For the sleaziest and greaziest summer hits, scroll down to Slabbage of the Month. For just plain old Sleaze, stay right here.

It is for the hearts of blackness to unite! 

There are no Super Rock magazines, of course, and all the ones that approach the subject, I already write for. So when I find myself standing around, waiting for something to happen, and there's a record store or newsstand in the area, I invariably pick up a black or death metal magazine. Not that I listen to extreme metal all that much, since that would be masochistic, but I love the pictures of scowling Swedish dudes all dressed up in corpsepaint and bullet belts, and I dig reading their crazy talk about the devil and such. Although it's hugely popular in the rest of the world, extreme metal's not much of a sensation stateside, so even though they're all in English, most of the magazines I read are from another country- Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, places like that. Couple of weeks ago I'm wasting my time at Tower records when I spot Black Hole magazine, a corpsepaint mag from Brazil. Now, let me get this straight- they're Portuguese speaking cats writing in English about Scandinavian bands? Sounds like fun, right? Well, it is. At first I didn't even notice. Metal journalism is so oddly formulaic that they all read pretty much the same. But I had Black Hole in my bag for a week, and since I was either too lazy or broke to just go and buy a new magazine, I just kept reading it over and over again. After a while, the slightly broken English began taking on an almost poetic tone. Some of it was (fittingly enough) funny as hell, too, which made me think that maybe the Black Hole boys were doing it on purpose. Probably not, but it's a riot anyway. Here is a sampling of some of the amazing pieces of prose in their latest issue.

"For your safety no drum machine was found." - Vincent Necrosadofucker, on Virus

"I hope these freaks are preparing another sick stuff like this, anyone who wants to get it don't will stay disappointed, I'm sure !!" - Andre Luiz, on Reinfection

"This band will change it's name for "Are You Shit?" I hope that not." - Jaime Amorim, on Are You God?

"The mixture is so well done that you will forget why you are alive." - Fernando Comacho, on Disavowed

"I have no doubt that Blackened Moon put his money on the right place releasing this CD, and Chicago's scene I think is also going insane to have these freaks playing around and making victims on their life performances." - FC, on Corpsevomit

"What a shit!" - JA, on Krueger

"Well, if you are into this stuff here's a great motive to have a headache." - AL, on Brutal Mastication

"They are from London- a tremendous trouble for the Queen, because they are insane." - Chacal, on Infected Dissaray

...and so on. To get your own copy of this seminal - not to mention utterly confusing- extreme metal mag, check them out at http://blackholemag.com

Stupid Grrrl

Straight outta the swamp - Dege Legg

Dege Legg is the king prawn in blooze n' boozed Louisiana-bred stoner metal heavyweights Santeria. He's the cat that coined the ever useful phrase "It's all whack and tangle and jive", which I've not only used as an excuse when my boss asked me why I attempted driving a twelve foot high truck into a parking garage that only had a ten foot clearance, but it's also prefect for when somebody stops you in the street to ask for directions. He's a genius of desperate poetry, this Dege. Every time he writes, there's been another jaw dropping trauma going on, but he's taken it all with wit and grit. I haven't heard form him in a month or so, which is never a good sign. At any rate, in the interest of sleazy rock journalism, I asked him a few poignant questions. He answered them.

You cats have a serious animal situation going on over there-gators, snakes, who the fuck knows what lurking in the swamps-you ever have to deal with these things? 

It's like the jungle down here. Everything's warm and wet. Humid. Hot fog comes from nowhere and just rides by. It's very atmospheric, especially at night--you can smell the vegetation and dirt and the water...I dig that. Cities smell alright, I guess, but parking lots, dumpsters, and concrete kind of lends itself to that urban cynicism where you just bitch about everything and act like you're in a crime movie all the time. It's different down here in Louisiana. It's like a country unto itself. French speaking Cajuns. Half-breed Native Americans. Demented Vietnamese. Eastern Indians. Creoles. Factor in all the bugs and you start to get a strange feel for the place. Accordions, fiddles, scrub boards, plywood guitars. Accordions make me think of hit men, I'm not sure why. Bugs and reptiles thrive in this kind of shit, I guess. Mostly, it's bugs... unclassifiable hot rod-lookin' roached up beetles that land on you and squat. Gators, you only see in the swamps and bayous, but they're out there... bigtime, holding it down. They're like the Original Gangstas, just chilling and keeping the BadAss Flag flying. Snakes are everywhere...even in the city. When it rains, they crawl from the ditches, shoot you a weird vibe, then disappear. Possums, raccoons, nutria rats, regular rats, skunks, all of them make weekly appearances around our house. At night, the coons party down on our trashcans, looking for scraps, etc. Possums look like big, mutated pissed off rats. They're like the gutter punks of the animal world. When you happen upon them and attempt to scare them off--just for kicks--they lazily sneer at you, and then return to what they were doing...it's hilarious. Got a weird vibe, them possums. Lot of cows, too, down here. Cows seem wise because they don't say anything or make much noise. They just stand there, poker faced, waiting for you to leave so they can make fun of you after you've left. We eat bugs down here. Mostly crawfish. People up north call them mudbugs. They live in ditches, but down here country dudes farm them in man-made ponds with visquine levees and then sell them to stores for boiling. It's my favorite food, seriously.

Santeria--ever gotten the curse? Ever given the curse? 

I know it sounds like bullshit, and it may be, but I think we've been cursed hardcore by some voodoo people in the area. The reason is--and it took me a while to figure out--because we, as a rocknroll band, have appropriated the name Santeria, which is a sacred religion to many people. I respect the religion--we all do--but I think they are under the mistaken impression that we are exploiting it for some sinister ends, which isn't the case. We merely applied the name to our band in a metaphorical sense. We are a multi-racial band of weirdoes who appreciate each other's differences. The music and interests of each member of the band varies widely from individual to individual, so it fits us in an interesting way...and it reflects the music we play...the mystery and the vibe of Deep South Louisiana. As far as the curse goes, too much weird shit has gone down in the past 2 years for me to ignore it. We've totaled close to 10 cars and 2 band vans. Bills, busts, accidents, all kinds of shit. We found a cow kidney stuffed in our mailbox one night after a gig. It looked like a football made of meat. At the time, I was so burnt out; I just looked at it and said, "Whatever." I could go on and on, and still, people wouldn't believe me but it's true. We've never retaliated. Never cursed anyone back. We wouldn't know whom to direct it at even if we did; however, we did try, at one time, to have the curse removed. I'm not sure if it worked.

What's with the sludge? How's that happen? 

Sludge occurs when musicians become bored with all the technical gymnastics involved with certain forms of heavy metal. They tune down to 'Z,' then let it ring and slam through the walls. It's like the thunder you hear before a big storm in the summer. It's trance-like, in a way...very soothing and grand. Low-end trance. A lot of bands from down here harp on that style, some rightfully so, and some...they're just trying to fit in with musician dudes they respect, so that they can play gigs and not get made fun of for attempting to do their own thing. It takes guts to play heavy, discordant music, but it's nutless to just blatantly ape what has gone on before you. You've got to burn your own trail to the Promised Land or be damned to circles rife with "pretenders to the throne." At this point, nothing in rocknroll is completely original. Trust me, none of us are splitting the atom. Everyone borrows here and there. I think the thing that most musicians don't realize is: it's the flaws in your playing that make you and distinguish you from the next group of jokers. This idea of perfection in music is really unrealistic and somewhat boring...even in hard rock and metal. Once something is technically perfect, it seems sanitized and rote, whereas something that retains its eccentricities seems, somehow, very real and alive in way that prefabricated music can't touch. So to answer your question, again, I think sludge is a healthy reaction to these other staid forms of metal.

Sexiest goddamn thing you ever saw?

My new lady friend. Very hot. Other stuff? Intelligence without pretension. Mexican chicks. Bun cheeks. Eyes. Long hair. Sense of humor. Latino women in strange cities or dust towns that usually end in "ville." Big lean asses in tight, bun-hugging pants. Fuck, I don't know. Mexican chicks. This all sounds really sexist, I suppose, but fuck it...sex is part of life. People who try to be all PC about things like that, all the time, are full of their own shit and need to be checked or dragged into the real world. Denying themselves the pleasure of carelessly babbling about it, only makes them increasingly uptight, repressed, and annoying to be around. Aside from that, women just being comfortable with themselves, regardless of their physical characteristics, I find sexy.

Dege's kinda hard to reach sometimes, but try him here - http://golarwash.homestead.com/DegeLeggIndex2.html

Now, that's what I call a Cock Rock Shock!

Of all the defunct 80's rock and roll bands that deserve another shot at the big time- none, besides Rogue male, maybe, deserve it more than Wrathchild. The real Wrathchild, that is, the lipstick killers from England, not those pussy US puffballs. With 8 inch stack heels, 9 inch nails pounded through their armbands, mammoth shocks of platinum blonde hair, and a knack for both extravagant, theatrical live displays and an ear for ham-fisted but undeniably catchy glam hooks that rivaled Gary Glitter, Wrathchild were the ultimate cock rockers, and their head honcho Rocky Shades was the preening brainchild of it all. Rocky and the boys clawed their well manicured way from local obscurity to global cult hero status in the early 80's with seminal shock n' roll records like "Stakk Attakk" and "Mascara Massacre", but by the time they released the aptly titled "The Biz Suxx" it was 1987, and glam metal was dead in the water. And so was Wrathchild. So where is Rocky Shades? I've been asked this question more times than you think I have, but up until now, I didn't have an answer. Surely, you can't keep a head of hair like that down, can you? Well, yeah, you can. Recently, my friend Jo from Italian sleaze dealers The Pocket Rockets had to get in touch with the man to get permission to cover a Wrathchild song on the Rockets' next record. Here's what he found out. "Rocky Shades works for the City Council of Preston, UK. He authorized me to do the cover, but he doesn't want to hear about Wrathchild anymore. He sounds quite fed up with the whole thing... " So, there you go. Another legend that actually has the sense to stay that way. 

Look for a retrospective on Wrathchild by Luke in the Jive Cotillion next month. And if you're in Preston, and spot a dude that looks like he used to be that guy in fishnets and lip gloss, just leave him the fuck alone, ok? I have to wonder, though, if he's still got his confetti cannon. Maybe he rents it out for kid's parties, or something.

Davey Johnson is one of my co-pirates at Hitlist magazine. I hear he drinks.

"Check this shit out.

A few days before I left for Texas, it'd been raining pretty heavily and then cleared up.

The next day, it was cloudy, but no rain.

I got in my car at 5pm to go home.

My radio was tuned to the local "Classic Rock That Rocks" station. Just as I left the lot, "Man on the Silver Mountain" came on. When it ended, some lame Journey shit followed and I punched play on my CD player. It was cued up to "Rainbow in the Dark". I looked up, over I-680 as the sun was sinking over the Oakland Hills. The looming clouds hastened the inevitable darkness of the sky. And what did I see between the clouds and the hills?

Yes, my brother in rock 'n' roll arms, a motherfucking rainbow.

I felt as if all was well and Ron was watching over us all. -DJ"

More Bad Ideas

Well, now's not the time to invest anyway, what with the stock market crashing and all, but recently a rock star friend of mine told me about some Mutual Fund scam that he's got going where he's going to get like $500,000 out if it when he's 50. That thing is probably worth about 37 bucks at the moment, but it's still theoretically a good idea. I've got a few book deals brewing here and there, so I might have the long green to invest in a similar scheme soon. Why? Because I'm not some blundering clown, baby. I see what happens to retired people in the city. They keep making them work 'til they die. Well, fuck all that. I'm planning for my retirement early. I figure with 30-something years to go, I'll have a fortune to burn when I reach 65. And you know where I'm gonna burn it? Hawaii. Of course, not everyone's convinced this is the best idea. My man Hollywood Rich, for one.

"Ken, I was thinking about the retirement to Hawaii idea. Besides the expensive fruit and dishwashing soap, the biggest drawback is that every single person you have ever known will visit you constantly. This lends credence to my Buenos Aires theory in that almost nobody would ever visit for fear of political unrest and disease. Also I've personally always wanted to retire somewhere where everything is broken and nobody speaks English...so there's always Italy I guess, too. The food's good. Also, for professional purposes I have decided to adopt the name "Dick Kuhne." It's easier to say, and carries more strange gravity I think. Of course you can still call me Rich, it's just for my future lackeys and hangers-on and sycophants. Galactic Brother Love to ya, Rich"

Below, our respective retirement communities. Who's the crazy one here?

Honolulu - Paradise City               Buenos Aires - A Crazy Man's Utopia

Kris Weichmann, one of Brand New Sin's 3 (!) guitarists, reckons that this album is like "The first drink and alcoholic takes after walking out of rehab; it feels fucking great." Take it from a guy that's had that drink a dozen times, he's telling the truth. BNS are from upstate New York, although they've got enough Dixie in them to trade licks with COC, which it sure sounds like they're doing here. The sound is pure Southern riff and roll, the same white trash biker metal choogle that Isabelle's Gift and Gonzalez have mastered, only BNS have upped the ante with the triple threat axe grinding and the kind of over-amped production usually reserved for heavyweights like Ozzy or Priest. The sweaty, boozy thunderboogie comes thick and fast, wrapped around meaty hooks that boil around in your brain like bad ideas that won't go away, and the rousing choruses are prime fist pumping, Saturday night hell raiser material. There's plenty of slide guitar and a few moments of outlaw country-tinged power ballads on deck, as well. Christ, they even look like trouble. I don't even have to mention Lynyrd Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy, or Halfway to Gone, do I? You really can't find a more authentic slice of heavy ass rock and roll than Brand New Sin, brothers and sisters. Highly recommended.

Hermano - Only a Suggestion
(Teepee) www.teepeerecords.com

There are more than a couple moments on "Only a Suggestion" where I'm convinced that this is the greatest fucking rock record I've ever heard, and the only thing holding me back from heading over to the nearest tattoo parlor with a xerox of their hog nose logo right now to have my devotion inked into flesh is that Hermano- that's "Brother" to you, gringo- isn't actually a real band. I mean, they're not cartoons or anything, they're just more of a side project than a do or die army of rock. Caught in some kind of unholy contract quagmire with Rick Rubin and his American Records saboteurs, John Garcia had been forced to put his post-Kyuss Uber Rock band Unida on hold- but the rock must roll on, so Garcia slipped in through the backdoor a couple of years back with some heavy friends- including Steve Earle (Afghan Whigs), Dave Angstrom (Supafuzz), and Mike Callahan (Disengage)- and after trading rough demos on the road for a few months, got it all together for this mammoth riff fest, a one-off Super Rock jam session with no other aspirations than to kick out the jams, brothers and sisters. So there's a good chance that this is not only the first, but also the last Hermano album, since everyone's back with their primary gigs. But hey, we could all get hit by a truck tomorrow, so who cares what happens next, because what's happening right now is that a bunch of like-minded die hard rockers with talent to spare got together with a big sack of million dollar riffs and said, with all religious seriousness, "What would Ian Astbury do?" If he wasn't so worried about his retirement fund, sweating out the piss poor sales of "Beyond Good and Evil", and quitting the business in disgust for the hundredth time, he'd be rocking the fuck out like he's supposed to, full tilt and with wild abandon, just like Hermano does here. That's right, it sounds like the Cult. Sounds like Unida and Supafuzz too, and for the duration of its 8 supersonic odes to bad drinking and good times, it's absolutely perfect. I've heard rumblings of discontent from the stoner rock faithful because Hermano ain't as sundazed and liquid as their heroes Kyuss and Queens of the Stoneage, but you know, those people are on drugs. All I can tell you is that "OAS" is blasting as we speak, and I just buzzed the doors of a state trooper doing 85 on the turnpike, and I'm laughing, baby, because I'm so drunk on full throttle heavy ass rock and roll that I don't even care what happens, and isn't that what we're all here for in the first place? Sure, this Hermano trip is Only a Suggestion, but so's keeping an equalizer in the glove compartment. I'm assuming you know what to do next.

The Thriller Memorandum (V/A)
(Cherry Red) www.cherryred.co.uk

This brilliant compilation of spy jazz and crime surf and secret agent fuzz and dangerous curves had me checking the dashboard of the Intrepid for the hidden button that launches the stealth rockets out of the rear bumper. What we have here is the swingingest sounds from obscure spy thrillers and TV shows and exotica records from 1962-1972 all cleverly packaged in one easily concealed, pin-striped, silencer-fitted hip flask of retro-cool. It would be quite the impossible mission to mention every highlight on this absolutely necessary collection, but some of the many choice cuts include the flute and vibes driven slow burner "Yes and No" by Des Champ, the midnight creeper "Ghost Squad" by the Tony Hatch Orchestra, which consists of one lonely whistler and a skeletal jazz band, the Spaghetti western meets surf city guitar and bongo frenzy of "A Night With Nuki" by the Brian Marshall Orchestra, and the funeral band goes Bossa Nova swing of the "Penthouse" theme by Johnny Hawksworth. There's also some easily recognizable tracks on deck, like "The Saint" theme by Edwin Astley, "Live and Let Die" by David Lloyd and his London Orchestra, and "Mission Impossible" by the Mike Hurst Orchestra. Man, I feel cooler just typing all those cats' names out. Listen, if you're not down with go-go dancing dragon lady Kissy Suzuki, you better pick up the Thriller Memorandum, but quick. The dossier included will explain everything, just make sure you destroy the evidence before the Reds or the Pinkos or somebody gets their filthy mitts on it. Martinis and buxom Siberian double agents optional, but encouraged.

The Spades - Learning the Hard Way (Not to Fuck With the Spades)
(Suburban) www.suburban.nl

The Spades are tough as nails punk n' rollers from Amsterdam who are firmly entrenched in the Chuck Berry-Johnny Thunders- Motorhead-Dwarves axis of evil. Sure, I realize that those are all basically the same band, just with varying degrees of snarliness, and so do the Spades. They're not trying to re-invent the wheel or nothin', they're just looking to drive that well-worn fucker down the demon highway in serial killer style. Forgive my typically Yank-bred ignorance of other cultures, but I didn't even know they had black guys in the Netherlands, never mind 5 of them to fuel a death-defying motorpunk band, but The Spades take their name literally, in a self-effacing sort of way, and it's been a long time, since Sound Barrier or The Dirty Rats or Znowhite, or hell, since early 80's Clevo headbangers Black Death even, that an afro-centric rock band has stepped up to show their lily-white brethren how it's done. And how it's done is with speed, ferocity, and an (un)healthy dose of GG Allin-esque misogyny. If the songs don't outright start with "This song's about killin' your woman" than they at least mention smacking her around a little. Of course, I've never been to Amsterdam; maybe those chicks deserve it. Besides all the bitch slap rapping, the Spades cocaine tongues even stretch for a little NYC cop bashing, or maybe just rampant sado-masochism, in the entirely over the top "Beat Me", which not only mentions shoving sticks up people's asses, but has a rousing chorus that goes, "Rape me, I fucking like it!" Over a Dead Boys riff, no less. Like I said, tough as nails. Fans of full tilt danger rock would be wise to just take the album title's advice and bow down to the almighty Spades before they have to come after you.

Underride - Horsepower Kills
(HRB) www.underride.net

Somewhere between here and there, Underride have gone through a wild mutation from last of the pure-grunge holdouts to the latest rock and roll juggernauts intent on saving the Rock from an untimely demise. I liked them just fine when they were Seattle orphans, cranking out minor-chord driven suicide rockers and tapping the collapsed veins of Green River and Soundgarden, and I like them even better now with this stellar, punchy production, a fearsome wall of sound that's the aural equivalent of bringing a nuclear bomb to a gunfight. The riffs pop out of the speakers like machine gun fire, the songs filled with scorch and smoke and plenty of bleeding, with enough hooks to land them in the arena, and enough firepower to burn it down to the ground. The Reverend Al Camino's manly throat work has a lot to do with Underride's encroaching global threat. He sounds like the classic heavy rock frontman- dark, brooding and utterly convincing, like Henry Rollins leading Alice in Chains into battle, and the rest of the band are a perfect complement, flawless in execution and absolutely committed to rock until there ain't no rock left. Personally, I have often daydreamed of being able to fast-forward from 1989 to now- it would surely spare me a lot of trouble- but Underride have gone ahead and done it, bypassing a decade's worth of phony rock and roll and slamming you right back into the days when even Tad was a rock star. Righteous. Underride operate like nu-metal and emo and indie slacker pop never happened, and "Horsepower Kills" is a convincing argument for how bad ass mainstream rock could be without all those pussies.

The Eye Popping Sounds of Herschell Gordon Lewis (V/A)
(Birdman) www.birdmanrecords.com

Sure, there's "JAWS" and "Halloween", but this side of Hollywood, has there ever been a more memorable movie theme than the creepy two-note kettledrum death drone of "Blood Feast"? Sheep guts king and exploitation pioneer HG Lewis not only dragged the rotting meat and Karo syrup gag out of the gutters of German performance art and onto American drive-in screens with nothing but pocket change and an eye for shameless opportunism on his side, but he also did it all to the cock-eyed rhythms of his own hillbilly-skewed compositions, and if the self-penned liner notes on this amazing collection of songs from the abyss is any indication, than on-the-fly songwriting was one of his favorite parts of the trip. "Eye Popping Sounds" encompasses a vast array of his film music, from the aforementioned faux-Egyptian human sacrifice tunes from Blood Feast to the immediately recognizable ("Yeehaw!") redneck hoe-down mutant bluegrass of "2000 Maniacs". Herschell's son Bob even gets in the act with his high school buddies in "Get Off the Road", a ramshackle slice of 60's fuzz pop from "She Devils on Wheels". Elsewhere, ultra-obscure rockers Faded Blue perform the hilariously dated "Blast Off Girls" theme, and there's plenty of Lewis penned C&W and incidental tracks, as well as a few choice radio spots and dialogue snippets. If you're looking for actual good soundtrack music, well, you're in the wrong place, Jack. But nobody ever looked to HG Lewis for good, anyway. He's always been about cheap, fast, and out of control, and there's plenty of that action here. For fans of Lewis' notoriously sleazy world of trashfilm, or of cheap thrills in general, this collection is as about as mandatory as they come.

Brothers of Conquest - All the Colors of Darkness
(Go-Kart) www.gokartrecords.com

I had this Satanic 70's tuxedo. It was black, with flared legs and a blood red ruffled shirt with big pointy collars like Ming the Merciless. I don't know where the sadistic designer expected you to show up wearing this thing, except for maybe a cock-fight, or an Italian snuff film shoot. But anyway, one night I got drunk and put it on and decided to go show it off somewhere. Imagine that, I ended up at the rock show. Half Cocked were playing, and I wanted to impress their foxy singer with my slinky threads, so I stumbled into the Paradise club, dressed up to get messed up. Nashville Pussy were headlining, and right in the middle of the night's festivities were these Kentucky fried rock savages, the Hookers. I was early, so I watched the bands' sound checks, and after seeing the boss t-shirts the cats in the Hookers were sporting, decided I wanted one for myself. I staggered over to the merch guy, and I said, "Hey man, I want a Hookers shirt, but I want one like you've got, with 'Rock and Roll Motherfucker' on the back." He says, "Sorry man", in that 'Aw-shucks' southern drawl, "Those are just for the band and crew." Then he tries to hustle me one of their one-sided flying skull shirts for 15 bucks. But you know, I'm drunk. "C'mon, man", I plead, "I'm out here on the front lines, I'm in the trenches, I need one of those shirts." He just shrugs. He can't help me, bro. "Dude, look at how I'm fuckin' dressed here", I point out, tugging at my double-wide collar. "Isn't it obvious? I'm not just a rock and roll motherfucker, I'm the Goddamn last of the rock and roll motherfuckers!" He did not sell me the shirt that night, but thus was the Sleazegrinder motto born. What's this got to do with the Brothers of Conquest? Everything, man, because BOC are the Hookers resurrected and super-sized.

Whereas the original band was a Johnny Thunders-bolted swagger punk band that somehow mutated into Slayer on a paper thin budget- their flashpots were soup cans the night I saw them- The BOC take that same Satan metal punk n' roll premise and chainsaw sculpts it into an inarguably potent force of leather and spikes rock and roll. I mean, this is serious business, and BOC slams your skull right into their big ballsy hooks and yanks you around like a panicked Barracuda, hanging on by a bloody thread as they mess you up but good with sizzling guitar villainy and a lusty battle roar- these are Rock Star songs, baby, Buckcherry wishes they wrote these kind of catchy riffs and rousing biker gang choruses and death-defying redneck Hellparty anthems. The whole thing brings to mind a line from that other, reaper baiting BOC- "On your feet, or on your knees"- because those are the only options "All the Colors..." gives you. You'd better decide which side of the revolution you're on before you push play, because the results will be both swift and brutal. If you've ever wondered what 10 years of cheap drugs, horror movies, the road, Venom, Chuck Berry, and backyard Satanism sounds like, well here it is, in all it's ragged glory. All hail the Brothers of Conquest, for they will lead us to victory in the rock and roll war. Or at least to a really bitchin' beer party in the woods.

Tommy Rivers & the Raw Ramps - S/T
(December Records)

I bet Tommy Rivers wears really cool shoes, like those Italian jobs with the buckles, and I'm almost positive that he smokes his cigarettes with style. Tommy's one of those rare cats that exudes an easy rock star charm, and I'm sure that every Saturday night in Memphis you can find him in some sleazy rock dive, sauntering around with his dressed up/messed up mop of hair, flowered shirt and jangly guitar, a big friendly smile on his face, and plenty of stories to tell. If ever there was a cult hero waiting to happen, it's old man Rivers here. Tommy's got the sympathy and the taste to name his band after T Rex's best song, and luckily, they live up to the boast. They play soulful ballads and semi-acoustic sleaze rock and bliss pop and melancholy glitter folk. There's talk of lost loves and found friends and plenty of Sunday morning-coming-down odes to the perils of rock and roll decadence, and they even manage to slip in a heartfelt Christmas song, and it's all drawled out in Rivers' gentlemen rogue croon. He sounds like a Southern Nikki Sudden soaking in a rainy afternoon, or a moonshine swilling Tyla, or maybe a Dixie Westerberg lost in a sea of scarves, with an ace band of gypsies, tramps and thieves backing him up, like the Black Crowes without all that hippy jam band jive. This record isn't even new, by the way, it's dated here as being from 1998, but you and I both missed it first time around, so it's making the rounds again, getting a second chance to shine. And it does, baby, like a diamond.

Burner - One For the Road
(Arctic) www.arcticmusicgroup.com

I never expected to hear any band straddle grunge and death metal in the same career, never mind the same fucking song, but Burner are operating under a whole new set of rules. This Floridian supergroup, littered as it is with ex-death and thrash metal dudes ( Paingod, Monstrosity, Divine Empire) still retain an edge of razor wire extremity to their sound, infusing elements of the more virulent strains of metal- think Obituary- with southern styled hard rock- think COC and Black label Society- for a bracing set of bullgod American death n' roll. Admittedly, the death metal barking that explodes without warning throughout the proceedings is a little jarring, but old habits die hard, and they add an unexpected edge of ferocity to "One For the Road". For the most part though, they lean more in the direction of muddy, sun-baked grooves than they do mosh-pit mayhem, and it's a rebel flag waving roar of booze, fast cars and all night fist fights, with at least one chest thumping classic in the awesomely titled "Five Pills (and a bottle of whiskey)", complete with Zakk Wylde guitar squeals and a "By God, I'm the Man" refrain that rivals Nashville Pussy for dangerous redneck macho thunder. Elsewhere, there's the out-right cock rock of "Whiskey Dick", the Alice in Chains meets Cannibal Corpse death grunge of "Broken", and the gas guzzling outlaw anthem "Rollin' Disaster" to keep you speeding down the highway and howling like an enraged monkey. "One For the Road" is one for the bad asses.

Otto's Daughter - Renew
www.ottosdaughter.com

A second dose of barbed wire kisses and digital bliss from Jersey-based Otto's Daughter. Fronted by German goth goddess Jacqueline Van Bierk, OD have largely abandoned the saw tooth grind and angry bee buzzing of their earlier days for a more refined version of cyperpunk mayhem, and as a result, the aptly titled "Renew" is a glossy, post-industrial pop metal confection that sutures moments of bubbling ambience with pounding, hook-heavy alt-rockers and even a few dips into dreamy coldwave, emerging from the shadows with a sound that's somewhere between Nine Inch Nails and Queen- lush, extravagant, and experimental, but infused with as much melody as rock 'em sock 'em power. Jacqueline's typically stellar vocals are as forceful and bewitching as ever, twisting through a nasal whine, a careless whisper, and a bull roar like starlings in a high wind, and her lyrical flights follow the same angel with wax wings laments as OD's debut, "Void of Course", except now there's a palpable sense of optimism flowing through her icy veins, making "Renew" more post-apocalyptic victory anthem than suicide note melancholia. There's a metallic cover of Depeche Mode's "Stripped" included here, and that's pretty telling as far as where Otto's Daughter are taking their sound, although something by Manson or Rob Zombie would probably do just as well. Gorgeous and blood engorged in equal measure, "Renew" is the sound of the future calling- are you brave enough to answer?

Mellow- CQ Soundtrack
(Emperor Norton) www.emperornorton.com

From everything I've read, Roman (son of Francis Ford) Coppola's film "CQ" is some kind of rich kid vanity project, and snarly critics couldn't wait to pan it. Haven't seen the movie myself, but from the stills on the CD insert, it looks like a cross between the retro-kitsch of "Austin Powers" and the future shock of "Clockwork Orange", and I think it might have something to do with supermodels from outer space, so it can't be all that bad. Anyway, regardless of the quality of the celluloid that spawned it, the CQ the soundtrack is just about the swankiest thing I've heard since Dino Lee and the Kings of White Trash went lounge. Mellow are Parisian pillow talkers armed with flutes, Theremin, spy jazz guitars, a brass section, an occasional white soul diva, smooth Moogs, ascots, clove cigarettes, and probably a gold medallion or two. They are everything you suspected and feared about French pop, and if you're concerned that I'm going to slip into Frog-speak to continue this review, well je suis désolé au diplease vous monsieur, mais mûr sont très le recherche. Dig? The whole smoky affair brings to mind Pink Panther cartoons scored by Sergio Mendes and Giorgio Moroder, and it's way too cool for rock and roll, which is why all this slinky electro-lounge, Bossa Nova, futuristic disco and sultry ballads were called in. An ultra-suave glimpse at how the other half lives. Looks like they live pretty fuckin' well.

Iron Savior - Condition Red
(Noise) www.noiserecords.com

"Condition Red" is my favorite power metal record of all time. Now, it's true that I've never had a favorite power metal record before this one. In fact, I've always thought the whole pompous genre to be the stuff of day dreaming adolescent males, cashing in on the emotional safety net of dungeons and dragons fantasies because they're scared of girls. And it still is, mind you, but Germany's Iron Savior has managed to crawl out of the Rune throwing basement to flex their armor in the black sunshine, and it's a joyful, bracing noise indeed. Chugging guitars, sounds like hundreds of them, come flying out of the speakers like black arrows of death, aimed straight at the heart of all those that play false metal, as well as anyone else in their path. The soaring rhythms gallop and crash like apocalyptic horsemen, and Piet Sielck's classic full octave pipes belt out chest thumping Canterbury tales about valor and honor and all sorts of things that none of us actually possess. I'm pretty sure that I'm on the side of the "God of Depravity" that Iron Savior seem intent on vanquishing, but there's nothing wrong with a little respect and begrudging admiration for the enemy. Besides all the war dances and victory songs, "Condition Red" even includes a (limited edition bonus track) righteous power ballad filled with steam and bluster called "Crazy" which the wife tells me was originally by silky soul man Seal, but sounds remarkably true to form. Despite the dubious company bands like Iron Savior keep, "Condition Red" makes me want to strap on kind of chest plate, pick up the nearest broadsword, and go out smiting an arch foe or two. And not in a gay way, either.

Nixon Now - Altamont Nation Express
www1.lunarpages.com/andialien/nixon/

Goddamn it, I love Nixon Now, and not just for their dirt luck, although that's got it's own ragged charm. See, their old label Loudsprecher went tits up before "ANE" could hit the streets, and it's been languishing in the shadows for months now like some brooding, dangerous beast, conserving it's energy and stockpiling it's venom, waiting for the chance to strike. And when it does, it's gonna hit like a red, white, and blue glitter bomb of lysergic riot rock, leaving ample destruction in it's wake. Hamburg's shame Nixon Now are like a speed king iron biker Spacemen 3, drug fueled droners that amp up their heavy lidded groove with enough murder city pyrotechnics that you can't help but to see stars and fall down dizzy when the Express comes thundering your way. A big part of Nixon Now's pending global domination scheme is their snake hips tambourine n' cowbell shake appeal, and it's in full effect on ANE, rivaling even the Thee Hypnotics for that low down Detroit rubber-legs action, and this entire album is a heaving, dripping mess of sexy slither and flying fuzz grenades that doesn't let up until the last mind's been thoroughly blown. I've heard of crazier things than Nixon Now wandering around unsigned, but not many. Somebody with a buck or two oughta do the world a favor. In the meantime, get in touch with these cats and offer them something good for a burn of this record. I think they prefer drugs and money, but I'm sure sex works too, if you're in the area.

Boogieman - S/T
www.boogieman.nu

Swedish nightmare rockers Boogieman play a savagely bleak form of heavy grunge laced with some kind of sub-atomic intricacy, like Tool with muscles and motorbikes and complicated black leather masks. It's riff rawk, if riff rawk was prone to wringing its hands in distracted anxiety, sweating out a bad situation with all four walls falling at once. It's the sound of desperados making a last stand long after the 'Game Over' sign is already blinking, and it's intense, baby. This particular disc is a 4 song demo that Boogieman eventually re-recorded after winning a battle of the bands or some such pissing contest, and that's the version that you'll hear, with the powerhouse production and the digital gloss. Me, I lost the re-release in some fuckin' car somewhere, but the brooding power of the men that Boogie bleeds through even in this relatively primitive form. Word has it that, since this was recorded, Boogieman went on to sign themselves one of those multi-album contracts, so you'll be hearing more from them soon, but check out these 4 songs- they're available on their website- for an early listen to some of the blackest hears in Super Rock.

Dimmu Borgir - World Misanthropy DVD
(Nuclear Blast) www.nuclearblast.de

The second biggest black metal band in the world break the bank on a stunning 3 disc DVD set of their shrieking, industrial strength devil rock, and by the end of this exhausting ode to the spoils of high gloss Satanism, you'll know the boys in black better than their own girlfriends. Disc one takes you deep inside their triumphant "World Misanthropy" tour, and when I say deep, I mean that besides the impeccably choreographed and executed live renditions of wordy caterwauling like "The Blazing Monolith of Defiance" and "Kings of the Carnival Creation", the disc is littered with snippets of goofy rock band on tour hijinks, including a hotel bathroom trashing and plenty of tour bus torture. Maybe it's the swanky coach, or just the luck of the high cheekboned, but Dimmu possess none of the fabled "unrelenting grimness" associated with black metal bands, coming off more as politely mischievous rock and rollers out for a laugh than they do Satan's left hand henchmen. Lack of bloodshed and virgin killing not withstanding, the live clips are massive, towering infernos of haunted fun house excitement, crisply photographed and edited, like an awards show extravaganza from the shores of the river Styx. Disc two is live festival footage, raw and heavy, the third disc is bonus audio tracks from Japanese pressings and elsewhere, and it's all wrapped up in a package that unfolds into an upside down cross, like Danzig with a budget. Since you're going to Hell anyway, you might as well do it with style, sinner.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987)
Picasso Trigger (1989)
(Malibu Bay) www.andysidaris.com

Directed by Andy Sidaris
Starring: Dona Speir, Hope Marie Carlton, Harold Diamond, snakes, model airplanes, razorblade frisbees, and tits-lots of tits.

Andy Sidaris is just as obsessive and accomplished a film maker as Russ Meyer, with none of the hipster accolades or high brow literary dissection, but that might all change with his comprehensive 12 volume DVD series. Sidaris had a lurid but imminently marketable vision of a bleach blonde Shangri-La, with bikini-stretching government agents and their muscle-tearing Kung-Fu sex toys taking on the most vague forms of machine gun evil imaginable in lush landscapes of extravagant beauty, and this 80's born Sidarisian wonderland found a happy home in the blurry-eyed world of late night cable television. Still does, in fact. Click on anything form USA to Cinemax at 2 AM, and the next popped top is most likely Andy's doing. What makes his films so watchable, even after many repeated viewings, is their complete lack of pretense, their campy absurdity played as straight as humanly possible, and of course, the chicks. His unwavering faith in "Bullets, Bombs, and Babes" became such an exact science, that the DVD booklets come with a handy guide for how many of the three B's are included in each chapter. And of course, at least one and sometimes all three come rolling in without fail, every time.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii is his first film in this gonzo series. Try and keep up with me on this. Donna (Dona Speir) and Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton), two chesty blondes that couldn't possible exist in any other time than the cocaine and silicone fueled 80's, are government agents. I'm guessing the US government, but God knows what division hired and trained these two. They're working undercover as cargo plane pilots, secretly ferreting out dope smugglers and the like. Right off the bat, they're up to their bra-stuffing tits in trouble, as not only is a contaminated snake running amuck, thanks to their inept handling of clearly marked snake boxes, but they discover a sinister cabal of diamond smugglers and dope dealers on the far side of the island. I'm not sure how much you have to worry about diamond thieves that attempt to move their stolen ice by model plane, but they do have plenty of machine guns. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I must explain the snake. See, he's been shot up with some kind of cancer, and if bitten, his victims will be infected as well. That particularly nasty fact doesn't even matter much, since the serpent is so berserk, he just tears his prey up into bloody shreds, as a couple of hapless honeymooners soon find out. Anyway, Seth Romero (Rodrigo Obregon), the drug dealer whose as mean as the contaminated snake is on to our bubbly supergirls, thanks to an entirely unconvincing transvestite bartender/spy, so they call for back-up, and some old pals show up, including a pony-tailed Kung Fu guy (Harold Diamond) and a weapons expert (Ron Moss) who rigs up the most implausible looking incendiary devices you've ever seen. Like a skateboard bomb, for example, or a razor-tipped frisbee. Between showers and skinny dipping and drunken revelry, the unlikely team of undercover Feds concoct a scheme to bring down the bad guys- it involves motorcycles and bazookas, with a surprise appearance by that goddamned snake-and it all ends in a flurry of explosions and kicking. Of course, the good guys win, and the girls live to blunder and jiggle another day. Despite the over-reaching tongue-in-cheek plot contrivances and the gratuitous nature of...well, everything, "Hard Ticket" is a seriously well-crafted film, aided greatly by the amazingly lush location and Hope Carlton's Playboy bunny charm. I wanted to kick the pony-tailed guy's teeth in the second he showed up on the island, but that was probably part of the plan as well. The DVD has a host of extras, including Andy and gravity defying miracle of nature Julie Strain clowning around in an impromptu intro, a complete set of trailers, a still gallery, and some handy b-movie making tips from Sidaris. The whole thing is a blast, both literally and figuratively speaking, from start to Finish.

Picasso Trigger is Hard Ticket's high concept follow-up, featuring many of the same players including lethally blonde agents Donna and Taryn and their Kung Fu fighting pal. First, though, their is intrigue in Paris to ponder as vaguely sinister arch-criminal Salazar decides to turn his back on his evil ways and give back to the city that he's taken so much from, donating a priceless painting of a big blue fish- The Trigger, naturally, to some swanky museum. But wouldn't you know, as soon as he strolls out, his new life as an honest citizen sprawled out in front of him, he's assassinated by some dirty sniper. Or is he? Well no, he isn't. Saddam himself must of have picked up some pointers from this film, as Salazar has merely dispatched an unlucky look-a-like to take the bullet for him so that he concentrate on his life's work without interference. His life's work being revenge on the g-string wearing secret agents that killed his brother- you know, the diamond/drug guy from Hard Ticket to Hawaii. And so, the team gets back together, amidst much crazy talk of snuff films and a few sub-Vegas vaudeville T&A acts, to take on the Picasso Trigger and his swarthy henchmen. PT contains much of Hard Ticket's plot elements- including the Mcguver-esque weaponry. This time out, you get missile launching crutches and a boomerang bomb. The latter you could think about for days- if it's got a bomb attached to it, why the Hell would you want it to fly back? The model airplane hijinks are back too, as a payload bearing craft blows up Taryn and Donna's rather boss cigarette boat. It all ends in a climactic showdown at Salazar's remote hide-out, and in lieu of no cancerous snake, a well-placed surfboard helps out the cause. Explosions and a hot tub after-party ensue.

Being a sequel- or at least a semi-sequel- Picasso Trigger is more formulaic than its anything can happen predecessor, but Sidaris wisely upped the ante on the cheap thrills quotient by littering the film with no less than 7 Playmates, and all of them find the time to get at least half-naked somewhere in the mix. All in all, it's another righteous display of 80's excess, as loud and as implausible as the decade it was made in. The DVD contains much of the same extras as "Hard Ticket", with the addition of some sexy Julie Strain out-takes from some of her films further along in the series. The best part of it all is watching Andy himself living it up with Strain at his side, flashing freely and declaring her love for the T&A auteur as his long-time muse and business partner, wife Arlene, looks on, bemused at the whole silly affair. He's obviously a man that lives the dream and for that- not to mention all the tits and bazookas- Sidaris deserves a rousing round of applause. Or just buy his movies, either way.

I Was Elvis Presley's Bastard Love Child and Other Stories of Rock N' Roll Excess
Andrew Darlington
(Critical Vision) www.headpress.com

Collateral Damage
Mark Manning
(Creation) www.creationbooks.com

Well, this one's a real kick in the nuts. I always knew that at some point ol' Zodiac Mindwarp would cross that hazy line between savage-cool and just plain savage, leaving every one of my detractors wide open to sneer and say "Well, what do you think of your big fuckin' hero now?" And here it is. "Collateral Damage" is Mark's chap-book sized journal of the Love Reaction's brief US tour last year, a Spinal Tap-esque coast to coast affair- you know, straight from New York to California. The requisite drinking, jerking off, and opening band slag-fest ensues. Fair enough. But it's his opening salvos, written in the wake of 9/11,which cut a little too deep, even for die-hard Z fans. He starts out with a pseudo-sarcastic rant about the bloated evil inherent in Corporate America- you know, the ones that deserved to get fried alive in the Trade Center. This is a pretty common view, I've come to realize since the disaster, and it's shared by many in the UK and Europe, not to mention in the Middle East. But Jesus, bro, we just got bombed. Then he goes on to say,

"Yes, I know, 'the firemen, the secretaries, innocent families, etc.'

Collateral damage, baby.

Reality.

How does it feel America? Down on your ass, instead of some poor, dirt eating mother and her babies four thousand miles away.

The cosmic equilibrium shifts..."

Then he goes on to joke about how uptight we are about saying "Nigger". This is because one of the songs the Love Reaction planned on debuting on the US dates was called "Twenty Thousand Women", a song in which Z plans, in Wilt Chamberlin-esque fashion, to "Fuck twenty thousand women, several of them apparently being motherfucking nigger bitches." That part is actually funny, especially since Mark always assumed he was a lot smarter than Axl Rose. There's not much difference between the two bits, really. Certainly not in intent- they're both written for scumbag chortling, nothing more. Just one's not all that funny. See, I get the idea. Zodiac Mindwarp is the alpha dog, so don't look him in the eye unless you want to get bit. I also get that the rest of the world thinks Americans are all fat, nasty savages that eat their young, which is only true in certain parts of the country. I guess the combination of his unbridled braggadocio and live, in color atrocity was just too much to resist. It's still a dirty move, though. Me, I'll get over it. How can I not? My pen name is Sleazegrinder, for fuck's sake. But it does make me wonder if Manning the writer is ever going to break away from Zodiac the warring leather beast and get Super Real, as he's wont to say. Here's a guy, after all, that spends countless hours in dusty libraries hunting up the wisdom of Victorian ghosts, who falls madly in love with women, some of which probably aren't even "motherfucking bitches", who's got at least one kid that he cherishes. "Collateral Damage" certainly makes for a decent addendum to "Fucked By Rock", but utilizing his substantial prowess for bulletproof poetry solely for the sake of sleazy laughs might be getting too easy for Mark Manning. Or maybe I'm just a pussy that can't take it when terrorists blow up buildings just three hours south of here and put the whole country into a queasy panic that still hasn't gone away. One or the other.

The Page Bleeds Black: an interview with David Kerekes of Headpress

David Kerekes is the editor of Headpress magazine, as well as head honcho in the savage empire of Critical Vision publications. But to me, he's more than that. To me, he's one of the several primary reasons- besides the adoration of teenage girls, and many, many dollars- for why I started writing in the first place. And while the other two never panned out, Headpress never disappointed. Subtitled 'The Journal of Sex, Religion, and Death', you could just as easily and truthfully call it, 'The Scariest Fucking Magazine on Earth." Now in it's tenth year of existence, Headpress continues to shock, amaze, and thrive.

The magazine sprang to life in 1991, bursting out of the guts of the 'Apocalypse Culture' era of hipster elitism like a decidedly more clever mutant version of it's snarly American cousins. These were the days, remember, when buzzwords like transgression and subversion were the order of the day, and the young and the restless were on a quest to out-do one another in just how anti-social their tastes could get. The days of Joe Coleman bursting into downtown NYC bars and setting his chest on fire, the days when John Wayne Gacy was making a mint selling his ugly clown paintings to teenage creeps with too much money on their hands, when Boyd Rice flirted with Nazism and Peter Sotos with child rape, and nobody even flinched, some even going so far as applauding them for their 'brave individualism'. Strange days indeed, and while most simply luxuriated in the sheer obnoxious thrill of it all, David Kerekes had a more compelling take on the cultural gestalt. Sure, Headpress had it's fair share of serial killer profiles and exploitation film retrospectives, but mental patients with artistic intent, quietly obsessive weird-culture historians, random perverts, porn stars, Northern Soul freaks and power electronic misanthropes also resided in it's pages, forming a sinister coalition of determined outsiders. As far as Headpress was concerned, there were two worlds- the mundane reality of paychecks and civilized behavior, and the super reality of this wild new planet full of uncaged freaks that ran amok in it's pages. A few years back, David's long time partner in crime David Slater left the fold to pursue some credit in the straight world, but the affable Mr. Kerekes has continued on with the master plan. I caught up with him late last year to talk about the history of Headpress magazine, and the incredibly strange world it has so thoroughly, and compellingly, documented.

How did Headpress first come together?

Well, we generated money by putting out Jorg Buttregeit's 'Der Todesking' on video, and we decided to use it towards putting together a magazine, as it was something we always had an inkling towards. We were all interested in film, but we thought, the last thing the world needed was another film magazine, so we decided to make a magazine, and just take it anywhere we wanted to, which was a difficult concept for most writers to grasp at that time, and it just sort of snowballed from there.

Was it always 'The Journal of Sex, Religion, and Death'?

Well, no. That came a little later. I think the first masthead was 'Deviant Desires and Strange Concepts', or something weird like that, but it was always, deep down, 'The Journal of Sex, Religion, and Death in some way, yeah.

Those are pretty heady concepts. Was that the result of you and the other David sitting around and saying, 'Ok, these are the concepts we should be addressing'?

Well, people wanted to know what we were about, and we didn't really know, and we thought, 'Well, this covers all the bases'.

And there was nobody else at the time addressing those kind of issues, either.

No. Well, there was the Sleazoid Express, although I think that was finished by then. I think the last issues of that were a springboard for what we were doing, even though we hadn't even seen Sleazoid Express by that time. But looking back on it, in retrospect, it's kind of kooky the way all these things seemed to be linked together without us knowing.

One of the things I remember as being remarkable about Headpress was how the writers all took their subjects seriously. It was very different from the American way of doing things, where the tendency is to be very sarcastic and tongue in cheek about things.

That was one of the things we strived for, to be light about it, without denigrating the subject matter. Actually, that's one thing that people sometimes complain about, that we don't take things seriously enough, but I think we do, we just try to portray it in an entertaining way, without being stupid about it.

Does England still have a big censorship problem?

At the moment, it's more lax than it's been for many years. Films are coming through uncut which were virtually banned 20 years ago. Hardcore porn is more hardcore than it's ever been. It's pretty lax, but that's frightening, in a way, because it can only go downhill from here.

Has Headpress personally ever had any censorship problems?

Only indirectly. It's been taken off of shelves in a few places, because people have obviously taken objection to certain issues, so the shop keeps have taken it down. It's been seized by the police, but that was a blanket seizure, they didn't seize it directly because of Headpress, it was just that the store kept it on the top shelf with the porn mags. We've come close, but so far nothing too mega-serious.

There's a few stories I remember that would probably have made more sense if you were from Britain, like the whole 'Northern Soul' movement, with the guy that got hit by the train...

Northern Soul was a style of music, a form of dance music. Most of it was based on American R&B, but these clubs took off in the north of England, where they would play all night, and it became notorious because people were popping pills to stay up at these clubs. They were tiny places, but they got a lot of attention from the police and local authorities. I was never a big fan of Northern Soul music, I'm not a big fan of dance music at all, really. But the guy that got hit by the train, he was well into it, and he used to work for a company called 'Savoy' , he was their PR man, and he was really into this hedonistic way out, and he formed this coalition with a bunch of friends, they called it the 'Wagnerian Soul Fraternity', and he stood by his word, he decided this was the day he was going to die, and he stood in front of a train, and that was it.

Amazing. It doesn't seem like American soul music would bring people to that kind of end, it's usually black metal or something that pushes people over the edge. Another story I remember is the controversy over that comic book, 'Lord Horror'.

Yeah, that was the same company, actually, Savoy. They were kind of our mentors, in a way, because they come from Manchester, and they were doing it many years before we started. They did a novel, 'Lord Horror'. It was the first book, the first work of fiction to be taken into court in this country in, I don't know, like a hundred years, or something. And they got off on that, because it was a work of literary merit, that's how they got off . But the comic book format in this country is still regarded as a children's forum, and it doesn't matter what issues or how adult you present comics, it's always going to be regarded as a juvenile medium, and that's why the Lord Horror comic got into trouble, while the Lord Horror book didn't.

Well, what was the subject matter, sex and violence?

Yeah, sex and violence, and a lot of racial slurs, but race was presented so that the reader would understand that it was racism. You know, there was absolutely no holds barred in those comics at all. They were very well done, very well thought out, but obviously people weren't ready for them.

What about the 'Killing for Culture' book? ( 'Killing For Culture' was Headpress's exhaustive look at death in films, from Mondo movies to the myth of snuff films) What was it like researching for that?

That book took about a year to write, but the actual research took, probably, about ten years. Actually, we did the research without planning to write a book, it was just an interest of ours anyway. But there came a point when we said, 'Let's do a special Headpress edition, and devote it to Mondo films. And it quickly grew to a point where we thought, well this is not going to work. This is going to be too big for an issue of Headpress, so we decided to do a book. We've since got a follow-up, 'See No Evil'.

It was interesting how you paced that book. It was like, are they going to find an actual snuff film by the end? Of course you didn't, but it seemed like you might the whole time.

There were so many people that initially told us that they had seen one, but it always turned out to be 'Faces of Death' or something like that that they'd seen. Those films did fit the criteria for what we were looking for, because they did have people getting killed, by accidents or whatever, but that's not what the media portrays a snuff film to be, which is a murder perpetrated for the camera. In 'Faces of Death', the camera just happened to be there.

Did you read that book by that Isreali journalist, Yaron Svoray,'Gods of Death'? What did you think of it?

I did, yeah. And I thought, this is complete fabrication. It got to the point where he brought Robert Deniro into it! I thought, if it is fabrication, he's treading a fine line, because what's stopping Deniro from suing, so I think there's a thread of truth in it, but I think he completely distorted it. It was an interesting book, but in the end, I didn't swallow it. The beginning of the book looks like it was written as a thriller, and he just decided to monopolize the snuff aspect.

Yeah, he's in Nazi film clubs at the beginning, and you're like, what the fuck is going on here?

And he's got the big scene in the end where he's left out in the desert!

Has Headpress always been financially successful?

It's always been financially successful to the point where it's generated enough money to print the next one. In the early years, that was basically it, we were holding on by the skin of our teeth. Now, it's doing much better, and we can afford to do books as well. We've just struck a deal with Consortium over in the states, so you'll be able to find Headpress in Barnes and Noble, and stuff like that.

What's your criteria for releasing books? What do you have on the horizon?

The next book we've got coming out is a collection of rock journalism by Andy Darlington called "I Was Elvis's Bastard Love Child". He's interviewed everyone over the years, from Robert Plant to Can, Kraftwerk, Siouxsie and the Banshees. It's a great collection of interviews. After that, we've got a book by a German guy, who went traveling around the world with a bunch of films like GG Allin's 'Hated', and he went to Moscow with these subversive films. It's a book about his travels, across the US, North Korea, all over. It's a lively schedule we've got coming up.

Things have changed a lot in this country since the late 80's, early 90's, when people like Nick Zedd and Joe Coleman were being celebrated for works of transgression and subversion. Today, those kinds of ideas are merely flash, another advertising conceit. I wonder if you've seen this on your side of the world, and has it changed how you approach the magazine?

You know, I've always thought that Headpress sort of operated outside of that sphere. I mean, we get labeled a transgressive publication, but that label is just there because people like to apply labels on things. We've certainly never gone out of our way to interview Nick Zedd and Richard Kern over and over again, which seems to be one of the failures of so-called 'transgressive' publications. You know, I find more mundane things interesting, everyday things, little twists of life. That's what interests me. I mean, I do touch on those other subjects, but those are the things that keep me going.

Yeah, like that guy you featured, the Super 8 filmmaker from Germany who only shot himself in his films, and they were all based on Beatles songs.

Oh yes, what was that guy's name? Heino? I forget, but I know who you mean. He's still active, you know.

Really? It was such a strange story.

Yeah, he goes on tour now, he's got a manager and everything.

Why didn't he ever have anyone else in his movies? Did he not have any friends?

I just think that he's seriously ill. But I'm not saying that to belittle him, I just think he has mental problems. He's actually got a band now to back him, because before he was just singing over Beatles records.

Yeah, seemingly ordinary things would seem more sinister by appearing in the magazine. Like the guy that did the public toilet reports- it just seems really creepy and weird, this guy hanging around public restrooms and reporting on whether they had enough toilet paper.

The weird coda to that story is that that guy disappeared. The last public bathroom piece he did I haven't actually gotten around to printing yet. But this guy, he actually started to bring a camera with him, photographing these bathrooms, getting chased out and going back in again, so then he disappears. I haven't spoken to him in God knows how many years.

Well, that's one of the things about hanging around in public bathrooms, it becomes a dangerous hobby. Have there been any subjects that you thought were just too distasteful or extreme, that you didn't want to publish?

Nothing springs to mind. I mean, I've turned things down for obvious reasons, like they weren't suitable for the magazine. But the good thing is that I'm willing to work with people. A lot of people will write to me and say, 'I've got this great story to tell, but I'm not a writer', and that's great, I'll help them out with that. They seem to be OK with that, and the story is there. At the end of the day, that's what I'm interested in, anyway. I'd rather see somebody writing about something which was novel, then some fantastic writer writing about the same old crap.

Looking back, what are some of your favorite things that have appeared in the magazine?

Well, I'll take the easy way out on that one, and say that the best things for me were tracking people down after years of being fans of their work. Like the guy that made 'Last House on Dead End Street', Roger Watkins. I got to interview him. That film was a big influence on me when I was younger, and it was great to get to talk to him about it. That's going to be in the issue after next. So, I'm achieving my personal goals, and that's what appeals to me most personally.

How was it talking to Roger?

He was very literate, very cool.

Did he have any idea that his film had become so notorious over the years?

He had no idea. For 30 years, he had no idea, until his partner decided to type 'Last House on a Dead End Street' into a search engine, and came up with all these people talking about it, in chat rooms and web pages. And from then on, he said 'I'm the guy that directed it', and of course, nobody believed him. Of course, it really was him.

It was such a mean spirited film.

It was, especially for the time. The film was actually made in 1972,which is much earlier than everyone believes anyway, and he said that the most recent stuff was cut out by the distributor. It started out with 20 minutes of slaughterhouse footage, because he just wanted to make a film where nobody would come away with a good feeling.

Well, I think he achieved that. You know, they don't really make exploitation films anymore, certainly not on that level. It's more relegated to zero budget, amateur productions.

What's interesting at the moment are these custom videos, like the Alternative Cinema crew, who make films to order, and then release them. I recently interviewed the Factory 2000 guys- they make these kinds of fetish, erotica things, and of course, because of the people that are having them made, their fantasies are so acute, they don't find their fantasies in mainstream cinema, so they've got to be pretty weird anyway. But because they're so low budget, they're even weirder.

They want to see women getting strangled in the bathtub.

Exactly. And the line from the Factory 2000 guys is that they release these films to the public, so people can see just how bad it's gotten out there.

Is there anybody that you'd really like to interview that you haven't gotten to yet?

Like the ultimate interview? I don't really think in those terms. I'm sure there's lots of people, but these are people that interested me when I was growing up, and in a way I'm paying them back by hunting them down and interviewing them.

You can go to the Headpress website ( www.headpress.com ) for back issues and future projects. In one of their very few dips into the gutters of rock journalism, they'll be publishing Sleazegrinder's oft-threatened 'Gigs From Hell' book sometime next year.