Even more twisted and weird than me! -Robert Crumb

This week's review: TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

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

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

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

band history

full lyrics to CD

Devices on YouTube

Devices on MySpace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More info at Devices MySpace page!

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

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: THE BOOK! ON SALE NOW

ORDER ONLINE FROM FAB PRESS! ALSO AVAILABLE IN-STORE AT CHAPTERS 1171 ST-CATHERINE STREET, MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA 514-849-8825

MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY RADIO

BITE YOUR TONGUE!

ATTENTION FILMMAKERS!

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

HEY IS DEE DEE HOME?

SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY

VALERIE

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

Original art for sale Trembles Gallery

SECRET HISTORY:

of the AMERICAN DEVICES

band tree

FREE MP3s!

the american devices

BAY OF PIGS (1.43MB)

WETMARE (2.99MB)

DECENSORTIZED (2.89MB)

GORY STORY (3.53MB)

BIG BROWN WORLD (3.32MB)

SUCK MY ROCKS (2.78MB)

PARTY POOPER (3.55 MB)

GOT THE FEELING IT'S (1.87MB)

THE DRUGS WE TAKE (2.59MB)

FAT GIRL (2.87MB)

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

BAD GIRLS DIE (8.33 MB)

Repression is the root of all creativity!

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

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

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

blather archives

trembles interview

slide show

poster gallery

SNUB (the book)

FREE DEVICES "ROCK VIDEO" FOR THE SONG "MEANING OF LIFE"!

TO DOWNLOAD THE MOVIE, CLICK THE TITLE IMAGE ABOVE, OR RIGHT-CLICK IT & SELECT "SAVE TARGET AS" (wmv 7.64 mb)

email rick

ricktrembles@hotmail.com

UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY FORBIDDEN

BRAND NEW! Rick Trembles' Motion Picture Purgatory Volume Two available both in paperback & signed/numbered limited edition hardcover! Official launch at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival July 2009! Pre-order from FAB Press now HERE

UPCOMING AMERICAN DEVICES SHOWS

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 Sunday, July 19 @ Bar Le Saphir (3699 boul. St-Laurent)

American Devices with Nomeansno & Grand Trine, Suono per il Popolo Music Festival, Friday, June 26th @ La Sala Rossa (4848 boul. St-Laurent)

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This week's MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: Rick Trembles' comic strip review of TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN: “More than meats the eye!”

Last week's review: Strange Shadows in an Empty Room

RANDOM BLATHER...

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)

December 25, 2008

THE (Maggie &) JIG(gs)* IS UP: PART ONE

Here's a Facebook chat I had with Jessica Vile, author of the excellent My Secret Cockupation: The Private Journals of a Prostitute back in September. It had to do with what I imagined to be a slightly sideways glance aimed my way at her Montreal zine signing/launch. Turns out I was wrong about it but I still feel like it's a bit grey. Basically, she was talking to me & some other fans of hers about golden showers, then looked at me & said "I don't mean to pass judgement but I don't understand brown showers." I didn't respond to it at the time cuz I didn't know what she was aiming for. But then it hit me, & I got worried my lack of response might've been conveying some kinda denial on my part, so I messaged her to clarify after the fact. Mind you, don't get me wrong, this whole episode makes me LOL bigtime, there's no hard feelings whatsoever. I "heart" delicate misunderstandings of this sort; this is my kinda slapstick. Gimme a molehill like this & I'll turn it into a mountain any day just to kickstart a dialog on the topic. But the real long-story-short is that it's given me the impetus to wanna start working on a new biographical comix/animation sequel and/or prequel to all the butt 'n' poo predilections featured in the Goopy Spasms comic & movie that started all this…

Rick Trembles (to Jessica Vile): "Speaking of shit, it only dawned on me a little later that when you said 'I don't mean to pass judgement, but…' (referring to how you don't understand brown showers) you meant it towards me! I wasn't trying to skirt around the issue, the other people there who were in on that conversation are friends & have seen every single dirty perverse drawing I ever did, they know all about by cartoon peccadilloes inside out."

"But for the record, I have no craving for chowing down on freaky fetid feces. I think (at least I hope) my 'problem' is simply more of visual kink. I say this cuz I am obsessed with butts. Female ones to be exact. Obsessed with every single aspect of buttness, including what they were designed to do. Tho it all makes me horny as fuck, it's also a natural curiosity to me as an artist. The anatomy & mechanisms of it all intrigue me."

"But especially, I have a yen for anal penetration (mostly when it comes to smut) & I know it sounds nuts but what draws me to scat type visuals is how a long phallic-looking turd slowly protruding outwards can look just like anal penetration but backwards. I can't stand the runny sickly looking stuff, for me it has to be solid, cylindrical & clean. And I can't fathom even smelling what's going on, let alone eating it, but I admit I do have a morbid fascination for the peeps who do. Like why do they do it? Sometimes (in videos I've seen) they're even blindfolded which to me defeats the whole purpose of the visual aspect. It just boggles the mind. I guess for them it's strictly an S&M/B&D type sitch."

"I've drawn comix of myself in poo-eating situations but I was pretty distanced from it. The reality of it would prolly have me ralphing before I could even position myself (& puke I am NOT into). Still, this prolly exhibits an oral fixation thrown into the mix, but like I said, the visuals are the most important thing so even if it were some kind of manufactured hygienic rubbery putty-like reverse dildo substance/material excreting outwards stretching anal lips open & apart, that would suffice."

"Hey maybe I should invent such a toy & patent it! There's a fetish niche that hasn't been explored/exploited yet. Thing is, folks would prolly be incredibly wary of swallowing whole a foreign object up their asses for fear maybe they wouldn't have the sphincter kegels to plop it back out & then end up in the E.R.!"

"And when I was making mainlining gestures yesterday during that conversation, I meant; 'don't scato-holics have to get shots for hep before they play around in that stuff or something'?"

"Anyhoo, I am long overdue for a new essay on this topic (I've written humongous rants about my butt obsessions before on my blog/site that need to be followed up on). I've been meaning to clarify in further deets what all this scat crap means to me for a while now so stay tuned. Pee-yew... uh, I mean FEE-yew!"

Jessica Vile: "Whoa dude, I didn't mean it towards you at all but nice rant, I dig it!"

Rick Trembles: "WHA?? I thought for sure U seen my poopy comix & poopy animations. Guess I'm just thenthitive about my poopy drawringz then."

(She wrote back that she was familiar with those comix of mine BTW & reiterated how she always says "I don't mean to pass judgement" before she's about to say something that could be misinterpreted).

PS: In the new year expect additional musings on the topic, such as how part of my fascination stems from the juxtaposing of incredible beauty with supreme refuse, how extreme butt worship can forgive any excretion, how the primal nature of such a basic natural function can act as the ultimate equalizer by recalling our animalistic roots, & the peculiar resemblance an elongated turd dragging behind a woman's hindquarters has to a vestigial tail like something out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting. Sexy.

THE (Maggie &) JIG(gs)* IS UP: PART TWO

Diary entry December 2008: Really weird. So I'm trying to get to sleep last night & thinking about girls gets me tossing & turning. What else is new. I think for a moment about the last person that ever hugged me which triggers a slight boner. I decide to stop thinking about her because it's futile, nothing's ever gonna amount to anything with her, but I keep tugging on my cock now cuz it feels good. And I really, really need to feel good right now. I decide since no women are in my life at present, since I'm so fucking horny & since I have absolutely no prospects on the horizon, I'm gonna have to give my hard-on a complete faggot homo fuck tonight; break out the KY & shove stuff up my ass. No girls allowed; just non-stop physical sensations brought on by my own hand & sphincter, the only visual stimuli being my own ugly butt & inflated penis. I get up, turn on the lights, lug my mirror, mini butt plug, & bedside condom box fulla lube over to the living room & lie on the couch on my back with my legs up in the air like a gynaecologist's stirrups so I can get a good view of my rump's reflection. Since I know my hands are gonna be extra busy, I awkwardly balance the mirror up in front of me with my toes, getting ready to cop glimpses of my own asshole stretching open, about to get filled to the brim. I grease up that sliver of a butt-plug & start ramming it up my ass, pumping my erect wet cock up & down with my other fist tightly wrapped around it. Nothing. Rock hard pulsating schlong but nothing. So I pull out my now shit-smeared sliver & go get a bigger strap-on I happen to have gathering dust in some cabinet. Back in position, I keep fumbling with the mirror, having to pick it up with my greasy hands & balance it with my feet, trying to aim it in such a way that I can't sneak any peeps at my own sorry face cuz that'd burst my bubble bigtime. I don't want anybody involved in this shit, including & especially me. Complete privacy, please. So I try to swallow the whole fucking oversized bubblegum-pink plastic abomination up my asshole, but it won't budge past the head cuz my ass is too tight. It hurts. I decide to stand it up skywards on top of my elevated TV dinner-tray & sit on the motherfucker. No dice, it won't penetrate, not even with gravity on my side. So I go back to that other lame little plug, my hands smelling like shit now, trying to avoid touching anything else around me so I don't stink up the place, & the second I stick it up there the thing starts stinging the inside of my ass I guess cuz I just finished ravaging myself with that other larger instrument of butt destruction & I'm all sensitized. Once I got the whole fucker inside me though, it starts feeling better so I'm tugging on my dick, slamming my asshole like there's no tomorrow but still nothing. Why? I've done this before ample times no probs & it's made me spurt geysers. So I give up the dildo & with a glazed look on my face, figuring the jig is up, I start slowly, absent-mindedly playing with the tip of my cock dripping in KY, just rolling the head around the palm of my hand, opening & closing my pee-hole. It feels good. I've never done that in such a concentrated way like this before. Suddenly I'm thinking, eureka, if I keep at this maybe I'll discover a new sensation I can fuck with from now on all by my lonesome to make me cum. Who needs people. Cuz the tip of my dick is so tender right now, rubbing it almost makes me flinch & twitch away. The pre-cum's just dribbling out to the point where I can't tell what's KY & what's watered down jizm anymore. But nope; turns out it's tickling me more than anything else. That's what's making me wriggle. It tickles. So I fucking give up. I let my wiener wilt. No plastic homo fuck climax for me tonight. And I'm left with two smelly dildos I gotta scrub clean tomorrow morning while taking my shower, all for nothing. So here I sit in front of my computer writing this now, my goddamn underwear sticking to my ass from all that dried up KY wondering how the hell I'm gonna make it thru this motherfucking winter. Mary Christ-My-Ass.

WORST YEAR EVER

*Maggie & Jiggs = obsolete term for his & hers porto-potties named after century-old newspaper comic strip characters (BTW for all you philistines out there)

December 4, 2008

ORIGINAL LIMITED EDITION COLOR RICK TREMBLES ORGY MANDALA SILKSCREEN PRINTS FOR SALE!

Calling all pervs, calling all pervs! Now you too can own your very own copy of a one-of-a-kind flesh-coloured ORGY MANDALA silkscreen print on patented shockwhite card stock, originally microscopically doodled by yours truly for Lickety Split Magazine in B&W but magnified to approximately 24 X 24 humongous pulsating inches especially for Expozine 2008! Only 50 copies exist on the planet, each personally signed & numbered by me!

I experimented with backlighting on these suckers to great effect: a regular 60 watt bulb shone behind the middle of a print in a low-lit room provides mucho sexy stained-glass whorehouse decor party atmosphere while light gradually diffuses outwards to the edges. Backlit pink seems to take on a life of its own! Lick, uh I mean Click HERE (or on the image below) to see a larger color version of the artwork. Email me for ordering & postage info HERE

Rick Trembles

November 6, 2008

GOOPY NEWZ # 15! PLUS AMERICAN DEVICES ZOMBIE MASKS: THE FINAL ROTTEN FRUITS OF OUR LABOR!

Wanna see my animated film Goopy Spasms next week? Well then head on over to The Illuseum Witte de Withstraat 120, Friday November 14 & Saturday November 15 in Amsterdam, Holland (thanks to Pierre-Luc Vaillancourt of Cinema Abattoir)!

Now that Halloween's over it's time to post the rotten fruits of our labor! Our pizza-faces represent "YES WE CAN" for the future of putrescence & decay!

The split second we were done with our makeups I videotaped ourselves lip-synching a few Devices tunes so I could put some beauty-shots of our zombie faces up on YouTube. Click on the images below to see 'em...

Below: The monster makeup Evil Andy made for me! Click on the images below to be taken to the color gallery...

And here's the makeup I designed for Rob.

Here's the rest of the American Devices. We figured we'd make Andre & Howard up as freshly shot-in-the-head humans who can't turn into zombies cuz destroying their brains is the only way to kill em before they turn! Or something like that!

Zombie-Devices live at Les 3 Minots!

Pictured at the center: the makeup man responsible for this awesome night, Evil Andy! He's been in the horror biz for 70 years!

After the show Nutsak's Chris Burns said on the Montreal music message-board Stillepost that his one complaint was that all three bands started too late & played a tad too long. I tend to agree & answered him with the following...

#1: The bar owner actually encouraged us to play long cuz he wanted people to stick around & keep buying drinks. He told us "you're gonna play til 2:30, right?" We didn't wanna be that excessive but it almost ended up that way anyhow. Plus I couldn't even show up to the venue 'til my horror makeup was done so I didn't have much control over the evening. That meant forgoing a soundcheck, forgoing setting up any kinda merch table, forgoing dealing with the door (hence the pay-what-you-can cover which ended up being a hat passed around after every band). Tho the openers were free to take care of all that stuff themselves if they wanted to. I told Will Austin to go on once there was enough audience. I thought by the time we'd show up they'd be into their set already.

#2: But after over a month preparing those elaborate masks & then about 5 hours getting made up just before showtime I just wanted to chill out & enjoy myself. No way was I gonna spend the night cracking the whip, but we did end up going up to both openers at one point asking how much longer they're gonna play. Hard to hassle a band to get off the stage for example who came all the way from Valleyfield for measly "pay-what-you-can" (Crabe). By the time Devices got on, it did thin out a little which kinda sucks but I had a riot anyways. I dunno what the etiquette is for opening band lengths. Whenever Devices are asked to open we figure ok, let's keep it short & sweet. But then again, I probably told Austin & Crabe the bar owner wanted us to stretch it so that people stick around. Who knew that'd trigger reverse effects.

#3: I kinda didn't mind playing late cuz I knew there was a Nymphets & Brutal Knights show down the street that would end earlier than us & was hoping some friends that were going to that might wind up catching the tail end of our set & get to see our crazy zombie masks I been yammering about forever. That did kinda happen; two thirds of The Nymphets dropped by to say hi among others. And I dunno, we were headlining & we don't have any other gigs lined up for a while so I figured we'd play a healthy-sized set.

AM I OVERTHINKING THIS SHIT

Ok, that about wraps it up for our "GRAND END-OF-SUMMER/BEGINNING-OF-FALL TOUR OF THE MAIN." Stay tuned for our upcoming stare-at-the-wall winter cabin-fever twiddle-our-thumbs atrophy fest! Yay!

Rick Trembles

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