Despite recent claims otherwise, "Mexican Caravan" from 1985's Psychic.... Powerless.... Another Man's Sac is probably my favorite Butthole Surfers track, simply because of the guitar. It's always kind of made me imagine Jimmy Hendrix playing while on ten hits of blotter acid. But then, that's kind of what the Surfers do.

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Watch:

One day last week while I was still sequestered at the hotel in West L.A., I watched Josh Forbes's new movie Destroy All Neighbors and had an absolute BLAST with it! Here's the trailer, which I can now endorse does not give anything away other than a taste of the Hallucinatory 90s Practical FX goodness you can expect from this one!

Produced by Alex Winter, with FX by Gabriel Bartalos (Skinned Deep!), Destroy All Neighbors reminds me more than a little of 1993's Freaked, which Winter co-directed with Tom Stern. This fits in nicely with Butthole Surfer week, as Stern Produced/Directed last year's The Butthole Surfer Movie, and the Surfers were involved with Freaked, starting with lending their frontman to the film's cast to play Cheese Wart. There's a certain tone Freaked employs - a kind of madcap 90s Practical FX and sets grandeur - that is at work in Destroy All Neighbors as well. The opening credits reminded me so much of the 90s, with its swirling, wormhole-like background, that I knew I was in for goodness. 

Neighbors obviously did not have the same budget; no studio is going to give anyone 11 Million to make a movie like this in 2024, but the movie does so much awesome stuff with what they have, that you won't notice unless you're checking while you watch. And you won't be doing that, because you'll be laughing out loud. This is a story we've definitely seen variations of before, but not like this, and not with a Prog Rock obsessive as the lead character (Jonah Ray is awesome!)  

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Re-Release:

Just a quick heads up to any Blut Aus Nord fans out there, Debemur Morti just re-pressed Memoria Vetusta II: A Dialogue with the Stars on vinyl, and it's available both on the label's site HERE (where I ordered it this morning), and from the band's Bandcamp HERE. 

I've been laying off ordering vinyl, but this was a no-brainer. By far my favorite album from a group that has quite a few albums I adore, I have been waiting to grab this one on vinyl for probably over ten years now. 

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Playlist:

Ready for the World - Oh Sheila (single)

Sheila E. - Glamorous Life (single)

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST

Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

Double Life - Indifferent Stars

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Dance with the Dead - Driven to Madness

 

New Dance with the Dead on the horizon! The new album Driven to Madness is out on January 10th. No pre-order I can find yet, but I love the track. 

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Watch:

 

I finally made it around to watch Alex Winter's Zappa documentary last night. Really well-made flick that served as a fantastic refresher for me - I read Zappa's autobiography back in the mid-nineties and, while I found it endless endearing and fascinating, twenty-something years later, I just don't remember much about it. Enter Winter's doc and I feel like I have reconnected with a lot of what I learned to love about Frank Zappa. I'm no die-hard, however, the music by Zappa - and specifically The Mothers of Invention - that I like, I really like. And I like it even more when I hear the man who wrote it talk about the process and intention behind such unique, amazing music. 

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Playlist:

Nun Gun - Mondo Decay

Liars - The Apple Drop

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes 

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

Windhand - Eternal Return

Chicano Batman - Invisible People

Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine

Miami Horror - Illumination

Zonal - Wrecked

Zonal - Eponymous (single)

Zombi - Shape Shift

Godspeed You! Black Emperor -  F# A# ∞

King Woman - Celestial Blues

Ghost of Vroom - Ghost of Vroom 1

The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta

David Bowie - Stage

Kadavar and Elder - Eldovar: A Story of Darkness and Light

Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Dance with the Dead - Driven to Madness (pre-release single)

Dance with the Dead - Into the Abyss

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Card:

Hmm... possibly a nod toward a strange new venture that I have started in the world of NFTs? Too early to tell, but perhaps this is a suggestion I continue.

Freaked! at the Egyptian 1-17-20

Last night I had the absolute pleasure of seeing the 1993 movie Freaked at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Freaked is a film I don't think I had ever even heard of before a few weeks ago, when I caught sight of the screening via Beyondfest's Twitter. Even though I didn't know the film, I saw them tweet that Paul Leary would be present "with his guitar" and bought two tickets immediately.

Turns out, that was a very good thing...

Written by Alex Winter, Tim Burns, and Tom Stern, and directed by Winter and Stern, Freaked is an absolute marvel of practical FX, courtesy of Screaming Mad George, Alterian FX and XFX. The movie is an testament to a Hollywood that no longer exists. Costing Thirteen Million and boasting a cast that includes but is not limited to Winter, Brooke Shields, William Sadler, Gibby Haynes (yes, that Gibby Haynes), John Hawkes, Randy Quaid, an uncredited Keanu Reeves, and so many more, Freaked is absolute madness. And since this was a Beyondfest event, there was, of course, special guests.

The evening began in Peter Seychelle's comfortable study...

No, wait.

The evening began with Burns, Stern, and Winter explaining how Freaked grew out of their MTV show Idiot Box. From there, they played a first pass at a conceptual Rock n Roll Horror Movie they had attempted to spin out of the show, a feature-length film that, well, in their words, "Was basically The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the Butthole Surfers as the cannibal hillbilly family."

The footage was, of course, as insane as that might lead you to believe. They began with this clip from Idiot Box, to clear up a joke at the beginning of the film:



Then moved to the aforementioned Rock n Roll Horror Film, Entering Texas:



From there Freaked played, with a stop motion "Holo Rollins" Henry Rollins discount "hologram" set in time to sing with Freaked, the Rollins/Blind Idiot God title song that plays over David Daniels' brilliant hand-animated title sequence title sequence. During the film, Paul Leary did indeed take the stage several times to play live guitar over key "freak out" sequences.

By this time, I considered my investment to have already paid off ten-fold.

After the film the special guests took the stage and Burns, Stern, and Winter were joined by Catherine Hardwicke, John Hawkes, composer Kevin Kiner, the real Henry Rollins, Lee Arenberg, Megan Ward, and FX maestros Bill Corso, Tony Gardner, and I think Jim Eustermann, although by the time we got to the three FX gurus, things were a bit of a blur.

Every time I get frustrated with living in LaLa Land, something like this happens and I am reminded why I absolutely love living in this city. Special thanks to Beyondfest, Mondo/DeathWaltz, and @troniks on Twitter, who provided the beautiful 35mm print of the film. A wonderful night all around. Oh, and all that wonderful Idiot Box and early Winter/Burns/Stern footage comes from turdburglar27's wonderful youtube channel where you too, can watch Entering Texas.

Song:

While I was at the Egyptian last night witnessing early 90s Cinematic Magic, the Melvins played a pop up LaLa Land Gallery. Here's Inky Psyops and Printed Schemes, a song I am not familiar with at all, courtesy of Baby Gorilla, whose channel is always chock full o' great live music.




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Playlist:

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
93MillionMilesFromTheSun - Towards the Light
Mol - Jord
Godflesh - Hymns
Zonal - Wrecked
Butthole Surfers - Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac

Card:

The Air of Water, a reminder to temper emotion with intellect, not always an easy thing to do.