Friday, October 30, 2009

Guest Halloween Poster: Dennis Dread


So I'm still up in Portland, but Hearse friend and supporter, Dennis Dread, has put together a thoroughly morbid mix tape for you to geek out on this Halloween. Dennis, besides having great taste in music, is also an accomplished illustrator best known for his work on recent Darkthrone albums. He also runs a great art zine called Destroying Angels. Thanks, Dennis, for taking the reins in my absence.


Arkham House Into The Witch House
Not much to say about this mysteriously shrouded demo except that it was recorded in 1994, long before the term "basement black metal" had entered popular lexicon, and while it never really enters the metal realm this tape manages to cast a capable spell of macabre lo-fi eldritch atmospheres.

Exorcist Black Mass
The opening track from their sole recording, Nightmare Theater, released in 1986 by Cobra Records who also delivered Piledriver to the world. Exorcist was a short-lived horror oriented project with late NWOBHM leanings formed by Dave "Dionysus" DeFeis of Virgin Steele fame.

English Dogs Nosferatu
This is where I imagine many Cosmic Hearse riders will jump shark...er...ship. Good riddance. By the time these mad punx had released their second full-length LP in 1985, Forward Into Battle (with unapologetically stolen Boris cover art), they already had several releases under their bullet belts and were in the throes of a total metalmorphosis!

Attak Zombies
More UK madness with the title track from Attak's only full-length LP. The lyrics could've been penned by an autistic third grader with a tube of glue shoved up his nose. But instead they were written by a grown man who probably had an Oi! pin on his jacket and a headband that matched his mustache.

Black Uniforms City Of The Dead
Sweden's favorite Splatter Punx open this little gem with a Fabio Frizzi sample before launching into the sloppy d-beat assault that made Faces of Death (1989) such a fun record. If you listen closely you can hear Metallica bleeding through the tape during the intro!

Zombie
No, not the Relapse duo (spelled Zombi) but an extended homemade sample from Lucio Fulci's masterpiece, otherwise known as Zombie Flesh Eaters! Yes, I held the tape recorder up to my TV and created this just for you, Dear Listener. After all, it's Halloween.

Lebenden Toten Near Dark
Uncharacteristically slow and catchy blast from my favorite Northwest crasher-crusties that takes its name from the brilliant 80's vampire re-imagining starring Lance Henriksen! Swirling psychedelic walls of distortion and abrasive death rattles that fuse the best of Antisect and Confuse.

Broken Bones Dem Bones
Playful "outro" from the 1984 debut full-length. If you think this song is absurd you should see the cover art by guitarist Bones' little brother Tezz!

Screamin' Jay Hawkins I Hear Voices
1962 alternate version of Mr. Hawkins' schizo love-song-turned-haunted-house-of-broken-hearts! The liner notes explain that an engineer for this recording instructed him to moan over the music so he simply enunciated the word "moan" over and over again to great effect.

The Meteors Johnny Remember Me
The kings of psychobilly hit the UK charts in 1983 with this rendition of producer Joe Meek's 1961 hit, originally performed by John Leyton and The Outlaws. None of the greasy-haired impostors that followed in The Meteors' wake could touch this beautiful ghost story from their sophomore outing Wreckin' Crew.

Roky Erickson Burn The Flame
Roky is hipster pay dirt these days but here's one you don't hear often. This is his contribution to Dan O'Bannon's 1984 Return of the Living Dead soundtrack. There's nothing funny or ironic about these lyrics. Roky thinks of demons for you.

Sam Gopal Season Of The Witch
Malaysian-born tabla player Sam Gopal's Donovan cover featuring sexy backup singers and a very young pre-Hawkwind/Motorhead Lemmy Kilmister on vocals and bass. This could be the soundtrack to a really good episode of Scooby Doo. Check out George Romero's weird suburban witchcraft film of the same title.

Goblin Susperia
The Italian prog-masters at their best! This is of course the title track to Dario Argento's 1977 supernatural mindfuck and the original cover art to this LP was blatantly stolen from Coven's Blood On The Snow which was released three years earlier.

Deadmask No Rest For The Wicked
A relatively new duet from Spain featuring Dopi of Machetazo on all instruments and a gal named Nuria Otero on vocals. Worshipping at the altar of occult 70's rock, here they pay tribute to Sweden's Coffinshakers with this beautifully sparse ballad.

Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind The Shining
Brooding theme to Stanley Kubrick's classic Stephen King adaptation. A disturbing descent into the madness of isolation and the insidious evil of domestic violence, partially filmed at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood.

Pino Donaggio School In Flames
The only reason to rescue Donaggio's Carrie score from the discount bins is the second song on side two. This one gives Taint a run for his money for sheer malevolent vibes and oppressive textures. I like to play this track at 3am when I'm drawing alone in my basement and it never fails to make me look over my shoulder.

Aghast Enter The Hall Of Ice
Aghast was Tania Stene and Andrea Haugen, both closely affiliated at the time with the emerging Norwegian Black Metal scene, and this is basically the "hit" from their 1995 LP Hexerei Im Zwielicht Der Finsternis. Dark shamanistic chants in the cold norse tradition. This is recorded from the picture disc so pardon the extra hiss in the mix.

Howard Shore Welcome to Videodrome
Here's one for the bleepy-bloop electronic enthusiasts and it comes from one of my favorite David Cronenberg flicks! This actually gets more disturbing with extended exposure. Listen closely and you can hear Debbie Harry breathing through the TV screen. "Long Live The New Flesh!"

Extra Hot Sauce
This is really just the intro sample to the EHS song Extreme Hatred but it's so damn awesome I wanted to give credit where it's due. This was my answering machine message (remember them?) years ago and it freaked my girlfriend's parents out so bad they almost had the operator interrupt the line to make sure she was ok.

The Sonics Psycho
Hailing from the wetlands of Tacoma, Washington, The Sonics are credited with forging the punk rock template way back in the 60's with their simple cord progressions, feral instrumental hijinx and antisocial lyrical content. This 1965 classic is one of the most satisfying moments in rock 'n' roll. Order a Coca-Cola at the drive-in and kill something!

The Misfits Horror Business
Obvious, yes, but you didn't seriously think I would exclude the greatest horror-punk band in the world from this Halloween mix tape did you? This version of the title track of their third 7" is culled from Evil Live, a recording that ranks right up there with Unleashed In The East, Live After Death and Space Ritual. "One more fucking time you asshole and you DIE!!!!"

Hasil Adkins We Got A Date
Hasil "The Haze" Adkins is the legendary One-Man-Band of West Virgina. As the story goes, his musical career began as a barefoot rugrat when he misread a Hank Williams record and figured he had to learn to play all the instruments himself...at once. Many of his primitive trailer park stomps feature him on guitar, drums, vocals, and occasionally harmonica. This little ditty, an alternate version of his single No More Hot Dogs, was probably recorded around 1965.

Black Mass Lucifer ESP
There was a glut of "exciting" synthesizer records in the late 60's and early 70's. This is one of the stranger of the lot, especially when you consider that a pentagram was still pretty shocking in 1971. "This brief musical interpretation of ESP concerns telepathy in which the thoughts of two individuals, after transference from the senders, combine with each other in the mind of you the listener." So say the liner notes.

Salem Mass Witch Burning
We return to the Northwest with Salem Mass, a third tier "prog rock" band that has been lost to time and dust largely due to their self-indulgent and mostly flaccid jams. Initially from Idaho, they frequently landed in Portland, Oregon throughout their career and still reside just a few hours away. This 10 minute epic is by far their best work so roll a doobie and relax knowing you don't need to ferret out their entire back catalog.

Arkham Hearse Astral Rape Procession/Wolves In The Walls
Reprise. With song titles like that, who needs a recording studio?

Gnome Canis Lupus Hodophilax
A gross abuse of Robert Redford's Language and Music Of Wolves LP, this crazy manga mayhem makes Sigh sound downright pedestrian in comparison. From the 1999 split demo with Japan's equally bizarre Nyarlathotep (who would go on to produce Gallhammer).

Clara Rockmore Berceuse
Hopefully you've already heard this haunting 1977 masterpiece featuring Clara Rockmore on theremin and Nadia Reisenberg on piano but, in case you haven't, I feel compelled to expand your horizons. The perfect quivering accompaniment to a candlelit Hallow's Eve.

The Munsters Theme
Just be thankful the tape wasn't 120 minutes or you would've got the extended version with vocals. Happy Halloween!





Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Fall Into Darkness

I'm off to perform at the Fall Into Darkness fest in Portland this weekend with both Agalloch and Ludicra. Also performing that weekend are Earth, Amber Asylum, Fauna, Soriah, The Saviours, Yob, SubArachnoid Space, Witch Mountain, and a few others I forget. The blog won't be updated probably until I get back on Monday, but I might be able to scrape something up for Halloween. The awesome poster above was made by the brilliant David D'Andrea. Perhaps I will see you there.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

R.I.P. Joris

Just received some unfortunate news. It would seem that Joris of the Woodsmoke family (specifically münn) passed away back in September. Some other members of the Woodsmoke clan set about to making this recording, a project called Körkarlen, to honor his memory. They were very gracious to pass this along to me with the following explanation:

This album was recorded upon receiving word of Joris' death and exists as his audial wake. It represents the soul leaving the body and expanding infinitely beyond the dimensional fabrics of Kosmos which comprise linear time, transcending the Void and attaining conscious non-duality within Infinity.

I sincerely thank the Woodsmoke folks for choosing The Hearse as the means to share this very special work for their fallen comrade. I wish them all the best, and hope they can move forward past this tragedy, and continue to make great and meaningful art. I know many of you were fiending for some more Woodsmoke noise, shame it had to come under these circumstances.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Kids of the Black Hole

Like Melissa said, "If you don't like this album, you don't like punk."

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Bosse De Nage

Bosse De Nage are mysterious Bay Area Black Metal band that released one amazing tape on my former Funeral Agency label. Clearly I loved it enough to release it, but it doesn't hold a candle to the band's next recording which has remained unreleased. This recording shows the band progressing into a more angular, Ved Buens Ende type of deal, and even playing with some of the more post rock/shoegaze elements of bands like Alcest and Lifelover. Thematically delving into the decadent aesthetics of Bataille, Baudelaire, Grand Guignol... Perhaps Bosse De Nage are unrepentant francophiles. This didn't have a cover so I have opted to simply use a still from the brilliant French film Eyes Without a Face, it seemed fitting. The band was hoping for someone to press this bit of kult genius, but so far it hasn't happened. If you have a label, and any taste at all, seek out Bosse De Nage and make them an offer quickly. This should be heard.

Link to download removed at the request of the label who will be releasing this gem soon. Be sure to buy this, it is excellent and this band deserves your support.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Racially Yours

I'm mainly posting this for my bandmate and friend Jason Walton. He enjoys things that are uncomfortable, so it came as a bit of a shock to me when he told me he had never heard of The Frogs. Perhaps you haven't either. Anyhoo, The Frogs are this fucked up band from Milwaukee that play sugary sweet pop songs that are unafraid to fucking "go there." In fact The Frogs seem to delight in making you uncomfortable or tickled depending on just how tight your ass is. Racially Yours was the band's fifth release and it deals with, well you guessed it, race. The hardest of topics to discuss. Proof in the fact that Homestead records refused to release the album upon it's completion in 2000, but fortunately a decidedly less tight-assed Four Alarm records stepped up and got it out there. With songs like "Full of Monkeys" and "Darkmeat for Sale" you might want to dismiss this as some crude Bootleg Bill type of redneckery, but The Frogs, while being controversial, are often thought provoking, clever, and profound in their ruminations on race. Can you handle it?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Choke Thirst Die

Choke Thirst Die are a fairly new Thrash band from Hagen, Germany. Their first cassette release Demonstration Desolation packs much ass kicking into a scant thirteen minutes. Choke Thirst Die give nods to early Bathory and Anti-Cimex in their relentless delivery. Now aren't you foaming at the ear to hear this? I demand more from this brilliant band. Rabid!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Fucking Yaeneura '84

Get your hair fucking charged up, put on your 75 lb. leather jacket and set the fucking controls for Tokyo, Japan 1984, we're checking out fucking Zouo tonight live and in concert. All the punks want to spend loud night, and Zouo, as far as I am concerned, is second only to GISM in the fucking Japanese Hardcore pantheon. Satanic Acid Punk Metal weirdness from the biggest fucking hair guys on the fucking island. You fucking coming or what?


Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Lik

Lik was mainly a side project for Armagedda member and malevolent woodland entity, Graav. Nothing Armagedda ever did really caught my ear, but when Lik came to be, it was like the band I had been waiting for for years. Not exactly Black Metal, but rather an otherworldly concoction of despondent Death Rock and lo-fi drunk Vikings. Imagine Christian Death meets Isengard. Clean tone guitars shimmer over clumsy, ham-fisted drums, and Graav's regal Swedish vocals round out the weirdness perfectly. Ma Ljuset Aldrig Na Oss Mer was Lik's debut, and it is a perfect album for drinking alone.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Agony Bag

After the demise of British occult band, Black Widow, saxophone player Clive Jones formed Agony Bag, a shock rock/horror/glam-punk spectacle. Feelmazumba collects Agony Bag's various recordings between 76-80 and it is hokey, trashy fun from start to finish.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Fuck Lukaschenko

You know who's been riding my sack lately? That fucker Lukaschenko. I wish a whole bunch of really kick ass Belarusian punk bands would get together and make a compilation and give that dicklicker the what for. Oh they did? Cool.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Gormantatinus

Gormantatinus' second demo Sersavina Decan Anden Plaust was featured in an early Cosmic Hearse entry on the weird world of Korean Black Metal, but I have been spinning this one a lot lately and felt it warranted more attention. Gormantatinus is best described as the Korean Abruptum. The "music" is an improvised torturous din. Very personal and very surreal. Pure Korean evil.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Trouble

I don't give a fuck what you think, Trouble's 1990 self-titled Def American major label sellout album is a fine piece of work. I had a hard time finding it so I figured it was prime Hearse fodder. Considering how it was pressed into the millions and sold very little, you'd think that copies would be jockeying for cut-out bin space alongside albums by Joey Lawrence and Hammer. The production is standard bone dry Rick Rubin, but Trouble shines through with Franklin and Wartell's gooey resin tones and Wagner's signature wail. A little bit of Jesus, a whole lot of stale bongwater, and a throwaway cover of "Psychotic Reaction." Rubin believed these dudes should of been bigger, and I tend to agree, so what happened?

Friday, October 16, 2009

Raising Hell

You all wanted more stuff by Miami's Load, the band I have often referred to as "the greatest band of the '90s." Not wanting to disappoint you, I have decided to post Load's very first recordings better known as The Hellraiser Session. Hope you enjoy it.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

First Utterance

Of course you knew this classic would appear here at some point, and I assume that most of you already have well worn copies of First Utterance in your collections, but just in case someone out there has never been exposed to the pagan acid folk insanity that was Comus...

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Blowfly Disco

If you hail from Miami, or anywhere near it, then you already know all about Blowfly, the foul-mouthed, crack smoking superhero from Miami's mean streets. Chances are you own at least two of his cassettes and can quote at least five verses from any number of his many X-rated party songs. You probably can recall the first time you ever heard his trademark laugh. You may have even met the man at eSync studios or at The Overtown Fleamarket. For the rest of you, not blessed enough to grow up on the dripity tip of America's flaccid dong, Blowfly might remain unknown, which is low-down dirty-dicked shame. Blowfly's immense influence can be heard in the ribald works of such ghetto pioneers as Too Short, Kool Keith, and fellow Florida filth flingers, 2 Live Crew. Blowfly (aka Clarence Reid) has been self-releasing "party Records" since 1969. This has resulted in a staggering body of work in which the man fucks everyone from the devil, to Mr. T, to Darth Vader, to various animals, political figures, and, well, you name it and Blowfly probably has a song about fucking it. Part Weird Al, part George Clinton, part Screamin' Jay, and all motherfucking, everloving Blowfly. Here is his 1976 assault on the musical abomination that was disco, aptly titled Blowfly Disco. A few years back a foppish visionary named Jello Biafra was introduced to the coarse peasant humour of Blowfly and quickly signed him to his label, Alternative Tentacles. Naturally Blowfly seized this opportunity to give a deep dicking to the weird world of Punk Rock. At the ripe old age of sixty four Blowfly shows no signs of slowing down or going soft. God bless Blowfly.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Far Away From The Sun

Look at that castle, evil goes on in there, unparalleled evil, Swedish evil. Sacramentum is inside creating evil, evil with dual guitar harmonies, evil with blastbeats. That castle sits far away from the sun, squarely in 1995, a year of evil, Swedish evil. Just out of frame is another castle, Dissection's castle, a castle full of evil, Swedish evil. Sometimes Dissection's evil can be heard over at Sacramentum's castle, but Dissection doesn't care.

Monday, October 12, 2009

The Scam

Here's a great 1986 EP called Everything Ends In Rot by little known hardcore unit, The Scam, from Salem, New Hampshire. These guys were part of a burgeoning New England scene of brilliant, fucked-up hardcore bands like Psycho and PTL Klub. Not the typical jocko dumb shit  the region was known for. 

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sleepwalker

Recently I had my mind blown by the Santa Cruz band, Fell Voices. I picked up every bit of merch they had with them. Along with their vinyl, the standout item was this vaguely packaged CDR in an envelope. I think the band is called Sleepwalker, and share at least one member with Fell Voices. Three tracks of beautiful, expansive Black Metal with some obvious post-rock influence. The vocals are buried howls, the music is repetitive and hypnotic. This is excellent. You should hear it.


Saturday, October 10, 2009

Horse

Some pretty good hard rocking like Mountain, with slight Christian underpinnings from Horse. Horse were from England, and released this, their only album, in the very Christian year of 1971. I'm guessing these cats weren't the kind of annoying asshatted Christians that would knock on your door to talk Jesus some morning when you are trying to make it with some lovely bird from down the local boozer, but rather the kind that really liked to party and believed that it was a sin to not share their weed and women with you Manson style. Solid, baby!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Ursonate

Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters accomplished much during his lifetime. He was a visual artist, poet, and visionary. Kurt is probably best remembered for publishing a periodical called Merz (today this would be called a zine or a blog.) Schwitters also invented the concept of installation art, starting a conceptual piece/space called Merzbau (the inspiration for the Japanese noise artist Merzbow.) But the focus of this post is his role as the very first freestyle rapper. Schwitters could often be found in the cafes of Berlin, spitting dope lyrics that may have sounded like a barrage of nonsense words and sounds to the brutish, uncultured ear. These "poems" were part of a larger body of work called The Ursonate. Over a period of ten years Schwitters painstakingly worked and reworked The Ursonate into a finalized version. Whinemeal, The Nazis came along and made Berlin a decidedly unfun place to live, and make weird art, so Schwitters hightailed it to Norway. It was there that he was able to make some recordings of The Ursonate for future generations to listen to and scratch their heads at.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Fatal

Not particularly rare or out of print, but this album has been getting much rotation around my house lately. Not to mention that cover is just so perfect I wanted it to sit here on my site for a few days. You can bitch all you want about how Cosmic Hearse has jumped the shark, but until you make anything remotely as cool as Fatal Portrait, I won't listen.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Flesh Columns

The Flesh Columns were from Ottawa in the '80s but it would be a bit unfair to lump them in with the scores of generic punk bands pumping out records at the time. The Flesh Columns had elements of post-punk and sounded more English than Canadian, and they avoided the usual breakneck speeds of hardcore. Moody stuff.


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Oak

During our Baltimore stop on the recent Ludicra tour I was fortunate enough to meet Joe of the band Oak. He was kind enough to kick me a vinyl copy of their debut LP. Of course the cover was enticing enough with it's strange psychedelic kraut rocky cover, but I had no fucking idea how utterly devastating the tuneage inside was. Crusty, stripped-down, sludgy doom, earthen, spacious and absolutely great. They have promised to tour soon, go see them.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Some Rare Hickey For You

No big fanfare or thing-a-majig today, the anniversary of Matty Luv's untimely passing, just some Hickey tracks that never made it on any of our official releases, and a pic of the awesome Matty Luv memorial mural on Clarion alley in San Francisco. I miss you, Matty.

1. "Hickey Blvd."-from The Mission Accomplished compilation.
2. "Foodstamps and Drink Tickets"- from the VGS/Hickey split, but then again I am not even sure it's the same version.
3. This was Hickey's side of the Hickey/VBF split 7"
4. An Avengers cover for some comp that may have never come out where we were asked to record an early punk song we love.
5. A live version of "Last Night On The Planet" from a Canadian DIY compilation.
6. Our cover of Manowar's "Kingdome Come" from the Death To False Metal compilation
7. "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" which appeared on some compilation I forget what it's called.
8. "Coffee Beans..." was recorded live on the radio in Tucson and appeared on Matt Shapiro's Scene through my eyes comp.
9. "Robots Never Cry" never was released as far as I know, I could be wrong.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Unicorn

So who is Peter Grudzien, a prophet, a tortured genius, a sensitive man with Asperger Syndrome, gay pop mystic? Really, does it matter? What does matter is his 1974 album The Unicorn. It is a deliciously idiosyncratic piece of outsider pop music that will warm your heart as it breaks it, it will comfort as it unnerves you. The Unicorn possesses a placid honesty that is rare in music, it stands without pretensions or posturing of any sort, it just is. When I listen to Peter Grudzien I am reminded of the stark genius of Matty Luv's Yogurt home recordings and the arcane homosensual lyrical entendre of Antony & The Johnsons. This was waaaay ahead of its time on all fronts. So haunting, weird, and occasionally funny, I can't imagine this won't move you in some way.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Abysmal Grief

Italy is once again the focus, but this time it is the classic Italian Horror-Doom of Abysmal Grief. Though a relatively new band, Abysmal Grief invoke the sinister occult vibes of fellow countrymen Jacula, Death SS, Jess Franco, and Mario Bava. Haunted castles, clandestine seances, cobwebbed hallucinations, and the robust druggy breasts of an innocent girl lured into the sanguine rituals of sadistic, satanic noblemen. All of this is conjured by the towering sounds of Abysmal Grief. Enter if you dare. Released on beautiful vinyl and CD by the extremely awesome Black Widow Records.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Dioxina

Dioxina were another Italian hardcore outfit. Here's their only release, the 1985 7" EP Nessuna Pietà. The title translates to "No Mercy" which seems fitting as Dioxina come off a bit tough guy throughout the six songs here, some of it bordering on Oi.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Les Heavy Heads

Back to France. Hearse friend, Solana Diaz wanted to share this awesome comp of '70s Franco hard rock and proto-metal, called Tetes Lourdes. It's all pretty fucking neanderthal and fantastic, but standouts include Lover's Love, Little Sammy Gaha, and Tac Poum Systeme. Très haut, très lourd. Merci, Solana.