Astro Al

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Goodbye Christopher Lee

We will miss you.

Your acting talent was always outstanding.

Whether you played a monster that you somehow made us loath, fear, and feel sorry for your character as when you portrayed Frankenstein’s creation.

It didn’t matter how bad the movie was that you were in you always gave a wonderful turn never giving less than your best which of course made you shine.

Often surprising but always dependable.

Thank you sir for the great body of work you gave to us.

Yours in Hammer Horror and beyond,

Count Robot

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Becoming What You Hate

Some philosophers posit that you will always become that which you hate. Not sure how much I can argue with that statement.

By the time you read this we at the space cadet academy that is Astro Al will have gone digital or will shortly. Yes, sadly we will no longer be selling cds online. Our store page on www.astroal.com (yes, remember above all else that everything is a commercial for everything else) will be converted so that all we will sell musically are digital downloads. If you come to see us at a gig, we will still be selling cds but these will only be sold at our shows.

We live in a world of wonderful tactile experience. Touching, feeling, holding are a daily occurrence that should never be overrated. We live in a physical world and should embrace that yet we are rapidly coming to disdain most material concepts. We stream our movies, we download our music, we don’t cherish them, study the artwork on a cd cover, or look at the grooves on a vinyl album, and we don’t care about the feel of paper books in our hands. I can’t tell anyone how much time I’ve enjoyed staring at the magnificent artwork on some cds and vinyl albums and the exciting moment when I pick up the album or cd and hold it in anticipation of the joy that I will soon have when it’s played, that is something I will always savor.

So why did we cave into this trend of replacing the sensation of touch?

Money.

The recent postal increases and international taxes have put us out of the physical sales realm. We just can’t justify charging $10 for our cds and then charging people $10 to ship them. We kept our prices low. We always included shipping in our costs so basically we were selling our cds for about $5, while charging $10, total $5 of which went to shipping. We had no problem with that, it worked well for us and the people kind enough to want to pay for our music.

Sadly this is no more.

So here we are the thing we loathe.

Download away.

Yours in self-loathing,

Count Robot

https://astroal.bandcamp.com/

Sunday, January 18, 2015

top 3 CDs of 2014

Ok so here’s the breakdown and musical shakedown from the lair of yours truly, Count Robot.

3. Twink-Critter Club

Toy piano madness with smoking horns! This release made the top 3 list based on the packaging of the CD alone let alone the fantabulous sounds. It comes with tarot cards and a complex symbology, which is used to entitle all the tunes. Brainer people than I will be left to decode it all accurately but I will simply say all the symbols, numbers, runes (?) equal awesome. I’ve long been a devotee to Twink but damn if the addition of the live horns doesn’t lift this release up. It is impossible to depressed while listening to such joyously infectious bright tunes. It’s a secret bunny rabbit party at midnight in a jam-based forest! I would list stand out tunes but I can’t type all the symbols without a code breaker!

https://toypianoband.bandcamp.com/

2. Mission Creep-Sea of Suns

Lounge lizards set the jams into go-go atomic cool party music. Been a long time fan of Mission Creep. My t-shirt of theirs will continue to log many travel miles. So I was overjoyed to get their first full-length recording. It’s a groovy collection of tunes. Dig dropping the laser needle on this disc big time. Having a dull party, throw this collection of songs on and the dance floor will rock up to a Love Boat psychedelic jazz bop party town. One of my favorite tracks is Weed Wacka and Lucky Dog is another stand out. Party down in surf space!

https://missioncreep.bandcamp.com/album/on-the-sea-of-suns

1. Electrik Wurms – Musik, Die Schwer Zu Twerk

Ok the Electrik Wurms are a version of the grand psych band The Flaming Lips. Wow. This CD is a kraut rock spaced out freak out man. Discordant weirdness beauteous sounds flow over under around everything man. This is one dense layer of sounds. Ok its only 29 minutes but damn, it’s a trip of strangeness. It ends with a cover of Heart of the Sunrise, which you would expect to be at least as ten minutes long as the original but no it’s shorter. It feels like they did a bizarre edit/sample/time/mind/warp of the original. Man its cosmic.

Please feed me more Electrik Wurms!

Ok so that’s 2014. Come on 2015 bring the good tunes!

There was a great torrent of releases this year. This list is just so difficult to make….

Yours in awe at all the great music of 2014,

Count Robot

Monday, October 13, 2014

October in Onion Town

We hadn’t planned on doing another gig this year but when Dan Trembly master of ceremonies of the Onion Town Variety show invited us to do a ghoulish set this October how could we not come by and get creepy?

A few pics of Tapley Hall done up for Halloween

Here’s a pic of Dan who kicked off the gig by telling some gags.

Here’s a pic of Dan beneath a portrait that looks a bit like him? Is it the portrait of Dan Gray?

Dan sang a couple of tunes with Ministrel Michael

Minstrel Michael then played a cool but sad Christmas tune. Most of the best Christmas songs are sad. Why is that?

Then it was time for the sounds of Astro Al being spooky. Thanks to Alyssa Arrigo for the great pic! We did 3 things. Mansion of Dracula, You’re Dead, So Shut Up, and a brand new piece called Movement in the Field.

Next up was singer/songtress Amy Spillert. Amy sang a very cool tune about being a spy in WWII. She also passed around pics of some ladies she wrote songs about.

Scott Matsumoto played next. He did an all instrumental set. This guy is one great guitar player. Very impressed with his skill and his humble nature. Hope to see him perform again!

Then Captain David and his crew took the stage. Pics and a brief video clip below. Captain David and his crew always bring a shipload of fun to any gig they are at.

The show closed with a group sing along to the Monster Mash.

A ghoul good time. Go to the Onion Town you may cry but you won’t regret it.

Yours in variety,

Count Robot

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Empire of Night

One of my favorite bit of words that I ever wrote for space rock metal masters, Spaceseed, is The Empire of Night.

People may get different things out of this track and most of the time I loathe over explaining my scribblings because when I read something I like to take my own interpretation of it just as I do with any other piece of art, but after some reflection I figure it is worth chatting about this piece a little.

What Empire was about for me when I wrote it is quite simply, paranoia’s prophecy becoming self-fulfilled.

When you get so paranoid that something is going to happen, often you make it happen just to validate yourself, even though you could never face that fact.

The character in Empire was never on the “government watch list” until he put himself there, and would never have his machine taken from him until he put it out there about the things he claimed it could do. Then of course he destroys himself and the entire world just to free himself and vindicate himself at the same time.

That’s what paranoid prophecies can do to you folks. Sadly it’s in the headlines all the time now. Don’t give in to those delusions.

-Yours in Bunker based living,

Count Robot

Thursday, September 25, 2014

More Tunes

We in Space Castle Astro Al are always craving new tunes to dig.

Here’s some fine stuff we’ve been spinning lately.

The GoatMan Orginal Soundtrack by the Unseen

This is a most 70’s groovy find. A soundtrack to a movie that may exist or may not exist. We were hipped to this by our friend Garry Lee who is a dj for the great Starship Overflow show. Thanks Garry! Here’s a link to Garry’s show

http://www.starshipoverflow.com/

There’s a lot of cool creepy sounds on this here GoatMan recording.

It reminds of us of the Astro Al cd Psychedelic Drive In Music which is about a drive in movie theater that no one knows for sure if its real or not…

The GoatMan soundtrack has a great story and visuals behind it. Give it a listen here:

http://theactivelistener.bandcamp.com/album/the-goatman-original-soundtrack-performed-by-the-unseen-al023

Read about the story behind the insidious GoatMan movie at the link below.

Warning this link isn’t safe for work!

http://unseenhorror.wordpress.com/

We’re also digging the latest release by prog super Swede’s Opeth. Their latest is called Pale Communion.

Check it out for a fun filled dive into epic time changes!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Communion

So go forth and dig some tunes!