Pet Noizes

We have long been friends with Joe Davis who records under the alias Harts Horn. Harts Horn rocks and it is a cool privilege to have played and recorded with Joe.

Some years back we decided to record a split cd with Harts Horn. Since we both treasure the 60’s music scene we figured why not nod to a classic 60’s musical trove of history and mystery, Pet Sounds. Thus we dubbed our split cd Pet Noizes.

Although we had recorded three Astro Al cds before working on Pet Noizes, in many ways I really consider this to be the one where we found our identity. From the outset of Pet Noizes we aimed to make the majority of our tracks horror/sci-fi themed. We had always talked about being a B movie horror/sci-fi band but up until that album we weren’t one.

Check out this track Evil Organs that was built around samples from the movie the Bloody Pit of Horror.

Funny thing about Pet Noizes is we turned every track we did on it into a video with the exception of A Night at the Beach. We would make that one into a video too if we had a million dollars for a budget.

But the point is here that all these other tracks heavily lent themselves to the visual world.

Thanks Joe for suggesting we do this split cd. If we hadn’t gone down this road I’m not sure we would have found our true identity.

From the Outer Voids,

Count Robot

psychedelic drive in music

Cult of Frankenstein and Mansion of Dracula were a famous double bill. They ran for three weeks straight at the Starlight drive in theater. Neither of them had any big name stars but they were A flicks despite their B movie budgets. The cult thing really freaked viewers out and played on their fear of conformity and paranoia. The Dracula flick was flat out spooky, the hero was a ghost like figure in the movie and the lighting was just plain eerie with deep reds and thick shadows. The mansion itself was huge and felt like it was alive. It was a real mansion too although there are disagreements about where it is located, it’s either in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or the UK depending on who you ask.

            Viewers didn’t know what to make of Attack of the Prehistoric Beast. Some said it was the straight up funniest comedy they had ever seen. Others thought it was dark. Some other people just thought it was stupid and that it looked like some 50’s giant monster scientist type landed in a movie with a 70’s porn actress.

            Satan’s Sister had a minor hit song called Into the Sky the love theme from Satan’s Sister. The tune was more popular than the movie. The movie was held over a week and put on a double bill with the Burning Witch only because of the song.

            The Burning Witch is a whole other ballgame. No big names in it or anything like that. Maybe it was true about the real live woman being burned at the stake and the distributors destroyed all the copies to cover it up. Funny thing is not many people seem to remember the movie at all.

            Then there was Undead Kiss. That was one demented flick. What were the monsters in that movie? Vampires, ghosts, zombies, aliens, who knows? There was almost no dialogue and it was a little on the arty side with all sorts of psychedelic colors and sounds. There didn’t seem to be much a plot but it was pretty, gothic, and spaced out.

            Yeah some people say the Starlight was haunted. Maybe it was haunted not just by ghosts but also by the strange films they showed.

Mark Colby- Long time fan of the Starlight Drive in Theater.

Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr

Recently we discovered a wonderful charity organization called Sound for Good

What Sound for Good does is puts together digital download albums for charitable causes.

To download an album all one has to do is donate a dollar or more on their website.

http://sound4good.bandcamp.com/album/the-human-condition-dedications-to-phillp-k-dick

All tracks are donated by their creators.

Each album has a theme and where the money is donated to is directed based on that theme.

Astro Al created a track specifically for their new compilation.

The new compilation is called The Human Condition - Dedications to Phillip K. Dick. All money from it is donated to Hospice www.hospicefoundation.org

All the tracks were inspired by Philip K. Dick’s writings.

For those unfamiliar with him go here: http://www.philipkdick.com/

He wrote some incredible science fiction stories. One that always stuck with me is Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr.

We put together a track based around it, which we called Aether Chains of Air

The story concerns a man who is afraid to make contact with a woman with a debilitating disease on a distant planet. It speaks to the fears we all hold about illness.

We urge you to go buy this album and do some good. The album contains 44 songs all by different artists. Go forth and download for good!

http://sound4good.bandcamp.com/album/the-human-condition-dedications-to-phillp-k-dick

-Yours in charity

Count Robothttp://www.philipkdick.com/

Fantastical Musix

Despite what many say, I believe there is a wealth of fantastic music out in the world being created all the time.

People tell me there’s nothing good now, there’s nothing exciting anymore…

Yawn.

To this I say, you’re not looking or listening. Yes, the mainstream is glutted with garbage, it always will be, but now a quick search of the interwebz can reveal many entrancing and challenging musicians creating high caliber music.

It’s hard for me to even know which acts to begin discussing there are just so many.

So I’ll just spin something that I rather like.

Check this tune out by the Simple Carnival

The dude with happy ears,

Count Robot

Rodney the Rodent Roadster

This tune was inspired by DNA Girl’s dream about a squirrel that built a red racecar so he could drive across the highway to get nuts.

DNA Girl’s dreamworld is pretty strange. Alice would freak out in that subconscious Wonderland.

After discussing this dream we knew it had to be turned into a song.

At first we debated about throwing in some nut jokes but it just seemed too obvious and we felt it was better to keep it as an eschewed children’s song. A psychedelic children’s song for weird adults.

On the CD the song is opened with a spoken word bit which we felt didn’t fit with the video so we cut that section out just for the youtubes. Sometimes what works in the context of a full album just doesn’t translate well as a standalone entity in its original form. More rambling musings on this subject in the some when futures.

So have yourself a cup of nut beer and enjoy this here video of the song Rodney the Rodent Roadster

Yours in strangeness,

Count Robot