To quote the description given at the new listing:
“We make way for music from bands who have never been on 6′+. MonsterMatt digs out his Igor during the MonsterMatt Minute and Dr. Gangrene decides to hightail it to the clean living of Switzerland to talk with Marc Stroace of KROKUS for the Metal Morgue.
There’s music from KING GHIDORA, The Bloodtypes, The Tombstone Brawlers, Beware The Dangers of A Ghost Scorpion!, The BlackRats and you get to go 3ftDeep with Dead Elvis and his One Man Grave. All this and more!”
Remember to email 6′+ (contact at 6ftplus.com) or leave a comment below about the show, whether you liked it or not. Tell your friends, leave a review on iTunes, but above all – enjoy.
To quote the description given at the new listing:
“VHS, Beta, Blu-Ray and DVD. Find them all at your Local Video Store. This episode captures some of the history so that your local store has a future.
Metal Morgue has Dr. Gangrene talking with Count Lyle of Ghoultown, and there’s also MonsterMatt’s Minute. Music from The Amino Acids, The Dead-Tones, Theater Zombies, The Neanderthals and Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space. ALL THIS AND MORE!”
Remember to email 6′+ (contact at 6ftplus.com) or leave a comment below about the show, whether you liked it or not. Tell your friends, leave a review on iTunes, but above all – enjoy.
Labretta Suede and the Motel 6, Dumb & Dirty Official Site
Let’s face it – there’s a widespread pandemic of men not having any game anymore. I liken it to the advent of modern video gaming, funny enough, most notably with the introduction of the X-Box. Gaming became less an outlet of gamers and nerds and something far more accessible to a greater population of men and women. Listen to me pontificate my theory – the growth of the X-Box/PS2 industry, in my theory, exasperated a growing problem of DUDES NOT KNOWING HOW TO TALK TO WOMEN and even worse, making dudes unlearn what they little they already knew. And yes – it’s true, ladies – dudes do not know how to fuck anymore.
I think Dumb & Dirty might be a way to save the X-Box generation from its perpetual kidulthood* and finally get most of my dying generation to grow up.
Right off the back, I noticed that Dumb & Dirty successfully avoids the contrived journalistic idea of a “sophomore curse,” that idea that the second album often sucks after a really great debut. I noticed that it AVOIDED this curse because it doesn’t exist. This idea is something Rolling Stone invented. It’s not real. The “sophomore curse” is really the audience waking up from the stupor that had them fooling thinking that Julien Casablancas WASN’T a piece of shit, or that The Hives weren’t a bad idea.
Labretta Suede and the Motel 6 have never been misleading in presenting themselves. They’ve only gotten better at refining the message and this makes them dangerous because if they were ever to take to a national stage, we’d be powerless to stop them. They are unadulterated sex and might possibly take you to bed with them if time permits. This is a band that will fuck the world and be great in the sack. They aren’t about ‘making love,’ but about getting down, dumb and dirty. If I were to find out that everything they’ve done has been an act, I’d be gobsmacked at how good they were at lying. I don’t think they’re lying, though. After listening to sick songs like “Thickened Sludge,” “You & Me,” and “All Girl Gang Riot,” I can’t see them not being 100% earnest and forthright about their attitudes on rock, life, sex and everything else. It seems like you can’t make this kind of music if you don’t believe in it completely.
This is a fantastic album. It even made me forgive them for choosing the unfortunate subject of “Gary Glitter,” what with the man’s widespread pedophilia. Hearing “My Boyfriend thinks he’s Gary Glitter” sung by the sultry sound of Labretta Suede’s voice makes me slightly worry for any young boys in the audience. Of course, the song is less about Labretta’s beau making a trip to Thailand but instead, taking her shoes and lipstick and picking glam over punk rock. If the song was bad, I would feel easier to cast a discouraging eye but the truth is, it’s catchy as hell! And that makes me forgive them.
All throughout the album, the music is fun. While maintaining its signature sound, Labretta Suede and the Motel 6 branch out with different hues of their music chromatic key. “Beach Party Town” lets Johnny Moondog out to play in the surf with his guitar while the album closing opus of “Priscilla The Monkey Girl” is a noir-ish tale that fills your ear with dark smoke, red lipstick and intrigue. The whole band is really tight, incredible considering they straddle the two hemispheres. As the band is based both in Brooklyn, NY and Auckland, New Zealand, the rhythm section for Dumb & Dirty is split between the two countries. Seaon ‘Connel and Max Speed $1000 are the Americans, while Jay L Yodanovich and Bumpo Kemp bring pride to New Zealand. There isn’t a point where one aspect is off or overwhelming. It’s amazing to have six people contribute to reach a perfect parity and they did it.
If ascending into a dictatorship over the land, I would have this album be installed as part of the sex education curriculum in our nation’s schools. And Al Greene. Don’t hold me on this because I haven’t conducted enough tests yet, but I think Dirty & Dumb made me better in bed from just listening to it.
I write to you from the perspective of not having seen them in concert. This is good for having not prior documenting me before exposure to the band firsthand, I can offer this proof of how I was before my life changed. Because, after seeing them, I know my life will be altered. Firsthand exposure to such mind altering perspectives and landscapes of Labretta Suede and the Motel 6 will rearrange a person’s priorities, lessening the emphasis on a guy’s Achievements and more on being a man of a physical world. Dirty & Dumb is a record that makes you want to run, jump, scream and feel the weight of gravity. It’s a record that makes you want to sweat, to feel your heart beat, to know the excitement that comes when talking to an attractive stranger. It’s the record that will steer people away from the immaterial and the electronic and more to the physical and local. It’s fucking awesome and you should go get it right now.
If thirteen random songs were picked from thirteen random CDs off of the thirteen (in reality, ten) shelves I have in my library, the album compiled together would be, odds on, a good representation of my musical interests. It wouldn’t be a complete picture and the styles and genres contained within this mix would range from one type to another. The same can be said of most anyone, though some people are more specialized than others. Mostly, I imagine that everyone had a diverse ear and that to assume that one person is straight up a single genre does them a great injustice.
Ergo, what happens when someone makes an album that can accurately represent them? A good answer to that question would be Bradley Tatum’s It’s a Beautiful World. Contained in this collection of songs is music ranging from punk to electronic, industrial to elegant Victorian arrangements to goth dance rave fantastico.
The album starts off with “Under The Storm Clouds,” a throwback to the 90′s goth-techno familiar to fans of VNV Nation, before shifting into a subtle electronica-versus-metal guitar track entitled “The Others.” The electronic is flavored with the 90s boon in the genre, but to confuse this for a straight up electric record would be a grave misunderstanding.
Bradley Tatum is the creator of the horror-punk label, Blood and Guts Records. But since closing the label to work as a creator and not just an overseer of other band’s music, Tatum has allowed his interests to flourish and experiment. The result is a body of work that frankensteins the many aspects of a life deeply involved in horror-music.
The industrial-goth influence of the 90’s is felt throughout the album, though it’s less thrash and more dance. It’s hard to peg it down. A remix of “The Others” might be in your next goth club DJ’s rotation, the Baroque “Midgaard celebration” might be played at a Steampunk convention. In addition, the title track is an elegantly arranged electronic piece that might have been out of the seventies. It’s what Devo would have sounded like if Lou Reed joined DEVO right away instead of forming the Velvet Underground.
The influence of publishing and distributing bands like Serpenteen, Casket Casey and Rival Skulls is seen on “The Human Experiment,” which is a horror punk song fueled by a butcher knife-guitar. “They’re Drawn To You” is a classic rock song in the purest, almost Ramonesque 50’s style influenced punk. It’s followed by one of the many instrumental songs on the album, the metal anthem “Raiders.”
I can see someone having a problem with the variety of It’sA Beautiful World, as the shift between guitar and electronic can be jarring for some people. It’s an album mixed, with melodic strumming bleeding from one track into another, while mechanical beats shift, pause and start up again. If one picks this up expecting one type of music from start to finish, they will be surprised.
You’ll be surprised when you listen to it because you’ll find that you like at least one song. Then, you’ll hear aspects of it in another and sooner than later, you’ll find that all music is related. Bradley Tatum has shown you the way and you will be forever in his debt.
The Year 2011 brought us a wide collection of great music from many genres of horror music. It would be pretentious of us here at GdL16 to think that we could pick THE BEST ALBUM OF 2011. And as science has proved, lists are for suckers and shitty music blogs. Since we’re a bettter-than-shitty horror blog, here are FIFTY RELEASES OF 2011 for you to check out. These are in no particular order of importance. Each of them deserves your attention as much as the other. To make it a challenge, we’ll sum up the album in 31 (20+11=31) words.
Kepi Ghoulie, I Bleed Rock and Roll
Foundation rock and roll that can support you and stand up against the flood of fuzz and reverb that emits from your speakers after you put this in and press PLAY.
Alice Cooper, Welcome 2 My Nightmare
If only you knew the number of times that the one they have christened Alice Cooper has been killed and resurrected, you wouldn’t go about living like the way you do.
The Misfits, The Devil’s Rain
“Is it or is it not The Misfits,” was asked and no one could offer a good-enough answer, leaving them to skitter about the darkened hall until a light was found.
Midnight Syndicate, Carnival Arcane
If you ever need to know how to take the mood of a backwoods circus, to capture the smells, the joy and the dread, and record it down, here you go.
Hank Williams III, Hellbilly Joker
This long and often bootlegged album saw an official release this year, cementing a line of country western royalty to the psycho outlaw scene in a baptism of fire and whiskey.
Nick 13, Nick 13
Reaching out on a solo project, the Tiger Army frontman produced a time machine record, transporting you back to honky tonks and roadside watering holes where music like this was played.
Blitzkid, Apparitional
Horror punk triple threat returns with six fists pounding directly upon your unprepared cerebellum, leaving you quivering, babbling and devastated in the smoking crater of what used to be your bedroom.
Vagora, Nurture
In addition to their sophomore release, the additional EP the band put out proves that you can never have too much, unless your greed has deviated far into borderline sociopathic kleptomania.
Nox Arcana, The Dark Tower
Those devilish master of the macabre and atmosphere contribute another step towards the swirling miasmic ink of despotic night that will swallow the sun and plunge us all into celebratory darkness.
Various, Hymns From The House of Horror Vol.2
Second edition of this Rue Morgue compilation series collects songs from surf, psychobilly and all types of horror rock, evident in its selection range that includes Calabrese, GWAR and The Brains.
If we’ve missed out on your favorite album, you have 31 words to sum it up in the comments. Who knows? Maybe we’ll pick the best one out and send you something.
The Year 2011 brought us a wide collection of great music from many genres of horror music. It would be pretentious of us here at GdL16 to think that we could pick THE BEST ALBUM OF 2011. And as science has proved, BEST OF lists are for suckers and shitty music blogs. This isn’t a BEST of List, but just part of a collection of FIFTY RELEASES OF 2011 for you to check out. These are in no particular order of importance. Each of them deserves your attention as much as the other. To make it a challenge, we’ll sum up the album in 31 (20+11=31) words.
The Moans, The Three Amigores
This debut release from the Sacramento trio Frankensteins horror and pop punk together, sort of like stitching screeching weasels to the face of Glen Danzig but with much better sounding results.
Southern Culture On The Skids, Zombified
Coming back from the dead, this re-release of a long out-of-print EP comes back to life with four extra tracks and an insatiable hunger for blood, brains and bile.
The Deadbeats, The Day of the Deadbeats
After failing to make this illegal, government forces have been reluctant to wash their hands of the oncoming rabid madness that will sweep the world once it inevitably discovers this band.
Kill, Baby…Kill, Sometimes They Come Back
Why they grow them so weird and bizarre in Huntsville stumped even the greatest philosopher, who ended up carving arcane symbols in the walls while this EP was playing on repeat.
The Phantomatics, She Left Her Brain At The Drive-In
Excellent classic surf rock that will lead to you question the era you are in, leaving you completely disillusioned about all the lies and half-truths you have been bred to believe.
The Night Shift, Devils In the Sea and God In London
Don’t make the mistake of letting the terms “Self released” and “free” prevent you from listening, since they don’t diminish the quality of this incredible EP from the horror punk hurricane.
Spookhand, Keep Out!
The first of three official releases from the band this year captures the fury and fear of this mad science punk rock in ways to make you afraid of the dark.
Darrow Chemical Company, A Nightmare on Seventh Avenue
From the shed skin of Mister Monster, the new invocation rises in a miasma of melodic punk with an acid laced tongue that laces around your brain and melts it away.
The Screamin’ Rebel Angels, Pounce Like A Tiger
Being bad never sounded so good as this rock release combine sultry hooks and Dead Man’s Curves in a rockabilly roots rock package trimmed with a little sex, a little violence.
The Evil Streaks, Go-Go To Hell
Sinister sounds of the latest Necro Tone Family outing melds together the ingredients to make a wicked brew of garage rock, demented surf and Americana rooted evil to a sonic success.
If we’ve missed out on your favorite album, you have 31 words to sum it up in the comments. Who knows? Maybe we’ll pick the best one out and send you something.
For the longest while, ‘SAY WHAT AGAIN,’ or the second Bad Whoremoans album, was widely unavailable. The first self-titled release has been spread along the internet like a cute-kitten viral video, but the second one? Until recently, many people (myself included) didn’t even know there was as second album.
But, now available for less than fast food breakfast combo, you can go purchase SAY WHAT AGAIN and you should. It’s a great album and when you compare it to the first release, there is definitely some visible growth as a band.
Just like another horrorpunk band from New Jersey, Bad Whoremoans have new versions of earlier songs on this release, with stronger renditions of “Surf Nazis Must Die,” “Lily,” and “Graveyard Girlfriend.” Both the music and the singing are richer on these songs and the whole album in general. The bassline is more developed in “Surf Nazis…” and all three new versions of the songs show more meticulous production.
The themes of death and rebellion against thoughtless behavior are present. I like the song “Better Off Dead,” because of its catchy song structure and chorus. It’s punk more in the vein of The Queers and Screeching Weasel, where “Deathmask” seems post-punk as a measured trudge, matching the subject matter of the song with the same dread-laden beat.
“Art School Bitch” and “I Don’t Wanna Be At Work Today” (the latter has Nettie singing with Paul doing backup) expresses a working-class element to all punk rock. The argument against the “Art School Bitch” is not the ‘art school’ or even the bitch, but the condenscending attitude of those who have never known what it is to lack something.
The Cramps’ influence is clear on “Transylvania Tramp,” so much as I wondered why Paul of the Living Dead was singing like that, only to deduce that this must a tribute to Lux Interior. I could hear Lux putting his vocal groove to this song and Paul’s vocals are great not just on this song but on the whole album.
‘Say What Again’ is a great album that shows a band progressing. Though they’re kind of on a hiatus, they always come back. A collection of B-Sides and Unreleased material will be released soon. Pick that up with ‘Say What Again’ and enjoy some kickass punk rock.
If you’ve ever listened to a lo-fi band or musician, it’s the lesser quality that adds to the music’s charm. There’s something endearing about feedback or fuzz, something that is lost when the music is smoothed out, de-loused and returned from the dry-cleaners.
However, CDs don’t suck.
Personally, I prefer digital music. I like CDs because they’re easier to bring home after a show. I also like mp3s that are encoded at a proper bitrate. I like having fifty available albums in my coat pocket. But I can see why people like Vinyl. I understand when someone says that a vinyl release “sounds better,” or “sounds warmer” than digital. The positives of vinyl that people extol are actually the medium’s flaws, how the warm sound is the inferior sound quality.
Records don’t suck. In fact, there’s something ceremonial to playing a record, to having a physical presence of music. It takes a greater amount of consciousness to play a record (not that much than throwing a CD into a player, granted.) The whole act of playing vinyl also anchors you, since turntables aren’t known for their mobility. It also is a communal process, unless you happen to have a pair of headphones. However, I can picture a room full of people listening to their own mp3 players in dead silence. I can’t see the same with individual record players, both for logistic and logical reasons.
I get how vinyl is more appropriate for Lo Fi artists. I also am glad that I have The Creeping Horror of The Quasi-Men cd because damn, is it a great collection of music.
The Quasi-Men came into my consciousness when I bought the two demos off of Max Reverb after a Crimson Ghosts show at 4th Street in Troy, New York. Both demos— ‘Cemetery Girl’ and ‘I Wanna Knock Up Elvira’ —make their way onto this album, both a debut album and a retrospective collection. The Quasi-Men are currently in a state of undeath, coming back to life when the planets and elements are aligned (i.e. when the three members are in the same place at the same time. Max has gone down to Florida to start up the band Gigi and the Cretins, another one you should check out.)
The Quasi-Men is horror punk at its finest. The Devil lives in suburbia and the Quasi-Men use his garage as practice space. Songs like “Message from Space,” “Possess Me” and “Werewolves Hate You” are the nitty-gritty of all things scary and spooky. This is reverb-surf-horror. This is groovy and gory.
If you can track down the every growingly rare supply of this CD, buy it.
It’s perverse how a divorce can become a footnote on a Wikipedia entry; even worse when it becomes evident that it was the catalyst for a punk band’s break-up.
In 2008, one year after the Groovie Ghoulies disbanded, Kepi Ghoulie released two albums that established himself as a solo artist. Having dabbled with a single release with the 2001 Yes Depression EP, Kepi’s transition into a solo artist wasn’t totally unfounded. When American Gothic and Hangin’ Out were put out by Asian Man records, it seemed like the logical next step for him.
Of the two, American Gothic has the more acoustic music, as if Kepi were to take his guitar and pull a guerilla act, you might find him doing “This Friend Of Mine” and “Full Serve” at some sunny corner of your town.
However, American Gothic is the heavier of the two in terms of songwriting. It’s easy to read into songs like “Tornado Love,” “Running on Empty” as connected to the break-up from long-time beau and Groovie Ghoulies bandmate, Roach.
While on Hangin’ Out, the sound is the pop-punk that Kepi is known for. “Supermodel” and “Twelve Hour Town” are two-fists of power-pop-punk punching down all partitions. It is pretty rad. “Love On Demand” is probably what the Ramones would have written if they were still around today, and there’s a really great cover of the Cramps “The Natives Are Restless.”
The album is not completely void of the emotional weight of American Gothic.The opening track, “Hey Kepi Let’s Go,” can be interpreted as his friends getting Kepi out of his house and the next song, “My Life Is Starting Over Again,” sums it up in the title. The lyrics of “Red Bat” deals with the situation of leaving a pet with someone else, understanding that though the separation sucks, it’s for the best.
With similar concept art and both albums featuring versions of “Stormy Weather” and “Sleepy Hollow,” American Gothic and Hangin’ Out are essentially the two sides of the same coin. It was spent wisely, He continues to play with band and he released Life Sentence in 2009.
For your Halloween season, you might want to pick up Hangin’ Out for more conventional celebrations. But, when the party is over and the November where you live is colder than usual, definitely put on American Gothic.
You’re getting old. Does that scare the hell out of you? It drives Mr. Fallingard to stay up at night. I haven’t lost any sleep over it but I did lose something.
You see, there isn’t a lot of music that I avoid. Yes, there are some genres I don’t like. I find that’s an acceptable practice. There’s very little chance you’ll find me owning any dubstep or releases from artists like The String-Cheese Incident or Lil’ Wayne. But I think that’s not terribly offensive. However, I hate HI-FIVE SOUP! by The Aquabats.
I do, however, like The Aquabats. THE FURY OF THE AQUABATS! is a great album. VS. THE FLOATING EYEBALL had some weak spots but the collection MYTHS, LEGENDS AND OTHER AMAZING ADVENTURES VOL.2 is a great batch of songs. Though they abandoned the horns on CHARGE!!!, the album grew on me and it turned out to be a great step for the band as they matured. But if I can help it, I will never listen to HI-FIVE SOUP! again.
The Aquabats have always had a slightly ridiculous and, dare I say, zany approach to their songs. Their earlier releases had some youthful anthems (“My Skateboard”, “Red Sweater”) and songs about weird creations (“The Cat With Two Heads”, “Powdered Milk Man”, “Magic Chicken”). However, though they sang about junior-high in “Pizza Day,” the music was universally accessible. It was the product of the group’s generation, harking back to Saturday Morning while going to work early on a Tuesday. But man. HI-FIVE SOUP takes that youthful exuberance and cranks it waaaaaay the hell up.
In an interview, the alter ego of the MC Bat Commader, Christian Jacobs, said about HI-FIVE SOUP:
“I think on Charge!! [The Aquabats] were tackling some more sophisticated humor, things like fashion, popular culture and stuff that isn’t as kiddy or pre teen as the early AQUABATS! stuff, where we were singing about tarantulas and baking chocolate cakes and midget pirates. I think this new record has more stuff like that o it, silly kid stuff, which is fun. It’s less trying to appeal to a little bit older crowd and just trying to appeal to the Halloween costume crowd, ya know?”
He’s right. CHARGE!! did deal with some developed concepts. “Stuck In A Movie!” was about the problem of relying on fictional media as a framing reference point for real life. “Look At Me (I’m A Winner!)” dealt with the concept of viewing yourself as a success, even if you’re spending your days working on a jobsite with ‘four radios blasting classic rock.’ “Fashion Zombies!” addressed the problems of dressing up in retro-fashions. Of course, there were songs about giant mechanical apes, nerd alerts and waterslides. There was stuff for the kids but also for their older siblings. I was in mid twenties when the album came out and I could still jam out to both “Plastic Lips!” and “Demolition Rickshaw!” alike.
I’ve been trying to figure out what “the Halloween costume crowd” means, though I think he meant “kids.” Specifically, “those kids who have made our kid show ‘Yo Gabba Gabba’ a hit.” Granted, that makes a lot of sense. The show started in 2007, thirteen years after the Aquabats started as a band. Even from the beginning, the band existed with theatrical elements, based on what I assume is the influence of MC Bat Commander (aka Christian Jacobs) tenure as a child/teen actor.
There were numerous of unsuccessful attempts to transform the Aquabats into a television entity, with only the recent announcement that The Hub will turn “The Aquabats Super Show” into a reality. The children’s show, ‘Yo Gabba Gabba,’ is a, if not the most important success in the Aquabats’ career. To modify their music to appeal to the group most likely to identify them from that show seems a logical, if not a bit too-safe, decision.
It could also be that the departure of longtime guitarist, Chainsaw the Prince of Karate, removed a mature element of the band in terms of songwriting. In the DVD documentary that came with the 1-Year Anniversary reissue of Charge!!!, Chainsaw comes off more like the dude who just wants to play punk rock and not deal with the all the childish, goofy shit. Off to tend to his thriving woodcarving business, Chainsaw might have taken a good counterbalance to the music writing process. Or not. Who knows for sure?
What I do know is HI-FIVE SOUP is not an album made for me. I was disappointed to find that out, to discover that I was too big for the ride. I had unknowingly committed the unforgivable sin of growing older. The music, to my ears, is a bit regressive and simplified, but The Aquabats aimed their sound for a younger audience. It’s not a case of two entities drifting apart. It’s more that they went a hard left as I inevitably turned right.
There are bands that I have outgrown, selling or giving away my copies of their CDs since their hair rock or death metal fashions no longer need apply. But this is the only time I can remember a band outgrowing me. If at the great concert of metaphor, I had to give up my space in the audience because three younger fans needed to get in and see the show. I can be resentful for it, but if this means the band can rise to greater levels of success, the disappointment will taper off.
I think staving off death or prolonging a condition that should have ended is a common thread in horror. It’s always about conquering death, refusing defeat and maintaining a level of comfort or power even when the moment has passed. I could be a monster, snarling and riddled with angst at what I saw as a betrayal as I pursue the reversal of the clock’s hands. Or, I can be glad that I got a chance to see the band a couple of times and that they released some albums that I really like. I’m too old for The Aquabats. Kind of sucks but I had my turn being a Cadet. I’ve gotten older and it’s time to let the kids have some fun. After all, with the Aquabats, it’s always about doing it for the kids.
I avoided certain genres of music for a while because after one or two attempts to get into them, the handful of bands I optioned all sounded the same. Psychobilly was this to me for a while – I just could not get into it because everyone I listened to was doing a bad Kim Nekroman impression, turning the upright bass up in the mix and having that deep-gulch yokel vocal.
Homogeny is the worst thing to happen to a scene or a genre. When there is only a specific look and sound that’s accepted, innovation is impossible since all the people doing different things are forced out. And once that acceptable sound is established, there can be so many new bands conforming to it that homogeny actually promotes a premature nostalgia. Look at modern mainstream country or the current state of rock.
This is why a band like Bad Whoremoans is a good thing. On their own, they’re a great punk band. As a horror punk band, they’re fucking fantastic because in addition of a sound that doesn’t sound like anyone else, they bring that “fresh blood” into it. They take their sound more from garage punks and the Descendents than the Misfits, which is a bit of poetry since Paul of the Living Dead, frontman and founder of the band, is 100% New Jersey.
Perhaps that’s why Bad Whoremoans don’t sound like the Misfits. If this band’s music, in any way whatsoever, shows some influence from the Lodi, NJ band, there would be the instant connection. It’s a shadow that I think many bands out of the Garden State have to evade. Sort of if you wanted to start up a band in Liverpool, Seattle or Gary, Indiana.
BAD WHOREMOANS is a celebration of the VHS age of cult and horror movies. Included on the album is a double Troma feature, songs about both “Surf Nazis Must Die” and “Class of Nuke’Em High.” Hometown hero Jason Voorhees gets a celebratory ode with “Camp Crystal Lake,” whose infectious chorus makes me think it’s a blast to see it live. Other horror staples like Michael Myers (“Haddonfield Horror”), Frankenstein’s Monster and its Bride (“It’s Alive”), Christine (“Killer Car”) and vampires (“Vampire Pin Up Girl”) are all represented.
I think that’s why I like this music. This is the soundtrack to growing up with a Video Store. This is the music for the weird kids that spent their teenage years among VCRs and faded cover art and plastic cases. Mutant slasher punk youth that doesn’t take itself too seriously because that’s not fun.
There’s some really good songwriting present here and that’s evident with the acoustic tracks for “My Dead Girlfriend,” “She’s Weird” and “Graveyard Girlfriend.” It’s a tender side of Paul of the Living Dead’s vocals and able to adapt a punk song into a somber, if not romantic, ballad.
At this point, there’s only one Bad Whoremoans release and Paul of the Living Dead’s activity is also divided up with his band, The Exstatics. Hopefully, there will be future music from this band since we need new voices to rise above the din and keep us going.
Young kids: If you ever want to get into the Dead Kennedys, you only need to pick up their first two full-lengths, the IN GOD WE TRUST INC. EP, the GIVE ME CONVIENCE compilation and, if you’re a big fan, the LIVE AT THE DEATH CLUB release. Pretend that the band broke up in 1986 and that the divisive nature of the split caused all the members to quit playing music whatsoever (unless you’re a fan of the Jello Biafra/Al Jourgensen LARD releases. That’s forgivable.)
Jello Biafra has gone on record in regards to the Dead Kennedy’s origin, expressing a desire to make a musical experience that took the spookshow theatrics of Alice Cooper but substituted the terrors of the political world, mad scientists drugging your water supply and corporate bottom lines for the vampires and zombies.
The Dead Kennedys are a band I associate with sunshine. The first time I heard them was working a summer job, one that afforded a cheap radio I could play to pass the lulls in business. When the local radio station, during its 80’s-flashback-lunchhour, played “Holiday In Cambodia,” it was the end for me.
Looking back, the thought that a commercial radio station would play a Dead Kennedys song in a program that highlighted “Take on Me” and Soft Cell’s cover of “Tainted Love” is astounding. Reality is, by all means, ludicrous.
I picked up FRESH FRUIT FOR THE ROTTING VEGETABLES a few days after hearing that song. The guitar sound was different from anything that was on the radio station and I wanted to hear more. Some have said that Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray was influenced by surf music. Don’t know where, but I read somewhere he had been a fan of The Shadows and the Fireballs (though somewhere else, he’s quoted as not being an avid surf music fan, that the influence only comes from growing up in California.)
“Moon Over Marin” is probably the closest that the Dead Kennedys got to a surf song. The solo in “Holiday in Cambodia” is also similar to what one might hear on a Ventures release. But “Moon Over Marin,” I tell you: great song. It’s one that has yet to be covered properly, though I think Siniestro Total’s rendition off of REGRESSO is as close as it’s going to get for me.
PLASTIC SURGERY DISASTERS is the scariest the Dead Kennedys got in terms of their sound. Songs like “Dead End, “Bleed For Me, “I Am The Owl” are just sinister sounding pieces of music, where “Government Flu” and “Well Paid Scientist” are frantic, panic and paranoid stricken screeds that tapped into the problems the group saw with the world of Reagan’s America. There’s a few songs on GIVE ME CONVENIENCE… that amp up the fear but start to finish, I think PLASTIC SURGERY DISASTERS is the band’s best work, second to the IN GOD WE TRUST INC EP and their first release.
The problem with FRANKENCHRIST, the band’s third album, is that every song is about two minutes too long. Like many of the 80’s hardcore punk bands, it was about the time that most of the bands of that time got just bored with playing the same style of two minute, face-punch type of songs. Black Flag, SSD, Bad Brains and Minor Threat grew up, got old or/and broke up around that time. FRANKENCHRIST’s slower and longer song structure reflects this trend.
The band would actually revert back to the short song structure on their final full-length album, BEDTIME FOR DEMOCRACY. Out of twenty-one songs, only three are more than 2m30s long. But the album sounds hollow. The CD might be the problem, since odds are it was a remaster. Perhaps a vinyl playing would make BEDTIME… sound less plastic and empty. But it could have just been that the band was on the verge of collapse when they made it.
BEDTIME… has a few songs that are nice but it’s largely forgettable to me. In fact, one of my friends “borrowed” the CD a few years left and I haven’t bothered to replace it. I should and I’d like to but it’s a low priority. I kind of consider it and FRANKENCHRIST to be the superfluous runoff of a band that, musically, hit a stage of perfection. This was the “everything is downhill from here” stage.
The self-destruction of the Dead Kennedys and the resulting lawsuits and fights that followed remains one of the biggest tragedies in punk rock (that doesn’t involve someone dying.) It’s documented elsewhere and the differing sides are both untrustworthy. It’s always funny, in a sad and twisted way, when a band that rages against the evils of capitalism breaks down because someone in the band wants to get paid better.
The band was successful in writing some music about the horrors of the real world that still stand up today. It’s sad that when Biafra shouts about war in Afghanistan, it applies today despite that he was singing about it thirty years ago. The socio-economic and religious political concerns, if you skew that way, are still prevalent.
It’s good to get out of the spooky once in a while and observe some of the real monsters that exist. I know that during these economical problems and strife, escapism is more attractive. Being reminded how horrible life sucks and sometimes, I can’t fault a person for wanting to get away from that. I do it, time to time.
Escaping means that there’s no going back. I think we can’t escape to a world where our problems don’t exist, where we trade unemployment for vampires, industrial pollution for H.P. Lovecraft’s monsters. As much as we write about monsters, suspense and creatures of all sorts, we here at Gravedigger’s Local 16 recognize that there are plenty of real horrors that exist. Murder. Rape. Theft. Racism. Institutional oppression.
These are things that the Dead Kennedys sang about in a way to combat them, to use music, a common method of escapism, to keep the masses from falling asleep and remaining complacent. It’s a shame how they ended, but the Dead Kennedys, at a time, were there to tell us that the real monsters awaited us outside of the theater when the movie ended.
Can a vampire ever be a convincing lower-class dredge? There are many attempts to give the creature a grittier edge, though outside of a return to the inhuman version of NOSFERATU, the vampire will have a lot to overcome before it turns out to be something less-than-beautiful. Since the creature’s glorification has rendered it an aristocrat by nature, I think any efforts to marry the vampire with something like punk or working class has a handicap to overcome.
Punk as a music genre has always been closely associated with a contrarian perspective and not just a “No!” idea, but a “fuck no and fuck YOU” sentiment. It’s a sense of never being satisfied, being against everything and rejecting the current situation, whatever that is. Applied to a vampire, and the often result is a fangula being moody about once being human, turned vampire against his/her will, and hating the situation. Sort of half of INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE or emo kids with teeth.
This is why Zombie Surf Camp works as an idea. “Zombie” is a less-than-desirable condition; outside an ‘Ugly Americans’ plotline, I can’t recall a recent example where green, decaying and flesh-hungry is a way to go through life. It’s not a case of “Oh yeah! I’m a zombie!” but “Oh, no. I’m a zombie.”
ZSC is the combination of surf, punk, zombie and environmental consciousness. Folks might point out that surfing zombies aren’t new and point to both The Surf Zombies and various movies where the undead go underwater. What sets ZSC apart is that if a ZSC zombie were to ambush a beachgoer, they would devour the brains while disposing of the remains in the designated recycling bins.
If this has made ZSC sound like a joke, they’re not. The success of Zombie Surf Camp is that they’re not campy. The self-titled Surf Zombie Camp album is a great mixture of earnest surf and punk music, fusing the two elements together to make a fantastic album that stands on its own in either camp.
The band blends the elements together fluidly, so well that one neither overpowers the other. The punk doesn’t reduce the guitar work to a series of power chords, nor does the music lose its oomph when the guitar work resembles less RKL and more Dick Dale.
Zombie Surf Camp might be considered the mutation from exposing the skillful song styles of Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet to the radioactive punk wailing of Mr. Chi-Pig from SNFU (which are both Canadian bands, though ZSC originates from San Diego.)
It was a good decision to have “What’s Eating You?” open the album; if you were to ever use the word “conventional” to describe ZSC, “What’s Eating You? would be the closest as it resembles a conventional punk song – a great display of songwriting, the pairing of guitars and solid rhythm section to support the wild flowing of the vocals. If were to an alternative dimension where modern radio wasn’t completely horrible, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear “What’s Eating You?” between The Butthole Surfers and Beck.
“Flipper” flips (pun intended) the situation of ‘dolphin-free-tuna’ to ‘human-free-ocean.’ It’s the first of three songs that deal with the idea that harmful industrial pollution is going to literally “come and bite us on the ass,” as well as the arm, the neck and the brain. The band’s bio lists ZSC as a group of surfers who swam during a toxic spill from the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant, something addressed in the song “Now, I Am A Zombie.”
Another diss of pollution comes in “Sewage,” which brings some humor the concept that the dead have come back and have started surf-punk bands. Moon Voggy’s vocal interactions with Resin A. Gain are played against some really choice surf riffs.
Voggy’s singing on the song is his bellowing wail, though he demonstrates a very regal voice on “Surf Zombies On Parade,” which a live performance is detailed as ‘Zombies on St. Patrick’s Day.’ The almost effortless switch between MC5’s Rob Tyner to Bobcat Goldthait is impressive. Similar vocals can be found on “Midnight Sun.” the album’s quote-unquote ballad and “Remains.”The band kicks the punk up on “Culture of Life” and grinds a mean surf on “Corpse in a Barrel.”
This is a great album and will be a welcomed addition to your music library. But if you’re not convinced – Zombie Surf Camp has offered their first album for free. Head on over and you’ll find a torrent of Zombie Surf Camp available.
You don’t need to go any earlier than the first Ramones record to see how interlinked punk and horror have been from the start: you can find it in ‘Chainsaw,’ a punk tribute to the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ but as well in ‘I Don’t Want To Go Down to The Basement.’ There was something automatic about how punk rock and horror go hand-in-hand.
diemonsterdie carries on that tradition. Ten years of being in the horror punk business, this Salt Lake City, UT band has put out some catchy and killer spooky punk. Fronted by horror master Zero Delorean and backed up by drummer Meatwhistle, the two original members still going with the band, they’re joined by Stikki Nixx on bass. In 2010, diemonsterdie released a new record recently, Fall To Your Knees.
Fall To Your Knees is a great album that really is a good place for any horror punk to get into diemonsterdie. It really showcases the attitude of the band, this cool arrogance that comes when you adopt a vehicle for your true persona. Zero said in the interview that his mask allows him to express how he really feels inside. Not unusually for a performer to do, but it’s good to always know that even in 2010, a bit of costume and fake blood can help someone find out who they really want to be.
‘Lucky Number 666’ and ‘Midnight Run to Houston’ easily conveys the monster of rock influence the band takes from the likes of Alice Cooper, Motorhead and Gwar. ‘The Dead Shall Inherit the Earth,’ ‘From Screaming Graves We Rise’ cover the horror genre while songs like ‘Deep Space Isolation Psychosis’ and ‘Lyka The Russian Space Dog Will Have Her Revenge” shows off the band’s sci-fi chops.
Some of my favorite songs from other albums include ‘Human Heads in Funeral Jars’ from A Great And Terrible Loss and ‘Black Death Sheds Its Skin,’ the latter shows off both Zero’s singing at a way to convey control, sex and horror all at once. Hard to do when you’re singing from the perspective of a reanimated skeleton, but the band does it.
They could just be a regular horror band in the middle of Mormon country but diemonsterdie has taken it upon themselves to unite the horror punks across the world at worldhorrornetwork.com, a site keeping track of horror punk news and offering reviews. The band also puts out a couple podcasts – the DiaboCast hosted by Shane Diablo, but also Zero Hour Podcast (from Zero himself, which you can find at his MySpace page.
Head over to diemonsterdie.com and get yourself some free music. Recommend DMD to two friends and you’ll get a free download of their album ‘Only The Dead Will Survive,’ featuring such songs like ‘October Slowly Dying’ and ‘One Night at Devils Rock.’
In preparation for the 2010 Halloween Countdown and the season overall, I (like previous years) started listening to horror punk and rock sometime around mid-September. This usually burns me out two weeks into October but I think this year might be different. There’s something special in the air, outside of the saturation due to coastal hurricanes.
I can tell because I actually listen to ‘Come Back’ by the Misfits instead of skipping over it. I don’t know why I used to do it; it’s one of those strange habits, the kneejerk instant reactions that stick. There are a lot of records sitting in my collection that are half-listened and currently await the day when I don’t reach for the NEXT button whenever that one song comes up.
‘Come Back’ is different from most Misfits songs. The most obvious is that outside the regular song length, this clocks in at five minutes – an eternity for an 80′s hardcore band. It’s also very slow, a low crawling thudding with no high notes and nothing but static. Compared to hits like ‘Astro Zombies,’ ‘Hybrid Moments’ and ‘She,’ it’s like the Misfits ripped a couple bong hits and decided to mellow out. Closer to ‘London Dungeon’ than any other song, ‘Come Back’ is this gnarling lament of a corpse crying out for a raven to devour the carrion this body has become. It’s almost sexy.
As the Misfits are known for being clear with their influences, a la the 1950′s dowop/bebop of such songs as ‘Skulls,’ ‘Horror Business’ and ‘Some Kind of Hate,’ I think that ‘Come Back’ is a tribute to another Misfits influence – the Stooges. I would not be surprised if Glen Danzig had a copy of ‘Raw Power’ or the first Stooges album and played it until it was worn down. Something like ‘Come Back’ would fit right in between ‘Down on the Street’ and ‘Dirt.’
I might be wrong. Check it out for yourself and let me know in the comments.
To quote the description given at the new listing:
