Music from Johnny Cash, Bob Wayne, Elliot Brood, Oldboy, Devil Makes Three, Country Willie, One-Eyed Mule as well as a preview of the new album “Ask Me This” by Denmark based band Alcoholic Faith Mission! Alcoholic Faith Mission is a band from Copenhagen that continues to push genres and boundaries with creative, witty, catchy songs. While far outside the “insurgent country & outlaw bluegrass” that this page is known for ….AFM is a band you simply can not miss!
Music from Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams III, Handsome Family, Elliott Brood, Joey Allcorn, Murry Hammond, Old Boy….as well Johnny Cash-Live in Austin, Texas 1994! Download or stream!
Looking for a holiday show that wont make ya puke? Download or stream 2hrs of great and commercial free music in the season of hyper-commercialism ! Music from Johnny Cash, Steve Von Till, Townes Van Zandt , Sea Wolf, Jack White, The Dirt, One-Eyed Mule, Rev. Glasseye, The Pogues as well as new Christmas songs from Brent Amaker and The White Ghost Shivers ! Special guest …Ernest Tubb!
Halloween has rang the doorbell of The Smooth & Demented Show again this year for one of our most celebrated annual broadcasts! Our treat is a live set from gothic country pioneer Sons Of Perdition! Zeb is all acoustic in this set of dark and treacherous songs for your Halloween delight including brand new songs from the yet to be released SOP album called “The Trinity”! Music from Johnny Cash, Hank III, The Coffinshakers, Those Poor Bastards, Carmen Lee, The Ramones, The Misfits, JB Nelson & The Chainsaws, Old Boy, The Louvin Brothers and much more! Special guest…Vincent Price!
Music from Waylon Jennings, Bob Wayne, Roger Alan Wade, Possessed By Paul James, Lonesome Wyatt & Rachel Brooke, Shooter Jennings, Hank Williams III w/ Tom Waits, Old 97′s, Bill Monroe, Reverend Glasseye. The last part of the program features music from Wisconsin based Carmen Lee & The Tomorrow River Two with selections from their anticipated new album titled “Big Star” !
Music from Kitty Wells, Hank III, Joe Buck, The Coffinshakers, Those Poor Bastards as well as the new split EP of Slate Dump/Sleepy Eyes Nelson called “Covered In Blues” ! While Slate Dump is new to The Smooth & Demented Show…Sleepy Eyes Nelson has been getting a spin on KAOS radio for a while now and his music is always a dark, drunken joy to play on the program. Authentic blues album from two great artists! Download or stream the full broadcast from KAOS radio!
What surprises most folks about the genre of gothic country… is that something called gothic country even exists! If you get them to understand it is not quite Marilyn Manson in a cowboy hat (even though that holds a certain appeal) you can direct them to these three nightmarishly wonderful albums!
Reverend Glasseye-“Black River Falls” 2001
Formerly of Slim Cessna Auto Club it is Reverend Glasseye that brings a solid dose of darkness to the country-roots music world and is one of the early practitioners in the current gothic country movement. Reverend Glasseye & His Wooden Legs “Black River Falls” album is a gem of a recording that seeps the feeling of a dark carnival. A shot of Absinthe may go as well with this album as would a glass of whiskey. Glasseye brings a klesmer and sometimes circus element to this very theatrical sounding album. Songs like “3 Ton Chain” really transport you into a story of lonely travelers in dark times and Glasseye incorporates a cacophony of instruments to make a well layered and authentic sound that takes the listener far away. “Black River Falls” is a trip worth taking.
A screen door slams closed in the first few seconds of this album starting off the song “Dust Storm” and the tone is set for the quintessential gothic country song that may be one of the most important to date. One of the most important songs to date because it has more in common with industrial or even black metal then with country music yet when Lonesome Wyatt swings the hammer down he hits the country nail on the head with a lyrical style that is sinister, lonesome and …sometimes…downright mean! Tunes like “God Damn Me” and “Hellbound Train” have a classic country/folk songwriting ethic behind the dark and domed layers of crunching and crackling music that swirls in the background of these brilliantly crafted songs. “Hellfire Hymns” is a gothic country masterpiece that is a suiting bridge between the punk/metal world and the country music world. Set your speakers ablaze with these “Hellfire Hymns”!
Classic British and Scottish folk music combined with American country roots is not a new idea by a long shot. The Dirt raise the gothic country bar with their debut 2010 release called “Bury Me Tomorrow” and every song is a dark pleasure that takes a cue from those roots elements. Based in Glasgow, Scotland these songs about murder, lust, death and loss are well fleshed out and to the point. Every song is a gothic delight but the album truly succeeds by inserting ironically upbeat songs in the midst of this wicked musical revelry. After tunes that drip from the precipice of darkness like “Built This Church” The Dirt then delivers a playful number as they follow with “Love Is Like A Cold War” and alternating male/female vocals by Graeme Dirt and Jen Dirt on the subject of relational stubbornness’ is a ray of sunlight before the black clouds roll back in. The Dirt is one of the most exciting groups in their genre right now but I warn ye… depression is a part of this album. Evil is a part of this album….but greatness should follow this extremely promising band wherever they roam! Don’t be scared. Put your ear to The Dirt.
Smooth & Demented Show
Music from Kitty Wells, Hank III, Munley & The Lee Lewis Harlots, Carmen Lee, Scott H. Biram, Joe Buck and featuring the dark country release from Glasgow based band The Dirt!
The Dirt formed in Glasgow of 2007 and put their debut album out entitled “Bury Me Tomorrow” before embarking on a brief European tour to support it in 2011. The new album is 11 songs (recorded in a former slaughter house) that ache with primal, gothic sounds and disturbing tales of evil deeds. ”Bury Me Tomorrow” is a gloomy triumph of underground folk and country music that is a must listen! The Dirt have placed a dark offering upon the alter of gothic country. Lets hope they keep it up!
If music is the road and musicians are the houses, stores and rest stops along the way, then the towns and cities that populate this world would have to be the genres of modern music. You would know those names well…the big cities at least! Wandering this road ya meet a hitchhiker with one eye missing who tells you a creepy story of darkness and musical macabre. Cannibals, cruelty, vengeance and possession are just some of the horrors he speaks! Only a ghost story but you take the time to follow the directions the hitcher gave. The path you take is just the same as the one-eye told in his spook tale. Driving your truck through the metropolis of Country and to the outskirts of its suburb called Bluegrass…you find an over grown road that stretches for miles of loneliness and desolation only to dead end at a dilapidated old protestant church and adjacent, forgotten cemetery. When you venture inside and sit at the rotten pews you find two hymnals. One is titled “The Kingdom Is On Fire” and the other is ominously called “Psalms For The Spiritually Dead”. What kind of church is this? You have found your way to a doomed place this time!
Sons Of Perdition is a band that is walking the dark side streets of the old time/bluegrass music scene. SOP’s newest album is called “Psalms For The Spiritually Dead” and it is a dark and slow moving train of song that is sure to please the most twisted music fan or bluegrass explorer. The “Spiritually Dead” album is considerably slower in pace then the first offering with a funereal dirge aspect that will delight your twisted soul. The mind behind SOP is Zebulon Whatley (a moniker that may be a loosely veiled reference to the stories of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.) Ol’ Zeb has titled each of these new songs as a psalm to display his fanatically religious nature. Incredible artwork graces the cover to this dammed tome of song by German folk artist Christoph Muller whom is known for his gritty artwork depicting characters from the outlaw country music world of the American south. Muller’s work is a perfect fit for Sons Of Perdition!
Start to finish this album is a hellish ride of dark musical fun! Misfit gangs of murderous thugs roam through these songs like in the tune “Psalm of Warmth”. Then we have one of my favorite’s on this album…”Psalm of Retribution” about the dark horror that may lurk in the cellar . Zeb has his own take on the classics like in “Psalm of Nod” as he sings “the sea is blood and the moon is bone, I walk this highway all alone…God is gona trouble that water….ohhh wade in the water children”. This album also includes a track called “Psalm of Solitude” that seems to have a bit of Cormac McCarthy’s “Child of God” conjured in it. Deep, driving bass lines run through this album, that along with percussive stomping and clapping (as in “Psalm of Eulogy”) give the “Spiritually Dead” record the feel of a cursed gospel choir as echoed electric guitars add a tense, sometimes psychedelic ambiance to these well layered songs. If one negative can be said for the new album in comparison to his first record would be there is no real barn-burner or ironically pleasant song featured on the album to change the pace, wherein that was the very strength of “The Kingdom Is On Fire” and the lacking of this aspect can make for a very slow listen….but a good one !
Things look good for the future of Sons Of Perdition as Zeb has scored a short film called “The Backwater Gospel” that features him as a un-believer and outsider captured in wonderful animated splendor. SOP has quietly given bluegrass and old time music a dark gift of southern gothic with “Psalms for the Spiritually Dead” now only time will tell if the pious souls of those musical genre’s will open the wickedly fun package that is Sons Of Perdition! Say your prayers.
