DEVILCAKE � I Can�t Believe It�s Not Devilcake
6xCD-R (!) set Ltd 100 copies BDX200205/8 Bizarre Depiction
Fuck! It�s here and it�s real. I thought I was being wound up but this really is a six (six six?) CD-R collection by a band called Devilcake from Ohio (or at least it seems that some of it was recorded there??) with 65, or is it 154 songs, all about food! Even if the music turns out to be total crap (it did) you�ve got to give Devilcake full marks for trying (trying turned out to be an understatement), just look at the 6 CD �jewel case�� I mean, can you buy these �off the shelf� as it were? Then there�s the rather cruddy b & w photos on the CD-R�s themselves and the really gone-to-town-on booklets, two of them, with lyrics (pages and pages of lyrics!) and pictures and difficult to make out illustrations and the obligatory snaps of Devilcake band members making asses of themselves, and, and, and. And.
A not-so-quick flick through the track listing hints at the form of humour on display herein; Salad Bar Of Whores, Never Fry Bacon Naked, Huevos Diablos, Sacrificial Leg Of Lamb. Then, delving deeper into the first booklet; Every Day Is Like Sundae, (She Said) Do Me (With A Banana), and my personal fave sounding title; The Final Crouton. I smirked inwardly. It could be that each CD-R features a different band members take on the food theme, judging by the credits but, to be honest, it�s all too much, too confucius and driving myself mad with details only gives me a nervous breakdown. Try http://go.to/devilcake, square dealers. I�ve just spent a very sad few minutes working out the fact that there is exactly 5 hours 11 minutes and 18 seconds of music in this package (you�re welcome to dbl check if you like� there�s no way I�m doing that again) proving, once again, that I am indeed thee obsessive professional. You know Sniper Glue wouldn�t hire anyone less and besides, Manic Richey couldn�t be fucked to do it himself, too busy picking �orrible scabby-wabs off his �gravel tattoos� (=dick. I have genetically tested DNA proof in a little plastic baggy-wag). Do you know that GG Allin song � Scars On My Body, Scabs On My Dick? It�s all coalescing now. Nice.
So, how do you review over 5 hours of Devilcake? Like this�
Sunday 19th January 2003, 3.46pm
Devilcake � I Can�t Believe It�s Not Devilcake, CD#1 (labelled �I�)
Christ! It�s not the death gore grind fest I had envisaged. A country guitar, harmonica and a vocal by Big Don Gourley that sounds like the crazed singer in the Muppets. Oh dear. You know I quite warm to the music, it�s just this damn annoying vocal that pisses me off. Does anyone remember when that bloke from Kerraang! (graphic designer and journalist, clever fuck) Steve someone, circa 1990, started doing a radio show talking in that insufferably un-funny �monster� voice? Well, this is similar. Now it�s gone all bluesy with Supersize Daisycutter (�feast your eyes on my supersize�). Tonight I�m Serving Sausage (�you say you don�t eat meat but I know you�ll suck it�). Drive Thru Song is great! I love the early Public Image Ltd bass, this works! Maybe Devilcakes multi-faceted approach (at least in the music, not the vocals) is growing on me. Whipped Cream Delight now features a Soft Cell keyboard stance� you�ve got to hand it to this bunch, are we (well, not �we�. Me) listening to a yanky (if indeed they are yanky) Ceramic Hobs? Actually no. No, we/me are not. Next genre-rape is a Metallica/early Wildheartesque have-a-bash, then some speed metal attempt. A jack-of-all-tripes band. Ok, it�s funny up to a point. Leaves you wondering what�ll come next. Suicidal Tendencies? Could be, could well be. They managed to drag disc closer She Makes Good Cookies out to over 11 and a half minutes. Hmmm, hilarious. I found myself hovering between boredom and then snuggling up to the cosy intimate sound. I reckon I�d probably get to quite like this given a few more plays, possibly I say, but alas, no time, for I have an appointment with death� the sooner, the better. Oh, and just in case I�m dispatched to the next world before I complete this review; one of Devilcake�s �members� (?) is pictured wearing a Devo t-shirt! That�s jeest fine in my book, boy, yeah!! So, one CD down, 5 to go. Maybe we should do this in Sniper Glue issue-based installments.
Still Sunday 19th January 2003, 5.09pm CD#2 (labelled �CAN�T�)
This is the lengthiest CD in the set, running in at over 73 minutes, the one containing 99 tracks, by fuck! I suppose 1 had better press �play� then. Here goes� more wacky food songs in a style that, again, never quite stands still. All cut-ups and shit. The english sampled accents give rise to doubts about the american origins I�d initially guessed at. It�s all beginning to sound like a far-out �n� up-it�s-own-arse Stars On 45. I rather like the Deli lyrics. Christ, what a mish-mash, once you grab hold of one track (we�re on track 26 now!) the CD is two tracks ahead. Oh yawn, it�s gone into some dub shite now. And every permutation of it. At track 34 surely the fucking �joke� is over? No? I�m dying laughing. Sorry, but despite the obvious work involved in the realisation of this �CAN�T� disc, that is the 8 track, the computer, the umpteen other wonders of science and technology, I am bored out of my skull. Only thing to do now is sit and wait until thee bitter end� that�s in 46 minutes time! Aaahh thanks mum, thanks dad, thanks mark� I�ll see you in hell!! You must really fuckin� hate me. Tum-tee-tum. Whistle. Sigh. Puff. Blow. Actually a blow would be nice in these troubled times. Track 56 and thank god the dinner�s ready. Bye.
Later, 7.26pm. I�m off to maggie ponces place now. See ya.
Tuesday 21st January 2003, 4.58pm
Um back. Um black. Um white. Um in. Um out. Um idi amin. Um han blix. Um in a fix. It�s been two days. Back to track 56 then. Feels as if I never went away. Maybe I didn�t. But it all seemed so real, the train ride, the bus journey, maggie ponce herself, todays letter to tony tabula rasa, the just arrived Whitehouse live action 97 Bilbao (Spain) cassette, the job pages in the fucking evening standard, my niece puking up in school and sis having to go pick her up leaving holly the dog here. All of it. All of it I say, an illusion when, in reality, I was still listening to �CAN�T� CD-R. I spotted the Monty Pithon (sic) sample, I am listening. God, this is sooooo bleeding tiresome. I do hope I die soon, let�s say in the next few seconds, like maybe a 767 will come a�crashing through my window. Or I�ve bought egg fried ricin by mistake� anything!! C�mon!!!! Surely this is of that music only of interest to the person who created it, some Ian C. Stewart bloke. But, of course, it stands to reason that I�m wrong. Possibly the most insufferably tedious piece of rectal dribble I�ve ever encountered.
Still Tuesday 21st January 2003, 5.49pm CD#3 (labelled �BELIEVE�)
Ah! This is the one I got the �Ohio� bit from. �All arrangements conceived and advised by Aural Fixation and Kid Chill�. Let�s give this one a go then. First song sounds like it was recorded in the San Quentin prison cell next to Charley�s. Possibly/probably intentional and why the fuck not? 10 out of 10 for having a stab at that rare ambience. Now we go into a Barry White gropey feel-about, as thrilling to me as the previous CD�s contents. Next comes a take on some other soul/bass/scratch shit genre. I�m having a really bad time here. Then a pile of reggae kak is forced upon me and I am now totally friggin� bored out of my boo-lacks. Yet again. Look, unless something good and worth writing about comes up, I�m going on strike. This is abysmal. I bet their grandparents think this must be really hip. Nah� I bet their grandparents think this is complete and fuckin� shit! What a waste of, worthless in the first place, CD-R plastic. And there�s 100 of these floating about somewhere in the world! By the time track 12 of �BELIEVE�, that is Light It Up, begins to slightly engage me with it�s all but �holophonic� (remember that, PTV fans?!) rumble�n�grind, it�s all way, way too late� for I have already jumped.
And it�s still Tuesday 21st January 2003, 7.10pm CD#4 (labelled �IT�S�)
Now a ghost of a reviewer, doomed to roam the contents of Devilcakes 6 CD-R blight forever, I am cursed with Darrin Ailes� (oh wow, I�m getting the hang of this) �IT�S� who gives us doo-wop (if that�s how you spell it?) to kick off with, but the food theme has long gone stale for me. Then it�s rap, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it�s this, then it�s that. 10 year-olds would find this rib-tickling. I don�t. Death camps are easy compared to this horror. If you, dear reader, have any humanity left in you in these selfish and troubled times, please, pray for my soul. God, get me outta here! Over 72 minutes of this crap to endure. But hey! Track 10, Aubergine, isn�t sooo (ham school girls) dreadful. An attempt, at least, toward hypno-trance avant-garde experimentalism by fuck!! A kind of reprieve but not enough to deliver me from life-long mental scarification. And now here comes 35 minutes of melancholic keyboard ballads with Kermit the Frog on vocals. Great. But before a quarter of that time is through, you too will be banging a bloodied and fractured skull (yours or someone else�s) against the wall as I am about to do here. Tis thee only escape, bar switching the fucking thing off. Now there�s an idea.
Diabolical.
8.54pm CD#5 (labelled �NOT�)
Michael Bill does everything. Except kill himself before turning his attention to music. See, I�ve not even heard it yet but such is my disillusion that I�ve become 100% negative and cynical, a �bitter old person� Michael, coz you said it in your �fuck your mother� list. Well fuck you too, ya cunt! Oh christ, we�ve got a runic pastiche on hand. Take my advice, listen to the real thing, that is Patrick O�kills and Freya Asywnn�s Fruits Of Yggdrasil (Mother Destruction/Sixth Comm. Ken Beat CD 1) It�s funniertoo, and you might learn some�it. Says here �keyboards and vocals on all songs performed by Michael Bill when he was half awake�. Says it all. Absolutely pathetic. And the CD-R sound keeps dropping out, reason being that the disc is covered in shit. Mate Billy at Tower Records used to sneeze on CD�s before bagging �em. Looks like the practice has caught on.
There�s another �artist� on CD#5 �NOT�� Evilbread is the name and someone called Emerson is to blame. Fuckin�ell! Fuckin�ell shit tit cunt bum arsehole!! This is death metal! Bad death metal but death metal non-the-less and it smells like a breath of fresh air after the stagnancy of those last 3 and a half CD�s, I mean fuck, you just might hop on Ann Viddyphone if you�d spent, let�s say, the last year or so locked up with a bunch of UMBRO sweatshirt-clad yob scaffolders. Or maybe not. This still stinks. Meant to be funny see. Isn�t.
9.41pm At last! Devilcake themselves!!!! CD#6 (�DEVILCAKE�)
It�ll all be over soon. Just 36 minutes to go. Let�s do the job. Don�t want to upset anybody (not much). Here are Ailes, Bill, Gourley, Stewart etc, etc, who, with stars in their fuckin� eyes are tonight going to be� DEVIL�CAKE!! Yaaayyy!!!! Studying the group photos of �em they do actually look like the kinda boys old Matt Kelly is supposed to have, er� what was the term Pete Townsend used� oh yeah, �used for research�, hah! Devo t-shirt or not.
It�s heavy metal. It�s purile food �joke� lyrics. It�s dire and I�m sorry to have to say that I hate it all.
You�re gonna pay for this Ritchie.