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Posts Tagged ‘Faust’s Guitar’

Dracula Hates Killer Icicles

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2021| 2 Comments »

Got to be honest, this wasn’t the blog entry I thought I’d be writing this morning. Had something completely different in mind.

I was going to talk about an old piece from my earliest painting days. Not the one above, which is a pretty early painting from around 1996 or 1997 that is called Faust’s Guitar. I did several versions of this painting in the first few years that I was showing my work publicly. I’ll save the other older painting for another day.

I came into the studio early this morning, about 5:30 AM. Still dark outside. And cold, only 10º. After flipping on the computer and hooking up to the interwebs, I went to the YouTube to look for a song that might accompany the other older painting. As I scanned down the list of various titles their algorithm had selected for my viewing pleasure, one title jumped out at me:

Dracula Hates Killer Icicles.

I couldn’t resist. had to click on it. I mean, come on– it’s Dracula Hates Killer Icicles. If it was Dracula Loves Banana Bread, I most likely don’t watch. But this has Killer Icicles, folks” Killer Icicles!

I watched and laughed at the sheer goofiness of it. I decided that something that had me laughing aloud at 5:50 AM deserved a post of its own.

This song, Dracula Hates Killer Icicles, is from a surf band  from St. Petersburg, Russia called Messer Chups. They play 1960’s style surf/ psychobilly instrumentals with a lineup that feature Igor Gitaracula (yeah, that rolls off the tongue)  on the guitar and Zombierella on the bass. The drums are provided by Rockin Eugene who is not seen in the video.

They also have featured the theremin, that electronic device that made that weird sustained woo-ooh sound was a staple of old 1950’s horror films, in several of their songs. I wrote about the theremin here many years back. It fits their profile well.

All in all, it’s just goofy, stupid fun. Nothing more. And on a cold Monday morning, is there anything wrong with listening to a Russian surf band playing a kitschy tune?

So, without any further ado, here’s Dracula Hates Killer Icicles. Who doesn’t? 

PS The video is from a video show Domino’s Batcave which is hosted by Domino Barbeau, a burlesque queen turned horror show host. That’s a career path every parent desires for their child, right?

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Tomorrow Never Knows

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , on October 3, 2013| 3 Comments »

GC Myers--Fausts Guitar Popular music has played a huge part in storytelling in films and television in recent years.  For example, this past weekend saw the end of the television series Breaking Bad with the final scene of the series having the song Baby Blue from Badfinger playing as it panned up from Walt’s body.  It was an effective use of the song, neatly tying up the series’ theme of the obsession that overwhelmed Walt’s life.  Some have felt that it was even too spot on but I’m not here to debate that.   It just reminded me of some other songs that have been used  to great effect in this  ( Crystal Blue Persuasion will  be  forever linked in my mind to a montage of meth production from  this show) and  other series.

In the Sopranos, which almost always was brilliant in its choice of accompanying music, one of my favorite endings came when Tony Soprano was particularly cruel to his sister, leaving her home and walking down the street as I’m Not Like Everybody Else from the Kinks played.  It just perfectly summed up the scene and Tony’s self-justification for his often horrible behavior.  Just a great scene.

But I think my favorite came in Mad Men, when ad man Don Draper could not understand why his clients, in 1967, so wanted the music of the Beatles for their ads.  It was all just music to him and he felt that any musician could easily put together something similar to the Beatles sound.  The episode ended with Don settling in at home with a drink after putting on the Beatles’ Revolver album on his hi-fi.  The song Tomorrow Never Knows comes up and the  eras suddenly converge for Don, a revelation that the world he knew is changing, moving beyond his control.  It is a beautiful summation of generational change.

Here’s the song with a film that Neil Aspinall put together in developing a third Beatles movie in 1967, which never came about.  The film would have made a wonderful juxtaposition to Don in the show.  The painting at the top is an older piece of mine, Faust’s Guitar.  I did a few versions of this image years ago and it remains a favorite of mine.

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