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. Bloody Hammers
First of all, did you know there's an occult rock print magazine called (sensibly enough) Occult Rock?
Holy smokes! They even use the same font we do (I ain't mad)! Anyway, occult rock is clearly making a big comeback, and if Bloody Hammers is any indication of what's ahead, things are about to get seriously heavy. Clearly inspired by Roky Erickson and Black Sabbath in equal measure, this band is all meat, no filler, just bleary-eyed bikerdoom jams until your head caves in. Debut album (on vinyl, natch) coming in a couple weeks. In the meantime, dig these killer sounds. (K)

12. The Education Of Sonny Carson
Is the 1974  film based on the autobiography of one of New York's most controversial black community leaders. The Lords  got a fuckin problem with the Hawks and our man Sonny Carson is at the center of it. Like a runaway steam train, destination brick wall, Sonny has got nowhere to run sweet back run. He's caught between the man and the streets with there is no way out.  A cinematic blaxplotation gauntlet, this is black power at 24 frames per second. A forgotten masterpiece but not for long. (S)

11. Who's Who - Roll Jacky Roll
#666 in an ongoing series of records I'd really love to own but can't afford: this bouncy French disco rollerjam from '79 by the dad of one of the Daft Punk dudes! (K)

10. What we do is secret: The story of the Germs
Yeah yeah it's a bad movie, I know, two stars on Netflix, but hold on for second, let's look at what we are dealing with here. A work of art must be judged against it's peers, right? And what is this movie up against? Exactly! Other rock 'n roll biopics and we all know that this is the most failed and ill advised cinematic genre of all time. Unless the bands are over 100 years old they should just be represented by documentaries. Now I'm gonna say it right here and right now. This is the best rock bio pic I have yet seen ( I've tried to avoid them mostly).  That doesn't mean it's good or you should even go out and watch it.  What We Do Is Secret impressed me for what it didn't do.  It didn't try to mythologize the bands like The Doors movie or try to over dramatize or even moralize the characters like The Runaways movie. Instead it stays rooted in rock 'n roll fun, focusing on the rowdy, let's fuck shit up,  teen age, riot. The fact that this movie seems like a high school play, written by you and your friends when you were 16 only works to the it's advantage.  Shane West does a convincing job at playing Darby Crash and the on screen Germs are way more rocking and menacing than any footage I've seen of the real Germs. Shane did such a good job in fact that the surviving Germs reformed and had Shane playing Darby on tour. An act I find utterly depressing. As if we needed something else to remind us that Rock music has nothing at all to do with rebellion anymore, that's it just music. I mean how can it be anything but? Now a days kids have grandparents who grew up on Blue Cheer and Cactus!! But so what, great job Shane. (S)

9. Paul Williams: Still Alive
One of my fave long-gone 70's celebrities gets resurrected, sorta, in this weird anti-documentary. Basically Paul agrees to to film a doc about his life and career and then refuses to take part in it, while still allowing the director to follow him around all day. I would have loved an actual career-centric doc on the man behind "Old Fashioned Love Song", but there's still some real interesting bits on here, particularly a climactic series of clips featuring Paul guest-hosting on a talk show coked off his tits, saying shit like "I'm a devoted husband and father until I buy a plane ticket." Ha, the 70's were crazy. (K)

8. The Worlds Most Dangerous Drug
Speaking of fun loving teenagers. The kids from Vice head down to Columbia to scope out Scopolamine, the worlds most dangerous drug. A little bit can kill ya, and an even littler amount can put you into a hypnotic trance so that you will do anything anyone tells you to do. You're totally conscious and appear to be normal, but you're not really. It's a real favorite with robbers and rapists. Some real life horror just in time for Halloween. By the way these trees grow all over Los Angeles. (S)

7. Matthew Sweet - Devil with the Green Eyes
Matthew Sweet is responsible for, hands-down, the best power-pop song of the 90's (Sick of Myself). But he's got plenty more great songs, and I've been listening to this one all week. From his 1993 album Altered Beast, The Devil With the Green Eyes is his stab at Advanced Demonology, a dark, occult-y pop gem that sounds like Roky Erickson in a moment of quiet clarity. Dig this doom: "Devil with the green eyes/you were never meant to be mine/Cuz I came up from a dark world/ And every love I've ever known is dead". Haunting stuff, just in time for Halloween. (K)

6. Brain Donor
White face painted motherfuckers from England.  Motherfucking Kiss. Motherfuckin MC5. Motherfuckin Speed, Glue and Shinki. Motherfucking Julian Cope. Brain Donor has got a few motherfucking records out already and I just picked up Love, Peace & Fuck. It's drives like a motherfucker. Down the high-way head on, into the  motherfucking pagan dawn. (S)

5. Mae West – Treat Him Right
Hip til the end, in 1966, at age 72, Mae West hooked up with teen garage rock band Somebody's Chyldren to record an album of then-contemporary rock covers, Way Out West. And guess what? It fuckin' rocks! Here's Mae tearing through Roy Head's classic. (K)

4. Snow On The Bluff
The Education Of Sonny Carson is a Disney film by comparison. Aside from the suspension of disbelief that you need to except that this is in fact a stolen video camera, the rest of this movie is an utterly convincing portrayal of the mean streets of Atlanta. Curtis Snow carries the film with some amazing swagger and charm and somehow gets you to care about his character even though he's a robber and murderer.  Check it out. It's a damn shame that the so called drug war has turned neighborhoods into something resembling a third world civil war. A price worth paying just so people don't get high on the shit? America eats it's young, It's too bad it's no joke. (S)

3. Tales of Murder and Dust
One of the most gonzo freak-out nu-psyche bands in operation, these Danish loons take shoegaze-y acid spacerock to dangerous new heights. I remember when I was a teenager and my idiot cousin raided my uncle's medicine cabinet and swallowed a fistful of his heart pills just to see what would happen. A few minutes later, he was on the floor, gurgling and flailing. I'd like to think this was screaming in his ears at the time. New album available as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. I would suggest a one million dollar donation, but go with your heart. (K)

2. The Litter: Distortions (1967)
I had this record kicking around the stash for years and years and I've been told over and over again how heavy it is.  I don't know what it was, but I just never got around to it. Well I'm glad. I'm 38 and I'm disco dancing to Action Woman. People exhale them in the same cloud of reefer smoke as the MC5 and they are right, goddamn it. Barring the hallmark of righteous midwestern rock 'n roll: blood, sweat and cum. A true testimonial in the privacy of your own home is just a click away click away. (S)

1. Alan Vega: Collision Drive (1980)
Leather jacket juvenile delinquents frozen in ice, since 1958, return to 1980 as zombies. What's left of there brains has reduced them to only being able to speak in a rhythmic, repetitive stream of conciseness. Far out! (S)

0. Playboy Bunny Reunion photos
Artist/photographer Robin Twomey recently went to a Playboy bunny reunion and shot a series of portraits of aging bunnies from the 60's and 70's. It's a pretty remarkable testament to the temporary nature of physical beauty, and is either empowering or depressing, depending on your point of view. (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.Fastway - Eat Dog Eat (2012)

So there is a new Fastway record out. it's the first one in 21 years. Aside from a few tunes that feel like Eddie must of listened to some grunge records along the way not much has changed.  Just no nonsense  wall rock 'n roll. This recording, sonically speaking, sounds better than the records made in the 80's, it's real raw and full, and I've never been much of Dave Smith fan so I dig the new singer. Great job guys. Long live Fast Eddie! (S)

12. You may wonder to yourself, what would Marc Bolan be doing if he was around today? 

I'm pretty sure he'd be doing exactly this, remixing his early 70's hits into Studio 54 party anthems or hazy chillwave jams. The DJs at KCRW mutate several well-known Bolan boogies into some seriously groovy T Rex-tasy. There's an EP available. If you are a child of the revolution. you'll get it. (K)

11.Birth Of The Groove: R and B, Soul and Funk Guitar: 1945-1965 by Dave Rubin

This great instructional guitar book traces the history of the guitar players ,who helped fuse Blues and Jazz into Rhythm & Blues, which helped form soul and Rock 'n Roll and ultimately Funk. It's a fantastic history with biographies and in depth analyses of the playing styles of such six string luminaries as Tiny Grimes, Robert Ward, Steve Cropper, and Cornell Dupree. Hell there is even an interview with my most infamous main man Ike Tuner! It comes with a CD to help you play along to examples and, if your a guitar player, it's a great way to spend a  Saturday night. (S)

10. Lydia Lunch - Spooky 

Lydia was/is a hardcore NYC no-waver turned angry poetess, and to be honest with you, most of the time, she's just way too much for me. Seriously, try to get through one of her 80's spoken word records in one sitting without a bottle of something stiff to soothe your nerves. But on her first solo album, 1980's Queen of Siam, she croons her way through a sultry, stripped-down version of Classic IV's late 60's mega hit Spooky like she invented "spooky". Or at least perfected it. (K)

9. Prog Not Frog search engine

You know, times have been tough lately for diehard obscure music fans. After Megaupload got nailed, everybody else started panicking and now the music blogosphere is a sickly, shivering shadow of its former self. At least, that's the way it looks on the surface. The new PNF search engine (sponsored, I'm guessing, by the excellent and still-kicking Prog Not Frog blog) is an excellent way to find some way-out, long-gone tunes. Just type in whoever you want to hear, and it will find blogs posting your chosen poison. It's still being built, so not all blogs have been indexed yet, but it's a strep in the right direction, for sure. Try it! (K)

8.The late great Sherman Hemsley was a acid eating Gong fanatic!

This little tidbit has been kicking around the inter-web since George Jefferson passed away. If you haven't read it yet, you can check it here. It's just such a mind-blowing story that it seems like it comes from the Advanced Demonology parallel universe. Just a few things to keep in mind when reading it. This first person account from Daevid Allen is from late 1978 or 1979, not 1969, almost 1980. Think about that. Also Hemsley would go on to have a hit series with "Amen" after this story took place. He isn't exactly a counter culture icon. He's more like Jerry Seinfeld at the time. I can't wait for a bio to be written about this man. (S)

7. Some dude from Vice went to the Westminster Dog Show. On acid.

 It went about how you'd expect. (K)

6.Ron Asheton 1986 Interview

I stumbled across this really cool clip of the god of thunder talking with the Dutch in 1986. If anyone can track down the rest of this documentary let us know.(S)

5. Ike & Tina Turner Live 1971

Caught this one on the Netflix watch instantly this week. Awesome!  The opening with just the Ikettes is worth the watch,  and you couldn't imagine things getting hotter and sexier, than the acid queen comes on and your reduced to a puddle of jelly. No wonder Ike Turner was dressing and  acting like a pimp. This is serious, uncut, pussy power,that blows away that watered down stuff in years to come like Madonna and that Ciccone rip-off act Ga Ga. (S)

4. The Orchis Italia

Also known as the Naked Man Orchid, for obvious reasons. They grow in the Mediterranean. Pink flowers that look exactly like grinning idiots with large, dangling penises. Nature is nuts. If you stumbled across these by accident,  they'd probably fry your brain but good. (K)

3.The Bad Trips - Open

When I ordered the reissue of Walk to the Fire ( you should get yours now they are going fast apparently) I also grabbed this. Grady Runyan is a guitar god al la Randy Holden, he also owns a cool record store, and this is his other band the Bad Trips. To quote apparently square and misdirected youtube commenter "fucking druggie shite, grow up!". So you know, right on, that's exactly what we want here at Advanced Demonology. (S)

2. The Playboy Roller Disco and Pajama Party 

This really happened. On TV. In 1979. Girls on rollerskates, the Village People, Richard Dawson, Dorothy Stratten, Bill Cosby...it's all too much. By the way, midway through, there's an awesome news update from a local anchor who's clearly appalled that this is even on television. Holy smokes, was 1979 a fuckin' gas, or what? (K)

1.  I saw a Bobcat in my backyard!!!

I grew up on the east coast and the cities are concrete jungles. Not much nature around other than rats and roaches and pigeons. Los Angles is a wonderland and  it's the second largest city in America, but because of the climate, all the canyons,  the beach, and foothills there is tons of , to me at least, exotic wildlife that just mixes in with the concrete and grime, rats and roaches. We have coyotes, rattlesnakes, rabbits, lizards, black widow spiders, if your by the beach, seals, dolphins and sharks.  In my backyard alone I've seen a deer, had a hawk drop a 4 foot gopher snake out of the sky, been up close and personal with a coyote at 4am, and looked eye to eye with a weasel.  But the other day I came home from work to have a bobcat scamper out the yard. A bobcat!?! Isn't that related to a tiger or a lion? Is that animal dangerous? We have mountain lions too but I never want to see one. I'm from New Jersey!  California is full of creeps and weirdos and wild cats I guess. (S)