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Even more twisted and weird than me! -Robert Crumb

This week's review: INCEPTION

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: THE RADIO SHOW podcasts archived at FAB Press!

ON SALE NOW! RICK TREMBLES' FIRST 70'S PUNK BAND THE ELECTRIC VOMIT ON 7-INCH! (for ordering info visit Garbage Bag Records)

ON SALE NOW! AMERICAN DEVICES CD (for ordering info contact ricktrembles@hotmail.com)

The American Devices! First factory-made CD label release from Montreal's longest-lasting "post-punk" band! Includes 22 killer songs spanning 1980 to the present, a 12-page booklet by Rick Trembles detailing his band's secret origins crammed with rare photos, a full color foldout poster of current members, & a brain-bending foldout genealogy tracking Devices milieu dating as far back as the 70's!

band history

full lyrics to CD

Devices on YouTube

Devices on MySpace

"Rick Trembles is the Montreal Elvis" -Jon Spencer, Nomag

"Rick Trembles is the Montreal Hendrix" -Eric Sandmark, Hard Rock Goners

"Rick Trembles is a famous free thinker" -Paul Gaita, L.A. Times

"As the first few notes start trickling in, the momentum behind the American Devices becomes unshakable" -Liz Worth, Exclaim! Magazine (Toronto)

"Onanistic/obsessive, & in their singular way, brilliant, ...irreducible" -Mark Lepage, The Gazette (Montreal)

"Intricacies & idiosyncrasies pushing the envelopes of punk ethos, proggy complexity, & twisted pop charm" -Rupert Bottenberg, The Montreal Mirror

"An essential possession for any serious lover of Montreal music" -Martin Siberok, Hour (Montreal)

"Authentically delirious thick-skinned psychedelic alterno-punk" -Serge Paradis, Ici (Montreal)

"Really weird music... sounds like The Velvet Underground meets The Fast" -John Holmstrom, Punk Magazine (New York City)

"Wiggley surf guitar on amphetamines, perverse lyrics, obscure mythology, & refusal to die" -Terrence Dick, Broken Pencil Magazine (Toronto)

"The real deal… hits you with its euphoric minimalism & penchant for the unpredictable, songs spinning & twittering into manic claustrophobia, jangly angles, fraught bass-lines & hyperactive freak-outs" -Liz Worth, Eye Weekly (Toronto)

"I put the Labelle/Trembles combo right up there with some of the other great guitar duos in rock and roll; Reed/Morrison, Jones/Richards, Thunders/Sylvain, Verlaine/Lloyd, Julian/Quine, Shelley/Diggle, Ranaldo/Moore, etc." -Chris Burns, Nutsak (Montreal)

More info at Devices MySpace page!

NEW! DEVICES T-SHIRTS! RICK TREMBLES CD DESIGN ART! BLACK MEDIUM, LARGE, & EXTRA LARGE! $15.00 EACH! EMAIL US FOR ORDERINNG INFO!

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY BOOK! VOL. 1 ON SALE @ SPECIAL PRICE NOW

ORDER ONLINE FROM FAB PRESS!

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY RADIO

RICK TREMBLES SCULPTURES FOR SALE!

BITE YOUR TONGUE!

ATTENTION FILMMAKERS!

HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED AN ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY COMIC STRIP REVIEW OF YOUR FILM AS A DVD EXTRA? OTHER FILMMAKERS OF NOTE HAVE! (SEE BELOW) CONTACT RICK TREMBLES FOR MORE DETAILS!

HEY IS DEE DEE HOME?

SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY

VALERIE

Fuckn' great! -Mike Diana Rick Trembles books & music

Original art for sale Trembles Gallery

SECRET HISTORY:

of the AMERICAN DEVICES

band tree

FREE MP3s!

the american devices

BAY OF PIGS (1.43MB)

WETMARE (2.99MB)

DECENSORTIZED (2.89MB)

GORY STORY (3.53MB)

BIG BROWN WORLD (3.32MB)

SUCK MY ROCKS (2.78MB)

PARTY POOPER (3.55 MB)

GOT THE FEELING IT'S (1.87MB)

THE DRUGS WE TAKE (2.59MB)

FAT GIRL (2.87MB)

POWERPLAY

the sacramentos (devices founder phil nylon's new band)

BAD GIRLS DIE (8.33 MB)

Repression is the root of all creativity!

"Hard-ass guitar burn" -Jimmy Johnson, Forced Exposure

"A remarkable Canadian quartet" -Mark Rhodes, Alternative Press

"Too weird to succeed" -Mark Lepage, The Gazette

blather archives

trembles interview

slide show

poster gallery

SNUB (the book)

FREE DEVICES HOMEMADE ROCK VIDEOS!

"DECENSORTIZED" w/animation by Rick Trembles

"MEANING OF LIFE (THE ABORTION THAT LIVED)"!

TO WATCH MOVIES CLICK THE IMAGES ABOVE & LET THEM PLAY OR RIGHT-CLICK THEM & SELECT "SAVE TARGET AS" TO DOWNLOAD ONTO YOUR HARD DRIVE

email rick

ricktrembles@hotmail.com

UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY FORBIDDEN

BRAND NEW! Rick Trembles' Motion Picture Purgatory Volume Two available both in paperback & signed/numbered limited edition hardcover! Order now from FAB Press HERE

Or buy it in Montreal @ the following stores: Drawn & Quarterly Monastiraki Cheap Thrills Usine 106U

Home Merch Gallery Archives Devices

This week's MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: Rick Trembles' comic-strip movie review of INCEPTION: “Hypnic jerk-off!”

Last week's review: Human Centipede: First Sequence

RANDOM BLATHER...

July 29, 2010

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY DECENSORTIZED @ THE FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL!

Another year, another Montreal Fantasia International Film Festival. And I thought they kept me busy last year. Even though I launched Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 at FAB Press' Fantasia merch table last year, did a rock show with my band American Devices in full zombie makeup to promote it, & had to make a trophy to be presented to Coffin Joe as a lifetime achievement award, this year was at least as hectic. I had to design a map of downtown Montreal for all the incoming out-of-town guests so they could figure out where all the bars & restaurants were that sponsored the fest with special deals (click HERE or on the excerpt above to see the whole map), had to make three more trophies for more lifetime achievement awards (molding & painting slo-mo in my sweltering kitchen at the peak of this summer's freak humidity heat wave), this time for legendary director Ken Russell, pictured at right being presented with it by Esther Splett & Mitch Davis onstage to a packed house before a rare screening of his masterpiece The Devils (photo by Isabelle Stephen), & animation luminaries Don Bluth & Gary Goldman (The Land Before Time), plus I did my Motion Picture Purgatory Decensortized slideshow as one of the official festival events (including a free bonus surprise screening of the 3 animated films of mine that I reference during my lecture, God's Cocksuckers, Decensortized, & Goopy Spasms) double-billed with Claude Lalumiere & Rupert Bottenberg's Lost Myths cartoon/storytelling show. And that's all besides as usual having to draw 3 Fantasia-related Motion Picture Purgatory strips previewing the entries I liked from screeners I was given lasting the duration of this massive fest (3 weeks)! (Photo below by King-Wei Chu of Bluth & Goldman with their trophies).

I thought I had it easy only having to preview 3 films compared to some of my other colleagues who write reviews for various horror movie mags/blogs & have to cover everything they see & have to see as much as possible, but to tell you the truth, I was kept so busy with non-film-viewing fest-related chores I was hardly able to actually chill out & enjoy any of the movies until the third week once my slideshow was done & my stress level could dissipate a touch. Attendance was fantastic for that BTW, so I wanna thank everyone who came & also thanx to the folks who stuck around afterwards to buy some books of mine at the signing (photo by Isabelle Stephen).

Insane year this year, film-wise. Outta what I did get to see, some of my fave pix were the literal mindfuck transgressive political allegory A Serbian Film (bummed out the fest wouldn't gimme a preview screener for that one cuz they thought I'd give away too many spoilers! C'mon, I can show some restraint when I'm told!), poo-poo making nightmare Human Centipede (of course), North Korean Fatal Attraction style 1960 juvenile delinquent psycho masterpiece The Housemaid, ultra gory Hong Kong housing crisis serial killer slasher flick Dream Home, & of all things, U.S. bubblegum teen superhero flick & Michael Cera vehicle Scott Pilgrim vs. The World! FUN TYMES. See you next year!

Rick (The Inhuman Centipede) Trembles

PS: This just in! If you happen to be going to the Osheaga Music Fest, I'll be there producing "post-modern cave drawings on black velvet bathed in black light" this Saturday & Sunday, so come say hi. In other words, I'll be painting critters, drinking cheap festival beer, & sneaking out trying to catch some of the various musical acts all weekend.

July 1, 2010

AMERICAN DEVICES LIVE @ L'ESCOGRIFFE WITH FUTENSIL + A SCREENING OF RARE MTL PUNK FILM "THE NORMALS" (1978) July 3! ALSO: FREE MP3 BONANZA! THREE INCREDIBLY RARE NEVER-BEFORE-MP3IFIED DEVICES-RELATED TUNES!

Come see Montreal's longest lasting "post-punk" band The American Devices (since 1980) with Futensil plus an extremely rare special screening of Montreal punk documentary The Normals (1978) Saturday, July 3 @ L'Escogriffe 4467A St-Denis (corner Mt-Royal)! (Devices are) "onanistic/obsessive, & in their singular way, brilliant, ...irreducible" -Mark Lepage, The Gazette (Montreal). "As the first few notes start trickling in, the momentum behind the American Devices becomes unshakable" -Liz Worth, Exclaim! Magazine (Toronto). "Rick Trembles is the Montreal Elvis" -Jon Spencer, Nomag. "Between the legs of a warped B-52s/Cramps hybranoid exists the maligned and twisted vibrations of Montreal’s FUTENSIL. Their atonal jungle of mystic wyrdabilly shivers beneath Emily’s shrieks while Psychic Handshake CIO Graeme Langdon chants his way through a distant spell of psychedelic conjure. The overall emotional damage is an addicting aural experience for any futurotic voodoo voyeur." -Weirdcanada.com

Free Bonus MP3 #1: First time ever online availability of The Normals 4 ya. Earliest known recordings of Montreal punk? Come dispute this all U want w/us @ our show this Saturday where we'll be showing a 33-year-old short documentary about the band before we play live (PS: the ex-singer Rob Labelle's gonna be onstage with us, as he has since 1980)! For more info click HERE (where you can find a rare photo of The Normals opening for The Screamers (!) at Montreal's Hotel Nelson in 1978) or on the image of Rob at right.

Free Bonus MP3 #2: Here's a song I sang for Montreal-made feature film Shirley Pimple recorded circa early 90's called RAIDERS OF METHADONE. For more info click HERE or on the image of the zombie mask at right that I designed & wore for my "psychotic weakling" character in the movie.

Free bonus MP3 #3: Here's an early American Devices song recorded in 1980 called "I'm in Love with the Fact." Part of the concept behind the title & lyrics was the idea of someone more in love with the idea of being in love than of actually being in love with anyone for real. For more info click HERE or on the image of the band circa 1980 at right.

Yours psycho-delicately, Rick Trembles

May 13, 2010

"JOAX" BY RICK TREMBLES FROM 1975! PLUS: HOME SWEET HOME!

Here's a comic I just dug up while going through my stuff that even I can't believe I made. I was 14 & I guess I was feeling kinda randy (not to mention frustrated). Drawing style wise, who on earth must I have been influenced by here? The classic undergrounders for sure, but it's too odd in a squaresville kinda way. Kinda reminds me of Robert Crumb's brother Max a bit, but I wouldn't have been able to see any of his work at the time. Channeling Virgil Partch in a slipshod manner maybe? Click HERE or on the tiny image above to see it.

And here's a little comic about death I bashed out in '95. The thing sorta expressed my thoughts about suburbia (where I grew up). I don't think it's even ever been published anywhere. Strictly B&W no frills line art no doubt intended for some cheaply printed photocopy zine easy to reproduce, which was more or less the only kinda place I could get published back in the 90's. Enjoy. Click HERE or on the tiny image above to see it.

Ricky-poo

May 6, 2010

"THE BIRTH OF HOCKEY" BY CANADIAN GOLDEN AGE CARTOONIST JACK TREMBLAY (MY DADDY)!

I don't follow hockey but I have lotsa friends who do, especially during the current "playoffs" frenzy here in Montreal or whatever it's called. I used to be into it as a kid but I dropped off when I got into horror movies & comix instead. So I thought I'd post this gorgeous book my father wrote & drew in 1967 about its history. No wonder I got into it as a kid. Click HERE or on the image to start the show! I was talking to him about it last week when I borrowed the book to scan it. He got the contract during Expo 67 & figures the publishers were trying to cash in on the Canadamania frenzy it spawned. He completed 8 books on various Canadian topics in all & 2 never even saw the light of day. And they never returned his original art. I'd like to find this "lost" art somehow cuz one of these days someone should resurrect them all for reprints. Enjoy.

Puck-Bunny Trembles

April 8, 2010

THE GREEN GILL!

Green Gill was a band I played drums for during a few months in 2008. The other members were Shaun Anderson, Samantha Planetta, Ebon Hex, & Marc Montanchez. Samantha came up with the name Green Gill, which represents poisonous mushrooms. Now Shaun's in Ultrathin, Ebon's in Drunk Dial, & Marc's in Plaster Hands. And I forever remain in that fucken piece of shit loser band The American Devices. Click HERE or on the image of my leg above to go to another page where you can listen to a couple of the songs Green Gill recorded. The "maggot therapy" photo is from a Facebook entry of mine after a practice with Green Gill: "I got a mean bruise on my inner thigh today cuz I jammed last night & haven't drummed in a while. To avoid rim shots I like to rest my left hand on my inner thigh for precision positioning whenever I smack the snare. It helps keep my hand level. Trouble is, whenever I smack the snare, I also smack my thigh. Is this a common thing for drummers? Like calluses on guitarists' fingers? Doesn't hurt much, just looks weird. Do they sell leather or PVC leg bands or bubble-wrap wrist braces for this kinda thing?" -Rick Trembles

March 4, 2010

AMERICAN DEVICES IN NEW SOPHIE DERASPE FEATURE FILM TRAILER!

Check out The American Devices in the new trailer for Sophie Deraspe's feature film Les Signes Vitaux! You can hear our intro riff to UXB: UNEXPLODED BOMB during the car crash & we even show up briefly near the end with snow fluttering over us (we're on much longer in the actual movie)! Click HERE or on the official movie poster below to see it! Opens this Friday!

February 25, 2010

RICK TREMBLES LIVE CARTOON SLIDESHOW THIS SATURDAY AS PART OF NUIT BLANCHE!

I'm gonna be doing a streamlined version of the Motion Picture Purgatory cartoon slideshow I did @ the Drawn & Quarterly comix store last Halloween but this time @ Cagibi for the Nuit Blanche fest midnight this Saturday Feb. 27 (5490 Saint-Laurent). I won't be in drag as pictured below (I can't fit into my furshlugginer mini-skirts anymore) but I most likely will be pointing at the slideshow screen once in a while. (Image from a description of the movie version of my other slideshow "Goopy Spasms" from a few years back).

In other news; American Devices played a benefit for Haiti at Sala Rossa on Tuesday. Highlights for me were...

1) Waiting in the stairs at the entrance for our drummer Howard Chackowicz to show up with his breakables to help him move, when suddenly there was a continuous rumbling that sounded like someone rolling/scraping a gigantic piece of furniture across a wooden floor. It got louder & more throbbing & kinda rattled the walls to the point where I actually thought something was wrong. I dunno if it was the fact that this was a benefit for the Haiti earthquake victims or what, but I actually considered waiting outside before the ceiling crumbled on top of me. Turns out it was the drummer from the jazz improv band our bass player Andre Asselin also plays stand-up bass for, Schlag Quartet doing some kinda continuous roll. They weren't even that loud. I think it's cuz they were playing on the floor not the stage. Sound carried (& amplified) down 2 floors. Weird.

2) Choeur Maha, when all 30 or whatever of this women's choir went out into the audience to create a collective low vocal hum similar to that earthquake rumble in the stairs & asked us all to do it too, cuz it's a healing process for Haiti. I don't like audience participation stuff so I didn't hum & I started to feel persecuted cuz it felt like something out of a sci-fi movie where if it got any louder they were gonna intentionally make my head blow up with the soundwaves.

3) Ratchet Orchestra with all 40 of them or whatever blaring horns & strings like some kinda sweeping mutant swing band. I joked how we should record a Devices version of Alice Cooper's School's Out LP with them to nail its orchestral numbers.

Lowlights for me were...

1) Our sound was clunky & dry as a bone. Dropped a lot of strings cuz I couldn't hear my other members much. Winced a lot. But that's what you get when you plug N play hassle-free w/none of our equipment & no sound-check (we couldn't make the schedule).

2) Over half the audience consisted of all the members of those massive bands that played before us. Over half the audience was gone by the time we went on. Not nice.

3) The miserable snowy wet weather, which is probably why over half the audience only consisted of all the members of those massive bands. But I still biked to & fro in the slush from St-Henri with my gear over my back you chickenshits.

Yours excrementally, Rick Trembles.

February 18, 2010

RICK TREMBLES INTERVIEWED IN THE L.A. TIMES ABOUT THE OSCARS (!) PLUS AMERICAN DEVICES LIVE @ SALA ROSSA (WITH NEW PROMO VID)!

Check it out; I got interviewed in The LA Times about what I thought of the stupid Oscars. Click HERE to read it. Tee hee. For the question "which part of the Oscars would you never change?" I answered "red carpet nip-slips" but that didn't make it in. Also, click HERE to see a cartoon I drew to accompany the text that didn't make it either. So what. Works just as well without it.

Come see my band The American Devices play at a benefit for the earthquake victims of Haiti @ Sala Rossa Tuesday, February 23, 7:30pm sharp. It's not gonna be a late show & we're not on last so come early! Also on the bill are Lake of Stew, Choeur Maha, Ratchet Orchestra, Schlag Quartet & much more. Check out the Facebook Event page for more info HERE

I made a video to help get you reacquainted with my band for this show. It's the last of my Super-8 footage shot throughout the 1980s. Bottom-of-the-barrel but still pretty to look at IMO cuz it's genuine old-school film-film, scratches & all. The music is from an improv jam of ours from 1981 that we pulled riffs out of to write songs. In it, you can see time-lapse footage of the making of our 3-D sculpted clay LP cover for Decensortized (1989). And the demolition of a giant industrial chimney we we tried to lip-sync to as it tumbled to the ground (stupid us; we forgot that by facing the camera to "perform" it'd make us miss the show). Several ex-members are featured hamming it up throughout too. Click HERE to see it on YouTube or on the image below.

I also just got interviewed by Matt Hays in P.O.V. Magazine about my new book. Click HERE to see it. It's on pages 45-46 (47-48 according to their clunky reader).

And last but not least, I was quizzed as part of a Montreal Music "scene report" in The Gazette last week. Click HERE to read it. After the fact, I had a meltdown over the way I was whining so much in it so I expressed my regrets thusly at a local music message board where some of the other bands interviewed occasionally lurk...

"Sorry for complaining about dough again in that piece. It's nice to have been included in this thing at all. Marc Lepage always liked my band pretty much from the start & I get the sense he's always been confounded by our chronic obscurity. I don't envy him for having had to pick who got mentioned in it or not. I dunno how anybody can even pretend to successfully embark on an all-encompassing "overview" like that objectively. There's so many interesting bands out there right now, the process of elimination must've been daunting."

"It's always hard to tell exactly what it is HE personally likes though. Maybe he's trying to keep it bias-free, but seems to me the only way one could (or should) get away with hand-picking certain bands over others for inclusion would be to state why it is they appeal to you in particular. That'd make for a more engaging read too."

"He messaged me only asking about my band's plans for 2010 "both recorded & live," saying he needed the answers the same day, so I didn't get to put much thought into it. What got published was pretty faithful except that I also mentioned, as far as recording's concerned, how we'd need "a miracle either in the form of outside support or raising money on our own." As usual."

"Plus I also said (which didn't appear) that "we'd wanna mix this dream CD up with our new songs along with a few of the older ones that've been revamped by our current line-up to the point where they're almost unrecognizable" & that "in the meantime we'll keep making home movies to accompany the existing recordings we have so we can put them on YouTube whenever there's a show to promote." Bla bla."

"The truth is, what I genuinely expect for my band this year is more of the same; playing gigs that are either nice & packed to an appreciative crowd or completely barren without any idea what went wrong. From my experience there's no rhyme or reason to it."

"And we remain broke. That's our biggest problem IMO & always has been. In the past 30 years every time Lepage has asked us what's up I always get the feeling he's frustrated that we're not more prolific & my automatic knee-jerk defense mechanism is how the magic panacea would be an infusion of production cash."

"Strip everything else down & the bottom line is we love to play/create, which can be done penniless no probs, but it gets increasingly hard sometimes to muster enthusiasm with the thought that it's most likely gonna amount to another empty amnesia-susceptible gesture if nothing ever comes out of it in the form of a decent recording/release to preserve it for posterity. So for the most part we continue to write & perform songs that nobody ever gets to hear outside of live shows."

"Can't afford to tour, can't afford to record. We're complete losers in that sense but what can we do? I can't pull a decent-paying job outta my ass. Making money from gigging? Don't make me laugh. If I had just a little disposable income it would all get plopped into our various projects but this spare cash is never forthcoming & that's what keeps slowing us to a snail's pace."

"This is all nothing unusual. I know we're not the only peeps with a lack of cash. It's just that after 30 years it gets a little demoralizing & embarrassing & I hate sounding like a broken record but when I'm asked what's up with us in the next year & the truth is not much because we're bankrupt I always fall into apology/excuse mode like this. I hate it."

"REMEMBER, KIDS: FIND A SIDELINE!"

Yerz pennilessly; Rick Trembles

January 21, 2010

RICK TREMBLES LYDIA LUNCH INTERVIEW COMPLETE & UNABRIDGED!

I interviewed Lydia Lunch last September for the Montreal Mirror just before she played her incredible Teenage Jesus & The Jerks reunion show here at the Pop Montreal music fest. Trouble is, we gabbed for so long on the phone that I had to whittle the thing down from 6075 words to 750! So with her, & the Montreal Mirror's permission, here it is for the first time in its entirety. Find out what her favorite current horror films are! Find out whatever became of her feature length horror/animation film project Psychomenstrum with legendary underground cartoonist Robert Williams! Find out what kinda music she's listening to these days & highly recommends! Read the original Motion Picture Purgatory comic strip I drew about her that got me fired from the Montreal Mirror back in the eighties! All that & much, much more. In fact 6K words-worth more! Click HERE or on the images above or below for the whole shebang! Pictured below: Drawing by Lydia Lunch.

January 14, 2010

ORGANIC UNAMERICAN DEVICE SPOTTED IN SOUTHERN FRANCE! PLUS: FREE PRE-AMERICAN DEVICES "D-VICE" MP3!

For your free never-before-released, not to mention heard-by-hardly-anyone-in-thirty-years secret 1980 pre-"American" Devices D-vices MP3 go to THIS PAGE

Mark Latour sent us this great photo he took of our American Devices 2006 CD cover mascot spotted in Southern France! "Proving conclusively the 'American device' is not American at all," he explains, "it was invented in France before the Franks got there, by the Celts. This example found in a field about 10 kilometers from Caracssonne in Southern France dates back to about 5000 BC. It was re-erected, so to speak, in 1983. Measures roughly nine meters. Puts new meaning to the words Fatherland & Mother Earth!" Click on the image for color version.

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