WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Ghost Moth Haunt the Castle; Live Session 11th November 2009

When you're already in a dance with noise and free improvisation, the Kosmische is less than one membranous step away. And so it was with Ghost Moth, the duo of suitcase electronicist Todd Pendu and multi brass/woodwind blower Daniel Carter.

This was Ghost Moth's third set as a duo (reduced from a trio), continuous play totaling over 50 minutes. So many of my favorite records come to mind upon listening: Bob Ostertag's Getting a Head; Merzbow & Christoph Heemann's Sleeper Awakes on the Edge of the Abyss; Miles Davis' In A Silent Way. But Ghost Moth are really their own thing, and must be heard to be believed:

11/11: The Duality and the Hidden Third

Live audio covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Here's some video of the session, from Todd's YouTube channel:

Slasher Risk, My Castle of Quiet Live Session, 28th Oct 2009

I'm running out of ways to gush about Slasher Risk. Point is, this relatively young band, a duo, doesn't seem to yet realize how good they are, or how amazing they're going to be in just a short while. That's a fine thing, because it means they're only doing what must be done—what comes naturally. And what comes naturally is dynamic improvised music, with one limb occasionally stuck in something that remembers rock, but just as often or more so, dances in the air above the unimaginable maw of the Lovecraftian abyss. Frightening to some, but not to Andy or Sara, who do it seemingly just because it's their thing.

A two-person Can? Lou and Sterling? Moe and Sterling? Or a guitar-noise duo whose work makes Solmania seem "uptight"—just who the hell are Slasher Risk?

Here are 37+ minutes that at least put us closer to an answer:

Slasher Risk Live on WFMU's My Castle of Quiet

Good photo and top-notch session engineering by Trent.
Lousy photo and video by your host and author.

Slasher Risk Live on WFMU's My Castle of Quiet is covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Liturgy Live on My Castle of Quiet, 14th October 2009

Black metal doesn't always have to be a wallowing in vitriol and hatred, or a focused venting of negative emotions, and Liturgy are a case in point. Remember the first time you heard Enslaved's Frost album? Or to stretch genre definitions only slightly, Don Caballero's What Burns Never Returns, or King Crimson's Discipline? Think soulful exactitude, with a profusion of spiritual power.

Liturgy are energized players—and their music is definitely black metal—but to listen to them is to take flight on wings of ever-arcing melodic and trebly crescendos. Not so much shoveling shit on the grave of Christ here. There's a decided uplift to Liturgy's songs and performance.

A magnificent set, and engineered with expert ears and hands by Jason Sigal. Jason, Jed and myself were somewhat in awe of the musical spectacle happening on the other side of the double glass—and here it is—on mp3, from WFMU and the Castle, to your hard drive or portable listening device.

Pagan Dawn
Mysterium
Ecstatic Rite
Behind the Void
Arctica
Renihilation

Liturgy members:
Hunter Hunt-Hendrix/vocals, guitar shimmer
Bernard Gann/guitar shine
Tyler Dusenbury/shuddering bass vibrations
Greg Fox/blizzard drumming

Liturgy's new album is called Renihilation, available on vinyl and CD from 20 Buck Spin. You can catch Liturgy live on All Hallows' Eve at Brooklyn's Market Hotel, with other local NYBM giants Malkuth (coming soon to the Castle), and the great Tara Jane O'Neil.

Live audio shared/covered via a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Fiancée of Dracula - Jean Rollin (2002)

With a few notable exceptions (Stuart Gordon, Larry Cohen), my horror-auteur gods have been letting me down in recent years. Granted, artists like George A. Romero and Dario Argento are working with much bigger budgets, and greater public expectations than Jean Rollin has ever had to deal with, and maybe that, in and of itself, is partly the kiss of death for these comparative big shots.

Why do I consider myself a huge Rollin fan, yet I've never, until now, watched a film of his later than The Living Dead Girl (1982)? Maybe I didn't want to risk having the master of vampire chateaus, beguiling female malefactors, moody beach scenes and the darkly absurd shot down in my estimation. Boy was I wrong. It took the recommendation of WFMU / My Castle of Quiet super-listener Richard Ridden to coax me into taking a chance on Rollin's 2002 feature, Fiancée of Dracula, and I have nothing but good things to report.

First of all, it's amazing to me that the same, crumbling, ruined pier Rollin has been using as a location since the late 1960s has never been fixed up (perhaps that's French infrastructure for you), and in this film, he's used that craggy pier for one of his most compelling seaside visions ever. Secondly, the classic Rollin motif of grandfather clocks as a travel portal for the undead is employed here again, some 30 years after the director's phantasmagorical 1971 feature, Le frisson des vampires.

What other visual and conceptual delights fill out the body of Fiancée of Dracula? What say thee to a convent of mad nuns, who smoke pipes and cigars, don funnels and quote Jarry, and have a mean kick in the bargain? Or a salacious blonde ogress, who feeds on live infants? How about a mind-boggling scene—perhaps the best in the whole film—in which a nun, having been brutally slaughtered, suddenly rises up and carries around her own bleeding heart? All this and more, including a minor, but pivotal role, played by Rollin's long-time star, the lovely Brigitte Lahaie. I fear if I say too much, I will most certainly curb your surprise and pleasure in watching this film. It's enough to say that maestro Rollin has maintained the visual sense, absurdity, and moody, ethereal vibrations that have defined his filmmaking career from the very start.

Grasshopper, Snatch the Pebble from My Soul; My Castle of Quiet Session, 26thAug09

The duo of Josh and Jesse have real, university-type musical educations, met while playing brass in ska bands, and yet somehow arrived at playing this music, that which would peel the paint off Lucifer's '71 glossy-black Dodge Charger. Though the on-air session happened in late August, and the archive of the full show has been up since that time, I held back posting these cleanly cut mp3s in the hopes of making an impression, one separate from the band's on-air appearance—that this blissed-out, Krautrock-flavored, spine-shuddering set amounts to no less than the Irrlicht of contemporary noise/electronics. A horrid dungeon, no question, but also one where hope has not quite died, and pretty things occasionally flutter by the window bars.

Death Compass
Zombie Shark Mangler

A nautical theme, perhaps? Leviathan Rising. To view a short video excerpt from the Grasshopper WFMU session, see this entry on the My Castle of Quiet blog.

Grasshopper plan to take on Fabio Frizzi's Zombie Theme (the opening music I currently use on the show), and eventually execute a live score to the entire Lucio Fulci Zombie film. Got a big screen? Can we do it at your place? I'll "curate" with pride, whatever that might en(r)tail. Seriously.
email castle@wfmu.org

The Grasshopper session (also known—by myself anyway—as "two monumental slabs of horror incarnate") is covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Jabladav, WFMU-exclusive track, "Loss"

The music of Jabladav (aka one-man, metal virtuoso James H. from NC, USA) takes me almost as often to The Court of the Crimson King as it does to screaming out my soul's anguish in a bone yard. Jabladav donated this monster exclusive track to our blog and Free Music Archive.

Jabladav - Loss

You can hear my (somewhat technically blunderous) interview with James, as part of the full My Castle of Quiet program archive from 9/16, by clicking here, and selecting your poison playback of choice.

The new Jabladav full-length, Atta Vinter, is perhaps James' finest work yet—a cohesive, album-style vision, that's very much a black metal record, as much as it's all over the map with surprising elements and influences. This is clearly a guy with tastes and a record collection to rival most WFMU DJs. Enjoy.

"Loss" is shared by Jabladav through a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

My Castle of Quiet Free Music Archive curator page

Caldera Lakes

Woolgathering vocal melodies hover foundationless over sheets of noise, drone and buzz. You get scared, though you're oddly comforted at the same time. Still, it feels better with that night-light on. You hear what might be footsteps, or bells, or someone sawing sheet metal. Such is the music of Caldera Lakes.

The duo of Married in Berdichev (aka Brittany Gould) and Kevin Shields (aka Eva Aguila) were generous enough to share this rough cut of their newest album (which will eventually reappear as a proper release in edited form) with My Castle of Quiet and WFMU (four of these six tracks premiered on my show September 2nd.)

The chaotic, sonic hailstorm conjured up by artists like Merzbow or Masonna meets the buoyant-but-bent psychedelia of Azalia Snail, or Fifty Foot Hose, in these enjoyable recordings. The epic closer, "Arctic Ghost," is especially magnificent. Enjoy.

Track 1
Track 2
It Tore Through the House
Track 4
Antiques of You
Arctic Ghost

These tracks are shared by Caldera Lakes through a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license, and will also be available through the Free Music Archive.
Photo portrait by Renata Raksha.

Better Living Through Bad Movies - Werewolf Woman (1976)

I will happily wade through hours of 70s Euro muck just to get to one Werewolf Woman. For every three middling giallos that I watch, one Werewolf Woman makes it all worthwhile.

What makes Werewolf Woman stand apart from the pack (hehe)? Alchemy. Getting the horror-to-schlock preparation just right, with a combination of familiar and strikingly unique genre elements:

-Wild scenes of gore, ranging from the kick-ass to the comic, depicting shocking murders, perpetrated on victims of both sexes—by a female antagonist!
-A B-grade Morricone-esque score that's all over the map, from prog rock, to pulsating electronics, from creepy orchestral music to softcore sex pop
-A lead actress who clearly relished the opportunity to bite out a man's throat, throw his body into a ravine and shriek vengeful anger as his corpse rolled away
-Uncomfortably long, simulated scenes of lovemaking that somehow just go with the terrain and make me laugh
-Despite the above, a buyable sexual/repression/revenge subtext; in fact, there are several immensely weird sexual scenes
-Close-up shots of character's eyes, another European trash-horror staple that always makes me titter
-An eventual romance with a stuntman who lives in a pre-fab Western town—wait, what???

Yes, this is one of those....

The movie begins with a scream, cutting quickly to a frenzied, naked dance in a fire circle, and pretty much just ascends from there.

The film is also far from terrible technically, and it's obvious that the director and cinematographer knew how to create tension, and how to film scenes of horrific murder for maximum impact.

Highly recommended.

Hide Your Christian Daughters—Marduk Returns!

Swedish black metal legends Marduk finally return to our shores after visa problems (so I'm told) forced them to cancel their stint on the Mayhem tour earlier this year. With the acknowledgment that many fans were deeply disappointed (myself included), Marduk didn't really belong on that tour anyway: The real stars were grind titans Cephalic Carnage and Cattle Decapitation. Mayhem, despite the presence of both Necrobutcher and drummer Hellhammer, and those handsome, satin 25 Years of... flags that flanked the stage, were really sort of lame - Attila Csihar being the Flavor Flav of black metal (substituting an oversize upturned cross for a timepiece.)

When I last saw Marduk, at a sparsely attended, all-ages show in Central Jersey in 2001 (then with fan-favorite vocalist Legion) they gave their all as if it were their big night at the Garden. Yes they came out in corpsepaint, leather and spikes, but beyond that there was no pomp, no pretense—just a love of black metal and the obvious relish of a chance to deliver it to their fans.

The current Marduk lineup basically dates from 2004, though the constant of guitarist Morgan Håkansson (aka Evil from Abruptum) remains. Guitarist Magnus "Devo" Andersson was also in Marduk over 1992-1994, playing on the great Those of the Unlight LP as well as the band's full-length debut. Marduk vocalist Daniel "Mortuus" Rosten is no slouch either, having fronted the mighty Triumphator (which also featured former Marduk drummer Fredrik Andersson), and his solo project Funeral Mist has been a fan and critic favorite for years. Yes, the Swedish black metal scene is a bit incestuous, but to our benefit, as this means these guys have chops on their chops, so it should be a great show.

Marduk will be releasing their 11th studio album, Wormwood, on Septemper 24 (Oct. 13 in the U.S.)

Below are a few career-spanning mp3s to entice you out this Saturday night; Marduk are playing the Blender Theater at Gramercy in NYC with Withered, Black Anvil and the excellent Tombs. Full Marduk tour dates can be seen here (there are Baltimore and Philadelphia shows that precede NY.) Marduk will also be making a meet-and-greet appearance (!) at Duff's in Williamsburg this Friday night.

Christraping Black Metal from Panzer Division Marduk
Night of the Long Knives from World Funeral
Seven Angels, Seven Trumpets from Plague Angel
Cold Mouth Prayer from Rom 5:12

Telecult Powers live set, 22nd July 2009

To say that Telecult Powers are a band after my own heart is to wallow in understatement. These guys brought me a double DVD of Asian horror, a red skull candle, and a copy of their latest tape. (Let it be known that I respond very favorably to such thoughtful tribute.) Then, they proceeded to carefully set up their home-built gear (which, by the way, made it into the building in one trip—no double-parking of car required!) Then, we rolled, and Telecult Powers proceeded to open a fissure in reality.

Telecult Powers are Mister Matthews and Witchbeam, synthesists extraordinaire, who very unassumingly make some of the best electronic music I've heard since MB or Con. Their sound pulls together so many things I like—soft noise, harsh noise, Krautrock, and occult electronics to name only a few—that their visit to My Castle of Quiet really just amounted to destiny fulfilled. I was gratified to have Mister Matthews write me the next morning and refer to the radio session as "some of our finest work yet," as their tapes are pretty fuckin' swell too (and packaged in Witchbeam's colorful, digital/occult/LSD illustrations.) These guys are just beginning to hit their stride...and they tell me there's some new vinyl coming soon.

Here is the entire Telecult Powers / My Castle of Quiet session, to download and enjoy, ideally by oscillating candlelight:

The Tushita Heaven
The Golden Shrine of Michael Aquarius

Live audio covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Hugh Cornwell and Hooverdam

Though my new WFMU show is immersion total in scary metal and noise, this particular aesthetic apex could never have been realized without the formative contribution of my obsession with The Stranglers. I feel compelled, as Diane Kamikaze has done in the past, to bang the drum for Hugh Cornwell—singer, author, guitarist and former co-frontman for the paranormal punk combo (who still record and tour without him, under the Stranglers moniker.) Hugh's made a great new record, Hooverdam, and you can download the full album for free, with Hugh's blessing, right here. Hooverdam will be a treat for Stranglers fans, as it creeps up on you that these catchy songs are very much in the spirit of the more straightforward Stranglers material—the album has some real strong moments, the more I listen to it. (Note that on the cover, Hugh's name is reproduced in the familiar "Stranglers font.")

Hugh has several shows in the NY area coming up in September (Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia on 9/8; the Brighton Bar in Long Branch, NJ on 9/9; The Record Collector in Bordentown, NJ on 9/11; and Highline Ballroom in NYC on 9/12); complete tour dates can be seen right here, at Hugh's Web site. It's also been announced that at his UK Academy dates in November, Hugh and the band will be performing Hooverdam as well as The Stranglers' classic album, Rattus Norvegicus IV—both in their entirety.

Since Hugh is giving these preview tracks away (the CD/LP are nicely packaged and are affordable to own as well), I'm hoping he won't mind my re-posting a few favorites here:

Delightful Nightmare
Rain on the River
The Pleasure of Your Company

There are also some amazing Stranglers clips up now on YouTube that you don't need my help finding, but here's a personal favorite, "Shah Shah A Go Go" from 1979:

Don Dohler Double Feature – The Alien Factor and Fiend

The Alien Factor (1978) is so archetypal of 70s ultra-low-budget sci-fi/horror that it almost seems like a SCTV parody of the genre. Loaded with awkward blocking and long snatches of blandly delivered expositional dialogue, its strength is in its simple charms: a few good ideas, some amusing characters, and enough money-shot visuals to inspire 100 great screen captures. These folks clearly worked hard on the monsters—one of which has anatomically built-in platform heels—and in general, your entertainment will come from the earnest and colorful visual effects and primitive, in-camera and stop-motion techniques. Make no mistake, The Alien Factor is eyeball-pleasin'; the title sequence alone should be canonized as some kind of holy representation of 70s goodness. If I seem to disparage The Alien Factor, it's only because Dohler's next feature goes straight to the heart of my aesthetic nerve centre. 

Everything that The Alien Factor may lack in sophistication is more than made up for by director Don Dohler's next movie, Fiend (aka Deadly Neighbor, 1980), a genuinely creepy, witty and highly original living-dead scenario. In the film, a mysterious alien force, an ethereal red-glowing flying thing, for reasons unknown to us, reanimates (or possesses) a buried corpse, and the combo adds up to one nasty character, an intense sadist named Mr. Longfellow. The trajectory is quite unpredictable, as our zombie pal takes over an empty house, opens a music school (!), and generally irritates his neighbors (whose somewhat banal interactions also provide their own amusing little subplot, especially as the length of the wife's hair keeps changing from scene to scene.) And oh yes, there's Longfellow's murder/sustenance rituals, which also consist of shouting and stabbing at photographs of his victims (and a lot of black candles.)

After Alien Factor, Dohler must have learned a lot about shot framing, suspenseful editing, and economy of dialogue, such that Fiend is elevated from being merely a visually charming, colorful oddity like its predecessor, to being an aggressively weird and disquieting horror tale. I'd also be remiss not to mention that both of these films feature a melodic, burbling synthesizer score (The Alien Factor by Kenneth Walker; Fiend by Paul Woznicki), so well done and so evocative of the time as to give me a super-warm fuzzy. See the My Castle of Quiet blog for a downloadable cinelogue audio excerpt from Fiend.

It's obvious that despite challenges of budget, Dohler and his crew worked hard to try and make good, entertaining movies, and, at least with Fiend, came pretty close to some metaphysical horror fan's ideal. Dohler is something of a legend, especially in his native Baltimore, and now I see why. Many thanks to James for the loan of the two-in-one DVD (released 2005), and for insisting that we give these bent pictures an eyeball.

Another Don Dohler film, Galaxy Invader, can be viewed or downloaded for free here via archive.org. There's also a well-reviewed and relatively new Dohler documentary, released on DVD earlier this year.

My Castle of Quiet Radio, Premiering Tonight

After a sabbatical of over ten years, where I was immersed in vital and dangerous field research, I'll be returning to WFMU's weekly airwaves tonight at 8 p.m.

I'm in search of ossuaries, graveyards, gothic cemetaries, horror-film festivals and vampire clubs interested in hosting live, remote broadcasts. 

Live playlist available here.

Morgue Story & The Dead Outside

Of the films I saw in the San Francisco Roxie Cinema's 6th annual Another Hole in the Head festival, two features stood out high above the lot: the Brazilian horror/comedy Morgue Story (Sangue, Baiacu e Quadrinhos), and the almost static, post-plague survival drama from Scotland, The Dead Outside (trailers viewable at those links.) These are two very different films, to be sure, but they share two significant common ingredients: an empowered, gutsy heroine, hell bent on survival (these chicks are neither skinny, nor do they shriek and fall down when running); and a visual and color palette that distinguishes the story immediately as its own universe. (Sadly, I left town the night the tantalizingly Mother's Day-esque Run! Bitch Run! premiered; anyone who's seen it should feel free to chime in with their thoughts.)

Morgue Story is a taut, clever and grisly horror comedy with an Evil Dead II-like dual sense of calamity and humor that leaves nothing off the, uh, slab. When Ana, a successful graphic novelist (who has nonetheless lost at love, and whose most famous character is a "living dead") ends up not-quite-dead in the morgue, she runs afoul of a sleazily efficient, God-fearing necrophiliac coroner. Also in the mix is a self-effacing cataleptic, who looks like Lux Interior's younger, paler brother and may just be an (albeit weak-willed) ally for our heroine. The three spar off verbally and physically as the English subs fly by, unpredictable shifts of power occur, and you find yourself reacting with equal measures of laughter and revulsion to the fairly graphic scenes of necrophilia. Everything is shot in grey, green and sepia tones, the washed-out institutional colors perfectly underscoring the essences of death, depravity and sickness. This is the only film I saw in the whole festival where the crowd immediately erupted in enthusiastic and unanimous applause at the conclusion. That tells me the world needs more necrophiliac comedies—or at least this one.

Come see The Dead Outside expecting buckets of blood and non-stop zombie action, and you will be disappointed. The Dead Outside is more the zombie-film equivalent of listening to your favorite Oval LP, which turns out to be not at all a bad thing. Moody and hovering, with an excellent soundtrack that veers from drony buzz into gentle piano melodies, The Dead Outside reads like a side tale to 28 Days Later if directed by Atom Egoyan. As with Morgue Story, the action here centers on an unconventionally attractive heroine, a hard-boiled, chip-toothed goth girl who's slaughtered her own family in order to survive, and is played with resonance by Sandra Louise Douglas (who seems destined to flash her violently blue eyes on bigger screens.) The danger in The Dead Outside is less in the infected that keep getting stuck in the barbed wire outside, than it is in the minds of the survivors who must live out the daily drudgery that is post-zombie-plague existence. Again, the expectations of horror purists may be let down here, and the film also loses minor points for dropping critical exposition to the lack of subtitles (it's been a long time since I saw Teenage Fanclub, and my Scots is rusty.) Though The Dead Outside does have a few scenes of seat-jumping zombie action, that won't be why you remember it. Its muted blues and greens, and matter-of-fact realism, tell a very atypical and understated horror tale.

P.S. - I'll be returning to weekly broadcasting on WFMU this summer, after a ten-year hiatus. Tune in for the premiere of My Castle of Quiet, Wednesday, June 24, at 8 p.m. ET.

Horndogs Rejoice! - Sexlab Cometh

Have you ever wanted to ask a WFMU radio personality about cunnilingus technique, clitoral stimulation, anal doucheing or "the helicopter"? Yeah, maybe not. But this Friday you'll have your chance anyway, when Sexlab hits the Web waves.

Conceived in a hailstorm of double entendres by our illustrious Queen of Friday Nights, Pseu "Honey Pot" Braun, and gestated in a dong-shaped space station by Pseu and her colleagues / co-researchers Mark "ASS9000" Allen and myself, Wm. "Money Shot" Berger, Sexlab is designed to hold your, um, "hand" and glide you into this new century of suckin' and fuckin'.

While Dave Mandl fills in for Pseu at our FM frequencies and on the regular Web stream, Sexlab will be streaming (with volume AND distance!) at an alternate Web feed accessible at wfmu.org. As Mark says, "online only, because in the Internet the FCC can't hear you curse."

And me? I started rubbing it to Morticia Addams when I was eight years old, and I haven't looked back since. I've been told more than once that I have an "enthusiasm," a certain bonus zeal for the sex act, so hopefully my life of gradual transition from hyper-libidinous man-slut to happily monogged married man will be of service to someone. And my colleagues, well they're unrepentantly horny bastards, too. Either way, Pseu, Mark and I can pretty much guarantee it will be funny (and hopefully genuinely informative as well.)

Sexlab will be live on the Web, this Friday, May 22, from 8-11 p.m. ET. We'll be taking your calls at (201) 209–9368 (for those prone to jump the gun, store that load in your third eye and call us then, not before.) If you'd like to submit a question or suggest a discussion topic in advance (or during the broadcast), we've set up a special email address: asksexlab@wfmu.org

Sexlab Facebook Page (for throbbing members only)

Even Dwarfs Started Small (1971)

After years of only marginal interest on my part (plus a few more years of the DVD kicking around in my Netflix queue) I finally got around to watching Werner Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small. I'm an enthusiastic Herzog fan and have seen many of his films and enjoyed them tremendously, but for some reason the notion of this one had never been terribly compelling to me. An "uncompromising allegory about the consequences of imprisonment and rebellion" and a "powerful statement about the repercussions of ostracism," as the Netflix sleeve tries to convince me? Perhaps. And perhaps my hero just wanted to show little people parading around with a live monkey tied to a cross. Los Olvidados shot from waist high. Visions of a "profound nightmare." Acknowledged, Herzog did take very good care of his actors.

In the commentary on the DVD, he says that he "fear(s) chickens because they are so stupid." The word "gloom" also comes up a lot, which, when he says it, sounds like "gluume." Herzog also says, "It's not that the midgets are monstrous, and that was a misunderstanding" ... "Some of the fiercest opposition ... was from the dogmatic left, which believed that this film depicted, was somehow, ridiculing and depicting the world revolution, which was failing, and was ending in destruction and catastrophes." Watching Even Dwarfs... with the director's commentary track rolling turned out to be the least ambivalence-producing experience for me, as it often happens that I find Herzog the lunatic, Herzog the creative force of nature, to be even more interesting than his films. Either way, Even Dwarfs... is filled with some arresting and beautifully photographed images. If you've visited my full-time Web home, My Castle of Quiet, you know that I appreciate a good DVD screen capture—so here are a few of my favorites from EDSS:

Better Living Through Bad Movies - Blood Sabbath (1972)

A walk into the woods is a primal human experience, like staring at the ocean. It re-connects us with the infinite and the subconscious. We feel fear, and irresistible expectation. Though real forests have finite borders, in the subjectivity of our psyches, anything can happen under the cover of the treetops—and that's part of what we love about the woods. It's a theme that's been explored by auteurs from Shakespeare to Sam Raimi, and in horror films from Equinox to The Blair Witch Project and beyond.

What might a stateless, flashback-ridden Vietnam vet find on a walk into the woods in 1972? That question is more than answered by the deliciously oddball American film Blood Sabbath, which despite its obvious lack of resources, comes off inventive, low-key, and generally well done—in contrast to the (nonetheless beloved by me) Euro-schlock horror/fantasy pictures of the same period. Blood Sabbath is also packed with top-shelf cult talent: David, the hapless young soldier, is played by Tony Geary, later to become Anthony Geary, and achieve global notoriety playing Luke on General Hospital (thankfully, Blood Sabbath is pre-perm); and Alotta, Queen of the Witches (yes—you read that right) is played by none other than Dyanne Thorne, world-renown for her tenure playing Ilsa in all the Ilsa movies.

Our hero David, for whatever reason, runs in terror from three aggressively playful, stark-naked hippie girls who ambush him early on in the film, yet moments later has no problem falling irreversibly and painfully in love with a mysterious lady of the lake who's wearing a very distracting wig. (As my wife put it, Yyalah, said lady of the lake, is "magical.") See what happens later in the story when David, now under Alotta's power, hungrily accepts a chalice of sacrificial blood—this clip of David's ritual-induced fever dream is most definitely not safe for work. View below or download in m4v format to have and hold.

Kustom Kompilation: War Pigs

In 1970, Black Sabbath created what I consider to be the ultimate anti-war song.  Far from a whiny, folksy, gently phrased call to resistance, "War Pigs" is an electric nightmare, heavily drenched in gloom, placing war in its deserved, real-life horror context, and re-casting our generals (and by extension, our statesmen) as "sorcerer(s) of death's construction." The song is a perennial rock anthem, and its riff-vocal-riff-vocal call/response pattern in the verses must be familiar to almost everyone in the world.

In 2003, swollen with frustration over the new Iraq war (which continues to rage on in idiocy), I was inspired to create a compilation of my favorite versions of the Sabbath classic, as well as render a deconstruction of my own (see track 5.) The compilation was purely subjective and is not intended to be comprehensive at all, hence the exclusion of versions by Rondellus, Gov't Mule, Sacred Reich and Hayseed Dixie. Since 2003, I have added a very worthy interpretation by Cake (complete with Latin brass.) Obviously, all these versions meet my standard, but I'm especially fond of the opener, by hardcore-techno-gabber freaks Doormouse.

War Pigs, by:

Doormouse | Faith No More | PIG | Slaves on Dope | Sinistre! | Cake

Download CD insert / artwork

If you have a Facebook login, you can join the Death and Hatred to Mankind FB Group—where our discourse on this great song can continue indefinitely....

On DVD: Three Rewarding, Ridiculous Horror Films

The Loreley's Grasp

In Amando de Ossorio's 1974 fantasy film, The Loreley's Grasp, half the characters seem to be making the best of it circa 1900, while at the nearby all-girls' boarding school, they're listening to 70s groove, and giggling around the pool in string bikinis.  I cannot explain this—and it doesn't matter—in this gothic/gore/swinger/monster movie from the creator of the Blind Dead series.  An ageless beauty menaces both the young lovelies at the school and the earnest townspeople indiscriminately, for she's actually a Rubbermaid®-glove-clad sea monster who must murder constantly to perpetuate her existence.  Not exactly a spoiler there.  I just watched this recently, and it's a mind-muncher—I have to see it again just to wrap my head around all the boobs, gore and ersatz-mosphere.

Dracula vs. Frankenstein

How could I not love my wife even more after she referred to Zandor Vorkov's awkward portrayal of the legendary Count as "the exposition vampire"?  Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) is not so much a horror movie, as it is a meta-charming, somewhat slightly self-aware B film, with crummy effects and loads of day-for-night hospitality.  An added bonus is a small appearance by late Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, whose attitude and magazine shaped my young mind immeasurably and irreversibly.  (Forry recently answered my Facebook friend request, so apparently he continues to snicker from beyond the grave!) Initially released on DVD in 2001 by Troma (there have been other editions since), Dracula vs. Frankenstein is also of note for being the last film appearance for both J. Carrol Naish and Lon Chaney Jr.  Ignore the low ratings out there for this one—DvF is a corker!

Vengeance of the Zombies

Hinduism, trendy spiritualism, full-body paint, the living dead and cheesy sex scenes all go together, right?  They do in this atmospheric romp from auteur Paul Naschy (aka the Spanish Lon Chaney) and director Leon Klimóvsky.  Klimóvsky, an Argentinean, was a Spanish exploitation-film legend, and directed some of Naschy's finest films, including Werewolf Shadow and Dr. Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo.  Vengeance... is an occult/living dead/revenge construct that's satisfying on every level—providing that your levels include lurid color, wooden acting, a crazily meandering plot, and semi-nude female zombies moving in perpetual slo-mo.  The film is also the most genuinely horrifying of the three titles mentioned here, with several brutal killings and creepy ideas in abundance.  An added bonus is Juan Carlos Calderón's wonderful score, reminiscent of Piero Umiliani at times, or a psych-rock Morricone circa Malamondo.  Here is a link to download the score (as one, long mp3 file) at my full-time Web home, My Castle of Quiet.

Me and Ian Curtis

The important question about Ian Curtis is not so much "why?" as "who?"  What bizarre concoction of humanity led to that pale glare through sad eyes, that earnest intensity, that rigor-mortis twist, those haunting, opaque lyrics? I didn't get the answer from Anton Corbijn's otherwise gorgeously filmed and serviceable 2007 bio-feature Control.  Samantha Morton, a wonderful actor to watch, played a full-blooded Deborah Curtis, complex, touchable and sympathetic. Conversely, Sam Riley's Ian Curtis is almost completely bloodless, empty—except for the fact that the actor perfectly animated Curtis' look and physicality as a masterful mimic.  Since the film was based on Deborah Curtis' book about her life with the singer, perhaps this hollowness is somehow to the point of the narrative.  Curtis may just have been a cracked actor, like the creation of his beloved Bowie.  I've got the spirit, but lose the feeling.  Feeling-feeling-feeling...feel-ing!

In my own ridiculous way, I have sought the soul of Ian Curtis, through contemplative hours of listening to Joy Division's music, the Warsaw tapes etc.  So when WFMU got the Factory flexi disc of "Incubation" (back in the middle 80s), I was inspired to allow my Curtis worship to take the form of parody, since "Incubation" is an instrumental that just begs for some lyrics, crying out for a treatment by way of the Closer LP.  Apologies in advance...

This is one piece from my archive that Daniel Blumin and I did not get around to playing during our broadcast for WFMU's radio greats weekend.  I know the track has made a lot of friends and listeners happy in years past.  I take you now to a clammy primary-school classroom...it's after hours, almost night, a janitor is mopping the hallway floor outside, mumbling to himself...little eggs are pulsating under yellow light....

Incubation

Bonus track: "Means to an End"  WFMU Marathon Promo

And before you mock, remember that I was about 23 when I did this, the same age Ian Curtis was when he hung himself.  We all make some unfortunate choices at that age.

If you enjoy my bi-weekly posts here on Beware of the Blog, you can also check in with me daily at My Castle of Quiet.