Underdogs and gutter-punks

The Fringe Media Film and Music Blah-blah was last night and it was perhaps the most well attended of the recent shows. This was due in no small part to the many "friends of the band" Sleezus Fist and the Latter-Day Taints brought in. Some of them were funny too! Like the drunk-rocker girl who tripped in the dark and tried to play it off by remaining on the grimy floor of the Redblood Club, and having what I'm sure was a very important conversation on her cellphone. This was done quite loudly I might add! The short film was forgettable and I didn't stick around to see the band, having gotten my fill via their website, but the feature film made it all worth it. DIE YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS was great, not perfect but very entertaining. If it were perfect I wouldn't be wasting my time writing about it here for all you fine folks(!?!). Perfect films/music/art/books are pretty much covered by many other more capable writers. I love the underdog, and even the most brain-washed and undiscerning of you probably have or will at one time or another. It's that phenomenon that occurs when a creative person or group still has the rough edges, a fire in their belly, and hunger to do it for the right reasons. This doesn't mean they won't, or don't want to sell out it just means they're nowhere near it yet.

I think the guys that made it are out of Rhode Island, and they have had some stuff at Tromadance, and a big movie festival in Berlin. The story involves a loveable, eloquent, homicidal maniac in search of his wife who is kidnapped during an idyllic picnic of a decapitated head and champagne. The evil Dr. Nefarious has seen her own depraved, and cannibalistic acts via his remote viewing technology and must have her for his own. Conflict firmly in place, our "hero" scours the globe visiting different locals on a seemingly aimless quest for her. This does allow for the insertion of many colorful characters, the most entertaining and legendary of which is the recently deceased rockabilly, one-man-band Hasil Adkins who I kind of eulogized in a previous post. As a fan even I was suprised at just how genuinely eccentric, backwoods, and brilliant "The Haze" was, and I kick myself for missing him at last years Las Vegas Rockaround. The film is entertaining, absurd, and funny enough to satisfy those that are already familiar with what comes with watching a low-budget, independent, undergound movie like this one. If you're only used to watching Hollywood mind-rot then stear clear, OR try it out, maybe you'll be converted.
Almost forgot about the gutter-punks. Not much to say but as they are often around when Justin is involved I just think it's funny that they are oblivious to the fact that they and most of the other varieties of "hard-core" punkers have a stricly regimented uniform that smacks of mindless conformity. As I've often heard those that were around before punk broke big the first time (in late '76/early '77) say(approximately) "...the minute you saw mohawks and the standard leather jacket everywhere it was nothing but posers...", and that was a LONG time ago. Or as I used to say in high school, "Everyones trying so hard to be different that they're all the same". I know it's been said before, but what hasn't.

Watch the trailer, and look at the purty pictures:

http://www.dieyouzombiebastards.com/dyzblobby.html