Taking IN the Trash: The Official Trash Palace Blog!

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: THE PERSUASIONS "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)"

2012-01-04T12:52:00.004-05:00

This is my favorite a capella track ever, a cover of The Temptations tune "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)" performed by The Persuasions. At least I think it's The Persuasions. The track is taken from the LP compilation "Dangerous Doo Wop volume 2" released in the 1990s. But unfortunately there is no information whatsoever about this recording. The Persuasions did a version of this tune on their 1972 Capitol Records LP "Street Corner Symphony". But this version seems to have been recorded in the 1960s.

UPDATE: Check out the comments below for some information courtesy of Julie Lawson, wife of lead singer Jerry Lawson!

XMAS GREETINGS!

2011-12-23T02:32:00.004-05:00

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "CHICKENS FOR CHRISTMAS" by THE UBANGIS

2011-12-21T02:55:00.003-05:00

"Chickens for Christmas" is the Xmas side of The Ubangis amazing holiday 7" single from 1993 on DeCeased / Brutarian Records split label. The b-side is "(She's A) Yamakah Mama (At Hanukkah Time)". "Chickens..." also appeared on a local Xmas CD comp called "It's A Rockin' Christmas" on the Run Wild Records label.

Appearing on this Rockabilly track are yers truly (Brian Horrorwitz) on lead vocals and drums and "Saucy" Randy Manos on guitars, bass and backup vocals. (UMF had yet to join the band but came along soon sfter.) The single was recorded in 1 take on 1/4 inch reel-to-reel tape by Carl Merson at his Beware Of Dog studios in Silver Spring, Maryland. Yes, 1/4 inch reel-to-reel! This is what all Rockabilly should sound like you twerps! Look, even the chicken liked it! Ah... whaddoiknow...

The dancing chicken footage was "borrowed" from the Werner Herzog movie "Stroszek".

And now, the lovely lyrics:

Well I gotta drop that old Kris Kringle a line
My heart's all a-tingle, got a Christmas wish so fine
It's kind of fowl but with a little luck
He'll bring me some brand new friends who go cluck
Come on Santa Claus
I'm asking ya please....
Give me chickens for Christmas

You know I'm gonna love each hen that old Saint Nick sends
I won't eat none of them, not my fine feathered friends
I'll love them so, this is my Christmas wish
I promise Santa they won't end up on a dish
Come on Santa Claus
All I'm askin' is please...
Give me some chickens for Christmas

AAAAW, YEAH!!

(I ain't cluckin' around! etc.)

And when we're out caroling together
In that snowy weather
I'll make each one a Christmas sweater
So they don't get snow on their feathers

Come on Santa Claus
I'm beggin' ya, please...
Send me chickens for Christmas

On Christmas Day we'll have a Jingle Bell wing-ding sing-a-long
Drinkin' egg nog a-pluckin' and a-cluckin' to a Christmas song
They'll be happy as can be
And on New Year's Eve I'm gonna set 'em free
Oh, please, Santa Claus
Won't you hear my plea

And give me chickens for Christmas (x3)

OY VEY! IT'S HORRORWITZ'S "HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH"!

2011-12-15T02:07:00.006-05:00

It's here! The best darn Hanukkah music comp in this blog! 20 holiday tunes to get you twisting', swingin' and rockin'! So good you'll plotz! And you don't even need to be Jewish to enjoy it (but it couldn't hurt)! Not available in any music store or deli. Download from this link! And feel free to inflict it, er... share it with someone you like! The download inlcudes all 20 tracks in mp3 file format plus the front and back cover!

(Note: This compilation is G-Rated and is okay for all ages, provided you don't mind tormenting young people slightly.)

CLIP OF THE MOMENT: "VALID OR VOID" VIDEO by SHRINK (1979)

2011-12-08T02:17:00.017-05:00

In the fall of 1982 I dj'd a "video dance party" at Montgomery College on Rockville, Maryland. It was the first of it's kind on the campus. I borrowed some portable vcr's from a friend who ran a small business shooting wedding videos. And as for the music videos themselves we had to take what we could find. I had a beta tape recording of the very first MTV broadcast which included Devo and The Buggles. Also someone at Peaches Records donated a couple of promo videocassettes. One had several music video's for David Bowie's under rated "Lodger" LP. The other, I vaguely recall, was a mixture and included this new wave chap who called himself Shrink. I had remembered seeing his mini LP at a record store. He had his face and head painted up gold, the hair on half his head was shaved while the other half was spiked. By this point I was already into The Bad Brains, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Stranglers, The Residents, Black Flag and so on. And so my friends and I thought this Shrink was pretty goofy at the time. But the funny thing is that when I hear this song now I think it sounds pretty fucking good! Especially when compared to some of the horsehit being passed off as rock music these days. "Valid or Void" has a sort of glam-punk sound that is kinda' catchy. I've dug deep into the Trash Palace archives and dug up my beta tape dub to present you with what I believe is the Internet debut of the lost music video for Shrink's "Valid or Void". The sound is a bit low so crank it up!

I dunno what the story was with Shrink or where he's gone off to. I guess he never made it too big but seems to have a small cult following of people that remember him. He did appear on tv at least 1 time. Check out this live clip which I found online from a Netherlands website. What must these people in the audience have thought?

This is the shit! Come back Shrink! We need you now more than ever!!

TRICK-OR-TREAT TIPS

2011-10-31T02:04:00.001-04:00

HORRORWITZ'S HELLISH HALLOWEEN HOO-HAH ROCK-N-ROLL PARTY!

2011-10-27T00:35:00.015-04:00

Here it is! Our latest Halloween offering: 80 minutes of wiiiiild Halloween rock-n-roll plus some excellent horror movie radio ads and a few surprises! Fits nicely onto a CD-R disc!!

You can listen to the entire mess right here (it might take a few seconds to kick in):

(If you prefer to play the show from your Media Player click here.)

Or you can download the program by right clicking here and saving the file to your hard drive.

HAPPENIN' HALLOWEEN (RE-BOO-TED)

2011-10-25T03:12:00.002-04:00

CLIP OF THE MOMENT: THE RUNAWAYS "CHERRY BOMB" (Japan, 1977)

2011-10-07T03:49:00.001-04:00

Of all the performances of the Runaways doing "Cherry Bomb" in Japan I think this one was filmed the best! TURN IT UP LOUD!

SEXI: EUROPEAN EROTIC FILM MUSIC FROM 1969 - 1970

2011-08-25T16:37:00.005-04:00

My good buddy Dr. Penis aka The Purple Zombie DJ has just made this excellent comp available for download on his blog at this link. It is approximately 79 minutes of some of the best erotica film music from European movies circa 1969 to 1979. More common tracks are mixed with several rarities. Some really cool and beautiful music here. It is highly recommended!

CLIP OF THE MOMENT: POPCORN (1969)

2011-07-17T21:44:00.005-04:00

Here's a hard-to-find pop art montage sequence from the uncut version of Peter Clifton's 1969 movie Popcorn, featuring the song "I'm A Man" by The Spencer Davis Group.

BLUES ON THE BEACH! THIS WEEKEND!

2011-06-23T02:49:00.008-04:00

Saturday & Sunday, June 25th & 26th, 2011, 12 noon, it's the very first "Blues on the Beach" show - The Colonial Beach Blues Festival presented by the lovely folks from Brutarian / Populuxe! A weekend festival featuring The Nighthawks, Bill Kirchen & Too Much Fun and MANY others! (SEE POSTER ABOVE) AND our own in-house cave-stompers THE UBANGIS will be performing Sunday afternoon right before Bill Kirchen (who is not to be missed)! This is a benefit show for the Organization for Autism Research (OAR) . CHECK OUT THE COLONIAL BEACH BLUES FESTIVAL FACEBOOK PAGE FOR MORE DETAILS!

THIS TUESDAY IN NYC: GONE IN 60 SECONDS!

2011-05-30T01:30:00.008-04:00

If you happen to be in the NYC area this Tuesday night Trash Palace presents a video screening of the classic car chase smash-em-up Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

And this version has the original music score that was written for the film. Director / star H. B. Halicki was sadly killed trying to shoot a stunt for the sequel which was never finished as far as I know. When his wife later released this on DVD she scrapped the original score in place of a cheezy new electronic one that sounded like it was trying to capitalize on the "Fast and Furious" type of movies. In short - it sucked! If you are into massive car carnage do not miss it! At the time of the original release the amount of destruction was used as a selling point. This was enough for me to convince my Mom to take me to see it in 1974 (I was 9!). Before the movie a few classic car chase movie trailers will be shown. VRRRRROOOOOOM!!

This Tuesday at Otto's Shrunken Head in NYC (538 E. 14th street (A & B)).

Presented by Trash Palace and Cine Meccanica!

GIALLO MOODS: THE MUSIC OF MURDER

2011-05-21T04:07:00.009-04:00

A lot of my friends know how obsessed I am with Giallo movies. Not just the films but the soundtracks too. Well about 10 years ago I started planning a CD compilation of the very best tracks from the scores to these modern Italian thrillers. Then I kind of shelved the idea when the once rare and unreleased soundtracks started getting released in droves because I just couldn't keep up with them all and I wanted to be thorough. So recently, with the help of a few friends, I decided to go back and finish the compilation and it ended up being 3 CDs, each just under 80 minutes! And my good friend Dr. Penis (the Purple Zombie DJ) is nice enough to host links on his blog where you can download and enjoy them all for free! Each volume fits perfectly onto 1 blank CD-R disc, or you can save them as mp3 files and play them from your hard drive or ipod player. I would recommend checking the 1st volume out first to see if you dig it. The first 2 volumes contain my all time favorite themes and cues, mostly from the late '60s and '70s, by composers such as Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Goblin and many others. The 3rd volume contains some of the more upbeat pop, rock and r&b songs from the Giallo party and club scenes! There are several rare and unreleased tracks and some real obscurities amongst the more well known composers. Enjoy!

You can find the download links in the Comments of the Giallo Moods: Music For Murder! post over at the Purple Zombie DJ blog!

KICK OUT THE JAMS MUTHA*%@#ERS! CLIP OF THE MOMENT: THE MC5!

2011-05-15T05:06:00.005-04:00

"ENTER THE VOID" DIRECTOR'S CUT TO PLAY IN DC MAY 6th & 7th

2011-04-29T03:14:00.013-04:00

One critic called this movie ambitious and I agree! Enter The Void is indeed the most ambitious piece of experimental cinema to come along in awhile. And on May 6th and 7th the Landmark E Street Cinema in Washington, DC will be screening the 2 hour 40 minute director's cut as part of their Midnight Movies series.

From director Gaspar Noé, the man that brought you the nerve shattering drama I Stand Alone and the feel-bad cinematic mindfuck Irreversible comes a psychedelic deathtrip that you will not forget soon. I have screened this film for a few people and read many online interpretations and this one really seems to divide the crowd. People seem to fight over whether Void has valid messages or not and there is certainly lots to observe in it. Some find it to be meaningless psychedelic dribble while others proclaim it is a new kind of masterpiece. Some find it intense and others vapid; some beautiful, others disturbing. Enter The Void is not a plot driven movie with a linear story, but an experience to soak up for the open-minded. And the fact that it is being screened in an actual movie theater in these times is amazing to me. I only wish that the E Street Cinema was screening it earlier than Midnight (DC is a bit of a haul for me) but if you are in the area and have an interest in experimental cinema, filmic interpretations of life, death, reincarnation, etc., you will want to check this out.

SAFETY FIRST (1987)

2011-01-22T05:48:00.002-05:00

This is a short film shot by my friend Dan Bader in Washington, DC in 1987. It is a shop safety film that speaks for itself.

ELECTRIC LARRY'S FUNKTASMIC FREAK-OUT FESTIVAL CD

2010-12-23T17:40:00.003-05:00

Our good buddy and partner in crime Dr Penis aka The Purple Zombie DJ has this amazing funky party mix available for free download or just to listen to online. I will confess that I provided some technical assistance to Electric Larry to help him create his ultimate party mix CD. If you're hosting a New Year's Eve party this will help kick it off right! Go there now to check it out!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #8: "Tzena Tzena" by The Temples plus Sam Chalpin bonus (?) tune!

2010-12-08T19:13:00.014-05:00

For our last night of Hanukkah we present to you another rockin' tune by The Temples, a cover of the Jewish classic "Tzena Tzena", a party song that has something to do with telling girls to go out and meet up with soldiers. (I kid you not!) The Temples cover brings along another Twist... um... twist... to the popular Jewish song.

And, as a bonus track, I bring to you Sam Chalpin and his brain-numbingly meshugga cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction".

While lyric-wise this is not technically a Jewish record per se, Chalpin's "Satisfaction" is another novelty track sung somewhat in the in the same vein as Gefilte Joe and The Fish (ie- an old Jewish guy destroys a classic).

I hope you've enjoyed listening to these past 8 Nights of Happennin' Hanukkah Hits as much as I've enjoyed posting them.

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #7: "Dayeinu" (Twist) by Lou Klayman and His Orchestra

2010-12-07T17:38:00.007-05:00

Tonight we have an instrumental twist variation of the old Jewish party classic "Dayeinu". It's taken from the Sonodor label LP called "Twistin The Freilach". Freilach, or freylekh, has several meanings. (Not, it isn't about that giant pack of French fries from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.) As an adjective it basically means "joyous". And as a noun it is it refers to the kind of joyous dance that Klezmers do. And what more hoyous a dance is there than The Twist I ask you? So I suppose it only made sense to try and combine the 2, right? Well at least Lou Klayman thought so. Enjoy!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #6: "Walk On The Kosher Side" by Gefilte Joe and The Fish

2010-12-06T17:34:00.014-05:00

For the 6th night of Hanukkah we present Gefilte Joe and The Fish from the Star Of David shaped vinyl EP "Hanukah Rocks" (on Rhino records). This 4 track EP is a novelty classic and although the title track is technically more Hanukkah oriented, I think that the best song on this record is their cover of Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side". This is also a personal fave of Bella Buttons, the world famous Trash Palace Pooch. Enjoy!

Bella likes to play this record after she lights her candles. She says it's one of the best records she's ever tasted!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #5: "Let's Put The 'CH' Back In Chanukah" by Stanley Adams and The Chicken Flickers

2010-12-05T17:44:00.008-05:00

It's always frustrated me that there were so many spellings for Hanukkah. My personal favorite was always "Chanukah" (with a CH!). And apparently Stanley Adams is one dude who agrees! And in tonight's song he takes it one step further. The story of of one tough Tateh trying to whoop a little tough Chanuka love on his son's tucas! Amazingly, the "Chanukah Carols" LP from the early 1960s is still available on CD today. Enjoy!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #4: "The Kosher Twist" by Benny Bell & The Pretzel Twisters

2010-12-04T16:02:00.005-05:00

On the fourth night of Hanukkah I bring you one of my all time faves. This track speaks for itself. It's a 1960s recording by Benny Bell (aka Benjamin Samberg), the same novelty singer who brought you the Dr. Demento favorite "Shaving Cream". Enjoy!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #3: "Yamaka Mama" by The Ubangis

2010-12-03T17:46:00.013-05:00

This next track comes from our in-house band The Ubangis. The complete title is actually "(She's A) Yamaka Mama (At Chanukah Time)"Originally released as a 7" holiday 45 in 1994 (a split by both Brutarian and DeCeased Records) and given away free with the then newest issue of Brutarian magazine as a split Christmas / Hanukkah record. Both tracks were also featured on the first volume of the CD compilation series "It's A Rockin' Christmas" (on the Run Wild Records label). I thought the idea was pretty funny at the time but I guess a couple of people found it slightly offensive. Luckily most of us Jews have a sense of humor. The Xmas side, incidentally, was a swingin' little rockabilly number called "chickens For Christmas". Enjoy!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #2: "Downtown" by Al Tijuana and his Jewish Brass

2010-12-02T17:12:00.010-05:00

For our second night we have the zany parody of the Petula Clark hit "Downtown", originally written by Tony Hatch, but performed for us tonight by Al Tijuana and his Jewish Brass! Taken from the oddball Capital Records LP from 1966, back when major music labels had more of a sense of humor. (Remember, Capitol also released the Mrs. Miller records!) The Herb Alpert parody album performed by "Al Tijuana" (real name Lou Jacobi) has a bit of a Spike Jones feel if Spike had been raised in Queens by a Jewish family. Got all that? In the words of Al, "Now that's what I call Downtown!" Enjoy!

HORRORWITZ'S 8 NIGHTS OF HAPPENIN' HANUKKAH HITS! #1: "Hava Nagila Twist" by The Temples

2010-12-01T18:42:00.009-05:00

For the first night of Hannukah we're gonna kick things off with an old Jewish classic "Hava Nagila". This tune is probably the most well known of all Jewish "party" music and has been covered a gazillion times. And so there have been many different variations including a well known surf guitar version by Dick Dale. But for me this Twist version by The Temples really kicks out the borscht! It totally swings and no other version I know of comes close to it. It comes from their 1960s LP on the New York based Ad Lib Records label called "Be Mir Twist Du Schön" which roughly translates to something like "Twist With Me Already". Enjoy!

DREIDELMANIA!

2010-12-01T03:48:00.007-05:00

I have a little dreidel
I made it out of clay
And if you think that's boring
Then give this list a play!

So, you think dreidel's are boring, eh? And what about that dumb little song we were forced to sing in Hebrew school? Well, just so happens there are a lot of cool variations of that tune that I found on Playlist.com . Some of them are less then 10 seconds long even. (Those are the best versions!) Okay, if you can make it through this entire playlist then you're a better Jew than I am. And if that happens then please give yourself an honorary "Mazel Tov!" on me!

Yes, tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. And since this little dreidel playlist doesn't completely cut the latke's, prepare yourself for Horrorwitz's 8 Nights Of Happenin' Hanukkah Hits! Yes, each night I will post 1 very cool Hanukkah tune for you to enjoy, and to show the world that there are some pretty cool Hanukkah song covers. Well... there's at least 8 of them that I know of! (I hope!)

"THANKSGIVING": FUN FOR THE WHOLE (MANSON) FAMILY!

2010-11-25T14:15:00.004-05:00

This year I give thanks to the nice person who uploaded this trashy fake movie trailer (from the movie Grindhouse) to Youtube. GOBBLE GOBBLE!

FAREWELL COUNTESS DRACULA

2010-11-24T00:12:00.011-05:00

I was just forwarded the email below that actress Ingrid Pitt has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I had the pleasure to meet her a few times and thought she was really down-to-earth and witty. As a young lad seeing House that Dripped Blood in the theater and Countess Dracula on tv she was one of the first sexy vampires that caught my eye. She once told me she lived for awhile in Silver Spring, Maryland - my home town! That blew my mind. I hadn't seen her in years. She will truly be missed by myself and the thousands of horror fans who've grown to love her from her film roles as well as her many convention appearances.

---

From the BBC News 23 November 2010 Last updated at 17:55 :

Hammer horror actress Ingrid Pitt dies aged 73
Hammer horror actress Ingrid Pitt, best known for starring in cult classics such as Countess Dracula, has died at the age of 73. The Polish-born star passed away at a hospital in south London after collapsing a few days ago. She was regarded by many fans as the queen of Hammer Horror films. The star's death comes weeks after film-maker Roy Ward Baker, who directed Pitt in The Vampire Lovers, died at the age of 93. Pitt's daughter told the BBC News website that her mother's death had come as a "huge surprise". After the actress has collapsed recently, doctors told her was she suffering from heart failure. "She could be incredibly generous, loving, and she'll be sorely missed," Mrs Blake said. She added that she wanted her mother to be remembered as the Countess Dracula with the "wonderful teeth and the wonderful bosom".

'Gloriously uninhibited'

Official Hammer historian Marcus Hearn paid tribute to the star, calling her a "talented actress and fine writer".All fans of Hammer and of British horror are going to miss her terribly”. He added: "She was partly responsible for ushering in a bold and brazen era of sexually explicitly horror films in the 1970s, but that should not denigrate her abilities as an actress." A good friend of the actress, Mr Hearn said she was "gloriously uninhibited" and "great fun to be with". Although she was not the first female star of a Hammer film, Mr Hearn said she had always been "very proud" of becoming the first prominent female protagonist in a Hammer after her role in The Vampire Lovers. "All fans of Hammer and of British horror are going to miss her terribly," he said. She began her career with fairly minor roles in several Spanish films in the mid-1960s. But in 1968 she landed a supporting role in war movie Where Eagles Dare, appearing alongside Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. The actress got her breakthrough role two years later in the horror thriller The Vampire Lovers, which was a box office success. Several Hammer movies followed, firmly establishing her as one of the key women of British horror of the 1970s. Her other film credits included The Wicker Man (1973), Who Dares Wins (1982), Smiley's People (1982) and Wild Geese II (1985). Pitt made regular appearances at horror conventions and penned several books about her career in the genre.

Ingrid bares her fangs in House That Dripped Blood (1971)

A tense moment from the 1964 Spanish sci-fi thriller Sound of Horror also with Spanish actress and Jess Franco fan favorite Soledad Miranda.

Ingrid as the bloodthirsty Mircalla Karnstein in Hammer Film's The Vampire Lovers (1970)

THE SOUND OF VIOLENCE

2010-10-26T01:19:00.003-04:00

Recently I was re-watching William Peter Blatty's quirky movie The Ninth Configuration, an under rated thriller of sorts from 1980 that is rather hard to pin a label on. And there's this intense scene where lead Stacey Keach, as the seemingly pacified Col. Vincent Kane, gets badgered into a bar fight with a group of nasty bikers with bad eye liner. Kane is pushed and pushed to the very edge of tolerance and finally, when he snaps, he lets loose a "gut wrenching scream" that sounded strangely familiar to me. A sort of deja boo!, as it were. In fact I was quite sure I had heard it many times in other movies or tv shows. One for certain was the over-the-top comedy series Wonder Showzen which seemed to have use it several times. Later I was reading what comments people had made about Ninth Configuration on the imdb message board when, lo a behold, a discusion of said scream included a link to a website called Not The Wilhem Scream. Yes, an entire website that is a tribute to that same one scream. The scream which, incidentally (and thanks to them), can be heard here:

Once you visit this website and learn the history of the scream I know that you, like myself, will sleep better tonight. God bless.

EERIE PUBS MEETS JOHNSON SMITH: THE COOLEST MONSTER VIDEO EVER MADE?

2010-10-24T17:47:00.022-04:00

Jason Willis of the legendary Scarstuff monster record blog has just posted the most amazing video on youtube and it is being re-posted here below with his permission.

Some of you might remember my blog last year about the Eerie Publications and how a copy of "Weird" magazine blew my little 8 year old mind out back in the Summer of 1973. Well Jason has taken a bunch of that great cover art and made an animation set to the sounds of the Johnson Smith horror sound effects record from the 1970s. I myself remember originally hearing this record in the '70s when my friend David Balaban ordered it from a comic book. The first side was your standard ghost and thunder type effects. But the second side really cuts loose with demons, banshees, space aliens and a torture chamber. Even as young kids we thought that it sounded so ultra-cheezy, with flubbed lines and effects that sounded like it was recorded by 2 drunk dudes in a large bathroom on their lunch break from the office. But that didn't keep us from playing it several times over! The record ends with Krishtor the alien threatening to destroy the Earth. I used to leave that as the my outgoing message of my answering machine. I later learned that much of the Johnson Smith 7" was lifted from a full length LP called "Spook Stuff" which I was later lucky enough to find on eBay. Anywho, I was thinking of posting the record on the Trash Palace blog when I stumbled across Jason's great video which I gratefully re-post here! (Thanx Jason!)

HALLOWEEN BURLESQUE SPOOKTACULAR!

2010-10-21T23:37:00.005-04:00

This Sat. October 30th Trash Palace will be providing the monster wallpaper videos at this wild upcoming event which also features a live performance by our in-house cave-stompers The Ubangis! If you are anywhere in or near Washington, DC this Halloween weekend you could do worse then to attend...

Saturday, October 30th: It's the Voodoo Nights Halloween bash! Doors 8pm; Show 9pm Price: $15.00 . Mayhem, Music and Ghoulesque! Featuring: The Ubangis live in concert! Plus: Live Sideshow & Burlesque hosted by Jonny Porkpie with Rev. Valentine, DC's sideshow girl Mab Just Mab, Baltimore's Kay Sera and the High Priestess of Burlesque Jo Boooobs!! Don't miss the Costume Contest with cool Prizes! *Post show DJ & Band Dance Party with live Go-Go Dancing by Candy Del Rio! This show is for ages 21 and over. Advance tickets are available at www.redandblackbar.com .

MONSTERS WE'VE KNOWN AND LOVED (1963)

2010-10-16T23:03:00.022-04:00

Around 1970 I remember seeing a re-broadcast of this black & white 25 minute tv special when I was just a kid. I didn't realize it was an episode of a 1963 tv series called "Hollywood and the Stars". If I recall, it ran one Saturday afternoon on our local UHF station WDCA - Channel 20 - in Washington, DC, in between a few old horror movies. (Thank you Dick Dyzell!)

This fun collection of clips ranging from monsters of the silent movie era to classic Universal-type monsters to the z-budget zombies of Ray Dennis Steckler's "Incredibly Strange Creatures..." cult flick, from classic horror stars to giant monsters, is a long time fave of mine. And as I didn't see it posted online anywhere I thought I'd slap it up just in time for Halloween. And so, in the words of narrator Joseph Cotten, "Now, don't send the children to bed. We want all of you to meet... Monsters We've Known And Loved."!

WATCH PART 1 OF 2:

WATCH PART 2 OF 2:

LINKS:
Buy Monsters We've Known And Loved along with the 1944 feature film Cry of the Werewolf, both on 1 DVD-R, at Trash Palace here!

Hollywood And The Stars on the Internet Movie Database at www.imdb.com/title/tt0056765/

THE HORROR, THE HORROR... REALM, THAT IS! (AGAIN!)

2010-09-16T04:22:00.008-04:00

This year's Horror Realm convention (known as Zombiefest a few years back) has a TON of guests from the original Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead movies, plus John Amplas, star of George Romero's Martin, the lead actress from the recent scat-tastic cult film Human Centipede, and a Basket Case reunion! Plus other horror actors, artists, authors and... wrestlers! There will be film screenings and a costume ball dj'd by yours truly! And Trash Palace will have a dealer's table there Saturday afternoon and Sunday and, yes, Bella Buttons - the world famous Trash Palace pooch - will also be in attendance! Oh boy!! For more information on the 2010 Horror Realm convention check out the Horror Realm website at http://www.horrorrealmcon.com/

Speaking of Bella Buttons: Below you can check out a very brief 34 second excerpt of a video review from last year's 2009 Horror Realm convention shot by some blokes called Visions Magazine. If you look closely you'll catch a brief glimpse of me chatting with blogmeister Max Cheney aka The Drunken Severed Head. Or The Severed Drunken Head, depending on what angle you are looking at him. But more importantly it ends with Bella Buttons manning her own little doggie DVD store. For the full 4 minute video clip check out this Youtube link.

SERGE GAINSBOURG: FRANCE'S SECRET VICE (1992)

2010-09-07T04:10:00.013-04:00

Several years ago my buddy Shabby unearthed this short UK tv documentary on French music legend Serge Gainsbourg and now you can check it out over at the Purple Zombie DJ blog. I found it really entertaining and quite informative considering it is only 25 minutes long. But I think, possibly because of the short running time, they focused a bit more on the scandals and sensationalism of Gainsbourg's life and I kind of wish there was a little more time spent looking closer at his music. Still, this fast-paced little doc has some great interviews with Jane Birkin and others that knew him, some nice footage of Gainsbourg singing as well as interviews (including the infamous F-bomb dropped on live tv in front of Whitney Houston), recording sessions and other rare footage.

LINKS:
"Serge Gainsbourg: France's Secret Vice" video at the Purple Zombie DJ blog is at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/2010/09/serge-gainsbourg-frances-secret-vice.html

Under Arrest: A Tribute To Serge Gainsbourg website (French language) is at http://www.gainsbourg.org/

LOCAL CULT HIT POPPING UP AGAIN: "OF FLESH AND BLOOD" ERUPTS AT THE AFI THIS FRIDAY!

2010-08-18T03:27:00.022-04:00

I always get strange looks when I tell people I had a very "small part" in a movie about John Holmes. But in the late 1980s a co-worker of mine at Joe's Record Paradise, Jeff Mentges, actually pulled off the feat of shooting a feature-length movie - on film! - a biopic based on the life of porn star John Holmes aka "Johnny Wadd". The mostly black & white feature had a brief run at The Biograph theater in Georgetown, Washington, DC and at the old American Film Institute (AFI) at the Kennedy center in DC. This Friday Of Flesh and Blood will once again rear it's gigantic, throbbing head at the AFI in Silver Spring, Maryland for a 20th Anniversary screening. Most of the cast is expected to show up. Of Flesh and Blood beat Boogie Nights by several years and Wonderland by several decades. Although shot on a minuscule (by comparison) budget with all the roles portrayed by non-actors (guilty as charged!) OFAB has some surprisingly effective moments. The murder scenes, for instance, are particularly disturbing and have much more of an impact to me than those in the big-budget Wonderland. Breon as "Johnny Wade" (the characters' names have been slightly changed to protect the innocent - from getting their arses sued!) is suitably trashy and Joe Lee's performance as club tycoon / alleged crimelord Eddie Nush (sic) is excellent. His portrayal of Nush / Nash comes across as much more believable than the ones in the other 2 aforementioned flicks. The original jazz/noise score by Jeff's post-punk band No Trend is also truly effective. I myself am only in the movie for about 5 minutes total, however my gorilla suit somehow has gotten more screentime than I did.

Local film documentarian Jeff Krulik, whos Heavy Metal Picnic played at AFI last Friday, sent out this press release email below:

In the late '80s, Jeff Mentges turned his attention from fronting infamous DC band No Trend to attending film school. Not content to graduate with a short film like the rest of his classmates, he decided to produce and direct a 16mm narrative feature film. The result: Of Flesh and Blood, a black-and-white noir retelling of porn star John Holmes' sordid descent into drugs, mayhem and murder. Shot for just $15K and featuring his former co-workers and denizens from Joe's Record Paradise, as well as beloved school janitor Al Breon in the starring role, the film had its grand premiere on August 15, 1990, at the Biograph Theater in Washington, DC. This special anniversary screening is as much a celebration of low-budget 16mm independent filmmaking before digital video took over as it is a 20-year reunion for everyone who was involved in making it happen.

Plus, for those No Trend fans out there, now's your chance to meet Jeff Mentges, in a rare local appearance. Also invited is the entire cast and crew, including Dr. Joe Sasfy, Dick Bangham, Steve Lorber, Cha Cha Lemeaux and Brian Horrorwitz of The Ubangis.

Below is a brief clip. As it states at the beginning this video was shot directly off of the editing machine screen and the actual film looks MUCH better than this which I can attest to. Also the intro music before the clip is not actually from the film itself.

A Scene From "Of Flesh and Blood" uploaded from Dave Nuttycombe on Vimeo.

Of Flesh and Blood screens this Friday, August 23rd, at the American Film Institute at 9:30pm, Rated R (although in this film there is no nudity nor sex per se it is still quite raw in the language dept. ie- they say "fuck" about a gazillion times.)

LINK: Of Flesh and Blood screening information at the American Film Institute can be found on their website at http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/2010/v7i3/mars.aspx#offle

UBANGIS GIG IN MD THIS SUNDAY!

2010-07-12T04:54:00.003-04:00

This Sunday, July 18th, our in-house band The Ubangis perform at another ALL AGES Sunday matinee at The Quarry House Tavern in lovely Silver Spring, Maryland (8401 Georgia Avenue)! And looky here: Our good buddies The Midnight Creeps are back in town making their de-butt appearance at Quarry House! Come check them out for some fur-ocious female lead old school punk rawk, baby! Also on the bill are the Casio-tastic stylings of The Sweet Sixteens (from Indiana) and the amazing Poppetes all the way from Sweden! You don't wanna miss this one! The show starts at 2pm and ends promptly at 5pm. (When we said 'matinee' we f'ing meant it!) And it's ALL AGES so bring yer foetus!

MOTHER'S DAY SPECIAL (a new playlist)

2010-05-09T14:28:00.012-04:00

MACHETE - A TIMELY NEW TRAILER FROM ROBERT RODRIGUEZ!

2010-05-07T04:03:00.025-04:00

If you saw "Grindhouse" a few years back then you remember director Robert Rodriguez's wild fake trailer for the fictional movie "Machete". Well now it's been made into a real movie and this week he released this timely trailer presented here for promotional use only.

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: YETI

2010-03-12T18:43:00.015-05:00

Yes, it's "Yeti", the end title track from Sante Maria Romitelli's score to the immortal 1977 Italian movie Yeti: The Giant of the 21st Century!

The track was also release as a 45 (pictured above) that was credited to The Yetians! Dig some of the lyrics:

The Yeti's big
The Yeti's tough
But he's so good

He is so big
The Man of stone
But he won't harm you
The Yeti
He is so tough
The man of stone
But he won't kill you
The Yeti

I ask you: does it get much better than that? Me thinks not. And, for maximum effect, while you are listening, feel free to stare deeply at this picture of the Yeti:

The movie Yeti: The Giant of the 21st Century is available on DVD-R from Trash Palace (if you must). You have been warned!

MUSIC FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2010

2010-02-11T23:05:00.009-05:00

ROCKIN' RELIEF THIS SATURDAY!

2010-01-19T02:49:00.005-05:00

If you happen to be in the Baltimore, Maryland area (or like to drive) please consider attending this event faeturing Trash Palace's in-house band The Ubangis:

For more info please check out www.trashpalace.com/UbangisGigs.htm

HAPPENIN' HOLIDAY TUNES!

2009-12-18T04:30:00.012-05:00

CHAPPY CHANUKAH!

2009-12-17T04:31:00.004-05:00

A good holiday card bears repeating! (But I'll post this one anyways.)

(2001)

HAPPY FANGS-GIVING!

2009-11-26T23:49:00.010-05:00

Better late than never. Okay, maybe in this case never would be better.

No turkeys were harmed in the making of this movie.

LSD-LICIOUS!

GOBBLE-GOBBLE-HEY!

Blood Freak (1972) is available on DVD from Something Weird Video.

FLASHBACKS: 5 QUESTIONS WITH ART HANSL

2009-11-11T20:48:00.058-05:00

One thing that's really great about selling obscure movies here at Trash Palace is that every now and then I get contacted by someone that's actually been involved with one of them who is trying to track down a particular film. Recently I got a phone call from Art Hansl who a lot of people reading this blog may have seen as the lead in Mansion of Madness (1973) from Mexican director Juan López Moctezuma. While not as overtly horrific as Moctezuma's modern horror classic Alucarda (1978), Mansion of Madness (released to US theaters under the slightly more exploitative title Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon) is an original and offbeat telling of Edgar Allan Poe's story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether". In 1975 Art also went on to appear in another Moctezuma film Mary, Mary Bloody Mary. Art's adventures while working with Moctezuma on these 2 movies are just a small part of his new biography book "FLASHBACKS" out now from Robertson Publishing.

Art, seated on the right, shooting a scene from the bizarre Mansion of Madness.

"FLASHBACKS" is a very entertaining book and I admire Art's cards-on-the-table approach to writing. Tracing his life from a young lad in boarding school, to his adventures in the army and his antics in the entertainment industry, Art's writing pulls no punches. Of course the latter part of the book dealing with his film career was the most fascinating to me; after Art moved to Italy in the mid-sixties and began acting with small parts in extravagant toothpaste ads which lead to him landing the starring role in a low-budget (and seemingly lost) Italian spy film Missione apocalisse (1966) to working with Mexican directors René Cardona, Jr. and Juan López Moctezuma. Art's tales of low-budget film making (not to mention his womanizing shenanigans) make for one entertaining read. And I will admit that while I might not always agree with his political views it is refreshing to at least be able to appreciate someone who says it straight from the heart and doesn't dance around things politely -- and that's an understatement (and a compliment)! I will always admire someone who has the balls to discuss past foibles unashamedly, be it drunken frolics on the set of some movie or trying to hookup with some actress behind the scenes. And Art's self-decpricating approach to his acting career is often laugh-out-loud funny.

Art has also written several well received thriller novels all about murder and corruption centered around places he knows quite well like Mexico and Hollywood.

I asked Art these 5 questions:

1. Horrorwitz: We were talking on the phone about how Juan Lopez Moctezuma's Mansion of Madness has quite a big cult following and I noticed in your book you likened it's popularity to that of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Knowing that there's quite a few people that consider it a "good" movie and genuinely enjoy it as an Arthouse type of horror film, did it seem any different or better to you when you watched it again recently on DVD?

Art: I've got to be truthful here. I ran across some positive reviews on the Internet and thought maybe I was wrong in my pessimistic assessment of about forty years ago (all that laughter I endured after the picture came out!). So I sent for the DVD and damned if I didn't think it was worse than I did before. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful that some people liked it; I'm delighted to think I could be wrong. Juan was a good friend, as I've told you -- an intelligent, erudite guy -- and he seriously thought he'd made masterpiece, comparable to Fellini's work. I hope he's right and I'm wrong, but I'd really have to reach to buy that.

2. Horrorwitz: A lot of people reading this blog would find it fascinating that in the '60s you ended up in Italy, dating a model who acted in Fellini and Mario Bava movies, and you ended up starring in an Italian spy film and so on. Being in Italy at that particular time and doing all the things you did seems like such a special era. When all this was happening did it seem that way to you?

Art: The sixties were indeed still "Dolce Vita" days in Rome. Mary Arden's Mario Bava film Blood and Black Lace (1964), which she had just finished when I met her, was the first real "slasher" movie made and it remains a cult favorite. Rome was full of American actors making Sword and Sandal epics, Spaghetti westerns etc. They were all veterans of American films; I lucked in as a novice and learned on the job. My first starring part was in Mission Apocalypse (1966) a James Bond rip-off. We went to Switzerland, Yugoslavia, North Africa. I got mobbed in Zagreb, saw slaves trains near Marrakesh and we always had a large ration of lovelies working with and around us. So, yeah, it was an exciting time, a special era. I did a picture with Ursula Andress, Kirk Douglas and quite a few Italian stars. Sadly, we get jaded and tend to take things for granted. We all played hard, assuming it would never end. As I see it, I had Rome's best days -- and she had mine.

3. Horrorwitz: It seems that, over the years, you've met a few con-men, gangsters and mysterious sorts of fellows, and several of your novels have been about these types of men. Did any of these experiences have an effect on how you approached your first starring role playing a spy?

Art: I hung with some pretty heavy types in Mexico and occasionally in Italy, it's true. I'd have to say their influence showed more when I aged out of heroic parts and got to play heavies which, by the way, is a lot more fun. I was the main heavy in Taste of the Savage (1971), with Cameron Mitchell and Isela Vega, among other films. Maybe a sneer becomes me more than a smile. And yes, those guys and gals found their places in my novels. I've always been influenced by the James Cain school of writing. Most of my lead characters are less than noble, to put it mildly. Understandable? Hopefully. Clean-cut heroes? Never!

4. Horrorwitz: In 1975 you made another movie with director Juan López Moctezuma, Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary, where you got to work with the legendary John Carradine of whom you said some nice things about in your book. Have there been any other actors you've worked with who have also left a lasting impression on you?

Art: Well, Ursula Andress, who was a beauty, left an impression. On the first night of the shoot (on Anyone Can Play, 1968 --Brian H.), Brett Halsey and I were having dinner with her. However, her current guy, Jean Pierre Belmondo, flew in and arrived in time for dessert, putting an end to any relationship along the line I had in mind. Charlie Bronson was cool and professional, not a guy you got that close to, but he had enormous presence even under-playing. I played the heavy in Taste of the Savage with Cameron Mitchell, who tried to re-write the script, making him a pain in the butt. I changed my dialogue back because he was putting in language no one used in the nineteenth century West, so we didn't get along that well. Cristina Ferrare was starring in her first picture -- Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary -- directed by Juan, with myself and John Carradine in the cast. She photographed like a dream but really blew up and nearly quit when the honey wagon didn't show up on location and she had to go behind a bush. Guess she forgot she was in Mexico. These, of course, are just a few among many of the characters I worked with.

5. Horrorwitz: Are there any new projects you have coming out in the future?

Art: I finished a book called "LUCIFER'S SHADOW", a dark mystery in my favorite genre. Now comes the hard part, which is to sell it. However, my memoir "FLASHBACKS" is out in hard cover, as well as an edgy little thriller called "ALL FOR THE MONEY' (Both books just released and available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon). Or they can be ordered from most book stores even if they aren't on the shelves yet. They may give "SHADOW" a boost. "FLASHBACKS" has had a lot of coast to coast radio time and some T.V. exposure, so we'll see.

~~~

As of this blog posting Art is just now undergoing some knee surgery so I wish him all the best and a speedy recovery!!

LINKS:

Art Hansl's official website is at http://www.arthansl.com/

Robertson Publishing's webpage for Art Hansl and "FLASHBACKS" is at http://www.rp-author.com/Hansl

Art Hansl's filmography is at the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0360616/

Mansion of Madness is available from Mondo Macabro DVD at http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/mod113.html

CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL US THEATRICAL TRAILER FOR

MANSION OF MADNESS

COURTESY OF MONDO MACABRO DVD:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FIENDS!

2009-10-31T03:38:00.004-04:00

Who will you be for Halloween?

HALLOWEEN GIG TOMB-ORROW

2009-10-30T04:33:00.004-04:00

If you happen to be in the Maryland or DC area (or like to travel) we urge you to proceed with caution if attending this event:

THE 30 WACKIEST LOOKING MOVIE MONSTERS EVER! part 2 (1960 - 1967)

2009-10-29T18:20:00.023-04:00

As threatened, er... promised, here is part 2 of the 30 wackiest, craziest, nuttiest... ah, you get the idea.

The giant rat-bat-spider from "Angry Red Planet" (1960, seen here in promotional tv release artwork)

Giant orifice eyeball tentacle thingy from "Battle Beyond The Sun" (1960)

Tall insect... erm... carrot creature also from "Battle Beyond The Sun" (1960)

Bonus photo: The 2 creatures do battle from "Battle Beyond The Sun" (1960)

Martians from "The Three Stooges In Orbit" (1962)

Bat-man monster from the Mexican movie "Aventura al centro de la tierra" ("Adventure in the Center of the Earth", 1965)

Radioactive zombie monster from "The Horror of Party Beach" (1965)

Martian leader from "The Wizard of Mars" (1965)

The same creature above was used again in the movie "Space Probe Taurus" (aka "Space Monster", 1965)

Oddbod and Oddbod, Jr. from "Carry On Screaming!" (1966)

King Kong from the Japanese movie "King Kong Escapes" ("Kingu Kongu no gyakushû", 1967)

STAY TUNED FOR (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) PART 3!

THE 30 WACKIEST LOOKING MOVIE MONSTERS EVER! part 1 (1910 - 1960)

2009-10-28T01:45:00.037-04:00

As promised, here they be! I've racked my brain to bring you the kookiest, nuttiest Things, Its and Blobs you've ever seen! Presented in chronological order (more or less), here is part 1 of the 30 most insane looking creatures ever to grace the silver screen. This is not to say there aren't many more, but these are the ones I thought to be the most bizarre (or at least the ones that popped into my noggin first). I've tried my best to refrain from making any extraneous comments about these guys and let YOU be the judge! (In most cases you can enlarge the photo by clicking on the picture.)

Frankenstein's monster from Thomas Edison's production of "Frankenstein" (1910)

Martian leader of "Invaders From Mars" (1953)

Metaluna Mutant from "This Island Earth" (1955)

Beulah the Venusian from "It Conquered the World" (1956)

"The Giant Claw" (1957)

Saucer Men from "Invasion of the Saucer Men" (1957)

Tagual, the smart but evil brainhead creature from "La Nave de los Monstruos" ("The Ship of Monsters", 1960)

Uk, the dumb but evil cyclops also from "La Nave de los Monstruos" ("The Ship of Monsters", 1960). Both he and his above friend would make a return of sorts (or at least their costumes would) in 1970's "Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters".

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "DISCO DUCK" EN FRANÇAIS

2009-10-23T04:40:00.012-04:00

Some of you may remember, or have at least heard of, "Disco Duck", that annoying hit record from the 1970s that combined the worst of both worlds: Disco music and an intelligible cartoon duck voice. Well now, for my French friends (all 3 of them), I am proud to present this "lost" (???) novelty single by Paul Vincent. A French language cover version of "Disco Duck". Bonne courage!

Certains d'entre vous souvenez mai, ou avoir au moins entendu parler de "Disco Duck", ce dossier a frappé ennuyeux des années 1970 qui combine le pire des deux mondes: la musique disco et une voix intelligible cartoon canard. Eh bien maintenant, pour mes amis français (tous les 3 d'entre eux), je suis fier de présenter ce "perdu" (???) seule nouveauté par Paul Vincent. Une langue françaises couvrent version de "Disco Duck". Bonne courage!

COMING SOON IN THIS SPOT

2009-10-14T02:07:00.008-04:00

Trying to get my Blog Mojo (Blojo?) back in the groove: A new series entitled "5 Questions" begins with actor Art Hansl, author and star of several interesting '60s and '70s flicks including Juan López Moctezuma's "Mansion of Madness"; Also forthcoming is a feature on "The 48 Hour Technicolor Dream" documentaries, movies my parents took me to see that they probably shouldn't have, and, for Halloween, the world's most insane looking movie monsters! Muaaa-ha-haaa! In the meantime here is an interesting posed photo of Klaus Kinski I came across of him kissing his wife's derriere entitled "Embrassant sa femme" ("Kissing His Wife").

THE HORROR, THE HORROR... REALM, THAT IS!

2009-09-16T03:45:00.008-04:00

This weekend, from Friday September 18th to Sunday September 20th, Trash Palace will be at the Horror Realm convention in Pittsburgh South, Pennsylvania! Horror Realm is presented by the same freaky folks that brought you Zombiefest in 2007 and 2008, the cast and crew of "The It's Alive Show". I'll have a table there all weekend selling lotsa' rare movies on DVD and other ghoulish goodies! Also coming along with me is the Trash Palace pooch Bella Buttons with her Box Of Bargains! WOW! Convention guests include Ken Foree from "Dawn of the Dead" (1979), "The Candyman" himself Tony Todd, and David Naughton, star of "American Werewolf in London"! Also appearing is Jeff Lieberman director of "Squirm" and "Blue Sunshine", several zombie actors from the original 1979 "Dawn of the Dead" and many more actors, authors and artists! There will be several cool contests, guest panels, film screenings and a poolside party on Saturday night featuring a live performance by the terror-ific sounds of The Devilz In The Detailz!

Check out the Horror Realm website for the full guest list and other details at http://www.horrorrealmcon.com/ .

If you're in the Pittsburgh area this weekend come on by and say HELL-OH! to Horrorwitz!

Bella Buttons bravely halts the terrifying attack of a bloodthirsty Fulci-esque zombie at Zombiefest in 2007!

MONTEREY POP: THE THINKING HIPPIE'S WOODSTOCK

2009-08-28T20:56:00.035-04:00

With all the hubbub over the 40 year anniversary of Woodstock and this weekend's release of Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" movie, I thought I'd throw up a little blurb about a sometimes ignored concert event that, to me, was just as important and MUCH more entertaining; The Monterey International Pop Festival held June 16th to 18th, 1968. The 3 day festival, the first of it's kind, laid the blueprints for the vastly inferior (in my opinion) Woodstock festival. The diverse lineup exposed many "new" talents who would go on to great success. The event was shot and released as a feature film, directed by the talented D. A. Pennebaker. Although not every act that performed made it into the final cut, the ones that did were pretty amazing and, in some cases, at their peak performance-wise: Big Brother featuring "recent discovery" Janis Joplin, a "pre-Tommy" The Who still in their snotty Mod mode, Otis Redding backed up by Booker T and the MGs (it don't get better than that, baby!), Jimi Hendrix, Hugh Masekela, Ravi Shanker introducing the west to sitar music, and others. Around 1976, when I was a little 11 year old snot-nose, I had the good fortune of taking a music class in middle school who's teacher, although a bit of a hot-head, was fairly hip. He'd often show us movies like this one that would have a resounding effect on me later in life. The thing that stuck with me the most about the Monterey Pop movie was the performance by The Who which ends in total destruction of their amplifiers, drums, guitars, etc.. I had never seen anything quite like it! For a 1968 "Love festival" type of event this was pretty eye opening to say the least!

"This is where it all ends."
Nico and Brian Jones digging the grooves.
Otis Redding seemed to steal the show and the star-studded audience was simply blown away! A few years later when I viewed the Woodstock movie I was pretty let down. To me it seemed overly long, self-indulgent and just plain boring a lot of the time. The Who's performance at Woodstock for instance, which they've acknowledged was not among their best, seemed bland and a bit pretentious by comparison, like they'd become "important" rock mega-stars all of the sudden. I suppose this is all just a matter of opinion. But if you have any interest in music and pop culture, you should really check out the Criterion label's 3 disc DVD box set with book that came out a couple of years back. It presents the original feature plus the full sets by Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding and unused band footage, unseen until this DVD release, which includes several of the groups that didn't make it into the feature film.

Check out the original theatrical trailer below! (Look for The Monkees' Mickey Dolenz in the audience.):

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "NEEDLE CHILL" by SEXY SADIE

2009-08-18T05:00:00.015-04:00

In 1996 Date Bait, one of the 2 bands I was in at the time, performed at the Chiller Theatre convention in New Jersey. 2 of the guests that weekend were director Jess Franco and his actress wife Lina Romay. I was already a big fan of theirs but this was the time that I first actually got to meet them. Also performing that weekend were the bands Killer Barbies and Sexy Sadie. Not long after that, as I started getting involved with Jess Franco via the Brooklyn based One Shot Productions, I was sent some different CDs by various Spanish bands whom at that time were on the Spanish indie label Subterfuge Records. Subterfuge had released the soundtrack for Franco's "Killer Barbies" movie on CD and LP and eventually would go on to release the "Tender Flesh" soundtrack on CD. "Killer Barbies", Franco's horror-punk film starring the female-lead Ramones-esque band of the same name, also included music by Sexy Sadie. At the time, I hadn't paid much attention to Sexy Sadie's 2 tracks on the "Killer Barbies" soundtrack, I just sort of wrote them off as an okay Nirvana clone. In fact the night we had performed with them I was doubling over from the flu and didn't really know what was going on so pretty much I didn't remember what they sounded like. But later, the more I listened to the 2 full length CDs they had out at the time, the more they grew on me and I could tell they really had their own special thing going on and were not a copycat band at all. By their second CD the band was finding it's own sound even more than it's debut. But it was their third full-lengther, the 1998 release "It's Beautiful, it's Love", that really knocked me out. Overall they had adopted a more pop sound although with some very heavy bursts of distorted guitar mixed in. The general tone of the songs is what I would term "bitter-sweet", quite beautiful indeed but with a strong sad undercurrent.

Those couple of years, late 1996 to early 2000, was a great time for me as I was just getting more and more involved with One Shot Productions and Franco and everything just kind of melded together wonderfully. Discovering the old Jess Franco movies as they'd start to turn up more and more on VHS, the '60s and '70s soundtracks being released on CD, these groups and the other new bands from Spain I had never heard before, getting to travel to Spain to start working with Jess... the music, the movies... everything just really came together in a kind of groovy synchronicity. And this particular Sexy Sadie CD is one of the releases that really brings all that back for me.

Sexy Sadie released several other CDs later on, some singles, a live DVD and several hits / rarities collections. It seems they became rather quite popular in Spain before eventually breaking up in 2006. But outside of Spain, and certainly in the USA, it seems as though not many people have heard of them. Apparently at some point between their second CD and this one a member of the group reportedly suffered a heroin overdose and, from what I heard, pretty much had to learn to speak again. The band continued on without him and so I have always imagined that the song "Needle Chill", from this CD, was possibly written about the unfortunate guy although I could be totally wrong about that. Sexy Sadie, like a lot of the Spanish bands on Subterfuge, sing in a kind of broken English that is quite endearing. (Certainly their English is a LOT better than my Spanish though!) This track is one of the faster tunes on the CD, which is not to suggest that the other tracks are any less intense. In fact "It's Beautiful..." is such an overall solid release, there is not 1 weak song on it. So give a listen and discover a new old group that the US seems to have criminally ignored.

Play "Needle Chill" from this player below:

To play the song from your Media Player click here.

LINKS:
Sexy Sadie's MySpace Page is at http://www.myspace.com/translatesexysadie
Subterfuge Records website is at http://www.subterfuge.com/

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "WITCH-A-MA-JIG SONG" by SMILIN' ED MCCONNELL AND HIS BUSTER BROWN GANG

2009-08-05T20:11:00.012-04:00

Back in the 1940s Capitol records released an entertaining series of 10-inch 78 rpm records for kids. Some were singles with one song or skit on each side while others were released in booked sets of 3 records. When I was a kid I inherited a few of these from my parents including a nifty 3 record set featuring Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig (in Africa!) and their pals. They were all expertly voiced by Mel Blanc with an amazing orchestrated score and sound effects. They really put a lot of work into these "kids" records and I was lucky my parents gave this to me along with a few others. One Capitol kids' 78 I did not receive was "The Witch-A-Ma-Jig Song" recorded by Smilin' Ed McConnell and his Buster Brown Gang. If they had given me this record I probably would've had nightmares for weeks. Smilin' Ed was a radio personality who, amongst other things, had a kids program that reportedly ran from 1944 to 1953 that was sponsored by Buster Brown Shoes. One of his characters was Froggy the Gremlin whom you may have heard of. There's something truly demonic sounding about Froggy's grumbly throat-cancer-esque voice that gives me the willies! In any case, Ed, Froggy and the whole gang eventually ended up with a television series that was later run by Andy Devine. Somewhere along the way the catch phrase "Pluck my magic twanger" was born. As for the record, it speaks for itself.

You can also play the record on your Media Player by clicking here.

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "DOUBLE BUBBLE BATH" by THE JOE RENÉ COMPLEX

2009-07-28T03:18:00.017-04:00

Our first tune is a poppy little instrumental ditty, presumably from 1969 or 1970, the full title of which reads "Double Bubble Bath (Music To Read Page 311 By)". It's taken from a way-cool LP called "Music To Read The Pretenders By" by The Joe René Complex on the Philips label. The entire album is a thoroughly good listen if you are into groovy pop music. Another standout track, a funky number called "Rank Out", has shown up on a few other blogs, so I present to you this bouncy more easy-going but just as cool number. Laden with rich horn harmonies, there is a slightly complex middle part that reminds me of some of Frank Zappa's jazzier instrumental works. I dunno what (or who) was going down on page 311, but someone was having a swingin' time! Overall "Music..." is an interesting concept LP, a sort of fake soundtrack for the racy novel that was rather popular at the time. I myself have never read "The Pretenders" but after seeing some of the other song titles on this LP ("Menage A Tois", "Mirror On A Mexican Ceiling") I may have to track it down!

Joe RenéAccording to the liner notes Joe René was born in Holland in 1924 and was a trumpet player and band arranger but was forced to go into hiding as his career was "interrupted by Mr. A. Hitler"! After the war he became a musical director for the US Army. In 1948 he came to the US and went into arranging and producing big bands for radio, tv and recording. If soundtrack-esque pop music circa the late '60s is your thang, track down a copy of this swinging LP and snag it! Mr. René, you cool cat you, I hereby give you and this record the official Trash Palace 'Groovy Factor' seal of approval! Alright.... now click it and dig it!

If the player above doesn't show in your browser you can also play the track on your Windows Media Player by clicking here.

HOLY PROCRASTINATION, BATMAN!

2009-07-16T02:44:00.006-04:00

Sorry, kiddies. I been away from de blog for an embarrassingly long time. However my Blogging Mojo doth returneth and I've been working on several new articles, features and what not that shall be appearing as soon as I finish getting my shithe together. So in the upcoming weeks look for new blogs including: a feature on "The 48 Hour Technicolor Dream" documentaries, movies my parents took me to see that they probably shouldn't have, the world's most insane looking movie monsters, and "Tune of the Moment" - a new feature bringing you some lost, obscure and / or criminally ignored songs from the Trash Palace record archives!

In the meantime, here's another obligatory chimp photo to tide you over.

"SPIN ALONG WITH MITCH" ROCKS THE INTERNET!

2009-04-18T04:00:00.024-04:00

Brian Horrorwitz (left) and rock-n-roll record guru Gary Mitchell (right) spinning it raw and wild!

As was threatened, here is the complete 1 hour webcast from a few days ago, April 15th, 2009, of "Sing Along With Mitch"! (see previous blog entry) Yes, it was only appropriate that coming upon Zero Hour of the tax deadline was the time this 60 minutes of aural decadence was foisted upon the unsuspecting audience. Why? Because, if you listen to this entire thing, you WILL pay for it, baby! Muaaaah-ha-haaaa! Well, Gary said I could supply the oldies records and play whatever I wanted to and he weren't lyin'! We filled up the 1 hour with some choice 50s and 60s RAWk-n-roll and some wiiiild r&b! Gary grilled me on my shady past, Russ Meyer and The Cramps. The 1 hour just seemed to fly by way too fast. Maybe they'll have me back again some day! (hint-hint!) The show was a real blast for me personally and Gary was the host with the most! Thanx Gary!! And a big thanx also to studio tech wizard Lee Michael Demsey, an excellent dj in his own rite, who did a top notch job! Also wanna send a super-squeezy extra-trashy hug to everyone who listened and chimed in with their 2 cents worth on the live chatroom thingy! Was it my imagination or did the music seem to heat things up a bit in there? By the end it seemed like all hell was breaking loose! Topshelfoldies.com, YOU ROCK!

Horrorwitz stands in awe at the dazzling handiwork of wax flipper extraordinaire Lee Michael Demsey!

You can listen to the entire show here (Don't forget to pause the jukebox at the bottom of this page first if there is music already playing.):

If you prefer to play the show from your Media Player click here.

Or you can download the program by right clicking here and saving the file to your hard drive.

SPINNING THE TRASH WAX ON "TOP SHELF OLDIES" WITH MITCHELL AND HORRORWITZ!

2009-04-12T17:10:00.016-04:00

This Wednesday night, April 15th, from 9pm to 10pm (East Coast time) I will be a guest on the online oldies music program "Spin Along With Mitch"! Hosted by obscure oldies wizard Gary Mitchell, "Spin..." is one of many amazing rock-n-roll music show broadcasts heard every night on the web station Top Shelf Oldies, a great place to hear some obscure rock, doowop, r&b, etc.. Gary had asked me to be a guest for 1 hour and said I could provide all the music! Nyaaa ha-haaa! I've dug deep into the Trash Palace 45 and LP archives to bring you a smattering of wicked wax that'll knock you on your keester, baby! So if you're into wild rock-n-roll and r&b please check it out. After the show is broadcast (or whatever they call these online things... "webcast"?) I will be posting the entire program here on this blog for your listening seizure. Er... pleasure! In addition to the rare rockin' records we'll be throwin' at ya Gary will also be throwing a few questions at me about bands I've played in and who knows what the hell else. One music set will be a tribute to Lux and the Cramps, plus a few surprises! And who the hell doesn't like surprises, eh? And, if you are so inclined, you can also take part in the live chat room that's happenin' during the show to voice compliments / complaints / death threats / marriage proposals / etc. Check out their website at http://www.topshelfoldies.com/ , click on one of the "Listen Here" links using your choice of program and the streamin' steamin' sounds of "Spin Along With Mitch" (and Horrorwitz) will fill the room! Or, check back at this spot at a later date and listen to the show after the webcast. Either way it'll rock your day!

VAMPYROS COMPLETOS

2009-04-10T02:09:00.022-04:00

My close friend Dr. Penis has recently posted a blog about the 1996 "3 Films By Jess Franco" CD release, it's original 1969 source LPs and the subsequent re-releases under the "Vampyros Lesbos" title. Unfortunately the complete version of the CD featuring all of the music has been out of circulation for many years now. But if you check out the article over at his Purple Zombie DJ blog you can download it there for free! This psyche-pop music composed and released on 2 LPs in Germany circa 1969 by Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab was a surprise indie hit when re-released on LP and CD in 1996 and pretty much then jump-started the entire Euro-trash soundtrack / pop / lounge music craze! I myself remember being given a cassette of this back then by my buddy Joe Johnson (creator of the ahead-of-it's-time way-cool fanzine "3:AM"). At first listen I didn't really know how to take it. It had rock elements but wasn't really rock. There was a psychedelic / experimental side to it but then it had a pop sound as well. After 2 or 3 listenings I was hooked! It became one of my fave soundtracks ever and I never get tired of listening to it. I remember tracking down fuzzy looking VHS bootlegs of the 3 Jess Franco German movies that the music was used for ("She Killed in Ecstasy", "Vampyros Lesbos" and "The Devil Came From Akasava"). None of these movies were subtitled and despite my lack of understanding most of the German dialogue I probably watched those tapes 10 times each! A big part of the appeal was finally seeing / hearing how the music was used in each film. Franco was always pretty progressive when it came to sometimes mixing in modern music with his movie scores. Somehow using these prog-ish and at the time modern sounds worked for those movies and set a whole new flavor to the way Euro-exploitation movies sounded. Franco had already used music by Manfred Mann in his "Venus In Furs" (aka "Paroxismus", 1970) and would go on to direct "Killer Barbys" (1996), a gothic horror flick featuring music by and starring the titular Spanish garage punkers of the same name, as well as "Tender Flesh" (1997) which featured music by the heavily under rated Spanish rock band Sexy Sadie. Not to mention "Vampire Blues" which was scored by my band The Ubangis. "Vampire Blues", like "Vampyros Lesbos", was another lesbian re-telling of the Dracula story. Only Jess Franco could have come up with the idea of telling these kinds of stories using rock music as a sonic backdrop!

If you have any interest in movie soundtracks, psychedelia, strange pop music, Jess Franco or Euro-trash films then the original complete "3 Films by Jess Franco" CD is required listening folks! GO GET IT NOW while you can!

LINKS:
The Purple Zombie DJ blog is at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/
The "3 Films by Jess Franco" ("Vampyros Lesbos") article is at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/2009/02/3-films-by-jess-franco-vampyros-lesbos.html

THE IMPORTANCE OF LUX INTERIOR, IVY RORSCHACH AND THE CRAMPS

2009-03-09T19:50:00.061-04:00

ILLUSTRATION BY JENNY DAYTON
This past month I have been trying to sort things out, trying to find the words to say, trying to figure it out. Lux's sudden death threw me into a saddened daze that I haven't quite completely recovered from yet. I had just been emailing with Lux and having him gone all of the sudden was hard to grasp. I talked to friends and surfed the web looking for answers, seeing what other people had to say. And I ended up on the official Cramps website where a statement is posted about Lux's passing along with a link to Lux's favorite charity the Best Friends Animal Society. And, in the middle of the page, a link to a guestbook, "Lux's Guestbook" as it's called, where already over 4,600 people have left their messages of praise and condolence. So many people have written so many incredible, beautiful things on there. And while reading some of these I noticed something; besides the fan adulation that many of us have for The Cramps, I couldn't help but also notice the large number of people that had expressed how influential the band was in pointing them towards other older bands and artists, in changing their very lives. Here is a quote from a guy in Germany: "Back in '87...the Cramps, the Goo Goo Muck and the Human Fly unexpectedly blasted my mind and changed my view on music itself." A man in the USA wrote "You changed my life and made me realize it was okay to be different and follow your heart." And so you get the idea. And as I was reading through "Lux's Guestbook" I realized that of all the bands in contemporary music history, the Cramps are probably the single most influential group I know of when it comes to turning people on to other's music! And I believe, in looking back to my younger years, that I am one of those people that got infected by Lux & Ivy's rock-n-roll disease as well. Allow me to 'splain...

PAINTING BY GAYTHA WATLEY

I myself first heard the Cramps in 1978 whilst turning the radio dial passing through different stations at random and happen to accidentally stumble upon the song "Human Fly" on station WGTB. I didn't know quite what to make of it! I was already fairly familiar with Elvis and some other classic "oldies" artists that you'd usually hear on the radio and I could hear a kind of influence. But this... this was a new kind of beast altogether! It sounded old AND new. I mean, it had an Elvis-ish feel to it but a kind of twisted subverted freaked-out messed-up Elvis-gone-off-his-meds version of Elvis' music. Jerry Lee Lewis played at the wrong speed whilst going off his nut... something very new to my ears and yet with that sense of "oldies" familiarity as well. Then in 1980 my buddy Mike loaned me his "Songs the Lord Taught Us" LP and, for me, that was all she wrote. And as I started buying Cramps records little did I initially realize I was also listening to songs written by The Sonics, Hasil Adkins, Ronnie Dawson, Roy Orbison, The Trashmen and on and on. Listening to a Cramps album was like experiencing a kind of subliminal history lesson of cool fucked-up music even though you didn't realize it at the time. For many of us this was the first time we'd hear songs by these artists. I mean it wasn't like there were many other (if any other) bands running around performing obscure covers of tunes like "Primitive" by The Groupies, songs often only ever released on records that were way obscure and out-of-print. It wasn't like you'd hear a song such as "Strychnine" by The Sonics on any of the FM stations in between whatever bullshit top 40 crap they were spinning at the time. The Cramps, by forming their group out of their love for obscure, raw rock-n-roll music, inadvertently ended up exposing thousands of fans world wide to songs, artists, styles, groups and even movies that were Lux and Ivy's original inspiration for wanting to perform in the first place. I'll bet quite a few people had never seen "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" when The Cramps first performed and recorded the theme song live but by now probably many that heard it first from them have seen the flick. Would we know "Goo Goo Muck" by Ronnie Cook & Gaylads, "Love Me" by The Phantom or "She Said" by Hasil Adkins if it weren't for them? (Adkins who, ironically, would have his career resurrected via ex-Cramps drummer Miriam Linna's record label Norton, co-owned and managed with her husband Billy Miller, both founders of the amazing band The A-Bones.) Quite probably we would not know those slabs of wax were not it for The Cramps covers. And who can say how many people went and formed new bands after being exposed to The Cramps' music? Yes, the Cramps tied it all together... the obscure rockabilly, the rare garage, the blues, the b-movie themes... the trashy horror, the sexual innuendos... tied it all together in one big garbage bag, swallowed it whole, and barfed it back in our faces! I don't know if they were consciously trying to hip people to this stuff necessarily, but hipped they did and, as far as I can tell, they have done so more than any other band ever. Besides creating their own new sound and lyric style, besides releasing classic records and the many wild live shows they've performed, the Cramps have also given us their "disease"; they've passed along their love for the raw, early rock-n-roll sounds that, like The Cramps own music, continue to inspire today. Their love for the raw, the primitive,... that shit's the real deal motherfuckers! "Human Fly" and all the other great Cramps records ever since sound as fresh to me as the first day I heard them. To me their music will never get old and those sounds will keep Lux, Ivy and all of the other Cramps alive forever!

In closing I wanna say a few final things without getting too mushy. I am as big a Cramps fan as anybody. We all know Lux the wildman as we've seen onstage. The stripping, slithering, stage-humping amp climber,... the groaning, gurgling mic fellator... But I want to tell you about another side. Folks, this is not just some bullshit "we love you because you're dead" spiel. I've known Lux & Ivy for many years, but never really knew him well until these past several. I am not trying to name drop nor am I trying to sweeten things up as far as what I feel about him because he has passed away. I am telling you, straight up, Lux was a very sweet, smart, encouraging, caring and humble person with a truly savage wit. The fact that his favorite charity is what it is (Best Friends Animal Society) should give you a clue about the kind of person he was. Without getting overly sentimental I will leave it at that. Beyond the wildness of The Cramps which was also a very real side of Lux, he was too, as I knew him these final years, just a really decent guy who left us way too fucking soon. Lux was a one of a kind. I'll miss you buddy.

R.I.P. LUX INTERIOR!
KEEP ON ROCKING IVY!
LONG LIVE THE CRAMPS!

Thanx to Jenny Dayton and Gaytha Watley for allowing me to post their artwork.

LINKS: The Official Cramps Website is at http://www.thecramps.com/
Lux's Guestbook is at http://www.ultraguest.com/sign/1233878285
Best Friends Animal Society is at http://www.bestfriends.org/
Listen to Lux's Purple Knif Radio Show at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/2009/02/knif-of-living-dead.html
Bryan Gregory remembered by Ivy in LA Weekly at http://www.laweekly.com/2001-01-25/music/the-way-he-walked
Artist Jenny Dayton's website is at http://www.dandygelatine.com
Artist Gaytha Watley's website is at http://gaytha-gaytha.blogspot.com/
The Norton Records website is at http://www.nortonrecords.com/

KNIF OF THE LIVING DEAD: DIG LUX'S RADIO SHOW AND LIFT YOUR SPIRITS!

2009-02-07T17:10:00.025-05:00

Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on
Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones

I wanna leave a happy memory when I go
I wanna leave something to let the whole world know
That the rock 'n' roll daddy has done past on
But his bones keep rockin' long after I'm gone

Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on
Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones

Well when I die, buried six foot deep
With a rock 'n' roll record at my feet
A phonograph needle in my hand
I'm gonna rock my way right out of this land

Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on
Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones

Well, when I die don't bury me at all
Just a-hang my bones up on the wall
Beneath these bones let these words be seen:
"The running gears of a boppin' machine"

Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on
Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
Still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
Still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
Still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones

~Ronnie Dawson, 1959

I couldn't have said it better than Ronnie Dawson has. But from me more needs to be said. And much more WILL be said soon enuff! But in the meantime I'll say this: The sudden death of Lux Interior has his friends and fans in shock. I am still in a stunned disbelief (writing this on little sleep so pardon the grammer). Truth be told, I haven't felt this sad in years. This is a tough one, folks. But Lux and The Cramps, despite their groundbreakingly ghoulish tunes and horror-filled lyrics, were really all about life; Livin' it up and tearin' it up! I knew Lux and I can tell you he wouldn't want people sitting around crying over him like many of us have been doing all this week. Nope, he'd want you rockin'-out in his memory! So if you are feeling as depressed and numb as I have been, fear not! A little feelgood medicine has just arrived: My mysterious friend Dr. Penis aka The Purple Zombie DJ has posted the entire "Purple Knif Radio Show" presented by Lux Interior (aka The Purple Knif) circa July of 1984. So turn that frown upside-down, my chillun! Check out the link below for Dr. P's blog, download the show and dig it!

LINKS:

The Purple Zombie DJ Blog at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/

LUX

2009-02-04T21:00:00.006-05:00

This morning my friend Lux Interior, lead singer of the Cramps, passed away. I am so sad right now I don't really know what to say.

THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE NAZZ PROMO

2009-01-13T16:24:00.007-05:00

Speaking of the sad passing of Ray Dennis Steckler, did you know that besides directing all those incredibly strange movies he also made a promotional music film for Todd Rundgren's band The Nazz? Around 1968, Steckler made what can be considered an early predecessor to the music video for the song "Open My Eyes". The short film, re-broadcast on MTV's "Closet Classics" show in the late 1980s, has the same kind of manic exuberance, fast editing and overall wackyness as the music scenes in "Rat Pfink a Boo Boo" and "Wild Guitar". Check it out!:

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE

2009-01-09T20:10:00.013-05:00

Yes, yes, I know I've been slacking. I've been recently chastised by a few (very few) for not adding to this blog more often. Things've been a bit hectic at the Palace, but I have some trashy goodies coming up. My feeling is I'd rather wait and post "quality" things, that is, things I think are worth reading, then just try to make a quota. So to those impatient few I say HOLD YOUR SHORTS! And I promise it will be worth the wait.

I just got the sad news that another idol of mine, director / actor Ray Dennis Steckler, has passed away. So many great people are leaving us more and more and it saddens me, and thus it is hard for me not to turn this into the "Who's Cool That's Just Croaked" blog but that wasn't my intention when I started it. So I am holding my tongue for the most part, or trying to at least. I guess that's how life is, the older you get the more people you know of start going. But I suppose that if our time wasn't limited on this orb then it wouldn't make life so valuable. And as for Mr. Steckler, I will leave it to those who are better then me at writing bio's and sutch (that's most people!) and just say that I loved his movies and greatly admired his passion for film making. Steckler was one of those film makers whose works you either loved or hated and thus he has a true cult following. If you've never seen one of his movies check out my favorite "Rat Pfink a Boo Boo".

Steckler directs and stars as the hypnotised knife-wielding psycho killer in "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" (pant! pant!) also known as "The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary".

LINKS:
Ray Dennis Steckler official website at http://www.raydennissteckler.com/
Ray Dennis Stecklaer on the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0824306/

HAVE A TRASHY HOLIDAY!

2008-12-22T19:01:00.003-05:00

Whatever yours may be, please have a good one!

MONDO MACABRO BLOG-O ARE GO!

2008-12-11T05:00:00.001-05:00

My favorite DVD label, Mondo Macabro, have finally started their own blog! Yes, I knew it was inedible, and from the looks of things they're they're off to a good start! They've already posted a 10 minute collection of totally fucking INSANE Lollywood (sic)* movie clips that yours truly had never seen before! Do yourself a favor, stop reading my boring-ass blog now and go immediately to the Mondo Macabro blog and check these clips out! Your brain will never be the same!

For me, the UK based Mondo Macabro label have not just put out a great cross-section of global trashploitation, but they also have the most interesting documentaries on their discs. You can always tell a lot of research and creative work went into them. And everything from the well written and highly informative liner notes to the other DVD extras, hell, even the dang covers, tells you these bloke's hearts are in the right place. To paraphrase Harry Flowers, these gentlemen "enjoy their work" and it shows. And now, being the conno-sewers of fine taste that they be, they've axed permission to quote yours truly on the front of their upcoming DVD release "Female Prisoner: Caged"!

My Mother will be so proud!

Yes, by quoting Horrorwitz on the front of this DVD (apparently Leonard Maltin was unavailable) MM have reached a new low! But you know, like all smart people, they realize that it's sometimes good to have friends in low places! And having that Trash Palace seal of approval only helps them to ensure the public that "Female Prisoner: Caged!" is 100% grade-A sleaze! (Which it is!) An early 1980s entry from Japan's Nikkatsu studios, I can promise you this: If you are a fan of women-in-prison films in general, if you enjoy seeing large-breasted Asian women beat the sushi out of each other, then this one will not disappoint! This is the third Nikkatsu DVD from MM and I for one am glad that these obscure Japanese movies are finally getting some international releases (with English subtitles too! Joy!).

If you think this fighting looks wild, wait'll you see them "kiss and make up"!

Amongst the many enjoyable Mondo Macabro releases are some long time personal favorites of mine: Juan Lopez Moctezuma's fierce supernatural nun horror film "Alucarda" and his chaotic, quirky and surreal Poe-based art horror "Mansion of Madness"; "Paris Sex Murders", the totally nutso Giallo with an all-star Euro-trash cast; Michel Lemoine's delirious Sadian horror "Seven Women for Satan"; the highly underrated dreamy French horror thriller "Blood Rose"; and the very best Jess Franco movie from his earlier period "Diabolical Dr. Z"! I can tell you as a long time collector of rare movies it is a bloody miracle some of these titles have seen the light of day in such nice looking and uncut versions! They should get an award for resurrecting banned titles like "Don't Deliver Us From Evil" (a movie who's DVD release still amazes me) and "Silip", an exploitation movie from the Philippines I had never heard of that left me slack-jawed (and one which they will surely burn in hell for!). Mondo Macabro are not a huge company and their labor-of-love elements show through. And sadly, it seems to me, that it's smaller labels like MM that have the most struggle in the massive DVD retail world. So support these guys so they can keep coming out with great titles like these for as long as possible!

Check out their blog and stop over to their official website for more amazing clips!

*Lollywood: Like Bollywood on speed with more fighting and sleaze.

LINKS:
Mondo Macabro official website: http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/
Mondo Macabro blog: http://mondomacabrodvd.blogspot.com/

FAREWELL TO THE ACKERMONSTER

2008-12-05T19:55:00.035-05:00

FORREST J ACKERMAN

1916 - 2008

(photo from the back cover of the bio book "Forrest J. Ackerman, Famous Monster of Filmland", Imagine, Inc. 1986)

Sad news today for many of us. I am bummed. Mr. Forrest J Ackerman, "Forry" to many, has passed on. Probably most of you reading this know who he was. But if you don't, you should know that if you've ever read a monster magazine or used the expression "sci-fi" then you have this man to thank. I am sure that many bloggers will be posting their bio's of this great man and much better then I ever could, so I will leave it to them. But I will say that although I didn't know him personally, the few times I met Forry at horror conventions he was really quite charming and very funny. Besides his other accomplishments, he was also the king of monster puns!

Forry was a great inspiration to many also. My friend Dominick Salemi who publishes Brutarian magazine (and now music label) said that to him Forry was a major inspiration in deciding to go into the publishing biz, that "he showed people they could pursue and achieve their dreams no matter how fantastic or far-fetched."

Forry pictured above with his wife Wendayne (who passed away several years ago) during the shooting of Al Adamson's "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" in which the couple had a cameo appearance.

I can tell you that quite possibly there would not be a Trash Palace were it not for him. See for me, as a kid, reading "Famous Monsters" magazine really got me worked-up to want to try to see these films! Those articles and pictures stirred my imagination. "How cool must these monster flicks be!". And the subsequent monster record albums Forry produced, "Music for Robots" and, in particular, "Famous Monsters Speak", also blew my mind! So here's to you Mr. Ackermonster! We all know you're out there somewhere hanging with Karloff, Lugosi and the Chaneys in that great movie theater up in sky...

LINKS:
Forrest J Ackerman's Wide Webbed World: http://www.ackermonster.net/
Forrest Ackerman obit at Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_en_ot/obit_ackerman
Forrst Ackerman obit at L.A. Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/forrest-j-acker.html

HELL YEAH WE DID!

2008-11-06T21:53:00.002-05:00

WHEW!

2008-11-05T00:55:00.006-05:00

Glad that's over with!

Good job America!!

HAVE A TRASHY HALLOWEEN!

2008-10-31T02:32:00.006-04:00

And if you happen to be in the Maryland / DC area tonight, you could do worse then attend this event:

IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY

2008-10-30T03:31:00.008-04:00

20 years ago today, October 30th, 1988, was the very first gig of my old band Date Bait. I can't believe that was 20 FREAKIN' YEARS AGO! Yes, I am still in shock. *sigh*... Date Bait gigged pretty regularly for 10 years and released 2 CDs and 6 different 45 rpm records in 5 different countries. But despite all that most people have never heard of us or knew we ever exhisted. That's okay, I forgive you. In any case, I've gone and put together a tribute page on the Ubangis / Trash Palace website featuring some pictures and clips including video of the very first Date Bait show. Pretty cool shtuff if I do say so meself! ROCK-N-ROLL!!

LINK: The Date Bait webpage is at http://www.trashpalace.com/datebait.htm

I WAS A PRE-TEEN WEREWOLF! plus: YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT!

2008-10-26T04:42:00.038-04:00

When I was a wee little monster my parents would often encourage my interest in dinosaurs, spooks and such. And being an only child I was maybe, oh, a little tiny bit spoiled. Particularly when Halloween came around! Being just 3 days before my birthday, each year my parents would let me pick a birthday present and quite often it was something monster-ous since that's what was out there at that particular time of year. And so I picked up an interest at one point in monster makeup. Although I had seen it advertised in the backs of some monster magazines, I hadn't yet picked up the popular Dick Smith makeup book for kids which was pretty complicated for a child. In Elementary School they would sometimes have these new book sales for the kiddies, and in 1975 I purchased one called simply "Movie Monsters" (Scholastic, 1975) written by Alan Ormsby.

I'm guessing that some of you reading this picked that one up too, especially if you are around 40 to 45 years old now. This great little 80 page book had 3 sections: A brief history of movie monsters with black & white photos, 10 very cool monster makeup ideas, and a script to put on your own live monster show! The makeup ideas were great for young people; very innovative and effective without being too complex. So for Halloween in 1976 I chose the Wolfman makeup. I was 11 years old. My 6th Grade teacher, Mr. Teitelbaum, was quite indulgent and allowed me to use the projector room / storage closet as a private dressing room. I remember it took me about an hour to get everything completed. In fact it took me so much longer to get ready than the other kids that I missed most of the Halloween party, but finished just in time to join in the Halloween parade outside. The costume was pretty thorough and included a separate section on how to make Wolfman hands using a cut up wig and rubber dishwasher gloves! The facial makeup itself involved surgical adhesive which took me about 2 weeks to remove from my face! But, hey, it was well worth it! The hair I used to glue to my face was from an old wig my Bubby (Google it) gave me which she no longer used.

All in all a pretty complex looking work if I did think so myself! The other kids were all pretty exited by it too, I seem to remember. The again it might've just been all that sugar we were eating. Who knows! But there was no question that this was the best Halloween costume I had ever made. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that 4 years later I did it again! By 9th grade, however, I was getting too old for Trick-or-Treating so I dressed up as a Wolfman and hid in the bushes at our house to scare the visiting kids! This way there were many leftovers and thus I could still score a lot of candy!

Below is a very short silent Super 8mm film clip of me taken in 1979 the second time I did the Wolfman makeup. I was 14 years old, just going on 15. It runs about 20 seconds. Look closely and you'll see my plastic fangs start to slip out!

Years later it was no surprise when I discovered that the author of "Movie Monsters", Alan Ormsby, was the man responsible for some very cool horror movies and creature makeups! In 1972 Ormsby had written, acted and done the great crusty zombie makeups for the "Night of the Living Dead" inspired film "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things"! And in 1974 Ormsby wrote, directed and did the grisly makeup for the bloody Ed Gein bio-horror pic "Deranged"! Funny, somehow Scholastic books missed mentioning these bits of info in the book! I wonder why? In 1974 Ormbsy would also write and do the makeup for "Dead of Night" (aka "Deathdream"), an effective low-budget horror tale inspired by W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw" story. Ormsby would go on to work on more mainstream Hollywood films, including writing the scripts for the hits "My Bodyguard" (1980) and the "Cat People" 1982 remake starring Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell. After "Deranged" Ormsby would not direct again until 1990's "Popcorn", a fun slasher film set in a theater running old b-movies with a nod to the William Castle gimmicks of the past. As much as I appreciate his movie work though, I'll always worship this guy for the "Movie Monsters" book. It had quite an impact on me and, I'm guessing, some of you too! For such a little book, "Movie Monsters" sure had a LOT of bite!

LINKS:
Alan Ormsby on The Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0650276/

YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT! #3
Okay all you boils and ghouls out there in Trashland! As a special Halloween bone-us I am giving away an original copy of the "Movie Monsters" book that I found recently in the Trash Palace crypt! Yes, you can win this monstrous masterpiece! Howl you say? Here are the rules: Below is an assortment of 10 werewolf faces. They are all pieces of the original advertising art from different werewolf movie posters. All you have to do is be the first person to correctly identify which movie each face is from! Dog-gone-it, I didn't say it was gonna be easy! Submit your answers as a comment and whomever is the first to correctly identify all of them wins! (If you have trouble submitting the comment you can also email your entry directly to me at brian@trashpalace.com .) Remember to click on the picture below to enlarge it. And if no one wolfs down the prize after a few days, I'll start leaving some clues! Good luck to everybody!

EDIT (October 29th, 2008): Hold the wolfbane! We have a winner!! (see the comments)

HALLOWEEN TUNES FROM THE CRYPT: 1985 RADIO SPECIAL UNEARTHED

2008-10-24T19:02:00.036-04:00

Count Horrorwitz, the zombie dj, circa 1984

In the early to mid 1980s I did some dj-ing on a couple of college radio stations. Namely WROC at Montgomery College in Maryland, and WMUC FM 88.1 ("all the way to the left of the dial, just before the needle falls off") at University of Maryland, high atop the dining hall ("just follow the lost lunches"). At one point on WMUC I had a morning show called "Get Up And Go-Go" which was more or less the first half progressive rock, punk and industrial music and the second half funk, soul, early hip-hop and local go-go funk (lotsa' James Brown, P-Funk and Trouble Funk). But in 1985 I did an early morning Halloween horror special called "The Get Up And Go-Go Pre-Halloween Special" (I was into long titles back then.) The premise was that I had arrived at the station and was told that some "special guests" were going to take over the show. I was to start my usual opening montage and then "leave the studio" for the mystery guests to take charge. Enter Count Horrorwitz and his fiends Igor and Boris who took over the airways for the next 3 hours (minus the news broadcasts which were horrifying in their own rite) . And now, it is with great trepidation that I am happy to resent (sic) the entire show for your listening torture! Er, pleasure!

A face only his Mummy could love!
WMUC FM back then consisted of 2 turntables, 2 mics, a cassette deck (which sometimes worked) and a cart tape machine (not used for this particular show). The shows were generally laid back and fun. With such a low signal range, this being pre-cable / internet broadcasting, you could break a lot of FCC rules and no one noticed. (More on that some other time.) But this particular Halloween program was put together meticulously (I had a lot of free time back then apparently) and mixed live and what you hear, for better or hearse, is the way it went out over the air powered by it's 10 glorious watts of power! Yee-hah! Not even enough power to give Teenage Frankenstein an erection! Remember: This was in the days before home computer audio mixing programs designed for podcasts and things were around, and also before the availability of horror rock compilation CDs and such. A lot of this monster music wasn't that easy to come by then! And while there are some standards like "The Monster Mash" and all, there is also quite a wide-range of more unexpected / obscure ghoulish goodies. There were monster theme segments (zombies, vampires, blobs...) with various stories and sound effects, and monster music ranging from more contemporary horror / Halloween themed garage / punk rock tunes (The Cramps, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Dead Kennedys) to older monster novelty records, movie score and t.v. themes and creepy old radio show excerpts... I think that, all things considered, the show came off pretty good! I do remember that it was hard getting myself worked up to do all those goofy monster voices at 9am, also I had a bad cold at the time and was pretty spaced out on Dayquil or something. Okay,... I was also a total spaz! (I can hear some of you saying "What do you mean was?") And, yes, it's a bit embarrassing for me personally to listen to at times. Ah, but whadcanIsay... Sacrificing a bit of my humility for your listening pleasure is worth it! So here it is: 2 hours and 42 minutes of of horrible, er, horrorfying Halloween treats suitable for all ages! My Halloween gift to you! (Hell, it's cheaper then chocolate bars and easier to fix up then stuffing razors into apples!) Feel free to listen, laugh, scream, download, and burn to CD if you want! I don't even care if you stick it up your pumpkin! Just enjoy! And have a Happy Halloween! And now, without further achoo, I give to you "The Get up And Go-Go Pre-Halloween Special"!

You can listen to the entire show here:

(If you prefer to play the show from your Media Player click here.)

Or you can download the program by right clicking here and saving the file to your hard drive.

RUDY RAY MOORE: A BLACK LEGEND PASSES ON

2008-10-20T20:09:00.075-04:00

Last Saturday night, just after midnight, I received a phone call from my buddy Bill Baker, a friend and fan of Rudy Ray Moore and his family. Bill told me that Rudy's daughter had called him saying that Mr. Moore's health was rapidly declining and he was not expected to make it through the weekend. Sadly, hours later on Sunday, Rudy Ray Moore, an entertainment icon, passed away. A few of you that know me know what a huge fan of his I am. Indeed, he has been one of my idols for several decades and I will miss him dearly.

In the early days of home video rentals the Wizard Video label released a trailer collection called "The Best of Sex and Violence" (1985). And it was on this VHS tape that I first discovered Rudy Ray Moore. Amongst the seventies exploitation trailers compiled on there were several Blaxploitation titles including the 3 complete trailers for "Dolemite", "The Human Tornado" and "The Disco Godfather". I remember laughing my ass off at such classic lines as "Bitch! Are you for real!?" and "If you crave satisfaction, this is the place to find that action! Coming to this theater as it's next attraction!". Moore's delivery was really over-the-top and reminded me of a lot of guys that I had gone to school with back in the seventies; kids that were always going around trying to out-badass each other! It wasn't until later that I realized part of his style was an intentional sort-of self-parody. Rudy was having a laugh with his movies and that's part of what makes them great! I remember turning my friends on to the Moore movies and it's funny now to think of a bunch of young white kids in the suburbs running around quoting Dolemite (which we did for years).

Eventually I was able to track down copies of his movies and later I was lucky to find some of his records. A lot of the classic Black "party records" (XXX humor) were only ever sold to adults in urban liquor stores and inner-city record shops so, needless to say, I had never seen any of them before! What always cracked me up was what I call the Rudy Ray Logic of his humor. As Dolemite: "And tell him I want him out of here in 24 hours. And 23 of them are already gone!" A lot of his jokes were much more x-rated then Richard Pryor or anyone else I had heard, but there was this intentional goofiness to them that made it all in fun. Like on his LP called "The Second Rudy Ray Moore Album" (pictured below), a live recording (or, more likely, pseudo-live), Moore is admiring a female member of his audience: "Woman, I sure would like to get in your pants!" "Why?" "'cause I done shit in mine!". Rudy was not just another guttermouth comic but a real genius!

And talk about a do-it-all entertainer, Moore has done live stand-up comedy, released over 22 comedy albums and movie soundtracks on 8-trak, LP, cassette and CD, sang and released records of his rhythm and blues music, written for the movies, acted in his and others' films, directed movies and somehow held onto the rights for most of his stuff. AND he even ran for president! My good friend Chuck Jeffreys, an entertainer and stunt coordinator in the Hollywood industry as well as founder of the martial arts exercise and training company Combatitude, told me that in the seventies Rudy was the first Black actor he ever saw performing Kung Fu in the movies. Already practicing martial arts, Chuck told me that seeing Moore perform in his movies bolstered his want to do the same! Chuck says "Most of the time it was Chinese actors we'd see in the kung fu flicks. Then came Rudy and his over the top performances. This wasn't Bill Cosby in 'I-Spy' This was kinda out there and I wanted to do, THAT.". Mr. Moore has made many appearances at horror and movie conventions and I feel lucky to have gotten to meet him several times. How surreal it was to go to breakfast one weary convention morning and find Dolemite himself pouring the orange juice at the breakfast bar! Some of you might remember in the older printed Trash Palace catalogues I had a "Rudy Ray Moore" section, which was kind of a joke at the time, the idea that he was his own genre of sorts. (I had a "Poster" section, a "Videocassette" section, "a "Record and CD" section and a "Rudy Ray Moore" section.) This was just before Xenon Home Video re-issued his movies for the sell-through market which brought about a new Rudy Ray / Dolemite revival of sorts exposing his work to a slew of new young fans. If any of you are long time Trash Palace customers you may remember getting a Christmas card from me in the mail in 1997 with this photo on it.: (No, we were NOT stoned in that picture!) That was from the second time I met Mr. Moore at the Chiller Theatre convention in New jersey. I remember just after this photo was taken Rudy tried to teach me the Disco Godfather neck move. ("Put your weight on it!") I never did quite pull it off but it was nice of him to try to teach me anyways. (My chiropractor didn't think it was too nice though.) Around this time Something Weird Video released the excellent Blaxploitation trailer collection called "Afros, Macks and Zodiacs" hosted by Rudy and he was set up at their table helping them promote it. In 1998 Rudy appeared at Creature Feature Video's excellent movie convention in Terrytown, New York. What made this show so special was that Moore performed his live act that Saturday night in a full-blown unexpurgated XXX style! Rudy's manager came out and warned the crowd in advance that the language was raw and, holy shit, he was not kidding! The crowed roared from start to finish. There were several celebrities of the seventies screen in the audience that night plus fans and collectible dealers and, dare I say, by the end there was not an un-blushed face in the house! I felt lucky that I was able to track down some of Moore's singing 45's, a few of which have shown up on Norton Records excellent compilation of his RnB tunes called "Hully Gully Fever". But I never would've thought that in 2004 I'd have to opportunity to get him to sing with my band The Ubangis. To say this short appearance was unrehearsed is kind of like saying the Hindenburg was a little balloon accident. Basically, I walked up to Rudy at a Chiller convention a couple of hours before we were scheduled to go on stage and asked him if he wanted to sing and perform with us. He said "Sure!" and although we discussed trying to play his blues song "Easy, Easy Baby" a tiny bit beforehand we never actually had the chance to quite work it out properly. He just showed up at the show, came onstage, and...

As you can hear things were a bit loose, but for me personally it was a dream come true! Rudy hadn't really planned on doing any particular jokes that night, he just pulled them out onstage. He told me afterwords that he noticed a few younger children in the crowd and tried to tone it down. Even I was shocked!:

Yes, Rudy Ray Moore is Dolemite! He put his finger in the ground and turned the whole world around! To this day I am in awe of the man and I can't help but think that as time goes on his popularity will continue to grow and grow. And in closing let me say this: Rudy Ray Moore, he may be gone... but THE LEGEND OF MUTHAFUCKIN' DOLEMITE LIVES ON!

MY FAVE RUDY RAY LINE: "I got a dong as big as King Kong!"
MY FAVE RUDY RAY MOVIE: A tie between "The Human Tornado" and "Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil's Son-In-Law"
MY FAVE RUDY RAY LP: "Eat Out Moore Often" (a classic!)
MY FAVE RUDY RAY SONGS: "Easy, Easy Baby" and "Theme from The Human Tornado" - amazing!

Thanx to Bill Baker for shooting the Rudy / Ubangis video!

LINKS:
The Dolemite.com website is at http://www.dolemite.com/
Rudy Ray Moore website at Shocking Videos http://www.rudyraymoore.com/
Rudy Ray Moore filmography on the Internet Movie Database is at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0601834/
Chuck Jeffrey's Combatitude is at http://www.combattitude.com/

FOLLOW ME INTO THE GUTTER OF EXQUISITE DELIGHTS!

2008-09-12T05:09:00.005-04:00

Wanna be notified everytime the Trash Palace Blog is updated? Or maybe you just wanna see your name in lights, huh tough guy? Well then just click the Follow this blog thingy (to the right just under WANTED! MORE TRASH FANS LIKE:) and it shall be done! You'll be notified on your profile's "dashboard" each time I add more slop to this thing, and your profile's very own avatar will be publicly (and shamefully) displayed below forever linking you with the finest cono-sewers of trashe.

...

2008-09-11T04:56:00.002-04:00

YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT #2 !

2008-08-24T05:08:00.013-04:00

This time around I present to you this mystery photo below (click on it to enlarge):

Who... or what... is this? Is it King Kong's bigmouth cousin from New Jersey? A Christmas toy for bad children? A possessed urinal? What, I ask you, what!!?? I will be really surprised if anyone comes close with this one! The answer posted soon!

EDIT (Friday, Sept. 19th): The answer has been posted in the comments!

TRA - LA - HUH!!?? THE BANANA SPLITS ARE BACK!

2008-08-19T06:49:00.038-04:00

Break out the Ritalin, kids! The Banana Splits are returning to television! Yes, you heard right! The new Banana Splits shows are scheduled to slip onto your screen sometime in September on the Cartoon Network and Boomerang channel, although I am not 100% clear if these are to be full-length programs (as they were in the '60s) or "shorts" thrown into commercial breaks during pre-existing shows. I can though say that, after taking a look at their orb-popping website , they seem to have done a good job emulating the old Sesame-Street-on-LSD style but cranked-up with a bit of speed for the new ADD generation. Whether or not resurrecting Beagle, Fleagle, Drooper and Snork from Kiddy TV Pergatory is a good thing depends on if you liked the show to begin with. I myself was a pretty big fan although I'd probably have taken "Ultraman" over them any afternoon of the week. I did convince my Mom to let me send in the Poptart boxtops for the set of Banana Splits 45s which I still have (what's left of them). As for the show itself, I always dug the live-action bits with the Splits running around slapstick-style while a barrage of Hannah-Barbera stock cartoon sound fx boinged and popped throughout. I also liked the groovy songs and the jungle live-action "Danger Island" sequences. But some of those particular cartoons just didn't quite do it for me. Even as a young kid I was mostly bored by those, they always seemed like filler to me that I had to wait through to get to the "good stuff"! It'll be interesting to see what kind of 'toons (if any) the new show has. There are reports that Warner Brothers (who owns the rights) are already getting ready to market new Splits products including a CD with all-new tunes (titled "Go Bananas Your Way"), a DVD and... yes, a live tour! Hmmm... Maybe I can actually make it into this one! I was stopped at the gate at both Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus concerts. (Apparently there is some silly rule about wearing raincoats indoors when it's not raining outside. How was I to know?) And now with the Banana Splits resurrected, I ask you... can The Bugaloos be far behind? One can only dream.

Below you can compare the old and new Banana Splits. They look pretty much the same to me although Beagle appears to have lost a few pounds. Also Snorky seems to have much shorter hair now and looks less freaked-out then he did in the '60s. But, in his defense, it was the hippy era after all. Rumor has it that due to many bad trips he had gone the way of Syd Barrett but, after several years struggling in rehab, he has reportedly cleaned up his act. Good on ya Snorky! Tra-la-la, la-la-la-la...

THEN:

NOW:

For more info and a LOT of flashing colors, loud sound effects, moving thingies, groovy songs, nutty games and many video clips check out the official website at http://www.bananasplits.com/ .

WEIRD COMIC BOOK DESTROYS 8 YEAR OLD'S MIND!

2008-07-16T01:48:00.061-04:00

One glorious day in the early 1970s: My Mom took me to a movie theater in a suburban strip shopping center in Laurel, Maryland to see the bleak sci-fi flick "Soylent Green". I was no older then 10 years old. If it was the original release of the movie then I would have to have been 8 years old but I can't remember for sure. What I do remember is that film pretty much blew my mind. (Little did I realize that by the time I was 40 this country would, in some ways, be living out "Soylent Green"! But I digest...) After the movie my Mother and I walked across the way and went into a bookstore. Once inside first thing I really noticed were several horror movie books including Dennis Gifford's infamous "A Pictorial History of Horror Movies", a book which a lot of you probably own, especially if you are over 40. I then noticed what appeared to be a large stack of innocent looking magazines on a table. But as I walked over and the top cover came into view, what I saw was not so innocent! What lay before me was the most colorful, lurid and bloody thing I could have ever - and had NEVER - imagined!

As I picked up the top magazine and gazed upon it's gruesomeness, I fell into a stunned silence, a sort of cross between shock and orgasm (at least as far as an 8 year old is concerned). What the hell were these things? I lifted the top magazine off of the pile and then noticed that the magazine underneath was a different issue, indeed an entirely different title altogether, but with that same style of grizzly cover art! As I picked up the second magazine and noticed yet a third similar styled one underneath, I suddenly realized that the entire stack of 50 or 60 mags were all different issues! What a discovery! A huge heaping pile of beasts, blood and babes! "M-m-m-mom..." I muttered. My Mother approached. "PLEASE!! OH, PLEASE!! Can I PLEASE have one? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!" I cried out in my best James Brown impersonation. "For the love of GOD, woman! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!" My mother picked up one of the magazines and looked at it. And in a that moment, a split-second combination of love and dysfunction, a decision was made that would indeed change my life, point me towards the path of sleaze and perversion, and cause Dr. Frederick Wertham 1 more roll in his Godforsaken grave (look it up), she muttered the words which I so longed to hear: "Okay, Brian, you can pick out one." Oh, YEEEEES!! Oh, THANK YOU!!" I cried, "THAAAAAANK YOOOOOU!!". I spent the next 10 minutes going through the entire stack several times, carefully studying each cover like they were some kinds of unearthed ancient artifacts from a lost tribe, rare treasures dug up from the tomb of Tut, some kinds of face-stained shrouds of some exploited Deity... Yes, I had discovered that, indeed, there WAS a God and I had the proof in my own little mits, baby! I took my time since I could, after all, only choose one. And I had to make sure it was THE one! And after studying each cover very, very closely, I decided on...

Yes, that was the fateful day I had discovered the "Picto-Fiction" world of the mysterious "Eerie Publications", some of the shittiest horror comics ever drawn with some of the goriest and most outrageous covers ever painted! Over the following years I'd occasionally but rarely stumble on a few issues here and there, and each time it was like uncovering a wonderful golden turd! With titles like "Weird Vampire Tales", "Tales of Voodoo", "Terror Tales", "Tales from the Tomb", "Witches Tales",... you get the idea. It wasn't until a road trip to New York City circa 1984 that lead me to a small comic book store in the Village where I was able to score about 100 of these things for only around $1 to $2 each! A motherload of monsters!! How lucky I felt to find so many at one time and in one place too! But how could this possibly happen? Why weren't these already snapped up? You see, truth is, back then no one really cared about trash like this. These weren't considered "collectible" comics. These were disposable horrors, the McDonald's of comic books, meant to be consumed quickly and then shat into the toilet of terror turds, flushed away to the sea of unwanted comics along with Archie, Big Boy and all the other non-collectibles. Indeed these were third-rate imitations of classier (I say "classier", not necessarily "classy" mind you) comic mags like Warren Publications "Creepy", "Eerie" and "Vampirella" and Skywald's "Nightmare", "Psycho" and "Scream". All decent rags in their own right. And yet, there was something about these others, these monster mavericks... they were trashier imitations of the trash they tried to copy... like they were saying "Fuck it! We know we're garbage, so let's just crank the shit up!". Having so many at this point I then discovered that the mags were pretty much interchangeable, that the stories were continuously reprinted from issue to issue regardless of the title. In fact some of these stories were already reprinted from 1950s pre-code comic books. Occasionally some of the art would even be touched-up to appear gorier then how it was originally published earlier! And the violence could be outrageous on a surreal level. Many times in these stories, for example, someone would get a knife in the neck or an axe in the back and that would cause their eyeball would fly out! Bet you didn't know that could happen, did you doc? The art itself was usually pretty poor, but a few of them, especially around the late '60s / early '70s, did have their own cool style, but those were few and far between. One memorable tale, "Blood Bath" (seen below), told of the horrors of LSD.

To this day I have yet to try the shit! I mean,... can you blame me? And the story titles... "The Slime Creatures", "A Head Full Of Snakes", "The Skin Crawlers", "The Blood Dripping Head"... I mean, did they just have a board on the wall with 30 or 40 horrific words written on them and throw darts at it? I also noticed that the cover art was very often re-used and re-re-used, sometimes cut-up where just parts of them were re-used, sometimes older parts were combined with parts of other older covers, sometimes they'd be the same monsters but re-drawn entirely! This was nutso! In later issues the cover art seemed to be often re-printed on the inside cover in black and white.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. Even the numbering of the issues made no sense. And there seemed to be this endless array of different covers too! To this day I am still discovering new ones I hadn't seen before! Years later I xeroxed one of my favorite covers (seen below) to make a flyer for my band Date Bait for our first ever gig, Halloween weekend (natch), 1988.

I mean, check it out: You have a mad scientist transplanting a brain into a Frankenstein monster while a vampire and a werewolf grapple with a stacked redhead! What a glorious monster mess! The closest things to rival these excessive cover overloads of famous creatures were a few films by directors Al Adamson, Jess Franco and Paul Naschy. Someone needs to publish a nice full-color book showcasing every cover! Are you listening Taschen? Hey, I can dream, can't I?

In conclusion all I can say is... Thanks Mom!

For more information check out the excellent article and cover gallery on Eerie Publications publisher Myron Fass at the incredible "Bad Mags" website (for the forthcoming book of the same name by Tom Brinkmann). There is also a nice Eerie Publications cover gallery at the Empire of the Claw website. Check 'em out!

YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT!

2008-07-08T01:58:00.025-04:00

Okay kids! It's contest time! Each week (or so) I'll post a mystery song, photo, smell, etc. and it's up to you to guess what it be! Yes, YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT... but here it comes none the less! AND NOW, listen to this weird li'l ditty if you dare! :

PLAY THE MYSTERY SONG NOW!

What could it be? An unreleased recording of The Ventures on acid? Go-go music from Uranus? Cubby Broccoli's funeral march? The answer may astound you! It may amaze you! Why, it may even cause you to unexpectedly unload your waste at an inappropriate time thus soiling your garments! And yes, the first person who can name this tune correctly will win... (pause for dramatic effect)... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Except the instant gratification that you were the first one to get it right! The answer will be posted here soon! WOW!!

EDIT (July 19th, 2008) - Okay, seems no one's gonna get this as is. So I'll start giving clues. Clue #1: It's the theme to a movie from 1969.

EDIT (July 23rd, 2008) - Clue #2: It has an Asian cast.

EDIT (August 13th, 2008) - Clue #3: Okay, here's the last hint; The theme to this movie appears in the English dubbed US release during the opening credits and is NOT heard at all in it's original Japanese release. Hmmm... what could it be?

EDIT (August 19th, 2008) - Yes, we finally have a wiener! See the comments for the amazing answer!

JOHN PHILLIP LAW meets THE UBANGIS!

2008-07-03T00:22:00.032-04:00

Actually, this should be called "John Phillip Law Upstages The Ubangis"! After the recent and unexpected passing of John Phillip Law, I had mentioned this video in a prior post ("Diabolik Says Goodbye") of Mr. Law goofing around during a Ubangis soundcheck. I then had many requests (well, at least one bloke asked for it!) to post the clip and, so, here it is! This was recorded live late one intoxicated Saturday night over Halloween weekend in 1998 at the Chiller Theatre horror convention in New Jersey. Things were very hectic and I was running around totally focused on getting the band gear setup and completely oblivious to the facts that 1. there was a man sitting right in front of me at the edge of the stage doing wacky things and 2. said man was John Phillip Law! And I especially should have noticed because I had just gotten his autograph that weekend! In fact I had no idea any of this was going on until I saw a videotape of the gig a week later. Not having seen the tape for many years until today it was a bit different then I had remembered when describing it in the previous JPL post. The giant plastic bones you see him messing with incidentally were prop drumticks that I played with at the start of the gig. Later on in the clip Law can be seen watching our act as we perform the instrumental number "Microphonic Nightmare". The band members at the time were myself, Saucy Randy Manos, Kevin "Sexual Chocolate" Hall (who played a handful of gigs on bass with us around that time), and Jill Grable Barnett who had left the band 5 years prior to start a family but returned for this special gig. Sadly, Jill too has also passed on. Back then, during those surreal and wonderful moments, I couldn't ever imagine those people ever leaving this place. I feel very lucky this was all caught on tape at least so I can look back on what seems now like some far-out dream. The cameras that night were operated by Stephen Blickenstaff, Eric Pugliese and Adam Strausner.

Wild times!

OBLIGATORY CHIMP PHOTO

2008-06-05T02:45:00.001-04:00

ROCK-N-ROLL MADE ME KILL!

2008-05-31T02:31:00.028-04:00

Whilst digging through the Trash Palace archives I came across this unusual magazine I had picked up many years back although I can't remember where! "Something Else" (volume 2, number 1 from March 1971) seems to be one of the many "Mad" Magazine clones that came out in the wake of that mag's success. Unlike mags such as "Crazy", "Cracked", "Sick" and the MANY others (there were LOTS!) though, this one seemed to have a particular audience in mind; all of the humor revolved around drugs, left-wing politics, rock-n-roll and hippy culture. It took an almost underground comix approach but, unlike the "head comix" of those times, was pretty much non-adult and PG-rated, which is bizarre considering the topics of the comics and stories! In fact it seemed to be aimed at teenagers and ones that wanted counter-culture satire, that is, humor poking fun at the establishment and not the underground culture itself. I can't say if every issue was like this or if just this particular one was a special theme issue because I've never seen another copy nor been able to find out anything about the magazine! Take a look at page 1 (click on the image to enlarge to full size):

You can pretty much get an idea of this thing from page one; groovy sixties-style art, mod paste-ups of old classic-style artwork ala Terry Gilliam with funny captions, hip curvy lettering and, yes, those are loose-leaf paper holes punched so the magazine can be clipped inside one's school notebook and snuck into school(which they encouraged naturally!). But what is really bizarre about this magazine is that in the middle of all the Hippy jokes is this 14 page long "serious" article called "John Lennon Is Scared"! Obviously inspired by Charles Manson and the whole "Paul Is Dead" Beatles schtick, the article tends to jump all over the place and is a bit of a mess. Who knows how much of this shit is fact based if indeed any of it is! And yet there are still are a few unsettling things about this piece particularly in light of future events. Read on if you dare!

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

2008-05-28T20:18:00.006-04:00

Poster from 1969:

Which "Ultraman" monster does my dog Bella Buttons most look like?

2008-05-21T04:39:00.014-04:00

Bella Buttons

"Ultraman" tv show monsters

MOVIE RULES, part 1

2008-05-20T03:38:00.008-04:00

I will watch any movie in it's entirety if it contains at least one of these things:

1. a guy (or gal) in a gorilla suit

2. a giant monster played by someone in a rubber monster suit (no cgi allowed) stepping on small models of buildings

3. a virgin sacrifice ceremony

4. Mimsy Farmer

5. a Davie Allan soundtrack

6. anything directed by Jess Franco

7. anything from Italy circa 1969 to 1972

8. anything from 1969 to 1979 with the word "Bloody" in the title

9. an acid trip squence

10. a dream or nightmare sequence that contains nudity

11. Klaus Kinski

12. anything from Germany circa 1969 to 1980 with the word "Schoolgirl" in the title

13. any movie where the lead female is named Emanuelle, Emmanuelle or O

STAY TUNED FOR MORE!

DIABOLIK SAYS GOODBYE

2008-05-16T03:21:00.024-04:00

I was just heading to bed and jumped online for a minute and was shocked to read about the death last Tuesday of actor John Phillip Law. A lot of you probably know him as the star of Mario Bava's "Danger: Diabolik!"and Pygar the blind winged angel-man in "Barbarella". Law acted in a lot of other cool films as well including "Eyes Behind the Wall", a pretty twisted Italian thriller from 1977, and "Blood Delirium" from 1982, an over-the-top Italian horror trip. He was also memorable in "Skidoo" and "Death Rides A Horse", but for me I'll always think of him as Diabolik and that unusual character Pygar. I had the pleasure of meeting Law at a horror convention in 1998. My band The Ubangis was playing there on Saturday night. Things were a bit chaotic at the show and it took awhile to set up the band equipment. When the convention was over and I was back home in Maryland the following week I viewed a videotape of the performance. Much to my surprise there was John Phillip Law sitting in front of us on the edge of the stage during our long setup, hamming things up for the crowd. He seemed slightly intoxicated (a lot of people were that night!) and was goofing around for the audience. He had taken one of my big plastic bones that I occasionally drum with and was trying to use it as a sort of baseball bat to keep a balloon up in the air with it, volleying it above his head over and over. I was so focused on getting everything set up that I was totally oblivious to this. At one point he missed the balloon and it went to the floor. He placed the bone down next to him for a second and stood up so he could bend down for the balloon. Right about that time we were getting ready to start so I grabbed the bone off the stage not realising he was using it for his little impromptu comic skit. He returned to his seat back on the stage edge and looked around to find the bone missing. Then he looked up at the crowd and made this sad little boy face. Everyone laughed it up but I was off in another world apparently! In fact I had absolutely no idea any of this happened so seeing the tape was quite a shock! He stuck around for the concert and I could see him in the videotape watching the band and just laughing and laughing, really enjoying himself. Needless to say I went from being a fan of his to a HUGE fan!

Law and I spoke for a few minutes at the convention. He talked about Marisa Mell, his co-star in "Diabolik" and what a beautiful and sweet woman she was. (Mell had died a few years earlier an untimely death at only 53 years old of cancer.) The fun thing about these conventions is that sometimes you really get to feel that you touch with a "celebrities" personal side, and Law was one of the first for me that I had met. You could tell what a personable and down-to-earth fellow he was really was despite seeming larger then life flying through the sky with Jane Fonda in "Barbarella". Law still looked great the last time I saw him and so it's hard to imagine he's gone. Having made so many fans over the years, from his cult movie roles as well as his convention appearances, he will be missed by many!

THE GROOVY FACTOR part 1

2008-05-13T23:09:00.026-04:00

In some of the movie reviews I've done on the Trash Palace website I mention the Groovy factor. But what exactly is the Groovy Factor? HAVE I LOST MY MIND!!?? Well, for me it represents films that contain certain elements from the time period of roughly 1966 to 1972, although there are many exceptions. Any scene in a film that has psychedelic lighting, clubs with body-painted go-go dancers, people freaking out on acid trips, mod fashion models in mini-skirts... and so on. The fact that so many movies from that era contain the "groovy" elements and that, subsequently, most movies thereafter don't (although there are still some that do) one can assume that these things are products of their time naturally. But how did they come to be that way? It didn't just change like that by itself. And why do I dig the Groovy Factor so much and go on and on about it? Look at how things changed so drastically in the 5 years spanning say 1964 to 1969. Look how long men's hair became, the drastic changes in the way popular music sounded, not to mention the attitudes of people, the expanding of people's consciousness and open-mindedness. And a big part of this social revolution came from, or at least was somewhat helped along by, LSD. In my opinion there never in the history of popular culture has been such a noticeable change in such a short amount of time. Certainly since the '60s any changes at all have been much slower, almost unnoticeable. Does 1982 really seem that different from 1987? No way, Jose! And along with the '60s new social attitudes came artistic and sexual changes as well. And commercial art, like the clothes and music, were a reflection of this new young culture. The wild colors that come from an acid trip changed the way clothes were designed. The flowers handed out by hippies that represented a good will gesture of peace and love became absorbed into popular art of the times. And once psychedelia became commercialized you had flowered wallpaper, black light posters sold in mainstream stores, etc. Remember those groovy looking flower-shaped rubber sticker things you put inside your bathtub to keep from slipping around? And remember when Snoopy was suddenly "Feelin' Groovy!"? Hmmm... why was he feeling that way? And where did those designs come from? Yes, there is no question that it can all be traced back to the influences of the times; the drugs, the big pop stars of the day (particularly the Beatles) and, subsequently, the trippy mind-expanding drugs they were using. Those things had a major effect in changing the way we looked too, and the way all commercial art was created. Movie-wise things were affected in the obvious ways; films went from exploiting youth culture in the "don't-let-this-happen-to-YOUR-kids" style to the "turn on and tune in" approach. To me it seems that you can look at a few seconds of pretty much any movie or tv show that was made in the late '60s or early '70s and tell it was from that time period. And for me, personally, I have a soft spot for films from this era, and the groovier the better! Even the flicks that aren't considered particularly "good" still have those qualities going for them by default and sometimes that's enough.

A movie like "The Touchables" (1968, above trailer taken from Something Weird Video's "Dusk To Dawn Drive-In Trailers" vol. 7) I never get tired of watching although most people seem to despise that film. I've never read anything good about it even in supposed pop-culture and counter-culture film books. But who wouldn't like to watch 4 cute mod chicks kidnap a rock star and take him to their inflatable dome for some groovy frolicking? There is a real anarchistic approach to the way the girls act and speak, a "modern" look to the film and some really cool music and colorful visuals,... things that make this movie a product of it's time for sure. And for me that is ultimately 100 times more entertaining then ANYTHING playing at the multiplex right now.

Sometimes the Groovy Factor alone can make a bad movie worth watching. And the GF was applied to all film genres of the time. Like the comedies: There was a period where mega-comedies with blockbuster casts were all the rage. Films like "Skidoo", "Candy", and "The Phynx" where the producers tried to cram as many celebrities into 1 movie as possible, sort of trying to one-up "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" from 1963.

Take "Casino Royale" for instance (the 1967 James Bond satire). It's really quite a disaster of a film. There were 5 different directors working on it and the parts don't really mesh up making for one uneven mess. But why do I love this movie so much? First, there is an amazing score by Burt Bacharach and Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, groovy pop to be sure. A mega-star cast featuring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles and Woody Allen, plus, more importantly, uber Euro-babes including Ursula Andress, Joanna Pettet, Daliah Lavi, Barbara Bouchet and others. Plus the storyline gets wackier and wackier as it progresses, like the film is writing itself or something, becoming quite psychedelic and ending in a slapstick comic free-for-all. A real mess to be sure, but a very groovy mess! The same thing can be said about the movie "Candy" (1968). A great groovy cast (Ewa Aulin, John Astin, Elsa Martinelli, Ringo Starr, Marlon Brando, James Coburn...), but the idea of trying to do a commercial film version of the x-rated book (which itself was basically a paraody of a smut novel but still very smutty) would be impossible. What director Christian Marquand did pull off was another mega-comedy mess but with a great Groovy Factor. I know it's not considered to be a "good" movie, but I can watch it a hundred times and never get tired of it. And the Groovy Factor did not stop there. No way, baby! Pretty much all cinematic genres were affected. And thus some of my favorite horror and erotic movies are films from that era and have major doses of groovieness permeating their celluloid vibes.

TO BE CONTINUED? OH YEAH!

THE SPY WHO WENT POP! (and other superheroes)

2008-05-10T03:07:00.011-04:00

A free CD for your downloading and listening pleasure! Compiled by my good friend OYOY7 with help from Agent Bender! Dare I say... the coolest spy movie and Euro-superhero soundtrack compilation ever made? I dare!

To download please find the link over at Dr. Penis's Purple Zombie DJ blog!

TINY MINDS SAVED BY GLAM ROCKERS!

2008-05-08T02:25:00.004-04:00

And to get things rolling comes these 2 brief public safety announcements courtesy of Shabby. Don't be crackers! If you wanna live to be 10 you'll follow these rules!

IT HAD TO HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER

2008-03-27T02:08:00.007-04:00

Coming soon: In this very spot will be the official blog for Trash Palace by Brian D. Horrorwitz at http://www.trashpalace.com/ . And in keeping up with the high level of "quality" (ahem) that Trash Palace fans have known for the past 10+ years, I need your help to make this blog the grooviest, ginchiest, ga-ga-iest blog in cyberspace, baby! After all, I have a repuation to uphold (yeah, right!). So, I need your help!! Contact me! Post your comments! And tell me what you would like to see up here! I myself would like to build a forum dedicated to my love for obscure pop culture, exploitation movies, music and more! A vertitable toilet, er, treasure chest of TRASH where I can post pictures of rare exploitation movie items not seen on the internet thus far! Trailers and movie clips that are actually worth watching! And free downloads of the cool, the unheard of... and the BIZARRE sounds from the vaults of the Trash Palace record album archive! Also send me your tech tips for blogging because I know not what I do. And remember... keep watching the screens!