Category Archives: Weird News
Hear (most of) Here Come the Mummies’ new album, “Cryptic”
For some bands, reinventing the wheel would be a form of sacrilege akin to watching an old bluesman suddenly bust out into Justin Bieber song. So we’re happy to report that Cryptic, the sixth album from undead funk-rockers Here Come the Mummies, is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a band whose previous albums include such WYSIWYG titles as Single Entendre and Bed, Bath and Behind. There are songs are partying, songs about sex, and songs about how too much partying can lead to sex. It’s a sweeping epic about the human condition, really. Baz Luhrmann should buy the film rights.
You can listen to extended clips from all 12 of Cryptic‘s tracks right now on the revamped HCTM website, which has a slick new look and all sorts of interactive features (the fan photos from past shows are especially nifty). And speaking of interactive…here’s a live video of them performing the Cryptic track “Everything But” that was made using the French website Evergig.com, which splices together fan-shot videos into a seamless concert clip. Pretty high-tech for a bunch of dudes who’ve been dead for five thousand years.
We interrupt this blog for a special announcement from Electric Phantom
Big news from Electric Phantom, the record label home to Chimney Crow and Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin. It arrived on our Facebook page earlier this week in the form of a video press conference hosted by Electric Phantom spokeswoman Melody McGinn and attended by the dying remnants of the music press. Let’s watch, shall we?
Very melodramatic, no? Next time we have a big announcement, we’re totally hiring Melody and her gang of ghouls to make it for us.
So now that you know the big news (you did watch the video, right? if not: Spoiler alert!), head over to electric-phantom.com and check out all the new goodies. Happy shopping.
Arrington de Dionyso goes rude boy on new Malaikat dan Singa song “I Create in the Broken System”
Photo by Lucinda Roanoke
It’s been a year or three since we last heard from Malaikat dan Singa, the Tuvan throat-singing trance-punk project of Old Time Relijun lead singer Arrington de Dionyso. But just the other day, we got an email from Arrington himself, alerting us to the arrival of a brand-new Malaikat dan Singa album and music video. Thanks, Arrington! It’s because of proactive artists like you that we get to sit on our asses looking at Passed Out Juggalos all day instead of trawling the Interwebs for, y’know, music news and stuff.
Anyway, the album is called Open the Crown and it’s out now on the ever awesome K Records. Based on what we’ve heard of it, we’re happy to report that Arrington is full freakout mode, complete with throat singing, bass clarinet and ranting and raving in his preferred rock ‘n’ roll language, Indonesian—although he now mostly belts out in English. The other new wrinkle here, besides the semi-intelligible English lyrics, is a growing interest in the hip-skankin’ beats, loose-limbed basslines and tape echo of Jamaican dub and reggae—an interest that becomes a full-blown homage in the first Open the Crown song to be released in video form, “I Create in the Broken System.” You might think there’s no connection between throat singing and rude boy toasting, but there’s something in Arrington’s growling delivery that’s totally Tibet by way of Trench Town. Also, there are cheetahs and lions.
You can preview more tracks from Open the Crown and I dunno, maybe buy the damn thing for just $6.99 on the K Records website. Think of it as doing your small part to stick it to The Broken System.
Let us feast on flesh at the GWAR-B-Q
Getting sprayed with fake blood at a GWAR concert is fun and all, but I bet it pales in comparison to getting sprayed with real blood and/or lighter fluid. And both those things are probably strong possibilities at the 4th Annual GWAR-B-Q, an orgy of loud music and roasted flesh hosted by the greatest alien-god-monster metal band in the universe. Too bad it’s happening in Virginia, or I’d totally go. But I’m pretty sure I still have at least two outstanding warrants in that state. Or was it West Virginia? Either way, I’m out.
But if you’re in that part of the world on Saturday, Aug. 17, you should totally fucking go. In addition to GWAR, the lineup features such stellar purveyors of weird metal as Cannabis Corpse (weed-themed death metal), X-Cops (current and former members of GWAR dressed up as, well, cops) and Kung Fu Dykes (uh…this shit). Also on the bill: the less weird but undeniably awesome Corrosion of Conformity, Municipal Waste, Loincloth and one of my personal favorites, muthafuckin’ Pig Destroyer. Shit is gonna go off, y’all.
Oh, and did we mention they’re also gonna be rolling out the very first GWAR-themed beer, Impaled Ale? Somebody save us a case.
Tickets go on sale June 6th at gwarbq.com. Mark your calendars in the blood of your enemies.
New Flaming Lips video: Even weirder and nakeder than their last one
Credit: George Salisbury
You know how the last Flaming Lips video, for “Ashes in the Air,” featured an alien with an eyeball for a head and lots of dead naked people? Well, their latest clip features no aliens or death, but it’s pretty much just one big ol’ nakedfest. It’s for “You Lust,” a 13-minute epic of their latest album, The Terror. Thankfully it’s been edited down to more like four minutes for the video, because four minutes is about as much flaccid penis close-ups as I can stand. Watch and you’ll see what I mean. (Heads-up: NSFW on account of it being a nakedfest and all.)
You know what’s even crazier than Winny Puhh? This video made by a Winny Puhh fan.
By now I assume y’all are familiar with Winny Puhh, our current #1 Weirdest Band in the World and the pride of Estonia. If you’re not familiar, for the love of all that’s holy go watch the video of their failed bid to represent Estonia at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. We’ll wait.
Did you make it back in one piece? Barely? OK, good. Because I’m about to take what’s left of your senses and assault them even harder with this video for the song “Peetus.”
At first, when someone named Promote Your Product left this clip on our Facebook page, we assumed it was just the work of some jackass spammer, on account them being named Promote Your Product and all. Then, because it was really good, we assumed it was some new official Winny Puhh video. Then we did a little more digging, and now we’re assuming it was just put together by this guy using found footage.
Ultimately we have no idea what the full story is behind the video, because the clip’s creator, Kirill “agale” Pozharsky, writes everything on his YouTube channel in Russian. But who cares? The video is amazing and really captures the spirit of Winny Puhh. Especially towards the end when everything gets super stabby. (Warning: NSFW. Not like Cattle Decapitation NSFW, but close.)
In other Winny Puhh news: There’s now a Facebook campaign to make them Estonia’s 2014 representative at Eurovision. Go like that shit!
Classic Frank Zappa albums “Freak Out!” and “Over-Nite Sensation” getting the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment
Since regaining the rights to Frank Zappa‘s vast catalog, his heirs over at Zappa Records and Zappa Family Trust have wasted no time in finding new and creative ways to get his music out into the marketplace. Some moves, like selling CDs with a distribution license for $1,000 a pop, have struck us as a bit ill-conceived. But they’ve also put out some cool unreleased material and finally made his stuff available on iTunes, a long overdue boon to those of us who still quaintly insist of paying to download music instead of just listening to Pandora all day.
Even more quaintly, some of us still listen to music on big black pieces of vinyl—and now Zappa Records has those folks covered, too. Next month, they’ll be reissuing two classic Zappa albums on collector’s quality 180-gram vinyl: Freak Out!, the groundbreaking debut from Zappa’s band The Mothers of Invention, and another Mothers mind-bender, 1973′s Over-Nite Sensation, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Damn, I feel old just typing that.
No word yet on the exact release date of these suckers, but keep an eye on the somewhat bewildering Zappa.com site for (hopefully) more info soon. Meantime, let’s play out this post with a golden Frank oldie from Freak Out!, shall we?
New Fabulous Downey Brothers video “Do It Again” is 42 seconds of awesome
We love us some Fabulous Downey Brothers. They’re like DEVO for people with really short attention spans. Case in point: Their latest video (last we checked—I tweet slower than these guys make music videos) is just 42 seconds long. It’s for a song called “Do It Again” and it features some of the sickest dance moves we’ve seen in quite some time. And by “sickest” I mean “it really seems like this person might be about to collapse at any moment.”
In other Fabulous D Bros news, they’re playing a gig in Seattle tomorrow night (we can’t make it, but somebody go and yell “Freebird!” for us) and they have some new costumes that look both wildly impractical and totally fucking awesome. I give those outfits five shows before they’re completely trashed, tops. But what a five shows they’ll be.
Passed Out Juggalos is my new favorite Facebook page. Sorry, Grumpy Cat.
There are few things in this world more satisfying than drawing a Sharpie dick on your friend’s face after he’s conked out from one too many Jägerbombs. But among those few things is a shapely female ass in a thong. So you can imagine my delight when I recently discovered the miracle combination of these two beautiful things that is Passed Out Juggalos.
Passed Out Juggalos is a Facebook page started by a bunch of chicks who go to Gathering of the Juggalos and other events where the eyebrow-pierced fans of Insane Clown Posse congregate, find the dudes who are passed out (trust me, it’s not very hard), and take pictures of themselves shoving their scantily clad asses and boobs in said passed out dudes’ faces. It’s like some kind of crazy, genius cross between teabagging, a strip club lap dance and a Take Back the Night march. Okay, that last part might be a stretch, but you have to admit, there’s a turn-the-tables layer of female empowerment to all this. You could almost call it girl-on-guy sexual harrassment…except that for 99.9% of these guys, unless there’s a huge gay Juggalo contingent we’re unaware of, this is a fucking dream come true. Or it would’ve been if only they’d been awake for it.
Like all true geniuses, the women behind Passed Out Juggalos are misunderstood. Scattered amidst the “Fuck yeah!” and “I wanna pass out when you’re around” comments on their Facebook page is a fairly steady stream of “You’re all dumb sluts” and “Why are you doing this?” POJ girl Neveah answers that last one pretty well in this Q&A she and two other POJ girls did with Vice.com: “It’s hella funny, because you see people hella passed out in these crazy positions that look so uncomfortable. What could be better than putting your ass right in their faces?” Neveah, we hella agree with you 1,000%.
On a related note: Tickets are on sale now for the next Gathering of the Juggalos, happening Aug. 7-11 in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Gentlemen, start practicing your uncomfortable-looking fake-passed-out poses now.
Hey, look, it’s Barbara’s first music video
If there’s one thing Andy and I love, it’s when a band that we already thought was pretty weird gets even weirder. Well, our March Weird Band Poll winners Barbara have done just that. They’ve just released a music video for the song “TUM”…their first proper video, as far as we know…and it’s big ball of deep-fried crazy dipped in hot ‘n’ spicy freak sauce. Here, watch:
What’s your favorite part? Mine is the totally random shot of trash cans at around the four-minute mark. Also, all the parts where they’re singing and wearing what look like windbreakers that have been stitched to their faces. Also, the part where the girl says, “You all have drinks?” OK, fine, I love the whole fucking thing.
