Year Long Disaster
Black Magic; All Mysteries Revealed
Volcom Entertainment

It’s always a real pain in the ass when someone tries introducing me to a band by saying, “they’re the best band you’ve never heard of” and that’s mostly because I have heard of them, and merely suggesting I haven’t heard of them insinuates that I, unlike the much cooler, more maligned you, have my bearded head buried deep inside the business end of a pregnant alpaca.

That being said, Year Long Disaster is the best band you’ve never heard of.

I know. I’m such a dick. But forget about that right now and just pay attention.

(more…)

The House of the Devil (2009) is, as advertised, based on true and unexplainable events, and set in the early 80s, a time when 70% of American adults believed in the existence of abusive Satanic cults. I had high hopes. First of all, not only is it set in the early 80s, but it also looks like it was shot in the early 80s. This movie has an excellent retro feel to it, from the music to the film quality to the kind of suspense building found in such earlier horror classics as Black Christmas, most of which is supplied in the first hour and fifteen minutes of the movie wherein Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) explores and acclimatizes herself to the countryside mansion she’s “babysitting” at for the evening. However, that kind of intense mood can come across as slow, but I didn’t mind the pace too much. What I did mind was the pace at the end of the movie, when the action and blood rolls in, because it came and went in a flash compared to the rest of the movie, and left me scratching my head. But hey, at least there was some blood and action, so let’s get to that now.

(more…)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Beat the Devil’s Tattoo
Abstract Dragon/Vagrant

Friends and I used to have discussions about who we would let into our cool club (the adult kind, not the school boy kind) if we ever owned one. The kind of place where only the hippest cats on planet earth would be allowed to drink, fuck, and create. Not that excluding people is necessarily cool, but we considered it more of a human dress code, if you will. And to be alive certainly wasn’t a prerequisite. In fact, it always turned out that the guest list created during any given discussion included mostly dead heroes. Somehow, death made you cooler. So, who would be allowed into such an exclusive club? Well, people like Neal Cassady, Pierre Trudeau, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Joe Strummer, Charles Bukowski, Sailor Jerry, Janis Joplin, and Tom Waits, that’s who. There was always an argument over whether Johnny Cash should make it in or not. Being tagged as a bible thumper has its drawbacks. Anyway, I always used to, and still do, imagine the ever-evolving line-up of house bands that would play this club. Thee Hypnotics every once in awhile. The Stooges once a week. And Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as often as possible.

(more…)