Back in the 80’s, NYC art-grunge freaks Alice Donut were usually referred to as “Acid Punk”, because, you know, what the fuck else were you gonna call ‘em? Whatever cockamamie comparison a reviewer would come up with – Sativa Luv Box, Green Jello, you name it- they’d add “On acid”. Which was pretty stupid, since they were always naming bands that were ALREADY on acid. But anyway, they were really loud-ass, arena-ready psyche n’ rollers, with big greasy dollops of punk and hard rock, sprinkled liberally with free jazz, country, fucked-up backwards blooze, and tweaked-out bits of random weirdness. I dunno if they ever even sold any records back then, but they released a ton of ‘em on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label back then, epic mind-blowers like “The Biggest Ass” and “Donut Comes Alive” which took the Butthole Surfers philosophy of the Great and Terrible Freak Out Song and actually made it listenable.

But, you know how it goes, man. They broke up around ’95, when their guitarist became an astronaut (which is just fuckin’ perfect for a drug rock band, right?) and the world did not split in two. But somewhere between there and here, people – star children, lotus eaters, ex-Flaming Lips fans bummed about the sell-out thing – started digging out their ol’ Alice D recs and going, “Goddamn, these fuckers were GOOD. Like Seattle flannel-glam with better drugs! Like Jane's Addiction, only not so fuckin’ gay!” And so, they reformed in 2003, cuz their time had finally arrived. Maybe.

Ok, so they’re still a cult act, but Alice Donut are ok with that, man. Least they get to travel to cool places and play their whack-ass LSD rawk whenever they want. This nicely assembled DVD has a crisp live show from London (imagine that) shot just two months ago (July '04). The band is ON, the set list is fave-heavy (“Freaks in Love”, “Helsinki”, “Chicken Door”), and they don’t even look haggard, which is pretty amazing. Smartasses from New York almost never age well. The cameras aren’t always in focus, and they lurch around too fuckin’ much, but Alice aren’t really the kinda band you stare at anyway, so what the hell.

There’s also some cool bonus features here, including a very thorough interview – like year by year, going back to their pre-Alice “Sea Beasts” years – a trio of promo videos shot by fans, with all kindsa crazy-ass computer animation, and a cuppla blurry-but-historic numbers from their 03 ‘comeback’ gig at CBGB’s.