// Category Archive for: Underground/Cult

Kings of the Wild Frontier: An Analysis of Music-Related Halloween Costumes

By Hanna

Every music nerd knows dressing up is serious business. Halloween is the big night for us to pull out the stops on our [insert favorite obscure artist here] costume, and gives us a chance to show it off outside of gigs and poorly lit clubs in the harsh light of the work and family circle.
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Acid Leaves No Trace: Ten Morbid Melodies from Garbo’s Daughter

By Kristin Messina, Mandy Mullins, and Jaime Sparrowhawk

This issue, the lovely ladies from Garbo’s Daughter share their favorite songs about death, including car crashes, motorbike crashes, violent beatings, and getting poisoned!
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Getting With The Program: Q & A With The Spook Lights

By Less Lee Moore

From Legends of America:

According to the legend, the spook light was first seen by Indians along the infamous Trail of Tears in 1836; however, the first “official” report occurred in 1881 in a publication called the Ozark Spook Light.
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Legendary Halloween Costumes: Tom Baker, Doctor Who (1973–1980)

By Emily Carney

When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s, American public broadcasting stations (PBS) played episodes of the English cult TV series Doctor Who. Personally, as a young child I couldn’t really get into the show; I thought the episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus were much funnier, and the guys on that show seemed less freakishly scary than the star of DW, Tom Baker. (Of course, I ask myself now why my parents let me watch Monty Python at age 4. That show could get a bit adult-oriented to say the very least). As a child I found Baker less engaging than other TV characters, and more frightening and unusual than anything. Peter Davison (the next Doctor after Tom Baker) was far more “cuddly” and seemed more tailored to smaller children with his wan, handsome smile and cricket clothes.
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Stars Of The Pewter Screen: Trash Movies

By Ann Clarke

I like trashy films. I probably watch more trash films as opposed to movies with actual integrity. Not to say I don’t enjoy some Oscar-worthy entertainment, but I find it much more intriguing to watch the stuff that has no redeeming quality (at face value, anyway).
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Please Don’t Spoil The Movie By Adding Your Own Soundtrack: An Interview With Mike Nelson

Interviewed by Megashaun

Mike Nelson was a writer/host for the cult classic TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. In it, Mike (and in earlier years, Joel Hodgson) and their robot pals onboard the Satellite of Love were subjected to watching b-movies while their fictitious employers at the Gizmonics Institute observed the crew’s reactions. These reactions ranged from goofy commentary during the films to sketches between the film and they were, for the most part, very funny.
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No Shame In Flamboyance: An Interview With Gere Fennelly

Interviewed by Less Lee Moore

One of the coolest live performances I ever saw was in Dallas TX in 1993. Redd Kross was playing with a bunch of other bands (including pre-indie-cred Nick Heyward from Haircut 100) for the Live 105 Acoustic Christmas.

For their cover of PJ Harvey’s “Oh My Lover,” keyboard player and pianist extraordinaire Gere Fennelly performed the song on a baby grand, with singer Jeff McDonald dramatically sprawled on top of it.

Although she left Redd Kross soon after to concentrate on other pursuits, that amazing flair for theatricality and humor still infuses everything she does.
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A Funny-Animal Comic Book: Cerebus

By Christian Lipski

I am reading a funny-animal comic book called Cerebus.

That’s what I imagine people say when I try to explain what Cerebus is all about. There are so many questions to get past before you can really get down to why the epic is worth reading, but here are a few answers to those questions. . .
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Looking For A Visionary: Redd Kross on YouTube

By Less Lee Moore

Although Redd Kross recently reformed with its finest line-up to date (Jeff McDonald, Steve McDonald, Roy “No Relation” McDonald, Robert Hecker) and although they have been playing shows all over the world for the past few years (UK, Spain, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago. . . to name a few) I’ve chosen to focus on ten older videos (plus one honorable mention).
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The Geeks Shall Inherit The Jokes: Cinematic Titanic

“If they could give him plastic surgery,
you think they could’ve fixed the scar on his hand?”

For those of us who were Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, the new riffing-over-bad-movies venture of Joel Hodgson (and original cast members Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, and J. Elvis Weinstein) is like the second coming of Crow T. Robot.
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