Rat Pudding

13 QUESTIONS with ANTHONY D.P. MANN

2009-10-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've been saving this one just for the 31st of October. It's a special Halloween post for all you ghouls out there that are back home after a night of revelry and are stuffing your face with all that cheap-assed candy...

Anthony D.P. Mann is a Canadian performing artist that is continually making his mark on stage, screen, and radio. A consummate showman with a taste for the macabre (and a touch of camp), Anthony brings to mind the actors and voice performers of a bygone era...and I mean that as a high compliment. Had be been born many decades earlier, he would have most certainly been a suitable foil for the likes of Vincent Price, John Carradine, and Basil Rathbone. I shit you not. I first became of aware of him via as co-host (along with Kings Town Ted) of one of my favorite horror-themed podcasts, HorrorEtc. They're at 108 weekly episodes and still going strong. Long may they run, 'cause it's one show I never get bored with. Anyhow, that's enough rambling from me...enjoy our thirteen questions with a fine talent and true gentleman.

For a person of your young years, you're a true Renaissance man in the entertainment field. Stage, screen, TV, even radio - you've done it all. How did you get started in show biz?

A renaissance Mann, with two "N"s, of course! You know, it's amazing - I just had this conversation with a dear friend. Like any good thespian, I occasionally sit about getting mopey with melancholy... "Oh, I wish I'd done this -- " or "Why haven't I done that -- " ...at which point it was pointed out to me that, when I look back on all that I have done so far, I'm very fortunate. You know, I grew up with a love of movies - genre films, especially horror... and especially classic horror - and on PBS at home, so my childhood was full of monsters and mysteries and frock coats and cheeky humor! I think I have always excelled when left to the devices of my own imagination, and there was a sort of natural evolution from playing dress-up and Superman with my friends in the schoolyard to presenting it in a larger forum. I learned earlier on that if I want to play the characters I love at my age - although at thirty-one, I'm growing nicely into some of them - like Sherlock Holmes or Dracula or Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, then I had to make it happen for myself. So, while my fellow classmates in high school were playing soccer and joining garage bands, I was writing and producing my own stage plays to present in the school and on radio. I was actually appearing as a regular on a weekly radio program in Montreal when I was twelve years old...writing and performing parodies of Poe, no less. In 1994, I produced my first stage play outside of school as a summer project and have been continuing in that same vein ever since. Of course the material is much better now (I hope), and I am delighted to have a wonderful portfolio that includes stage, radio, television, and film to my credit. Much of it is self-produced, but in many cases I have also been a ham-for-hire. So, although I can't quit the "day job" just yet, I have accepted the fact that I am a very lucky Mann.

For a guy of thirty-one, you are very rooted in the classics - Dracula, Arthur Conan Doyle, Poe. It seems a lot of that genuine sense of dread and foreboding provided in the films and novels of yesteryear gets lost in the shuffle of blood and guts these days. Has that ever been a stumbling block for you in trying to get your works produced?

Very much so. I think the finest horror films are those where the horror is never or seldom seen, rather hinted at. Films where your imagination is coerced into filling in the blanks. For example, my favorite film, The Changeling, or the stark contrast between the original version of The Haunting as compared with the remake. In the original, the audience is left to their devices to decide if the titular haunting was real or just a figment of the anti-heroine's imagination...and it's terrifying! In the remake, we are presented with the ghosts in full, visceral CGI, and it feels like little more than a romp through an almost family friendly funhouse. And, as a result, it is almost entirely ineffective. That being said, modern audiences seem to want - or studios and distributors seem to think that audiences want or need - everything presented on screen and spelled-out, which I think is terribly disrespectful of your audience. I have long upheld that movers and shakers in the industry don't give their audiences enough credit. Give me Poe or Val Lewton or M.R. James any day over Saw 13! I certainly do feel that most of my work would never see the light of day, as I don't do gore and certainly can't afford CGI, if I didn't self-produce those projects closest to me. I'd like to think I have the audacity to consider myself a storyteller first, rather than a shock or gross-out artist.

Care to shed a little light on your latest foray into the world of Sherlock Holmes? Is that an intimidating role to play?

Thank you so much for bringing-up Sherlock Holmes! He is a character very near and dear to my heart, and I doubt I'll ever exorcise his demon from my life - happily. I don't think many people realize this, but I am perhaps the youngest actor on record to have portrayed the adult Sherlock Holmes on radio and TV! Ish...

I was seventeen when I first played Holmes on radio in Montreal and enjoyed a run of a good handful of stories on CKUT and CJAD radio over the next few years. Not a regular series, but we'd return to it whenever we were invited back in to perform. This was followed by four episodes on a very small town TV station in Chateauguay, Quebec with literally NO
budget, but lots of heart. I also appeared as Holmes in a couple of stage plays - and American "Holmes" actor William Gillete in a recent production of Ken Ludwig's Post Mortem - and then, in 2005, I produced a film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which has done moderately well - for one of my projects, anyway - on DVD. Unfortunately, I was incredibly heavy during the filming of the movie and don't look the part one bit. Now that I've lost over one hundred
pounds, I'd love to give it one more shot on film. Until that time, however... I am very happy to officially announce a brand-new series of short audio plays based on Conan Doyle's original stories. The first five episode series of The Fantastic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is currently in production. It features myself as Holmes, with a wonderful actor named Terry Wade as Watson. We'll have these available on CD and online at iTunes, etcetera in time for the Guy Ritchie film's release, and I'm hoping people really take to them. They are action-packed, exciting, and occasionally creepy. They focus on the development of the immortal Holmes and Watson friendship, right from their first meeting in A Study in Scarlet. I've a website ready to go shortly (http://www.sherlockholmesadventures.ca/), along with some incredible cover and promotional art featuring Terry and I in character, which was done by a fantastic artist and illustrator in the States, Dave Bryant. I'm so delighted with the prospects for this
series and hope that radio stations might be interested in picking them up for broadcast! Ah yes, the game's afoot!

That's great! I love Sherlock Holmes and I will be looking forward to that. I assume there must be a market in Canada for audio productions of that type? Here in the States it's the same old right wing talk show crap, "classic" rock, "new" country, and nerve-shattering hip-hop clogging up the radio waves.

As far as a market's concerned, I think pop culture, or perhaps retro-culture, is in the same dire straits here in Canada as in the US. The UK seems to still have an appreciation for radio dramas. Thankfully - and this a testament to the power of the internet - we should be able to reach an appreciative audience by making the stories available online affordably, so hopefully those folks who still enjoy radio plays and the Sherlock Holmes mysteries will be able to find their way to these new productions. I seem to have this terrible desire or need to want to leave my mark on this character. I would love to one day find myself mentioned in one of the main books discussing Holmes in the media!

You also starred in Canucula!, a very Canadian take on the vampire legend. How did that come about? Can you tell us a little more about it?

Ah yes, Canucula! You see, at the time I wrote it, I was really looking for a role to sink my teeth into...

Actually, the story is about Dracula finding himself alive, or undead, and well in the twenty-first century... except he's in Canada. The film grew out of my love for the old Universal classics. It's shot in black and white, and the length, score, lighting, and special effects are all very reminiscent of that era. It's best defined as a comedy-horror. There are some very comedic moments in the film, but there are also some very dramatic elements. I love watching Canucula! with people, as they laugh at all the right places and jump or say "hey - that's pretty neat" when they should, too! Above all else, there is a love triangle in this flick, which I think comes across rather well.

Dracula returns to find the descendant of his love, Mina Harker. She turns out to be a TV reporter in small town Kingston, dreaming of the big time in Toronto. Wonderful performance by Pamela Tomsett, I might add. Enter Michel Richard (Mike Pontbriand), a disgraced, former hockey star - hey, it's Canada, right? - who fumbles his way into the plot by falling in love with the reporter and throwing a wrench into Dracula's plans. Then there's the werewolf, a deadly vixen, a crazed accountant, and a vampire hunter from the Black Forests of Moosejaw. I'm very proud of this silly little film! One of the several projects I'm working on right now is a musical version of Canucula! for the stage. I think it would do rather well in Toronto.

Well, we're getting on to the halfway mark in our interview, I guess now would be a good time to bring up the Horror Etc. Podcast. That's where I first became aware of your body of work. How did you hook up with Ted and what made you guys decide to do a podcast?

I can honestly say that the podcast was the brainchild of my dear friend, King's Town Ted. And yes, I DO actually know Ted's last name, but he enjoys a certain anonymity, unlike his co-host.

Ted has been listening to podcasts for years and has been a huge proponent of the medium. He'll often talk about some of his favorite programs on our show, and there are links to several through our website. As for me, I was a podcast virgin back then. I had never really listened to one when Ted suggested we should try and start up our own. At that time, I had just finished hosting a weekly television program for four years and a radio show for a period of time as well. Plus, I own some very good recording equipment. So part of the initial concept was: let's put out a podcast that is well-produced technically and content-wise and approach our themes from an intelligent and insightful vantage point. Ted and I work together in the same office and have spent, from the very beginning of our friendship, so many hours discussing horror films. It seemed like the natural evolution of things to just introduce a microphone into the whole business. So, we set up a cheap website, came up with some show ideas and a rough "format," and set about recording our first episode.

I shudder when I hear those earlier shows, as it took a few weeks for us to hit our "groove," but it's us doing our thing, "warts and all" as they say. Truth be told, I thought we'd be lucky if we could get through ten episodes, now here we are approaching our one-hundredth episode, and there's no end in sight! We're still having so much fun recording the show every week, and there are still so many topics to cover. We went from a listenership of twenty-five downloads for our first episode to literally THOUSANDS every week. So I guess Ted's "little" idea really panned out, and I'm so delighted that he invited me to be a part of it. He works so hard on the show, from doing the final mix to maintaining the website. For the first time in my life, I'm happy to step back from the spotlight and give someone else their well-deserved moment to shine.

I don't know, I was hooked from early on. I don't think you guys have much to be ashamed of for any of the episodes, early ones included. It's a fresh format. You guys don't act like you're superior to everybody else, which seems to be the downfall of so much shit in the horror world. It's just a nice "let's-have-a-chat-and-a-brew" feel. Not to mention, you guys play perfectly off of each other. How much work goes into that or does it all just come naturally?

The concept for Horror Etc has always been that the listeners are sitting with us on the sofa, just chilling and chatting about a subject that we love - horror flicks. We're all friends, and it's usually all incredibly friendly. Now honestly, what better gig could I possibly have?

Actually, after two years, the show is truly a comfortable fit now, but a lot of work still goes into it. We're very adamant about maintaining a certain degree of polish and quality content, and we've yet to miss an episode, although things came very close recently. We record the program over the course of a two to three hour session each week, then Ted meticulously edits the program, cleaning up lots of the guffaws and "inappropriate" material (usually my fault). Then he does a mix, sets-up the website, and so on. He's let me have things easy and does such a great job each and every week.

It never feels like work; that's key to the process. If it ever starts to feel like a chore, then it's time to wind things down. We are very respectful of our audience and fellow podcasters. We do what we do well, and we're proud of it, but we're also fans of some other great programs. Just take a look at our links on the website.

Do you guys ever have trouble agreeing on something to cover? Are there some subjects you'd like to do that Ted just detests to the point of not wanting to talk about it and vice-versa?

Oh yes. It gets down to fist-fights sometimes!!

No. NEVER. I'm just kidding. Everything is always fun. We have the occasional disagreement over a topic, but it's so incredibly rare!

I'd like to think that we are both rather well-versed in horror flicks, and that together, and occasionally with our guest-host Doug, we can speak to just about any topic. There are two shows I would still like to do that I have yet to get Ted on board with - a Sherlock Holmes themed episode and a discussion on horror in Doctor Who - but I think I'm wearing him down.

Usually if we disagree on a week's topic, it's because one of us has to catch up on certain films and do our "homework." But we generally make our way through material and cover each other's ideas respectfully. It's a great working relationship and a fantastic way to discover films that we may never have seen otherwise.

Maybe Ted can be persuaded to do a Holmes episode once the new movie hits at Christmas. I'd love to hear that. I enjoyed the interview you did with Sid Haig at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear last year. That must have been a nice surprise for you. Anybody else you think you might wrangle up to interview in the future?

We've...I've been fortunate with being able to interview some really high-profile folks over the years, either with the podcast and my earlier TV work. Sid Haig was such a fantastic fellow to speak with - a very warm guy, considering he often plays the "heavies" on film. Earlier this year we did an extended interview with Robert Englund of Freddy Krueger fame. That was incredible. Another very sweet man. It was surreal to answer my home phone at the pre-arranged time of the interview to hear Robert on the other end asking "Hi - is this Anthony Mann?"! On a non-genre related note, I was able to interview my musical hero, legendary singer Roger Whittaker, on TV in 2005. That has, so far, been the highlight of my career.

Other folks I'd like for us to chat with? Well, we're heading to the Festival of Fear this weekend and some great names will be there, including Roger Corman, Udo Kier and Bruce Campbell. I think any of those guys would be great interviews. I would love to chat with Christopher Lee, as he is the last man standing of the classic horror maestros. We're trying to get Lance Henriksen, as part of an all-Lance episode, which would be a hoot! Tom Baker, of Dr. Who fame, is my favorite actor of all time, and he's a brilliant wit. Now there's a chat I would love to have!

How do you see the podcast progressing in the upcoming year or years? What about the genre itself?

Well, I for one, can see no end to Horror Etc in sight. And neither can Ted. There are still so many topics to cover, and so many films yet to see. I'm confident that our best work is yet to come. We have a comfortable formula that has worked for us for two years, and I don't think we'd ever consider changing it. We're doing more phone interviews now and hopefully bringing some bigger names onto the program. Oh, and we have some incredible new film music for the show produced by Michael McCormack, a brilliant musician and listener of the show. Aside from that, I think we're going to keep things business per usual.

As for the state of the genre, I think the world of horror cinema is in dire straits. We recently watched and had a detailed discussion around a film which hails from Japan called Grotesque. It was banned in the UK and is a perfect example of how depraved and cold so much of the horror scene has become. When I was growing up, horror films were fun. Sure, they were frightening, but most of the time, it was a SAFE fear. There was always a twinkle in the eye. That's why I still adore the old Universal or American International flicks. So many horror films just take themselves so seriously these days, and many productions are out there simply trying to one-up the last gorefest. Having said that, there is still a lot of great material being produced in the indie market, which is where so much of my interest lies, as of late. Then, every once in a while, we'll see a gem like Let the Right One In or The Orphanage, both hailing from overseas. Mind you, I just saw Drag Me to Hell the other day and thought it was fabulous. Great fun! That, to me, is what horror movies are all about -a spook, a scream, a jump - and, above all, great fun!

Anything else you've seen lately that you really dug? See the new Halloween yet?

I have yet to see Halloween 2, but am looking forward to it. And I'm also going to see Final Destination 3-D; I'm a sucker for gimmicks! I'll tell what I am really excited about - The Wolfman! I'm prepared as always to be let down, but if the film lives up to the trailer, it's going to be great. Now if Universal would only make that Dracula sequel they've been talking about (Un-Dead starring Javier Bardem).

I think The Wolfman looks great, which is a good lead in to our next to the last question...in a world of remakes and reimaginings, what horror franchise or classic character would you most like to see re-booted, and who would you cast if you were directing?

I would love to see a reboot of the Dr. Phibes films. There is no way one could ever replace, or even try to mimic, the late, great Vincent Price. But wouldn't it be brilliant to see what Jim Carrey could do with the character, if they played-up the really tongue-in-cheek - or plug-in-neck - elements of the films? Yes! I would truly like to see those made. I'm quite confident it will never happen, of course. That being said, I wouldn't mind having a go at Dr. Phibes myself...

Alright Anthony. Thanks so much for your time and insight. Any final thoughts before we go?

My pleasure! As a final thought, I would like to thank everyone who has been so incredibly supportive over the past few years - faithful listeners to the podcast (you mean so much to us), those who have checked-out my solo work, and those who have written such kind words. All this culminates to encourage me on those dark and dismal days of self-loathing - and they do occasionally occur - to keep pursuing my dreams. I thank you, and I will.... cheers!

HORRORETC. PODCAST

ANTHONY'S OWN WEBSITE

DARK SIDE OF THE MOONSHINE (2009)

2009-10-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Rumors of an Angry Johnny and the Killbillies documentary have been floating around for a couple of years now - much to my delight at the very proposition of such a noble endeavor, but also very much to my dismay at the seemingly never ending wait to see this bad seed bear fruit. Well, just when I had written it off as dead in the water, this DVD of a work-in-progress arrived in the strongbox outside my desert compound. Oh, holy day - praise the lord and pass the Pabst and get down on them praying bones! Don Adams has delivered a testimony to the faithful with his fly-on-the-wall glimpse at life inside "America's favorite bloodgrass band." It's a must see for everyone that's already a fan and as good a starting place as any for those who have yet to succumb to Killbilly fever.

Dark Side of the Moonshine is a postcard from the road, stained with blood, sweat, beer, and axle grease. It's a poor man's Don't Look Back that captures this hard luck band of troubadors traipsing up and down the Eastern Seaboard, playing their tunes, playing the lottery, and just trying to scrape by with enough dough to be able to do it all again. Ol' Scratch only knows what keeps 'em going, but I'm sure-as-shittin' glad they do. It's the faith that folks like this are out there doing their thing that keeps me getting out of bed every morning and making it back to the same bed every night without slitting my goddamned wrists.

If you haven't known me for more than ten minutes or so, you may not have had the opportunity for me to hip you to the facts that Angry Johnny is the world's greatest songwriter and his motley band of Killbillies is one of the finest live musical units roaming the face of this godless ball of mud - an opinion of which I am most adamant about. I've never thought twice about jumping in the truck and driving three or four hours to catch these guys play before a handful of people in a stab'em and slab'em beer joint that nobody else in the world has ever heard of. And each time I've done so, I've felt like I was in the presence of true greatness. It's how I imagine people must have felt when they threw their crosses down in front of such mythical beings as Hank Williams and Jesus Christ. Therefore, I find the band's total lack of pretense in front of the camera one of the most amazing things about this film.

C'mon, we're all well aware that you can put a video camera in front of damn near anybody and they will still try to come across as something they're not, but instead something bigger and "cooler" and somehow more meaningful and grandiose. You can multiply that factor by about a million when you're dealing with 99.9 percent of the self-congratulatory and self-important assholes that are musicians. Remember that fictional-but-all-too-real band in Almost Famous? Remember how they sold that kid out because he told about all the cool shit he saw, but it didn't match up with the inflated image the band thought they should have? I don't think the 'billies could do that if they had a loaded Smith and Wesson cocked right up against their collective noggin. They just let it blurt and Don Adams was there with camera in hand to bear impartial testimony.

I mean fer fuckssakes, you ever gonna see any other band in the world up to their assholes and elbows in grease and mud trying to fix their van's transmission so they can make it to the next show? Or begging a meager crowd in Bumfuck, Nowhere to buy some lousy dollar bumperstickers just so that they can have enough gas to get on down the road to the next night of grit and desperation? Or see one of this world's finest wordsmiths let a camera follow him into his glamorous night job of trucking newspapers across the highways of New England? It's all amazingly...real. No hired strippers, no clubs full of shills brought out by promises of free booze or the chance to be in a movie, no bullshit braggadocio or phony outlaw posturing. It's just a group of guys doing what they do because...well, that's what they do. And they're gonna be doing it whether you're watching or not.

This film is in no way a comprehensive timelined documentary of the Killbillies or a Behind The Music type affair where folks sit around and pat themselves on the back for being so fucking great. It's a slice of life in a touring band...a band that, in my opinion, should be a whole lot more widely appreciated than they are. If this world has even one iota's fairness slipping around on it somewhere, your grandkids will be one day be looking at this with a sense of awe and wonder - a frozen piece of time where those guys that made all that blissful noise lived, breathed, and somehow flew under the radar of the masses. Hats off to Don Adams for putting his time and effort into this labor of love.

This DVD is labeled as a "work-in-progress," so I don't rightly know what the deal is with the actual release, or if this is even the final cut of the film. Besides the Killbillies touring action, this film also provides glimpses of Angry hard (or is that hardly) at work painting and the Killville Historical Museum of the Strange, as well as some Killbillies animation along with clips from filmmaker Jim Stramel's work with Angry and the Boys. While I'm happy this film exists at all, I think it'd be the sweetest of sugar tits to have this DVD packaged with a bonus disc of live footage - maybe the Live at Ralph's Diner DVD from four or five years ago?

If you're unfamiliar with the Killbillies, get thee over to the Get Angry website right away and order you up some records. I'd suggest starting off with Puttin' The Voodoo on Monroe, easily one of the top five greatest albums of the past twenty years - no shit. Hopefully we'll have a brand new interview with The Angry One here soon (and I'm gonna get to working on tracking down Mr. Adams as well)...until then, you can check out the interview I did for Carbon 14 magazine some years back by clicking HERE.

DICKIE PETERSON of BLUE CHEER (1948-2009)

2009-10-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

Looks like another great has left us: DICKIE PETERSON of BLUE CHEER RIP.

You remember the first time you heard Vincebus Eruptum? How could you forget? Blue Cheer was the first HEAVY band I got into, laying the frame in my head for the MC5, Cactus, The Stooges, Motorhead, and all the rest of the volume monsters that clouded up my teenage years. Thud, thud, thunder, thud, thud, thunder. Thunder, thunder, thud.

If for some reason you've never heard Blue Cheer, run to your nearest record store and pick up Vincebus or Outsideinside. Either one should sufficiently shatter your guts.

Ride on.

TRICK 'R TREAT (2008)

2009-10-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Brian Cox gasps towards the end of this movie. Lemme tell you, he said a mouthful. How can a movie that looks this fucking great - this is one of the absolute best looking and well shot horror movies I've seen in a long time - wind up being so mediocre? It certainly wasn't for lack of talent - besides the estimable Mr. Cox, we've got Dylan Baker (the pederast family man from Happiness) and Anna Paquin (True Blood, X-Men) holding down the main roles in two of the other segments in this Halloween-themed anthology. We even have the amazing Brett "Shit Happens When You Party Naked" Kelly (Bad Santa) around for what, by all intents and purposes, should have been an orange plastic pumpkin full of sticky-sweet goodies but winds up being a bit of a mixed bag.

Trick'r Treat is a horror anthology with all of the stories interconnected and taking place on a single Halloween night in the town of Warren Valley, Ohio. This town has such a Halloween blow-out that I wanna move there - even if it is in Ohio. And even if the local school principal is a serial killer that hands out poisoned candy to trick-or-treaters. And even if the bus driver for the special-needs school will take a bribe to drive a bus full of kids over a cliff at the behest of their parents. And even if...well, you're starting to get the picture.

Good actors, good looking, good premise, good god - what the hell can be wrong with such a thing? Well, truth be told, most of it plays out like the more lackluster Simpsons "Tree House of Horror" vignettes, the ones you always use as an excuse to take a piss and grab another brew. There's even a part where three trick-or-treaters knock on the door of a party being hosted by a shit-faced teacher that has to be based directly on Edna Krabappel. It's all there - the looks, the mannerisms, the rap she lays on the kids about coming in for a drink. I'm sure that all looked good on paper, it's just too bad that live-action homages to cartoons don't work all that well, even if the boy trick-or-treater can get away with uttering lines Bart Simpson will never be able to ("I don't even know what that was. Coach Taylor was in a hot-dog costume butt-fucking a pig...I think," he says as they leave the teacher's front stoop).

For a movie that's seemingly trying to recapture the old EC twist-endings, there's very little that's actually surprising. We have the standard issue kids-play-prank-on-misfit-kid-that-backfires-like-ten-kinds-of-motherfucker, the upstanding-member-of-community-as-serial-killer riff, and the token makes-little-sense-but-we-gotta-do-a-supernatural-kind-of-thing-because-some-suckers-still-like-that-kind-of-garbage bit. And if you aren't able to see the end of the whole girl-losing-her-virginity story coming as soon as you see her Halloween costume...well then, maybe this movie's for you.

On the plus side, you've got four main segments and a wrap-around all crammed into a lean eighty or so minutes, a merciful running time that leaves you little room to get truly bored and put out with the whole affair. And again, it does look magnificent. It's still far from living up to the considerable hype placed upon it (this thing was supposed to be released to theaters back in 2007 or so, right?), so I'd suggest some beers and a late-night lights-out viewing to help set the appropriate vibe. It's worth a gander, especially since Halloween is right around the corner, but I really doubt you'll be re-watching it again any time outside of the holiday season. It's a passable once-a-year watch, and it'll probably go down a lot better with the younger set that's just now getting into horror flicks and maybe hasn't seen as many anthology movies of this stripe.

You could do worse than losing a buck or two on the rental, but I'd think twice before buying this thing sight unseen. The disc is pretty bare-bones but it does have an extra animated short that was kind of the seedling idea that eventually grew into this movie.

http://trickrtreat-movie.warnerbros.com/

ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN (1979)

2009-10-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

You probably saw this on VHS back in the day. It made the rounds in the States as Screamers and could be found on the shelves of damn near every mom and pop video store I ever set foot in, despite claims that it was poorly distributed. Perhaps all of the copies wound up in my corner of northwest Georgia as god's way of punishing us for some transgression. And truth be told, a DVD transfer and a reversion back to a literal translation of the original Italian title do absolutely nothing to take the suck away from this movie. It's every bit as bad as I remember - and then some.

Island of the Fishmen is a riff on H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, this time using fish men as the man/beast creatures. You know the story, so there's probably no need for you to sit through this piss-poor reworking of it that involves a boatload of convicts shipwrecked on a madman's island. Sure the poster art looks cool, the creatures are magnificent in a Sid and Marty Krofft kind of way, and it does feature the lovely Barbara "Mrs. Ringo Starr" Bach, but this flick is still about as exciting as watching gravy coagulate.

Despite my own misgivings toward this turkey, I've heard many people clamoring for its release over the years. If - for some unfathomable reason - you actually dig this movie, you should still check it out via Netflix or something before plopping down the smackers for your own copy. Being a child of the VHS age, I generally could give a shit a less about having the best picture quality, but this DVD has some glaringly horrific (too bad that's the only thing horrific about it) visual problems. Namely the scene where Ms. Bach is taking a night-time journey to visit the fish men at the shore - I literally got a fucking headache just trying to make out what in the hell was going on. Here we have a Bond girl running around in a wet nightgown and we can't do any better than that with the transfer?

I think Roger Corman had some shit added to this flick back when it was initially released to the US home video market. Not having seen that version in a very long time, I can't tell you how this DVD release compares to the old VHS in a scene-by-scene recount. I'm sure some poor sucker out there has watched both side-by-side for your edification. Blessed be the dumbass...

Director Sergio Martino supposedly shot this film at the same time Fulci was shooting Zombie, with the directors sharing film locations and actor Richard Johnson. So what? Fulci nailed it, while Martino shit his britches and fell back in it. If you want to see a much better Martino flick, I'd suggest Mountain of the Cannibal God starring the uber-lucious Ursula Andress (damn, Martino was getting all the Bond girls, huh?).

What kills me is that this film, along with every other turd-tastic version of the Dr. Moreau tale (Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, anyone?), is available while 1932's Island of Lost Souls, a stone cold fucking classic starring Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, rots in the Universal vaults. The shame, the shame.

Feelings for Island of the Fishmen aside, Mya DVD is a company to watch. They've got Klaus Kinski, Laura Gemser, Joe D'Amato, and Paul Naschy films set for release, along with an assload of great releases already available.

www.myadvd.blogspot.com

ALICE IN WONDERLAND...

2009-09-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

The new Alice Cooper Halloween "anthem" came out today on iTunes. It's called "Keepin' Halloween Alive." I haven't had the chance to check it out yet; it could suck balls. But after all the enjoyment Alice has given me over the years, I'd never feel bad about throwing ninety-nine cents his way. Hell, I don't even feel bad about buying "Trash" and "Hey Stoopid." Well, maybe a little. It's almost October, it's Alice Cooper...what more do you want?

SEXY SADIE (what have you done?)

2009-09-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

After my Manson girls post a few weeks back, I suppose I'd be remiss not to mention the passing of Susan Atkins aka Sadie Mae Glutz. Atkins died of brain cancer yesterday evening at the Central California Women's Facility. She was 61.

Click here for Los Angeles Times obituary

THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO (2009)

2009-09-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

My wife told me this was going to suck, but I argued with her. I gave her all kinds of reasons that this was going to be great. It's an R-rated cartoon with nazi zombies, bare cartoon boobies galore, and it features a sleazy, washed-up luchador as its main character. But you wanna know something? The missus was right; this thing sucked. Thank god we didn't shell out ten bucks a head to see it on the big screen last weekend.

The plot involves El Superbeasto and his sister, Suzi X, battling nazi zombies (including Hitler's head - in a jar, of course) and trying to prevent the unholy marriage of Dr. Satan and Velvet Von Black, a stripper voiced by Rosario Dawson (doing what seems to be a latter day Stepen Fetchit impersonation!?!?!?). In a film not limited by the budget or effects restraints of being a live-action feature, they should have been able to salvage something vaguely entertaining out of that scenario. The sky's the limit with animation, right? Well, I guess the real limit is the level of talent that's penning the story, and quite frankly, this script is like something a couple of twelve year old kids would crank out in an hour or two of after-school detention - and that's the only demigraphic I can see it appealing to. It's so spectacularly UNfunny, I can't see how Zombie conned some of these people into lending their voices to this mess. Maybe the recession is eating away at the pockets of the Hollywood set; I can see no other reason for this to not still be languishing on whatever shelf it's been tucked away on for the past year or two.

And if you think the movie itself is bad, just wait until the various character theme songs come along (as they seem to do way too often). One of them actually has lyrics about how a stripper is so hot that she can suck the gay out of a unicorn painting. Even if that sounds funny to you now, I can almost guarantee you it won't once you're in the middle of this animated abortion. And just by the by, is there any kind of award for showing that you can still be a horrible actress, even if you're not physically appearing in a film? If so, Sheri Moon is the gal to watch this year. How does that even happen?

If you want nazi zombies, go see Dead Snow. If you want cartoon sex, go pick up Once Upon A Girl. If you want goofy, horror-themed Saturday morning style fun, Scooby Doo is the place to look. If you want to have your patience tested by a seventy-five minute movie that fails on virtually every level and then some, look no further than The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.
www.anchorbayentertainment.com

Clive Barker's BOOK OF BLOOD (2008)

2009-09-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

Dare I be the one to say that I've never really understood the magic of Clive Barker? I always dug the first Hellraiser flick and enjoyed the audiobook presentation of Coldheart Canyon, but other than that...I just don't get it. It's not that I actively dislike his work or anything of that nature, but to me it's all just kind of indifferent. This latest DVD release (with Barker on board as a producer) does nothing to sway that opinion.

Book of Blood is a mish-mash of two Barker short stories ("The Book of Blood" and "On Jerusalem Street"). The first ten or so minutes are interesting enough. We see a low rent bounty-hunter type catching up with his prey, a fucked up guy with writing carved all into his skin, and spiriting him away to a remote cabin. The hunter has been paid to skin the kid, but wants to hear his story first. Here's the part where anything remotely interesting comes to a screeching halt.

The bulk of the movie consists of the flashback tale of how this odd captive came to be a literal "book of blood." It's a ghost story that possesses all the flair, charm, and impetus of a Lifetime original movie. Psychic investigator employs this guy as a medium to help investigate a haunted house. Guy's a fraud. Rather slow-witted investigator finally catches on. Real ghosts start presenting themselves in all sorts of boring, badly-paced ways. They begin to use phony medium to write their stories on. In a totally unsurprising twist, we find that it's the psychic investigator that is hunting down the fake medium. Fini.

This is one of those movies that you want to get behind. It looks good, the actors are good, the story premise and the movie art piques your interest. Then sadly enough, it goes absolutely nowhere. Dull, plodding, and perhaps the unscariest thing I've seen in years. The dead will not be silenced? We should be so lucky. You've been warned.

www.lionsgate.com

JESCO WHITE RIDES AGAIN...

2009-09-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

If you don't know who Jesco White (aka The Dancing Outlaw) is, I suggest you go do a YouTube search, or better yet, click HERE and get yourself a copy of the documentary that catapulted him into the national conciousness. Love him or hate him, he's the only one of his kind. Me? I'm damn proud to have his picture, inscribed to "The King," hanging on my wall. I just hope he gets fairly compensated for this thing (and if he does, I'd love to be around to see his spending spree). I guess Johnny Knoxville's stirred up all kinds of shit at Tribeca with this new Jesco documentary, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. While I'm not a fan of his Jackass stuff, I'm glad he put his ass and money on the line with this one. Big thumbs up from me. Some folks are harping that it's exploitative and all that nonsense. But is it any more so than the latest 20/20 reports or other assorted "news" specials on the drug crisis back in the hollers of Kentucky and West Virginia? Nowhere near as much, if you ask me. I guess it's only o.k. to document some pockets of the South when you're looking down your nose at it. Hell, I can't wait for this film. Also looks like our old buddy Hank 3's in it, so good on Johnny Knoxville again. Dig the trailer:

DEADGIRL (2008)

2009-09-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

What would you do if you found a dead girl in an abandoned mental asylum? What if it turned out she wasn't exactly dead? Deadgirl is the story of Rickie and J.T., two high school losers on the slow track to nowhere, that find themselves in that exact situation. The uninvolved, semi-spacey Rickie is talked into ditching school by his best bud J.T., the kind of guy whose future probably holds lots of low-paying shit jobs and short jolts of jail time. They make their way over to the old nuthouse to drink some warm brews, bust out windows, and partake in all the other acts of petty vandalism that teenage boys commit when the dope's all gone and the boredom of a life going nowhere can't be tolerated for another second. Down in the basement, they find a naked woman chained to a gurney and wrapped in plastic. She's dead...or is she? Rickie wants to call the police, but J.T. has other plans of a nowhere near such noble design.

To reveal anymore would be to deprive this celluloid powerhouse of its full effect. Deadgirl is Tales from the Darkside tweaked on crystal meth and shoved into the darkest recesses of the male sexual psyche. This cerebral equivalent of a steel-toed kick in the crotch is not for the faint-of-heart or those just looking for a cheap scare. It's coming-of-age tale meets the most dreadful kind of horror story. Not only will it leave your jaw on the floor, but it'll also do what, in this day and age of hackneyed cinematic regurgitations, amounts to the unthinkable - it will leave you asking yourself a fuck ton of questions.

Much like The Girl Next Door posed the question of how far will people go when they're pretty secure in the knowledge that their actions will garner no repercussions, Deadgirl sees that action and ups the ante considerably. How far would you go for your best friend? How far would you go to secure your own happiness, even at the detriment of others? When do you cross the line that makes something totally fucked up become a normal in your life? What are the darkest parts of your heart and soul truly capable of when there's nothing left to keep them in check? It also calls into question male sexuality at its most perverse and horrifying. Those tired old jokes about a woman being a life support system for a cunt have some sort of hateful validity in the eyes of those that perpetuate them , right? And let's face it, if Rickie and J.T. had found a naked man strapped to a gurney, the outcome of their story would have been totally different.

Deadgirl is superb filmmaking on all levels. It's easily the best movie I've seen all year. Trent Haaga deserves special praise for providing such a masterful story that works on so many different levels at once. I'm truly flabbergasted at his boldness and ability. This premise could have backfired a million times over in less capable hands. Shiloh Fernandez is spot on as the somewhat confused and conflicted Rickie, and Noah Segan nails it to the wall as the hyped-up, manipulative J.T.. Both are absolutely believable; you'll probably realize you've known folks just like the characters they so deftly bring to life.

Yeah, I guess this movie is going to offend some people. Maybe even a lot of people. Lazy thinkers will write it off as exploitation, while others will be too uncomfortable with the questions it raises within themselves. Love it or hate it, you won't be forgetting it anytime soon, that's for sure. While those looking for a mindless gore-fest may find it a bit slow-moving at times, Deadgirl packs a vicious punch to those that don't mind having their scares mixed with some substance.

Forget whatever lame plans you had for the weekend, go pick up a copy of Deadgirl immediately. You can thank me later.

Superb DVD job by the folks at Dark Sky Films. The same fine imprint that brought us the ultimate Texas Chainsaw DVD and the Jim VanBebber box set.

http://www.darkskyfilms.com/

http://www.deadgirlmovie.com/

GRACE (2009)

2009-09-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Madeline Matheson hasn't had the greatest luck in the world. She's had trouble conceiving and carrying a child to term. She's saddled with a bitchy mother-in-law that knows ten things more about everything than anybody else. She's got a rather ineffectual husband that needs to grow a pair. All she wants now is to bring her dead child into the world via the wonder of natural childbirth. Is that too much for a health-conscious vegan that's eight months pregnant to ask for?

Did I say "dead child?" You bet your sweet ass I did. Just weeks before the baby is due, Madeline and her husband are involved in an auto accident that leaves her old man in the grave and also proves to be fatal to her unborn child. Madeline will not be swayed from her goal of carrying the baby to term and does indeed give natural birth to a stillborn child that she christens Grace. It's the damnedest thing, though - Madeline puts dead little Grace to her breast and the child sputters, wheezes, and...um...well...comes to life. And baby Grace is hungry.

Paul Solet, screenwriter and director of Grace, uses his considerable talent to provide an unflinching examination of the depths of the mother/child bond. How far will a mother go to protect her child and provide it a safe haven, even if she senses that things are not quite right? How far will a mother go to protect her child and provide it a safe haven, even if she knows that things are obviously way beyond fucked up? Madeline Matheson will go a long goddamned way to keep her little monster snug and happy.

Maybe you're expecting something along the lines of the demon seed from It's Alive, but Grace throws a left hook to the face of rote horror movie convention and gives you a sweet, doe-eyed, angelic-looking little ball of hell. It's a baby, for chrissakes. A cute baby. A baby that people who hate babies will still find adorable. And that's precisely what gives Grace it's one-two punch. A creature-feature without a creature. Kinda-sorta. Dig?

There's a lot of stuff in the movie that's probably trying to make various points of a deeper nature: the vegan references, Madeline's failed lesbian relationship with her midwife, the animal cruelty shit that's always on her TV. If you want to wade into those murky waters and start piecing together real or imagined symbolism, feel free. Or, if you're like me, you can enjoy this movie on the sole merits of a superior monster flick that is way better than anything I've seen in theaters as of late.

Solet shot this in something like seventeen days. I can't wait to see what he can do with a big budget and a decent shooting schedule, 'cause he's already squashed the shit out of all the stuff clogging up your local cineplex.

And just for the record, I'd like to further tip the hat to a movie that clocks in right around eighty minutes. No padding, no bullshit. Lots of directors and studios could learn a lesson there. Sometimes less is a whole lot more, especially when that's all the story needs to be its most effective.

The DVD is filled with bonus documentaries and the like, if that's your cup of tea.

Good shit, mang.

http://www.grace-themovie.com/
http://www.anchorbayentertainment.com/
http://www.myspace.com/gracehorror

MAD BROTHER WARD and the SCREAMING STREET TRASH

2009-09-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

HATED BY ALL/AM I COOL OR WHAT? CD - ZODIAC KILLER RECORDS 2009

Zodiac Killer Records should be given some kind of medal of honor for making the Mad Brother Ward and the Screaming Street Trash records available in digital format, thusly righting one of the music world's most egregious wrongs.

The Screaming Street Trash may have only existed for a span of two years or so (1992 - 1994 or thereabouts, if my cloudy memory is correct), but what a two years they were. Those years saw Mad Brother and Co. take time out of their rigorous schedule of being banned from North Carolina's seediest punk venues just long enough to record and release two of the finest records to ever come down that worn-out old rock'n'roll pike. The result was the sonic equivalent of Killer Kowalski tearing off your fucking ear and then visiting you in the hospital to laugh in your face.

First up was Hated By All on the legendary TPOS label, quickly followed by Am I Cool Or What on Baloney Shrapnel. Produced by ANTiSEEN's Jeff Clayton, these records are thick walls of malevolence that don't need to hide behind insipid political posturing, ridiculous clothing, or any of the other de rigueur accoutrements of the early nineties punk scene. It is a "fuck you" not just of the sake of it, but because it was what everybody else rightly deserved at that moment in time. Cocky it may be, but the grit is there to back it up.

A lot of people didn't know what to make of these records when they first came out. The late Tim Yohannon of Maximum Rock'n'Roll rightly praised them both. FLIPSIDE was dumb enough to dismiss the Mad Brother as a GG clone, which is so far from the truth it makes me wonder if that particular dolt of a reviewer even gave the records a spin. I think people were so used to being spoonfed the curdled pablum that was passing as punk that they didn't know what to do when the real deal cold-cocked 'em with five across the motherfucking eyes. These records stand tall alongside anything you want to throw at 'em. They are backbone and gristle and busted knuckles.

I was lucky enough to witness the Screaming Street Trash perform on two different occasions. Was this shit for real? Most assuredly. You saw the Ramones in '76? Big fucking deal. Black Flag in '82? Who fucking cares? I saw Mad Brother Ward and the Screaming Street Trash in '93, and it was all that and more. I'm not bragging; I was just a witness. Hell, at that time I was too close to the flame to fully grasp the power of what I was seeing. But after fifteen years of seeing countless bands come and go, I still end up using those MBW shows as a yardstick by which others are measured.

This CD release contains both legendary seven inchers and the bonus track "Dead End Sunday." I was hoping maybe someone somewhere salvaged the tape of Mad Brother Ward and Cocknoose double-teaming Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" for inclusion, but I guess that would have been more than any of us deserve. As it stands, we get fourteen tracks clocking in at around twenty-two minutes. If they were charging by the minute, it'd still be a deal. At a ten dollar sticker price, it's like they're giving it to you.

These records hold up every bit as well today as they did on their original release dates. In a time where everyone is watching their wallet and pinching their pennies, this is money well spent. I can't recommend this disc highly enough.

Ten out of five stars.

www.zodiackillerrecords.com

www.myspace.com/madbrotherwardthescreamingstreettrash

13 Questions with SWEET G.A. BROWN

2009-09-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

SWEET G.A. BROWN spent a solid decade as a driving force in the Dixie-fried demolition crew of HELLSTOMPER. He started his tour of duty on bass and eventually worked his way to the spotlight as six-string slinger and master tunesmith. He also produced some of the band's finest albums, recorded at his own Earfly Studios in the foothills of north Georgia.

Ever since the band bit the shitter, Sweet G.A. has been working like the proverbial motherfucker on his own recordings, fourteen of which are captured for all time on the newly released The Brown Album, a tasty stew of Jerry Reed, Roger Miller, and John Prine as filtered through the voice and fingers of our own hillbilly guitar hero. He's also worked on the debut CDs by The Beer Drinking Christians and old Hellstomper compadre, Chris Scott, with whom Sweet G.A. has recently staged his triumphant return to the live arena.

During Hellstomper's ten year run, G.A. was often relegated to deferring to the loud jackass behind the microphone. Time to rectify that situation and let it all hang out. He's his own man, and one I'm proud to have shared way too many hours in bad situations with. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you proudly...very proudly I give to you...SWEET...G.A....BROWN...

Anybody that cares knows by now the story of how Hellstomper came to be. Why did it breakup? That's the question people want answered.

Well, there is always several layers to an onion. I could throw out the obvious "ten years of anything is enough," which holds true to an alarming percentage. Or I could go in the direction of personnel changes finally wearing us down to the point of "Fine..Forget It." The thought of finding yet another piece of the puzzle was quite depressing. We were in a position to go for it full time, quit the dayjobs, get on the road and go. Don't come back till its over.

We did a pretty decent job of getting out on the road for small tours a few times a year, as well as the day trips in the southeast on the weekends. Getting out and playing the dives is definitely a part of the doing-it-for-a-living aspect of playing in a band. Gotta play live, a lot. I used to disagree on that point, but you always insisted - and with a damn good point - that it was a part of the game.

I was always into the writing and recording aspect of it all. As ya'll may or may not know, or realize, or care, I'm a recording junkie. Since we recorded the first 7 inch record with Jamie Hoover, I became fascinated with recording. It's almost a disease. Whenever I hear a new song, my mind automatically picks it apart, piece by piece. Drives folks crazy, Just what happens, though. I can't hep it.

But playing live pays the bills. That's where the merch is sold, as well as gaining ground. The fact that next time you play a town, more people show up. You make more money which equals a living. But to be pefectly honest, I will admit that a majority of the nail in the coffin of Hellstomper should be laid squarely on my shoulders. As I was saying, we found ourselves at the point of get on the road and don't come back until it's over. I ain't no road warrior. I realized I don't give a damn if its a piece of junk 1980 Ford van or a big ass bus with a rose painted on the side. Its still the road. I have five year old twins and a great wife. If you do the math, it's an easy read. Not to completely plop down on the shrink couch or nothing, but I'm the son of a trucker. Pops did what he had to do to feed the family. Gone on the road a lot. He told me later that he regrets missing out on his kids growing up. So I decided... I'm not going to.

Speculative question... where would it have gone if the plug hadn't been pulled at ten years? Were there enough potential members left in the Tennessee Valley to provide you with the grist for that mill?

Speculatively, we could have trucked on for as long as we wanted too. I got ten or more albums worth of songs and riffs floating in my head at any given time. I write two hundred and fifteen songs a day; that's fifteen more than David Allan Coe.

Actually, I do believe that I got several good albums left in me. I'm speaking of the tunes part of the equation. This is the way Hellstomper worked: Alan wrote damn good lyrics, and I worked up a riff. Songs done. That's the way it worked ninety-eight percent of the time. I know for a fact that you are sitting on notebooks full of lyrics that put other songwriters to shame. It's what you do; it's how your twisted brain works.

As far as other talent we could have plugged in - hind sight is twenty-twenty. I can ramble off a list of folks that could have been courted to make Hellstomper an unstoppable monster.

Imagine, if you will, Big Tom Hughes from Polecat Boogie as a second guitar player. DAMN IT!! Widowmaker from Cocknoose on bass. HOLY SHIT! Since I'm already out in no mans land, how about plugging Travis and Liza of Hammerlock in? Think that might sound alright?

Lynyrd who?? Oooh, blasphemy. My bad, I got to daydreamin' there for a second.

I did start getting the urge to get a second guitar player, just to mix it up a bit, but sometimes those things complicate more than they accomplish. Lose some edge sometimes with too many folks onstage. You can end up trading a raw guitar-driven sound for a wall of guitar sound. It might have been fun though.

It's amazing that the very thing that makes you feel free can also feel like a magnificent weight around your neck. It's hard to balance the two. Now that you've entered the arena doing a completely (one man) solo gig, does that change that particular dynamic at all?

It is extremely different. Anybody that's ever played in a band knows how hard it is to sometimes keep it together and going. Me and you go back about as long as anyone I know that ain't blood, but I'm sure there have been several times when you would have really loved to pull the van over, shove me out, back over me a few times, and go on down the road a better man. I know I've come close to waiting until everyone went in the gas station to take a wizz and buy some god-awful pickled jerky meat by-product and just stick the key in the ignition and leave without looking back. It's only natural. Bands argue, fight, get pissed, and all that mess, like a freaking soap opera playing out in front of my eyes. I don't like soap operas. A band can become a job. Somtimes you want to quit your job, but you end up weighing the pros and cons and keep on going.

We've had more than our fair share of members to come through Hellstomper in ten years. I think that was definitely to our credit at the end of the day. It was not easy dealing with new dynamics all the time, but at the same time is served to keep things new and fresh. I don't know if I would have made it ten years if things had not have been changing so much. It might have gotten stale. I don't know.

But now when it comes to the solo stuff, it's a very different critter altogether. After Hellstomper, I made some job moves. I was in full blown baby-needs-a-new-pair-of-shoes mode. Work-a-freakin-holoic. But the whole time I knew I had to play music again. It's what I do. It's funny, I kept thinkin about how people give the Stones a hard time about how old they are...like they need to hang it up or something. All I can think now is "how do they quit?" It's what they do. Are you supposed to just retire and stop playing music? Can't do it.

So about five or six months after Hellstomper's demise, I started writing lyrics. Never tried that very much; Alan wrote lyrics. It was like my left arm was gone or something. But I started writing and started actually enjoying it. Been writing ever since. Finally got notebooks full of crap - some good, some bad, some half done, you know... ramblings. Also realized that I really enjoy writing songs about everyday shit. But the trick is to get it down in a way that is interesting or twisted. "Ballad of Terry Gordy" - I wrote that one about Terry Gordy, the man. Not the superhero wrestler that everyone saw on TV growing up. But the dude that could be found down at the Palomino Club in Rossville, right down the road from me. He was still a giant of a man. But there was a sad story sitting there also. A man that gave literally everything he had to his profession. His payoff was a broken home, bad health, drug addiction, and in and out of jail. Don't get me wrong, he is still Terry Freakin Gordy. Nothing but respect there, but he got caught square in the grinds of life.

With Hellstomper, I wrote probably fifty percent of the music on an acoustic guitar, then we worked it out with the whole band electric. With the solo thing, I decided to keep it fairly acoustic. A little bit of electric here and there when needed. I got a studio full of cheap washboards, banjos, basses, harmonicas, fiddles, you name it. So I'll usually sit down and record a song, look around, just pick up whatever strikes my fancy at the time. Comes out sounding like it sounds. Not too much forethought goes into it, and it keeps me entertained. Best thing is, what I say goes. Nobody's input but mine is needed. I also only have to split the money one way! Goes straight to my wife! Thank you, I'll be here all night...

Blast from the past. You recently played a pretty damn successful live show with another founding Hellstomper member, Chris "Paw Paw" Scott. What's in the future for that? You guys doing originals, covers, what?

Yeah, big fun. We played a local Chattanooga club. Chris had some band ask him to play on the bill with them, so he gave me a call and asked if I wanted to play also. Finally said sure, why not. Had a great time. I believe everybody involved did as well. Really strange playing acoustic live. I've had some doubts about it; been asked by some folks from time to time - which I am grateful for and am sorry if I did not get back in touch..nothing personal...I need to work on my communication skills - but to go from what a Hellstomper show was like to some dude picking acoustic guitar is something I hadn't tried. Almost apprehensive about it, but it turned out to be a good-time show. Think we might try it some more.

Me and Chris have stayed good friends for years now, as well. We sit around writing songs and fixing each other's songs. His album Livin' in Sin is the second release on my Earfly Records label. We've had a lot of it done for a while and finished it up just here recently. Been a lot of fun, though. The thing that struck me about playing acoustic is that everybody is yelling and hollering just as much as a rock and roll show; the difference is that I can hear them.

As far as covers versus originals, we argued about the setlist for a bit before the show. He's one of those dudes that can pull out any classic country tune you want to hear, while I'm all about original material all the time, unless you're gonna do something different with the cover. He had a point with his "everybody-likes-to-hear-shit-they-know" argument. I conceded to do a couple and that's it. So I think we did one Dwight Yoakam, one Shaver tune, one Cheech and Chong cover - the rest were all originals. Like I said, when we get out some more, check it out. Not much bloody-knuckle rock n' roll, but you won't want your money back. How's that for humble?

My hat's off. I'd be intimidated as hell to do an acoustic show. How's that stack up against doing the rock and roll? It's got to be way more nerve wracking.

It was nice only having to carry a guitar to a show. To tell the truth, I was more apprehensive about singing than I was anything else. Screaming background vocals over my guitar in Hellstomper is one thing, but letting the world hear my beautiful pipes solo is another.

So how's the album doing for you? Heard you're already at work on the next one...

The Brown Album - it's like The White Album, only darker - is doing pretty good, so far. Especially considering the fact that I'm not very efficient at the marketing side of things. Just kinda threw it up on my MySpace page. If you want it, there it is - buy it. If you don't, don't. I'm doing this whole solo thing out of a genuine love of playing music. Have no aspirations of making a dime. Set the price at five bucks. No world tours planned. Just like to write and record.

Thought about trying to deal with a couple of small labels, but to tell the truth...why? It might sell a few more copies, but like I said, I don't really give a damn. I used to get a kick out being on a label; I guess that was more of an ego thing. Hey some dude thinks we're good and is gonna spend money on us. It's awful flattering, but, in the end, it really don't amount to a hill of beans.

You'll remember a couple of bands we played with that got "the big contract" with some major labels. Kinda funny once you find out that the money they front is a loan on the money they will try to make off of you. Kinda like your pimp just bought you a new dress. So, I just started my own label, Earfly Records. That way, I can screw myself. I go my own speed and don't have to deal with anybody's stupid-assed input cloggin' up my good time. Sound like a good business plan to you?

Been working on Dos, my second album. I kinda record in spurts, whenever I find the time. It usually goes slower than I would like because I play all the instruments. Slows me down a bit. I's thinking about stripping this album down even more because my songs I wanna get done are piling up on me. I'm gettin' backlogged.

Is it easier doing that by yourself, or does it make it more difficult? You've got a home studio with endless time to tinker, perfect, rehash, scrap, and build again. After so long, that can be counterproductive. How do you draw the line on stopping when you're not looking at another guy's studio clock and comparing it to how much cash you've got in your pocket?

I've been guilty of spending too much time tinkering with a mix or instrumentation before. It's definitely counterproductive time-wise. You obviously remember me mixing and overdubbing Hellstomper tracks and taking way too much time. Haulin Ass was an album that I had gotten into different guitar sounds - listening to too much ZZ Top, if that's possible - but, in the end, you still get what you get. "Truck Drivin' Man" was multiple takes with multiple guitar sounds. I still think its one of my best guitar tracks I've ever done. "Midnight Rider" was one take, something like seven minutes, and probably one of my better works. Very Nuge-ish, if I say so myself...and I just did.

So with the solo work it's a different approach altogether. Lay down vocal with acoustic guitar, then bass, then drums, if needed, then maybe one other instrument. Still no editing allowed, no crazy effects. It's simplified music.

Take a listen to the classics: Roger Miller, older Willie tracks, older John Prine stuff. It's always the simple three instrument stuff that catches my ear. Mistakes, glitches, bumping and breathing into the mic. All that stuff makes it real.

As far as not having a band, I must admit its nice having free reign of what is played. Percussion is usually where I waste the most time; there's so many options, so little time. It would be nice to have a drummer on stand-by. Maybe some drummer will move in next door -one with no life -that would come over at a moment's notice. Actually, I don't think a drummer living next door sounds like a good idea at all, the more I think about it.

What has two hands, two feet and likes to hang around with musicians?

I give...Ooo, slow brain strikes again. Drummers, ba domp bomp.

Think you'll ever do a band again? You never get the urge to rock and roll?

I'd be liar if I said otherwise. It was like I was saying earlier - how do you quite? Been playing the rock and the roll since I was like fourteen or fifteen or something. Had a band of some sorts ever since.

Even with Hellstomper, traveling, setting up, tearing down, hanging out with dudes you don't always want breathing, you find yourself thinking "What the hell am I doing here?" But then you get onstage and turn it up till your ears ring. You can't beat it. Makes it all worth it, you know?

As far as another band, got a few things kicking around right now. We'll have to see how things pan out. I guess I should say to stay tuned.

What's your dream team? If you could assemble a band made up of ANYBODY?

Jimmy Martin, Grandpa Jones, Roger Miller, Jerry Reed and me. Don't know what we would play, but I bet practice would be some funny shit.

You've been playing in bands for going on twenty years now. What's your crowning achievement? Fondest memory?

No major achievements that I can remember. I made it through a couple of shows that were going downhill quick. Survived on potted meat and crackers for awhile. Let's see - didn't get stabbed to death in Houston, avoided killing anyone with my hair-brained Ace Frehley pyro, got the van parked with the trailer still attached in Charleston, toured two consecutive tours along the direct path of major hurricanes, cleared that club in Chapel Hill out with one song, avoided heavy drug addiction, never killed the drummer, met my future wife in a corn field in Kansas, discovered that you shouldn't mix watermelon and flour, playing shows barefooted is not wise, and when the bottles fly - duck.

So what's left that you want to do?

I need to repaint the studio; the smoking has discolored the paint a bit. Gotta get the rest of the pine tree out of my yard and cut it up. Grass needs mowing. You wanted a shoot interview. That's real life, buddy.

In the near future, gotta get Dos finished up. Maybe a late fall release on that. After that, me and Chris Scott are gonna knock out an album together with some good-time tunes we wrote. Not like "JJ" Good Times. Then again, maybe a lot like "JJ" Good Times. We'll have to see what the finished product sounds like.

I tipped my hat earlier about some more solo rock n' roll. Got some tracks started already. Don't know about a whole album yet. Thinking more about a split seven incher with somebody first. Any takers?

I've also been talkin with Big Tom Hughes from Polecat Boogie Revival about maybe getting some rock n' roll cooking. If we can pull that off, I'm pretty positive the outcome would be some guitar heavy musical bliss, the likes of which the world has not yet heard!

After that, who knows? I'm just trying to live the life I'm supposed too. Play what comes to my brain. Keep on keeping on.

Final words?

Is this where I should mention the forty-six unreleased Hellstomper tracks I've been sitting on that I was gonna bootleg as soon as you left the state? You already found out about my knock-off t-shirt merch I licensed out! And I would've gotten away with it if they hadn't used that goo-goo lookin weirdo to model 'em!

Actually, I would like to urge everyone reading this to buy the Alan King and The Beer Drinking Christians CD. And while you're spending your hard-earned worthless dollars, pick up The Brown Album. Seriously... five bucks for fourteen tracks? Try it, you'll like it. It'll grow on you; you'll be hummin' that bullshit all day. Keep your eyes open for new shit I'll be releasing soon. Also, come on out to a few live shows me and Mr. Scott have lined up. You'll have a good time guaranteed.

That's all I got. Brown out. Get it?

FOR MORE INFO: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THESWEETGABROWN

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THEREALHMF

13 Questions with BEFORE I HANG

2009-08-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe it's more like twelve questions. What can I say? Once we get past the ten digits I've got on my hands, I'm liable to get lost. At any rate, the following is an interview with The Dixie Pig from Hattiesburg, Mississippi's own Before I Hang. They've got almost twenty years of skull-splitting rock'n'roll under their belts, and it doesn't look like they're going to let up anytime soon. They've recently released what is probably the best album of their career, aptly titled Mississippi, on Zodiac Killer Records. I first met the boys in Lawrence, Kansas at the legendary Outhouse punk club about a dozen years ago. I reckoned it was time to catch up with the boys and see what's been going on in the meantime...

So, let's start at the beginning...how long's it been and how'd it all get rolling?

Well King, Walt and myself have been at it together for eighteen years now. We've had lots of different drummers and singers, but the core of Walt and I have been playing together all that time.

How'd it get rollin? Jane's Addiction. OK, let me explain that. Walt had founded the band a year or so before I met him. I was in a band in my home town that kicked me out for various reasons. At the time, I was working at a car wash in Hattiesburg with a bunch of guys from Oak Grove. Walt was still in high school in Oak Grove and knew most of the guys I was working with. Although he didn't work there, I saw him occasionally. One of the guys I worked with and was good friends with, DJ Harris, invited me to see Jane's Addiction down in New Orleans. We went to the show together and afterwards rented a hotel room outside of town. DJ invited a bunch of his pals from Oak Grove to the room after the show, one of which was Walt. During the evening at some point, I mentioned playing in a band. The next day at work, Walt called and said he needed a bass player for his band and would I be interested. The only song I knew that they played was the Ramones' "I Believe in Miracles." Less than a month later, we played our first show and recorded our first demo.

Jane's Addiction - who'da thunk it? How hard was it for you guys to find members back then? Coming from a tiny Southern burg myself, I know how hard it was to find people into punk or metal or anything deviating from Skynyrd and Aerosmith back then. Not that that's a bad thing, but in those pre-internet days, small Southern towns were far from being the easiest places to find or hear anything outside the box...the local K-Mart didn't stock Misfits records.

Well, we were kinda lucky due to geography. Ya see Hattiesburg is home to one of the state's three colleges, the University of Southern Mississippi, and is also one of the biggest cities in Mississippi. There was an underground record store in Hattiesburg, as well as the college radio station, WUSM, had a late night show called Synchronicity that had several punk DJ's that would spin the cool stuff. I, however, didn't know about any of that until right around the time I met Walt and joined the band. I came from a much smaller town and grew up listening to seventies hard rock and metal. Didn't really know shit about punk. Walt had been exposed earlier due to being a skater, and all the skaters in Hattiesburg were punk back then. Walt turned me on to punk music after I joined the band. I was already an antisocial shit starter with a mean spirited sense of humor, and punk seemed much better at satisfying those needs than the music I had been listening to. In high school, my response to the "Save the Whales" nonsense was to start a flyer campaign of my own, posting pictures of whales with targets on their backs and the slogan, "Nuke the Whales."

Due to the college, there has always been a lively music scene around here, so there were many available musicians to play with. The only problem was retaining them, once they experienced our live shows, which were very violent back in the nineties. It's harder to find members now than it was back then.

Speaking of which, I hear you guys are on the hunt for a singer.

Yeah, our current singer is moving to Nashville to sing full time with Destroy Destroy Destroy. We wish him luck and sucess. We have found someone we're working with, and he should become the next lead screamer. An interesting side note is our current singer is coaching and helping the new prospect learn the ropes, just like the singer he replaced did. If we keep having all these painless transitions, we're not gonna have any friction to fuel interband hostilites, which birth great angry songs. We're gonna be on singer number eight now. We've been laughing that fans are gonna start picking their favorites ala Black Flag.

So I guess all that will be tackled in the upcoming documentary. What's up with that?

It's being put together by our good friend, Lee Hurst, former publisher of Bastardboy Superstar. He approached me about it several months ago. The idea is to have it out by our twentieth anniversary. The main focus is we are the longest lasting, most well known punk band from Mississippi ever, and, of course, how weird it is a band like ours came from one of the most conservative states in the union and the adversity we faced to do it. He thinks it's a good story. I think it's gonna make me think too much about all the gray whiskers in my beard.

Twenty fucking years begs the question of how do you do it? Most marriages don't last that long, let alone bands. What's the secret?

I can't speak for Walt on this one or the other members past and present, but I can say for myself that I need the release that playing music provides. It gives me a chance to exorcise the work week demons and, for just a few moments on stage, makes me feel like a success. I have always worked labor-intensive jobs that society looks down their nose at me for doing, like mowing someone's grass for money makes me stupid or something. When I'm up on that stage and people are asking for us to play some song I wrote, enjoying themselves and giving me a pat on the back for entertaining them, it makes all that disappear. So in other words, it's like a compulsion; if it wasn't this band, it would be another. I just got lucky that I met someone with similar musical tastes and outlook on life. It hasn't always been cake and roses. We've had our problems, but like any good marriage, we work on compromising for the greater good of the band. Walt has said before that if it wasn't for Before I Hang, he'd probably end up standing in the street with a machine gun going postal on the general populace. However stupid this sounds, the secret is we have a common goal - continuing to rock.

Having done this for so long, what differences do you see between the shape of things now and when you started? Easier or harder to get shows and put out records? Things gotten better or worse for bands?

The biggest difference is that the available audience has gotten smaller for rock acts. When we started out in the early nineties, people went out to see bands for the experience. They seemed more open-minded to seeing a band they had never heard of. As much as I hate the whole "alternative" scene, it had alot to do with that. Your average college kid hipster went looking for new bands every weekend that might be the next Nirvana, so they could say, "I saw them before they were famous." I might not have liked those people, but I loved their money. Now that rock is considered uncool by the masses, the crowds are much thinner and more subdivided than back then. The local metal scene around here is the only thing that approaches what it was once like. Most of those folks will go see a band they've never heard of as long as it gets the local metal folks thumbs up.

For us personally, it has gotten much easier to get shows. Matter of fact, most of them come to us now, rather than us finding them. But that's because we've paid our dues at innumerable back room hell-holes for the last two decades and have made enough of a name for ourselves that promoters and clubs call us asking when we're coming back. Now records - that's a different story. We shopped our current album around for about three years but finally ended up pressing some ourselves after no one would commit to anything. Seems like the labels, even the small ones, are getting kind of skittish about what they put money into these days. They want something that will sell immediately without lots of promotion. A band like us is not gonna have records flying off the shelf for a label; it's gonna take promotion. As you know, the Confederacy of Scum has a large fan base that will buy most anything by the bands that were a part of it, but they are scattered out far and wide. It's gonna take alot of magazine ads, website promotions, and such to get them all to notice you've got something new out there. That is why I have to thank Ron at Zodiac Killer Records for finally releasing that album on his label. He understood our fan base and was willing to take a chance on it and has been promoting the hell out of it. He even spent his own money having new artwork done on it. Can't thank him enough, but the important thing is he's making sure everyone knows it's out there. Take note kids, that's how you sell records for your label.

Here again, things have gotten better for us due to all the time and effort we've put into this paying off finally. We have established enough of a foothold to easily get shows and be invited to many more. Now for other bands just starting out, I think they've got it pretty hard. There's a million and one lame ass bands on Myspace trying to cram their awful, uninspired, pale imitation of their heros' wankery down your fucking throat. I routinely, and I mean daily, reject several friend requests for one shitty band or another that's gonna last all of four months and then break up because the singer graduated from college and got a "real" job. Fuck, how do you get noticed now in this fog of lame? Everyone can record an album with Garage Band on their PC and give it away for free. I think back when you had to actually spend money to record and put out a record. More of the bands, on average, had substance. When you've got to put up your own money, you tend to have more passion behind what you're doing. Something substantive and not just a weekend vanity project for some twenty-something poseur. All I know is I'm glad we don't have to compete on that level; it's got to be even more frustrating than having a redbug bite on the underside of your balls while eating dinner with your granny.

I totally understand what you're saying. Technology is making it easier than ever to make a movie, make a record, whatever. But then again, just because everybody CAN do it, doesn't mean everybody SHOULD. It does make it harder for the cream to rise to the top because of the sheer volume of bullshit it has to rise up against. You think folks are eventually gonna get tired of trying to express a creativity that they don't really have, or is it something we're saddled with from now on?

Hell, you can be a celebrity for doing nothing now. Didn't Paris fuckhole Hilton put out an album? Like she has any talent besides being a marginally attractive homemade porn star. Which, by the way, I don't find her attractive at all. I've been more turned on watching hairy-assed, herpes-sore-sportin', no-name-eighties-porn-cumbuckets than that fugly bitch. But back to the question, yes, I think we're stuck with it for awhile. The whole reality show mentality that anyone can be a star is firmly planted in American pop culture. Everyone's ego is on overload. I can be a star. I can have my own Twittermob following my every tweet. As long as they can sell lunchmeat, free credit reports, and Hondas, there will be another reality show stinking up the airwaves. I get a voyeuristic thrill out of just how low people will go to get on TV now. My current fave is one about some fat guy picking from a group of similarly proportioned female hog flesh to find his mate. Watching all the fat chicks cry about how they can't find true love, because they're whales, and won't someone just realize they're good people inside, leaves me in stitches. If there are people willing to let themselves be laughed at on national television just to be famous, I think we're in this for the long haul. And as long as there is an audience willing to accept something so devoid of creativity, the internet, television, and airwaves will be crammed full of no-talent hacks with super-sized egos. It's not just the performers, it's the audience that doesn't demand anything with real passion or substance

You guys just got back from Cali-for-ni-a. That's quite a sojourn from Mississippi. Was that your first outing to the West Coast as a band? How was it?

Yep, that's the first time we've been to the West Coast. Normally, we only play where we can drive the van to within a couple of days. My first time personally to ever go to California, and I've got to say that's some beautiful scenery out yonder. First time on a plane too. Jeff Clayton take note - while walking through the airport looking like a rock star with my bass guitar flight case, I made sure to keep the side with the Antiseen sticker prominently displayed, ala Merle from the Hated video. We played some shows in the Bay area around San Fransisco set up by the gals and guys in Hammerlock. Had a blast hanging out with those guys. I made a comment to Mikey (drummer for Hammerlock) that most people back home would be surprised at the amount of country music they were listening to, since the perception in Mississippi is that everyone is a hippie or gay out there. The shows were great, the best one being in Frisco itself opening for the Mentors! Walt and myself are huge Mentors fans, and getting a chance to play with our Heroes was a once in a lifetime gig.

You guys gonna be doing any more touring this year, or is that even worth it for rock and roll bands in these days of DJs and milquetoast music? I can't really imagine even trying to book a tour in 2009.

A few short jaunts here and there. We're working on some shows in Texas, got a few more lined up here and in New Orleans. The one we're most stoked about is Merle is bringing the Murder Junkies to Hattiesburg in October. That should be fun. Can't really imagine trying to do a tour. Too many clubs balk at the idea of a guarantee these days, even a really low sum like $200. I just can't agree to drive around the country spending my own money to play shows. If we can't at least break even, I'm staying at home. Walt has a buisness to run and a family to feed, and he has to be able to make enough on the road to take the kind of time off to tour. For now, we'll continue to be weekend warriors with a few longer trips here and there like the trip to California. I would love to go to Europe and do some shows, but, logistically, it would be a nightmare booking around our work schedules and family obligations. Don't count it out though. We can be persuaded if the time and money is right. You know, it's funny I've noticed that we tend to make more playing smaller towns with audiences more eager for live music than in bigger cities with a jaded populace. People in smaller towns buy merch, not so much in bigger cities. And the merch is where the real money is when you're on the road.

Let me get scattershot for a minute and go back to the documentary before we finish up. What are the plans for that? How's it going to be released and all that? What stage of production are you guys in with it?

This thing is still in the talk about stage right now. Our good buddy, Lee Hurst, in gonna do the filming and compiling. All I know right now is that it is something he wanted to do, and we're along for the ride. His idea is to cover the history of the band using interviews with former members and associates. He plans to use as much archival footage as he can. The main thrust is a band like us coming from a state like Mississippi, a place not well known for producing killer punk bands, and managing to stay together for this long with all the adversity we've had to face. There were whole YEARS we weren't allowed to play anywhere in the state, due to our reputation for violence, deserved or not. We've got about a year and a half to get it done. Lee wants to have it available by our twentieth anniversary. As far as who will release it, it will most likely be done by us. If someone wants to put it out that would be great, but that is also up to Lee, since it's his baby. Right now, the biggest challenge is trying to find some of the people involved. We haven't seen some of these folks in ten to fifteen years.

Do you want to see all of them? Jesus, I would hate like hell to have to be in a room with some people I've been in bands with.

We don't really have too many hostile ex-members. Most left due to family or work obligations. In the early days, as people aged, they went different ways. A few decided to stop playing music, some moved off to greener pastures, and a good many just decided to settle down. There are some ex-members who I would like to have involved in the movie: the original drummer and singer. Both were asked to leave under less than amicable circumstances, but I think they played an important role in the bands formation. Any history without their input would be incomplete to me. We're just gonna sit down and have a beer with some members. It'll be good to see them again.

I can't wait to see. Guess we're up to number thirteen now. So, how would you like your rocking little combo to be remembered inside the great scheme of things?

Alright, this is the hardest question to answer. We never really thought about it. I guess some bands want to be famous, while others want to change the world. We just rocked out. About once or twice a year, Walt and I will look at each other and say, "You believe we're still doing this?" I just hope we entertained some people, that's all. We've had some local younger bands in the last five years or so that have started telling us that we were a big influence on them to get started and stay together. Maybe our lasting impact will be all the bands who were inspired by us here in Mississippi. We proved you can be from and live in Mississippi and get yourself heard, if you work hard enough.

http://www.beforeihang.net/

HALLOWEEN II (2009)

2009-08-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

"Doctor! Doctor?! Is there a doctor in the house? We got one flatlining over here!" the pretty blonde girl screamed across the darkness of the movie theater at half-past midnight. Sitting next to her was a moss-mouthed Georgia cracker whose eyes had rolled back in his head, foaming spittle dotting the outer edges of his lips as a death rattle worked its way up his esophagus.

Scene from this new Rob Zombie flick? No, but it was almost a scene at the local mall's late-night showing of Halloween II as my pulse fell to dangerously low levels within the first fifteen minutes of this film. Sadly enough, nothing ever happened to bring the flow of blood back up to anywhere close to normal. Being a jobless fucktard, I've had time to sit through some damn unentertaining movies over the past couple of months; this one takes the cake. Not only was it unentertaining, it was uninspired, unimaginative, and, at times, unintentionally hilarious.

I've no hidden agenda here. I'm not a fanboy Rob Zombie basher; I loved his first two movies and took a bunch of flak from certain comrades for my unabashed admiration. I thought they were perfect smashups of every junk culture piece of trash trivia that I grew up loving. Halloween? Sure, it pretty much blew. When you get down to brass tacks, how could it not? And I'm not coming from some purist "don't-fuck-with-my-favorite-movie" point of view; there's nothing Zombie could have done to sully the franchise any more than it already had been. Which begs the question of why even try to reboot a series that's been dead in the water for such a long time, let alone go about it by remaking the only film in the series that was damn near perfect to begin with? All faults aside, I still thought that his first Halloween outing was visually appealing. Kind of like how when Tim Burton lets loose with a real turd of a movie (which happens more and more frequently as the years go by), it still maintains a visual integrity unique to Burton's style that will allow you to enjoy it on that superficial level. Halloween II? It just feels forced.

Oh sure, I guess it's been "re-imagined." The sad thing is, instead of adding tension, scares, or any worthwhile twists in plot development, all of the stuff that Zombie has added to the storyline is just superfluous and silly. We have a bearded Michael Myers that looks like Vince McMahon's latest steroid reject, a Dr. Loomis that is a twit of enormous magnitude, and a manic, highly-irritating Laurie Strode that I was ready to see butchered within ten minutes of the film's opening. And don't get me started on the ridiculous white horse/ghost of Deborah Myers subplot that was little more than an excuse to somehow work Sheri Moon into the movie. Jesus.

The genre cameos were a little more subdued this go 'round and didn't feel so much like you were walking around the floor at a horror convention. The interview segment with Chris Hardwick, Malcolm McDowell, and Weird Al Yankovic actually made me laugh out loud, but then again, so did the climactic scene where Laurie runs out of the shack wearing the ridiculously enormous Myers mask. Even all the teenage kids that seemed to be digging the movie (and were obviously planning on ditching school this morning) laughed jeeringly when that happened.

The missus dug the movie more than I did. She thought it "much better than a lot of the crap we've watched lately" (and, living with me, she does watch a lot of crap). I don't know, maybe it's just me. I am old and cranky, and I was out past my bedtime. Then again, I don't ask for much, as one can tell by my rather indiscriminate tastes. I thought the coolest thing about this flick was the Alice Cooper poster on the bathroom wall and the scariest thing was the way "Nights in White Satin" was constantly shown on the TVs in the opening sequence. I do hope Brad Dourif was duly compensated for pretty much being the sole bright spot in a sea of mediocrity. B-O-R-I-N-G.

I've heard Zombie is next set to direct a remake of The Blob. I hope it fares better than his two unsuccessful romps through Haddonfield. I still think the guy's got a lot of movie-making talent, but it seems to only shine through when he's dealing inside the realm of his own creation. If he keeps churning out shit remakes, he may lose the chance to get back to what put him on the cinematic map to begin with...

2 out of 5 stars
http://www.halloween2-movie.com/

SHIT-FLINGING...ER...I MEAN SHIT-KICKING COUNTRY MUSIC

2009-08-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the legends of country music. Hank Williams. Porter Wagoner. Waylon Jennings. David Allan Coe. Johnny Cash. GG Allin. What? Did I just include notorious poop-flinging shock-rocker, GG Allin, amidst the towering elite of the country music genre? Of course I did. Anybody with two ears that's ever paid even passing attention to his vast catalog could've told you that.

Sure he was known as "the rock'n'roll terrorist," but he could've just as easily been "the last real country outlaw." Back when the current crop of outlaws (and who isn't one these days?) were still eating the shit out of their diapers, Allin was penning country-styled tunes that were amazingly...well... good. "In This Room," "Liquor Slicked Highway," "Rowdy Beer Drinkin' Night," "When I Die," the whole of Bleedin' Stinkin' Drinkin' or Carnival of Excess. Need I go on? Not to mention he was melding mid-seventies country to his nihilistic brand of scum punk with his own takes on David Allan Coe ("Longhaired Redneck" was transmogrified into the Allin anthem "Outlaw Scumfuc") and Hank Williams Jr. (the laid back swagger of Bocephus' "Women I've Never Had" got jizz smeared on its face as "Fuck Women I've Never Had").

Country music traditionalist blowhard types (and douchey punk rock purist blowhard types, for that matter) might scream "heresy," but I beg to differ. Country music in it's purest sense has always been far more subversive than rock and roll ever dreamt of. Porter Wagoner's late 60s career was full of songs about drinking, prison, and killing women. He had theme albums devoted to such concepts. While the rest of the nation was turning on, tuning in, and dropping out, Waylon Jennings was singing about killing his woman in "Cedartown, Georgia." Those are just two obvious examples; the genre is rife with thousands more. It's no wonder Allin had his ear tuned to that lonesome moan of days gone by.

Looking back over some of our correspondence circa 1992 or so, GG made lots of references to Hank Williams and David Allan Coe and talked about getting turned on to a lot of country shit he'd never heard by the evening bar maid at the notoriously seedy Clermont Lounge in Atlanta. Doubt it ever crossed his mind that, less than twenty years later, Hank's grandson would be covering one of his own country tunes ("Outskirts of Life") night after night on tour. But few things make more sense when you step back and look at the well that's being drawn from.

Being a backwoods cracker from North Georgia, I was always partial to GG's country-fried sides. I think they showcased a true songwriting ability that far outshined a lot of the punk stuff. They also used his rather distinct voice to its full advantage, kind of like Dock Boggs' illegitimate Yankee grandson, fucked to the gills on Jim Beam and pills. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find these next two platters in my mailbox just weeks apart...

GG ALLIN & THE CAROLINA SHITKICKERS EP. Zodiac Killer Records. 2009.

This is a reissue of the amazing 7" EP that was originally released on TPOS Records back in 1993, shortly after GG's death. This stuff comes predominately from the last session he ever recorded, less than two weeks before his untimely passing. The Shitkickers were comprised of folks mainly associated with the ANTiSEEN crew in the early 90s, but the band wasn't, as often erroneously stated, ANTiSEEN flying under a different name. There's Greg and Jeff from ANTiSEEN, BBQ Young from the ANTiSEEN road crew, and Robert Everett who, if my memory serves me right, was fronting The Furys around this time.

When this was first released, I reviewed it for Kill the Scene and stated that "Layin' Up With Linda," the A-side of this little masterpiece, coulda got country radio play back in the seventies. Looking back on things, that assessment might have been overstated by my own enthusiasm for this particular recording. Country radio in the seventies still pretty much sucked from what I remember hearing in my parents' station wagon. Murder ballads of this ilk may not have haunted the airwaves, but they did take up plenty of room on album sides. This would have made a perfect trinity of dead women tunes (along with "Living on the Run" and "Revenge"), had it appeared on DAC's Longhaired Redneck LP way back then.

Is it really good enough to appear on one of the best outlaw country albums ever? Absolutely. It oozes the bleak, matter-of-fact melancholy of a man facing his bad decisions in a way that lots of folks try to nail but few succeed in doing. Not only would I say that this is one of GG Allin's best sides ever, I'll go so far as to say it might be one of the best country sides anybody's committed to wax in the past thirty or so years.

Side B features a cover of DAC's "Fuckin' in the Butt," here retitled as "I Wanna Fuck The Shit Outta' You." It's offensive and silly and catchy and fun - probably more so than the original it was lifted from. Lastly, we have a stripped-down country rave-up of "Outlaw Scumfuc" recorded the previous year. It's every bit as "fuck you" in its bare-bones form as it is with a full rock n roll band putting their nuts into it. This record's not just worth having, it's pretty damned essential. Hat's off to Zodiac Killer Records for getting this back out there on vinyl.

GG ALLIN and TINY TIM - TWO AMERICAN LEGENDS EP. Ponk Media. 2009.

This tasty little red vinyl number features five songs that are all pretty much to die for. GG Allin and Tiny Tim may seem as much a paradox to some as GG Allin and country music do to others, but a bit of digging beneath the surface and you'll see it just ain't so. GG was a big admirer of Tiny Tim, and it's no wonder why. Troubadours in the purest since of the word, both were often unfairly boxed away in the popular imagination as one-trick ponies. Tiny's magnificent artistry often gets written off as a footnote to his one hit, the admittedly somewhat excrutiating "Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips," in much the same way that GG's talents were always overlooked in favor of concentrating on the violence of the live spectacle. It's nice to see the fine folks at PONK Media pull this one together. I think both men would have been proud.

The GG side features another couple of his country tunes, "Borrowed Time" and "Pick Me Up (On Your Way Down)." I damn near wore out the cassette of this when I was a much younger white-trash hooligan. It's good in the same way a cheap sixer is on a hot day - it gets you a little inebriated and almost slakes your thirst for more. But just in the same way you'll surely run through another six pack 'fore the day gets too long, you'll be spinning this record a few times end over end. No need to doubt me on that. Just try it, if you don't believe me.

The Tiny Tim side features three stellar tunes that shine the spotlight on the different facets of Mr. Tim's voice. "Hollywood Cowboys," "Medley for England," and "I Believe in Tomorrow" are enough testament to Tiny's capabilities that nonbelievers may find themselves reevaluating their opinions and seeking out the deluxe God Bless Tiny Tim: The Complete Reprise Recordings while it's still available. Money well spent if you ask me. Hell, Bob Dylan even invited Tiny Tim to Woodstock where Mr. Tim was backed by The Band on some of those legendary Basement Tapes sessions. If having admirers in both GG Allin and Bob Dylan ain't instant street cred, I don't know what is. (BTW - this record is limited to 500 numbered copies, so you best hurry your ass up if you want to get one before it's selling for stupid amounts on ebay).

Both of these records are absolutely 5 out of 5 Jim Beam soaked stars.

Carolina Shitkickers available at: ZODIAC KILLER RECORDS

GG & Tiny Tim available at: PONK MEDIA

Odds and Ends

2009-08-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a slow fucking week around these parts, thanks in no small part to my having to finally join the rest of the human race in pursuit of gainful employment. That is truly sleazy, truly terrifying, and not so rock'n'roll.

In the upcoming weeks, I'll be posting new interviews with The Dixie Pig of Before I Hang, Adam D. Neal of The Hookers/Brothers of Conquest/Blade of the Ripper, Sweet GA Brown of Hellstomper and solo acclaim, and Anthony D.P. Mann of the Horror Etc. podcast. I'll also be posting some of the classic Kill The Scene pieces by the late, great GG Allin.

If you dig Nick Cave (and who doesn't?), be aware that his new book, The Death of Bunny Munro, will be out September 1st in the States. Click HERE for more info. There's also gonna be a two-disc set of Nick and Warren Ellis's soundtrack work released on September 21st. It's entitled White Lunar, and you can read more about it by clicking HERE. September is gonna be a mother of a month for fans of Mr. Cave.

Has anybody heard about the possibility of Bill Paxton directing the film adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale's The Bottoms? Mojo Joe his owndamnself is writing the screenplay. I really hope this pans out. I love Joe and I love Bill (although not as much as my wife loves Bill...), so I'm seeing this as a match made in heaven. I can't be the only one that thought Bill's Frailty was the absolute tits. Imagine what he could do with a screenplay by Champion Joe. My toes are tingling just thinking about it. Read about it in Joe's MySpace blog by clicking HERE.

Just this week, ANTiSEEN has seen Steel Cage Records reissue the briefly unavailable two-disc Best of set. Forty tunes spanning two and a half decades of pure Southern hostility from these Destructo Rock legends. If you thought you were shit out of luck when this seemed to disappear from shelves overnight - think again. You can get yourself one by clicking HERE.

And don't forget to line up outside your favorite video retailer on Monday night, so you can be the first one on your block with a copy of the new Billy Jack box set come Tuesday morning. If you're not that hardcore, maybe you should check out Deep Discount. I think they've got it for around $20. That's all four flicks - surely the bargain of the century!

Look for more new stuff in the week ahead. Rock and/or roll...

SEVERED WAYS (2007)

2009-08-18T00:33:00.000-07:00

I had high hopes for this tale of two Vikings stranded in North America circa 1007 AD. After their party has been attacked by "skraelings" (Indians), Orn and Volnard are left for dead and must find their way home on foot. Sounds promising, but when the highlight of a film turns out to be an unflinching shot of a guy taking an honest-to-Odin shit in the woods, you know you're in trouble. I'll stand up and applaud that director Tony Stone had the sand to include that shot (and take the dump, as he plays the role of "Orn"), but one great shit-shot does not a movie make.

In the week since its DVD release, I've heard this movie referred to time and again as an "epic." I think that's a pretty strong word, especially when 90% of the flick is nothing but these two guys walking through the forest and chopping wood. To be sure, the cinematography is great, especially for the budget. There's no shortage of great shots of all kinds of natural beauty and lush landscapes. Then again, the same could be said of a catalog of Bob Ross paintings. Do you really want to spend two hours looking at that? Yeah, I know the film is cut up periodically with big red chapter titles to explain what's going down, lest we assume it's all been merely more walking and chopping. In all fairness, things were spiced up considerably when Orn and Volnard walked in different directions for a while; that's under the big red title of "SEPARATION." Enthralling.

Of course, I'm oversimplifying (barely) things. Yeah, they meet (and kill) some monks, kill a chicken live and in your face, and build a shelter. Volnard has a mini-spiritual quest, and Orn is abducted and molested by an Indian chick in some kind of great white man's fantasy that plays out even lamer than it sounds. And if you think that's lame, just wait until you see Orn doing some Dave Mustaine-esque headbanging for no apparent reason. Who knew? All of this excitement backed by various strains of metal music (Burzum, Morbid Angel, Priest) and capped off with subtitled dialogue that reads more like junior high circa 1989 (the fish is "killer" and "we're toast if we stay here") than Newfoundland 1007 AD.

I give major props for the ambition behind this low-budget picture, but there just wasn't enough there to keep me intrigued. Fiore Tedesco is believable as Volnard, but Stone plays Orn like he was one of those annoying twits from high-school that wore a Thor's hammer around his neck, fronted like a badass, still got his ass kicked by the meekest of guys on the math team, and now spends lots of time playing live action versions of Dungeons and Dragons when not serving up chicken at the local KFC. Not exactly great Viking material. Perhaps his next film will see him stay behind the camera and try to develop a little bit more of a story.

2 outta 5 Viking hammers

http://www.severedways.com/

My Girls...

2009-08-16T15:04:00.001-07:00

Would I be dating myself too much if I made reference to the poster of Loni Anderson that was prominently displayed on Mel Sharples' apartment wall? Does anyone remember Mel Sharples? Alice? Shit, does anybody remember Loni Anderson? If so, I know you recall the poster I'm talking about. And everybody alive has seen the famous Farrah Fawcett poster, the one with her nipple about to pop right out of the paper it's printed on and put your fucking eye out. What about the poster of Cheryl Ladd (Farrah's Charlie's Angels replacement) with the black shirt unbuttoned down to there, with her tits about to flop out all over the place?

These women were considered to be the exceptional beauties of my younger years. It wasn't just Mel Sharples that was whacking his pudd to the red bathing suit clad visage of Miss Anderson. That poster was peeking out from racks at every Woolworth's, Kresge's, and Kmart in the world. So was the Farrah poster, even though they sometimes strategically placed a price tag over her protruding nip on the display copy. And you could always count on some David Wooderson prototype to be hanging around a filling station, wearing a skin-tight t-shirt emblazoned with an iron-on of that iconic image (nice trim magnet, bro). Ho hum. I didn't get it; I never saw the "umph" factor in the WKRP receptionist and never cast my seed upon the ground to thoughts of threeways with the cast of Charlie's Angels. Charlie's girls? Now that's a different story altogether.

When I was around ten, the local librarian, knowing my advanced reading habits and predilection for creepy shit, slipped me a copy of Helter Skelter. She swore it was the scariest, weirdest book she'd ever read. And to top it off, IT WAS TRUE! Yes, I was probably too young for it, and yes, it probably warped me for life. Did it make me want to go out and join a hippie cult and off some pigs? Not particularly. Did it make me want to take massive amounts of drugs until my eyes melted and oozed out of their sockets? No, I'd get to that in my own time. Did it imprint some weird sort of sexual kink on my psyche and make me want to participate in crazy orgies with dirty, stringy-haired, barefoot, psycho hippie chicks? Why yes, as a matter of fact, it did. Hell, the way I saw it, Charlie's biggest crime was screwing up that snatch situation with all that other criminal mess.

Yep, while all my classmates were experiencing sexual awakenings courtesy of flickering TV screen images of Daisy Duke and the Landers sisters and all those supposed blonde bombshells flashing cleavage off of dimestore posters, I was getting off to grainy black and white photos of the Manson girls. While other guys my age were stealing their old man's copies of Playboy or filching copies of Cheri and Penthouse from the magazine racks at the local gas station, I was going through the card catalog at the library, searching down any and every book that might have more pics of Ouisch and Blue and Gypsy. While they were having to hide their glossy jack-off material under the mattress or out in the shed, I could leave my Xeroxed photos out in the open and always claim I was having to do a research paper on "The Sixties" or some such shit. Teachers were always assigning that kind of lame-brained narcissistic crap, anyway. What could seem more natural?

Then on Christmas Eve of my 14th year, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme escaped from prison in West Virginia. Of course, it was big news. The media always likes to trot Manson and the crew out when they've got no real news to focus on. It was amazing that the local news was advising all the residents down in our little corner of Georgia to lock their doors and report any suspicious persons to the police. I remember my mother listening to the radio report and cluck-clucking about "those nuts." She urged my father to bolt the doors and keep an eye on us kids.

C'mon. What were the chances this high-profile, would-be presidential assassin would make it all the way to the peach state, let alone single out our house as a forced hide-out? Yeah. Yeah! What were the chances? And if we won that particular lottery, what would the chances be that this outlaw refugee would want to take advantage of the fourteen-year-old pile of pubescent male meat in our family? I was assuming it had been a while since she'd had any. Me? I'd never had any, but I was willing to take this one for the team - out of concern for their safety, you know? Perhaps it would even be easy to help facilitate the proceedings by engaging Ms. Lynette in a discussion of my vast knowledge of Manson family lore.

This hypothetical scenario was getting better all the time, never mind that it was completely ludicrous. But I figured if the media and my parents could go on a fantasy ride, so could I. Before the holiday was over, I could potentially be losing my virginity to a Manson chick. And not just one of the hangers-on but a real heavy hitter. Oh, I'd rented the videotape Manson and seen all of that footage of Squeaky with the gun, laying down those fantastic raps. I'd seen the nude pictures of her and Blue. She was no Ruth Ann Moorehouse, but still. This could be the best Christmas ever, Hallefuckinglujah. But alas, it was never to be...Squeaky got caught (nowhere near my house) and was returned to prison, while I suffered through another Christmas holiday with my virginity still intact.

Now here it is twenty-plus years later and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is finally out of jail. I've long since lost my virginity (to a chick that looked more like a bad extra from a Warrant video, as opposed to one of my dream women). I guess the closest I ever got to nailing a Manson chick was "going out" with a perpetually drunk third-rate stripper that refused to shave her body hair, bathed in patchouli oil, and had shitty taste in music. I've the luck of the damned, I tell you.

Then again, the AP says the prison system won't release any news of where Squeaky Fromme will be residing now that she's out and about. I'm sure it's somewhere nice and quiet, and there will be someone around to keep an eye on her. Not to mention, she is kinda old and probably all settled down now that she's eligible for AARP benefits and all that jazz. I seriously doubt she's going to be out prowling around Southern Arizona, or that she's capable of forcing her way into someone's apartment to hole up on her way out to see Charlie in California...

But just in case - I'm leaving the door unlocked.

JOHN QUADE 1938 - 2009

2009-08-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

As a kid, my favorite actors were the guys who played the oddballs and heavies. The guys with distinct faces. The guys Hollywood deemed too damn ugly, heavy, bald, or just plain weird to be cast in a leading role. You never knew their names, but you always knew their faces. Back in the late seventies and early eighties, you'd see a lot of these guys floating around from TV show to TV show, often relegated to playing cookie-cutter heavies. Masked as rednecks, bikers, corrupt cornpone cops, or city-slicked thugs replete with black leather gloves, these character actors served as rotating foils for the Duke boys, Colt Seaver, and B.J. McKay amongst others.

John Quade did it all. Not only did he make appearances on the holy triumverate of TV shows just alluded to, but he also popped up in The A-Team, Starsky and Hutch, The Bionic Woman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Vega$, Charlie's Angels, Kung Fu, CHiPS, and even fucking Manimal. However, the Kansas native was probably best recognized for his recurring role as Cholla, leader of the Black Widows motorcycle gang in 1978's Every Which Way But Loose and its 1980 follow-up, Any Which Way You Can. Hell, this former aerospace engineer turned actor was in two of my top five favorite movies of all time: High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales. That's some heavy credentials.

In recent years, it seems that Quade had turned into an anti-government activist of the pro-Christian, New World Order conspiracy theory stripe. I guess there's even some YouTube footage of some of his speaking engagements if you care about that sort of thing. Instead, I think maybe I'll Netflix up a couple of his fine films and celebrate one of the most distinct faces the screen has ever known. Here's to you, Chollo.

On The Bloody Morning After...

2009-08-13T00:16:00.000-07:00

I've been in what my mother would call "a tizzy" for most of the night. Had the tragic unsettling events of this evening happened a mere year ago, I would be hitting the bottle hard, drowning my despair in a sea of Kentucky Deluxe with Stroh's chasers (and don't think I'm not hearing the siren song of the fabled Thunderbird right about now). You see, there are very few material goods or possessions in my life that have any sway over my mental well-being. I'm far from a monk, but I'm not chump enough to let these kind of things run my life. Take my autographed Ramones poster and my Angry Johnny paintings and my Johnny Darrell records and my possum skull and my Cactus bootlegs and my dead dog's baby teeth. I hate to see 'em go, but I'll get by. It's easy come, easy go. Gonna leave it all behind someday anyway. There are, however, a few (approximately two) things that I absolutely must have nearby at all times. Tonight one of those things bit the shitter - just when I needed it most.

I knew by mid-afternoon that I was heading into one of my, um, "phases." I'd been getting a bit antsy as the day marched toward evening. That rapidly progressed to fidgety bordering on unstable. It was hell sitting still just long enough to finish the last twenty pages of the book I'd been engrossed in for most of the week. Got out and went grocery shopping, trying to walk it off. Too tightly wound. Building up to manic in my head. All my thoughts a jumble of crap - confused signals bounced around a confused head. I was fast losing my center - not of gravity, but of my very being. I think my wife knew it was coming. A year in, and she's picking up on the idiosyncrasies that have festered in me so long that I don't even attempt to control them anymore. She's a smart one, that woman. She knew exactly what I was going for when I walked over to the shelf and grabbed it. Didn't even look up to see what I was doing. Just stared straight at the computer screen, and as I walked toward the TV, she asked, "Billy Jack?"

I confirmed her shrewdly astute intuition by sliding the precious DVD into the player. I sat back on the couch, already starting to feel my inner turmoil subside. And then...and then...nothing. No. No. No. No no no - NO! This could not be happening. I hastily fumbled the disc out and examined it. What could be wrong with it? I handle it with more care than most curators handle ancient relics in the world's greatest museums. Nothing looked wrong. It looked fine. Pristine. Gotta just be a glitch. A little electronic fart in the DVD player's inner machinations. I put it back on the tray. Sweat fell off my brow and stained the shelf below me with moisture. I pushed the disc in and pressed PLAY. Loading. Loading. Loading. Grunts and groans and that confounded digital blipping. Nothing. "No Disc" flashed across a black TV screen. FUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!

"Goddamnitgoddamnitgoddamnit...god fucking damn it," said I. "It's got to be the fucking DVD player. It's got to be the fucking DVD player. God knows the disc has been played before. It's got to be the fucking DVD player." A mantra to ward off the darkest possibility that my disc had gone to the happy hunting ground. After all, I could run out at midnight and find a new DVD player in about fifteen minutes; finding a copy of Billy Jack would be a horse of a different color. I would wind up in Phoenix by sunrise, hitting every WalMart, truckstop, and any other place that might by the smallest of margins have a copy, all probably to no avail. I grabbed another disc and slid it in. No problem. Goddamnit. "You're gonna have to buy a new one," my wife said in her calming, humoring tone. "A real one." She let that last bit drip consolingly from her lips, while her eyes glanced at the DVD-R I held in my hands.

You see, I used to go through these cycles of running myself ragged trying to accumulate a bunch of unnecessary crap and then finding out that I was less happy with all my acquired bullshit than I had been without. Inevitably, it would always lead to another cycle of ridding myself of as much of this junk as I could. The old binge and purge. On my last down (or is that up?) swing, trying to purify my soul or some such shit, I really cleaned house. Testing the limits of my earthly existence, I went so far as to rid myself of my Billy Jack box set. Oh man, Job was never tested that hard. It was a true case of having so much stuff that I couldn't distinguish the random rubbish from the items that held true value and importance in my life.

After about two weeks, I slipped over to my friend Ben's house in the dark of night and asked him to burn me copies of The Born Losers and Billy Jack. I'd gone as far as I could go. I was having trouble sleeping. I figured if I kept these burned copies of the first two movies, that was enough of a draw to prove my point to myself (and maybe to Billy Jack, himself). I know, I know. Sounds crazy. Maybe not as crazy as the December day(s) I (stone dead sober, mind you) sat barricaded in the basement of my father's house listening to side three of an Australian two LP Elvis "Best Of" compilation for - as my best estimation would later be - roughly thirty-four and a half hours straight. That's what I needed at that moment in time. At this much later moment in time, I needed my shot of Billy Jack.

As my mental meltdown in front of the DVD player continued, I quickly considered the possibility of putting in The Born Losers instead. I reasoned that it is, after all, a superior movie. Possibly my favorite movie of all time. I mean, Billy Jack is practically a remake of The Born Losers with a whole lot more ham-fisted politics and quasi-hippie claptrap thrown in. But there are times when I need that. That is what scratches the itch. Moves the soul, if you will. The Born Losers will not nourish you in the same way that Billy Jack will. Dare I say it? It's almost like a Bible.

As my fevered brain was sludging through all this, I remembered an appropriate line from the film: "We don't know how to contact Billy Jack. We communicate with him Indian-style; when we need him, somehow he's there." Better than prayer, by god. Billy Jack will actually come when you need him. Yes, yes. I closed my eyes, hummed a little bit of "One Tin Soldier" under my breath, and slid the disc back into the player. Nada. Oh Billy, why hast thou forsaken me?

O.K. Fine. Have it your way. You can seek solace in a half-celestial being that watches over the good and rails against the evil-doers, going so far as to give his life on a cross, but I can't do the same in regards to a half-breed Indian ex-Green Beret hapkido expert that watches over the good children of The Freedom School. And, in the end, doesn't Billy Jack pretty much give his life by taking out some pigs? A move way cooler than anything Jesus brought to the table, I must say.

It's even a mess of contradictions like The Bible. Who can forget those groovy posters that proclaimed, "BILLY JACK IS: a bike riding, karate chopping, hip shooting messenger of peace?" What? Come again? Is peace through violence the message we're getting here? But doesn't it feel so right? Fuck yes, it does. Billy Jack is a guy that yearns for peace but knows the folly of falling into the old Ghandi/MLK routine. He's taken enough shit, and he's got enough righteousness for all of us. He's gonna kick your ass, but it's only because you need it. If you learn your lesson, he might even pick you up and dust you off after he's knocked your ass up around your shoulders.

The whole stew of racial injustice, pursuit of peace, rape of natural resources, animal rights, Native American spirituality, and so on gets so heady by the end of the picture that it all becomes a muddle. It gives you all kinds of philosophical fatback to gnaw on and all kinds of shit that just doesn't make any sense no matter how you look at it. I mean there are some parts in this movie where you just go, "What in the fuck are they trying to say here?" Again, kinda like the Bible - you gotta go on faith.

The main difference between the two is that I really, really dig Billy Jack (just in case you hadn't picked up on that). Well, and then there's the added bonus that people don't take Billy Jack to be some sort of real word from on high; they recognize that it is a work of fiction and don't run around committing all kinds of atrocities in the name of Billy Jack like they do with our pal, Jesus. Good thing. I don't think Billy Jack would much like that. Then again, if the atrocities were committed in the cause of sticking it to the man...well, who am I to say?

Anyhow, you've got your Bible and I've got (or had) Billy Jack. And I'll bet you've never gotten worked into such a goddamn tizzy, because you lost your precious Bible, so we'll let that stand as a testimony to who's really got the mojo. I know where to seek my comfort in the storms life tosses my way. And none of this philosophical bullshit is helping me out here. I'm still out of a copy of Billy Jack. What a fucking night. All I can do is hum a few more bars of "One Tin Soldier" and raise my fist in solidarity to my brother. And the first one of you jackasses that laughs at me...I swear to god...no, no...I swear to Tom Laughlin, that "I'm gonna take this right foot, and I'm gonna whop you on that side of your face...and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it." Peace.

This post originally appeared at my Black Teeth and Busted Dreams blog. Since last week, I've gotten wind that Image Entertainment will be releasing a remastered version of Billy Jack, as well as all four Billy Jack movies in a deluxe box set on the 25th of this month (August). Looks like the box is gonna retail for around $30.00. That's a fucking steal, people. Get in on the greatness: Image Entertainment

DEAD SNOW (2009)

2009-08-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I could not possibly ever sit through another goddamn zombie movie again, Dead Snow falls in my lap like manna from heaven. Decaying, putrid, dirty, rotten, Nazi manna.

The basic premise to this flick is one you may already be aquainted with: eight students are convening at a remote cabin in the mountains of Norway for a weekend of snow, booze, and pet-the-beaver type festivities. While waiting on the last friend to arrive, a bizarre old man arrives at the cabin doorstep, telling tales of how the Nazis, under the command of one mean son-of-a-bitch named Colonel Herzog, once occupied this town. Things were less than pretty. Eventually, the townspeople staged an uprising, killing all the Nazis they could, while the remaining soldiers, including Colonel Herzog, escaped into the mountains and presumably froze to death. Ahhh, but strange things happen in these mountains, especially when rich, spoiled little assholes come up to party. Bizarre old man leaves. Students continue partying like it's 1999. They find a cache of Nazi gold under the slats of the floor. Oh shit. Don't they know that you never, never, never fuck with a dead Nazi's gold? Mass mayhem ensues.

It's simple. It's bloody as hell. It's got dead Nazis storming the snowy mountains of Norway. Do you really need anything else? In a bloated subgenre that grows more tedious by the day (c'mon, how fucking much can you do with zombies, already?), this movie stands up and fucking delivers. With gore by the bucket and laughs that aren't forced, it knows how to ride that line that made the original Evil Dead work so well. The carnage plays great against the snowy white backdrop, and the movie moves along a quick pace, never letting itself get bogged down in some kind of crappy "real" storyline that we don't need. You get heads cleaved in two, bodies torn apart, intestines nailed to trees, throats ripped out, self-amputation, along with plenty of laughs and a fat movie geek guy getting laid by a girl that's way too hot for him in the outhouse shitter! Hell yeah.

And yeah, yeah, stupid as it sounds, I've already heard people talking about how unbelievable this movie was, because there was no set way to kill the zombies, that these soldiers that had been dead for decades and decades were spraying blood and chunks all over the place, that zombies should never run, that an old man wouldn't be out traipsing through the countryside in a blizzard, and so on and so forth. Let's get something straight: the movie is unbelievable, because it's about dead fucking Nazis that come back to life and kill people to protect their gold. Capiche? Once we've overcome that small little hurdle in the credibility department, we can sit back and have some goddamn fun. I do not give a fuck about your imaginary zombie rulebook, people. I want to be entertained. And, by god, Dead Snow entertained the hell out of me.

It may not be the first Nazi zombie movie (I can think of about four others right off the top of my head), but I'll go out on a limb and say it's my favorite of the ones I've seen. For that matter, it's probably the best zombie movie I've seen since Shaun of the Dead. It's gooey, splattery, retarded fun. If you came of age watching horror flicks in the late seventies and early eighties, you owe it to yourself to see this one. If this had been on the shelves when I was twelve or thirteen, I woulda wore the motherfucker out right alongside Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead, and Texas Chainsaw 2.

It's another trophy on the mantel for the current wave of European horror auteurs. They may not exactly be reinventing the wheel with this one, but watch it alongside Drag Me To Hell and tell me who wins that pissing contest.

4 out of 5 gooey, chunky, blood-soaked stars

http://www.deadsnow.com/

13 Questions with CAPTAIN CATASTROPHY

2009-08-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Back when I was a young pup, Schlitz Beer ran ads urging you to "grab for all the gusto you can get." Somehow I doubt that folks in Belgium were being targeted as potential consumers for said beverage, lackluster as it was in its 1970s incarnation. But maybe a young Captain Catastrophy saw those ads in US movie magazines, or maybe he saw TV commercials on bootleg tapes filled with episodes of The Fall Guy. I don't know. What I do know is that the grown up Captain has literally made flesh the fabled "Gusto Man." Shit, he's a Gusto Superman. In a time when people his age aspired to the bland callings of music-industry whoredom or insipid, uninspired art school-endorsed fuckery, The Captain realized his destiny as an "International Man of Danger." He wanted to be a stunt man just like all those guys in the exploitation flicks he watched religiously. Goal achieved. No excuses. No bullshit. He just got the job done.

Starting as part of the El Guapo Stuntteam stage show, he quickly gained a reputation throughout Europe for his live stuntwork, most notably setting himself on fire. And we're not talking about that old Motley Crue bit where you poor a little lighter fluid on leather pants, blaze it up, and quickly extinguish it. Just look at the accompanying photos - this motherfucker really SETS HIMSELF ON FIRE!

The word spread and soon the good Captain was expanding his repertoire and doing work in short films. The YouTube videos of his live performances may never have entered the realms of viral absurdity (think dumbasses dancing at weddings or monkeys smelling their fingers after scratching their asses), but they racked up a good many views nonetheless. It wasn't long until people would say, "Shit! I seen that guy on fire on the internet!" when I'd be wearing my Captain Catastrophy t-shirt about town. His helmeted visage was being seered into the retinas of the world.

Cinephile. Writer. Stuntman. What makes this Belgian sensation tick? Read on, fine people.

So how does a nice kid from Belgium grow up to gain a world wide reputation for being an international man of danger?
Influences, I guess. Being exposed at a very young age to TV shows about Australian stuntmen setting each other on fire and being dragged behind cars. That's what set the whole thing off. So while other children were playing ball games, I'd be at home crashing my BMX bike into the family car and burning down the backyard while mumbling the theme song from Stunt Rock. Later on, I discovered pro-wrestling, rock'n'roll, and horror and b-movies, and eventually in 1997, I had the chance to combine all these obsessions in front of an audience and videos in my brother's band, El Guapo Stuntteam. So I invented Captain Catastrophy...I actually stole the name from the Danger Freaks show and showed up on stage on fire. People loved it so we did it as often as we could. As El Guapo Stuntteam started touring Europe and started playing with a lot of international bands, the name kinda went around. I did a few appearances with other bands as well - like The Dwarves - at this huge outdoor fest here in town; that helped as well on a international level. Also, over the years, I tried to add a few things during the live shows; I asked Jeff Clayton if I could borrow the flaming table thing and so I introduced flaming tables, broken glass and barbed wire into the scene. Of course, in a small country like this, we gained quite the reputation, I guess. If it was up to me there would be more action, but when I brought up the idea of ladders and even a dirtbike my brother had to draw a line. I completely understand. Especially after I started getting hurt every now and then. I exploited all this on the internet of course, so I started getting tons of mail from all over the world.

How long did it take you to perfect the fire routine? How many times did you do it before you took it "live"? Did your practice sessions freak out the neighbors?
Basically just one afternoon before my first show with the band. I figured if I wear that and that and use a bit of this, there would be no way I could burn myself. I went a bit more "pro" over the years. As a kid, I experimented a lot though. Wrapping newspapers around my legs, setting them on fire, and running around the house. There was a girl living next door; she was a bit older, and I'd set up these stuntshows for her and her friends. They were never too impressed, same as my friends. Nobody would freak out. It was more like, "Oh, there he is. What's he gonna do today that will make him run home crying?" I guess it was funny for the first couple of times.

So now that El Guapo is calling it a day, where does that leave The Captain in regards to live spectacles? Will we see a traveling Captain Catastrophy stunt show?
I'm not sure what's going to happen to The Captain. I recently did a badass burn in Brussels for the screening of some Australian movies, and Brian Trenchard Smith, the director of Stunt Rock and The Man from Hong Kong, was there. He worked with the best over the years, and he told me to quit with the band and concentrate on filming. It was great advice, but we'll see how it turns out. I love to do it and I have a few burns and stunts coming up in videos and an El Guapo DVD for which we're doing some extra footage. But as far as going solo and live shows, it's pretty hard. Especially over here in Belgium - it's hard to find good people to work with. Doing a travelling thing would mean getting an act together of at least an hour or something with dedicated people. That's not very easy. Joining another band would also be silly. Sure, I will join a band on stage if I dig 'em and they ask me, but I wouldn't join a band. It was kind of an exclusive EGST thing; it fit. Maybe I should write a book or screenplay or something about the whole thing

What about that great teaser trailer for the Captain Catastrophy movie? Was that just a psych-out?
Ha ha no. It was in production. However, it started to turn into this pretty boring egocentrical kind of thing. Not even my parents would sit through the whole thing, I'm sure. It had like fifty burns in a row with some bullshit in between. Luckily, we started talking about an El Guapo DVD filled with extras, like lots of behind the scene stuff from our videos. So we're doing the Captain thing as an extra on the disc. We also have people with real computers and stuff working on it. I'm more comfortable with that. Oh yeah, and I'm still gonna use a song called "Trouble"on there. I kind of adopted it as my theme song.

You earlier mentioned the possibility of filmwork...are you looking at branching out in the stunt arena? What's next on your plate? You mastered the burn pretty good on your own, are you going to put yourself in harm's way with something new?
Sure, for some low budget stuff and videos it's no problem, and I'll keep doing that. But in Belgium doing stunts for movies is impossible with my background. We have one stuntguy here - he's been Van Damme's double, been training in the States and all that - so he's doing all the work for TV and a few movies. If they need serious stunts, like insane car stuff, they hire a team from Holland. I'm turning thirty-four in a few weeks; I'm covered in shitty tattoos; and fifteen years with a band like this didn't do the greatest things for my "physique." Haha. So breaking into the real stunt business would mean a couple of years of hard training. Maybe as a human torch, sure. I gotta say I'm looking more into the direction of writing.

What kind of writing? Movies? Books? All of the above?
I'd love to write a book and a screenplay. I wrote a screenplay a couple of years ago and talked to James Gunn at a Filmfest in Brussels about it. He told me he sold one to Troma (the Tromeo and Juliette script) for about a hundred and fifty bucks, but they let him direct it as well. I talked to Lloyd Kaufman that same night and sure enough, if they see a movie in it, they would offer me as little money as possible and see what happens. I got stubborn though, because they looked at me as if I was the biggest asshole they ever met. And I didn't send it over. I still like that script a lot and will probably send it over some day. It's pure Troma. It even has lesbian twins in it. Bookwise...everybody here keeps pushing me to write, so I started writing about getting into stunts, my adventures in high school and on into the music scene until the last days of the band. I hate the fact that it has to be called a biography, though.

Well, you do have quite the movie buff background. What inspires you in that field? There's lots of shitty scripts being turned into shittier movies...what rocks The Captain?
Entertainment. Seventies and early eighties kinda stuff. Exploitation movies. They're back. Tarantino has been making them since Reservoir Dogs, and Mark Hartley's Not Quite Hollywood documentary about Australian exploitation movies is a blast and is getting some great responses. I know you're a big Jim VanBebber fan; he knows what's up. Even Rob Zombie. The Devil's Rejects fucked me up! He should've stayed away from the remake thing though. However, I enjoyed the first thrity minutes of Halloween. Stuff like that and documentaries - American Movie, for example. There are many stories that still need to be told. I recently saw You're Gonna Miss Me about Roky Erickson, and it blew me right out of my chair. I'm gonna get a Roky tattoo next week.

A portrait or what?
Yep.

That's cool. What else you digging these days music wise?
A lot of soundtracks. Italian crime scores from the seventies. Check out some of those scores by Cipriani and Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. Mindblowing. Also John Carpenter's early scores and stuff from Romero's movies. But I'm also obsessed with Alice Cooper again. Just various songs. As always, old Iron Maiden. Coven, which I recently discovered. Let's see, I found out about a great old Dutch band called Q65 and been listening alot to Poison Idea's Feel The Darkness. What a record!

Are you musically inclined at all yourself?
Nope. I did, however, front a band about 8 years ago. Bloody Chainsaw. I think you get the idea. It was a complete disaster and almost killed me one night, due to alcohol poisoning and blood loss. We had about five songs; three of them were GG Allin songs and one by Antiseen. We did four gigs, until I found out it was not really my thing to front a band. I'd rather watch a band or play their records at home.

Great fucking name. At least you found out the perils of rock n roll early - it takes some of us years. Speaking of which, where do you see yourself in ten years? Twenty?
To be honest - this might sound gay coming from "The International Man of Danger," but I kinda see myself as a family man still doing my thing, whatever that is, in ten or twenty years. I have a terrific woman who is very supportive. She could try and act a bit more impressed though!

If you could have dinner with any three people (living or dead), who's gonna be sitting at the Captain's table?
I have been asked this recently too, and I answered Ronnie Van Zandt. Basically, because he's Ronnie Van Zandt, short-tempered front man of an amazing band that's almost mythical. Let's see...alive, Grant Page. He's a legendary Australian stuntman, huge in the seventies. He did most of the stunts in Mad Max with a broken leg. His fire stunts were absolutely groundbreaking, too. He's like my Elvis. And a third one...probably John Carpenter. However, I just read his book and know what I need to know. Let's invite Joe Spinell.

Well, so much for my in-depth interview skills. Since I'm rehashing the standard stuff, let's go with desert island movie, book, record and beer for our last question.
Movie: Probably Dawn of the Dead, I'm a bit of a Dawn of the Dead geek. That one or Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. If I happen to be stranded alone, I'd go for Amber Pays the Rent, though.
Book: The Psychotronic Movie Guide.
Record: Killers by Iron Maiden
Beer: Call me crazy or insane, but I'd go for Corona.

Click HERE for more info on the good Captain.

ORPHAN (2009)

2009-08-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Orphan's success as a movie depends on a twist ending that should not work outside of a 1930s pulp magazine, and then only the most deft of the era's scribes could have made it seem plausible. I've got to admit that when the big reveal was finally made, I started to throw my hands up but quickly realized that I have become so conditioned to a total cheat of a "twist" ending that I almost couldn't recognize a good, perhaps great, one when it was smacking me in the face with its cock. And maybe I was just a little razzed that I didn't see it coming, even with all the clues dropped along the way.

In short, this movie can be classified in the "killer kids" subsect of film, but in my book, it ups the ante considerably on any of the others to have come down the pike in recent history (and I'm stretching back to the 70s here, so don't throw The Omen out there as a trump card- that boring turd is creepy only if you buy into all that religious shuck and jive). Orphan is the story of a family putting itself back together after losing one child to miscarriage and almost losing another to the pitfalls of the mother's drinking problem. As the more astute of you might expect from the title, Moms and Pops decide to hit the orphanage to grab themselves a replacement child and fall head over heels with Esther, a precocious nine-year old Russian doll. As Esther and the family try to acclimate themselves to the new living situation, we're quick to find out that Esther is a bit of a hot-head and a lot more worldy than we gave her credit for. Moms is quick to wise up to the fact that something is more than a little off with Esther. Pops won't hear it. He's enamored with their new little kakashka. Who's gonna believe the heavily medicated and former alkie stew bum Moms anyway? Things escalate at a rapid and murderous pace from there on out. I can't say much more without giving away that twist ending.

To heap further praise on this well-deserving flick, nobody in the cast annoyed me (which was amazing in the case of Peter Sarsgaard). The kids are stellar, especially seeing as how the weight of the movie fell on their shoulders. Issabelle Fuhrman (Esther) is totally believable as a devious little twat and shines even more after the twist ups the film's ante considerably. Aryana Engineer plays Max, the family's deaf younger daughter, and she pulls off this weighty role with an aplomb that few child actors would have been able to muster. Jimmy Bennett has a great goofy yet believable look and demeanor that totally works for him as Daniel, the Guitar Hero-playing, porn-hoarding, Esther-hating oldest sibling. In my younger days, he would have no doubt been relegated to being the rote star of "ABC After School Specials" and S.E. Hinton film adaptations, but luckily enough for him, he lives in a time where he's nabbing major film roles (young James T. Kirk in the latest Star Trek outing, anyone?). I'd say you'll be seeing a lot of him in the years to come...at least until he slides into the quagmire of post-adolescent child-star self-pity and drug addiction. Oh yeah, additional cheers to the person that cast CCH Pounder as Sister Abigail; she's always a treat to watch.

It'll be interesting to see what director Jaume Collet-Serra does next. Truth be told, I didn't at all mind his House of Wax, and felt it suffered from the disadvantage of having that name slapped across it. If it had been given a decent title that wasn't referrential to a film classic (a remake in name only, if you ask me), I think more folks would have stopped bitching and enjoyed it for the fun albeit mindless romp that it was. Now he gives us Orphan - a damn good little suspense flick that could have gone wrong in so many ways but was kept on track and moved along gracefully under his guidance. So cheers to Collet-Serra and screenwriter David Johnson (working from a story by Alex Mace). Hell, they faked me out and didn't have to cheat to do it. They might have set the adoption process back a few decades, but I guess decent flicks don't come cheap these days. Go see it now before some asshole gives away the twist. You'll enjoy actually being cold-cocked by one for a change.

3.5 out of 5 hammer & sickles, I mean stars.

http://www.orphan-movie.warnerbros.com/

THE COLLECTOR (2009)

2009-07-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

Being the cheap bastard that I am, I got up early and hit the theater at 10:30 to get the early bird discount for the first show of the day. As I walked into the local multiplex, I had a moment of lucidity and almost turned around and got back in the truck. I'd already been to the moving pictures show twice this week with mixed results. Earlier in the week, I paid regular admission for a pretty decent flick but then got taken the following night at the cheap seats theater. I figured I was barely ahead of the curve - no need to press my luck. This movie looked like a crap shoot (or is that crap fest?) anyway. After seeing the trailer, I figured I could pretty much call it without ever having to actually sit through it. But then I remembered reading all the glowing online reviews that proclaimed this flick to be the must see horror film of the summer. My moment of clear thought was clouded and I proceeded into the darkness of the movie hall. I've got to tell you, those people that wrote such great things about The Collector either have never ever seen a decent movie before or are dirty, dirty whores shilling for the studios. The only horrifying thing about this one is how I got ass-raped the minute I threw my cash down on the counter.

The old "someone-breaks-into-house-only-to-find-crazier-someone-already-inside" premise is nothing new. The fact that someone's trotting it out once again is, in and of itself, not a bad thing.

It's got a lot of life left in it. Unfortunately, instead of using this plotline as a damn good frame to build a story around, the writing team of Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (who also directed) opted to act like common zoo monkeys and throw handful after handful of shit at it. Really stinky shit.

Our main man, Arkin, is an ex-con that works construction putting up security bars on ritzy houses and such. His ex-wife is in debt to loan sharks. Loan sharks? Really? In 2009, that's the best we can do? Not even a meth dealer or a credit card company or something even halfway believable? Loan sharks? I knew we were in trouble right there. Anyhow, he needs to get these loan sharks (jesus pleesus) off his ex-wife's ass, 'cause he wants to keep their daughter out of harm's way - and he's ONLY GOT UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO DO IT! You know how those loan sharks are with their midnight deadlines.

So, he makes plans to break into this house that he just finished working on, knowing that the family is going out of town and that they've got a safe that's stuffed with valuable goodies. He gets inside only to find that the family is being held hostage by a masked weirdo who has, for some unfathomable reason, rigged the house with all manner of booby-traps - a feat that would have taken the average person a couple of days or more to rig up (and that's if they didn't stop to sleep or shit). There's heavy-assed bear traps covering the floor, windows nailed shut with razors between the slats, trip wires rigged up to damn near everyting, flesh-eating acid on the floors, invisible razor wire, a bazillion fish hooks hanging from individual strings at eye level...you fucking name it, padre. But why?

I mean, I know it's because the writers just wanted to have scene after scene of torture vignettes and they obviously couldn't figure out a way to do it that made any better sense than this contrived tripe, but come on...a junior high kid could have done better than this. Instead of using the graphic violence to support the storyline, they warp the hell out of what could be (loan sharks aside) a decent storyline to get to the violent parts.

Why is "The Collector" doing this besides the fact that he "collects people?" If his main goal is "collecting people," why go to the super-human effort of jerry-rigging the house to the ten-thousandth power after he's already got the people that live inside? He's an omniscient entity that knows someone will show up to be collected? Who knows? All we know is that the assholes behind this extravaganza of shit want to give away only the slightest pertinent info in hopes that you'll come back for the subsequent installments (these are the folks behind Saw 36 - 58, after all) where a little more background will be dished out in between the ludicrous death and torture scenes. The question remains, who in their right fucking mind would care?

This movie is a mess. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I realize that I couldn't have called this one without ever seeing it; I would have never in a million years guessed it could be this incredibly BAD. I loathed damn near every minute of it. If Josh Stewart didn't have the intestinal-fortitude to play Arkin like a poor man's Sean Penn, I'd have probably gotten up and walked out, wasted money be damned. How he got through this live-action cartoon with a straight face is beyond me. Maybe he needed the money to save his ex-wife's ass from loan sharks. Give that guy a fucking award or something.

If you want to see a booby-trapped house flick that works far better than this, I'd recommend Home Alone 2.

1 out of 5 sucky little stars

www.thecollector-movie.com

LOVE SEX FEAR DEATH by Timothy Wyllie (2009)

2009-07-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

As a young trash culture weirdo, I had a bit of an obssession with The Process Church of the Final Judgement. The name got bandied around a lot in the poorly written and sloppily researched occult and true-crime tomes that junked up the used bookstore shelves of that era. Mention of The Process was usually in conjunction with Charles Manson and/or devil worship (both of which seemed sorta groovy to a barely-teenage rube from the backwoods of the bible belt). Occassionaly, one of these wastes of paper would print a photo of Process founder (actually co-founder, as I would later find out), Robert de Grimston, looking a lot like Jesus and usually bearing a caption accusing him of some sort of vague-yet-surely-nefarious doings that would possibly make Ol' Scratch himself blush. Whenever one of these hacks needed an epitome of evil that superseded Chuck Manson or Anton LaVey, they trotted out de Grimston and The Process like a two-headed show pony.

The Manson connection was initially sparked by a small article penned by Mr. Creepy Crawl himself for inclusion in the Death issue of The Process publication - not exactly a startling item for the time, seeing as how Sir Charles was gracing the pages of everything from LIFE to Rolling Stone. The Satan connection stemmed from part of The Process theology that went something along the lines of, "Christ said 'Love thine enemy.' Christ's enemy was Satan..." Starting to get the picture? I suppose it didn't help that "Processeans" wore black cloaks replete with Goat of Mendes patches and talked about the end of the world in the age of love beads and tie-dyed Aquarian wet dreams.

Perhaps The Process achieved their heights of notoriety simply because lackluster blowhards like Ed Sanders so needed a scapegoat for the death of their beloved sixties scene. Maybe they chose to ignore the fairly innocuous facts and barge ahead with their penny dreadful tales of The Process-as-boogeyman. After all, how long could lone-nut Manson bear the brunt of slicing the throat of a whole generation? The Processeans looked the part; why not throw them in as the Wizard behind the emerald curtain? I always found it funny that an organization supposedly so diabolical and powerful didn't just have Sanders's head delivered to them in a box. Instead, they took his publishers to court and legally forced them to remove mentions of The Process from subsequent editions of his pompous snooze fest, The Family.

By the time I was in my mid-teens, Maury Terry picked up the Sanders ball and ran like a motherfucker with it in his epic of bullshit hyperbole, The Ultimate Evil. Terry used his supposedly ultra-secret sources to roll Manson, David Berkowitz, The Process, and anybody else he could wrap his far-flung tentacles around into a theoretical stew of Satanic murder, conspiracy, and impending world domination. The whole premise was laughable to even someone of my tender years. C'mon, the Weekly World News seemed more credible than this hodge podge of tomfoolery. Yet it still made one wonder just what in the hell had the members of The Process been up to that would put them in the middle of these crazy circles of wild speculation and conjecture? The straight dope seemed scarce, especially for an organization that based its livelihood on selling self-published magazines and whose co-founder authored numerous books dealing with their belief system.

Finally, all of those questions have been answered. LOVE SEX FEAR DEATH The Inside Story of The Process Church of the Final Judgement throws wide the door of secrecy protecting the inner workings of this fabled group. The heft of the book consists of a memoir by original church member, Timothy Wyllie (aka Father Micah), in which he reveals that (are you ready?!?!) despite their foreboding name and hip aesthetics, The Process Church of the Final Judgement was every bit as by-the-numbers as any other religious movement to come down that tired old pike. To me, at least, that makes this tale all the more fascinating.

What was to eventually become The Process was developed over a period of several years by de Grimston (at that time he was the plain old Robert Moor) and his wife, Mary Ann MacLean, a one-time London call girl. In the early 1960s, these former Scientologists founded Compulsions Analysis, a sort of Scientology offshoot personally tweaked to their own psychological bent. By 1965, Compulsions Analysis and its clients had come to a "shared spirituality" and The Process was born. Moor, under the tutelage of Mary Ann, shed his surname and quickly became the posterboy of the movement. By the late 60s, The Process had outposts in major cities across the globe where their cloaked members could be seen on the streets shilling their visually stunning publications. At a time when eyes and ears were open to new ways of living and new paths of spirituality, it seemed The Process could become a major contender in the marketplace of belief.

But by 1974 the ride was over. De Grimston and Mary Ann had split - Robert eventually faded into the obscurity of everyday life, while Mary Ann continued with a watered-down version of The Process called The Foundation. This Foundation weeded out certain inflammatory theological buzzwords and concepts, ditched the black cloaks, and threw the baby out with bathwater to become more or less like any other weirdo Christian offshoot. In the early 80s, they pulled up stakes and headed to the American West where they got rid of the religious lingo altogether and made their final morph into Best Friends Animal Society, operators of the largest no-kill animal shelter in the United States.

Diabolical? No - at least no more than any other ready-made belief system grabbing for the dollars of the naive. While some folks are bemoaning the fact that LOVE SEX FEAR DEATH shows The Process as merely another fairly pedestrian religious con job, I appreciate the candor of Mr. Wyllie's recollections, especially the parts where he's trying to make sense of why he kept doing Mary Ann's (the real brains behind The Process - de Grimston comes across as a pretty inept figurehead, as evidenced by his inability to keep anything going on his own after the two divorced) shit work, even when he knew he was being suckered and taken advantage of. Isn't that at the very crux of why some cults fail and why some go on to eventually obtain the "legitimacy" of becoming a Scientology or a Christianity? Isn't it all just a matter of semantics and how many followers the folks at the top can keep conning? De Grimston, Jesus...what's the difference when you really get down to brass tacks? It ALL goes back to the old carrot in front of the horse routine: the eternal promise of something better coming your way if you'll just steer the prescribed course, bear the brunt of the burden, and eat a little shit right now. And people fall for it in some shape, form, or fashion every minute of every day. This book sheds some light on just how otherwise intelligent and productive people fall prey to the oldest scam in the book without resorting to the brainwash blame game or the stale theatrics of mock outrage.

Once again, Adam Parfrey's Feral House deserves kudos for getting this volume out there. It's the kind of meticulous volume you've come to expect from this fine imprint. Along with Wyllie's rather lengthy memoir, you get shorter testimonies from six other Processeans, an intro from Parfrey, a fabulous article by Genesis Breyer P-orridge, excerpts from writings by de Grimston, and a first rate crop of illustrations. The black and white candids are nice, but the full color reproductions of covers and pages from the various Process magazines are truly sights to behold. What with a magazine that looked that good coupled with the whole whirl of imagery and symbology the group offered up, it's a wonder they're not still around as The Process today.

It would definitely be interesting to compare and contrast the memories of a follower against those of one of the Chief High Mucky-Mucks, but with Mary Ann having died in 2005 and de Grimston none too eager to expound on his days with the group, I'd say this is the best, most complete look we'll ever get into The Process Church of the Final Judgement. What a look it is, boring only to those sensationlists that will never comprehend how the creation and marketing of belief systems is far more compelling and intriguing than any Satanic serial killer cult ever could be.

4 out of 5 stars
Go get some here: FERAL HOUSE

Oh Death...

2009-07-27T13:02:00.001-07:00

If you already read BLACK TEETH AND BUSTED DREAMS, you can skip on over this entry seeing as how you've probably already read it. If you don't already read that other great bastion of questionable literary merit...what the hell are you waiting for?

Ah, to wake up in the morning to the sound of the phone not ringing...that's the sound of another day ticking by with no one rushing to offer me any sort of employment opportunity. The missus has been fielding offers left and right as of late, what with her fancy-schmancy edumacation. Me? I didn't need no stinkin' education. I got an Associates in General Studies on the Liberal Arts side of an nth rate Georgia community college and then promptly said, "Shit on this." I had no money to go to a university (or "dollars for degrees," as I prefer to call it), felt like I was wasting what time and money I did have, and most importantly, figured I'd gotten as much stank outta the deal as I was going to get. A backwoods outpost like that was not exactly teeming with the kind of wild party girls looking to "experiment" that you so often see on TV and the movies. I guess you gotta move to Mt. Pilot for that kind of action.

Like many young turks that think they're somehow different than the herd and bound for greater things, I started a band. Great fucking career move. Having a rock'n'roll habit to support, I fell into the bland monotony and guaranteed paycheck of government work. Some fifteen years later, I find that neither of those options proved particularly viable. I also find that I'm not exactly skilled in anything other than making an ass out of myself for five bucks a head and the contrary-to-all-common-sense, just-do-what-we-tell-you, show-up-and-get-your-paycheck "work" that is the foundation of the United States Postal Service (I for one find it in no way surprising that they're about to go down the fucking toilet - good riddance). Washed up at thirty-six. A government flunkie has-been. A rock'n'roll never-was. Where do I go from here?

Today, while brainstorming on the matter, I got the bright idea to start checking out the route one takes to become a mortician. After years of being surrounded by lifeless bodies at the USPS, it didn't seem to be that much of a stretch. And since my dream job of being Andrew Dice Clay's personal advisor isn't happening just yet, why not?

It's not something I'd want to do because it's creepy and weird and super-wicked-hardcore-underground, but because it's something that I think I could do pretty well. Don't tell anybody, but my wife says I can be very "compassionate." Maybe that's so. I do know that I inherited a somewhat novel trait from my father in that while I can be put-off and driven mad by miniscule day-to-day troubles, when some major life fuck-up is staring me down, I can become the most calm, clear-minded human being you've ever met in your life. When it's one of those "get-through-this" situations, I'm in my element. It's not something I necessarily ever would have chosen to excel at but I guess I do. When everybody else is losing their shit in walls of grief and despair, I can make sure all of the details are handled and handled correctly. It's terrible that I can't exhibit that kind of serene rationality during my day-to-day existence. If I could, I might not be sitting here right now trying to make some last ditch game plan with my life.

Where to begin? Such a secretive world. What's the handshake and password? Leave it to the web to demystify everything. All you gotta do is point your browser in the direction of the American Board of Funeral Service Education and look at the accredited colleges that will provide you with the degree you'll need to come out swinging. There are far fewer than you'd think, what with the job security offered by learning this business. After all, there's a whole load of baby-boomers getting ready to shuffle off this mortal coil. That may sound crass, but the truth so often does. It's amazing that people don't flinch when peddling the very things that will put you six feet under, but not a lot of people are rushing to step up to the plate when it comes to the retail end of the final outcome. I guess most people still like to pretend it ain't gonna happen...at least to them. I, on the other hand, realize it's gonna happen to all of us - we are the funeral trade's endless customer base.

The closest school that offers accredited mortician's courses is about two hours away from where I live. No longer a resident of podunk holler, I'm actually located in a fairly large city that's home to a well-respected major-league university, but, surprisingly, they don't provide all the courses needed to become an accredited mortician. Just what kind of course load are we looking at here?

There's the usual stuff that one would expect: pathology, physiology, anatomy, chemistry, and micro-biology. Then there's the business side of stuff: small business management, basic computer skills, communication skills. To round things out, there's classes in basic history, basic English, and psychology. Most schools across the nation could provide the accredited courseload if they'd only add those few classes that are highly specialized to the death industry (embalming, restorative arts, funeral law and ethics, and courses on the history and sociology of funeral customs). Is the fact that they don't just another case of people trying to avert their eyes from the inevitable?

Even a lot of the accredited schools seem to want to dance around the meat and potatoes of the profession. One of the highly specialized schools (they only teach the funeral arts) that piqued my interest spends roughly ninety-five percent of its "about us" homepage explaining all the great things there are to do within driving distance of the school. Complete with photos of the local attractions and nightlife, they provide reason after reason to come to that school but none having to do with the actual goal of becoming a mortician. Only in the last paragraph do they get around to that, and even then it's cloaked in the semantics of vague phrases such as "teaching you to be of service to your fellow man" and "being ethically and morally competent." What gives? While even I wouldn't go the route of "You Stab'em, We Slab'em," I'd much prefer an institution that proudly fesses up to their course of study. Don't hide your light underneath a bushel...if it wasn't for the funeral trade, we'd be up shit creek without a paddle.

Maybe pride doesn't figure into the equation. Maybe it's all about learning to blend into the wallpaper. To only be thought of when you're absolutely needed and then be as unobstrusive and forgettable as possible. Despite the fact that there's a blue-million ways the funeral trade could market its services, you never see flashy commercials on TV or see billboards proclaiming the wonders of certain funeral homes and burial services. Here we have a whole industry totally neglected due to its customer base not willing to accept the fact that they will, in fact, one day be a customer. Compete for my dollar (and my remains), and tell me just why in the fuck you should be the one handling a final send-off that I'm involved in. Hell, I may even be the guest of honor! Some shake their heads in disgust at caskets that feature pictures of the rock band KISS or the logos of major league baseball franchises...I see the wave of the future. What is wrong with wanting to put the "FUN" back in "FUNeral?"

The industry should be proactively seeking the cooperation of their future patrons by offering not only themed caskets and themed urns, but themed funerals! With the "ME" generation starting to keel over, it would seem only natural that they would want to step up and take their farewell parties by the balls. After all, it's the last time they're going to be able to scream "LOOK AT ME!" Why let a bereaved relative fuck it up? Not to mention, if you're the one calling the shots, you'll be helping to alleviate the decision-making burdens needlessly foisted upon your already grieving loved ones.

It's also an industry that should be reaching out to other businesses, making contacts, brokering deals, working together. Let's get this death business out in the open. Did your spouse love the zoo? Donate their remains to a public tiger feeding. Free food for the tigers and an educational show for the kiddies. Always wanted to go the Amazon? Let's plan a post-mortem feed-the-piranhas trip. Horror fan? Haunted house funeral with the corpse as the final scare! CSI buff? Help the family donate their body to a research facility like "The Body Farm." Environmental whack job? Green burial without the casket. A space enthusiast? Let's send their ass to the moon...but then again, that's already passe. Let's explore totally new frontiers. Let's take this funeral biz where no man has gone before! Can you feel me? Can you? Am I the only one getting excited about this?

I guess the vast majority of folks would prefer to ignore this horizon where upon I see the endless possibilities to vault a much-maligned trade into its future. Maybe I'm not ready for the funeral world, after all. Or maybe they're just not ready for me.

Gotta split. My phone's ringing. Maybe it's Dice Clay...wonder if I could talk him into videotaping a message for my funeral?

Odds and Ends

2009-07-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

Looks like my good pals in The Murder Junkies are needing some help filling in some holes on their next tour itenerary. It's shaping up to be a Southern jaunt starting in early October. Merle Allin says, "We have booked some shows for our Southern tour but we still need shows in the following areas: Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri. If you know of any clubs or promoters that would like to book us, please let me know as soon as possible. Hope to see you on the road in October." If you can be of service, drop Merle and the boys a line at their MySpace page by clicking here: THE MURDER JUNKIES.

In The-Best-News-I've-Heard-All-Year department: filmmaker Jim VanBebber has stated online that he has "red hot irons in the fire," but that he will "release no wine...before it's time." I personally don't care what it is he's got going on; I'm just excited to know there's something in the works. Anybody that knows me, knows that VanBebber is probably my favorite filmmaker ever. He's proven that he can do more with a meager budget and his own dogged determination than anybody else going today. While I personally don't see the point in spending fuck tons of money on DVDs and the like, I will go on record stating that Visions of Hell: The Films of Jim VanBebber is absolutely essential. It includes Deadbeat at Dawn, The Manson Family, Roadkill: The Last Days of John Martin, My Sweet Satan, two feature length documentaries, and so much more. As long as I have the VanBebber set, Freaks, The Born Losers, and Billy Jack close at hand, I'll always be able to keep myself reasonably sane and happy. Get yourself a fix here: VISIONS OF HELL.

You think you dig metal? Not as much as The Rock'N'Roll Outlaw. And I'll damn well guarantee that few people on earth have his vast knowledge of classic underground metal's more nefarious realms. When he's not making his own classic records with The Hookers and Blade of the Ripper, he's sharing his love of the rawk by blogging away here: GOODNIGHT WHATEVER YOU ARE.

When I was but a wee piss-ant of a kid, I used to pray my mom would have enough coupons saved up to make the weekly grocery run to Kroger instead of the other grocery store in our one-horse town. Why? 'Cause Kroger stocked Creepy, Eerie, and Savage Sword of Conan. Great black-and-white comics magazines that had incredible art, incredible stories, and the very real possibility that you just might see some realistically depicted, bare-naked titties. Dear god, I was in heaven. Mom never let me have the Creepy or Eerie titles (somehow she found stories of a barbarian fucking and killing his way across the land to be more suitable for a lad of my tender years), but I'd devour every last panel while propped up on the trusty Kroger magazine rack.

Not only has Dark Horse Comics taken me back to those marvelous and awkward days of my youth by issuing those great (yet prohibitively expensive) Creepy and Eerie Archives hardcover tomes and the wonderful (and affordable) Savage Sword of Conan trade paperback collections, they've now gone and rebooted the Creepy series as an on-going quarterly title. From what I've read of the first issue, it's pretty damn good - much better than the horrible latter day versions of all the other classic horror comics titles that have been revamped over the years. It would have been even cooler if they'd relaunched it as a full-size mag, but that's just nitpicking. They've also got some cool Creepy swag to go along with the new book. Remember those cool Uncle Creepy patches and buttons being hawked in the back of the original mags? You can finally nab some of those as well as t-shirts, zippo lighters, Uncle Creepy statues, and the like. (Hey, I like Uncle Creepy so much, I had him tattooed on my arm when I was a young hooligan.)

As if that's not enough, they're also releasing an uber-affordable 416 page Solomon Kane omnibus that collects all of Robert E. Howard's Kane stories from Savage Sword. Yeah, yeah...it should be against my nature to dig a Puritan adventurer that acts as a weapon of god against all the cool things in the world (cannibals and pirates and devils, oh my!), but what the hell. If the Bible had ever been this cool, they maybe coulda duped me into all that hogwash. For the latest skinny on this stuff and more: DARK HORSE COMICS.

TIL NEXT TIME -

ANGRY JOHNNY & THE KILLBILLIES

2009-07-18T14:09:00.001-07:00

The following is an interview I conducted with ANGRY JOHNNY a couple of years back. For those of you slow on the uptake, Angry is the driving force behind ANGRY JOHNNY & THE KILLBILLIES, America's premier bloodgrass band. You horror nuts may have heard him on the soundtracks to Gimme Skelter, Jigsaw, The Stink of Flesh, and Dark Walker. Think Dock Boggs strung out on PBR and low-grade hallucinogens with a red-hot poker shoved up his ass. Not only does he lead the fearless Killbillies through the blood bucket beer dives and recording studios of the United States' seamy underbelly, he's also recorded and released somewhere around a half dozen solo albums in the past couple of years (and they're all good). Steve Earle can stand on Bob Dylan's table and shout about Townes Van Zandt all he wants...I'll stand on anybody's goddamn table, shit between my bare feet, and proclaim Angry Johnny is the best songwriter to pick up a guitar since they pulled Hank Williams outta the back of that Cadillac.

As if that wasn't enough, Angry is also a painter of some reknown. Who else do you know that's been picked up and interrogated by the fuzz 'cause they found one of his paintings at a murder site? If that's not enough street cred, he's also done album covers for Shadows Fall and Dinosaur Jr. and has his paintings showcased in rundown beer joints nationwide. These paintings capture the same bizarre rural-backwater-run-amok vibe as his songs. It's all a window into the fabled town of Killville, nestled somewhere between the Berkshire Mountains and the Connecticut River. If you're ever in that area, ask a local to point you in the direction of Dewey's. Have a cold brew and ask 'em where Angry's at. Buy the man a beer and he'll probably tell you a story or two.

In the time since this interview took place, Angry lost his appendix, opened a Creepy Little Gallery, added new exhibits to the Killville Historical Museum of the Strange, suffered a breakdown, and broke up his band. The past year has seen him pull it back together in fine fashion and regroup the Killbillies, storming stages up and down the east coast. This masterful return to form resulted in not one, but TWO live albums culled from their St. Valentine's Day Massacre show on February 14th, at the Brass Cat in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Titled Warts And All and More Warts, the discs are just as essential as anything else the band has ever released. We hope to bring an addendum to this interview soon where we'll be discussing new music, the documentary, the breakdown, the breakup, and the subsequent rise from the ashes. Til then, enjoy this in-depth interview with a true American treasure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let’s start off with the Angry Johnny and The Snots album.
Ay yay yay. You have that?

Yep.
You poor guy.

Was that the first thing you ever did music-wise?
Nah. There was a previous Snots cassette out in ’86, I think. Then I did a whole bunch of these horrible solo tapes. I had eighteen of ‘em out. I dunno, the kids were buying ‘em, just locally. I got panned in the local paper by this guy who said I was a misogynist, and then he ended up stabbing his girlfriend a million times – his ex-girlfriend, who had become a lesbian – and he’s in prison. So, who’s the misogynist now?

So these eighteen solo releases were all on tape, too?
Yeah, they were terrible. Not even Jimmy the Twitch is allowed to listen to ‘em, and he’s my official archivist.

So there’s never gonna be a box-set with all that shit on it?
Well, I gotta keep an eye on my brother. I think he has ‘em. His judgement’s clouded.

So what kind of background did you come out of before the Killbillies, was it more punk rock or always the country-tinged stuff?
When I first started playing, I didn’t start playing guitar until I was 22 or something, 21, 20, I don’t know. Basically – well, you’ve seen me play – I never learned how to play guitar, I learned how to make a couple of chords and I was like “Hey, I’m gonna write some songs!” I wrote this handful of TERRIBLE shit and then when I started with the Snots it took a while to get it to, it was punk rock, but I don’t even know if it was. It didn’t sound like punk rock, either. That was the thing, I could never get a handle on even sounding like what I wanted to sound like ‘cause I didn’t know how to do it. So it always ended up sounding like us. Which is good, in retrospect. I was a hack (laughs). I’m a fucking hack. Then somewhere along the line I kind of realized that I may not sing great but I can actually kind of sing. Back in the day, if you ever heard those eighteen tapes (which you never will), it’s like almost like deliberately singing poorly ‘cause I figured I couldn’t sing so I might as well sing real bad. But that’s where the country shit came from, those tapes. All that solo shit. There’s like a thousand songs and doing the solo shit with the acoustic guitar brought it into the country vibe. Some of that stuff is fucking embarrassing. The first Snots tape, I think, sounds better than the Snots album and I want to put it out but then I listen to it and I don’t. The lyrics are fucking juvenile. They’re embarrassing. That’s why it will remain in the vault.

So The Snots album was the first “album” you did?
Yeah, and that was a mess. We had just got the Snots back together and we had been practicing a couple of weeks when I booked all this studio time. (Laughs) We went in one day and recorded it. I wasted all that money and like a fool I put it on vinyl ‘cause I was the last hold-out. And then Slabs, who was the bass player, before we even got the record in our hands, moved to Miami, so there was no more band. So I had a thousand giant drink coasters.

But when it becomes a collector’s item, you’ll have the whole supply…
Actually, I’m almost out of ‘em, now. People have actually been buying them over the years and I haven’t been keeping track. I shoulda put a couple of ‘em away in the vault.

How did that progress into being the Killbillies?
Well, I called up Jim Joe Greedy, who I’d previously played with in the Mill Rats, back in like ’87, I think, and we all ended up hating each other and fell apart. When Slabs left, I actually went and left a note on Jim Joe’s studio and said I need a bass player. “I’m one snot short of a full nose” is actually what the note said. He called me up and said “I’ll play – but I ain’t gonna be a snot.” That’s when we came up with the Killbillies. Which in retrospect was good. Divine providence or whatever you call that.

I know you’ve been through quite a few lineup changes.
Yeah, if you count the part-time, mercenary Killbillies, it’s gotta be in the twenties. I’m nor sure. But originally, that lineup was Jim Joe, Sleepy Animal Kaisla and me. And then we got Al Camino one night. He was drunk and we were drunk and he hopped in the car and we went home and played all night. He had a mandolin, he was the mandolin player for the Big Bad Bollocks. Then he joined the band. That’s where we were until like, I think ’97. They’re on “Hankenstein”, that lineup. We were playing and touring a lot, ya know? Well, “touring” – going out every weekend and stuff. Camino quit ‘cause he just couldn’t go out that much, he was working, and then Sleepy Animal Kaisla had another kid and so he was gone. That’s when I got Dwight Trash and that’s when we made “What’s So Funny?”.

The lineup you have now (Goatis T. Ovenrude – mandolin, Sal Vega – drums, Jimmy Rat Fink – bass) seems to be pretty stable.
Yeah, right now it is. It’s good. We’ve got Sal, who’s also from the Big Bad Bollocks – the drummer, Sal Vega. And we got Goatis, Goat had never been in a band before, unbelievably. I don’t know what we’d do if we lost him.

He’d never been in a band before?
No, he’s a classical guitarist.

So he did recitals and stuff or?
I don’t even know if he did that. Remember Luther? You never met Luther. He was our bass player after Jim Joe left. One night I was over at his house, Sal and I were there, and these guys were over just jamming with Luther, and Goat was there playing a mandolin. So I asked Luther to ask Goat if he’d play, and that’s how we got Goat.

Jimmy Rat Fink was telling me a story about how you got him in the band, telling him to be packed and ready on the sidewalk?
Oh, that was a long time ago when I told him I was coming over, that I was going to kill a man, to be outside. He was actually waiting outside. Very loyal. That was before he was even in the band, that was back in ’93 during the Great Killville Skirmishes. We didn’t end up killing the guy but it was nice to know that he was there and he had my back, no questions asked. He actually WAS out on the sidewalk. So, I gotta watch what I ask him to do, make sure I really want him to do it. Takes things literally.

When I first heard about you guys, you always got slopped into a bucket with all that “Americana/No Depression” shit. To me, that’s just a hang-tag for boring music. How do you feel getting lumped in with that label? How would you sum it up? It’s a pretty unique thing you’ve got going on there.
I never know what to call it. The Village Voice, when they wrote that we were the most rip-roaring, kick-ass combo to come out of the so-called alt.country thing, I liked that. But the problem with that is we never get played. There’s a station up here that’s actually a pretty good station. They play everything, they play a lot of crap, too, but they play all the kind of stuff that we would totally fit right in with, but for some reason I don’t think when people are thinking of that, they think of us. Maybe it’s the name and stuff. So we end up lost. I don’t know where to lump us in. I don’t even wanna say “rock n roll” ‘cause then you lose the hillbilly bloodgrass, we’ve been saying “bloodgrass”, but then when you say “blood-grass” people go “what?” And when you’ve got “grass” in anything…we’re not really a bluegrass band. I always thought we had this bluegrass vibe but we got a drummer for one thing, plus, we’re pretty much not bluegrass. We’re definitely not newgrass, which I hate. All the newgrass bands pretty much suck, I think, ‘cause they’re lame. They don’t understand the dark side of bluegrass, you know? Where are the murder ballads?

That and you guys almost come out of this timeless pocket. You mentioned murder ballads, there’s not much difference in listening to you guys and Dock Boggs…
That’s what Entertainment Weekly said. That’s funny. You didn’t read that there? You just came up with that….that’s funny. That’s who they compared us to.

Well, I’m looking through my CDs trying to grab some sort of comparison and there’s Dock Boggs and Cactus sitting there and I can’t compare you to Cactus…
And see, I don’t really know any Dock Boggs, I don’t know where this came from. And even like that great Louvin Brothers song, what the fuck is it, where he kills the chick and everything?

Knoxville Girl?
Yeah. I didn’t know that song when I started Angry Johnny and the Killbillies. I didn’t know any of this stuff. We just came from Killville. I didn’t know there was alt.country when we started. The thing that was going on up here before we started playing was kind of all the indie shit going on at the time, ya know? Then we started and like maybe a year or two later everybody around here was in an alt.country band. Nothing to with us really, it’s just….we had already sorta been doing it but I guess we’re not really, I guess we’re more “alt.country” than we are…actually, maybe we’re more “Americana”. I don’t know what the hell we are. We got lumped in with rockabilly forever, which I don’t think we are at all unless you really go back to real rockabilly and then I think we’re more rockabilly than most of the rockabilly bands I see. ‘Cause they all sound exactly, I shouldn’t say that ‘cause I have some rockabilly friends, but you know what I’m saying. After two songs you wanna go sit at the bar. I mean how long do you wanna hear “baby, baby, baby, baby”? I dunno, I’m sure everything we do sounds the same to, but at least it sounds like us.

You brought up the hillbilly flavor. A lot of people think that’s gotta be a Southern thing, but you guys fit that bill more than 90% of the people that try to pass that off, even the ones from down here.
I know. Everybody’s always shocked we’re from here.

There is such a thing as a northern hillbilly. You have a very, I don’t wanna say backwoods, but a very rural American Gothic, kind of countrified thing that runs through your songs and paintings….
Yeah, kinda like the milltown meets the farm. That’s right where I’m from. That’s Killville. It’s the Killville of my youth. It’s here. This whole area. When we’re on the road, people are always like “I hear you’re from Boston”. No, we’re not from Boston. We’re so far removed from Boston, and this whole section of the state is treated like crap by Boston. We’ve got some cities, I mean I don’t have to drive 10 miles to get a beer or anything, I only have to walk down the street. Actually, to my refrigerator right now (laughs). That whole American spooky gothic thing, I got it from my brother and my dad. My dad used to take us out to places like Killer’s House. It’s way up in Middlefield where this guy blasted his wife and her boyfriend. It’s this mansion out in the middle of the woods and it’s all burned down. He threw ‘em in the inground pool. That’s the kind of places my dad took us, and they’re around here, ya know? I’ve always wanted to do this murder tour of my town but if you did it, it would be in bad taste for all the people that are still around.

It actually reminded me of you when I watched “The Devil and Daniel Webster”…
Now see, that book affected me. I love that ‘cause it’s from fuckin’ Massachusetts. That and Sleepy Hollow’s actually not far from here. It’s about two hours away. And then we’ve got Daniel Shays, the Daniel Shays Rebellion in Hatfield, that’s right down the road. That was the second great rebellion, after the Revolution. There’s only been four great rebellions and that was number two. They marched on Boston but they got so cocked the only made it to Worcester, I think. They stopped at every tavern to get recruits. I’ve referenced Daniel Webster in a couple of songs. “Old Scratch”. That’s in Daniel Webster. That’s a colloquialism. That’s what everybody says around here.

So what’s your plans from here on out? You proclaimed this as “The Year of the Killbillies”…what’s on the plate?
We’re gonna go to the top and beyond(laughs). No, we’re gonna record that album down there and record another album up here. There’s another guy that wants to put us in a movie, I think it’s another zombie movie. We’re in five movies so far. One real, like, we’re in that “11:14” which has rented over a million copies, so over a million people have heard “All American Girl”, that’s a good thing. Jim Stramel’s working on another movie we might be coming down and doing the soundtrack for. That one is called “Degenerate Ink” and it’s about these psycho tattooers. I’m the first to die.

The greatest hits thing, is that gonna be you guys going in and re-recording stuff?
Yeah, we’re gonna be using a couple of things that are already done. The stuff on “What’s So Funny?” and “Monroe” are recorded really well, in real studios, so the couple of songs he wants of there, we’ll use from there. Then we’ll redo a bunch of other stuff, I guess. That seems to be the plan. It’s kind of influx, we’ve got relearn that stuff.

You’re so busy…you’re recording, you work, you’re gigging all the time….where the hell do you get the time to do these paintings?
Good question. I haven’t done any in a little while. It’s weird, when I do start painting, like, I’ll crank out a few paintings. Everything’s in spurts. That’s what happens when I write songs. I used to worry when I hadn’t painted and written in a while but I don’t anymore because I know it’ll come around again. No point in pushing it. When the time comes, you paint.

I heard you gave it up for a while. Were you really done or was that just one of those long periods of….
That’s actually when I met Wes (Freed). I hadn’t painted in three years, I dunno, I just hadn’t painted. I painted the covers of the albums during that period, maybe, but I just really wasn’t painting. I didn’t feel like painting. Then the first time I met Wes, I went to his house and I had to get home and paint. He’s the greatest painter I ever saw, the only painter I ever saw that inspired me. Outta everything I ever saw, art history books and everything, fucking Wes Freed. Well, you know that.

You have any formal art training or is this just something you come by naturally?
Na, I got kicked outta community college and that was it. I always drew and shit but I didn’t do anything. You know, in high school I got beat up enough and you don’t want to draw even more attention to yourself by drawing pictures and shit. After school, I went to work in a grocery store and I decided that sucked so I just went down and signed up for some courses the next year and then I got booted. Once I got booted out, that’s when I exploded painting, actually. That’s the best thing that ever happened in that respect. Luckily I was saved from going to art school or they woulda sapped the soul out of me. At least if most the people that have gone there that I’ve seen have been any indication….

Where’s all the stuff in the paintings come from?
I dunno. It’s pretty much the same painting everytime. I write one song and and paint one painting. I wish I could actually explain. It all comes from Killville. It’s like a John Fogerty thing, only I really live in Killville and he made up the whole bayou thing. I don’t know what it is but I guess I’m very comfortable in it. And I’m not out to, like, you know when you’re in art school or something, you have these grand ideas of like “Yeah, I’m gonna be an artist” or “Yeah, I’m gonna do something nobody else did”. I didn’t have that for very long, ya know, the delusions of that grandeur. I’m sure I suffer from megalomania in many other aspects but as far as that, I know my paintings aren’t changing nothing, I’m just painting pictures. I might as well paint what I paint well.

But that pocket of wherever that’s coming from definitely connects with people. You know the first time I saw you’re paintings, I was like GODDAM! It drew me in. Before that, I couldn’t give two shits about a painting…..
That’s how I feel about when I saw Wes’s stuff. As far as paintings, I dunno, I guess I’m kinda self-centered, I put my own paintings up. I actually like my stuff, which is weird. I like listening to my stuff. I hear these famous people that are like, “Oh, I don’t see my movies”. That’s bullshit I think. I don’t know, maybe not. The reason I write ‘em, I guess I write and paint what I enjoy, and if somebody else likes it that’s cool. I’m always amazed that there’s all these people that like ‘em. I’ve pretty much been an underachiever my whole life, not heralded as anything, so. But then you can let it go to your head. One person that you don’t even know goes “ooooohh”, and then all of a sudden you start thinking “Oh I’m something.” When you’re still nothing. As long as I can keep sellin’ ‘em and payin’ the rent, you know?

This interview originally appeared in CARBON 14 MAGAZINE issue #28.

Rumbling and Grumbling

2009-07-16T12:27:00.001-07:00

Went to see BRUNO on opening day. Laughed my ass off. I don't know if I thought it was funnier than BORAT, but I think Sacha Baron Cohen put himself into some even more fucked up situations in this one. I applaud. My fave parts were the karate lesson, the "look into my eyes" bit at the swinger's party, the Straight Dave crowd scenes, and the singing dick. Some people seem to have gotten highly offended by the singing dick (same ones who had a problem with seeing Dr. Manhattan's big, blue cock during The Watchmen, I'll assume). I don't get it. I'm definitely one of the last people anyone would point a finger at and shout "politically correct," but all the same, I don't understand why it's O.K. to show all the tits and bush you want so long as a dick is nowhere to be seen? It's just a dick. I happen to be very enamored of my own. Hell, I'm for all kinds of nudity on the local movie screen: chicks, dudes, chicks with dicks, dudes with tits, you name it. I like to think of it as a sign of freedom. The more dicks on your screen, the more free we are as a society. And, of course, you're free to not watch it if you really are silly enough to get offended at the sight of a penis on your screen. Just for the record - seeing a big, singing cock stretched out on an enormous screen at the multi-plex will NOT make you gay. However, it might make you laugh if you'd get that stick out of your ass.

Oh yeah. Saw the previews for Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2 while I was there. I was less than amazed by the first one, and this one doesn't look much more promising. It has nothing to do with this being a "remake of a classic." Hollywood has always devoured its own with the remake machine, and the original Halloween film is readily available for enjoyment at any time; it wasn't erased or altered when they "re-imagined" it. I just think Zombie's talents would serve him better on something a bit more original. Then again, towards the end of the trailer there are a few bits that look like they could be outtakes from House of 1000 Corpses, leaving one to wonder just how deep this well of originality runs. I'd still be far more interested in seeing his Tyrannosaurus Rex than I am in another wasted trip to Haddonfield, especially one in which Sheri Moon is apparently appearing as a ghost. Note to Zombie: toss out the Tim Burton rule of filmmaking that states you should ALWAYS create a part for your wife/girlfriend. It doesn't always work for him, and his wife can actually act.

Sat through one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time the other night.
The Haunting In Connecticut is an amalgam of the two worst sub-genres of film I can think of: kids with cancer and bullshit ghost stories. This ghost story is so vapid that they have to rely on the kid with cancer subplot to make people feel guilty about turning it off. A supposedly true story? This guy really had cancer, but the whole ghost thing seems little more than a third-rate attempt to cash in on the fact that these people were living in a funeral home. Why not? Those assholes up in Amityville made a national spectacle out of the same stupid crap a decade before. It's kind of like the shams perpetuated by televangelists and faith healers. One gets caught in the act, while another gives the public just enough time to get a little hazy on the details of the former fraudster's downfall before polishing up the same old song and dance and trotting it out yet again. Ghost stories are rarely scary - ones that are this poorly cobbled together never are.

And while I'm mumbling and grumbling, what's up with the Sci-Fi Channel changing their moniker to SyFy? What am I missing (besides another building block in the dumbing down of America)? I was told that the whole name change had to do with having a "brand name" that could actually be trademarked and controlled with absolute authority (you can't really stop everybody else in the world from using the pre-existing "Sci-Fi" label). It will also apparently stop confusion as to whether something with the "Sci-Fi" tag is actually a product of this enterntainment entity. There never was any confusion - you could look at one of their movies and tell within five minutes that it was a Sci-Fi Channel production. Now, you'll know it not only by the shitty production values, scripts, and actors, but also by the just-as-shitty "SyFy"handle. Lovely.

Enough rumbling and grumbling for now. Remember kiddies: haunted house movies blow (even harder when a kid with cancer is integral to the story), but big, singing dicks are the future of, not only American cinema, but American freedom.

40 WORD DVD REVIEWS

2009-07-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009)

The only thing more ridiculous than this big-budget tard fest is the documentary about the"real" haunting. Absolute garbage. Those assholes should be ashamed. So should the assholes that made this movie. And I thought The Amityville Horror was total horseshit...

www.lionsgate.com

GIMME SKELTER (2007)

Charles Manson's "son" leads a new family on a murderous rampage through a small town in New Mexico. Well made low-budget gem . Cheers to all involved. Love that the town's country station only plays Angry Johnny tunes. I'm jealous.

www.gimmeskelter.com

MUM & DAD (2008)

Polish immigrant abducted and held hostage by crazy family. Shades of Texas Chainsaw transplanted to British suburbs. Very enjoyable take on what should be a very tired plotline. Great cast. Made for the equivalent of $160,000 US. Wow. Highly recommended.

www.revolvergroup.com

WHAT WE DO IS SECRET (2007)

Darby Crash biopic that seems to have gotten a lot of punk purist's panties in a wad. I was never a huge Germs fan, so I don't have a dog in this fight. I dug this more than I expected.

www.whatwedoissecretthemovie.com

SCHOOLGIRLS IN CHAINS (1973)

Exploitation flick about two crazy brothers spurred to nefarious deeds by their mother. The movie's not as cool as the name. "Mother's Day" upped the ante seven years later. Vintage sleaze that's worth a gander, but I wouldn't buy it.

www.codereddvd.com

AMERICAN SCARY (2006)

Well-rounded documentary on horror hosts past and present. Great clips and great interviews. This will take you back to those sometimes creepy, always fun horror TV nights of your childhood. Get out the Jiffy Pop and have some fun. Essential.

http://www.americanscary.com

THE SINFUL DWARF (1973)

2009-07-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting to see this flick ever since one could pick up bootleg VHS copies of it from places like Blackest Heart Media back "in the day." The whole premise sounded too good to be true, and I often thought that this was probably another of those limp movies that got hyped to no end simply because it was not readily available for viewing. Well, it's been twenty years since I first heard of this film, and it pains my heart to think of the two decades of joy I was deprived of by not having a copy for repeated viewings. That would be akin to twenty years in the wilderness without "Alucarda" or "The Born Losers." Oh, the humanity.

Dwarf? Check. White slavery/prostitution ring? Check. Heroin smuggling operation cloaked as a toy import business? Check. Drunk woman that dresses like Carmen Miranda when she's juiced on gin? Check. Sleazy sex? Check. Naked seventies Euro chicks with real boobs and big bushes? Check. Do I really need to finish this review, or have you already clicked over to your favorite online purveyor of trash cinema to order this masterpiece?

Peter is, much like myself, a jobless fucktard who fancies himself a writer. He's obviously so far down the skids that he can't afford to buy his busty wife, Mary, a bra. They do, however, have just enough jack to secure a room in Olaf (the titular Sinful Dwarf) and his mother's dank old boardinghouse. Not having the money to go out on the town, Peter and Mary commence to fucking quite a bit. Mary, being the sharp tack that she is, feels like they're being watched but can't quite figure out why (perhaps it's hard to notice even a conspicuous peephole if it's on Olaf's eye level). As the days wear on, Peter is oblivious to everything except his wife's extraordinary bosom and his inability to get a fucking job. Mary, on the other hand, knows that something is rotten in the state of Denmark...

Pin a rose on her goddamn nose! When Olaf isn't busy playing piano for his gin bag mother's impromptu singing and dancing sessions, he's abducting fuck fodder for their burdgeoning white-slaver's prostitution ring headquartered in the attic. Olaf and Moms also dabble in the heroin trade with the local toy dealer, using the scag to keep their captives quiet and compliant and ready to grease the poles of all the weirdos that pop in and out of their makeshift bordello.

In a plot development worthy of Shakespeare, Peter winds up being an unwitting drug mule for the kiddie-toy cartel, and while he's gone, Olaf is finally able to get his little Vienna sausage fingers on Mary. She's soon chained in the attic (wearing a bra for once, no less!) waiting on her dumbass husband to wise up and find her. The ending is worthy of early John Waters, and you'll be doing yourself a big favor if you take my word and go check it out for yourself.

I love everything about this movie. I love the way Torbin Bille (something of a star in his home country) plays Olaf with a sweaty, manic fervor worthy of a pint-sized Pentecostal holiness preacher with a belly full of strychnine and a monkey on his back. I love the way that when Mary is finally seen wearing a bra, it's a see-through number. I love the way one of the girls chained up in the attic has on a really bad wig that I'm sure she was hoping would help keep her from ever being identified as being a party to this production. I love that the drug dealer is named Santa Claus. I love that when Peter is schtupping Mary, he sounds just like Commander McBragg from the Tennessee Tuxedo cartoons. I love that it was made in Denmark, so some American director didn't have the chance to fuck it up by casting Paul Williams as Olaf. I love it! I love it ! I love it! Dear god, I feel so dirty and so...so...free! This IS a goddamn classic.

The Sinful Dwarf is available statedside in a standard or XXX edition. The XXX edition is about four minutes longer and has a few of the hardcore sex scenes from the attic rutting sequences put back in their rightful places. I'm not sure that the four minutes of fuck footage really helps to make this any sleazier than it already is. Just pick your poison and either one should do you fine. The standard edition is by Severin Films and contains a featurette and maybe a trailer. The featurette was throwaway material, but what in the holy hell could possibly live up to the lofty heights achieved in the feature presentation? The XXX edition is by Severin Films under the Private Collections imprint and is just the feature, I think.

Get this DVD. I know I will.

5 out of 5 gin-soaked, bigger-than-dwarf-sized stars.

www.severin-films.com

HEADER (2006)

2009-07-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

What do you mean, "What's a header?" You really don't know? Oh, maybe that's 'cause you didn't grow up down South where we do that kind of shit to settle minor tifts - when we're not whittling on the porch, making moonshine, chewing tobacco, playing tiddley-winks with the teeth that fell out this morning, or fucking our sisters, that is. Just kidding. I love backwoods fuckers run amuck flicks, and I really really wanted to love this one. "Love" would be too strong a word, but, in spite of all its numerous flaws, it does have its moments.

Travis Tuckton, fresh out of the pen, heads back home to his grandpappy's place in the hills of West Virginia. No job, no hope, no future. Shit, that kinda sounds like me. Well, except for that I never had a grandpappy that turned me on to having myself a "header." Grandpap Jake Martin is a legless and purt-near toothless shoemaker that likes to sip on the corn squeezings and reminisce about the good ol' days. See, back when ol' Grandpap was younger, if somebody committed an assault on you or your kin (say, looking at you cross-eyed or something else just as egregious), you'd just go snatch up their wife or daughter and give 'em a header. It was a common occurrence back when Grandpap had two legs, four teeth, and a stiff pecker; nobody thought nothing much of it. However, in these sad, progressive times, the art of the header has been kicked to the proverbial curb. That is, until Travis gets a taste for it and then all bets are off. The header is back and bigger than ever. Travis and Grandpap are full-tilt header fools. And while I'm not gonna tell you what a header is, I will tell you that a dead body is a sure-as-shittin' by-product of the whole affair...and this hillbilly duo's insatiable appetites are piling up said by-products like chopped fire wood.

Enter the overworked, underpaid ATF agent, Stewart Cummings, who gets overly interested in the deceased hillfolk being strewn about the holler like discarded...whoops, I almost gave it away. Anyhow, Cummings decides to take some time out from his busy schedule of accepting bribes from 'shine runners and partnering up with drug dealers (all in an attempt to pay his girlfriend's medical bills, natch) to start nosing around in this mess that so obviously has nothing to do with alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. From this point on, it's all a blaze of dirty deals, double-crosses, extreme violence, and bad acting.

Did I mention the bad acting? Yeah, that's the one drawback to this whole affair. The supporting cast (including cameos by author Edward Lee and the one and only Jack Ketchum) may not be the most refined troupe of actors in the world, but they serve their purpose well and don't get in the way of the story. Unfortunately, the movie is carried by the three leads, some of which are more up to snuff than others.

The Good: Dick Mullaney is fucking genius as Grandpap. He reminds me of real-life bug nutty weirdos that used to shop at the East Tennessee flea market I worked at in my younger days. Yeah, you can't always understand everything he says, but that's what happens when half-drunk, crazy old farts with no teeth get riled up and start running off at the mouth. It would have been a let down to have it any other way. Standing ovation.

The Bad: Jake Suffian as Agent Stewart Cummings spends most of his screen time walking around like he has a two-by-four lodged firmly up his ass. Some of it can be forgiven, as his character is a grade-A douchebag dirty cop that just might have a piece of wood or two stuck up his own backdoor. He doesn't kill the forward impetus of the film, even though it sometimes feels like he's trying.

The Just Plain Ugly: Elliot V. Kotek as Travis Tuckton would absolutely destroy every scene he was in if he didn't have Dick Mullaney to take up his considerable slack. Not only is he miscast as the demented hillbilly lead (this guy is a shave and hair trim away from being one of the jogging-suit-wearing Mob lackey extras on The Sopranos), but he really stinks up the place with some sort of put-on accent that sounds like Mike Tyson with his nuts in a vice. Header would have succeeded on such a broader level if they had only been able to get somebody who could more ably fill Travis Tuckton's shitkicker shoes and help to complement the crazy vibe Mullaney was exuding. In a story as twisted as this one, a believable Travis Tuckton would have thrust this movie into truly disturbing territory - instead, Kotek gives us a bad cartoon, which just doesn't cut it when the rest of the movie's being played straight-faced.

I'm sure budgetary considerations played into the selection of actors, and it's a testament to Lee's original source material, Michael Kennedy's script, and Archibald Flancranstin's direction that the movie still works pretty damn well in spite of Suffian and Kotek. It would have been great to see what this could have turned into had there been a bit more budget behind it. Even so, you have to applaud the audacity of anyone with balls big enough to try to bring this demented little tale to the screen, especially considering the limitations faced by Flancranstin.

I think most of you will be checking out at least the first half hour or so, just to find out what a "header" is. From there on out, it's a 50/50 shot as to whether you've got the stomach to stick around 'til the film's twisted-yet-satisfying conclusion. Yes, the concept of a "header" is pretty much shock-for-the-sake-of-shock, and yes, some of you will be bandying about the currently hip dis of "torture porn." Being a child of the seventies, I was weened on pure exploitation schlock'n'shock, so I don't have a problem with this type film, but I'm not buying Flancranstin's argument that he's out to RE-sensitize viewers to violence. There's no need to make excuses; he should be about the happiest person to ever shit between two shoes that he was able to use a thoroughly mixed-bag cast and meager budget to produce such a damn fruitful debut feature. It'll be interesting to see what he does in the future.

Cheers to Synapse for letting Header see the light of day.

DVD extras include interview segments with cast and crew (including Ed Lee and Jack Ketchum).

3 out of 5 stars.

http://www.synapse-films.com/ and http://www.whatsaheader.com/

THE HOOKERS - RIPPED FROM THE CRYPT CD (2008)

2009-07-10T11:41:00.001-07:00

Back in the late 90's, The Hookers were setting themselves up to be the last great hope of dirtbag metal rock'n'roll. They had blazed out of Kentucky a few years earlier with a string of classic releases and a thundering live show that reaked of pot smoke, brimstone, and the burning fingertips of one Stoney Tombs. If the cover of Bat Out of Hell could be made flesh and blood, it might be a close representation of the backwoods thunderfuck The Hookers were throwing down. By the time their masterpiece, Black Visions of Crimson Wisdom, was released, they were tearing across the US of A and getting ready to invade Europe. This was a band that I knew could hold the stage on the blood bucket punk/metal bar circuit, while being just as at home tearing down the house as an opening act for Motorhead or Priest. The world was getting ready to behold God's candy...and then...silence.

The Hookers' hell-ride came to an abrupt halt and left lots of us wondering what in the fuck happened. Over. Fini. "Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no encores." Wha'? I'll be honest with you, I don't know the inside story on why this powerhouse suddenly cast itself on the rocks and rose into the arms of Odin, and it's probably not any of my (or your) goddamn business anyway. All I know is that we were left with a discography that could piss razorblades and fond memories of a stage show that was more powerful than anything we were likely to see again anytime soon.

If you saw The Hookers live during their initial run, this disc will bring back fond memories and then some. Culled from three different sources, Ripped from the Crypt highlights the salad days of the band as they ripped across the world, leaving a trail of busted eardrums and bloody knuckles behind. It's an official bootleg of sorts, and I love the way the packaging harkens back to those illicit Misfits or Sabbath albums you'd occasionally find on the record racks, snatch up, and tear ass home to lay some fire on the turntable - those fabulous records where the sound might not have been the absolute best thing in the world, but the power of that live performance pummelled the speakers and always left you more satisfied than some slick-assed, over-produced "official" live album. It's not always about crispness and fidelity...sometimes it's all about the feeling. So tell me, are you ready to rock? 'Cause if not, you need to get off the train right now.

Tracks one through nine were recorded live at Headline Records in 1999, tracks ten through sixteen are from the Maximum R'n'R tapes recorded in 1997, and tracks seventeen through nineteen are from the 2000 Blood Over Germany sessions. The three different sessions vary in sonic quality, which progresses as the album moves forward. The MRR tapes sound better than the Headline Records stuff, and the Blood Over Germany stuff sounds better than the MRR tapes - at least to my ears. That's just the nitpicking details though, 'cause all the tracks grab you by the throat and force you to your knees in supplication. You get a great dose of original Hookers genius ("12 Gauge Reaction" or "Satan's Highway," for instance) and some inspired covers (Spinal Tap's "Tonight We're Gonna Rock You Tonight"). They even take "Still in Saigon" by the Charlie Daniels Band, a song that I always thought was borderline cheeseball crappy in its original form, and turn it into the best shell-shocked combat vet tune since ANTiSEEN laid down "War Hero" all those years ago.

If you've never been exposed to The Hookers, I'd suggest starting with Black Visions of Crimson Wisdom or the absolute essential two-disc comp, Casting the Runes. If, on the other hand, you've already been washed in the blood, this disc is just as essential as anything else these guys ever did, maybe even more so if you were lucky enough to see them live. If you were one of the lucky ones, this disc will bring you back to the blood, guts, and beer soaked halls of The Hookers' own private Valhalla.

4 out of 5 pentagram-type stars

BTW - The Hookers have pulled out a couple of live shows this year and have been back in the studio as of late. I've heard some of the tracks and they're just as shit-hot as ever. Maybe sometimes you can go back again - lucky for us. To order this disc (and many others) and to keep abreast of Hookers happenings: www.myspace.com/hookersvalhalla.

MARQUIS DE SADE'S PROSPERITIES OF VICE (1988)

2009-07-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

This disc is part of Mondo Macabro's Nikkatsu Erotic Cinema collection, and judging by its sales ranking in some of the online specialty retailer's lists, a lot of folks are digging this one. This is the first stateside release of this film, as well as my first journey into the world of Japanese Pink Cinema, so I was looking forward to having my horizons expanded somewhat. Man, I gotta tell ya - it bored my tits off.

A period piece set in the 1920s, Prosperities of Vice is the story of a Japanese count who is obssessed with the works of the Marquis de Sade (as evidenced by the way he often sits and pores over de Sade's texts, while I'm on this side of the screen fighting sleep and waiting for something to happen). Like most rich nuts, he comes up with a fantastic idea that involves fucking up the lives of already fucked-up poor people. He builds a theater and recruits prostitutes, thieves, and other members of the criminal underworld to act out his demented fantasies for him and his high-falutin' upper-crust friends - friends like the judge who laughingly tells his comrades of how he condemned an innocent man to die and popped a boner over it. This fantasy world eventually crashes headlong into the real one when the count orders one of his players, at the threat of death, to rape the nobleman's wife while he watches. Slow-paced and plodding hell breaks loose.

While the initial set-up might sound intriguing, I found this film to be a total snoozefest, too arty for its own good. The stage scenes that overlap into real life and back again might have given the movie "depth" and "texture," but all it gave me was a bad case of I-want-to-watch-something-else. But what do I know? Call me pedestrian, but the only movie relating to de Sade or his work that didn't make me want to pull my toenails out with a rusty pair of pliers was the big-budget flop, Quills. Everything else I've ever watched was geared toward twits that lap it up only because the de Sade name association somehow demands that the film must be intense and over-the-top, even when (as is usually the case) it's not. You know the folks I'm talking about - the same crowd that probably indulges in Vampire role-playing games on the weekends, thinks wearing ruffled shirts and high boots in public makes them edgy and somewhat decadent, and talks a lot about sex while indulging in very little of it. I shudder.

Crotchety tirades aside, if you're already a fan of this Nikkatsu Erotic Cinema line and/or Japanese Pink Cinema films in general, I'd say go ahead and give this one a whirl. As with all of Mondo Macabro's releases, it looks great (anamorphic 1.85:1 HD transfer taken from the negative) and is filled with more bonus stuff (documentary on Pink Cinema, interview with movie critic Jasper Sharp, Nikkatsu trailers, and extensive notes and text essays) than you'd think they could assemble for the obscure titles they trot out. I found the extras to be more entertaining than the film itself.

And, if you're one of the afforementioned pirate-shirt wearing de Sade buffoons, you might as well go ahead and throw this one on your pile as well. I can't kill you before you breed, so at least I should be able to sleep better at night knowing your money will go to help advance an imprint as fine as Mondo Macabro.

While I found the presentation and extra features of the quality expected from Mondo Macabro, the film itself sent me to beddy-bye land. 2 outta 5.

http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/

DRINK, FIGHT, F*CK Vol. 3 CD (2009)

2009-07-07T12:54:00.001-07:00

What the fuck is this? Another goddamn CD compilation? Whoa, let's back up a minute and reholster those guns. I'll agree that most comp discs are complete wastes of time and effort on behalf of the bands involved, not to mention a complete waste of funds on the poor sap that plunks down his or her could-be beer money in what's almost always a loser's bet. Why is that? Perhaps it's that record labels usually get one or two "big-hitters" around which to center a comp, and then fill it with whatever tripe they can beg, borrow, or steal. None of it has to be good, it just has to take up space. You got a tape of your little sister playing a Casio while a dog barks in the background? Well, hell, if you'll let me use it in exchange for a copy of the completed disc (the thrill - the thrill - your name could be on a real, honest-to-god CD!), we'll call it "avante-punk" and away we go. Not to mention, most of the time, the big-hitter tracks are complete throwaway shit: a bad B-side, a track they didn't feel measured up to the rest of the material on an album, a live track that had too much feedback to be included on the real disc, a tape of the band fucking around for shits and giggles that was never meant for aural consumption...you know the routine. The label is banking on cobbling together something on the cheap that looks like you'll be getting a lot for your money (725 bands on one CD!). The bigger-name bands' completist fans will surely compensate for any numbers that the bang-for-buck ruse doesn't pull in. Oh, and let's not forget that they'll always give the other 723 bands copies to sell at shows and on their websites for the "wholesale rate" of about twice the price of whatever the label actually has in the disc. For unscrupulous record peddlers, of which there are many, it's a real no-brainer.

Let's all thank our lucky stars that Ron Zodiac doesn't run his ship that way. In keeping with his apparent mission of being the most-productive and quality-oriented label on the planet, he gives us DRINK. FIGHT. FUCK. VOLUME THREE. This disc is 32 tunes (almost 80 minutes) of the finest punk and roll you're gonna lay your hands on for ten smackers. There's not a stinker in the bunch. Sure, you're gonna like some better than others, but I don't think you're going to be hitting the forward button on your disc player at all. That's the goddamn beauty of this DRINK. FIGHT. FUCK. series - instead of feeling like a big let-down that you have to force yourself to listen to, these discs bring back that feeling of being a teenage loser, riding around with your friends after dark in your beat up '76 Camaro, cruising for a place to crash for the night and drink some beers.

What was the soundtrack to those nights? In my car, it was always cassette mix-tapes of whatever rock/punk/crazy shit we could get our hands on. Unlike today where we have the world at our fingertips via the internet, we had cheapo cassettes filled with duped tunes that we had hooked and crooked and bummed and bought with shit-job wages. They were more coveted than gold and were mourned like loved ones when they finally bit the dust, as is the fatalistic way of ye olde cassette tape. I remember tapes that went from The Ramones to The Stooges to The MC5 to The Cramps to Black Flag to Redd Kross to Zappa to Kiss to The Misfits to Buck Owens to The Stones to The Clash to The Circle Jerks to Circus of Power to the guy down the street's band to some tracks from a punk rock band you'd never heard of (and would probably never hear again) that happened to get a house show in a buddy's basement earlier in the year. We were fiends for the music and anytime one of us had gotten our mitts on enough new shit to present another tape to the altar of my car's cheapo K-mart tape deck, it was cause for celebration. New tunes! New tunes! New tunes! Our only qualification was that the tunes had to rock...and that's the prime attribute that binds the bands on Zodiac's impressive roster

The album kicks off with a grand opener in Holley 750's "Kill.Kill.Kill." Welcome to the party, crank it up. You'll be hitting third by track three when Sweden's own The Kill Company fucks your skull with "Fight That Man." I'd never heard of either of these bands before, but you can bet your sweet ass I've read up on 'em since hearing this comp. That's another great thing about this disc; it'll make you seek out the rawk, just like back in them days when you'd hear a tune on one of your friend's blank tape specials, and you'd ask who it was then immediately start trying to find everything you possibly could about whoever that happened to be. Hell, since spinning this platter, I've been online listening to stuff by all kinds of bands I'd never heard of before: The Broadsiders, Super Sexy Boy 1986, The Torpedo Monkeys, and Truckstop Lovechild to name but a few. This shit turned me on and turned me out, daddy.

You'll get some vintage Candy Snatchers ("Doin Time"), the country side of The Supersuckers' Eddie Spaghetti ("Killer Weed"), and Blag Dahlia of The Dwarves sounding like he was one of the Sun Record Company's bad boy stars that got away ("Bitch, I Love You"). You'll also get the thrill of hearing ANTiSEEN belt out one mean-assed cover of the Sex Pistols' "Belsen Was A Gas," and you will swear it was a lost classic from the Noise for the Sake of Noise sessions. Fuck no, it's a brand new recording! It's like the thrill of hearing them for the first time. Buzzcrusher delivers the goods with their classic anthem "Scoring Dope From Bikers," one of the best-named punk tunes ever. Mississippi's own Before I Hang go on a trailer park shooting spree looking for "Targets," while Ohio's The Bible Beaters contribute their own Dead Sea Scroll of sorts with the lost tale of how "Jesus Invented Beer." Female/male trade off vocals usually fall-flat in the rock ouvre (with the notable exception of X), but The Bible Beaters nail it straight to a goddamn cross in their own special, sloppy, ass-kicking way.

This CD will cure what ails you in this age of bland drek masquerading as rock and roll. Tired of hearing west-coast weirdos and corn-belt crooners hick-out their voices in poor attempts at country twang? Try on The Flat Tires, where the twang is as natural as the Carolina hills they terrorize on weekend nights; it drips off your speakers like mountain dew (and I ain't talking soft drinks). Tired of milquetoast guitar noodlings stinking up the place and killing your buzz? Smoke out to "Grow Your Own" from Whores for War, and let Sir Tom Hughes show you exactly what they make those fucking Gibsons for. And the final track,"Who Put the Methamphetamine in Mr. Everything?" by Royce Cracker, is some wonderfully fucked-up tuneage that assumes its rightful place in closing the night's festivities, much like something by The Butthole Surfers might have capped the evening way back when.

In the interest of full-disclosure, I'll tell you my old band is on this compilation, but that's not why I'm giving it such grandiose treatment. Hell, I'm just happy we were considered worthy of being involved (and this coming from a guy who swore to god he'd never be part of another compilation disc unless it was a tribute to The Plum Hollow Band). This is available as a CD or a slicker-than-owl-shit limited edition double-vinyl version (one disc yellow and the other green). Most folks opt for the convenience of a disc, but you could always take a stroll down memory lane; just hop in your Camaro, hit the K-mart for some blank Maxells and dupe the vinyl over to cassette for your on-the-go enjoyment. The line for DRINK. FIGHT. FUCK. VOLUME FOUR starts behind me.

4 outta 5 stars.

http://www.zodiackillerrecords.com/

VANILLA RIDE by Joe R. Lansdale (2009)

2009-07-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

As one of the current statistics in America's "unemployment crisis," I have virtually no dough to toss around on life's little luxuries. Truth be told, I've always been a cheap bastard, but these days I'm lucky to have saltines to spread my potted meat and mustard on, and I certainly don't have the greenbacks to throw down on fancy new hardcover books with their shiny dustjackets and twenty-five to thirty dollar price tags. Financial meltdown be damned, when I heard Joe R. Lansdale was bringing Hap and Leonard back after nearly a decade of going MIA, I ripped open my dollar-store velcro wallet and dusted off the Visa card. Hell, I even signed up for a free trial of that Amazon Prime service, so I could have it delivered with the free two day shipping; I certainly didn't want to wait around for the lagging delivery times I usually encounter when I use their crappy poor-folks shipping options.

Oh, the joy, the joy! I just recently turned my wife's grandmother on to Mister Lansdale's keen literary stylings, and I attached a note to the copy of Bad Chili I sent her way saying that whenever a new Lansdale book was about to be released, I regained that wonderous feeling of being a five year old on Christmas Eve. That is a completely true and accurate statement; I'm not hard-selling and I'm not on the Knopf payroll. I can't think of anything outside of getting my pecker wet that fills me with such feelings of rapture. Take that, Billy Graham. And greatgodamightydamn, this ain't just any Lansdale book - it's a motherfucking Hap & Leonard novel!

For all you good folks that might have missed the boat, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are the stars of Lansdale's epic series of East Texas mysteries, and are, without a doubt, two of the greatest fictional characters to ever step off the page and bitchslap a reader's brain. Hap is a perpetually horny, white, heterosexual day laborer with a knack for slightly-off-kilter-yet-somehow-down-home witticisms, while Leonard is a black, homosexual Vietnam Vet who loves vanilla cookies, Dr. Pepper, and Hank Williams tunes. These two best friends seem to get themselves in more predicaments than four kids with a talking dog in a groovy van with a bottomless gas tank.

This time out, we find Hap and Leonard helping out a friend whose daughter has gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. When they go to bring the girl back from the roach-infested trailer she shares with her boyfriend and his drug-dealing dipshit pals, they don't realize that they're also stepping into a federal undercover sting operation involving the Dixie Mafia. I think I just heard the sound of the excrement hitting the oscillating device. Yep, yep, that was it. The feds want Hap and Leonard to do their dirty work for them, and the Dixie Mafia wants Hap and Leonard dead. Enter one fabulously attractive hit lady named Vanilla Ride, and the thrills and spills are just mere seconds away.

I could go play-by-play through the rest of the plot but I refuse. Why? Because you should do yourself a favor and run out and pick up a copy of Vanilla Ride as soon as humanly possible. If you're new to Hap and Leonard (or Lansdale in general), this is as good a place to start as any, and if you're already a fan, I hope I'm right in assuming you've shelled out your ducats accordingly. I guarandamntee you that you'll get more bang for your buck than if you spent that twenty-five smackers on beer, DVDs, under-the-table titty-bar handjobs, or whatever else it is you wild and crazy kids do for kicks these days. Sure, it may not ever be misfiled under the tag of "classic literature," but nobody working today can cook up a stew of comedy, adventure, action, horror, love, and extreme violence better than Joe. R. That's why they had to invent the tag of Mojo Storytelling to encompass his unique abilities.

Joe Lansdale has an ear for dialogue and an eye for description that always succeeds in capturing snapshots of the South I spent most of my life in. A phrase like "his eyes were big and dark brown, like two unwiped butt holes" is some of the best in-your-face descriptive musing to come down the pike since James M. Cain was manning a typewriter. Or, if that don't grab your hang-down, you can hop on over to page thirty-eight where Mojo Joe has the unique distinction of being the only person to ever elevate the description of a dog moving its bowels into the realm of high art. God love him for it.

Mister Lansdale should also be commended on his ability to weave his social commentary within the fabric of a fabulous yarn, making sure that neither one loses its power at the hands of the other. That kind of talent is rare in these days of every Tom, Dick, and Harry trying to bludgeon you half to death with their beliefs, almost always to the detriment of their art. I would never accuse Joe of being subtle by most any other means, but he does have a flair for finesse when it comes to matters such as these. Those of you who may not agree with some of Joe-as-Hap-as-narrator's religious or political leanings should still reap all the benefits of a fantastic tale well told (and as a testament to Mister Lansdale's skill as a writer, you just might find yourself gnawing on some of Hap's tasty philosophical fatback for a few days after you close the covers on the book). He skewers the stereotypes, pulls no punches, and doesn't hesitate to throw daylight on even the dirtiest of underbellies.

Yes, this is the stuff that kept me waiting by my front door for the UPS man like a little sawed-off squirt waiting by the chimney for St. Nick. That day, of course, being the one day the UPS man ran at 6 o'clock at night as opposed to 6 o'clock in the morning, much to my agitation (and my wife's agitation at having to hear me piss and moan about just where in the fuck the goddamn UPS man was anyway). When the bell finally rang and the UPS man handed me my brown Amazon box, I tore that fucker open and got down to business. Like shit through a goose, I ran through those pages, delighting in having Hap and Leonard back after such a long time away. I sat up all night reading, reminiscent of when I had first discovered Lansdale's world. Back then, I had hit every library and used book store within a thirty-five mile radius of my mud patch in rural Northwest Georgia, picking up every title available I could lay my mangy paws on. It's still every bit as fucking good, maybe even better. Hats off, Joe.

5 out of 5 big ol' Texas-sized stars.

www.joerlansdale.com

www.aaknopf.com

ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (2008)

2009-07-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Anvil? Sure, I suppose I'd heard of 'em somewhere along the way. I was, after all, a dirtbag metal kid of the late eighties. I saw all the big metal shows back then before I got my wheels and was able to drift into the punk rumblings taking place hours south of me in Atlanta.

Anvil? That name's gotta ring some kind of faint bell. Let's see, I've got ticket stubs from Priest and The Coop and Motorhead and WASP and Metallica (pre-suck days) and whatever else happened to roll by close enough to my wide spot in the road that I could hook or crook a ride to. My walls were covered with pics of Lemmy and Alice and Kiss and The Nuge and a fuck ton of Maiden. In those pre-internet days, afternoons were spent devouring the contents of Circus, Hit Parader, RIP, and whatever other trash metal mags could be picked up in our little one-horse grocery store, always searching for the newest, the heaviest, the wildest, the dirtiest. Scouring the ads for records that you'd look for but never find in the vinyl and cassette bins around Chattanooga, Tennessee. Practicing drawing all those crazy metal logos on your assignment folders from school. Perusing the merchandising ads for the most offensive t-shirts that you didn't have the money to buy anyway (and that your mom would most likely throw out if you ever did). Trying desperately to remain up to date on everything that was taking place "out there," even with bands you'd almost certainly never see and might not even ever get the chance to hear.

Anvil? Nah. I missed the boat. So did damn near everybody else...but that didn't stop Anvil.

You see, when Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner were fourteen years old, they made a pact to rock together forever. Some thirty-plus years later, that's exactly what they've done. Back in '84, they had their closest brush to the big time when they co-headlined the Super Rock Japan festival with Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, and The Scorpions. The footage is pretty fucking amazing. Lips is doing a solo with a vibrator (how the fuck did my barely-pubescent self miss this?) while the crowd rocks out to should-be-classic metal anthems such as the self-explanatory "School Love" and the heavier-than-heavy "Metal on Metal." But alas, it was all downhill from there. The years upon years of revolving lineups, shitty record deals, shoe-string tours, and the bad luck of Job have seen the guys stuck in their Canadian hometown with crappy, regular-joe day jobs, throwing all of their extra time and money into the daunting task of keeping their particular rock rolling.

Former Anvil roadie Sacha Gervasi (who went on to write the screenplay for Spielberg's The Terminal) delivers a superb documentary that should astound anyone with even the most casual interest in the subject matter. You don't have to be a metalhead of any rank or stripe to get behind these underdogs as they scrap their way through a horribly mismanaged European tour, come back to their day jobs, borrow money from Lips's sister to go back to Europe to record a new album, come back to their day jobs yet again, struggle in vain to get a record company to pick them up, and finally get the opportunity to go back to the Land of the Rising Sun to see if their second shot at a Japanese metal summit can help solidify their grasp on the elusive golden ring of metal stardom (or at least a metal living wage).

As you watch these guys take their punches, you are at once heartbroken and uplifted. How much can a human's inner strength, resolve, and spirit take before they're shattered beyond repair? When does one throw in the towel on not only one's dreams but the very fibers of one's character? At times, this film made me think back to another staggering cinematic work of recent vintage - The Wrestler. It presents the same predicament of: do you let what you love doing lead you down a road that's going to put you in the grave either figuratively or literally, or do you give it up and lead the bland and barren life of not truly loving anything you do?

I think this film has received some unfair and flippantly derogatory comparisons to Spinal Tap (and don't get me wrong, I fucking love Spinal Tap) in that some people don't seem to understand that Spinal Tap was about the pompous, bloated rock dinosaurs that have already had the golden ring and make fools of themselves in order to keep it. They have nothing to sell out; they're already cartoons with zero credibility. Anvil! is about two guys who realize what kind of odds they're up against and have little delusions as to where it's probably going to end up as they wade through all the painful decisions that have to be made as they hit the backside of trying to live the dream. Robb and Lips have three decades of non-wavering dedication to their chosen art and refuse to sell out no matter what.

This is really the flip-side of the coin to all those stupid VH1 interviews with various rock douchebags who seem to always stand on the claim that "there was never a question that I was gonna make it." You know what I mean? These self-important assholes that think they willed their world to happen and don't realize that while they may have put in a shit load of work, they still won the lottery - so to speak. As good ol' uncle Lemmy points out, all of the hard work and talent in the world won't amount to squat, unless you get that one break where you happen to be in the right place at the right time.

And what of those same talking-head rock'n'roll abortions that might eventually deign to claim something along the lines of "even if I didn't make it, I'd still be slugging it out in some bar somewhere 'cause that's what I do." Would you really? After thirty years in the mind-numbing and nut-busting world of playing the bar circuit, would you really still be out there at fifty years of age, ignoring all of the coming-and-going music industry trends, trying to make it just far enough to put food on the table and have a little breathing room? I'm calling bullshit. I thought that way when I was eighteen, but at thirty-six, I've packed my shit up, sold my van, and given my rock'n'roll shoes to the Salvation Army (along with several maybe-not-so-little chunks of myself).

I walked out of ANVIL! feeling uplifted and optimistic. It felt good knowing there are some people out there with balls that fucking big. Real goddamn people that put up no pretense as to where they're at in "real-life" but still fight the good fight to maybe turn their passion into something a little more fruitful and providing. Sure, you can do like the hipster doofus couple that sat in front of me and snicker and point your finger and mock with every other breath the heart and the soul that these guys are putting on the line...but at the end of my day, I sleep better knowing that some people have the tenacity to dream out loud and to hell with those of you that just don't get it.

5 out of 5 upside down stars!

ANVIL! The Story of Anvil is currently playing select theaters in the US.

Go to www.anvilmovie.com for details.

If you live in the Tucson, Arizona area and are reading this any time close to the post date, you can check out the flick at the fabulous Loft Cinema. Go to www.loftcinema.com for showtimes.

If you're in Europe, I'm pretty sure this is already out on DVD - BUY IT! NOW!

For those of you that actually read books, check out: www.anvilbook.co.uk.

If you live in the Boston or New York/New Jersey area, you can see Anvil opening for AC/DC at the end of July. They'll also be doing at least one Canadian date with AC/DC in early September.

For all the inside skinny on the band, check out: www.myspace.com/anvilmetal.

SIMON SAYS (2006)

2009-07-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

I can't find a movie more appropriate for the first ever Rat Pudding review than Simon Says. Since I'd first heard of it well over a year ago, I'd been salivating in anticipation of this one. Back then, it was popping up on the overseas DVD market, being sold on eBay and the like for ridiculous sums of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah....I know some of you don't bat an eye at buying a $40 DVD and also throwing down for the jacked-up player to play imported discs on, but let me tell you, brutha - I ain't among that crowd. Not even for a flick that I was certain had the potential to be the greatest thing since fried Spam and egg sandwiches. "What kind of release could make ol' King's asshole pucker up and sing that loudly?" you ask. Oh, only the kind starring Crispin Glover as the main baddie(s) rampaging through a "teens-in-the-woods" slasher scenario written and directed by William Dear. Yep, smartass - the same William Dear that did Harry and the Hendersons and Angels in the Outfield, but old fucks like myself will always remember him as the man behind The Northville Cemetary Massacre, the crazy biker-hippies versus the redneck fuzz flick with a kick ass soundtrack by Michael Nesmith.

The movie follows the standard slasher plot: a group of five obnoxious teens (jock, stoner, rich girl, jock's girlfriend, slutty girl-that-wants-to-fuck-the-jock-while-his-girlfriend-isn't-looking)roll out into the backwoods for a weekend of booze, dope, and hiding-the-peter. Stoner guy is secretly in love with jock's girlfriend, rich girl is actually innocent and moral, jock guy would rather toss a football than try to finesse himself into a three-way with the two chicks that are into him. Does any of this really fucking matter? Of course not. Are these one-dimensional characters that are only there to be disposed of? Pretty much. What the hell else would you expect? It kinda crawls up my ass when people start judging slasher flicks for their depth of characterization and believability. As an out-of-work ex-postal worker with bad teeth and little-to-no-hope of a grandiose future of any sort, I've got "believability" surrounding me like nobody's business. When I sit down to watch a stupid slasher flick, I wanna have some FUN!

Cue Simon and Stanley. Glover plays the twin brothers that run the local store and have a twisted backstory involving patricide, matricide, advanced mechanical aptitude, and all kinds of nuttiness (I love the opening flash-back sequence with the two kids in diapers wearing little Lux Interior wigs!). The teens stop in, are the rude jackasses that all stupid teens in slasher movies are, and before you can say "Simon Says!" they're getting their ashes hauled (and not in the good, sexual -innuendo way).

You see, the woods are Simon's (or is it Stanley's?) personal testing ground for all the fucked up inventions he makes to dispose of silly kids that stray too far from town. This guy would make DaVinci proud with all the shit he can do with rusted out water heaters, old gear shifts, and a never ending supply of pick axes. Get the picture?

The kill scenes are absolutely to die for: a human CD player (Aha! I was wondering why the "rich" girl was running through the woods with an outdated personal CD player instead of the 8 bazillion gig iPod that any self-respecting rich brat would obviously have these days), death by Cheech and Chong-sized spliff, and lots and lots of pick axes hurled by all the nefarious machinery made with such loving attention to detail out in Simon and Stanley's shed. The most over-the-top death credit goes to Tofu aka "Reggie B.," some kind of small, poodle-esque froo-froo dog that'll make you gasp and then belly-laugh in his startling "now you see him, now you don't" moment of glory. Coupled with the imminent hysterical screams of "a man just killed Reggie B.!" in what I assume is a tip of the hat to Herr Bannister, and I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Who will survive and what will be left of them? You'll have to check out the movie.

Glover is spot on in his "dual" role. Yes, his Southern accent is excessive and absurd, and I can't imagine it working any other way (and this is coming from a bonafide North Georgia cracker that usually gets a little pissy over the movie manglings of my native dialect). Glover's portrayal doesn't come across as condescending or mocking; he's just having a damn good time with it. If you watch the behind-the-scenes footage, you'll see him talk about how he came to pick out that particular accent while trying to figure out how to deliver the line, "How about a HAND sandwich?" and make it work.....and, by god, he did make it work. Hats off to another fine Glover performance. He's definately the best at what he does, or maybe he's just the only one that does what he does - either way, I'm down with him.

It was also nice to see Crispin's dad, Bruce Glover, cast as Simon and Stanley's father. Anybody my age (or all you young retro-creeps that think 80s TV was actually entertaining for some reason and subject yourself to it out of free-will instead of neccessity) will remember Bruce popping up constantly in such fine TV staples as The Dukes of Hazzard, T.J. Hooker, B.J. and the Bear, Vega$, etc. I'm a sucker for 70s and 80s character actors, and Bruce is high up on my list of greats. I guess one of the chicks in this movie is also in the TV show Gossip Girls? I don't know anything about that show and doubt I ever will. But hey, if it floats yer boat, she might be the one flashing her boobies.

Grand slam (did I just use a sports metaphor? I fucking hate sports...) from Bill Dear, the Glovers, and the rest of the cast of interchangeable and disposable kill fodder. This movie filled me with such heaping, steamy lumps of unadulterated horror joy that I didn't even mind the "twist-ending" that any self-respecting 80s trash devotee will see coming from the opening credits. Great? Probably not. Silly? More than a little. Excellent way to kill an hour and a half? Most certainly. If I actually had money to blow on things like DVDs, I'd put this at the top of my shopping list and look forward to rainy afternoons that would give me an excuse to slide it in the player and romp through the woods with Simon and Stanley.

DVD extras include commentary with William Dear, behind-the-scenes stuff, and a look at the design and making of all the shit Simon uses to dispatch of his prey. Simon Says is a solid four outta five stars, baby. Dig it!

www.lionsgate.com

ONE-EYED MONSTER (2008)

2009-07-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

Imagine, if you will, porn "legends" Ron Jeremy and Veronica Hart starring in a Slither-inspired horror spoof wherein Ron's alien-possessed and disembodied schlong runs amok, taking out everyone that gets in its way. Toss in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Amber Benson and the mother of all character actors, Charles Napier. Got it? O.K. Now, just keep imagining, because unless you are the most unimaginative drip on the face of the planet, whatever is going through your mind right now will undoubtedly be heads and tails above what's proffered up in this steaming pile of bull mess.

This is a movie that fails on every possible level. The jokes aren't funny, the "sexy" parts are anything but, the "scary" parts wouldn't frighten a half-wit dullard, and the effects are extremely ineffective. The "acting" outside of Chuck Napier, who, as usual, goes above and beyond with what he's given, would make the lowliest summer stock player blanch with shame. Or maybe you consider Amber Benson walking around with a pouty scowl on her face the epitome of high theater. Is that why the post-Buffy career has been so sluggish? Then again, its not exactly like she was given much to deal with script-wise. Hey, I don't ask for much out of my stupid horror movies, but give me a fucking break already. Throw the dog some kind of bone. Anything. I'm starving. Well, then again, don't throw me that bone.

As the plot (supposedly) progresses, Ron's cock continues its murderous rampage as the cast and crew struggle to figure out a way to stop it. What could have been a masterpiece of visual gags (Street Trash "keep-away" scene, anyone?) refuses to find its legs and run; in fact, it spends most of its painfully long 83 minute run time falling flat on its ugly face. Low budget should not equal low quality in the entertainment department. I've seen folks do so much better with so much less, and I mourn the potential wasted here.

I won't take up any more of your time with how "the plot" straightens itself out (get it? "straightens itself out"? that was a dick joke - almost as bad as the ones in the movie). If you want to see this flick, I'm not gonna be able to stop you; if you're sitting on the fence, I beseech thee to find something else for some splattery laughs. After all, you only have a finite number of minutes on this planet...don't waste 83 minutes of them on this.

Furthermore, for all you folks that think, if nothing else, you'll be compensated with some cheap gore and even cheaper T&A - think again. You get one pair of boobs, belonging to Carmen Hart, and that's it. Seeing as how she's an "adult entertainer," I'm sure you can see her mammaries all over the web without having to wait for their 20 seconds of glory here. And, no, to all you Buffy freaks out there - Amber Benson remains fully clothed throughout. I guess it's back to the erotic fan-fiction forums with you.

The gore? One hole in the head, one blob of space-sperm dripping on a shoulder, lots of people holding a dildo up to their necks and acting like it's killing them, and the most pathetic person-being-split-down-the-middle effect ever committed to film...or video...or whatever.

Oh, and did I mention the star and supposed drawing power of this flick, His High Horniness Ron Jeremy, is on screen for all of about 25 minutes (and I'm not being facetious...I was so bored I timed it)? If that's where all the budget went, the filmmakers got ripped...and so will you if you shell out any money on this turkey. For something truly terrifying, search out the Ron Jeremy section from Gum Me Bare - that's the only piece of film that's ever made me literally gag, and it had the (in)decency to do it in under 10 minutes.

DVD extras include an annoying interview with Ron and Veronica where they piss and moan about how new porn "performers" are pale shadows of veteran porn "actors" such as themselves. This interview is more than twice as long (and twice as boring) as their onscreen time in the actual film. The disc also includes outtakes, deleted scenes, teasers, trailers, a "Dick Wrangler" featurette that succeeds in being even more un-funny than the movie, and a commentary track with the directorial team of the Fields Brothers (and unless that track is a succinct apology followed by directions on how to get a refund of your rental/purchase price, I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to sit through it). This dick is limp. 0 out of 5. You've been warned.

www.libent.com

UNDER THEIR THUMB by Bill German (2009)

2009-07-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

When I was at the proverbial "young, dumb, and full of cum" age of 18, I started a punk rock zine that soon saw me palling around with the likes of some of my favorite musical acts: ANTiSEEN, Cocknoose, and GG Allin & The Murder Junkies. When Bill German was 16, he started a Rolling Stones fanzine that soon saw him palling around with the likes of Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Mick Jagger. Speaking from my own experiences in those golden underground press days of yore, when you live for the music it's a bit mindblowing to cross that line from fan to friend and be taken behind the emerald curtain, suddenly becoming privvy to all the magic that makes the rock roll. It also puts you in close proximity to all the stuff that's not so obvious when you were on the other side of the stage, oblivious to anything but the way your gut reacted to the blessed noise that was washing over you: the in-fighting, politicking, grand-standing, and other nasty bits of sludge and drudge that always go hand-in-hand with the creative power of any group of individuals that have been able to cohesively layer their talents into a seemingly flawless whole.

Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with The Rolling Stones (And Lived to Tell About It) is the compulsively readable account of Mr. German's not-quite-misspent youth among the highest echelon of the rock n roll elite. It's the tale of how a do-it-yourself labor-of-love saw all of it's young scribe's wildest dreams fulfilled when his bad boy heroes gave his Beggar's Banquet newsletter the thumbs up (eventually going so far as to make it THE official Stones publication) and granted him unfathomed access to the band. While still too young to have a legal drink, Bill German stepped behind the curtain of the biggest rock n roll machine on the planet, and I'm certainly glad that, as his subtitle states, he lived to tell the tale.

In a relatively short period of time, he went from chasing the Stones around the clubs and restaurants of New York City in the search of a "scoop" (Where was Mick eating? Who was Woody jamming with? Who was Keith checking out in the clubs?) to spilling orange juice on one of Jagger's priceless rugs, co-authoring a book with Ronnie, and getting life lessons from Keef over Jack Daniels and ginger ale. Unfortunately, he also went from the unfettered joy of being able to print everything and anything about the band to being subject to the whims of ego, eccentricity, and occasionally, malice. You can't say the Stones are "working" - that implies taxable income. No pics of Bill with his girlfriend - he doesn't want his other girlfriends to find out. Please stop calling Woody "Woody" - it's strictly "Ronnie" from now on. Please don't state that Mick wasn't at such-and-such function - his wife is reading this and connecting the dots.

If you're looking for the now-standard "tell-all" fare of raunchy sex, candy bars being stuffed up vaginas, overseas blood transfusions, and the like, you'll have to go elsewhere. While German doesn't tiptoe around any of the vices or debauchery that comes part and parcel with the gig, he succeeds in doing what countless writers before him have failed to do: humanizing the Stones. Not only does he succeed in doing so, he pulls it off with a deftness and honesty that makes the clay feet mortals a hundred times more interesting and intriguing than their larger-than-life rock star alter egos. The booze, broads, and blow become mere footnotes when Keith contemplates his mortality and the loss of loved ones around him, or when Woody's insecurities rise to the surface and try to trip him up.

German takes you inside the world tours, the video shoots, the parties, the studios, the planes, the limos, the full-tilt motherfucking boogie. You'll see it through his eyes as he scraps to keep his dream afloat, tries not to be crushed by the cogs inside such a monsterous machine, and finally has to ask himself if all the perks of being an insider are worth the price of having nothing in your life that doesn't revolve around The Rolling Stones.

I've read all the Stones books out there and I gotta say that this is top o' the heap material. Equal parts coming-of-age memoir, cautionary tale, love letter, and rock n roll journalism supreme, Under Their Thumb scratches all those itches most effectively, making it damn good reading for anybody and everybody, not just those with the Stones jones. After all, German and his journey wind up being the real stars of this story, the Stones merely players on his life's stage (damn interesting players, nevertheless). Pick up a copy and read the first page or two, odds are you'll be hooked and wind up reading it in a couple of long sittings like I did. It's that goddamned good.

Having myself come of age in that pre-internet time when hardcore fans exchanged info through the mail via cut-and-paste fanzines that made up for what they lacked in spit-and-polish with true blood-and-guts fervor, I salute Bill German for standing up and "being more than a witness" (as Al Flipside used to say). Despite the rocky road Bill travelled during the seventeen years he published Beggar's Banquet, this book will stand forever as a testament to the love of The Rock and The Roll - and all the crazy places that can take you.

Five out of five, baby. Go get yourself some Goat's Head Soup. http://www.billgerman.com/ - http://www.beggarsbanquetonline.com/, http://www.villard.com/. This review originally appeared at BLACK TEETH AND BUSTED DREAMS (http://www.thegdking.blogspot.com/).