Shadows of the Forgotten- an album by Static Apparitions

 

Shadows of the Forgotten

An Album By Static Apparitions

Album #5 by Static Apparitions.

This blog post is a write up of an album called Shadows of the Forgotten.

The album is by our audio project Static Apparitions. The idea behind Static Apparitions is to make something without intelligible speaking, wordless singing, and make it sound like the soundtrack to an experimental Euro horror flick from sometime between the 1960s- and the late 1970s.

This album is horror experimental art.

Static Apparitions is:

Baroness LeStrange: Woodrow, Tibetan bowl, melodica, wah-wah tube, wooden floor, vocals, synth, FX, cigar box dulcimer, electric guitar, clapping

Ravna Ghaul: zither, monotron, duo-tron, Aztec death whistle, kazoo, metal, vocals, violin, FX, test oscillator, genometer, microphones, recordings

Mostly recorded in the Powder Magazine room on George’s Island Fort Warren Saturday 6/24/23 

If you ever go to Fort Warren and really want to explore the space, I really recommend going on a rainy day. It’s a lot less crowded and gives you a lot more time to take in the place without having to deal with a lot of people. Plus the rain sounds deeper there than most anyplace I’ve ever been.

Also recorded in Edinbourgh Scotland, London England, and Weirdfield MA

Everything created by Static Apparitions 

Copyright 2026 Static Apparitions

Art isn’t static, art is an apparition. This is our official tag line for Static Apparitions.

1. Artillery Spirits 4:36 -It starts with a zither being struck. This was in the Powder Magazine room in Fort Warren. The sound in there is incredible. 

If you feel the production on this album is any good, it’s more down to the astounding acoustics of the space we recorded in. Listen to the glimmering echo of the Tibetan bowl. That is all down to the space we were in. Sweet vocals delivered by the Baroness. Tasty Woodrow playing by the Baroness too.

2. Gentle Monster 4:22 -Melodica washes over strings. Some layering of separate recordings on this one. 

The low guttural sounds are some slowed down recordings. I believe this track has some of the recordings we did in Scotland on it.

The monster is coming closer. Don’t worry as long as you’re gentle so will the monster be…

3. Disgruntled Spirits 7:50 - Loads of melodica on this one. There’s also some distorted playback of recordings on this track. This has some of the bits we recorded in London blended in. Added a lot of spooky sounding synth by the Baroness on this one. Some oscillator sounds as well. 

4. Toll the Bell of the Ghost Galleon 4:02  - Title inspired by the Tomb of the Blind Dead movie, The Ghost Galleon. Not the best of the Blind Dead movies but still, its an inspiring title. We were in Fort Warren

on this rainy chilled day when out from the sea, a bell rang. Then the title came. Yes, that is a real bell from out on the water somewhere in the rain. Some of the spatial effects here are achieved rather easily by me moving closer and backing away from the Zoom H2 recorders that we used for this session, with me utilising the monotron and duotron. Zoom H2 recorders are what we use whenever recording outside. They’re reliable and easy to position.

5. The Figure Approaches 2:09 -Beware, if you listen to this song with headphones something may come to you. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Some Aztec death whistle at the beginning. The track starts off innocently enough for us with some woodrow, then veers into a dark distorted directions with a wall of strange sounds and footsteps. The figure is approaching you. A wall of sound comes rolling in.

6. They’re Coming 12:05 -First the figure approaches. Now They are drawing closer. Whoever are They? The chaotic climax builds into the arrival of They. 

The woodrow kicks us off. The exiting drone sound is courtesy of the monotron which is a hand held synth. Melodica moves in and out. The rhythmic sounds on this track is mostly the Baroness dancing around on a wooden board that was covering the dirt floor of part of the fort.

7. Shadows of the Forgotten 4:47 -And here we have the title track. I like when the title track is at the beginning or the end but sometimes due to various vague reasons, the title track sometimes lands elsewhere on the album. Some nice cigar box dulcimer and guitar here and nice vocals all from the Baroness.

This track is the coda of the whole experience. It abruptly ends leaving you alone in the empty shadow filled fort.

This whole album plays out like a horror movie. I dare you to walk around Fort Warren while listening to this album.

The cover art is composed of pictures taken at the fort then tinted to give them an aged appearance.

Total time: 38:71

The tracks are mastered with an ear towards hard rock despite the fact that most of the instruments are what you would consider hard rock instrumentation.

Yours in sonic assault,

Count Robot

Basement Techno Crud

Basement Techno Crud

Crinkling sideways into a waste of paper basket of wire discards boards of circuits as you grow board of circuits circuitry and the eulogy of condiments that offer a protean alternative to a communist driven sporting event let’s stroll back to the water car and drive to the nearest beach that’s protected by landed gentry store goodness in a corner of the basement filled with a pile of semi detached techno crud.

Yours in cruddy writing,

Count Robot

Astro Al Presents: Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show

 

Here is a write up of the album,

Astro Al Presents Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show.

This is a recreation or a creation of a flea circus show with Astro Al acting as all the performers (musicians, actors, fleas, etc.)

Imagine you're at a Flea Circus Show. I've never been to one, but once we finished this album I sure felt like I had.

On this album we made up a Vaudeville Show, full of songs and silliness between and around the songs.

We tried to make it very vintage sounding. 

Dr. Gumdrop was a character we created on the first Astro Al album 4:20 and he has his own song on that album. In the song on 4:20, Gumdrop travels from town to town in his covered wagon from the back of which he puts on his medicine shows. His shows is basically him encouraging you to try his elixir while his unnamed female companion plays acoustic guitar.

He was a character we liked and a song we liked, so after many years we thought, why not bring him back? But is it truly him who came back?

How could he be alive in the frontier days of the wild west then be in the era of vaudeville? Well it is possible given the cross over of both ages, but is it the same person or someone just using the name?

Or does his elixir really work?

Is Dr Gumdrop really even a doctor?

If so, what kind? Medical? Philosophical? Who knows? Is it the original Gumdrop's son? The answer is up to you.

At one point we thought about doing something ludicrous. The idea was that when the album was mixed and mastered we would then play it back on a stereo and record that playback with a very old microphone then release that recording as the album, but after much debate we chose not to do something that would make the recording sound so archaic. We also debated about adding a lot of fake hiss and crackling to make it sound more vintage, but we didn’t want to make it sound artificially antique. We chose to record the whole album in an older style, no amps (mostly, had to have one for the theremin), no electric instruments (except the theremin, oh and a humidifier which we used to get some of the water sounds for Away the Good Ship), and no digital microphones. 

This really helped get the older style we went with for the production. 

We also debated about adding applause and laughter throughout the album, but we just felt that would make it feel too much like a bad sitcom.

The Theremin was created in 1920 and I have little doubt popped up here and there in vaudeville and if it didn't we did it first.

At one point we also debated about making up a thing where we "discovered" this album in a used record store and we restored it. We dropped that found sound idea. It just felt like it had been done too much.

A lot of this album was recorded live with live "foley" FX. 

I particularly like DNA Girl's job on the cover art.

Astro Al Presents: Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show

1. Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show 4:39 -Performed by Dr. Gumdrop & Heppy Beez & The All Gumdrop Orchestra  -an alternate version of the original Dr. Gumdrop song from 4:20. This track is the first part of the performance where Dr. Gumdrop comes out and gets the audience going and of course peddles his medicine. Striptease fleas?

2. Introducing Etude 1:19 -Dr. Gumdrop introduces the next song and talks about stripper fleas. Lots of dumb jokes in this one but that is what we specialise in.

3. Etude 2:26 -Performed by Fredrika & Her Flowers - A little classy classical number. A Chopin piece transposed to mandolin. Performed by DNA Girl. You go and you went girl!

4. Introducing Dancing on a Snowflake 2:38 -More song introduction by Dr. Gumdrop and more peddling of his drinks. Merrily is a bit of a nut. She might be the most nutty of anyone who appeared on the album.

5. Dancing on a Snowflake 2:38 -Performed by Merrily Mason & The Raindear - This song was originally created for a winter holiday themed charity compilation cd but for some reason didn't make it onto it, so it sat around until we realised it fit the vibe of this album.

6. Introducing Soupcase 2:40 - Savanna Smiles introduces this one. I think her smile is bigger than her brain. It's about time the Dr. left the stage for a bit. No doubt he was off making more tonic.

7. Soupcase 4:13 -Performed by Smelly Lemon Peel Johnson & The Debutante Washerwomen -Starts off soft before the inanity kicks in. This song was inspired by DNA Girl making jokes about Blues songs. She came up with the title. I love the Blues but it is easy to laugh at which is maybe part of the reason I like it so much. DNA Girl's singing on this one is classic. 

8. Sales Skit 4:07 -Introduced by Hella Petunia. Performed by Hella’s twin sister Lola Petunia & Winstone Buffright -We had to have at least one skit. We wrote a few more but this was our favorite and we decided not to include any others because we had so many songs we wanted to cram onto the album.

9. Introducing Queen Liz is the Bee’s Knees 3:25 -The Racoon was a real dance craze for a bit. We did a lot of research on early American pop culture during this album. There were a lot of fun sounding dance crazes back in the day.

10. Queen Liz is the Bee’s Knees 3:10 -Music performed by Sir Piglet & His Hambones -Piglet was the name of one of our craziest cats and this track is a tribute to him. My acting on this track is of course a parody of William Shatner. I love Shatner!

11. Introducing March of the Salem Witches 1:41 -Hazel made her debut in a dinner theater murder/mystery we wrote many years back. In that show she ran a witch academy. What's she doing here? Well, playing music of course. I bet you never knew a flea could juggle an elephant.

12. March of the Salem Witches 2:43 -Performed by Hazel Boudoir & Her All Jugs Band - This is a song we discovered at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA. It's thought to be one of the first songs written about the Salem witch hysteria. DNA Girl takes the prize on this one. There's some  Theremin on this one. This is only excerpt of a much longer piece of music that the composer created.

13. Introducing Away the Good Ship 2:00 -I wish I could see fleas do this stuff. I have a friend who saw a flea circus once in Germany. I have never seen one live and in person.

14. Away the Good Ship 3:59 -Performed by Winifred & The Waves - The lyrics to this one were written by DNA Girl's real life ancestor, Harold Archer. We had worked at this song for awhile before getting it right. I played water phone on this one. Seemed appropriate even though the instrument didn't exist during this time period. So, we exit the album on a serious, but fun song. Sometimes that's the best exit you can make.

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl:  vocals, voices, mandolin, octave mandolin, samples, tambourine, washboard, bottle, cowbell, tongue drum, bicycle horn

Count Robot:  vocals, voices, kazoo, slide whistle, duck call, water-phone, samples, bell, saw, theremin, ukulele, rainstick, fiddle

Produced by Dr. Gumdrop’s Medicinal Whiskey

astroal.bandcamp.com

astroal.com

Copyright 2024 Astro Al

Is Dr. Gumdrop going to return? Maybe. We have discussed another potential album for him. We'll see if we ever get around to putting it together. It could be fun, but it will have to be different.

Here is a quote about the album from the amazing author Jerry Kranitz. He posted this on Facebook. "Think Sesame Street meets Pee-wee's Playhouse at the Grand Ole Opry and the entire cast are tripping their asses off. Feeling grumpy? News depressing you? Spend 45 minutes with the flea circus show it'll cheer you up fer shore."

Yours in Gumdropping,

Count Robot

Tapes by Vincent

Tapes by Vincent

So who here read Fangoria magazine when they were a kid?

Do you remember a large ad for Tapes by Vincent? Not by Vincent Price, but by someone else.

Did you order one?

I did and it was just a home made cassette tape of a kid making sounds with his mouth while the classic Disney Halloween album played in the background and occasionally he said stuff.

I can't find much of any info about this online.

Did I imagine it?

Yes, I've Googled and haven't found anything.

Yours in possible hallucination tapes,

Count Robot

Jimi Hendrix

 

Today is the anniversary of the passing of the legend that was Jimi Hendrix.

My favorite guitarist is Jimi Hendrix.

Long may his purple haze reign.

Yours in guitars,

Count Robot

Maudlin

Maudlin

I can’t always be who I wasn’t

I can’t always care because I wasn’t

Broken down totality, hypnotic pseudo-reality

My haunting haunts me

My haunting haunts me

It’s all that’s left of me

Finite within the finite

We are no more than another beginning of another ending

yours in strange maudlin poems,

Count Robot

Sonic Ritual: Ode to a Bridge (NYE) an album by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Sonic Ritual: Ode to a Bridge (NYE) an album by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Almost the entirety of the album was recorded on New Years Eve 2021 both during the day and at night. 

This album is also a hybrid. Some of it was recorded at the amazing Echo Bridge in Newton Falls, which is a glorious space to record in as the echo is fantastic. The cover picture is an FX altered picture taken beneath Echo Bridge. 

Amplissima also recorded the album Hemlock Echoes at Echo Bridge. 

Credits:

Tim Mungenast: Electric guitar, effects boxes, vocals, spring drum, goat toy, samples

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl: Vocals, mandolin, bodhran, percussion, FX

Count Robot: Monotron, bass, Aztec death whistle, FX, bell, slide whistle, duck call, stylophone

Track by track summary:

1. Somewhere in Tibet 6:44 -Screaming goat toys and an out of synch track really help this one. This one was recorded at our home studio. I really got it out of synch to make Tim's voice say twice, twice in the beginning. This tune really takes off around the 4 minute mark. There's some empty space at the end of the track. I think sometimes that silence is as important as filling up the void.

2. The Secret Garden of Echolocation 5:13 -This track was recorded at Echo Bridge. Listen to the amazing sounds of the water. Tim does some nice subtle guitar stuff. Pastoral and relaxing after the build up of the prior track. Title by Tim.

3. The Old Busker and his Dancing Baby Goat 6:20 - This track has a voice over by Tim that was recorded later and added to the track. Tim created a nice story. This track was recorded in the studio or as Tim calls it "the Magic Basement". 

4. Beyond the Valley of Silly Sounds 3:41 - Recorded at Echo Bridge. Lots of vocal sounds. DNA Girl goes full silly. She does some fun percussion on this one too. Fun vocals by Tim as well.

5. Duckulon Gamelan 7:47 -This track was also recorded at the studio. Tim's transcendent story was added later. Some lush tones and stylings by the mighty Tim. Lots of DNA Girl percussion in this track. I think the duck call is an underrated musical instrument. The voice part of Tim is repeated just to fill out the track as it got a little too sparse at the end. Psychedelic ducks!  Good spaced out guitar by Tim.

6. Bounceback Ritual 4:40 - Recorded outside. Echo Bridge sounds beautiful. Guitar ripping by Tim! Guitar sounds offered as a sacrifice to the River Goddess. Nice vocals by DNA Girl which are paired well with Tim's goattar. 

7. He’s So Beautiful 5:06 - Recorded in the studio. Well matched guitar/mando jam. Tim's screaming goat toy is heavily affected here and spread throughout the track.

 

8. Gurdjieff Addresses the Mountains of Madness 3:49 - Another one at Echo Bridge. The echoes love Tim's guitaring on this one as much as I do. The sonic richness of this location can not be overstated. DNA Girl brings the percussion. Eep eep!

We tried to spread the outside and inside tracks out. We started with an indoor track and we end with an outside one.

Recorded at Echo Bridge in Newton Ma and at Robotzilla Studios in Weirdfield MA on New Years Eve 2021

Written, recorded, engineered, produced, mastered by Tim Mungenast & Astro Al. The album was mastered in the style of a hard rock album to help bring out some of the strength of Echo Bridge and to punch up the string sounds.

Copyright 2024 Tim Mungenast & Astro Al

Yours in album write ups,

Count Robot

Some Day

Some day the art you created might be forgotten or revered more than ever

Either way the good things you did will last

Yours in philosophy,

Count Robot

Altered State & 73

 There's two parts to this blog.

First up, our new audio project Altered State had our first recording session this past Saturday afternoon. Here's some behind the scenes pics.

Our cat Twink supervised the sessions and she really had issues with my Zoom recorder placement! I had wanted to put one on the stairs (its a great spot of capturing the sound of the basement and I have used that spot on prior recordings) but she kept batting at the Zoom so I moved it to another spot and she didn't like that either. Finally I put it in the laundry room and she seemed ok with that spot. She had no issues with any of the other Zoom spots.

The mighty Tim Mungenast is part of the band. There's his Gibson guitar and banjo/uke. Both sounded fab. Thanks Tim!

I used the Sonic Springboard on the first jam and some jams later on. I ran it through the Ghost Rain pedal. The Ghost Rain pedal is very inexpensive and very awesome!

Later I used the electric kazoo run through the Two Timer pedal.

Mesa Boogie!!!!!!!! Tim's heavy amp sounded heavy and groovy which is how Tim's guitaring always sounds!

My rig as things got crazier. I had a couple of tape recorders running through fx pedals.

Some of the pedals for our mysterious bass player!

DNA Girl's set up! Electric mandolin, drums, pedals, and more!

The bass belonging to our talented and awesome bass player!

So the band line up is:

Tim Mungenast, DNA Girl, Count Robot, and our mystery bass player. 

We recorded for about 4 hours. All guided improv. All bliss.

Our wonderful and creative bassist is going to mix the album. 

We're already discussing our next session!

I am happy and humbled to be playing with such great musicians!

Ok so what is the 73 all about in the title of the blog?

Well, I am on 73 albums/EPs!!! I recently did the math on it. Realistically I'm on even more but I'm going to have the count as 73 for now. My personal goal is to get to at least 100 before I drop. I think it can happen.

It's good to have goals.

Yours in new music creation,

Count Robot.

Spaceslug

Spaceslug

On a recent Bandcamp Friday, I discovered a band called Spaceslug.

I am so impressed by the awesome rock value of that band name.

It’s one of the best band names ever!

Lemanis is the name of the album.

It’s full of fun space/psych/stoner rock jams.

The riffs this band generates are enough to launch them through hyperspace. 

Dig these tunes!

Yours in riffage,

Count Robot

Amplissima Fields Converge

 

Amplissima Fields Converge

This is the third Amplissima album and so far the only one to have a human guest.

That guest is the amazing Vanessa LeFevre. She plays the Diddley Bow which is an amazing homemade instrument.

This album was really unplanned.

Early that week we got an invite to go jam on a Saturday at a haunted house that E was house sitting.

No one really mentioned recording the jams but I brought some gear anyhow and was so glad I did.

That room really has a great sound.

That space was fantastic. We eventually recorded another Amplissima album in the room called Iron Bird which I already blogged about.

Special Guest - Vanessa LeFevre : Diddley Bow, field recordings

Amplissima is:

Dobra Jené Ashentree: Voice, octave mandolin, melodica (sonnet 55), FX

Tim Mungenast: Guitar (sixties Egmond Typhoon through sixties Regal amp and a zillion pedals). overtone singing, samples

Eric Dahlman: Electronic trumpet, overtone singing, bells, samples

Draggun Moorlocke (my alias on this album): Voice, stylophone, synth, guiro, chopstick, FX

Recorded in Norton MA 5/7/22

All material performed, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Amplissima & Vanessa LeFevre

Copyright 2024 Amplissima & LeFevre

Having Vanessa with us and no recording plan mapped out took away any pressure there might have been. We just jammed and kept what we liked.

1. Ed Wood’s Death Ray 5:26 - Dobra recites some classic Shakespearen poetry amidst some silly strange sounds.

The synth sound was a real cheap keyboard run through FX pedals. Like the fading end. I think Tim might have named this one.

2. Frog Friends 6:42 - This one has some recordings of frogs. I think Eric provided them. They filled in some gaps in the track well and added a lot of charector.

Vanessa gave this one a nice booming ring sound with her gear. There's also some field recordings that she had in here too.

It really just helped fill out the sound. Some of the textures towards the end of the track are wild.

3. Fridgey Stevey Edie 7:56 - This one features sounds of a refrigerator that Tim recorded. It was his brother's fridge and man does it sound weird.

Dobra uses the melodica to good effect. Eric makes some nice subtle use of the trumpet on this one. Tim plays around him nicely. I like it when a band gives each other space to build on.

4. The Flight of the Turtle Doves 9:02 - Eric's trumpet really brings me into this one. Tasty soundscape guitar by Tim.

5. Fields Converge 10:30 - My favorite track on the album. Vanessa kindly gave us access to a glorious treasure trove of field recordings. I set this track up so it sounds as though more and more music and sounds are getting on at the stop of the subway train and going berserk until they all get off at the end. Tim leans into his Miku pedal here and does a grand job of it. Dobra is ranting about Mothra on this track. You might hear that in the background. This track really sends me and I'm proud of it. Get on the subway to weird. Best to listen to this on your headphones.

6. Liturgy of the Lilacs  14:56 - Good bells on here by Eric. I gave the synth I used on this album to Tim. Dobra and Tim bounce sounds off each other well on this one.

I think Vanessa named this track. This one feels like experimental ambient at points. Around 7:50 Vanessa gets some really great sounds with her instrument.

Nice ending.

Yours in experimental sounds,

Count Robot

Video Interview with DNA Girl

 

Here's an interview with DNA Girl my amazing partner in Astro Al.

The interview was conducted by the amazing Mark from Phog Masheen!

Yours in video watching,

Count Robot

Love

Is love just watching TV while holding hands?

Or is it more than just drinking fluids from each other’s glands?

Is it just liking the same band?

Or is it just rolling around naked in the sand?

Maybe love is just remembering to keep toilet paper stocked and the bathroom door locked

Yours in dumb poetry,

Count Robot

Dining Zone Episode 3

 

Episode 3 of my podcast the Dining Zone is up!

The Dining Zone is a podcast where I rant about food related stuff.

Yours in eating,

Count Robot

Things that I've Written Part 1

So here's an occasional series I will do on this here blog.

This series will be about other writings that I've done as I have existed on this rock that we all share.

Let's start with my first self-published work.

The first thing I self-published was The Season of Passage. It is a poetry chapbook. Did this back in the 90s.

The Season of Passage is an epic poem. It was written in an older style and was meant to feel like a timeless sort of Poe piece.

The story concerns a couple with very troubled pasts who meet and fall in love. They get married and have a child who dies. The couple's lives disintegrate. It's a very gothic maudlin long form poem. 

Some of it was written in graveyards and some of the characters' names came from headstones. Other parts were written by candlelight or lantern.

It was all handwritten then compiled and edited on a computer.

The photography for the book was by the late amazing TG Yearwood. TG had a fantastic eye for photography. We went to a graveyard in Revere (where I wrote some of the book), and spent an afternoon shooting some of the intricate tombs, sculptures, and headstones. TG my friend, I miss you all the time and your work was fantastic. Thank you.

TG also did a few calligraphy pieces with text from the book which I then washed in stale coffee and dried. It gave the paper an amazing weathered look. We put them up for sale at Gargoyles Grotesque and Chimeras on Newbury St. in Boston. A store that is sadly long gone.

A series of readings to promote the book were staged in a few spaces.

At the Bookcellar Cafe (an excellent bookstore/performance space that is sadly long gone) in Cambridge Bob Ross (from the legendary jazz group Debris) and Rob Migliaccio played an improv set while I read a short chunk of the book. Thanks Rob and Bob!

Bob also played with me at Tower Records in Cambridge. He played acoustic guitar and he was really fun and amazing. At one point I couldn't stop laughing when he repeated everything, I said into the sound hole of the guitar. Bob you rock!

Al Finn also played guitar along with me at the Tower Records in Burlington. Al did a fabulous job playing improvised guitar parts. Thanks Al!

One other promotional thing that I tried was handing out flyers for the book before Nine Inch Nails infamous show at the old Boston Garden (that show deserves its only blog entry). It actually helped as sales at the various places I was selling the book picked up a bit after the show.

The funny part of this story is... anyone going to concerts in and around Boston from the later 80s through the 90s will probably remember the "Repent You're Going to Hell" guy who used to stand around outside shows with his sandwich board trying to get everyone to repent. Because the flyer I had featured a picture of a stone angel from the graveyard, he somehow thought I was there to help him. I politely corrected him and he wandered off. 

The talented actor/singer Doug Thoms read some of the book at a poetry reading one night. Sadly, I didn't make it to the event. If you're reading this Doug, sorry I didn't make it. I'm sure you made whatever you read out of the book more amazing than it was on the page. One time I saw Doug play Judas in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in a performance space in Boston. Doug's performance was astounding. His singing voice cut through the hall so powerfully that I was almost knocked out of my seat.

A friend gave a copy to Robert Smith from the Cure and I gave a couple of copies to Metallica. No, I never heard what any of them thought of it. They probably went into the trash. Who knows.

It should also be mentioned that there was an electronic version done of the book, on floppy disc! It basically was the text moving on the screen with the photos. Nothing too fancy now but back then it was cutting edge. Might even be the first e-book but who knows.

You might ask, where can I get a copy of the Season of Passage?

Honestly, I only have 1-2 copies left myself so, the answer is I don't know.

I don't have any plans to re-print it. Just thought it would be fun to blog about the memories around it which are probably far better than the book itself.

Yours in chapbooks,

Count Robot

TV Poetry

 

TV Poetry

When the walls crawl with fat tv images born from the sprawl of all the rural chaos creeping out of the sap of distended trees that curse in honey chive micro-biotic symbols of corroded mourning doves who refuse to learn any new laments based off the rise and forever fall of lost empires which forget the pylons of time and space and instead move through a cryogenic stateless rebate from the mute teller of the pizza based financial institution that remade itself into a balloon animal factory where every balloon is filled with laughing gas that will make you wait to change the channel.

Yours in televised poetry,

Count Robot

3 Awkward Moments

3 Awkward Moments

 

1 Getting into your car while closing your umbrella.

2 Getting into the shower with your umbrella open.

3 Getting into bed with your lover while your umbrella is open and your shower cap is on.

 

 

Yours in umbrellas,

Count Robot

Bandcamp! Music! Boobs of Doom!

 

This the second set of music I bought from Boobs of Doom. They are amazing. 

Oh yes, epic band name.

I tried to post the following review on Bancamp but I exceeded their word count. Bandcamp needs to expand their word count on the reviews. 

So without further ado, here's my unedited rant.

Experiments in grinding metal music through the land of horror movie ripping cutting wild deep as midnight with a cult drinking ice tea. 

This music is wild. 

Totally dig it. 

Trip hop haunted house dance club. 

What an album! 

Thank you. 

"I've been waiting centuries for music like this," Dracula. 

The flow from track 1 to track 2 is sublime. Same with 3. 

My favorite track... wow. its like its own thing. totally insane. Lemondrone Behemoth Version manages to change into alternate universe insanity all over itself. Truly inspired insanity. This song manages to do more in a little under five minutes than songs three times their length manage. This song does more in under five minutes than some people do in their whole lives. 

I wonder if this band plays out live. I would dig seeing them. this stuff is pure cool. Not a single dud track. 

Yours in writing about grand music,

Count Robot

Ghost Dinosaur Trips- a new album by Astro Al

 

Ghost Dinosaur Trips

This is my favorite Astro Al album thus far.

From the songs, to the performances, to the sounds, its a big beastly thing riddled with static and power mad thoughts.

Lyrically, its a combination of impressionism, mourning for lost hero-villains, trying to understand the incomprehensible, and facing addictions.

Musically it has some of our most heavy playing so far.

There's only one spoken word piece on the album and even that has vocals. All the other tracks are songs.

1 Ghost  Dinosaur Trips  - The thickest sounding recording on the album. I lost count of how many tracks we used in this recording. Oscillators upon oscillator tracks with sequencer tracks layered all over each other. Multi-tracked guitars and vocals. This song took a long time to nail down not just in recording but in mixing. Then again so did the whole album. I think every song was completely re-mixed at least once. Very proud of DNA Girls guitar slinging on this one. This song started off with a sequencer track I created and some lyrics I wrote. Then we built it up from there. Originally, I had thought about singing this one, but DNA Girl got it. I wanted a wall of sound on this one and I think we got it.

2 Are We Clear, Amigo? - Discard ego and release understanding. Inspired by a real incident. Did you ever mishear song lyrics? Did you ever misunderstand your life? This song was tested out once "live" on the radio show, On The Town with Mikey Dee on WMFO. We played around with it a lot and think we got it where we wanted it to go.

3 I Dream of Joe Meek- Joe Meek was an amazing producer, but a very deeply troubled man. This is our ode to him. This was the first song we wrote for the album and we re-wrote it and re-recorded it multiple times. We also played it at a lot of shows to test it out, including the Sonic Rock Festival in England. With this one we sought to emulate Joe Meek's time period of music (50's/60's). DNA Girl's vocals nail the time/style of this song.

4 My Last Dollar, My Last Beer- The last song we recorded for the album. We re-wrote the words to this one a lot and they got better as we threw out everything that we didn't need. There are all kinds of addiction and thinking that you are worse than you are, believing that you have no worth, is probably the worst addiction of all because it leads to self-fulfillment of self-destruction. We discussed adding a lot of tracks to this song, but then felt it was better being sparse, because all the other songs on the album are stacked with layers. We had thought about adding bass and foley style sound effects (sounds of people at a bar, doors opening, etc.) and tossed it all aside. Glad we did. Just vocals, cigar box guitar (with beautiful DNA Girl slides!), and harmonica. With the way the lyrics were originally written, I had thought about singing part of it, but DNA Girl got it better than me so I didn't want my voice messing things up, plus as we tossed more and more of the lyrics it became more female centric.

5 There's Something Behind Me- A horror tune. What is behind you and what does it want from you? To quote my favorite line from Dracula with Bela Lugosi, "There are far worse things awaiting man, than death." A statement I would agree with. What's behind the character in this song is worse than death. Lots of Aztec Death Whistle sounds swirling in the background on this track.

6 The Irish Ballad- A song crafted by the great songwriter Thom Lehrer. He released all of his songs into public domain years ago. This song of his is a favorite of ours because the lyrics are so deliriously, darkly, comedic. We decided to turn it into a pagan acid folk song which I think it lends itself to quite well. The second half of the song is a pure freak out track that could happen in some haunted forest while human sacrifices appease forgotten spirits. We did do a fun short version of this song for a video. Back in the daze when DNA Girl and I used to act in dinner theater murder mysteries, she would often sing this song as part of the show. It never failed to get a big laugh from the crowd. The way we did it here is far removed from the mostly acapella version that she used to sing.

7 Ghost Cries- This a kind of spoken word track, but also not. Part of the vocals for this experimental track were recorded in the dark arch in Fort Warren on George's Island. This room is as black as pitch and so acoustically rich with reverb that it was a joy to record there. We had to set up a couple of flashlights and then go for it. It's hard to get time to record uninterrupted in that space because lots of tours pass through it. A nice spooky way to take you out of the album.

There were a few songs we had planned for this album that we never finished, including a space rock instrumental. Maybe they will wind up elsewhere.

DNA Girl does all the vocals/voices on this album.

She really led this album and I think she did a spectacular job guiding this album to life.

This is the first album she did all the voice stuff on and I'm very proud and pleased with that happening especially because I had done all the voice stuff on Place Commercial Here. That had happened unintentionally. This album started off with plans for me to sing a few of the tracks and backing vocals but DNA Girl just nailed it all and by the end of it, I figured it was best to just leave it all to her.

It was probably our longest gestating album. We started work on it in 2020 and didn't finish until this year (2026).

Now you may wonder a bit about that, because we've had a bunch of other releases come out during that time. The way we work is that we have multiple audio/video projects all being done at once. Each one takes the time they need to take. Some are fast. Others take a lot longer.

As I type this, we have many other albums partially done that someday will be finished.

The wonderful cover art is by Ingrid who was the lead singer for one of my favorite bands, Trance to the Sun. She is a super gifted artist and I am so glad she was kind enough to make this cover for us. Thank you Ingrid!

Yours in another album write up,

Count Robot