Advanced Demonology 58: The Golden Grass

This week, Ken and Swilson talk to NYC heavy hazers Golden Grass! Plus sweet jams galore!

Listen/download HERE! 

Advanced Demonology Episode 44: Babylon Sweethearts

This week, Ken and Swilson rap with LA freedom rockers Babylon Sweethearts! Plus: tasty jams for miles!

Listen/Download HERE! 

Nocturnal Poisoning

Spend Saturday afternoon in a warm, gooey haze!

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. In Death It Ends
Creep out with this spectacularly ghoulish slab of retro ice-wave! Mostly instrumental, so you can make up your own spooky words and mumble 'em as you skulk around your local cemetery. (K)


12. Birds Of Maya Live
This is one of my favorite bands going right now and they really kill it live! Check out this video from 2009. But I'm starting to think it should be mandatory for all bands to have to dress up in some kind of Halloween type costume when they play.  I'm in a band and I really hate to get all dolled up too. But I know I'm wrong.Think about this music being played by guys in Dragon suits spitting blood & fire, or dressed like cave men with bloody meat hanging off of steaks. I suppose cut offs is a costume, but ya know….it's mandatory for Swedish bands to dress up. And Sweden is where rock lives! (S)


11. Weng's Chop
A bunch of the superstars of 80's cult movie zines, including Dan Taylor from Exploitation Retrospect and Greg Goodsell from Subhuman, have assembled for this glossy-covered, print-on-demand megaZine, and it's fuckin' boss. This particular issue has a spaghetti western theme, so there's stuff about Klaus Kinski's gunslinger pics and Mexican and Indian westerns and all kindsa cool shit. The newest issue is a Jess Franco special. You gotta get these! (K)

10. Agent Steel - Mad Locust Rising
UFO obsessed, and not the friendly kind, power metal from 1985 Los Angeles. I hear a Manilla Road influence and it's cool man. I can't stop blazing the last track: Let It Be Done / The Day At Guyana.  (S)

 
9. Dungeon Beast
Sure, you're hip to black metal and death metal and thrash metal and even industrial metal. Swilson plays “Nothing Metal”, and that works out pretty good for him. But are you hip to “Asshole Metal”? Well, let me introduce you to the reigning kings of this important new micro-genre, Dungeon Beast! It's like mid 80's doom/thrash played in a trash can! (K)


8. Good looking Israeli Defense Girls
Perhaps the most vital photo gallery you'll peruse this week. (K)

 7. Deniz Tek - Detroit
Ann Arbor born and bred. Relocated To Australia in the early 70's to bring the Detroit rock revolution down under with Radio Birdman and New Race. On his latest album he returns to Detroit a little worn and a little wiser. (S)


6. Vidunder
Swedish hippies playing downer-blues. Great soundtrack for your next all-denim weekend! (K)

5. Rolling Stones - Unreleased Decca Live Album 1972
Being that the Stones are on tour now I think it only fitting to post this amazing document I picked up off the inter-web. I dig how sloppy and ramshackle rest of the band  are up against Mick Taylor's beautiful, tight, guitar leads. It's really never been done before or since. A great case for selling your soul to the devil. Shoot smack! (S)


4. The Deathmakers
So you know when it was 1983 and you rented Faces of Death from the video store and it became apparent to you, even then, when you're were still a 14 year old numbskull, that some of the 'true death' scenes in this hodge-podge of reality horror seemed suspect at best, like the guy who parachutes into an alligator pit, or the people who sit down at a table with a hammer and bash in a monkey's skull so they can eat his brains? Well, turns out it really was all bullshit, as evidenced by this illuminaing mini-doc (from the Faces of Death blu-ray?!) featuring interviews with the SFX dudes behind the VHS madness. (K)

 
3. Bodega Pop Blog
Great blog. This cat buys music in the various "ethnic" Bodega's in NYC and posts it on line. Great idea. You always see those CD's on the wall behind the counter and wonder what the hell that stuff sounds like. Now we got somebody doing it for us. (S)

2. Norm McDonald Live!
First of all, all the kool kids know that Norm was the greatest SNL-er ever. Or at the very least, the most cavalier. Secondly, what the LAST thing you'd ever expect Norm to do? Exactly, a fuckin' podcast. But here he is, hosting a weekly video 'cast on Youtube, and it's a total riot. Watch him guzzle gravy and hassle his sidekick and tell tawdry Hollywood tales with pals like Kevin Nealon and Super Dave Osborne. Laffs galore! (K)

 
1. Paul Chain - Alkahest
This record rules. The Ex-Death SS guitar player teams up with Cathedral mad man Lee Dorian. I think it's from nineteen ninety something or other. Take note doom rockers: We need less Electric Wizard and Sleep and more Death SS/Paul Chain rip offs! (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. Creeping Ivies
Scottish boy-girl riot squad. I think they're like a Bonnie and Clyde type situation. They kinda sound like 80's destructo-billies Deja Voodoo, only with a megaphone and a flamethrower. I just got the record, it blew out my windows and set fire to the rug. In a good way. (K)


12. Black Metal: Beyond the Darkness
Kinda an all around Black Metal reader. Pretty good for the most part, a few pretentious articles. Lots of great photos. It's a must have for the Demonology library. (S)

11. The Art of Harvey Kurtzman
Fun (if way too short!) mini-doc about the man who brought us the original Mad magazine. I remember reading reprints of the 50's version in the 70's – they gave 'em away with 'super specials', I think – and they blew me away. Amazing art and seriously subversive humor, especially for the 1950's. Later on he invented (or at least perfected) the boner comic with Little Annie Fannie. What a guy! (K)


10. Dead Native - Keep It Strange
Kinda Bluesy, kinda trippy, lot's of rhythm changes and weirdness.  I think the singer if he doesn't already own a pair, should get himself some leather pants. I mean that as a compliment. Unless it's just a bunch of fat guys in corduroy, I can't tell this video clip is kinda dark. (S)


9. Shoraiders
Basically if Bon Scott quit AC/DC around 1976 and they decided to replace him with a hot Finnish (?) chick, you'd have Shoraiders. “Just Try To Keep My Cool” is my new anthem! (K)

 
8. Erica
Loner, depressing bedroom synth pop from Brazil that will have you taking the entire bottle.The record sounds like it was written on the coldest cloudy day she could find in such a tropical place.  "Digging My Weeds" and "Don't Let Me In" are high-lights, or should I say low lights?  It's available on a groovy handmade cassette.  (S)


7. Adjust Your Tracking
New trailer for the (hopefully) soon-to-be-released doc about weirdos who collect VHS tapes. Like me, really. I am telling you right now that I have several large boxes of rare/cult VHS tapes in my basement. I don't know what to do with them. I'm not gonna fucking watch them, I just wanna pull them out every few years and look at them and think about the days when renting videos was your primary delivery service for movies. Goodtimes. The guys in this movie are way more hardcore than I am. I'm pretty sure they'd all kill you for a copy of Tales from the Qaudead Zone. (K)

 
6. Japanese Vapor Wave??
Vapor Wave, or better yet, Vapor Boogie is  some kind of Japanese take on chill wave. I think it's from Japan. I don't know but it's mysterious and I really like it.  It basically sounds like 80's funk pop played by lobotomized robots. (S)


5. Murderess
Holy fuck, an (almost, they've got a boy drummer) all-girl blackened crust band? Far out. The goddamn bass player has a four-row studded belt, an Electric Wizard t-shirt, and a leopard skin guitar strap. They did not make chicks (or bands) like this in the ol' dayz, man. (K)

 
4. Bronx Gangs Of The 70's on Google Maps
Want to know where The Javelins, Black Spades, Savage Nomads and War Pigs hung out in the 70's? Check on this awesome google map. It charts all the turf of all the top street gangs of the glorious South Bronx seventies. Warriors come out and play!! If your brave you can do a walking tour, or should I say running tour. (S)

3. Can The Documentary
If you like Krautrock (you like Krautrock), you gotta watch Can the Documentary. It's a documentary about Can, mothefucker. Let's do this. (K)


2. Lord Of The Logs: Designing the Metal Underground
yep you guessed it, a book dedicated to the history of Black Metal logos designed by Christophe Szpajdel. Need I say more? (S)

1. Yes Mistress
If Swilson was 25 right now and listened to punk rock instead of Hawkwind, this would be his band. Junk punks wreaking havoc with two chords and five dollar sunglasses. They have a new single out, “Gonna Get Arrested”, it's boss. Buy it. Better yet, steal it. That'll go with the theme. (K)

Worrisome Wednesday Jam

Der Blutharsh and the Infinite Church of the Leading Hand.
Belligerent Austrian doom-psych. Will make you wanna hide in a closet.
From their new album, The Beginning of the End. 

Let's writhe! (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. 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)

New Demons: Tweak Bird

Tweak Bird
Reservations
Volcom Records

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

Ka-chunk!

- Ken