And in the darkness

 

And in the darkness we dance 

and paint portraits of empty frames

When the silence falls

there is no fear

only joy in the vast night

Yours in short poetry,

Count Robot

Open

 Open

He breaks his skin open

more akin to a carapace

than skin

Drink to my sin

where do I begin

to melt away

Milky Way not 

here this day

I'm shattered

into the sea of shadows

Drinking in the empire of shadows

I've only seen this before

His skin is broken open

Follow me to the ending

Yours in something else,

Count Robot

Fell

 Fell

A star fell out of his back pants pocket last night as he flowed his way home through the neon swept rainfall which offers no warmth to the sleeping ground and every sound is a laugh track to the sodden image of the rundown to your residence in the sundown estates where all the stars fall out of your pocket but they light the way 

Night does not have to slay the day.

Yours in words,

Count Robot

A Rural Road

 

A Rural Road

The lizard of circumstance

demands you to prance

in a non-geopolitical stance

Moose flossing

with candy crossing

is the fly way to

your inner most buy way

A festival of garlic art

inside or being part 

and particle of a

mulch mart

An insubstantial semi-solid bear

is barely there

If this poem is a joke

it just broke

Yours in dumb poetry,

Count Robot

The Gypsy Moths new album, Here We Are

Here We Are is the new amazing Gypsy Moths album

It's a double album jammed with tunes!

This album isn't just a tribute to your cool aunt and uncle's record collection, this is a tribute to what the future of music should be all about. Rock and roll that is 

sinewy and has just the right amount of teeth and is looking at the present as well as the past. This is the album the Rolling Stones wish they could write today.

Yes, some of these songs appeared on the Gypsy Moths recent EP, but I don't care. They slot in well with the rest of these songs. 

1. And You Know I Do - Sunshine pop at the finest level. Jumping and bobbing along. 

2. Still I Recall - A breezy joy recalling the beautiful soul songs of the late 60's/ early70s'. Wonderful guitar work.

3. Leave You With This - Singer Steve O'Brien is a vocal chameleon. I didn't even recognise him at points during this song and I think that's great when a musician can surprise you with their skill.

4. Heart To Break - If I had a heart to break... Another fine example of guitarist Chris Conway's skills. 

5. Rubber Dubber -A song about bootleg records!? Yes!!! This is a glorious ode to the maniacs and pirates who would record shows for fun and occasionally for profit.

How amazing to describe the whole thing in a song! A pirate's record shop sets sail!!!! This track is worth the whole album.

6. Fall of Sam Tully (C and Third) - We go from a story of record pirates to a suspected pirate hanging in 1812 in South Boston. Gorgeous keys on this track. 

7. Train Tickets - What is it about trains that make such great songs and stories? If you want the answer to that question listen to this track.

8. Fold Up The Air - A classic example of psych pop. The guitar is killer. Close up the sky. The keys on this one too... just sublime.

9. Last Night at the Pickwick - A song about the collapse of the Pickwick theatre in MA. The Moths excel at giving us charming history songs about tragedies. I don't know if I can ever explain how they do it and do it so well, but here it is regardless. Conway turns in another excellent karate chop of a guitar solo and by that I mean, its quick and hits you just the right way.

10. She Doesn't Love You -Some gorgeous slide guitar work on this one! A... non love song, here to pick us up after the last tune.

11. Better Beware - Nice breathy FX on this track. It's not the end of the world but you can see it from here.... genius! 

12. Like We Used To Do - Jazzy, loungey, this one has got it. Reminds me of Frank Sinatra after having just the right amount of cocktails. A gem! Meant for a nice slow dance.

13. Tell Me She's Alright - Tell me she's in love, so I can go... The last line.... wow. This is such a potent song! Gets me every time. The change at the end too... grand!

14. Cover For Me - Fun! This song is a real good turn around after the heavy vibe of the last one. Ridiculously fun line in this one, "I go home alone with my xylophone!".

15. Go On Forever - Good riff on this track! Nice rock and waltzing feel. Great thick keyboard sound.

16. Invisible Stickball Paint - Love that intro beat. Drink an ocean dry... You can feel this song whenever you stare at your record collection.

17. Maybe You're Dreaming - Nice use of vocal FX track. Good backing vocals too. Reminds me of what the Beach Boys could do so well. There's some tasty jangling guitar here too.

18. All That I Can - A dark juke joint song. The kind that makes the jukebox shake with fear and joy when you play it.

19. He Really Must - Another rocking tune. The keys on this one really shine. Nice keyboard outro. 

20. Washashore - A ballad! Feels like a dream of a song playing late night on a white sand beach even though its the Winter.

21. Ship To Shore - "Clocks run faster than I can" Great lyrics! 

22. Rock-Ola 444 - A song about music and its got a solid dance groove. A nice fun song before the heavy one coming up.

23. Shots And Prayers -A song that shouldn't have to be written but needed to be created. Why the hell are we here? The innocent go underground. This song is the truth. I am so tired of living in the world capital of mass shootings. Thank you Moths for writing this much needed song. Chris Conway's guitar solo is perfectly deft. Get down. Listen!

24. Before The Lights Went Out - A nice refresher after the heaviness of the last tune, but wait it isn't. It's a beautiful song about lost friends. This is the beauty of the Gypsy Moths they make you feel. So much music doesn't have depth or feeling but the Moths push all the emotions to the foreground. This is truly beautiful song.

25. Looking For You - The album closer and a long song! A nice end to this double album. This song stretches out well and doesn't overstay its welcome conclusion.

The production on the whole album is lush and emphasises just what the listener wants to hear at the right moment.

If Massachusetts was an album, this would be it.

Yours in great rock and roll,

Count Robot

Deathstalker (2025)

Earlier this month I caught the remake of Deathstalker.

For those not in the know, the original Deathstalker movie was an 80's Conan knockoff (there are a lot of those). The original was trashy and low budget but fun.

I saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse in Boston. Before the movie they show really weird music videos and clips from movies. Here's a pic of one bizarre music video they showed.

As to the remake itself... better than the original! At least I think so. Lots of fun and unexpected bits.

I dig it. 

The low budget practical fx are just what I wanted.

Yours in flicks,

Count Robot
 

Never After

 Never After

The after party 

for the after party 

for the after life party

is where I want to go

But I can never go

I don't deserve to go

I failed my family and friends alike

I'm way past the third strike

They won't let me go

They won't let me in

I am a sin

I am the din

from which nothing can begin

Yours in moribund words,

Count Robot

The Voice of Space

 You can now hear the Voice of Space.

It's the latest album by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al.

Yes this is another write up about one of our albums.

Here we are, track by track. 

I - this is to denote chapter/side one of the material

1. The Conversation 4:35

The album opens with the spritely instrumental, The Conversation. Three instruments try to talk to each other. Or you could say, an electric guitar, a mandolin, and a Genometer walk into a bar...

It builds and builds then devolves. This one wasn't altered too much from the original jam. Just smoothed and trimmed a bit. 

Tim & DNA Girl were really in synch here, hence the title.

2. Thank You, Sun! 10:27   

Thank You, Sun. This is a lengthy track. Three disconnected stories are narrated. DNA Girl rails about the current state of national affairs, Tim recounts a 

a friendly communique from our nearest solar mass, Count Robot blabs about something. The lines about consuming art are a parody of a ridiculous interview I read that someone had with an over inflated actress who complained about not watching the majority of movies she was in because they weren't her type of art. Real art consumes you, not the other way around.

3. Mia And The Giant Water-Klong 3:03

A guest appearance by our dearly departed black cat Mia. Tim drops in some field recordings of rain water running down a drain. This one is a wild blaze of sound.

Sound is fun to experiment with. Lots of sounds from radio tunings as well. All of it filtered through a wall of varying effects. The thinking here is that the track is a good

break before you dive into the second half of the album.

II -We're now on side two/chapter two

4. The Cheese Witch/Duelling Cheeses 6:59

DNA Girl visits the Cheese Witch. Cheese can be love or strangeness. Floating cheese! This track really needed a spoken word bit. There was a lot of open space in

it that a talking bit really could fill. A bit of a tribute to the Who in the story. I used the Genometer here and there on this track. So you're probably wondering,

Hey, what is a Genometer? It's an old oscillating device designed to send test signals to various machines. I find if you mess with it enough and put the right effects 

on it, you can make some darn spacey weird sounds. Hawkwind probably used something like it back in the day.

5. The Voice of Space 15:08

Ah, here we are. The end of the album, the title track, the longest epic song on the album. Is this our best track? Who knows, but it is my most liked track on this 

album. There is a fifteen minute jam from 2023 which makes the bedrock of the track. While mixing the album, I found an 11 minute jam from 2019 that I thought

would fill out the gaps in the 2023 recording. So they were combined together. Then we threw in a pile of transistor radio recordings. I purposefully left the sounds of

Tim laughing during the jam in, because they were such a joyous sound and I think it helped add to the texture. DNA Girl's woodrow playing is from 2019.

Tim has some tasty serpent guitar playing around the end. Tim gave me some field recordings of birds and cars that slotted in well.

I don't know how many times I've heard this track, and damn, I am not bored with it in the least. I dig it because there's so many sounds and layers.

Who played what:

Tim Mungenast: Danelectro 1457 electric guitar, voice, Zoom Player 2100 multi-effects unit, Amzel Electronics Cheshire Cat distortion, 

Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom Fuzz, Convulso-Suggesto Homeo-Pharge in the Key of Landru, field recordings, transistor radio, the Spring Thing, 

Blasphemodule

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl: Octave mandolin, metal tongue drum, FX, voice, percussion, transistor tomfoolery, cow bell, woodrow

Count Robot: Bass, FX, Genometer, voice, Jamit, transistor radio

I played bass a lot on this album. It was fun.

The jamit toy is a toy sampler. It was given to me by local legend Bill T Miller. Thanks Bill.

Guest vocals by Mia the Cat on Mia and The Giant Water-Klong

Copyright 2025 Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Compiled and constructed from recordings done in  2025, 2023, 2021, & 2019 in Ballston Spa, NY, Weirdfield, MA, & a rail trail tunnel in Stoneham, MA.

The bulk of these recordings were made from a session done on the rainy night of 10/7/23 following the rainy afternoon recording sessions for the Hemlock Echoes album by our band Amplissima who also put out an album this year. That album, Hemlock Echoes was culled from the rainy afternoon recording. 

Tim had suggested to DNA Girl and I that we should do some jamming when we got back to our house. I was exhausted from the Amplissima recording session and damp as damp the word damp being spoken in the rain in the English countryside. I thought the jam wasn't going to be much of anything, however once we started to play I could feel a new excitement. I think my playing the bass and stumbling around the room helped.

Those few jams we did that night were enough to base the album around. I had to supplement it with some prior recordings we did and some new stuff but those jams we did that night were the bedrock that built an album I am rather pleased with.

It is a true bliss making this music with the talented goat being, Tim Mungenast. Thanks Tim.

Yours in album blabbing,

Count Robot

No Thanks

A hypothetical conversation that hasn't happened yet but someday will.

Some random fool: "Hey why don't you use AI to write a novel?"

Me: "Hey, why don't you punch yourself in the face?"

I could never use AI to work on a novel. Why? There are many reasons.

One very important reason to me, is that a novel is a mystery in my own head. I am trying to solve the problem of writing what is in my head, getting it written out and figuring out what I am trying to say.

Why use something artificial to try to figure out myself?

If I can't solve my own mysteries, what right do I have to share them with anyone else?

Yours in AI should do my laundry,

Count Robot

Star Trek vs Nazis

 If you're a Nazi, don't talk to me.

I recently re-watched the episode of Star Trek where they went to a planet taken over by Nazis caused by interference from a Federation historian.

It reminds me too much of things happening now. People who watch Star Trek may not have seen the lessons that were written into it no matter how many times they supposedly watched it. 

A society based on hate is a society based on failure.

Nazis are losers because they believe in hate.

Don't be a loser.

Yours in anti-fascism,

Count Robot

Five By Five From Four

 

Five By Five From Four is an EP by the legendary Boston band, the Gypsy Moths.

And I LOVE it!

Here's a quick write up about it.

1. And You Know I Do -So bouncy and perfectly 1960s whenever. Wistfully happy. Reminds me of some of the best Monkees songs.

2. Before The Lights Went Out -Reminiscing about the past is a great power of music. Really melancholy lyrics but in a true way not some teen goth way, releasing the sadness of people who have passed but in a way that helps you share out and wear out the pain.

3. Cover For Me -Fun and poppy. A nice upbeat swing after the previous track. Go home with my xylophone alone. fun lyrics! 

4. Fold Up The Air - My favorite song of the EP. Freaking beautiful. Psych pop in the best way possible. This song gets stuck in my head all the time and I never mind it living there. That guitar and piano! They sound glorious. The whole song is lush and captured perfectly.

5.Tell Me She's Alright -A fun lost love story. The ending of the story in the song sneaks up on you. It's very clever. The ending of the music catches me off guard too. I really dig how it messes with me in the right way.

If you love rock and roll, this is the EP for you. 

Best EP of 2025? Yes it is.

Yours in the love of music,

Count Robot 

Live from Evil Clown Headquarters

 

Saturday night we did this show on youtube which you can check out above.

Here are some behind the scene photos as well.

This first one is our toy piano on the right and to the left the Evil Clown HQ toy piano. Note on the lower left Tim Mungenast's mighty Roland Echo unit. The thing sounds incredible.

Another pic from my vantage point. You can see how much gear is jammed into this room.

More gear porn.

DNA Girl tuning her mandolin and looking sharp.

Paul or someone taking a picture of me taking a picture of the room.

Pek wrote down a lot of words from the episode of the Tick that this show is a tribute to, you can find the episode on youtube if you search for it.

8 cameras! Here is the video switcher

Sound desk! Sound by Joel. 

Love and video,

Count Robot

M

Is the dead flat mouse really waving its claw at me or is the claw just moving in the wind? Who do I think is going to answer these raving questions that I ask over and over again? What madness repetition is this typing and questioning? The dead flat mouse on the cracked hot pavement knows no answers or questioning Is it more dead than I am? There's no stink, just a heat drenched wind moving an indifferent branch I could be gorged on hatred and raging stupidity, but I am too worn through to care or subsist on the diet of molten misery 

Yours in copyrighted misanthropy, 

Count Robot

Static Apparitions- Ghost Dog

Here is another album write up.

Ghost Dog is the fourth Static Apparitions album.

The cover is a painting by DNA Girl that she collaged with some other art.

1. Euphoric Electrons - Guitar and tone explorations with tinkling percussion.

2. Ghost Dog - The opening sound is an Aztec Death Whistle being blown out into the expanse of Echo Bridge. To me it is a glorious haunting sound.

The dog samples come from a public domain horror movie. There is a dialogue sample from a different public domain horror movie, The House on Haunted Hill. 

We can never have enough Vincent Price in our wall of sound.

3. Transdimensional Conversation - Ever find yourself on a virtual meeting where the audio goes wrong? We thought why not explore that idea. We caused a virtual meeting to feedback. Also featuring some distorted guitar crazed sounds. 

4. Enigma Beach - The bulk of this track was recorded on a winter night on Revere Beach in MA. Beaches save their greatest magic for winter nights.

5. Darling, the Only Ghoul in the House is You - Includes a sample from the incredibly fun spooky flick House on Haunted Hill. The original version of course. There's no topping Vincent Price.

6. Mia’s Lament - Featuring a guest appearance by Mia the cat on vocals. Cats will always cat and comment on what they want.

In this instance Mia complained that she wanted food & attention, thus her lament.

Static Apparitions is (Astro Al under another name):

Madame Inconnue (AKA DNA Girl): vocals, voice, guitar, percussion, mandolin, FX, reel to reel tape recorder, Woodrow 

Baron Vincent Von Lugosi (AKA Count Robot): Aztec death whistle, voice, weird sound generator, FX, microphones, monotron, samples, reel to reel tape recorder, waterphone, genometer

Guest appearance by Mia the cat

Recorded in Edinburgh Scotland, London England, Echo Bridge MA, Revere Beach MA, and Weirdfield MA 

Yes a few bits and pieces were recorded over seas while DNA Girl and I were traveling. I always try to capture interesting moments while we're traveling.

Improvised, edited, produced, and mastered by Static Apparitions 

So what's the difference between Astro Al and Static Apparitions?

Besides the name, there is a big difference. Do you hear it?

Perhaps not.

The difference comes from this, Static Apparitions features no lyrics and no understandable spoken word pieces. Yes, samples pop up and spoken word segments appear but only in distorted, soundscape format, were the spoken word bits are just sound forms with no meaning.

Yours in another album write up,

Count Robot (AKA Baron Vincent Von Lugosi)

Neurodivergent Orchestra - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight - 9/20 - 7 pm EST

 

A few times a year I am lucky enough to be a part of a free live stream with a group of super talented musicians.

Each show is totally different and is improvised. Sometimes its improvised around a theme. This upcoming one is centered around a theme.

URL link for next Saturday show

https://youtube.com/live/t5ZTgoKheW4?feature=share

 

Check this out…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkzptjhCkbs

Inspiration for the title…

If you want to see the show but can't make the time, don't fret. It is available on demand forever after the live set ends. You can also pause and restart the live stream at any time its running.

These shows are a party for your ears

Yours in fun,

Count Robot

Border Crossing by Astro Al & wondiferous sound explorer Vanessa LeFevre

 This post is about the collaboration album Border Crossing by Astro Al & Vanessa LeFevre.

This is a lovely strange album of improvised sound sculptures.

It is the second full length Astro Al collaboration with Vanessa. Hopefully there are more to come.

We’ll discuss the other collab later.

We recorded on a pleasant Saturday afternoon on that planet of miscreants, called Earth.

Vanessa doesn’t live very far from us, which is a refreshing change as our frequent collaborator Tim Mungenast lives hours away.

One thing I really dig about Vanessa is her unique collection of handmade instruments which she really knows how to play well to get some gorgeously strange sounds.

The ever spectacular Jerry Kranitz, uber music fan and all around grand person, gave us permission to quote from his amazing write up of this album that he posted on Facelessbook. So, here is one of my favourite lines from Jerry’s post.

The smell of incense is wafting out of my speakers! 

1.Border Crossing - Pulsing tribal beats as the track sprawls on. What border are we crossing? Your brain or your souls border? Or perhaps it's both at the same time. This track was collaged together from two separate jams.

2. West Branch -Blues guitar and walls of weird tones. Vanessa weaves some fine weirdness with her arsenal of sounds. Vanessa gave this track its title. 

3. Circus of the Disjointed Acrobats - More weirdness. Some spoken word cliches layered over themselves. Shroom moms killed coolness. DNA Girl gave us the title for this track. The first track with some voice stuff on it. There aren't a lot of talky tracks in this collection. Not planned that way, just the way it happened. I believe I was manipulating some cassette recorders during this one.

4. Alien Intake - Sometimes in these jams I'm not sure which sound is coming from which one of us. I'm pretty sure I'm torturing the slide whistle on this one. The fun percussion is from Vanessa.

5. UFOs Over New Jersey - Vanessa named this track. Around the time we were working on this, there was lots of speculation about UFOs in New Jersey. Hence the title. The great opening sound is by Vanessa. The melodica is by DNA Girl. This is the sound of a UFO in search of a beach. Not sure what I'm doing during this track.

6. Used Ravens  - I blab a bit in this one. Pondering the possible fate of Edgar Allen Poe being born in the 21st century, along with other talented folk. Some times words are just part of the soundscape. 

7.Transmission from Tiangong - A psychedelic wind down from a psychedelic trip. Vanessa generated some great tones in this track. Also there is a field recording she made cicada hunting. It fit in very well. Vanessa has a superb library of field recordings. More on that in a future blog post.

Border Crossing was released June 6, 2025. We've put out a lot of stuff this year. Hopefully there will be more. There is a lot of stuff in line for 2026.

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl: Guitar, cigar box guitar, bodran, hand drum, melodica, reverb pedal, organ machine pedal

Count Robot (your author): Voice, zither, FX, monotron (a mini hand held synth), slide whistle, kazoo, cassette recorder, modified cassette recorder (a cassette recorder modified to have an FX unit built into it), otamatone (a Japanese sound making device), shaker  

Astro Al performs with the wonderful Vanessa LeFevre: Voice, the Autospring (made by Vanessa LeFevre), the Bass Lamellophone (made by Jason Sanford), Diddley Bow, hand drum, field recordings

Thanks for the fun Vanessa!

The cover is a photo of a road through the Joshua Tree desert in California. I dig it. The title of the album was by Vanessa. DNA Girl did the cover design and I think she really did a fab job. I particularly enjoy the clouds.

Yours in otherworldly sounds,

Count Robot

Another Commercial for Place Commercial Here

 A Commercial Blog Post For The Album Place Commercial Here

Hello

This blog post is all about the Astro Al album Place Commercial Here.

Song by song. Here we go.

1. Gothnik Poetry - A term I created based off a review I wrote of a fantastic album by Abstract Companion called This Haunted Play 

It’s darker than your average beatnik poetry. Robert Smith from the Cure reading William Burroughs. Will your pie crusted feet care when you’re ground six feet under?

2. Deep Fried Freedom - Chumpisim is Facisim. Fascists are never the heroes. We don’t need to pour more flames onto the planet. Be better than these dark moments. Infestation, distraction, jerk reaction, what do we do but put fire on the fire? The rich know what’s best for us.

3. Tough Turkeys - Mildly based on a true hallucination. I am still convinced a turkey tried to carjack me right near Thanksgiving. This is that tale. The moral is everything. the rainbow machine fx pedal does its thing well during this track.

4. Brown Eyes - A love poem. Spoken through a wall of weird. We managed to get some nice synth sounds on this one. The waves are crashing over me.

5. Follicle Challenged American - Rush wrote I Think I’m Going Bald, why can’t I create the words for this one? All I want is what’s fair, all I want is more hair? Truffle flake cheese giant gila monster hair stylists prance before they dance. The words for this one was written out in advance and used to improvise upon.

6. An Alligator A Day - Word play. An alligator a day keeps the crocodiles away. I used a voice changer toy a lot during this album. I would dig hanging out with a guitar playing gator.

7. Place Commercial Here - What is the journey to the top of the corporate ladder? Does it matter? Money over people, is that the slogan you really buy into? There has to be a better way to live, let this be the commercial for a real better world. DNA Girl did a nice job with the glockenspiel. 

This is the first album where I changed my philosophy on audio mastering. Prior to this album the main focus was rounding off the harsh edges and keeping it even.

With this album I decided to cast all that off and bring forth depth and sharpen the harsh edges. If this album shakes your speakers/earbuds/headphones/boombox/whatever you listen on, then the job was done right.

This album was mostly improvised. We did multiple takes of each track and then chose the best takes and manipulated them.

One issue with this album for me, is that DNA Girl didn’t have any vocals/voice on it.

It makes it feel odd to my ears overall, but we hit close to 40 minutes and knew it had to end. We try to keep Astro Al stuff as close to 40 minutes as possible as it feels like a good length for an album.

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl: mandolin, guitar, FX, synth, cigar box guitar, glockenspiel

Count Robot: voice, samples, FX, voice changer toy, modified cassette player, electric kazoo, violin, Weird Sound Generator, test oscillator, drone jar synth, vintage microphone

Special guest

Feep (the cat): Weird Sound Generator on the track Place Commercial Here

Yes, our cat Feep "played" on the album. I had a bunch of gear set up and he set it off and created an interesting pattern of sound that we threaded into the track Place Commercial Here. You can very clearly hear the sound pattern he created at the beginning of the track.

Yours in explanations,

Count Robot

Amplissima - Hemlock Echoes

Hemlock Echoes is the fifth Amplissima album.

Amplissima is an audio project featuring the following personal:

E Dahlfree (trumpets and a lot more), Tim Mungenast (guitar and a lot more), 

Dobra Jené Ashentree (mandolin and a lot more), and me (Drake Robey in this case).

The album was recorded at Echo Bridge in Newton MA.

It was a very rainy Saturday afternoon album.

All music was improvised with no pre-planning or discussions. Which is usually the case with all Amplissima.

The jams were then cut up, collaged, edited, and in some cases added with various FX.

One jam was deemed too boring to use. Even we have standards.

I am proud of the technical achievement of this album.

There were some issues with the mastering software I use. I contacted the company and they told me to run an update which included some really nice EQ software.

So I was able to do some extra EQ work on the tracks which helped a lot.

Recently I made a choice with my mastering. I had the feeling that I was being far too restrained with what I did. Levelling things off and keeping the meters out of the red had been my main focus with mastering.

During the mastering of the Astro Al album Place Commercial Here my view changed and I was determined to bring everything out and not mind having some meters hit the red.

This album really brings that technique forward.

It will always be a special album to me.

You can hear the rain and the river. They are a part of the texture of this album.

The night after we got back from this recording session tired and dampened though we were the amazing Tim Mungenast encouraged us to record some more. This was a separate recording from Amplissima as E Dahlfree had gone home.

I am glad Tim pushed us because another really pleasing recording grew out of that session. It is called The Voice of Space and will be released later this year.

Right now Hemlock Echoes is out.

Dig the rain and the river.

Yours in sound,

Count Robot (AKA Drake Robey)

Old Concerts

 Some of our old Goatstock concerts are up on the Internet Archive site.

The Goatstock concerts were a series of shows we did to raise money for Heifer International. You can find out more about them on their site.

Here's the first show!

The Astro Al Show

Goodbye Felice

 

Felice

I miss you

I know you can't read this because you’ve gone to wherever we all go at the end of our days, but I miss you.

Your real life stories about your adventures in the 60's were so alive. They gave off energy in the room and took all of us back in time.

You danced with Jim Morrison, you listened to a new band called Cream from less than a few feet away, you created art, and you were a magic person.

You were smarter than you ever realised and you leave an empty space that can't be filled.

Goodbye and good luck.

The bats and I miss you.

Yours in sorrow,

Count Robot

Mute Ant

 

Human wasp shields of the mattress are where they lay

File past the low rent fascist family day dream of code barons who can’t spell fascism under the spell of the decayed dictator

Rise up to the call of the Mute Ant

Change without calculation

Conform with deviation 

Corpses in the corpuscles irradiate muscles in the back alley abortion clinic that they just re-opened with their white goodness

Who are they that long to turn back all the clocks so they can die in imagined times where they were so righteous in their false faces?

Do we cut them away like a cell that has been corrupted or do we heal them with the love that they would deny?

Love is something everyone should know

Yours in anthropomorphic poetry,

Count Robot

Movin with Nancy

Here it is in all its glory and gloriously goofiness. The 60's TV special by Nancy Sinatra, Movin with Nancy.

I have been trying to find this special for many years to watch it. I have the album and it is wonderful.

But I've at last seen the special...

Some Velvet Morning is a straight up pure psychedelic classic.

I'm a fan of Frank and Dino's music so having them in this is a pure bonus.

The dance sequences.... um, they were ridiculously goofy but pure fun.

I really recommend checking this special out.

Yours in TV Watching,

Count Robot

 

Three of Some Other Kind

 

Three of Some Other Kind

A pirate, a monkey, and a junkie walk into a bar

The pirate orders rum

The monkey orders rum

The junkie orders the monkey off his back

Why is it three that I always see?

A goblin, a troll, and a pin up model walk into a bar

Then one of them opens the door

Get it?

They actually all walked right into the wall outside the bar

What a bunch of morons

Who can swim across lagoons or play drum solos on spoons

A plumber, a mathematician, and Dr. Frankenstein, walk into a hotel bar

The name of the hotel is as relevant as the irrelevance of the post

nasal drip condition of a Hawaiian wolf dog's beekeepers local honey farmer

Once the trio sat down, Dr. Frankenstein offered the plumber five thousand clams for his brain, then the doctor offered the mathematician one thousand clams for his brain

The mathematician was shocked, he wanted to know why the doctor offered less for his clean, precise, brain

The doctor explained that plumbing can't be outsourced but math can be 

It's all you, you, and me

Bicycle Man

 If this were a true story, it should have a beginning, middle, and ending.

Instead its more like an idea or a description.

Under the highway overpass there lives a weatherworn man.

In a sense he might be called homeless, but this is home to him.

Its also where he works.

He repairs bicycles. Any kind, any make, it doesn't matter to him.

He takes whatever payment people will give him, a can of soda, a sandwich, a couple of dollars, a thank you, a few kind words, whatever anyone can spare.

He scours the city for parts for his repairs. He fashions whatever he can find into what he needs.

I don't know how he lives with the summer heat, the noise, the exhaust fumes, the punishing pavement, or the winter cold.

He sleeps in a small tent behind his wall of stuff. Discarded and broken material dreams that he builds into new stuff or keeps simply because he feels they must be kept. 

How long will the city let him remain there?

Will he stay there until he chooses to close his repair shop or will some bureaucratic red tape wind its way around his unshaved neck?

Yours in repair,

Count Robot

You Want

You want the friendship without all the pain

You want the friendship without the open vein

You want it all easy with laughs and fun

No days without a bright sun

The pain is where we shine

Yours in unfinished poetry,

Count Robot

Superman 2025

 

Recently I got the chance to see the latest Superman movie at the Omni Theater at the Museum of Science.

The screen wasn’t completely  filled since the movie was shot in Imax but still the image looked rather amazing and it was a unique experience considering the Omni Theater usually just shows films shot in the Omni format which are usually short documentary style subjects.

The Omni Theater screen is 5 stories high! 

Many years ago I saw a movie shot for that size screen about the Nile in Egypt and it was like I imagine flying over the Nile would be, if I was ever lucky enough to have that experience.

The Omni Theater is intensely immersive.

Now to Superman itself…

With one watch it became my favorite live action version of the Superman story.

James Gunn knows how to direct a super hero movie.

A lot has been written about this movie and far more eloquently than I will, so

I’ll just say it kept Superman as he was/is a good hearted immigrant who wants to do good things in his new home.

And it's about time Krypto and the Superman robots made it into a movie!

Yours at the cinema,

Count Robot

Stupid Songs I'll Never Write

What if i wrote a song about a stripper and called it money mounds?




Would that be the biggest hit Astro Al has never had or would it be another thing for the world to ignore?

Or would it be the sexist thing that crushes me?

Put your answers below or not…

Into the desert

 in 2023 our audio project Static Apparitions played at the experimental music festival Wonder Valley in the 29 Palms desert.

The desert is an amazing place. It is another world.

While there we did a lot of recording in the desert both in Joshua Tree and in 29 Palms.

Some of the material has been released on a compilation album that helps pay for trees to be planted.

Give it a listen here

Our track is called Cactus Lullaby.

   Yours in desert beauty

    Count Robot

Count Zarloff, Vampire

 Count Zarloff, Vampire

We are parked in the last row of the drive in movie theater. On the screen the final film of the night plays on. The order of my orderless mind, is beyond my power to find.

The first movie was Monster of Frankenstein. It had this really messed up monster that was partially made from the corpse of a dead extraterrestrial being. The soundtrack made my skin crawl.

The film on now is, called Count Zarloff, Vampire. 

It's a real low budget cheapo movie.

I'm barely watching the stupid movie, neither is my date. Her name is Marla Kairn. 

We're mostly making out. That part is fantastic.

She knows how to make my lips melt.

The flicker of the film burns a thousand dead colors into my eyes.

Capes and fangs

In the sunrise, on the beach wall, the body hangs

The rubber bats fly on fish wire

Reaching higher than you can ever aspire

Seventeen burn on the funeral pyre

Mostly, Monster of Frankenstein was a great scary gothic movie. There were a couple of boring parts. Marla and I made out during them. Her thighs were so taut and smooth.

There's a flash of lightening just before the Zarloff flick started, but no thunder or rain. The sky is dark, yet free of clouds. You can see the swell of the fat moon and the dazzle of the stars. Yet, they offer scant light.

The last row is the best place to park when the movie is bad. No one can watch you make out.

Drink the blood of the human heart

Growing ever further apart

Someday we'll never be

Tonight your lips are made for me

Dreams break down into nightmare-scapes

Fangs and capes

Blood licked off hungry lips, eager lips, no blood slips past those crimson lips on a field of snow white flesh.

No make up could be that made up

The year is nineteen seventy eight

Up late, hot date, the undead lust is hate, to never sate, too late, bled, dead, late

Scenes from coming attractions drag you to another time, sometimes less than sublime, a sublime slime. Double features full of nightmare creatures, giant spiders on high school bleachers, fiendishly faceless fiends, and a supernatural apocalypse. I throw the switch. Third eye twitch.

“I, Count Zarloff, am a vampire. My age is roughly six hundred and eight. Now it's 1978. Do my fangs and capes disturb your comfort?” 

The gorgeous brunette character, Myra Kriswell pursed her lips. “No, but why do you wear two capes? Oh, yeah, and you didn't have to tell me you were a vampire, you don't do a very good job of hiding being dead.” Her voice is an echo of vibrating dreams inside your thighs

The snack bar has great fries

Pepper fries

Green pepper fries

The snack bar has great fries to rub on your sleek thighs

“If you hate your existence so much, why don't you shut it down?” Myra asked. Dawn was coming. The count has to be in his coffin at Dawn and Sunset. During the day he is muted, weakened, un-charismatically quiet, but he can function. During overcast days he feels more. At night, he is most dead, yet most alive. His power is at it's zenith.

“My body doesn't always obey my will. I can not do anything that will lead to my demise. I am cursed to be this way, until someone finds a way to destroy me,” Zarloff said with a melancholic sigh.

A blood stained, hallucinatory, poetic, vampire story.

Your eyes will melt when you witness his blasphemous glory.

The villain of every story,

is the villain of your story.

“You never answered my question. Why do you wear two capes?” Myra asked. She wore a red velvet dress.

“I am cursed to wear them. They protect me from danger,” the count answered. It was the truth. If he somehow managed to be caught outside in Sunrise, or Sunset, one cape would cover his entire body. The other cape could attack his enemies. Ensnare them, suffocate them, strangle them, kill them.

Marla can turn water into light

The images live at night

Auto translate,

the vampire's evil estate

“Are you the one who can destroy me? Can you be my ending?” The voice of the vampire whispers of dried blood and the ending of all sound.

“Drink my blood. What you seek is in my veins,” Myra answers so seductively.

Zarloff leans forward. Sinks his fangs into her neck. Blood spills. Deeper red, almost blinding the undead, blood deepest red, flowing red.

Holy water is in her veins. The vampire smiles as his skin flakes to ash. 

That's not the movie I saw.

Fangs and capes

Psychotic escapes

Wasted mindscapes

Stuttering film stock cinema escapes

This movie looks cheap even for 16 millimeter film

Marla Kairn bought and ran that drive in for many fruitful years

Cast aside fear, embrace what you fear, kiss away fear, love away fear

She sold it to a family that runs the theater to this very day

What I saw that night turned me into a priest of an Undead God

Psychedelic light pulsating as you sway

It's rays brilliant and eternally broad

I saw into a vampires eyes. I saw a million lives full of lies.

I prayed to the depths of darkness and it prayed back unto me.

Sci-mancers are science based magicians who reprogram matter with a certain gesture and string of mystic high-tech gumbo. Sky-mancers are endless romancers. 

Your face bleeds four hundred and seventeen cracks into the eroding quality of the movie. Myra may or may not have died. It's presented as impressionism, ambiguous color palette of images. You must decide to live.

At the climax, the vampire is nothing more than a fang grinning skull. Even his clothes are nothing but sterile dust.

“Thank you for my death.”

Every movie I saw in the seventies never looked as good as the movie poster

Except this one,

somehow this one was even better than the poster

We're in the basement in my parent's house. It's not quite the mid-1980s. 

The old movie, Count Zarloff, Vampire is in the VCR.

There's four of us. We're all making out while the movie plays. 

The only light, is the TV, and a frightened tea light candle.

There's a flash of red light from the inside of the car in front of us.

Blood sprays out the open windows.

Then it never happened.

Until it happened again.

Until the blood ran again.

Until once more it happened.

A flash of dark red light from the inside of the car parked in front of us.

Something unearthly happened in that basement. Not sure what transpired, exact memory expired. Two of the people there that night wouldn't talk about what happened, other than to say, they saw something terrifying, vilifying, defiling, unholy sanctifying, not soul satisfying, or spiritually satisfying, 

it was horrifying.

It wants to enter through your eyes, spread a million germ soaked lies, 

up and down, your gorgeous thighs.

An altar so profane, that it turns it's followers insane

Mind drain soul drain become profane

“You write about drive ins, and old forgotten strange films, far too often. 

You've covered that ground more than a grave,” with a voice more distant than another galaxy, that's what Zarloff said. 

Myra's friend Sally, said, “Your kind is never truly dead.”

More than a vampire's grave. Blood slave. Mystikal stave.

End this before you drain your own creative life blood.

It's best to drive away your nightmares.

There's been drive-in poetry before

There's been vampire poetry before

There's been 1970 before

It's all been done before

I've been done before

There's nothing new here

Is that what I have to fear?

The vampire of my writing has sucked me dry