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December 31, 2009

HAPPY POO YEAR! MY PIDDLING DECADE AT A GLANCE!

For your free Poo Years MP3 go to THIS PAGE & for a free EXTRA BONUS additional OTHER second Poo Years MP3 (a heavier version of the same song live @ the Douglas Psychiatric Hospital) go to THIS PAGE

And now the last Snubdomizer Random Blather of the twentyhundreds...

MY PIDDLING DECADE AT A GLANCE!

Sick of end-of-the-decade lists? Then this could be the most useless one you've ever perused, hence the perfect antidote! I guarantee you won't find anything more irrelevant to your life than this!

Just for fun I compiled all the (public) events I was involved with that were significant to me over the past decade. It was strange sifting through ten years worth of agendas where every single facet of each day was documented, right down to when I gotta water my plant & when I gotta stock up on toilet paper. Oops. That reminds me, I have to go water my plant & stock up on toilet paper. Be right back.

MISTER PIDDLE

Most entertaining thing to me was all the stream-of-consciousness critter doodles I absentmindedly scribbled in the margins of my agendas (first one I drew of the millennium pictured above, I call him "Mister Piddle"). There's literally hundreds. I gotta rehash all these little critters & do something with 'em.

My band took a while to get (re)started this decade. That's probably cuz we had to break in our new drummer. But it proves that during our 3-decade existence there hasn't been one single year we haven't played. Our 20th & 25th anniversaries got celebrated in 2000 & 2005. We will NOT be celebrating any more. Unless we reach 50.

And there's a slow build-up, peak, & then a long lull across the decade regarding my animation. This is not good. C'mon man, somebody out there gimme some animation work.

I omitted most routine jobs like the Motion Picture Purgatory comic strips I've been doing for the Montreal Mirror once a week since 1998 (which actually originated in the 80's).

ABORTED INCEPTIONS

I also excluded the multiple grant applications I busted my ass making presentations for (all rejected), articles I either wrote about other people or that were written about me, articles as interviewer or interviewee, most freelance zine/web/magazine contributions either text or comix (but I included some comix anthology books), promo campaigns, poster art, awards, worldwide film festivals showing my shorts, & offshoot bands that got aborted as quickly as they were incepted.

And it goes without saying that many of these "activities" took months, sometimes years of pre-production often while working on multiple projects simultaneously. Everything took place in Montreal unless otherwise noted. Everything accomplished way below the poverty line. Breaking even is the dream. Spending money I can't afford the reality. How come we can never generate any income outta all this? At least enough to become a self-perpetuating machine? After all these years all I can come up with is the following hypothesis: it's one or the other; either I suck or the rest of the world sucks. I'm the wrong person to ask cuz I can't see the forest for the trees.

HAD SOME FUN THOUGH

As I write I have absolutely no idea what's in store for me from now 'til Twenty-Twenty. I've got the usual pipedreams, but 30-plus years doing this penniless can get a little demoralizing. If you've ever wondered why my output's sluggish, there's your answer. Besides the 2 MPP books from FAB Press & my band's CD on Grenadine, it all comes outta my own pocket & my pockets are eternally empty. Sure hope something fucken changes in the next decade so I can speed up (& engorge) the process somewhat.

2000

February 13: Played guitar live for SALOON SOCIETY at Noise (horrid improv/cacophony band I was in for a few shows). Spring: Graduated from CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY with BFA. Major: Cinema (Film Animation). Spring: Essay by Marcie Frank published in QUEER DIASPORAS by Duke University Press about one of my dirty comix entitled "HOW DID I GET SO ANAL" (which I eventually turned into animated short "GOOPY SPASMS"). September 9: IMAGE GUN book launch at Cheval Blanc (includes several pages of my comix). September 28: Launched my website SNUBDOM.COM for the 20th anniversary of my band THE AMERICAN DEVICES featuring shameless music promo & archives, shameless comix promo & archives, & shameFUL weekly blogging (that dribbled to monthly & then whenever the hell I felt like it). October 26: Cover story in free weekly The Montreal Mirror on THE AMERICAN DEVICES 20th anniversary (written by, who else? the only person in this town interested in my band: me). October 27: THE AMERICAN DEVICES 20th anniversary show at Casa Del Popolo with Steak 72 & Chino (former Nils). October 31: THE AMERICAN DEVICES 20th anniversary Halloween 7-inch split vinyl record launch at Jailhouse with Detroit Metal, Corpusse & Phycus (Corpusse & Phycus were a no-show).

2001

March 1: Filled in on drums for fave local band DA BLOODY GASHES (eventual Aids Wolf) at Barfly with Nutsak. April 12: "WHITE ASSBUM" audiocassette release by Chris Burns (Crackpot/Nutsak) massacring The Beatles' White Album with a track I sing & play on (While My Guitar Gently Weeps). July 16: Montreal Fantasia Film Festival world premiere of experimental live-action short RESOLVING POWER that I starred in & did old-school animation for. July 20: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play unplugged set at vernissage of my MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY comix exhibition at Gallery Focus. July 25: Attended Danny Hellman's LEGAL ACTION COMICS VOLUME ONE vernissage & book launch at CBGBs in New York City (which included some of my comix). October 16: Premiere of feature documentary about squeegee-punks on drugs S.P.I.T. that I did an animated sequence for. November 24: Interviewed by VJs half my age live on MUSIQUE PLUS (Montreal's Much Music/MTV) about history of Montreal punk for their 25th anniversary of punk rock show.

2002

January 9: FLIRT book launch (collection of cartoon pinups includes one that I did of an x-ray of a girl pooping). Winter: THE AMERICAN DEVICES record unplugged instrumental versions of their songs at Marc Montanchez's studio, released on CDR as NACKTKULTUR (name of Weimar Republic's nudist movement). Spring: Colorist on Academy Award winning animated feature film LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLVILLE (I'm in the credits under my real name). December 20: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live with The Other Thing at Casa Del Popolo.

2003

January 24: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Sala Rossa for Distroboto (launched fridge magnet versions of a mini-comic I published called EXQUISITELY CORPSED CONCOCTION OF CRETINS) with Dante's Flaming Uterus, Lisa Gamble, Alexis O'Hara, Les Abdigradationnistes, Crackpot, & The Cut-offs. May 16: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live for a vernissage at Articule. May 30: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Casa Del Popolo with The Other Thing & Unireverse. September 20: Played guest guitar live for THE OTHER THING at Barfly. October 10: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live with Crackpot at Barfly. December 3: THE AMERICAN DEVICES record 5 new songs at Marc Montanchez's studio. December 13: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at the Sadie Bronfman Center for the Arts with The Donkeys, Gwenwed, Bloodshot Bill, & Goa.

2004

January 7: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at CBGBs for Danny Hellman's LEGAL ACTION COMIX VOLUME TWO launch & vernissage with Flaming Fire & Mz Packman. February 22: Played guest guitar live for THE OTHER THING at Casa Del Popolo. April 4: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Casa Del Popolo with Old Time Relijun & Leninishunov. July 15: World premiere of my short animated film GOOPY SPASMS at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival (opening for German feature Journey into Bliss). July 17: Fantasia Film Festival book launch of 192-page MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOLUME ONE (compilation of my Montreal Mirror comic strip movie reviews). August 27: Toronto book launch of MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOLUME ONE. November 7: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live for vernissage at Gallery Pink.

2005

Winter-spring: Camera on local production of girl-gang sci-fi horror DIY film SUPER TEAM YUMMY begun & aborted. March 22: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Divan Orange with Crackpot & Starvin Hungry. July 12: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Barfly. July 16: World premiere of my short animated film GOD'S COCKSUCKERS at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival. August 20: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Main Hall with Dead Messenger & Jerk Appeal. September 10: Premiere of MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY THE RADIO SHOW at CKUT every week until March 2007. September 30: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Divan Orange with Demon's Claws, Crackpot, & CPC Gangbangs for the Pop Montreal Music Festival. December 1: Cover story in free weekly The Hour about THE AMERICAN DEVICES 25th anniversary. December 9: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play 25th anniversary show at Casa Del Popolo & launch limited edition self-titled archival box set CDR of every recording they ever made.

2006

January 7: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Sala Rossa for Aids Wolf CD launch with Athletic Automaton & Cobra Noir. February 9: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Sala Rossa for Chris Burns' fire benefit with Bionic, Starvin Hungry, & The Murray Street Band. March 18: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Zoobizarre with Crowface. May 18: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Mainline Theatre for Andy Brown's Conundrum Press 10-year anniversary party. May 24: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Zoobizarre with Old Time Relijun & Ungh. July 14: World premiere of my short animated film DECENSORTIZED at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival. August 29: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at the launch of their first factory-made CD (self-titled) from Grenadine Records with The Sacramentos at Barfly. September 5: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Salla Rossa with Expectorated Sequence & An Albatross. September 30: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Irene's Pub for Devices Ottawa CD launch with The Flaps. October 21: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Playhouse with The Flaps. November 25: Launched mini-comic HOGNAPPERS UNITE at Expozine.

2007

January 20: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Sin-e for Devices New York City CD launch with Frightened Rabbit, The Brother Kite, Glass/Burns, & The Octagon. January 21: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at M-Room for Devices Philadelphia CD launch with Panda Riot, Kuru Kuru Pa, Glass/Burns, & The Octagon. February 17: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Barrymore's in Ottawa with The Hilotrons & Mackenzie MacBride. April 26: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Club Lambi with The Nymphets, The Confusers, & Freelove Fenner. June 1: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at L'Escogriffe with Nightwood (& made a partially animated music video to promote the show for our song Bunco Unction). November 24: Launched mini-comic INNER DEMONS at Expozine. December 31: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Friendship Cove for New Year's Eve show with Clockcleaner, O-Voids, & Panopticon Eyelids.

2008

January 26: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Lab Synthese for Four Minutes to Midnight magazine launch with Flames & Parlovr (& made a partially animated music video to promote the show for our song Party Pooper). March 7: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Zoobizarre & do two songs by my first 70's teenage band THE ELECTRIC VOMIT for Garbage Bag Records' archival Electric Vomit 7-inch vinyl launch with The Nymphets. March 14: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Casa Del Popolo for Devices drummer Howard Chackowicz's comic book launch with Bug-eyed Monster & Nutsak. May 19: THE AMERICAN DEVICES record 2 new songs at Digital Bird Studios. June 6: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Bar de Courcelles with Triceratreetops & Drainolith. June 25: Issued first driver's license of my life after taking driving lessons (I can finally goddamn move the band's equipment around, all I need now is wheels). September 5: GOD'S COCKSUCKERS 20th anniversary painting unveiled at Dissident Art Exhibition vernissage. September 9: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Barfly with The Wannados & The Sacramentos. September 18: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Casa Del Popolo with Crabe & Barbes Blondes (Many Mental Mistakes offshoot). October 31: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play Halloween at Les 3 Minots with Will Austin Escape & Crabe (spent months with another artist preparing & sculpting elaborate foam latex special effects zombie masks to wear). November 12: THE AMERICAN DEVICES record a new song at Rotating Planet Studios. November 29: Launched limited edition ORGY MANDALA silkscreen prints at Expozine. December 21: THE AMERICAN DEVICES appear in & play a song live for Sophie DeRaspe's feature film LES SIGNES VITAUX.

2009

February 3: Solo sculpture show BIJOUX NUMBERS 1- 5 at gallery Monastiraki. March 7: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Lab Synthese with Shortpants Romance, Little Scream, & The Great Vowel Shift. June 26: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Sala Rossa with Nomeansno & Grand Trine for the Suoni per il Popolo music festival. July 17: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Saphir for Fantasia Film Festival book launch of 192-page MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOLUME TWO (second compilation of my Montreal Mirror comic strip movie reviews) with Yamantaka Sonic Titan & Futensil (& made a music video to promote the show for our song You Wouldn't Understand). July 25: Jose Mojica Marins (AKA Coffin Joe) honoured with LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD constructed by me for the Fantasia Film Festival. October 3: THE AMERICAN DEVICES play live at Quai Des Brumes for the Pop Montreal Music Festival with Death Boat, Meta Gruau & The Sublinguals. October 31: Presented 45-minute PowerPoint HALLOWEEN CARTOON SLIDESHOW at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly detailing MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY'S 25-year history. November 14: Launched REPRESENTED IMMOBILIZED mini-comic at Expozine. December 9: Curated 4-day movie festival of personal oddball favourites RICK TREMBLES' RARE CINEMATIC TRASH & TREASURES at Red Bird Gallery.

DOESN'T THIS LIST MAKE YOUR TOP-TEN LIST OF THE MOST USELESS LISTS THAT WAS EVER LISTED?

Yours for eternity whether you like it or not, Rick Trembles

December 17, 2009

FREE COLOR CARTOON SLIDESHOW SHORT: "THE EAGLE WAS LATE"! (Click on the title image below to start the show)

In 1996, Jamie Soloman of Montreal's Copacetic Comics commissioned me to do a mini for him that he could release locally. So I quickly bashed out something called Slideshow Blueprints. Cuz at the time I'd been touring the town with a slideshow version of another comic I self-published on the sexual history of a repressed wretch (me), "How Did I Get So Anal" (which I eventually turned into a wretched animated short called Goopy Spasms). The story I'm offering here for the very first time in color is called The Eagle was Late which never actually got turned into a live slideshow. Another story from the same issue did tho, which was called Astral Projecting Zombies of Communal Can-Land & you can see that one HERE

Since I thought I could use more slideshows in my "repertoire," Slideshow Blueprints was gonna be a continuing collection of peculiar dreams I'd had that were gonna eventually be turned into slideshows I would narrate to live audiences. But it only lasted one issue. Click HERE or on the title image above to start The Eagle was Late.

Yours Chronically Blueprintly, Rick Trembles

December 3, 2009

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY ORIGINAL ART SHOW-AND-TELL AT THE RED BIRD GALLERY!

Red Bird Gallery presents four evenings of rare cinematic trash & treasures curated by Rick Trembles, creator of the weekly Motion Picture Purgatory comic-strip movie review column in the Montreal Mirror, 8 PM December 9 to 12 (135 Van Horne, 2nd floor)! Each night starts at 8PM. FREE ADMISSION! Click on the cute flyer below by gallery member Rebecca Rosen for full infos! Fæcesbook event page HERE

Pull up a couch & park yer butts! Rick Trembles’ living room has been teleported to the Mille-End for an exclusive series of free screenings to get you acquainted with Red Bird Studios! Witness the inner workings of what goes into the making of each of Trembles’ eccentric comic-strip movie reviews by examining the original artwork on exhibition that the same films inspired! Preceding each viewing Trembles will explain why these obscure hard-to-find favourites of his struck such a chord with him, inspiring him to doodle their likenesses & obsessively ramble on in handwritten scripture about their underrated attributes!

Here's coverage for it in The Gazette

November 26, 2009

RICK TREMBLES HAWKING HIS CRAP AT EXPOZINE A FEW WEEKS AGO (click image to watch clip)! RIVETING! NOW EMAIL HIM TO BUY SAID CRAP VIA SNAIL-MAIL!

(video by Jack Ruttan)

November 12, 2009

NEW TREMBLES MINI-COMIC 4 SALE: "REPRESENTED IMMOBILIZED"!

Come to my merch table @ Expozine this weekend where I’ll be selling a new mini-comic I just made especially for the zine fair called Represented Immobilized (pictured below)! If you can’t be in town email me for ordering info.

I’m selling them for dirt cheap. I’ll also be selling copies of Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two & most likely some orgy madala prints also, if I can find the room to stuff em in my backpack for the bike-ride up there! Saturday, November 14 & Sunday, November 15, 2009 from 12 to 6 p.m. at 5035 St-Dominique (Laurier Métro). Free admission. GO!

Ricky-poo Trembles

October 22, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: RICK TREMBLES HALLOWEEN CARTOON SLIDESHOW AT LIBRAIRIE DRAWN & QUARTERLY!

Come celebrate the 192-page newly released second volume of RICK TREMBLES’ illustrated horror film reviews MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY this Halloween at LIBRAIRIE DRAWN & QUARTERLY where he’ll be premiering a spooky Cartoon Slideshow explaining the method to his madness!

Undead & in person next to the slithery slideshow screen, using hand-drawn biographical anecdotes, Trembles will make you tremble as he narrates how he first got into macabre movies & the comix medium as a youngster & what made him think he could merge the two! He’ll detail the strip’s bumpy early controversial history & give insight into how to pick apart films with his patented process of condensing pertinent plot points via creepy x-ray vision cross-sections, maniacal maze-like aerial views, & screwy schematics! From King Kong to Clockwork Orange & The Candy Snatchers, don’t miss Trembles’ titillating alternate terror-tinged take on the history of cinema!

Come say hi face-to-face to the cartoonist THE GUARDIAN called “a genius” & ROBERT CRUMB declared “even more twisted & weird” than himself, & he’ll personally sign & doodle all over copies of his new book for you!

Event is free & takes place early evening between 7 to 10 PM giving you ample time to hit the costume balls afterwards, Halloween night, Saturday October 31 at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, 211 Bernard Ouest, Montreal (514-279-2224)!

Rick Trembles’ critically acclaimed hybrid comic strip movie criticism column Motion Picture Purgatory has been appearing every week in the Montreal Mirror since 1998 (after originating in the same pages with the paper’s inception in the 80’s). Trembles continues to make animated short films that occasionally tour the globe, & play in his 30-year-old post-punk band The American Devices

For more information visit Rick Trembles’ website www.snubdom.com or check out his UK publisher at www.fabpress.com

October 8, 2009

AMERICAN DEVICES ON THE BIG SCREEN & ALSO THE WHATCHAMACALLIT BIG PAPER BLOGOSPHERE COMPUTER SCREEN!

Go check out the world premiere of Quebec-made feature film "Les Signes Vitaux" (AKA The Living Rate) by Sophie Deraspe this Saturday night @ the X-CENTRIS, 3536 Boulevard Saint-Laurent. My band American Devices got asked to play a tune in it to represent "old people who do stuff that keeps them young"! LOLZ! (I just wrote "lolz" to sound like the crotchety old crank who's trying to sound "young" that I am BTW). It's a full-band cameo; they made it snow on top of us in a haunted hospital (sample framegrab pictured below: click on the image to see additional larger color photos). The film also stars Danielle Ouimet from sexy seventies vampyros lesbos classic Daughters of Darkness (1971) & local legendary 60's surfabilly guitarist Arthur Cossette (Les Jaguars, Les Sinners)! Screening info HERE

ALSO: Go freaken figure! Right when I'm on the verge of mothballing my band cuz I can't make the measly $25 per/mo jamspace rent we get this great Mark Lepage review about our Pop Fest show last week in big Montreal daily The Gazette telling us we need "somebody smart & rich" to bail us out. Haw. Are we that transparent? I rigged my guitar to fall apart on cue just so we could get in the papers. I also dyed my "jet-black mushroom haircut" just for the show for the same reason. We're all about artifice. ARTIFICE WORKS! See for yourself HERE

Yerz sillinessly, Rick Trembles

October 1, 2009

AMERICAN DEVICES PLAY POP MONTREAL!

American Devices live with Death Boat, Meta Gruau, & The Sub-linguals: Pop Montreal Music Festival, this Saturday, October 3rd @ Quai Des Brumes (4481 St-Denis)!

September 17, 2009

RICK TREMBLES INTERVIEWED IN THE LINK ABOUT MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOLUME TWO!

Yeah, that's right. What I just said. Rick Trembles interviewed in The Link about Motion Picture Purgatory Volume Two. Click HERE to read it.

August 20, 2009

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY IN TINSELTOWN! RICK TREMBLES INTERVIEWED ON "ALIEN TV"!

If you happen to be in L.A. this week check out some of my Motion Picture Purgatories on exhibition at the DFFLA (Downtown Film Festival of Los Angeles) in the Cinema Lounge on the ground floor of the AT&T Center. Curator/filmmaker Noel Lawrence picked some of his fave strips of mine dealing with the topic of Tinseltown to fit the theme of the show & hung them up. He's also got both my Motion Picture Purgatory books on display for people to read thru. It'll all be there until this weekend side-by-side with recent works by the legendary Kuchar Bros among others!

Also: I was interviewed on ALIEN TV briefly describing (in broken French) how I wanted my vagina/anus/penis sculptures to Come to Life. This was recorded shortly before my recent Canada Council grant rejection made the whole project Come to Death. Only a few more weeks to see these babies on exhibit so hurry on over there & snag one of 'em up (fifty bucks cheap) cuz after this they're going into deep storage, otherwise known as back-burner #7168539. Click on the episode @ the top of the Alien TV page (dated Aout 2009). I show up about 2 minutes into the video.

August 13, 2009

SUGAR DIET MAGAZINE 25TH ANNIVERSARY UPLOAD (80'S MONTREAL PUNK/POST-PUNK INTERVIEWS & COMIX)!

I put this magazine out with some friends in 1984 trying to focus on the Montreal post-punk, underground comix, & art scene of the day, an 8.5 X 11 inch glossy with newsprint inside (beautifully yellowed by now). I put them on consignment in all the local stores that would have them & of course sent bucketloads out for feedback. One of these places was Robert Crumb's house back when he was still in the U.S. editing his groundbreaking Weirdo Magazine. He wrote back to tell me he found my stuff interesting, gave me a few technical tips, mentioned it kinda reminded him of Gary Panter, & then told me to contact Peter Bagge cuz he was passing his mag over to him to edit from now on. Peter picked the comic I did on page 35 to reprint in Weirdo #11. Read the whole issue of Sugar Diet #1 HERE or click on the image below. (Note: foldout posters had to be split in two for scanning purposes).

Sugar Diet #1 never managed to get widely distributed but I sure got to do lotsa great international snail-mail swaps with wacky 80's-era post-punk zinesters & cartoonists (held onto every one of those crazy zines BTW). I followed Sugar Diet up in the nineties with some all-comix issues that also had certain pages of mine reprinted here & there, most recent of which was the XXX "Goopy Spasms" in Danny Hellman's Typhon (which also became an animated film that's toured the globe). But all those nineties Sugar Diets were self-published photocopies (all long gone). The first issue looked really slick in comparison.

Over the years the print run of about 1000 has dribbled away & now I'm left with only a precious few of this incredibly rare ish so I thought I'd digitalize my best copy & post it on this, its 25th anniversary. Enjoy.

Thirteen Montreal bands interviewed!

SCUM! CHROMOSOMES! RHODESIA with American Devices founder Phil Nolan! THE AMERICAN DEVICES! THE NILS! THE HEARTDROPS with future Nils member Carlos Soria! THE PSEUDS with Mack MacKenzie! MEN WITHOUT HATS! TERRY FOX'S RIGHT LEG with Future Frightwig Rebecca Tucker! DEJA VOODOO! TERMINAL SUNGLASSES with Nutsak's Chris Burns! ACTION MEN ON ASSIGNMENT! PARADOTS with future Ray Condo guitarist Eric Sandmark!

Comix by Men Without Hats' Ivan Doroschuk, Deja Voodoo's Gerard Van Herk, Rebecca Tucker, & your truly! Photo-comic starring Danny Darling, Mimi Re/Tardif & me as a punky-wunky brat (you can see me playing my cherished 45 Grave & Dils 45s on the turntable)! Fiction & essays by The Devices' Rob Labelle & Marcie Frank! Plus why not one token interview with an outsider: Johnny Ramone!

"Pretty interesting" -Robert Crumb

"Sugar Diet is the type of thing that I personally hope will replace the magazine industry once the rest of society falls into total decay." -Uncle Bob Martin (co-founder, & former editor & writer for Fangoria Magazine)

"In spite of your noisy sado-masochistic posturing, I sincerely wonder if you're all that interested in having someone plant a hatchet in YOUR skull (page 76). You are part of the problem & not part of the solution." -Michael, for The Alternative Bookshop Collective (Montreal)

August 6, 2009

RICK TREMBLES INTERVIEWED IN MIDNIGHT POUTINE! PLUS RICK TREMBLES SCULPTURES ON EXHIBIT AT GALLERIE 106U!

Midnight Poutine just interviewed me about what it's like to be "weird." Click HERE to read it. Speaking of "poutine" (Quebec's national dish consisting of french-fries & cheese curds doused in brown gravy for all you outsiders), here's a cute photo that "Evil" Andy Mauro took of Coffin Joe around midnight right after his lifetime achievement award ceremony @ Fantasia a few weeks ago eating the sloppy stuff. ALSO: Don't forget to go check out some of my "Bijoux" sculptures as part of the FAHRENHEIT group exhibit at Eric Braun's Usine 106U gallery this month. Come say hi to me at the opening vernissage this Thursday August 6, from 5 to 11 PM (160 Roy East, on the Plateau). I'll have some of my new Motion Picture Purgatory 2 books on sale there too.

Yours Poutinely, Rick Trembles

July 30, 2009

JOSE MOJICA MARINS (AKA COFFIN JOE) HONORED WITH LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD CONSTRUCTED BY RICK TREMBLES!

Eccentric Brazilian horror movie legend Coffin Joe came to Montreal's Fantasia Film Fest last weekend to show his latest mindfuck Embodiment of Evil & was presented with a lifetime achievement award after the screening! The award I built was commissioned to me by Fantasia & derived from one of the sculptures I constructed for my Bijoux 1 - 5 exhibition earlier this year! You can see the basic design HERE! I mounted it on a base, painted it gold, & added a handsome shiny plaque with an inscription (pictured above)! I was squirming in my seat with suspense at the show cuz he kept gesticulating wildly with it in his hand during the Q&A & I thought it was gonna crumble before everybody's eyes (it's kinda fragile)! But it held up! Joe still likes to dress as his demented onscreen persona as the photo of me posing with him below by King-Wei Chu proves! He still maintains extra long REAL "coffin" nails cuz, like he says in his latest flick, they keep growing "even when yer dead"! But oh is the man ever FAR from dead; what a booming voice he's got! After the show he was signing & getting his picture taken in the lobby & whenever the camera was on him he'd outstretch his arms & thunderously scream at the top of his lungs just like in his movies & it'd gimme a jolt every time!

Check out the Coffin Joe award ceremony slideshow where you can see me unveiling & presenting it at the official Fantasia page HERE

June 25, 2009

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY LIVE ROCK & ROLL PARTY BOOK LAUNCH plus BRAND NEW AMERICAN DEVICES TV COMMERCIAL (AKA MUSIC VIDEO)!

It's HEEEERE! The long-awaited second volume of the best of Motion Picture Purgatory is finally out from FAB Press! And we're celebrating with an insane launch party this coming Sunday! Click on the image below to see a larger color version of the poster/flyer...

Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival & Pirates of the Lachine Canal present The American Devices live @ the Motion Picture Purgatory Volume Two launch party with Futensil, Yamantaka Sonic Titan, & DJ Blamderson Sunday, July 19 @ Bar Le Saphir (3699 boul. St-Laurent)!

And I made a TV ad for the occasion featuring our newest song "You Wouldn't Understand" starring the wonderfully evil Nikki Godless as the interrogator & me as the interrogatee. Shot it on Saturday. Edited it Sunday. Old school. No fuss no muss. Enjoy. Me on vocs/guitar, Rob Labelle additional guitar, Andre Asselin bass & Howard Chackowicz drums. Sound engineering by Ari Cohen. Thanks to Sharon Davies for use of her interrogation room. Click HERE or on the image below to watch it on YouTube...

YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND

Can’t tell you how I make my living. Cuz I don’t trust you, got my head buried in the sand. Kinda underground. Can’t tell you what I jerk off to. Cuz I don’t trust you, I need some kinda magic wand. Yes it’s that profound. It’s a fine, fine mess that I keep picking at while I’m getting undressed mulling over this & that, undue distress, I can’t be taken aback by the finer points unless I got the room to crack, & examine that crack, pry open that crack, expulse that crack, clean out that crack; CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. Can’t let you touch my dick. Cuz I don’t trust you, I’m in the palm of your hand, which is not so sound. Can’t tell you that I don’t trust you. Because I love you, & you wouldn’t understand, turn me upside down. It’s a fine, fine mess that I keep picking at even though I’ve been blessed to be faced with such a task, inescapably obsessed, permanently outta whack, I chose to confess for the permission to crack & examine that crack, pry open that crack, expulse that crack, clean out that crack; CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. Cheesed off. Shirked off. Jerked off.

© Rick Trembles

From our press release:

Rick Trembles' Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 is the long-awaited follow up to the 2004 critically acclaimed first volume! This new 192-page release from UK publisher FAB Press compiles the best of the past 10 years of Trembles' comic strip movie reviews of the same name appearing in free weekly The Montreal Mirror since 1998!

The book is presently hot off the press available both in paperback & limited edition signed & numbered hardcover from the FAB Press website but the official launch will take place as part of Montreal's prestigious Fantasia Film Festival with publisher Harvey Fenton & author Rick Trembles present signing copies!

Trembles will sing & play guitar with his band The American Devices in the same full zombie special effects mask that appears as his author's photo in the hardcover version of the book (make-up by Evil Andy Mauro)!

FUTENSIL are "a fusion of spore punk, gaseous garage, & doomsday surf" with experimental films of their own making that they'll be presenting using video & slide projected images as part of their performance.

YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN are an "asian diasporic psychedelic noh-wave opera group fusing noise, metal, pop & folk music into a multidisciplinary hyper-orientalist cesspool of 'eastern' culture in giant monochrome paper sets."

THE AMERICAN DEVICES are Montreal's longest lasting post-punk band (formed in 1980). "Cryptic ramblings, clever wordplay, convoluted rhythmic shifts. Intricate guitar lines squirming around each other like snakes in a basket. Fragments of country twang & bubblegum pop genius collapse into autistic idiocy only to ricochet back seconds later as something else entirely. Intricacies & idiosyncrasies pushing the envelopes of punk ethos, proggy complexity, & twisted pop charm" -Rupert Bottenberg (Montreal Mirror) "Hard-assed guitar burn" -Forced Exposure.

Futensil on at 10 PM

Yamantaka on at 11 PM

Devices on at 12 midnight

From FAB's press release:

"This book launch event takes place at SAPHIR, 3699 St-Laurent (near Pine Avenue), and there will be a veritable posse of people heading down to the venue immediately following the special Fantasia screening of Buddy Giovinazzo's original 16mm work print of Combat Shock. So for any Fantasia attendees reading this, please meet up outside the Concordia building following that screening!"

"The HARDBACK LIMITED EDITION of Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 is available to buy as a pre-order item now. Only 100 copies of this book will be released in hardback, with a special photographic cover. Each copy of this hardback edition will be individually numbered and personally signed by the author! Note that the book is also available in paperback, & that the cover of that edition will be included in the hardback edition as part of the book jacket's front flap, so no one will miss out on Rick's artwork." "These books have been published just in time to ship a few boxes across the Atlantic for its official launch in Montreal."

Order your copy HERE

"There are comic artists, there are movie critics, & then there's Rick Trembles, who's had the genius idea of combining the two to form his own personal dark art. Trembles' strips are a joy to read & invariably more interesting than the movies that inspired them." -The Guardian

"What are movies, after all, but words & pictures? Like a big comic? So what better way to approach film criticism than an actual comic? The incomparable genius Rick Trembles has done just that. You've got be a serious movie fan to digest this stuff. Trembles certainly is." -Screw Magazine

"Spot-on & very necessary. Trembles covers everything from blockbuster movies through to arthouse favorites and underground obscurities. You might even learn something." -Headpress

"Rick Trembles is like a punk-rock Leonard Maltin." -Fishpiss Magazine

"Clearly the work of a deranged genius - film reviews for psychos." -Bookmunch

"Local lurid dilettante, commanding comix captain & preposterously prehistorical post-punk band big-gun Rick Trembles has published a comic book compendium that will immerse you in the concentrated assuredness and artistry with which Trembles works his foul fantasies!" -Hour (Montreal)

"Rick combines his seemingly endless knowledge of all kinds of film, from the most obscure to the most mainstream, with his signature artistic style. You've never seen anything like this before. This is a great book." -Creature Corner

"Hilarious" -Michael Weldon (Psychotronic)

Yerz cruelly, Rick Trembles

June 25, 2009

FREE MP3 WETMARE GIVEAWAY! AMERICAN DEVICES OPEN FOR NOMEANSNO WITH GRAND TRINE! PLUS CURSED COMIX!

Come check out my band The American Devices along with newcomers Grand Trine Friday June 26th @ Sala Rossa, 4848 Boulevard St. Laurent (8:30pm) where we'll both be opening up for legendary BC "artcore" trio Nomeansno as part of Montreal's Suoni per il Popolo music festival! They've been around since 1984 almost as long as the Devices (1980)! To celebrate & help you get in the mood we're giving away an MP3 from off our 2006 self-titled retrospective CD, of a song I sing & play guitar on called Wetmare that we'll be performing at the show. Click HERE to listen to it (right-click the link & choose "save target as" if you wanna download the 2.99 MB file to your computer).

I'm actually not that familiar with Nomeansno so I'm really looking forward to this show so I can get a crash course on them. From what I have heard of them, I know it sounds crazy, but for some reason out of all the songs we do I think Wetmare is kind of the closest we get to playing their sort of sound. So I insisted on throwing it into the set even though we haven't done it in a while. The rest of the band teased me over this cuz they like to rag on me whenever they think I'm trying to tailor-make a set to accommodate my preconceived notions of what kinda music the audience is gonna be primed for. As if I'm kissing ass. Cuz they think every single one of our songs deserves your yum regardless of what its tone is even though we cover a wide spectrum. I'm such a sell out. AM I OVERTHINKING THIS YET.

Trivia: shortly after titling this song I noticed The Cramps had just released one of their own called Wet Nightmare. "Aw crap," I said to myself. Great minds think alike. So I changed the title to "Yes or No," which is the first line in the song, & we performed it that way for a while & even recorded it under that title. But as time went by I felt it was too generic-sounding & flip-flopped back to Wetmare. What the hell. I "heart" The Cramps but I thought of it first, & anyway I merged the 2 words together which is more of a giggle if you ask me. At band practice I've been joking around about changing the lyrics "yes or no" to "no means no" in honor of this momentous event but the rest of the band talked me out of it declaring it too cheesy. Who knows, maybe I'll slip up & sneak it in after all. Only one way to find out: you absolutely must come see this show!

I also tried to illustrate some of the lyrics to Wetmare with a couple of comic strips a few years back (pictured below). The topic is how desire & memory can be a curse. (Lyrics in full underneath the artwork). Yours memorially, Rick Trembles.

WETMARE

Yes or no. Not that I know of. And by that I mean: You should know better. If the gift of gab could make me blab, I wouldn't know how not to brag, about the things that make me glad, have I been had? No adequate disguiser for this phallic attitudinizer, no temporary curbing of this singular desire, lurking underneath where it won't get tired, 'til it's too late to flourish but that'll concentrate it higher, looming overhead, hovering up above, waiting to be jarred from the sleepiness it loves, kinda smug, kinda tall, no it hasn't done it all cuz it forgot to include me into it's tales so tall, memories keep haunting me of things fickle & sublime & I know that they will be replaced by newer ones in time, maybe in the absence of the old ones I will find the reason why they wouldn't let me leave them all behind. If the gift of gab could make me blab, I wouldn't know how not to brag, about the things that make me sad, have I been had? Yes or no. Not that I know of. And by that I mean: You should know better.

June 11, 2009

NEW! RICK TREMBLES' MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOLUME TWO IS FINALLY COMING OUT!

I am SO psyched about this! FAB Press has finally decided to release a second massive volume of the best of my Motion Picture Purgatory comic strips reprinted from The Montreal Mirror where they've been appearing every week since 1998 (& at this website since almost as long)! The critically acclaimed first volume was made up of strips from its inception to 2004. This new book will include work from '04 to this year & more goodies spanning the first 5 years that couldn't fit into the first! I also concocted for volume two a special 4-page how-to comic strip detailing the process I go thru every week behind the making of my Motion Picture Purgatory reviews! The books will be released in both paperback & signed/numbered limited edition hardcover versions featuring different cover art for each! The hardcover version will have extra art, including an author's picture of me in nauseating zombie makeup plus the full color zombie cover illo from the paperback on the flaps (pictured above in B&W), so you can get the best of both worlds for just a little extra cost! Hardcover photographic art can be seen further above in color as the current title/header image of this website. Trivia: I took that girly picture one recent dreary winter Montreal night when some friends came over & we scratched our heads trying to come up with an eye-catching cover for my book. I happened to have the iconic poster image from I Spit on Your Grave (1978) on my coffee table (the front cover of FAB Press' excellent Flesh & Blood Compendium). So we pulled the book out for reference, peeled some clothes off & broke out the stage blood to paint over my mangled homemade Motion Picture Purgatory iron-on T-shirt standing in as ravaged panties. Fun tymez! Plenty out-takes include the model menacingly wielding her rape-revenge knife so if yer nice I might just plop some of those into an upcoming snubdomizer post 4 you! Also stay tuned for info on the insane launch party we're presently organizing tying in with this summer's Fantasia Film Festival where the book will be officially christened by publisher Harvey Fenton himself of FAB Press! Click on the cover images above or click HERE for a complete list of the films reviewed & to order your copy now!

Here's some early preview action to whet yer appetites from Fango

Yours purgatorially, Rick Trembles

March 19, 2009

GOD'S COCKSUCKERS AT THE BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL!

Wanna see my sacrilegious one-minute animated orgy of sex, violence & improv noise God's Cocksuckers this month? Well then head on over to the Boston Underground Film Festival this Friday March 20th & Wednesday March 25th where it'll be playing as part of the Midnight Transgressions show in the Brattle Theater (40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA)! If you've got God's phone number, give him/her/it a call & drag 'em on over too, to squeeze some comments outta the elusive entity. Need to expand on my collection of blurbs for this particular abomination.

March 5, 2009

VIRTUAL VIDEO TOUR OF RICK TREMBLES' SQUISHY SCULPTURE EXHIBITION! PLUS THE AMERICAN DEVICES' FIRST SHOW OF 2009: COME CELEBRATE THIRTY YEARS OF RIFE GIGGING TRYING TO GET OUR BRAND OF GIGGLY RIFFING THRU YER THICK SKULLS!

My solo gallery exhibition just wrapped up last Saturday, so for all you deadbeats that couldn't make it to see my babies face-to-face, here's a virtual YouTube video tour of the whole show replete with ambient gallery sounds to give it some authenticity (otherwise known as: total mind-numbing silence). See it HERE or click on the image above.

Also, my band The American Devices is playing this Saturday (first gig of 2009, now making it officially THIRTY FUCKING years I've been playing this tough-nut-to-crack of a one-horse-town). I asked to go on before Shortpants Romance cuz I wanna get to check 'em out easy-breezy minus any pre-set jitters or annoyances. Little Scream & The Great Vowel Shift are on before us. Your guess is as good as mine exactly when we'll be hitting the stage tho, so just drop by & hang, there's bound to be something good going on. It's for the launch of the new Four Minutes to Midnight zine, Saturday, March 7th @ Lab.Synthese, 435 Beaubien Ouest, Loft 200.

Here's a video I just plopped on PooTube to help getcha revved up for it. It's my band playing the song 50/50 live last Halloween at Les 3 Minots covered in homemade zombie masks & smoke machine smoke. Click HERE to see it, or on the image below.

Yerz crustily, Rick Trembles

February 19, 2009

BIJOUX SCULPTURE CATALOG & BEHIND-THE-SCENES MAKING-OF!

Only a few more weeks left until my sculpture exhibition wraps up at Gallerie Monastiraki so I put together an itemized catalog of detailed pictures with a price list, accompanied by another page illustrating the step-by-step process that brought the whole project to fruition. Click HERE for the catalog. Click HERE for the making-of. Check these pages out & buy one of my reasonably priced 3-D sculpture duplicates or 2-D paintings to help fund the one-minute puppet stop-motion animation movies I wanna feature these critters in! Here's some links to recent coverage of the exhibition: Quartier Libre Montreal Mirror Vice Quebec Hour

February 5, 2009

"BIJOUX NUMBERS ONE THROUGH FIVE" RICK TREMBLES SCULPTURE SHOW @ GALLERIE MONASTIRAKI, 5478 ST-LAURENT (514-278-4879) ALL THRU FEBRUARY!

Here's my little army of critter babies just before shipping them off to the gallery Tuesday! The vernissage was fun. Good turnout considering we're in the dead of winter & it was freezing. Go check these suckers out. Dupes made of Ultracal 30 are going for only 50 bucks each, the paintings (not pictured here) for 100. Price list & more detailed, itemized pix of each construct coming soon!

Ricky-Poo

January 29, 2009

RICK TREMBLES SCULPTURE EXHIBITION "BIJOUX NUMBERS ONE THROUGH FIVE"! (Pictured below: image details of some of the sculptures that'll be on exhibit)

From the press release: Montreal-based musician, filmmaker & cartoonist Rick Trembles endeavours a departure from the 2-dimmensional visual creations he’s principally known for with a brand new series of artworks concentrating on non-representational sculpture.

Each of Trembles’ structures, five in total, built especially for this particular exhibition, melds ornamental elements with the mechanical & biological, all with the intention of eventually creating vignettes on film for every construct employing the various disciplines he’s experimented with over the past 30 years; 2-D animation, stop-motion animation, & musical composition, only now in a deliberately abstract manner.

So come see the future stars of these proposed short films on display, where copies struck from actual moulds of the originals will also be available for sale along with acrylic paintings of the same organisms in order to help raise funds for the filmmaking process.

FEB 3 TO FEB 28 2009, VERNISSAGE TUESDAY FEB 3, FROM 5 TO 9 PM @ GALLERIE MONASTIRAKI, 5478 ST-LAURENT (514-278-4879)

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