's limitations – you can only read them on a browser, no offline downloads – but still, it's a pretty incredible treasure trove of music and pop culture. Listen to Rumours and crack open a (digital) copy of Rolling Stone from 76, it's like time traveling! (K)

12. Rockaway Beach
The summer is almost gone and I'm wrapping up my east coast summer vacation. The other day my brother took me out to Rockaway Beach and I have to say I'm impressed. They got a cool thing happening on the boardwalk there around B. 96. A bunch of young hipsters took over some concession stands and it's a damn good time. You can get a gourmet hamburger, homemade ice-cream, a cold bold beer and listen to a psychedelic band play live, than go for a swim. But the creme' de la creme has to be former Orgone Energy bass player Johnny DiCosmo's Italian Ice. Johnny adds a modern twist to his family's nearly one hundred year old tradition. All organic ingredients  and way out flavors like strawberry avocado.  It's maybe the best summer desert in the whole country. You only got a few days before he wraps it up for the summer so head out there! (S)



11. Nocturna
Belly dancer turned “actress” Nai Bonet wrote, produced, and starred in this amazing (and amazingly cheap) disco vampire flick from 1979. Everything about it is jaw-dropping. Nai's acting is horrendous, she's naked in it every five minutes, Brother Theodore is in it (!) as her werewolf manservent, John Carradine stumbles around as a very creaky Count Dracula, there's terrible dancing and bad disco, the vampire/bat transformations are handled via primitive animation, and the dialogue sounds like it was written by someone attending English as a second language night classes. Also, it was rumored to have been bankrolled by a mobster, who turned up dead a year later.  A cult classic in the making, dig it up! (K)



10. Hicky & Boggs
This is one dark and disturbed movie directed by Robert Culp and written by Walter Hill. It's a hard boiled neo-nior and is really completely relentless and bleak. It's no wonder that it was a commercial failure when it came out, i'm sure it was a further reminder that the early 70's were, yes….a bummer. None the less it's some kind of masterpiece, too bad Culp didn't direct more of 'em. (S)



9. Septien
Great little weirdfilm about a trio of dysfunctional brothers living in the woods somwhere who happen to stumble across the high school coach who molested one of 'em, causing him to dissappear for 18 years. They ponder what to do about it when a loony snake-oil preacher shows up to help exact revenge. This is a comedy, by the way, although there's not a chuckle in it. You gotta see it just for the scene where they all lie in bed and sing the “Smother the demons” song. Thoroughly whacked and unsettling, but with a surprising amount of heart and a sorta happy ending. (K)

8. The Worst Cars Of All Time
Everybody is always raving about the best cars of all time and many an Advanced Demonologist envisions himself hurtling through liquid light time and space behind the wheel of a 1973 Dodge Charger. We rarely have the alternate fantasy of being stuck in traffic on the 405 behind the wheel of an overheating Ford Pinto. (S)

  

7. The Mystery of Oak Island
Oak island is a tiny hunk of land in Nova Scotia. There's a mysterious pit on the island, 200 feet deep, that many people believe holds Captain Kidd's treasure. Unfortunately, the pit is booby trapped. Treasure hunters have spent the last hundred years trying to get to the bottom of that pit, and they've failed every time. At 90 feet, they found a stone with inscriptions on it that may explain what's down there, but so far, no one's been able to translate it, although it's online, so you can take a crack at it yourself. There was even an episode of In Search Of about it! Crazy stuff. (K)

6. Lonnie Frisbee
I haven't seen the 2007 documentary about the man yet, in fact I just discovered him a few seconds ago when I did the the search on youtube for "Hippie Death" (you see how a great mind works?).   Lonnie Frisbee (is that the best name of all time?) was the real life leader of the Jesus freak Movement. Since we like Jesus rock almost as much as we love Disco on this blog It's about time we dig deeper. (S)

 

5. Cat Gang – Locomotive Breath
Cat Gang was an Italian disco studio project. In 1983, they released their debut (and only) single – a nine-minute discofied version of Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath, complete with maximum flute jams. Majestic shit! (K)

 

4. Peter Brotzmann - Nipples (1969)
Sorry guys, it's been a lot of traveling and listening to old favorites on the ipod. I know not a single Heavy Metal band ever listened to this record and it's considered by most to be a jazz record, even though most jazz fans have never heard and those that have hate it  and when you're riding on a bus from New York City to Atlantic City, it will cause a minor panic attack. (S)



3. Marahachibu
Amazing, hardcore psych-garage from Japan circa 1971. Maybe it's the singer's accent, but this sounds a lot like the proto Sex Pistols to me! (K)



2. UFO - Rock Bottom
Is the official song of Swilson's four week tour of the Jersey shore. It might be the number one beer drinking song of the summer , I listened to this tune every chance I got and I'd like to thank the song itself for rocking so hard and the band UFO circa '75 for all the summer of 2012 memories. (S)



1. Montreal – A Summer's Night
Well, it's September, so we can put this bizarre summer to rest. Dunno how it was for you, but for me, it was alternately amazing and devastating. I'm looking forward to a much breezier (hopefully) Autumn. To send off the summer of '12, here's a suitably dreamy meditation on the season by long-gone early 70's Quebec psychedelic outfit Montreal. Stay cool, everybody. (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. Whipped Cream Lady
I don't think I've ever been to a record store that did not have at least seven copies of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass's seminal '64 breezy-listening classic “Whipped Cream & Other Delights”, featuring the iconic photograph of the pretty lady covered in whipped cream. But who was that lady? And whatever happened to her? She's Dolores Erickson, she's 76, she's still pretty, and this week the Seattle Times broke the case! Delightful! (K)

10. Fred Eaglesmith - Johnny Cash
This tune is awesome. Fred Eaglesmith, who I know nothing about except that he is Canadian, lifts a Neil Young riff and lays down over the top of it a scathing criticism of Johnny Cash's newest fans, who like 'em now that he's dead. This is the only time I've ever really heard this sentiment expressed in a song. The prevalent idea among music fans that : "Sure, you like this stuff now, but where were you back when?!?!". I also wonder why there aren't more musicians writing songs about other musicians? It does happen, but not as much as one would think, since musicians themselves are some of the biggest music fans out there. (S)

11. 2nd Chapter of Acts

I wonder sometimes. I'm the least religious guy I know – in fact, I'm pretty aggressively anti-religion. Yet I love 70's Jesus freak music. Go figure. Had I been an impressionable teenager in 1974 – the year two-sisters-one-brother hippie Christian rockers 2nd Chapter of Acts released their first record, “With Footnotes” – would I have been swayed? Would I have seen the light? Probably not. But could I have scored with hippie Jesus chicks? Maybe. Anyway, dig this flowery resurrection rock and make up your own mind. (K)

10. Little Woman - Throat (2010)
Equal parts Blues Explosion and Soft Machine and a whole shit load of other outrageous contagious nonsense. Heavy Metal thunder.  I was subjected to this 1 AM one night in Jersey City and my brain melted out of my eyes.  It was really unpleasant. (S)

9. Cristina – Disco Clone (1978)
Some people will tell you this is the worst disco song ever made. I am telling you the opposite. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but the point is, you've gotta hear this jam. (K)

8. Super 11
This group plays wedding music from Mali, obviously from the clip, a very organically psychedelic place.  Buy the record!  I'm sure they could use the Euros.(S)

7. The Museum of Uncut Funk

The Museum of Uncut Funk is exactly that: they preserve funky artifacts from the past few decades, lest we forget the funk in it's purest form. Recently the Museum was visited by Collectors Quest – a pretty amazing website/portal where people show off their collection of...stuff – who shot some video of' 'em showing off their collections of black comic book heroes, blaxploitation posters, black animation, and more. Bad ass! And also funky. (K)



6. Crazy Homeless Man In Belgium
Cheap Satanism records should snatch this guy up before somebody else does. He's got over a million hits on youtube. It took him five years but hey…(S)

5. Katie Sunshine
If I was to tell you there's a girl who likes to put on Daisy Dukes and go hula-hooping in her front yard, what do you think her name would be? Exactly, Katie Sunshine. Sometimes, everything just works the way it should. (K)

4. Venom - Live in 1985
You want the worst and you got the worst! One of the best/ worst metal bands of all time here in all the stinking glory in 1985. I've been listening to these guys non-stop since I'm still in Jersey, I guess the place just inspires  a natural angst. I'm loving it! (S)

3. Real Life (Ukrainian) Sleeping Sleeping Beauty
So here's the idea: it's an art installation where a beautiful Ukrainian girl is dressed up like Sleeping Beauty and lies on a bed, seemingly snoozing away in her poison-apple coma. Dudes show up and are encouraged to kiss her, but here's the rub: first the guy has to sign a waiver that says if she wakes up from his kiss, he has to marry her. It's like a really weird/awesome game of Ukrainian Roulette! (K)

2. Brigantine Castle
I've been spending lots of time in the South Jersey town of Brigantine. Where when I was a kid there was a infamous haunted house called Brigantine Castle. The place actually had real people dressed up like ghouls and zombies who would literally jump out of the shadows and chase you through the hallways. Fuckin crazy! It was before lawsuits really took hold of our culture. it burned down in 1987. Bummer. (S)

1. Doro – Raise Your Fist in the Air
Holy fuck, Doro's back. I saw her at a strip club in New Hampshire once. This was a few years back.  She wasn't stripping, she was playing on the aging-metalheads stage in the corner. It was pretty amazing. I mean, she plays to 50 zillion people in Germany, but she's so dedicated to her fans that she's willing to play in Nowheresville New Hampshire for 60 boozy over-aged headbangers (who spent most of the dough they saved for Doro merch on the strippers)? You gotta love Doro, man. LOVE DORO, MAN! (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. Gerald Spooner – Camberline
If there's one thing I love, it's early 70's loner-folk (with flues!) played by bearded freaks from nowheresville. And if there's one thing I hate, it's records I couldn't afford in 10,000 years. So, you can imagine how conflicted I am over Germanic warbler Gerald Spooner. One self-released album, Growing Up, from 1974. It's not on the internet. Everything in the world that has ever existed is on the internet, but not this record. The dude who used to run the Fantasy blog (which was awesome, and still sorta exists, but only as a mail order thing) is selling a copy right now for 280 Euros, which is like, $400 smackeroos US. So, somebody rich please buy it and tape it for me. In the meantime, check out this gentle, druggy, wigged-out track from it. (K)

12. 45 Rare Psychedelic And Prog Rock Song Comp
Holy hell! I think I only heard but one or two of the tunes before, on this amazing sampler put together by somebody. I'm assuming the guy is  from Europe, because most of the jams are from the continent, some from Japan. It's worth checking out till the end, he saves some the best  for last. (S)

11. The Coffin Torpedo
So, say you're dead, and some dirty ratfink wants to dig you up and steal your gold filling. You gonna let him get away with it? Not if you have the Coffin Torpedo! Hitting the market in 1878, the coffin torpedo basically rigged up a loaded shotgun inside your coffin, so if the lid was opened, the grave robber got shot right in the face. There was also a version that was basically a landmine. The only problem? Sometimes they'd go off randomly, like when you were placing a wreath of flowers on dear ol' grandmas grave. Life was sure interesting in the 19th century. (K)

10. Titicut Follies
If you haven't treated yourself to the slow burning horror of this 1967 Fredrick Wisemen master piece, a hot August afternoon is a perfect time to do so. It's centered around a talent show at a mental hospital for the criminally insane. It was unavailable for many years. Watching a Wiseman movie is pretty refreshing in the age of the propaganda film being passed off as documentary. (S)

9. Space Water
At some point here on Earth, we're gonna run out of water. And that's gonna be a bad scene. So we really need to find some solution before the Water Wars start. Luckily, it turns out there's enough water in space for all of us to have a trillion gallons of our own. It's in a cloud outside of a black hole 12 billion light years away. Everybody grab a bucket! (K)

8. Haphash & The Coloured Coat Featuring the Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids (1967)
One of the best names in the history of anything, born out of some oozing brain child of two graphic designers who were responsible for a bunch of posters around London's emerging psychedelic scene. It sounds proto-evrything. In fact it sound primordial like a primordial brain discovering language. Or maybe it just sounds like a bunch of hippies making noise. Whatever it is , I like it!(S)

7. Belbury Poly
Hey, new genre alert! Who's up for Spectradelia? So far I'm pretty sure it's only Belbury Poly that's peddling the stuff, but every movement starts with one pioneer, right? Basically, these Welsh weirdies create music that sounds like classroom filmstrips gone wrong. It's retro-futuristic incidental music that creeps right into your brain and whispers about the secret horrors under your bed or in your closet. It might also be the soundtrack to a documentary about snails. Either way, Glowing Raw has a great write-up on the new Belbury Poly record, The Belbury Tales. Check it out and get spectradelic! (K)

6. Louie Bluie
This is Terry Zwigoff's first film. He met Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong sometime in the mid 80's and was so blown away by how talented the guy was that he went around to all of his filmmaker friends and tried to convince somebody to make a documentary. Nobody wanted to, so Zwigoff, never having made a film before, said "fuck it" and made it himself.  (S)

5. Killer Joe
Caught this last weekend, and was blown away. It's heavy duty neo-noir meets grindhouse black comedy, full of nudity and blood and fried chicken abuse. There's at least four of five scenes in here that could potentially cause you to puke or run screaming from the theater. This is what NC-17 was made for. Awesome stuff, go see it! (K)

4. Roddy McDowall's home movies of Malibu in 1965

Something mesmerizing about all these  stars of yesteryear hanging out by the beach in 1965.  It's long before we were used to seeing celebrities casually hanging out. Because now everyone is really casual and although I'm a casual guy myself, it's kind of a drag.The footage has an air of innocence  about it, clearly before the big late 60's freak out. I apologize to all you Vietnam vets out there but I'm Fond of Hanoi Jane. (S)

3. Nightstalker – Dead Rock Commandos
If you only listen to one Greek biker-metal record this year, let it be this one. Buzzy, groovy, 70's saturated dope rock heavy enough to crush mountains. Grow your hair long, drop out of society, play this record as loud as possible. Not necessarily in that order. (K)

2. Pork Roll Express
I'm back in Jersey and I'm indulging in the Garden States contribution to world cuisine, Taylor Ham or pork roll, whatever you want to call it. Actually this outstanding mystery meat hasn't made it out of New Jersey very much. Although I have found it in a H.E.B in Texas and one butcher shop in The Grove in Hollywood. Maybe it's for the best, it's not too good for you, but it is delicious. If you do need to get it in Kansas or Hawaii, you can try and catch a ride on the Pork Roll Express! (S)

1. Vanessa – Upside Down (Dizzy Does It Make Me)
Incredible early 80's aerobic Europop. My new favorite music video of all time, ever. (K)