Hail Seitan!

Do you agonize over how to eat healthily and ethically, yet still please the dark lords? The Vegan Black Metal Chef is here to help! He's been making videos since 2011 that demonstrate how to cook delicious animal-free dishes with hellfire, but the exciting news this year is that in December the VBMC will release his first cookbook, The Seitanic Spellbook. 

Over the summer, the VBMC's legions of followers nearly doubled his Kickstarter campaign goal, so the book is well on its way to spreading its unholy vegan message to the masses. According to the book's campaign page, it "will be an ultra visual, multimedia cookbook to teach amazing vegan cooking with a fist full of metal." There will be a video to accompany every recipe, and since the VBMC is an actual black metal musician (in the band Forever Dawn), the audio portion is always just as kickass as the recipes. 

The videos are hilariously over-the-top in their metal stylings, but the VBMC's intentions are wholly serious. His website states that his project has two main purposes: to both answer the question "What do vegans eat?"/show how to cook it, and to help people bring consciousness to their lives and actions. He elaborates more on these ideas on his website, and as a 23-year vegetarian myself, I can say with authority that he has some of the most accessible and well-thought-out reasoning for a plant-based diet that I've ever read. He also has some of the tastiest, easiest, and most entertaining recipes I've ever seen. Check out his classic "Hail Seitan" from the VBMC's first year of video production: 

¡Vivo Duraznos Sábado!

Last October I was lucky enough to catch one of the most amazing performances I'll probably ever see, which occurred during the Halloween installment of L.A.'s Mexican wrestling/burlesque extravaganza Lucha VaVOOM. For the halftime show, genre/gender-bending singer Peaches fronted the all-female Black Sabbath cover band Black Sabbitch for eight glorious minutes of "War Pigs"!

Peaches came out in a glittery bat costume with eyeballs on her boobs and a screaming mouth on her crotch, and went full-on Ozzy by biting the head off a (rubber) bat and spitting blood. Black Sabbitch played faithfully and flawlessly, bringing me the closest I'll probably ever come to feeling like I saw Black Sabbath in their heyday. And if that was the halftime show, you can just imagine how amazing the rest of the evening was! We were treated to fearless and filthy acts by luchadores like Dirty Sanchez, and to sexpot burlesque dancers selling the "Night of the Vampire" theme. If you have the chance to see Lucha VaVOOM, Black Sabbitch, Peaches, or any combination of the three, DO IT!!!

Once you go goth, you never lack black.

What happens when your special someone is all sunshine and lollipops, but then along comes a grown-up Wednesday Addams in a Prius tricked out like the Munsters' car? Trouble in paradise!
"You're So Dark" was the B-side to the Arctic Monkeys' 2013 song "One for the Road." It starts as a litany of all the wonderful qualities about this dark new person--she's got a Dracula cape, watches Italian horror and listens to the scores, and has a Triple A membership to the cemetary--before admitting that she's nothing like his current daylight-loving lady, and that this dark girl's love would tear them apart. He knows he's not her type, but that doesn't stop him from wanting her, so maybe it's time to have that dreaded talk. After all, sometimes things/goth girls just happen, and it's really nobody's fault...

Take a ride on the wild side.

At the end of this year, Motley Crue will officially be retired, and after omitting them from this blog for the past five years, I'm finally ready to admit that I still love them as much as I ever did in 1990. I started high school a year after that and didn't feel comfortable admitting to my new punk/heavy metal/indie rock friends how much I loved glam metal, but I did and still do. For me, glam metal is a little mini-vacation to the Gravitron in my mind, where the air always smells like fried dough and the carny won't let you off the ride until you've spun both forward and backward.

Unfortunately I was never able to officially see Motley Crue in concert, but a few years ago I was wandering a cliffside promenade in Pittsburgh one summer night and heard the heavenly strains of "Girls, Girls, Girls" wafting across the river. Motley Crue was playing an outdoor arena show and when I put a quarter in the viewfinder, I saw Tommy Lee and his drumset traveling around a Super Loop track! It was like the constant carnival in my brain had manifested itself in the real world. I think hearing and seeing the band in such an unexpected place and way was even better than if I'd bought a front row ticket. A magical evening!

Today's song is my all-time favorite of theirs: "Shout at the Devil," from their 1983 album of the same name. Throw your devil horns in their honor while you listen. You're not too cool for it. \m/\m/

Virgin vixen on the run!

Revolutionary silkiness.

In the years since Patty Hearst's arrest, release, and eventual pardon by Bill Clinton, she has unfortunately disavowed her revolutionary past and except for a few appearances in some John Waters films, faded into normalcy. Her Shih Tzu even won a prize at this year's Westminster Dog Show! A far cry from armed robbery and getaway car driving.

In 1977, however, while Patty Hearst was still sitting in prison, one of my all-time favorite bands, The Misfits, released their first single:"Cough/Cool" backed with the Patty Hearst-themed "She." "She" ended up being the more popular of the two, and has been re-recorded, re-released, and covered by a variety of bands throughout the years. The first version was recorded just a few months after the band formed and featured Glenn Danzig on keyboard, but today's version was recorded a year later with guitar for The Misfits' first full-length album, Static Age. Listen, and travel back to when Patty was Tania and Tania was a badass. 

Oh, my beloved revolutionary sweetheart.

Just like me, today's song is full of longing for simpler times, when newspapers were filled with grainy security cam footage of Patty Hearst holding up a bank in San Francisco. Why are the rich girls of today not nearly so interesting? Since most of them seem to have their own reality show, maybe they're just spreading their crazy too thinly upon the masses. Why not save it up for a really special occasion? 

Camper Van Beethoven's "Tania" refers to Patty Hearst by her Symbionese Liberation Army name, which she took in honor of one of Che Guevara's comrades. Her name change was an important development in her abduction--it came two months after she was kidnapped by the SLA, and was announced in conjuction with the news that she had willfully joined the terrorist group. In the two months prior, members of the SLA had kept Patty in a closet, threatened her with death, and eventually given her SLA pamphlets to read. When her captors began talking of either killing her or letting her stay on as a member, it's easy to see why a name change and a new life as an urban guerilla sounded like a pretty good option.

"Tania" comes from Camper Van Beethoven's 1988 major label debut, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. The lyrics are from the point of view of someone looking back on their Patty Hearst crush, and yearning to once again be liberated from their routine existence by news of a rich girl-turned-revolutionary. I hear ya, buddy, and I'm right there with ya.

Teenage terror!

As Halloween draws near, I've begun to think about costume options, and whether I want to come up with something new or go with one of my favorite old standbys: heiress-turned- brainwashed bank robber Patty Hearst. The only problem with the costume is that these days not a whole lot of people know who Patty is/was. But then again, maybe that's a plus. The people who do are probably the people I want to know!

Since Patty and her plight have begun to fall into obscurity, this weekend's songs are going to focus on her and her 1974 dalliance with the Symbionese Liberation Army. First up is a 1976 doo-wop single by The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo called "You Got Your Baby Back." Well, sure you got her back, but will she ever be the same???

By the pricking of my thumbs...

Americana singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams might be best known for her songs about the horror of being unlucky in love with drunken angels, but in today's song, "Something Wicked This Way Comes," she gives her bluesy gospel treatment to the horror of crossing paths with a real fallen angel: the devil himself.

The title of the song is a quote from a witch in Macbeth, as well as the title of Ray Bradbury's classic novel about an evil carnival. Lucinda Williams uses it as a refrain throughout her song to drive home just how mean this guy is--he was cast out of heaven and will show you no mercy, nor ever leave you alone. Sounds even worse than that dude she changed the locks, phone number, and town name on back in 1988! "Something Wicked This Way Comes" is from her most recent album, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, which finds her still rocking just as down and dirty as ever.

Hands. Hands of Fate.

One of the worst movies ever made, which due to Mystery Science Theater I have seen more than once in my lifetime, just got restored and is premiering tonight here in New York. Manos: The Hands of Fate was made in 1966 on a bet by an insurance/fertilizer salesman in El Paso, Texas, forever proving that filmmaking really should be done by professionals, or at least people with some understanding of storytelling.

Besides low production values, the "plot," which has something to do with a family being held captive by a pagan cult, makes little sense, and in the words of the MST3K guys, the film was shot on location in a vacant lot and every frame looks like someone's last known photo. Worst of all, Manos is interminably boring. It's hard for me to make it through the whole thing, even with MST3K commentary. No wonder Dr. Forrester apologized to Joel and the robots for subjecting them to it.

There's no denying Manos' cult status, though, which is somewhat amazing since it was pretty much single-handedly brought about by the film's appearance on Mystery Science Theater. In addition to the new restoration, a tribute band recently emerged in Nashville called Manos: The Band of Fate. Below, check out their song "The Torgo Twitch." 

And, if you feel like torturing yourself, the trailer for the movie. FYI, "manos" means "hands" in Spanish. So yes, the title of the movie is literally Hands: The Hands of Fate.

And here's Torgo with your pizza.

Run fast, don't stand in the sun.

What We Do in the Shadows is not only one of the funniest movies of 2015 and probably the funniest vampire movie of all time, it also features one of the best theme songs of the year: "You're Dead" by Norma Tanega.

The song appeared on Tanega's 1966 debut album Walkin' My Cat Named Dog, around the same time she was in a relationship with Dusty Springfield and writing lyrics for many of Springfield's songs. That must've been one entertaining household! Tanega's solo career failed to take off, however, and in the 70s she became a percussionist. She still makes world music albums, but with the success of What We Do in the Shadows, her early folk/pop work is finally getting some of the attention it deserves.

  

Fembots have feelings, too.

Like Janelle Monae, Swedish electopop singer Robyn is interested in the line where humans and androids cross. While Robyn doesn't have an entire mythology worked out for her robotic imaginings like Monae does, she does return to the android theme fairly often, such as in today's song, "Fembot." 

These fun-loving bionic women would probably be more at home in Barbarella than Blade Runner, and according to Robyn, are meant to demonstrate the organic nature of technology, and how humans and robots are not separate. For such high-minded intentions, though, the song also includes lyrics like "I'm a very scientifically advanced hot mama, artificially discreet, no drama." 

So maybe more of a cyborg brag rap than a sociology Master's thesis? Still, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it!

Hammer time.

In 1978, as Britain's Hammer Films was winding down production of their classic line of gothic horror films, British singer Kate Bush paid tribute to Hammer's horror legacy in her song "Hammer Horror." 

Like many Hammer films, the video is more atmosphere than substance, and the song's subject could be a synopsis from Hammer's golden age: the star of a film adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame dies on set, his friend takes the role but feels guilty about it, and then ends up being haunted by the dead actor's ghost. Some friend! It's not like the poor guy killed to get the role. Guess there's just no reasoning with ghosts.

Bush's ethereal soprano lends an appropriately haunting quality to this song, as well as to her many other gothic film-inspired works, like "Wuthering Heights" (written after she saw a mini-series based on the Bronte novel), "Hounds of Love" (which samples the 1957 film Night of the Demon), and "Get Out of My House" (based on The Shining). Although she hasn't released an album since 2011, she often resurfaces after long absences. Hammer Films also hibernated for a long time, but in 2008 began producing horror films again. If everything old is new again, maybe the next Kate Bush album will give the world yet another gothic film-inspired classic.

A Graveyard Gambol!

What do you get when you cross "the purest Halloween music ever written" with 1930s abstract animation? Well, sometimes you get Fantasia, but today you get "Spook Sport"!

"Spook Sport" was made in 1939 by one of the world's first female experimental filmmakers, Mary Ellen Bute. Her colorful, dancing forms were usually set to classical music, and at one time played in movie theaters across the country, prefacing first-run features. Over time, however, decent prints of her work became rare, and as a result, her films have fallen into obscurity with the general public and become desirable to presitgious film collections like the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art.
"Spook Sport" was co-created with animator Norman McLaren, and features spooks, ghosts, and bats dancing in a midnight graveyard to Camille Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre. Although a recent article in The Atlantic did call Saint-Saen's piece "the purest Halloween music ever written," Bute's high-spirited film has more in common with a rollicking Merrie Melody than its 1940 rise-from-your-grave-and-dance counterpoint, Disney's Night on Bald Mountain. Won't you join these spooks and ghosts as they cavort and make merry in a groundbreaking film ballet?

Sometimes, the mystery of death.

Sadly the world lost an icon a couple days ago when Catherine Coulson, aka The Log Lady from Twin Peaks, died from cancer, just weeks after the third season of the show began filming. What enigmatic wisdom would her character have bestowed in the new episodes? Only her log could tell us now.

During last year's Twin Peaks theme weekend, Catherine Coulson appeared as The Log Lady in the Twin Peaks homage "Unknown Species" by Pretty Little Demons. She isn't in today's video, but the song certainly sounds like it came straight from a night in The Roadhouse. "The Big Dream" was originally recorded by David Lynch for his 2013 album of the same name (a follow-up to 2011's Crazy Clown Time), but this version has Mindy Jones channeling Julee Cruise in a 2014 Moby "reversion" of the song. 

Appropriate that this is the fifth anniversary of this blog, and the traditional fifth anniversary gift is wood. If you have a spare log, won't you slap some stamps on it and send it my way? I need it for my shrine.

Here is David Lynch's original version of the song:

Five years dead!

And lo, on the first day of the fifth year of my entombment, the very worlds are of sound, and matter is but as an odor; and the notes of our pipes in this world may create beauty or bring forth abominations. When sourceless sounds occur, fear only that shape which a certain sound may form in the universe...

Oh! Sorry... with nothing to read down here but the Necronomicon, sometimes I forget how to speak to anyone except the Old Ones. To translate, today begins the fifth year of me slinging Halloween music at your ears from the confines of this blog! And I'm celebrating the same way I've celebrated every October 1st since 2011--with a song from The Cramps. 

While we already visited with "The Human Fly" a couple years ago, this reborn maggot is getting the spotlight once again because just recently a long-lost 1978 short film the band made for the song was unearthed. It features Lux Interior transforming into a fly, and Poison Ivy playing a scream queen and sexing up the joint as only she can. You can read more about the film's provenance here. Don't panic at the lack of sound in the beginning--the song starts in earnest at about two and a half minutes in, just as the lovely Ivy meets her 96-eyed fate.

So settle in with me and the Old Ones for 30 more days of howling demons, clacking skeletons, and this soothing insectian drone: