CULT OF DISTINCTION
RIDING NIGHT FLIGHT AND DR. DEMENTO TO GLORY ON A HOT ROD WORM
There is no honor like an unexpected honor, sneaking up on you ten years later.
Once upon a time – a decade back – I had one of the coolest creative experiences of my life, producing and directing a music video (and performing on bongos!) with two of the finest Andrews on Earth: my co-director/producer Andrew Kasch, and singer/songwriter/visual artist/Bizarro force of nature Andrew Goldfarb, also known as The Slow Poisoner.
I always referred to Goldfarb as a one-man psychedelic swampabilly band, although that ain’t but a fraction of it. Touring the country’s honky tonks, bowling alleys, weirdo art galleries and wherever the fuck would have him, he’d show up with a kick drum, a kick drum pedal with sleigh bells on it (for that tambourine-like feel), a guitar, a mic, a couple of amps, and an endless array of custom-made, hand-painted comic art placards. One for each of his wildly original songs, or the rich roster of cover tunes he’d pull out of his antiquarian hat.
In between hilarious, hard-stomping songs about monsters and madmen and witch-haunted woods, he would regale you with tales in his distinctive mode of patter, redolent of the cheerfully deadpan, colorfully bamboozling snake oil salesmanship of yore.
The resultant kaleidoscope of crazy fun has been one of my greatest joys since first encountering him at my very first BizarroCon, where he annually performs. And for the last twelve years or so, it’s been my great honor to sit in with him – on bongos, background vocals, and whatever’s layin’ around to rattle or bang on – whenever we’re in the same town at the same time.
And then one night, performing together at BizarroCon, he sprung this fucking tune on me (he never tells me what he’s going to play, so it’s my job to JUST KEEP UP). It was a rollicking upbeat number about a trucker in the desert, and his mysterious encounter with…well, the name of the song is “Hot Rod Worm.” YOU figure it out!
Long story short: I immediately told Goldfarb, “We HAVE to make a music video outta this!” Then I faced back to L.A. and filmmaking partner Kasch. Very shortly thereafter, The Slow Poisoner and I performed the song at the magnificent Hyaena Gallery in Burbank, CA, where Kasch caught the act and immediately concurred, recruiting stop motion animation genius Michael Granberry to bring the adventure to life.
With our small but feisty production crew (producer/gun-totin’ cop in short pants Buz Danger Wallick, DP/gaffer Justin Cruse, digital artist Zak Jarvis, go-go dancer Audrey DeLuxe, dancing scientist Ruben Pla, worm imposter Brian Bubonic, crafty goddess Stacy Pippi Hammon, makeup artist and dirt sprayer Greg Lightner, and production coordinators Annette Kasch and Rani Goel), we blew the whole thing down in a weekend, INCLUDING going in the studio with Goldfarb to record the track itself. (He and I played it live in studio, with the able assistance of ace engineer Josh Sterling.)
Now this is where I turn the story over to the afore-mentioned Mr. Brian Bubonic: one of my favorite friends, and a lifelong supporter of weirdass art in all its forms (among other things, working with Bill Shafer at the afore-mentioned Hyaena Gallery).
“As a kid growing up in the 1970s,” sez Bubonic, “I listened to AM radio on a small transistor receiver. Towards the end of the decade, I heard about a radio show that played funny music and song parodies. The show was hosted by Dr. Demento on FM from “under the smogberry trees” of far-away Los Angeles. It started my love of humorous music. I learned about artists like Spike Jones, Nervous Norvus, Napoleon the XIV, Benny Bell... and by tuning in to the FM band, I heard a lot of music I never heard on AM.
“When my family got cable television in the early 1980s, I discovered a show called Night Flight on the USA Network. By this point I was listening to a lots of early Punk and Post-Punk, and Night Flight gave me the visuals to go with the music. Not only that, they also played strange animated shorts, cult films and interviews.
“Years later I ended up in Los Angeles where I met Andrew Goldfarb, The Slow Poisoner. I went to see him perform quite a few times and landed a small part in the music video for his song, ‘Hot Rod Worm.’ The video made the rounds online where it got a fair number of views.
“In 2018, I had the chance to meet Dr. Demento at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. I contacted Andrew and asked him to send me a couple of his CDs that I could pass along to the good Doctor. The in-store appearance was fun, I got a few autographs and Demento seemed excited to receive the discs.
“A couple weeks later I requested ‘Hot Rod Worm’ on drdemento.com and he played it along with a classic, worm- themed number, ‘There’s A New Sound’ by Tony Burrello.
“Late last year, I received an email for an open call for music videos to play at Night Flight’s first annual Music Video and Music Film Festival. I thought it would be a good fit for the ‘Hot Rod Worm’ music video (even though it was 10 years-old at this point). I forwarded the email to Andrew letting him know about the festival.
“The video ended up as one of the 10 selected from entries received from more than 13 countries. The videos were screened at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema where the audience awarded one of the videomakers with a $500 production fee to shoot a music video in conjunction with Indie Record Labels, Sub Pop and RVNG. Sadly, The Slow Poisoner didn’t take home the prize, but all 10 of the videos are now available on Night Flight Plus streaming service. An animated .gif of the video’s stop-motion worm was used in emails to promote the program.
“Although The Dr. Demento Show and Night Flight are no longer part of the terrestrial broadcasting world, I’m happy that they both continue as streaming services. I’m also happy that ‘Hot Rod Worm’ is finding listeners and viewers on two platforms that were huge influences on me.”
—
THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH, BRIAN!!! All I can say is that, back in the ‘80’s, if you had told me that I’d ever have a music video on the celebrated alt-culture flagship program Night Flight, my tiny brain would have gone kaboom. It was the gold standard of cable TV weirdness, rivaled only by MTV’s 120 Minutes and Liquid Television, or Comedy Central’s Mystery Science Theater 3000.
So to be featured on both it AND Dr. Demento is to be part of a noble tradition of strangeness, a rarified strata of outsider glory that makes me so proud I can barely speak.
To me, this is what making art is all about. Joining the cult of distinction, in the ultimate cult section. BIZARRO ART-O-TAINMENT FOR THE WIN!!!
Request “Hot Rod Worm” here:
https://drdemento.com/request/
Check out Night Flight Plus:
https://www.nightflightplus.com
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