Atlanta space rock metal masters,
Spaceseed will be playing their first UK gig next year at the Sonic Rock
Festival. Get ready for your face to explode! Count Robot has of course been
writing some words for Spaceseed for the past years. This is great news as the
band has long wanted to go to England and play in the country that birthed
space rock.
What is a B Movie? Well if you
don’t know, honestly you probably shouldn’t read this blog. No offense.
So what B movies make up our DNA?
Well about a gazillion.
Of course there’s the obvious, Plan
9 and Ed Wood’s wonderful flimatic ilk.
But there’s also the other stuff…
Like, Something Weird. Check out
the trailer for this brilliant strange fest.
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. Giant
radioactive environmentally conscious dinosaurs fight waste product monsters
with a hippy soundtrack? Yes that sounds great to us!
So dig your way through some fun B
flicks and let them mutate you as they may. Who knows maybe after watching a
few you’ll want to start your own B movie band.
Dudettes and dudes it’s as simple
as this, A. Lee Martinez is an awesome writer.
For those who don’t this
wonderfully talented scribe, he’s written ten novels. His books include the
Automatic Detective (it’s about a robot detective in a future city who’s best
friend is a talking gorilla who drives a cab), Monster (this one tells the tale
of a guy named Monster who catches monsters for a living), and Gil’s All Fright
Diner (which follows the adventures of a vampire and his redneck werewolf
companion who must deal with undead cows and a demonic magic eight ball).
Why do I dig his stuff so?
The wit, the inventiveness, the
willingness to play around with formula, the fact that they are not part of a
series or ongoing universe, all these things and the simple fact that, he is a
good writer.
His books aren’t any longer than
they need to be. The endings are well executed and fit the flow of the books.
Sometimes they are happy and uplifting, sometimes not so much, but again they
all work in the context of the novels style.
My two favorites of all his work
thus far are Chasing the Moon and A Nameless Witch.
But here is one of the coolest
things about his books. None of his books are bad. Most writers by the time
they hit ten books have at least one or two weak entries. Not one of his books
is even close to poor. That is one impressive feat and thus far they have all
had different flows, themes, and ideas. Sure of course his style carries across
his material but hey isn’t that what style is all about? And when you’re
writing about demonic ducks, trampy angels, and Lovecraftian insanity that is
some awesome style to have shine on.
So go get reading the good stuff!
The A. Lee Martinez stuff!
Thad Michaels was
the owner of the Starlight Drive In or at least he was the entire time I worked
there. I think he still owns the place even though it’s been closed for years
now and yeah don’t buy any of that crap that it’s still open. The last time I
drove by it there are weeds growing everywhere, the whole place is falling
apart, it’s pretty sad but drive in movie theaters are dead sure there are
still a few around but they're the ones that just don’t know they’re dead yet.
There
were a lot of funny things about Thad, don’t get me wrong, he was really a
great guy to work for, I mean he paid great for a movie theater, I still can’t
believe how much he paid me and no I ain’t going to tell you plus he helped me
get some great pieces of tail more than once. Still he was a bit weird. The
oddest thing about him was that, he always looked the same. He was one of those
guys that never looked older. I worked for him for twenty years and he looked
just the same as the first day I met him, his weight always seemed to be the
same too, he looked like a slim jock. Sometimes he talked strange stuff about
reality not being real for much longer or some crazy talk like that but hey he
was still a pretty cool guy and if you own a haunted drive in you’re bound to
be a little weird and that place was haunted for sure, I saw some of the ghosts
myself.
Thad
sure could pick the flicks. He hand picked most of the movies we ran and he got
us all sorts of exclusive deals which kept the place packed every night we were
open. Our lot was only empty at closing time even when it was pouring out. He
got us some great flicks like Vampire Hookers from Outer Space, it had some
pretty hot vampire babes in it and Thad hired some gorgeous chicks to walk around
the lot dressed like vampires, he even hooked me up with one and it was
awesome, he was the best boss I ever had.
We showed that
movie, Satan’s Sister it wasn’t really good but there were so many topless
broads in it that people loved it, I hated that stupid love song that was in
it, think it was called, Into the Sky it was a hit I guess.
He hooked us up
with some weird flicks too like that one Attack of the Prehistoric Beast, I
couldn’t figure out if it was a comedy or just two movies spliced into one.
Undead Kiss was
pretty out there too, there was almost no dialogue, just all sorts of
psychedelic music and messed up sounds.
I
don’t know how or where he found the Burning Witch but I’m pretty sure we were
one of the only places in the world that showed that flick. I heard the rumors
about a women getting burned alive at the stake in it but it didn’t look like a
snuff movie to me.
Vincent “Vin” Breen
Former
projectionist for the Starlight Drive In Movie Theater
There is a dearth of negative
energy on the interwebbies these days.
I’m really negative on all the doom
and gloom and I hate all the hatred on display on blogs, faceboot, and all the
other anti-social media outlets.
Count Robot isn’t on the net to be
a downer, a negative force, gloomy glum.
I am here to be a light in the
funhouse of the universe.
So you will not see me wasting my
time bad mouthing creative types and things that I don’t enjoy.
Rather you will hear me rant and
rave and enthuse about the greats and the maybe not so great artistic folk that
I do dig (writers like A. Lee Martinez, H.P. Lovecraft, painters like Van Gogh,
directors like Ed Wood and David Lynch, and music like Robyn Hitchcock, Rush,
the Beatles, and so so many more).
See I can’t just understand why its
worth my precious time on this sphere bashing something I don’t like when I
could be praising what is groovy to me. Why should I negatively promote what I
dislike? It should be all about the good.
We like acting in our friend Dan
Margarita’s videos as I’ve mentioned before
Dan writes some pretty funny and
cool songs.
DNA Girl acted in one of my
favorites of his. The tune is called Boston Love Song. It’s witty and wistful
at once. That’s a pretty hard thing to do and Dan does it quite well.
Here’s another one we had fun with
called, Now That We’ve Seen Each Other Naked. Again this is one of those tunes
that’s rare in that its funny yet warm and honest. DNA Girl puts in a cameo
like appearance in a pivotal role. She got her own trailer for her appearance.
I grew a moustache for this part. I swear it’s not the truth....
The track You’re Dead, So Shut Up
is of course about a husband nagged from beyond the grave by a zombie wife.
It’s from our cd, Naughty Kitty. The words were written as an ode to horror
punk. I’m a big fan of horror punk master monsters, the Misfits.
We’ve done two versions of this
video.
The initial stab at it (pun is
indeed intended) was too short. It didn’t capture the full visual story we
wanted to tell.
Included here in the blog is the
extended version, which is the better of the two. I added some swirling synths
to the beginning of the video so there was an audio bed for the full video.
In the story a mad scientist kills
his interfering wife and she returns to blab, blab, nag, and nag. He can’t
escape from her so he tries to kill her… again and again and again.
The Starlight Drive In was closed
for a long time.
There are some who say the
Starlight never closed.
Others say it was never really open
at all.
They say it is a burden to own it,
this theater is a curse from something that is not a part of our universe.
The stars sparkle overhead and all
beneath is not but dust and in long epochs of time even that light will be
naught.
If you come to the drive in on any
given night you might see amazing double features such as Cult of Frankenstein,
the story of the mad followers of the twisted scientist who perverts all to
create life, and Mansion of Dracula, the horrifying tale of a house that’s
haunted by the blood of its maker and by the memories of its owner.
Are you in the future or the past?
Can you tell if you’re real as you
park next to a car that’s no longer there?
Welcome to the Starlight Drive In.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Out here in the swamp where I does
live we got lots of stories and the such like.
One of them here stories my pappy
dun told me is what this here song is alls about.
I gots me a dog that moos and the
only kangaroos I dun meet here taint got a choice to make about a whole lot of
nothing.
Sometimes things get stuck in my
gall wrangling head and I ain’t gots no way ways to get it out other than
singing my ways through it.
When we was making this here video
we was attacked by an army of ticks. They followed us home and kept a climbing
and a crawling all over us. I hates ticks. It was like Attack of the Killer
Ticks. Someone should make that into a movie.
Also yous might notice a seen where
one of them here actors spits out some teeth. Them there are real human teeth
that belong to that same actor and dun was pulled from his mouth at one point.
Honest honey bunny.
Don’t say there ain’t no suffering
for this arty stuff.
Shrewdly yours,
Billy Bob Grumpy Joe Billy Bob
Jimmy Joe Esquire the Fourth
It’s no secret that we are big fans
of Ed Wood, both the flick and the director himself. The movie that Tim Burton
directed about Ed Wood is in my humble opinion the best film Burton ever made.
Ed Wood the man, is a testament to
doing it yourself and just going after a vision and getting it done. Sure the
results were a bizarre mess but that is their joy.
If we even get a partial bit of
that joy of spectacularly hilarious disasters in our recordings then we are
achieving our goal.
I think in hindsight this track is
a bit too long.
I do often wonder what superior
aliens would think of us if they ever came to our planet. I’m sure their first
thought would be, how stupid are these monkeys?
Of course Plan Nine from Outer
Space is amongst our favorite Ed Wood films. So this was our loving tribute to
that film and all things sci-fi.
In the not so
distant past we did a gig at the premiere of Onion Town which is a variety show
which is held at the historical Tapley Hall in Danvers, Mass. A nice space with
some cool stuff on display. Onion Town is an ongoing series of gigs and you
should go and check them out. Contact Tapley hall to find out the schedule.
The show is hosted
and run by Dan Tremblay. Dan does some goofball standup and plays some cool
60’s cover tunes. This show is not an open mike. Dan lines the acts up ahead of
time.
Dan himself was up
first. Seems apropos seeing as how it’s his shindig.
Next up was
someone who’s name I’ve forgotten. Sorry. She was good though did a fun Janis
Joplin cover while her son and guest star bopped about.
Then MC David
Breen introduced the next act after ranting about Sesame Street.
This dude was
cool. Did some blues tunes with just his voice and a harmonica.
Then up next was
Michael Bloom. He did three great original tunes of his. That song of his
Restless is very catchy.
David Breen came
back and introduced us after a rant about Starbucks being the people’s coffee.
That one is just for you David.
At this point
Astro Al was up to get freaked out. We played three tunes. Ghost Town, Dr.
Gumdrop, and Steampunk. During Steampunk the singer’s son played the part of an
airship and ran all around the room. It was a darn fun time.
After our set
there was an impromptu acoustic sing along on This Land.
Next was Captain
David Fork Tongue telling a spooky pirate story.
After that a woman
whose name I don’t know read some jokes.
Then a dude got up
and sang a few tunes.
And that was it. A
good night full of fun stuff. Admission was only five bucks and that was a lot
of entertainment and the admission included free snack food and soda. If you
like a good fun time you should check Onion Town. We will be back to play there
again sooner or later.
Perhaps you’ve heard the term
Outsider Music. For those not in the know here is the deal, the term refers to
people who operate outside the standards of music writing and don’t conform to
normal song structure either because they consciously reject it or don’t
understand the supposed norms of song construction (verse, chorus, etc.). It’s
music by people outside the commercial industry of music.
The New Hampshire 60’s band, The
Shaggs are a good example of this style of music. Other folks in this genre
include Tiny Tim, Jandek, and Syd Barrett. Check them out and see what you
think. Not sure if Syd really falls into this category to my way of thinking, but given the fact that he was once the lead singer for Pink Floyd his name is
a little more recognizable so he does make a good reference point for this
discussion.
So you might be wondering why am I
blithering on about these types of folks.
Well a question came to me… Is
Astro Al outsider music? Do I care if we are?
Well as to whether I care much or
not… I guess I must since I’m writing a blog about this subject.
So are we outsider music? Let’s
check…
We do produce our material outside
of the recording industry.
We don’t consciously follow or
break song structure. Often times we start a song with a chorus, which is
against the thought process of most songs. Now in all honesty we never did it
because we wanted to purposefully reject songwriting rules, we did just because
we thought it sounded cool and felt it made the song better. When we work on
our tunes we just do what we think makes that piece the best it can be we just
let our minds go and if its verse, chorus, fine, if not that’s fine too.
So are we outsider music?
Call us outsider music if you want.
That choice is up to you.
I will always think of Astro Al as
psychedelic B horror/sci-fi music and that label is good enough for me.
A brief interview conducted with
DNA Girl from Astro Al on the winding road…
Count Robot: What would you
say is your biggest influence on Astro Al?
DNA Girl:Monty Python, 60’s avent garde movement,
Robyn Hitchcock and the Three Stooges. We’ve been compared to the Bonzo Dog
Band.
Count Robot: What is your
view of playing live verses playing a song in the recording studio?
DNA Girl: More nervous live, more relaxed in the
studio. Love the audience reactions but playing in the studio we can experiment
more.
Count Robot: What’s your
favorite live gig we’ve ever done?
DNA Girl: The Landing Pad in Philadelphia. We had a
ball there and people seemed to get us there.
Count Robot: What was your favorite recording
experience?
DNA Girl: The thing that stands out the most to me are
the videos we made. Some of the most interesting things is when we are
recording against other peoples music like when Joe Davis (from Harts Horn) or
Brian Fowler (from Spaceseed) contributed music.
Count Robot: Which video is
your favorite?
DNA Girl: Hands down, You’re Dead, So Shut Up, had a
ball doing that one. Rio Santos was a hoot too. It was fun not having to play
the straight character. It’s been fun having our friends in these videos. It’s
turned into an extension of our old theater group.
Count Robot: Where do you
get your inspiration?
DNA Girl: A lot of is from crazy dreams, like the song
Cocoa Clouds Hides the Chocolate Dimension. I just woke up one day with that
phrase in my head and Rodney the Rodent Roadster was based on a dream.
Many of the best horror stories
leave it to the reader to fill in the gaps and use the darkest parts of their
own imaginations to fully develop the terror of the tale they are reading. The
HP Lovecraft story, The Music of Erich Zann is an excellent example of this
type of fiction. If you like a good creepy story and haven’t read the Music of
Erich Zann than seek it out.
With our track Ghost Story we took
that approach.
The idea of suggesting enough
things to send the listener down many shadow filled paths.
What happened between Jack and his
wife? Did he really love her and she him? Was the ghost trying to please Jack
or did she want something else?
The video was shot in an
impressionistic style to attempt to emphasize the gothic mood.
Some of the houses in the video are
no longer standing.
The cats in the video just happened
to be there while we were filming. It was an interesting coincidence to say the
least.
So here it is, from Pet Noizes, our
horror fiction, Ghost Story.
I’ve always thought that dolls are
an odd and weird totem for our society. We project onto them the things we want
to be and the things we fear to be and do. They are portals to our imagination.
And sometimes our imagination is a
very frightening place.
From Pet Noizes here is The
Dollhouse of the Damned.
