Even more twisted and weird than me! -Robert Crumb click here to email me!

Rick Trembles on Facebook

ON SALE NOW! AMERICAN DEVICES CD from Grenadine Records

New! 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 videos on youtube

"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!

RICK TREMBLES' BAND "THE AMERICAN DEVICES" ON MySpace

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

Limited edition personally numbered illustrated split single

Original art for sale Trembles Gallery

Montreal's best kept secretion! SECRET HISTORY

of the AMERICAN DEVICES

band tree

FREE MP3s!

the american devices

BAY OF PIGS (1.43MB)

DECENSORTIZED (2.89MB)

GOT THE FEELING IT'S (1.87MB)

BIG BROWN WORLD (3.32MB)

SUCK MY ROCKS (2.78 MB)

PARTY POOPER (3.55 MB)

THE DRUGS WE TAKE (2.59 MB)

FAT GIRL (2.87 MB)

the sacramentos (devices founder phil n'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)

Coming soon! The Electric Vomit!

Corpusse music video by Rick Trembles!

email rick

ricktrembles@hotmail.com

Simply type in your email addy below and click the subscribe button for weekly updates!

All contents © 2000-2008, Rick Trembles

UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY FORBIDDEN

 


NEW! RICK TREMBLES' FIRST 70'S PUNK BAND THE ELECTRIC VOMIT ON 7-INCH!

Visit Garbage Bag Records to order now & stay tuned for launch party info!

FRIDAY MARCH 7, 2008: THE NYMPHETS & THE AMERICAN DEVICES (Nymphets 7" & Electric Vomit 7" double launch!) w/guest singer & original Vomit Rabid Roy Random live flown in from New Mexico to perform 2 Vomit songs by the Devices! $8 at Zoobizarre (6388 St-Hubert Street, Montreal)!


Home Merch Gallery Archives Devices

This week's MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY: Rick Trembles' comic strip review of SPEED RACER "Sugar rush, saccharine comedown!"

Last week's review: Starcrash


RANDOM BLATHER...

May 8, 2008

SIXTEEN PRELIMINARY SKETCHES FOR MINIATURE SCULPTURE IDEAS (by Rick Trembles)!

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

April 17, 2008

THE ELECTRIC VOMIT IMMORTALIZED IN PAINT!

At last week's kick-ass Aids Wolf concert a young man by the name of Eric Bent approached me to inform me that he had been at the reunion show of my 70's punk band The Electric Vomit at Zoobizare last month & painted a picture of it! I asked him if I could see it & then gave him my e-mail address. The next day he sent me the following photo of it. Click on the image to see a full color larger version. Awe-freaken-some!

March 13, 2008

GOOPY NEWZ #9 + Nick Zedd + Electric Vomit on pYoukTube!

Wanna see my animated film Goopy Spasms this weekend? (Pictured right: Official BUNNY award winner for "most effectively offensive short" at the BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL, & winner of the "best original short" at the 2006 CALGARY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL)! Well then head on over to FRIENDSHIP COVE this Friday, 215-A Murray Street (Metro Bonaventure) cuz it'll be opening for legendary underground filmmaker Nick Zedd (along with other local shorts like Francois Miron's latest Hymn to Pan) as part of a 2-day Cinema Abattoir retrospective where Zedd will be in attendance each night presenting his own rare films. Thursday at the same venue will also be the world premiere of Cinema of Transgression documentary Llik Your Idols. Do NOT miss this!

Also! Check out these new YouTube clips fresh from my band's last gig where we got to play with the original singer of The Electric Vomit, Rabid Roy Random (pictured at right from last Friday). T.E.V. were one of Montreal's early punk bands from the 70's & Roy flew down from New Mexico just for this Garbage Bag Records 7-inch vinyl launch with The Nymphets (who were also launching their own record) & The American Devices. You shoulda been there cuz oh man that ULTIMATE in anticlimacticness intro for Rabid Roy Vomit that preceded his 2 tunes! Classic. Classic FUCKUP. Yummy hilarity-inducing typical black-cloud/curse of the devices/vomit. At the end of our set when we introduced Roy to close us off with those Vomit songs we did a prolonged throbbing one-note deadpan bass riff that was supposed build up to his appearance all dramatic & showbizzy while I put down my guitar so I could take of my jacket & wear my old official Electric Vomit shirt & then explode into my guit riff. So as I pick up my guitar it decides to DIE w/out warning... JUST THEN! No sound came out of it. NOTHING. I switched all the wires, twiddled with knobs, screamed in confusion, joked into the mike how this was "exactly like 30 years ago," & then Nymphets passed us their guit to save our butts but it was missing half the strings (?!?). So devices second guit Rob passes me his axe & says just play it alone & so after Roy's EXPLOSIVE intro just standing their smiling with his hands in his pockets for 10 minutes waiting for something to happen we ripped into the shit & lucky it was extra fine. Roy can sure belt 'em out: see it for yourselves youtuberized (both original 70's recordings are on the record)...

NO END

TREASURE HUNT

Thanks to Louise Burns for filming all this live footage for us by the way. Just tried my guitar now & was relieved to find out it did indeed croak cuz I was worried maybe somehow it was something silly like me forgetting to turn my volume knob on or some shit. Now to open that motherfucker up & see what the hell's wrong with the innards. GREAT TIMING, ASSTARDED GUITAR OF MINE. Rob joked that my guitar broke down so that only one player could do it cuz the songs weren't meant to be played w/2 guitars (true, vomit only ever had one guit). Plus: JOHANNA NYMPH IS A SUPERHUMAN DRUMMER! Check out their cover version of another Vomit tune they did at the same show (not available on the record)...

ENERGY CRISIS

Funny note: title of above song was commenting on the actual energy crisis that had occurred in the 70's (lineups at the pumps, etc) & here we are almost exactly 30 years later about to go thru the same crap!

Yours pukely, Rick Trembles

March 6, 2008

COME SEE RICK TREMBLES' FIRST 70'S PUNK BAND THE ELECTRIC VOMIT BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE FOR 3 SONGS! This Friday, March 7, $8 at Zoobizarre, 6388 St-Hubert Street, Montreal. Click on the handsome Walter Scott poster pictured below to see a bigger version (gee, speaking of handsome, who's that ugmo in the middle of the image with the big-ass shades?).

Here's the official press release from the promoters: "The fine folks at BSTB, Pirates of the Lachine Canal, Psychic Handshake Recordings and Garbage Bag Records are getting together to present: THE NYMPHETS & THE ELECTRIC VOMIT Duel 7” Launch Party! Featuring Live Performances by THE AMERICAN DEVICES (a special performance by Montreal’s reigning punk scholars which will include two Electric Vomit songs performed with original lead singer Rabid Roy Random) and THE NYMPHETS (Montreal/Brooklyn garage punk dynamo's releasing their debut 7” on Psychic Handshake Recordings) + DJ sets by The Pirates of the Lachine Canal South West WEIRD PUNK Crew all night long!"

"This evening will be a unique celebration of two generations of Montreal punk rock. As many of you know, THE ELECTRIC VOMIT were one of Montreal's first punk bands when Rick Trembles started the band in the late 70s, and a precursor to THE AMERICAN DEVICES, who formed not long after the Vomit broke up. No recordings by the Vomit were released in their brief lifespan, but a demo tape from 1979 survived, sitting on the shelf for almost thirty years before an upstart label in Grand Mere, Quebec called Garbage Bag Records decided to release three songs from the session on a 7". The result is the incredible "No End" single, an invaluable addition to the Montreal punk discography that bridges the gap between the snotty, glam-influenced late 70s Montreal punk scene and the thrashier and artier sounds that would come out of that scene in the early 80s. The single will be available for sale at the show, and during THE AMERICAN DEVICES performance that night will be a performance within that performance of two ELECTRIC VOMIT songs from the single with original Vomit singer Rabid Roy Random flying in all the way from New Mexico just to sing those songs. This is a moment you are absolutely not going to want to miss."

(Pictured below L to R: Rabid Roy Random & Rick Trembles circa 78/79. Rick is gonna be wearing that same 30-year-old shirt at the show!)

"THE NYMPHETS are the yin to the Vomit's yang, if you will. Having formed just a few years back, they quickly shot to the top of the heap of this city's punk bands, and now have the U.S.A. set in their sites. The band found a second home last year in Brooklyn, NY, and have been splitting their time blowing minds in both cities. Their debut single "Feels Like Motherfuckers" on Psychic Handshake Recordings arrives just in time for the band to embark on a U.S. tour this spring that will see the band visit SXSW for the first time, but you folks will be the first people in the world to get your hands on this gem. This two song single features some of the best punk rock that's ever come out of this city. Its trashy, immediate, lo-fi garage punk with lean, catchy melodies, bringing to mind everyone from Supercharger to The Television Personalities. It's shit so good that we'll have to share it with those douchebags in NYC, but when you see how amazing this band is in the flesh and how well that translates onto this record, you'll understand. THE NYMPHETS performance will comprise a impressive set of originals (including the two songs from the 7"), as well as an ELECTRIC VOMIT cover, in the spirit of the evening. Both records will be for sale throughout the evening and the always awesome Pirates of the Lachine Canal South West WEIRD PUNK DJ crew will be spinning tunes when the bands aren't playing, and all night afterwards!"

Here's an interview with Rick Trembles about this show in the latest issue of The Concordian

February 14, 2008

MY UNABRIDGED INTERVIEW WITH THE KUCHAR BROS!

A few months ago I interviewed the legendary Kuchar Bros for The Montreal Mirror preceding their massive retrospective at the Cinémathèque Québécoise. Offscreen Magazine has just posted everything that DIDN'T make it into that article from my lengthy conversations (8880 words)! The classic underground cartoonist/filmmakers yack about the heyday of underground film & cross-pollinating with the likes of fellow underground cartoonists Mike Diana, Rory Hayes, Bill Griffith & Art Spiegelman! Check it out HERE!

Pictured below: “BUTCH” © 1983 by Mike Kuchar (from Funeral Party Volume Two: A Celebratory Excursion into Beautiful Extremes of Life, Death and Lust, edited by Shade Rupe, Rude Shape Productions, 1997).

Rick Trembles

February 7, 2008

MY SECRET COCKUPATION: THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF A PROSTITUTE!

From the perverted pen of Vancouverite Robin (Cinema Sewer) Bougie comes this latest instalment in his series of anecdotal sexposés, “My Secret Cockupation”! Following his other great minis, like “The John Project” (“interviews with dudes who pay for sex”) & “The Incest Project” interviewing actual people in unapologetic incestuous sexual relationships, this new zine’s filled with Bougie interviews w/a young prostitute he knows working in his area, Miss Jessica Vile, about how she got into the biz & her humorous adventures in whoring. Each of these mags is predominantly text-driven, reprinting conversations & email correspondences, sometimes anonymously to respect certain parties’ privacies, but never embellished or censored, & laced with Bougie’s excellent realistic smutty portrait drawings of the characters in question, more often than not in lurid, candid poses.

Cockupation standouts include chapters like “My First Time” about how Jessica got into the biz posting her wares on Craigslist so she could pay the rent. “Horny For Liquor” is about her & her gay hustler boyfriend whoring themselves out for a couple of cases of beer simply cuz they were horny, hungover & in the mood for some hair of the dog, & “Chocolate Chip” is about how a golden shower session went horribly wrong when… oh I’ll just let your imagination figure out where that chapter’s title is headed! It all sounds sordid but there’s an innocence & gleeful curiosity to Bougie’s technique of drawing out such true-to-life stories that makes you LOL rather than ralph or boo-hoo.

(Pictured at right: Jessica Vile on the back cover: Bougie sure can draw cute butts). And it’s informative too, Jessica makes no bones about it, selling your ass is not for everyone as some of her scarier tales can attest, like when she was assaulted by a homophobe that answered her boyfriend’s ad but the guy couldn’t cum to terms with the fact that he was into man-meat in the presence of a girl so he blew up. And the sex-for-beer story for instance reads like latter-day-Bukoswski but starring a sexy brat instead of the punchy pock-faced boozehound. Bougie closes his tract with post-porn-modernist Annie Sprinkle’s 40 reasons “Why Whores Are My Heroes” manifesto (used w/her permission). The best measly 4 bucks you can spend, “CHEAP & EASY (to read)” as the cover boasts! Order online via Bougie’s website Cinemasewer.com

January 24, 2008

NEW AMERICAN DEVICES MUSIC VIDEO ON YOUTUBE & LIVE SHOW WITH PARLOVR & FLAMES!

Come see my band The American Devices play this Saturday, January 26 @ Lab.synthese, 435 Beaubien Ouest, loft 200, with Flames! & Parlovr for the launch of "Four Minutes to Midnight" magazine number 9! Apparently we're on last.

To help promote the show I just made a new American Devices music video for the song Party Pooper which you can see here for free on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK4D0JeegkE

We'll be closing our set with this song Party Pooper on Saturday. The video's actually made from old footage of our 1986 lineup: Rick Trembles on vocs/guitar wearing the silver jacket, Rob Labelle on guitar with the boombox, Louise Burns on keyboards as go-go dancer, & Cups Von Helm on drums with the D-Cups & Cupcycle (Chris Burns also played bass on the tune but he wasn't in the video). Video portions were filmed by Michel "Rot Wang" Gagnon who was also in Mother's Meat Freud's Flesh. It's got old-school scratchy homemade super-8 film, claymation, pixilation, beer, tussling, broken hockey sticks, & motorcycles made outta drum kit bits. The animated "Cupcycle" was the actual drum kit we used to play with live back then & it weighed a ton, as much as, say, an actual goddamn motorcycle, so I sure don't miss it! But we rigged the headlights to go on & off in unison with the bass pedal to give audiences a light show so it was worth it. Come see what 20 years-plus can do to such a song this Saturday (minus the Cupcycle but plus our current kickass rhythm section consisting of Howard Chackowicz & Andre Asselin)! Pictured below; the actual storyboards I drew for the Cups Von Helm D-Cups sequence...

Rick Trembles

December 27, 2007

AMERICAN DEVICES NEW YEARS EVE MONTREAL BLOWOUT WITH CLOCKCLEANER, O-VOIDS & PANOPTICON EYELIDS (Click on the handsome Lisa Czech poster image below for larger color version)!

Come see my band The American Devices play this Monday night 9 PM December 31 at Friendship Cove (215A Murray Street) with DJ's Chloe Scum, Brett Wagg & Blamderson! Presented by The Pirates of the Lachine Canal! It's pay-what-you-can & I believe we're on second so don't come too late! We'll be unveiling 2 brand new songs, Pink in the Sink sung by me & Shitfinger sung by Rob Labelle! Check out the other crazy bands on the bill on MySpace:

CLOCKCLEANER (from Philadelphia)

O-VOIDS

PANOPTICON EYELIDS

Happy Poo Year!

Rick Trembles

December 6, 2007

NEW ONLINE GALLERY OF RARE 80'S MONTREAL PUNK ROCK POSTERS & COMIX BY REBECCA TUCKER!

Rebecca Tucker was the guitarist for the 1980's Montreal hardcore punk bands Terry Fox's Right Leg & No Policy & not only did she draw kickass comix & posters but used to custom build guitars as well! She eventually moved to Los Angeles & played in Frightwig for a while & now she makes fancy costumes for a living, having even dressed up Cameron Diaz & Gene Simmons from Kiss! I present to you for the first time ever an online gallery of her work, a series of rock posters followed by some rare comix. I published a few of her comix in Sugar Diet magazine in 1984 but lots of these have never been published before! Her comix always appealed to me, she has a distinct style & kinda creepy storylines that often deal with body image in disturbing ways. Click HERE or on the image above to start the show! Enjoy!

November 15, 2007

CORPUSSE ROCK VIDEO & COMIC STRIP!

Here's a music video I just made of Corpusse for the song Pretty Flowers (see my October 31 blog entry for more info on him). It incorporates live performances on video (camera-persons unknown; please contact me if you recognize it so I can give credit) & some old school super-8 footage I took of him one lazy afternoon circa early 90's. I play guitar on the live footage. The super-8 takes place at the old abandoned church long since gone on St-Laurent & Sherbrooke in Montreal. The hearse belonged to someone I knew who just left it for dead beside my old apartment behind Schwartz's Smoked Meat. Click on the images or the following URL to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlCjtcZzicI And don't miss Corpusse live this weekend with Mad Parish & The Nymphets, Saturday November 17 at Montreal's Barfly, 4062A St-Laurent.

Also, here's a comic jam I did just for fun with Corpusse called Fingerfood from 1996. I would draw & write some text, then he'd draw & write some text responding to my drawing & text, then I'd do likewise, etc. I did the hand critter, he did the chicken critter. Click the image or HERE to see it.

Rick Trembles

November 8, 2007

Here's a comic I did called ROMP for the zine Flaming Poutine about a typical gig for my band The American Devices back in the 90's (at a Montreal venue called Jailhouse Rock) . I made $1.75 that night. And that was a good night! Click the image or HERE to see it.

Rick Trembles

October 31, 2007

SPECIAL HALLOWEEN COMIC STRIP SLIDESHOW "CORPUSSE THE MOVIE" by Rick Trembles! (Click the title image to start the show)!

Corpusse (John Ashton) was a confrontational one-of-a-kind Montreal one-man-band shock art & horror movie influenced performance artist I had the pleasure of joining forces with in the 90's before he moved to Toronto. His recitals used to make my jaw drop way back when he was doing them solo & at one point he really wanted "female assistants" on-stage as if he was thinking up horrendous Grande Guignol magical acts to foist upon the audience. I was running around town with a dirty autobiographical slideshow I'd narrate at various venues dressed in drag at the time & so when Corpusse was having trouble convincing actual women to join up he decided to get the next best/worst thing; yours truly.

I began to accompany him on guitar in drag & participate in various on-stage stunts like closing the show by getting punched in the gut by him. Once, I put on a pair of fake boobs under my dress so he could incorporate unbuttoning me & caressing my tits into the act before doing something terrible to me, all while I was playing guitar. He occasionally had local musicians join in on the fun to improvise over his numbers but I chose to consciously allocate very noisy minimalist riffs on the guitar to go along with his unpredictable keyboards. We even recorded a few of these tunes. Watching audiences' bug-eyed reactions of disbelief at Corpusse's antics right from next to him on-stage was awesome but also a little bittersweet cuz it meant I couldn't get a very good view of what my fave performer was up to as much anymore. It was like being in the eye of the hurricane. A truly bizarre, chaotic & priceless experience like I'd never been thru before, haven't since, & probably never will again.

When it seemed like I was gonna be a permanent inclusion in his act I made a short super-8 film of him & also started planning another more ambitious one, the "storyboards" of which make up the bulk of the images in the 1993 comic strip slideshow I present to you this week (stick with it, some "fun facts" follow the boards). Unfortunately it was a touch beyond our means to film (what else is new) so the idea caved in on itself but I did manage to salvage the principal bump-in-the-head design idea by using it as cover art to last year's American Devices CD release. Corpusse is due to play Montreal again soon so be on the ball & don't miss it! There is nothing else on earth quite like him. Hail Corpy Porpy! Click on the images above or below or click here to start the show: Corpusse the Movie

October 11, 2007

NEW SLIDE SHOW: MAN & HIS WORLD! Written by by Rob Labelle & illustrated by Rick Trembles (both members of The American Devices)! PLUS: RICK TREMBLES ORIGINAL ART AUCTION ON EBAY!

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Expo 67 this year, Snubdom.com offers you an unconventional illustrated slideshow on the topic written by singer/guitarist of The American Devices Rob Labelle & drawn by singer/guitarist of The American Devices Rick Trembles. Man & His World is about the opening year of the world-renowned exposition, early sexual awakenings, & consecutive visits to the pavilion ruins many years later. Click on the title image above to start the show! Enjoy.

Calling all pervs, calling all pervs! Ever want your very own nudistic orgy doodle mandala?

Rick Trembles has just put up for auction on Ebay the original art to his latest epic zine submission, a cram-packed pen & ink drawing of mingling multitudes. It's signed, dated & framed under glass & the proceeds go the zine in question, Amber Goodwyn's delightful Lickety Split cuz they're about to go to print with the latest ish but need some spare cash for production costs. Lickety Split is a Montreal-based self-described "pansexual smut zine dedicated to encouraging sex-positive expression & thought." Besides the usual homemade sexy photo spreads of local hotties, fiction, poetry & essays, they also give sexposure to dirty pictures by the degenerate likes of me so you should encourage them & buy my art for a little spare cash to flow their way. Fuck knows I could use some scratch too myself these days, but peeps just don't seem to care to toss money directly at the arteests, so do the next best thing & support this zine that I like. Click on the image above to see an even larger version of the artwork for sale. Lick, uh I mean Click HERE to go directly to the Ebay auction page.

August 9, 2007

TREMBLES REFERENCED IN MUNGBEING MAGAZINE!

Check it out! An interview I did for my website a few years ago got referenced in another recent interview over at Mungbeing Magazine with cartoonist Joe (Peepshow) Matt about the ethics of autobiographical comix. Mungbeing asked Matt what he thought of my chitchat with the actual girl he drew himself having a crush on behind his girlfriend's back in his comic book The Poor Bastard. Click HERE to read it!

May 31, 2007

NEW RICK TREMBLES CARTOON ON YOUTUBE!

Some more youtubery for you all, this time a 2-minute animated short I did called BUSINESS LUNCH back in 1995 with music by 123GO! Guitars by Sam Shalabi, Chris Burns, Marc Montanchez, Richard Bird, bass by American Devices member Andre Asselin, keyboards by Corpusse, drums by Paul Lacerte, viola by Joellen Housego, & vocs by other American Devices member yours truly.

Click on the frame-grab below to see it!

Oh & don't forget to come see The American Devices w/Nightwood @ L'Esco this Friday!

May 24, 2007

Here's a fun sketch by Danny Darling of The American Devices circa 1984 when we were a 3-piece (L to R: Rick Trembles, Rob Labelle, Cups Von Helm).

From our latest press release:

The American Devices w/ Nightwood, Friday June 1st @ L’Escogriffe, 4467 St-Denis (south of Mont-Royal). Show starts at 10pm / $5 @ the door. (Poster by Amber Goodwyn).

Montreal’s longest lasting post-punk band The American Devices will be playing with opening act Nightwood at L’Escogriffe on Friday June 1. Don’t miss this last chance to see the current set of songs The American Devices have been playing (featuring music spanning 3 decades reflecting material off their CD released last year on Grenadine Records) because they are putting them to rest after this show in order to complete a set of all-new songs. American Devices will not be performing again until this set of new material is ready. Devices CDs & T-shirts will be on sale at the show.

To celebrate this momentous event The American Devices made a brand new music video for all to see on YouTube featuring one of the songs they’ll be playing at the show; Bunco Unction. This video includes giant reptiles, aliens from outer space, castles, glass-bottomed boats, claymation, 2-D animation, vintage super-8 footage, Napoleon hats, & of course members of The American Devices. Frame-grabs pictured below. To watch the video, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x83BTk44w-w

As an extra bonus a never-before-seen video using archival B&W footage circa 1980 of The American Devices has just been added to YouTube for the song Bay of Pigs with former members Cups Von Helm on drums & the lovely & talented Suzie Joseph on keyboards (as well as mainstays Rob Labelle & Rick Trembles). Retro eighties nerds: check out the stubbies in this footage (that’s what all beers looked like back then). Shot in super-8 by Louise Burns & Kevin Komoda. To watch the video, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbPB7ApBcFE

Devices singer/guitarist Rick Trembles provided the visuals for Bunco Unction (put together with help from Ari Cohen) & is also cartoonist/author of weekly Montreal Mirror comic-strip/movie review column Motion Picture Purgatory. Singer/guitarist Rob Labelle is also a published writer of fiction, bassist Andre Asselin moonlights for various jazz combos (contact him for weddings), & drummer Howard Chackowicz is a Harvey Award nominated cartoonist & radio personality on CBC's Wire Tap. Both Howard & Andre also play in Nutsak & Bug-Eyed Monster.

Opening up the show are newcomers Nightwood who will be performing their first official show. According to them, after just a few short weeks, they have created their own brand of “Inner-City story-telling rock music” deeply influenced by a collective DIY vision where “projects” will be at the forefront. Nightwood is comprised of Amber Goodwyn, Erin Ross, & Famous Eric (previously of Grenadine Records). Amber Goodwyn also produces the local smutzine Lickety Split & hosts Audio Smut on CKUT radio 90.3 FM.

More Bunco Unction frame-grabs here. Visit www.snubdom.com for more American Devices news, comix, & free MP3s. Visit www.myspace.com/nightwoodband for more info on Nightwood.

Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of the cast & crew of the Devices' unairable 1984 "music-video" The Abortion That Lived for the song Meaning of Life shot on Super-8 Kodachrome-40. (L to R: editor Eric Sandmark, actor Rob Labelle holding up his co-star, actor/director Cups Von Helm adding fake blood to co-star).

April 26, 2007

AMERICAN DEVICES W/THE NYMPHETS AT MONTREAL'S CLUB LAMBI (4465 ST-LAURENT) APRIL 26!

(Pictured right: poster courtesy of The Nymphets with a couple little critters I added for fun). Nymphets are trying to raise money so they can tour the globe this spring/summer so come see this benefit concert we'll be playing with them this Thursday. Also on the bill will be The Confusers, & Freelove Fenner. Only seven measly bucks. Rock out. Rock on. What the hell; rock in & off too while you're at it. You have our permission.

March 8, 2007

RICK TREMBLES IN RUE MORGUE & PUNK MAGAZINE!

Go check out the newsstands right now cuz Trembles is gettin' around! This month's RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE has a full page Don (Projunior/Nightbeast) Dohler obit written by him in it, & this month's John Holmstrom's legendary PUNK MAGAZINE has a brand new exclusive full color Motion Picture Purgatory review of Tales of the Rat Fink illustrated by him in it! I want you to know that I know that you know you want it! And so does Rick Trembles (want you to know that he knows that you know you want it), so go get it! Hey, wait a minute. If that's Rick Trembles, then who's writing this? Now I'm really scared.

Yours truly, Rick Trembles

February 15, 2007

THE AMERICAN DEVICES IN OTTAWA-LAND!

Come see The American Devices at Barrymore's in Ottawa this weekend with The Hilotrons & Mackenzie MacBride, Saturday February 17th! Do it because you wanna. Wanna because you do it. And do it well.

February 8, 2007

GOOPY NEWZ #8!

Wanna see my animated film Goopy Spasms this weekend? (Pictured right: Official BUNNY award winner for "most effectively offensive short" at the BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL, & winner of the "best original short" at the 2006 CALGARY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL)! Well then head on over to San Francisco cuz it's playing at the SF Indie Fest Friday February 9th at 11:45 PM opening for Graeme Whifler's gruesome horror film Neighborhood Watch! Whifler also directed a bunch of insane Residents videos. Hey! That must mean he actually knows who they are. If you go, ask him for me. Goopy opens up for Neighborhood Watch again at the fest the following week Saturday, February 17th at 9:30 PM.

January 18, 2007

THE AMERICAN DEVICES IN AMERICA-LAND! (Pictured below: Devices photo by Amber Goodwyn. Clockwise; unidentified, unidentified, Rick Trembles, Rob Labelle, unidentified, Andre Asselin, Howard Chackowicz).

Hey all you United-States-of-Americans! Come see Montreal's longest lasting post-punk band this weekend in NYC & Philly in a rare U.S.-of-American micro-nano-mini tour! Frightened Rabbit, The Brother Kite, The American Devices, Glass/Burns, & The Octagon will be playing January 20 at Sin-E in New York City (150 Attorney Street at Stanton). And then the following night Panda Riot, Kuru Kuru Pa, American Devices, Glass/Burns, & The Octagon will be playing January 21 at The Manhattan Room in Philadelphia (15 W. Girard Ave. between Front & Frankford Aves. in Fishtown). I guess you could call it our official belated U.S. CD launch.

Burns/Glass is Chris Burns on guitar & Will Glass on drums. Chris is an ex-member of The Devices & he's also fronted or been in a pack of other crazy Montreal guitar bands like Crackpot (which Will drummed for), Bubblegum Army, & Terminal Sunglasses, & even had a short stint with Godspeed You Black Emperor. Will is also drumming for The Octagon, & has been in Goa!, Balai Mecanique, Detroit Metal & collaborated with Dirty Projectors, Nat Baldwin, Shalabi Effect, Hannah Marcus, Mike Watt, John Heward, & Kosher Dill Spears.

According to Will's MySpace profile, he's the "aural equivalent of Sbarro's Italian Buffet." My band The American Devices, according to its MySpace page profile, sounds like "oven mitts." So put on yer oven mitts, strap on yer feedbags & get ready to chow down, Uncle Sucker! The spaghetti & meatballs school of noodley guitars is blowin' into town.

Rick Trembles

January 4, 2007

VINTAGE 60'S ILLUSTRATION-WORK SLIDESHOW FROM CANADIAN "GOLDEN AGE" WORLD WAR TWO COMICS ARTIST JACK TREMBLAY! (Click image below for slideshow)!

Santa was very nice to me this X-My-Ass. I received the 2006 book Invaders from the North: How Canada Conquered the Comic Book Universe. It's a little dry, like an inventory at times, as it chronologically details the peculiar history of Canadian comics from start to present, & there's a disproportionate amount a gushing over Chester Brown, but overall it's a pretty fascinating read. Initially, once it was unwrapped & in my hands, I immediately flipped through to the index & to my surprise (& the gift-giver's as well cuz we're related), I found my father Jack Tremblay was ment