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Latest review: AMNESIA ROCKFEST
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MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOL. 1 (with embossed silver cover) ON SALE @ SPECIAL PRICE NOW
MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOL. 2 (softcover) ON SALE @ FAB PRESS NOW Or buy it in Montreal @ the following stores: Drawn & Quarterly Monastiraki Cheap Thrills Usine 106U MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: THE RADIO SHOW podcasts archived at FAB Press!
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! "The world's longest-running indie post-punk band” -Mark Lepage, The Gazette (Montreal) "Rick Trembles is the Montreal Elvis" -Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion), 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 original DIY. A living example of the beginning of punk" -Dave Rave of Teenage Head, Punkretrospective.com (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!
DEVICES T-SHIRTS! RICK TREMBLES CD DESIGN ART! BLACK MEDIUM, LARGE, & EXTRA LARGE! $15.00 EACH! EMAIL US FOR ORDERINNG INFO! ON SALE NOW! RICK TREMBLES' FIRST 70'S PUNK BAND THE ELECTRIC VOMIT ON 7-INCH! (for ordering info visit Garbage Bag Records)
BIJOUX NUMBERS 1 THRU 5 SCULPTURE SERIES
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! VALERIE & HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970) Original art for sale @ the trembles gallery
SECRET HISTORY of the AMERICAN DEVICES FREE MP3s! the american devices the sacramentos (devices founder phil nolan's band)
"Hard-ass guitar burn" -Jimmy Johnson, Forced Exposure "A remarkable Canadian quartet" -Mark Rhodes, Alternative Press "Too weird to succeed" -Mark Lepage, The Gazette 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 ricktrembles@hotmail.com All contents © 2000-2011, Rick Trembles UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY FORBIDDEN
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August 13, 2014 Well, it's finally happened. After almost 15 years, this state-of-the-art-nineteen-ninety-nine portion of the Snubdom site has simply gotten too stodgy to maintain anymore. As of now, I'm gonna be updating onto the brand new WordPress version as much as possible, since it's more compatible with the kinda Social Media that's taken over all our dismal lives of late. This page will remain as is, functioning as an archive, but there won't be much going on. So, click HERE or on the bland, generic, "mobile-friendly" ScreenCap image below to get hip with the times. Feel better, now? Good-bye. It was nice blowin' you.
July 14, 2014 This week marks the 10th anniversary of both the world premiere of my animated film GOOPY SPASMS & the launch of my first book MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY VOLUME ONE. Each took place at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2004. I’m gonna commemorate by taking a dump. How are YOU gonna celebrate? (Click HERE or on the image below for the full color original ad from the 2004 Fantasia program).
April 28, 2014 AMERICAN DEVICES UN-TONGUED & DECONSTRUCTED, PLUS NEW TREMBLES MINI COMIC "DOLLAR SIGN"! Hot off the magical Mille Putois silkscreen press: Brand new Rick Trembles mini-comic, "Dollar Sign," about how Montreal is rapidly becoming impossible to survive in for poor li'l ole artsy-poopsies like him! Kiss it the fuck goodbye, kidz! Enjoy the mini in your plush piece of shit condo by ordering it from Mille Putois or plunking TWO GIANT BUCKS into a Distroboto machine! Twenty pages with color & a shiny metallic silver theme that yer intertubes computer screen can't reproduce so you have no choice but to obtain the real deal! This was deliberate! Drink my pus, intertubes; not everything under the sun is "for free." Some things actually cost TWO GIANT BUCKS! And click the preliminary thumbnail sketch pictured below for a movie preview of it!
Also! The American Devices UN-TONGUED & DE-CON-STRUCTED, with Les Gens Chrétiens at Casa Del Popolo, May 2, 2014! Read the official press release: The American Devices have constructed a new set by deconstructing their old set. They will be doing instrumental versions of their most convoluted songs, the ones that are especially hard to sing & play at the same time, so that the audience can finally hear them unencumbered by vocals. Additionally, they will introduce these numbers by isolating the most convoluted single riff each of these songs has to offer, slowing it down, & cycling it for a minute or so into a deliberately hypnotic loop, stretched out until it’s unrecognizable so that when the same riff reappears in the normally faster paced version that follows, listeners will only subliminally be able to recall it, if at all. We invite our longtime fans to try to guess what the tunes are before we kick them into normal-mo speed. You can even make a drinking game out of if so inclined. Over the years, listeners have occasionally criticized The American Devices for writing songs with too many riffs per tune, playing potentially enjoyable grooves too briefly before transitioning to another incongruous melody, making it impossible to dance to among other things. The American Devices always considered this a generous move on their part, you get more for your money, but on this night they will "dumb it down" for you. The American Devices have selfish reasons for this as well. Even after all these years, some of the time signatures they've written into their songs can be pretty harrowing to put across, especially during segments they have to sing & play at the same time, & so for this one-time-only show, they thought it'd be fun to go about it with the stress level knocked down a notch. They will also be following these slo-mo segments with spoken word renditions of the lyrics so that they may also be delivered sans muddling, offering additional hints to anyone trying to guess what the tunes are. Basically, the band will be uncluttering themselves for a crystal clear, albeit disjointed & disembodied presentation for a change. IF U LIKE IT DISEMBODIED BRING YER DEAD BODIES ON OVER! Read The Gazette's article earlier this year detailing the making of this deconstructed set concept HERE LES GENS CHRÉTIENS is a guitar quartet featuring Chris Burns (Nutsak, Ratchet Orchestra), David Dugas Dion (Crabe, David and the Woods), Alex Pelchat (Shi*ning***Wizard, Leftovers Diable), & Nicolas Caloia on ring modulator. Link to the official Facebook event page HERE I MADE A TV COMMERCIAL FOR IT: CHECK IT OUT HERE Show poster by Howard Chackowicz (click for larger color version)!
August 21, 2013 AMNESIA SHITFEST 2013! Brand new MAXI Rock Monastery for Deadpan Magazine about my stint at the Amnesia Rockfest in Montebello: "THE (Maggie &) JIG(gs)* IS UP!" Click thumbnail below:
February 1, 2013 MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY @ CANUXPLOITATION.COM! In case you haven't noticed, I've been doing MINI Motion Picture Purgatories @ Canuxploitaion.com for the past several months now. I've amassed enough to fill a whole tabloid-sized page (click HERE to see it). Do you know of any papers out there who would like to run my strip in this format? It doesn't have to be a full page; I can provide them as individual 3-panel strips too, which would line the bottom of a page nicely in classic strip style. The samples shown at these links concentrate on Canadian obscurities but I can tackle whatever kinda flick you toss at me. (Click HERE to see a B&W version). HELP KEEP MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY ALIVE!
August 23, 2012 SACRAL NERVES THIS SATURDAY! My other band Sacral Nerves is playing with The Hazelles & Miss Lady Swamp Pussy @ Barfly (4062 St Laurent, Montreal, Quebec H2W-1Y8)! Poster art by Matthew Reading. The order of the live acts is gonna be: 1) Miss Lady Swamp Pussy 2) Sacral Nerves 3) The Hazelles.
It's our last show ever with drummer David Bertrand (formerly of Montreal's Blue Sunshine Psychotronic Micro-Theater fame), before he heads off to Toronto in September, so stop by and say goodbye to him! And stay tuned to find out who our new drummer's gonna be! Facebook event page HERE. Ricky-poo Trembles July 16, 2012 THIS JUST IN! NEW SITE BY EX-MTL MIRROR WRITERS! Ex-Montreal Mirror writers just put a new site up called CULT MTL. I got asked to participate. I'm still doing Motion Picture Purgatory & they'd like to link to whatever new ones come out, but I'd also like to try my hand at TEXT-ONLY reviews for this. Some of my comix were practically 80 percent text anyhow. So... Anybody want me to expound on their films or film screenings for this thing? Private message me. Ricky-poo Trembles July 11, 2012 MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY NOT DEAD! Okay, so I lost my home & then my job this year. Tough shit. That doesn’t mean Motion Picture Purgatory’s dead. The weekly that Motion Picture Purgatory appeared in once a week for 14 years, The Montreal Mirror, got the plug pulled out of it without warning a few weeks ago, but since the beginning of this year it had also been appearing in Calgary’s monthly BEATROUTE paper. So I’m gonna be posting brand new comic-strip movie reviews once a month thanks to them until I can find an additional place that wants my comix weekly again. If you have any leads about just such a place, please let me know. The paper in YOUR town could have Motion Picture Purgatory in it! CHECK OUT BEATROUTE AT THIS URL: http://beatroute.ca/ And BTW, for a new webzine called AUX, I’ve also just resurrected a comic-strip I used to do in the 80’s called Rock Monastery which is basically the same formula as Motion Picture Purgatory but about music. It even has a similar header. Bands! If you’d like to be turned into cartoon characters, private-message me for more info cuz I’m looking for stuff I can draw; anecdotes, weird stage antics, tour stories, song lyrics I can illustrate, etc. Or I can send you a simple Q&A! CHECK OUT AUX AT THIS URL: http://www.aux.tv/ So keep keeping an eye out for new stuff by yours truly ‘round these here parts; I ain’t goin’ away. I might be posting links to comix a little less frequently but hopefully this’ll be just a temporary snag. I’ve been drawing comix like this since the 70’s so do you really think I got it in me to give up the ghost now? I was MADE to draw kooky kartoons; it’s the way I communicate. I even AM a cartoon character, or at least that’s the way I see myself; as a cartoon character that draws cartoons. Now all I gotta do is flip the mirror around & live in that make-believe cartoon world where it’s actually feasible to get along as a cartoonist & I’d have it made! AND KEEP CHECKING HERE WHERE YOU CAN READ CLOSE TO A THOUSAND ARCHIVED COMIX: http://www.snubdom.com/NewsArchives.htm PS: I will be updating this clunky site VERY soon. Any tips on how I can do that are very welcome! January 5, 2012 AMERICAN DEVICES W/LIZ (TREAT ME LIKE DIRT) WORTH, DANILA BOTHA, RICK TREMBLES’ CARTOON SLIDESHOW, & CORPUSSE! PLUS: DEVICES NOW ON ITUNES THANX TO BONGO BEAT RECORDS!
Critically-acclaimed author Danila Botha ("Got No Secrets" & the forthcoming "Too Much on the Inside") will bring her punk prose all the way from Toronto! More info on her HERE Author Liz Worth of the epic "Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto & Beyond" (which Rick Trembles happens to be interviewed in) & "Amphetamine Heart," will perform a short set of strange/spooky poetry accompanied by a theremin (yes, a THEREMIN)! More info on her HERE Rick Trembles himself will recite his “Motion Picture Purgatory Decensortized” autobiographical slideshow, followed by a rare screening of his short animated films, God's C*cksuckers, Decensortized, & Goopy Spasms! "Trembles, famed creator of the Motion Picture Purgatory comic-strip film reviews has whipped up a spoken-word slideshow like no other, tracing his often-censored history through a 30-year-plus career in comix," says Mitch Davis of Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival! More info on his slideshow HERE And legendary performance artist/rock superstar Corpusse will deliver the shock-opera! "If you think you’ve heard it all, you haven’t heard Corpusse," says Johnson Cummins of The Montreal Mirror!: More info on him HERE The American Devices need no introduction cuz in case you haven't noticed, they're all over this stupid website, doofus! TIMETABLE: Danila Botha 8:45, Liz Worth 9:00, Rick Trembles 9:15, American Devices 10:00, Corpusse 11:00!
December 22, 2011 SACRAL NERVES ON PEEYEWTUBE! New band I play guitar for Sacral Nerves already on video! Despite the fact that it's the first song we ever wrote, the first song on the set list, & the first time we ever played live (not to mention a crappy camera), I still think it quite WRAWX the fyuck OWDT! Pictured below L to R: Esther Splett on vocals, yours truly Rick Trembles on guitar, & Yan Basque on synthesizer (not in frame; Dave Bertrand on drums & Johnny Deck on double-neck guitar)! Click HERE or on the spleen from the Visible Woman plastic model kit I'm wearing around my neck to go to the video clip! Photo by Audrey Kvntwell. Video by Eric Bent.
December 8, 2011 IMPORTANT FÆCESBOOK POLL REGARDING THE AMERICAN DEVICES! Hey, douchebag; click on the image below to read the important Fuckbook poll regarding The American Devices, then come back & click HERE to actually go answer the poll questions. If you can't access my Fettuccinebook page maybe it's cuz yer not my Funbagsbook "fwend" yet, so go "fwend" my dumb ass first.
And don't forget to come see The American Devices this Thursday, December 8 @ L'Esco (4467a Saint-Denis) with David & The Woods & Melted Faces. December 1, 2011 SACRAL NERVES DEBUT GIG!
Ricky-poo Trembles November 17, 2011 THE NORMALS BACK TOGETHER AFTER 33 YEARS WITH THE AMERICAN DEVICES! It’ll be one of Montreal's first punk bands The Normals' first official show in 33 years (Devices member Rob Labelle sang & played guitar) & they say they’ll be playing the same set-list they used to play back in 1978 at Montreal’s first punk venues 364 St-Paul & the Hotel Nelson. In fact it’ll be precisely 33 years ago because their last show occurred the same month, November 1978, at the Hotel Nelson opening for LA’s legendary SCREAMERS. At Playhouse (5656 Avenue du Parc, Montreal) next week, Thursday November 24, 2011 as part of the "Mascara & Popcorn Festival." Preceding the bands will be a screening of MTL PUNK: THE FIRST WAVE & the 2010 documentary about New York’s No Wave scene BLANK CITY. If you have Facebook, for more information & links to music samples of The Normals, check out the official event page HERE
The Normals today: L-R Tracy Howe, Rob Labelle, Scott Cameron. September 22, 2011 OLDIE BUT BADDIE!
July 21, 2011 AMERICAN DEVICES & NILS FC AT BARFLY NEXT THURSDAY! July 28th! Evening of Montreal punk & post-punk roots starts off with movies at Blue Sunshine (3660 St-Laurent) & continues at Barfly (4062 St-Laurent) with The Nils FC & The American Devices. The live show will be preceded by 2 short documentary films, the recently completed MTL PUNK: THE FIRST WAVE about 70's punk in MTL, & THE NORMALS, about one of Montreal's first punk bands The Normals, which was actually filmed in the 70's. Screening will be just 2 blocks away from Barfly at Blue Sunshine. All the members of The Normals will be in attendance at the film & will be heading over to The American Devices & Nils FC show afterwards.
Rob Labelle, ex-member of The Normals has been playing in The American Devices since 1980. Devices member Rick Trembles is one of the interviewees in the film MTL PUNK: THE FIRST WAVE. Carlos Soria’s new band The Nils FC is derived from the band he shared with his late brother Alex, renowned early-80’s Montreal punk/post-punk band The Nils. Before The Nils, Carlos was in Rick Trembles' first 70's punk band The Electric Vomit, referred to in MTL PUNK: THE FIRST WAVE. Price of admission for both bands @ Barfly: $5 dollars. Price of admission for both movies @ Blue Sunshine: $8 dollars. SPECIAL DEAL! PAY $12 AT BLUE SUNSHINE TO SEE THE MOVIES & THE BANDS AT ONE DISCOUNT PRICE! Click HERE or on the image excerpt above to see full poster art by Rick Trembles! And by all means feel free to print them out & put 'em up all around. The more promo the merrier! July 7, 2011 RICK TREMBLES’ CARTOON SLIDESHOW & ANIMATED MOVIES IN NYC W/GIRLS OF PREY!
Also: Great review of my Motion Picture Purgatory books by James Whittington for UK's current ish of The Darkside magazine sez my comix may lead you to believe I'm a "sicko." Read it HERE Yours preyly, Rick Trembles June 2, 2011 NEW AMERICAN DEVICES 5-SONG MINI-CD "ON VINYL"!
May 5, 2011 "RICK TREMBLES’ MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: DECENSORTIZED" @ BLUE SUNSHINE MAY 10! Important note from Rick Trembles: "Unless someone plops a mountain-load of money on my lap or whisks me off to do it again @ some extremely exotic location, this could be the very last performance ever, because I'm currently embarking on a book project that'll be covering much of the same territory as what's being explored within this slideshow." For a more detailed description of this show, plus ticket information click HERE April 21, 2011 I CHOPPED OFF ROGER EBERT'S THUMB! Plus: RICK TREMBLES' MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: DECENSORTIZED in WINNIPEG! If you're in Winnipeg next Thursday, come see me do the same slideshow I did for last year's Fantasia film festival, Rick Trembles' Motion Picture Purgatory: Decensortized, May 5th @ 9:00pm in the Park Theatre (698 Osborne) for Plastic Paper! Legendary animator Ralph (Fritz the Cat, Lord of the Rings) Bakshi is gonna be giving an artist talk at the same fest! Put together by none other than Kier-La Janisse of Montreal's best repertory film club Blue Sunshine. For ticket info & show description, click HERE Wow. Now I TRULY believe everything’s on YouTube! I was gonna post this rarely seen animation I did for the 1992 doc Clive Barker: The Art of Horror but the whole film's already out there in full! I chop off renowned film critic Roger Ebert’s thumb at the 5:55 minute mark. Click HERE or on the image below to see it.
Clive Barker: “I believe we have to preach to the unconverted. We have to get under the wire. We have to be making movies & writing books which run the risk of being dismissed by critics in order to get to the people who don’t think that they like metaphysics but they really do. And if that means that we fret a little bit because Siskel & Ebert don’t like us, well we fret. Big deal.” -CUE THE THUMB CHOP! It's hard to tell from the lousy resolution in this YouTube post but the Toronto-based filmmakers had sent me an official still photo of Siskel & Ebert that I had to airbrush the thumbs away from so I could replace them with slightly elevated bas-relief sculpted ones I made (with faked background underneath for when they get removed)! I popped the fingers off under the camera frame-by-frame & animated them dropping down, then animated painted blood dripping out. I had to rent the ornate picture frame from an antique store. The flowers were plastic ones I had leftover from my 1989 American Devices 3D LP cover art. We're talking old school here, kids; I had to find a 16MM Bolex camera & borrow a makeshift animation stand, cram all that crap in my crowded apartment, then after I was done, mail the negative to Toronto without ever seeing it until it premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival a little while later. I can't tell you how relieved (& satisfied) I felt sitting there alone hearing the audience laugh out loud at this segment. Stressful but addictive! March 17, 2011 MTL PUNK: THE FIRST WAVE (1977-1980)!
February 3, 2011 RICK TREMBLES' MONSTER DILDO SQUIRT INSTALLATION! In 1988 I was asked to build a funhouse-style archway that would squirt into people's faces for Montreal's First International Shock Art Festival. GG Allin, Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Mark Prent, & The Nihilistic Spasm Band were some of the other artists featured at this thing. They all got squirted. For the rest of this article, including preliminary sketches, & a link to a YouTube clip of the contraption in action, click HERE or on the image below of the only remnant I have left of it today. -Ricky-Poo Trembles
December 9, 2010 THE AMERICAN DEVICES DO FIVE NEW RECORDINGS! Pictured below: Howard's basement room where we practice right next door to his garage. That makes us a kinda garage band. Can you smell the carbon monoxide? The Sovtek tube guitar amp that I used sitting next to me kicked ass.
Pictured below: Marc Montanchez's home studio setup. Recording & mixing sessions went like a breeze. Three afternoons over two weekends: an afternoon for the band/instrumentals, one for the vocal overdubs, & one for the final knob-twiddling.
Really happy with the results. The tunes fucking rock out. Let's hope we can release these suckers soon. Stay tuned for more info. December 2, 2010 THE "GRUNGIEST" I EVER GOT! PLUS: NEW FILM BOOK Tom Waugh & Jason Garrison's "MONTREAL MAIN" (w/illustrations by yours truly)!
Just got my gorgeous copy of Tom Waugh & Jason Garrison's new book about rare neglected early-70's bo-ho-mo slice-of-life feature film MONTREAL MAIN that I did 3 pages of illustrations for. Can't wait to dig in. Image excerpt below. Book description & ordering info HERE
© 2010, Ricky-poo Trembles November 18, 2010 "EDGE OF NIGHT" MP3 (1980)! I've always liked this trippy soft no-wave number. During the first year of The American Devices, singer/guitarist Rob Labelle played bass on this music project with John Gurrin in a band I'm assuming was called Civilized Hearts because that's all the info I have on the audiocassette dupe I made this MP3 from. I believe the song was called Edge of Night (also written on the cassette). "I remember recording it at his apartment," Rob told me, "& I think Mary Jane Lamond (who played keyboards for The American Devices for a short while) & John's girlfriend (Devices drummer Carl Helm's ex whose name I can't recall) sang backups & Gurrin did those staccato vocals near the end. Most of the other voices come from the TV soap opera The Edge of Night." -Rick Trembles Pictured below: Rob Labelle on bass (super-8 framegrab from 1980). Click on the image or HERE to listen to the song.
EDGE OF NIGHT © 1980 John Gurrin November 11, 2010 "WE'RE A TWO-MAN BAND" FREE MP3! I made this song circa late-seventies with one of the earliest commercially available & affordable rhythm boxes, the Electro-Harmonix "Rhythm 12." Recorded it with a simple audio-cassette recorder hence the crappy sound, but revisiting the lyrics gives me a good laugh. I sure had some lofty ideas about what being in a band would be like. Going all over the world? The band I've been in ever since this recording (American Devices) feels lucky when they score a gig up the street! Just about the only thing that HAS come true with these lyrics is the fact that I haven't "grown any roots." Um, in the same city I've been stuck in all my furshlugginer life? Haw.
NOTE: Unfortunately got my rhythm box stolen by some scumbag band we shared a practice space with back in the early 90s. Click HERE to listen to the song. Lyrics below if you wanna sing along. And if you wanna actually play (!) a simulated Electro-Harmonix "Rhythm 12" click HERE. More info on the machine HERE. "WE'RE A TWO-MAN BAND" Hi, we're a two-man band. We've been riding on the rode all day & night and we're a two-man band. And we meet all kinds of people from good to bad. They come from all breeds of the nation, from happy to sad. I don't know much about them but they enjoy our fun music. They dance and dance. And all their problems go away it seems, until the next day. But the next day we're gone. And they have to see us again some other time. In some other country, some other place. Because we're a two-man band, we're a two-man band. We make fun all day and night. Until we go on the road all day and night again. And we meet all kinds of people all day and night. But you know we can't start growing roots in the city we're in. Because we have to go all over the world. All over the world, all over the world, all over, all over. © rick trembles (circa late-70s) October 28, 2010 HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY, SNUBDOM.COM! PLUS FREE BONUS MP3 OF RICK TREMBLES & CHRIS BURNS DOING "ASS MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS"!
Ever notice the little one-inch art samples that've been preceding all my Motion Picture Purgatories on this site only starting in the past few years? I began putting those above each strip so that whenever I linked a page to Fæcesbook it'd have a legible image to project within their site, so I could try to draw more people to my comix with these tiny previews (large images look like crap after they automatically shrink them down to their specifications). Ever since Fæcesbook, now Snubdom Dot Com seems more to me like an archive or repository for text, image files, movies & MP3s I can safely put links from into Fæcesbook to bypass their crotchety old guidelines & Big Brother censorial tactics. Because everybody's on Fæcesbook now. Everybody. Everybody but a handful of tight friends I know who still find it creepy. I have to admit, I do like the interactive aspect of FB that sites such as Snubdom Dot Com unfortunately can't provide. Instant comments to whatever you post are addictive. But I've had stuff removed from FB several times with warnings from them that I could have my account canceled without them even telling me what the offending material was & why. So if you want the Disney version go visit me on Fæcesbook, but if you want the real thing keep visiting this site from time to time where the shit stays permanent. Yerz Snubdomly, Rick Trembles SPECIAL BONUS: For having stuck with Snubdom all this time (whether it's been for the past ten years or thru this particularly long-winded installment of Random Blather) here is your reward; a cover of a song from The Beedles' White Assbum called Ass My Guitar Gently Weeps by Rick (American Devices) Trembles & Chris (Nutsak) Burns! Rick sings for a bit, then Chris sings for a bit, then both sing together, then everybody starts "weeping." Chris arranged it. Both of us play dueling guitars. For ordering info on how to get the whole 18-song 2-dollar CDR (recorded by Chris on 4-track behind Schwartz's Smoked Meat in our old Plateau-Mont-Royal apartment circa 1993 with various friends & musicians from the scene back then), contact chrispyburns@canoemail.com! Click HERE to listen to your free MP3 of Ass My Guitar Gently Weeps! October 7, 2010 PHONEY STAGE PATTER!
Here’s our full set list with the notes I read out for our show at Casa Del Popolo last Tuesday. After sound-check, me & the other singer/guitarist in The American Devices, Rob Labelle, walked up the street for some imperial rolls & green tea to kill time before show-time while I tried to make up stage banter. I scribbled it out as thumbnails first & then transcribed the whole thing on oversized paper with a magic marker so I could toss my idiot cards down on the stage floor to read off of between songs later. Rob contributed the stuff about Beyoncé, last sacraments, & anything in French. I contributed the toilet humour. 1) PLAY “FANCY PARTIES” Hi, we’re The American Devices. That was called FANCY PARTIES. Thanx for being not just another one of those “not the only ones” who never show up at our parties.* This next song is called SUDDEN “DIRT.” “No principals touched, no principals baptized.”** NOTES: * This is a reference to a radio ad that I later turned into a YouTube clip where I talk about how I met someone at a party recently who’d never seen my band despite having lived here for a long time. I told her “you’re not the only one,” so in the ad I asked people in similar situations not to be “just another one of those not the only ones” & come finally fucking see us. We put the original person on the guest list to insure they finally saw us (& heard this reference to them live). ** Lyrics from Lou Reed’s song “Dirt” because I’ve been on a “Street Hassle” kick lately (especially that particular song from the LP). 2) PLAY “SUDDEN DEARTH” This next song’s called “YOU’D EAT SHIT & SAY IT TASTED GOOD; IF THERE WAS SOME MONEY IN IT FOR YOU,”* as part of our continuing Lou Reed fromage… Otherwise known as SHITFINGER. NOTE: * More Lyrics from the song “Dirt” as part of our Lou Reed “fromage” (a smelly play-on-words with “homage).” 3) PLAY “SHITFINGER” Bouncy Beyoncé says; “is it a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare? Somebody pinch me!”* This one’s called WETMARE. NOTE: * Rob assures me these are actual Beyoncé lyrics from a recent dance hit of hers. 4) PLAY “WETMARE” 5) PLAY “GOT THE FEELING IT’S” “Can’t let you touch my dick,”* cuz this song’s called YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND. NOTE: * Actual lyrics from the song being introduced, which someone in the audience had been previously poking fun at me about for the past couple of days. 6) PLAY “YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND” Spontaneity is my middle name. That’s why I internally combust whenever I read out fake patter like this. This one’s called SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 7) PLAY “SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION” What’s fifty plus fifty? A hundred per cent of what you're about to get, & it’s called 50/50. 8) PLAY “50/50” 9) PLAY “SUCK MY ROCKS” The last sacrament is extreme unction. Talk about bodily functions. This one’s called BUNCO UNCTION. 10) PLAY “BUNCO UNCTION” J’ai la mal de mer pis s’am done des feeling bien bien weird.* This one’s called SPACEY SEASICK. NOTE: * Bad “Franglais” explaining what the song title does to me in French. In Montreal you can get arrested if you don’t throw in some token French. 11) PLAY “SPACEY SEASICK” 12) PLAY “PARTY POOPER” Andre Asselin on bass, Howard Chackowicz on drums, Rob Labelle on drugs, & I’m Prick Trembles on dick-all. We’re The American Devices. Thanx Shyny Diemindz & Jordi Rosen.* This last one’s called MEANING OF LIFE. NOTE: * The other bands we played with that night. 13) PLAY “MEANING OF LIFE” September 23, 2010 HEY I MADE A TEEVEE COMMERCIAL FOR PEEYEWTEWB! PLUS: FREE NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED 70'S PUNK MP3 WITH ME ON THE RAT-A-TAT-TAT MACHINE! Here's a tender little tune by my first band The Electric Vomit for you hot on the heels of Canada's controversial Gun Registry Vote called Machine Gun Fun from 1978! My rat-a-tat-tat guitar was influenced by Jimi Hendrix's classic rat-a-tat-tat song Machine Gun cuz I wuz a Hendrix nerd back when I wuz a little poopoo! Also! Cum C The American Devices w/Shyny Diemindz and Jordi Rosen & Friends @ Casa Popolo September 28 (4873 St-Laurent)! Click HERE or on the framegrab below to watch my TEEVEE commercial for it!
August 26, 2010 TRICKY RICKY! "It’s tricky to stay consistent & grow at the same time," Rick Trembles says. How presumptuous can you get. New interview with him about Motion Picture Purgatory @ Isle of Cinema by Boaz Dror HERE July 29, 2010 MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY DECENSORTIZED @ THE FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL!
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 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!
Yours psycho-delicately, Rick Trembles May 13, 2010 "JOAX" BY RICK TREMBLES FROM 1975! PLUS: HOME SWEET HOME!
Ricky-poo May 6, 2010 "THE BIRTH OF HOCKEY" BY CANADIAN GOLDEN AGE CARTOONIST JACK TREMBLAY (MY DADDY)!
Puck-Bunny Trembles April 8, 2010 THE GREEN GILL!
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!
January 14, 2010 ORGANIC UNAMERICAN DEVICE SPOTTED IN SOUTHERN FRANCE! PLUS: FREE PRE-AMERICAN DEVICES "D-VICE" MP3!
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.
Photo © Mark Latour 2005 |
ALSO:
Happy New Year to 32-year-old band The American Devices, who are proud
to announce their newly forged association with 
Come
check out this new band I'm playing Stratocaster guitar for called Sacral
Nerves! First gig ever this Saturday for just 2 bucks @ The Womb (2029
St-Laurent)! With Johnny (ex-Futensil) Deck on double-neck guitar, Esther
Splett on vocals, Yan (Denial Tone) Basque on synthesizer, & 
It's
done. 7 years in the making, Érik Cimon & Alain Cliche's documentary
about the early Montreal punk rock scene
I
hate talking to the audience when my band plays. Nothing personal, but I’d rather
just play music than have to try to think up clever bullshit on the spot. If it
were up to me we’d bash through our set without a split second respite between
songs & then fuck off. But our drummer needs little breaks so he can catch his
breath between songs because he plays fast & hard. So it came down to me to start
making up phoney pre-written patter to stall once in a while throughout our sets.
After doing this for the last couple of years I finally realized it really doesn’t
even matter what the hell you say up there, because nobody gives a shit. So why
not get cryptic? 
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 
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).
