Spookshow International Live

Rob Zombie has announced that he will be releasing a new live album later this year. According to Zombie's Facebook page the new record will contain "...no overdubs, no fixes, no fake crowd, no nothing. 100% absolutely live. No joke."

The album artwork and track list were released via Facebook too:

  

I have a copy of Zombie Live, and have watched the Past, Present & Future DVD. If the new live recordings have managed to capture the same energy, then the album is likely to become a hit.

I'll likely purchase The Zombie Horror Picture Show blu-ray in the next few days, in order to witness the theatrical spectacular that is a Rob Zombie concert in the best way possible. Well at least the best way possible until Rob Zombie comes to South Africa. 

Assassin's Creed Unity reinvisioned by Rob Zombie

That's right, Rob Zombie teamed up with illustrator Tony Moore (co-creator of The Walking Dead), and together they created their own bloody version of the Assassin's Creed: Unity trailer. I think I'm more excited about the game after watching this video, than was after watching the official cinematic trailer from Ubisoft.

What would get me even more excited about the release of this title would be if they announced that it would be getting a 'last gen.' release. So far Assassin's Creed Unity, and Evolve are the only two games that could persuade me to invest in a new console, but upgrading my PC still looks like a better, and cheaper option at this point.

September 3 music, gaming and movie releases

Tomorrow there are quite a few things being released that I am really looking forward to adding to my various, ever-growing collections. 

First up is Nine Inch Nails' ninth* studio album, Hesitation Marks. I've ordered both the regular and deluxe versions of the CD, because I am a huge collector of Nine Inch Nails related media (but let's leave that for another post when I can share pictures of my entire NIN collection). While I'll have to wait a few weeks to receive the physical editions, I can at least take solace in the fact that I'll be able to download lossless versions of the complete album, as well as the alternative mix, some time tomorrow. Till then I'll sit and listen to Came back haunted, Copy of a, and Everything a few times.

Then, the console version of Diablo III is also hitting shelves tomorrow. I pre-ordered a copy quite some time back in order to secure a copy of the artbook advertised by my local games retailer. Although my copy will be ready for collection tomorrow morning, I wont be able to get to the store until the weekend. While I'm hoping the week will pass relatively quickly, at least I know I should have enough time to finish Diablo II.

Lastly, The Lords of Salem is getting released on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow. I haven't seen the film yet, but it's on my list of things to watch. At present The Lords of Salem doesn't have very favourable scores on IMDb (5.2/ 10), but then again, even Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects only score 5.8/ 10, and 6.8/ 10 receptively. Both of which I'm quite fond of too.

While writing this I realised that I am quite happy to fork out my cash to buy music (either digital or physical CDs) and PlayStation and PC games, but I'm a bit more reluctant when it comes to buying movies. While I do have a small collection of DVDs, it's nothing compared to my CD collection. I may even have more PS3 games now than DVDs. Considering I only bought my PS3 in March, its a good reflection of the where I've been investing my free time and spare cash. I've also come to realise, that after watching a movie I've enjoyed, I tend to buy the novel the film is based upon, rather than the DVD of the film itself. One notable exception is Ang Lee's Life of Pi, for which I'd like to buy the Blu-Ray and the book.

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* Some sources may say it's Nine Inch Nails eighth studio album, but I consider Broken to be an album, not just an EP. 

"Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor" pre-order

Rob Zombie's fifth studio album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor is now available for pre-order through iTunes. The video for the first single, Dead city radio and the new gods of supertown will premier on Monday 8 April. Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor has the planned release date of 23 April, just four days after the release of Zombie's next movie, The Lords of Salem.

In the meantime, here's another still from the Dead city radio music video, as well as the lyric video to further whet your appetite.

There are no flags visible in this scene

South African flag featured in Rob Zombie video

A recent still from Rob Zombie's next music video for the single Dead city radio and the new gods of supertown has been posted on Facebook. The black and white image shows a belly dancer, balancing a kilij or Mameluke sword on her head, with the word "Radio" tattooed above her navel. A bicycle can be seen, leaning against a wall papered with the flags of the United States, South Africa, and what appears to be Namibia the Democratic Republic of Congo. I'm not so sure about the identification of the Namibian flag though, as the flags in the still feature a five-pointed star, while a correct Namibian flag should bear a twelve-pointed.

From left to right: National flags of South Africa, United States of America, and the Democratic Republic of Congo

I'm not sure what the significance of these three flags appearing together is, but I'm sure it will all make sense once the full video has been released. While some are speculating that it could hint towards Zombie touring southern Africa, this is quite unlikely especially with regard to the DRC. My interpretation is that local South African radio stations represent  the "dead city radio," as they all play the same horrible, over-commercialised music every opportunity they get. It would be much more exciting if the explanation for using the South African flag is the latter one though.

--Updated 02 April 2013--

Initially I was't certain about the identification of the third flag, but I assumed it was Namibia since it shares a border with South Africa. This morning it suddenly occurred to me that the flag of DRC had a star in the upper left canton, and was cut diagonally by a stripe, just like the Namibian flag. A quick consultation with Wikipedia confirmed my suspicion, and now all three flags have been positively identified.

First single off Rob Zombie's next studio album

While Dead city radio and the new gods of supertown premièred nearly a week ago, I hadn't been able to listen to it until tonight. That's because every time I followed the links posted on Facebook I was directed to a site that had what appears to be a portion of a Soundcloud error notification image.

Fortunately the robzombie.com homepage has a link to UMe's Souncloud where I was able to finally listen to the complete track. There is no way you could mistake this song as having been performed by anyone other than Rob Zombie. It has his signature sound stamped all over it.

Exclusive clip from 'The Lords of Salem"

Entertainment Weekly is hosting an exclusive video clip from Rob Zombies fourth film, The Lords of Salem. While there are a couple of folks saying that Zombie is a "terrible fimmaker [sic]," Regardless, I for one am actually looking forward to the release of this film. While it may not be released in cinemas in South Africa, it is sure to reach the shelves of the local DVD rental shop.

From the short blurb on the Entertainment Weekly site, it sounds as though this film might just have a few more elements of a psychological thriller, as opposed to being a straight up shock horror, gore fest like the previous films directed by Zombie I've watched. That said House of 1000 corpses and The devil's rejects are still two of my favourite horror films, simply because they don't come across as trying overly hard to be serious and scary. I'd consider them to be light-hearted horror, because the story lines and gore are so over the top, they couldn't possibly be real. And that's what I love about Rob Zombie's films, as unreal as they are, I can still sit and watch them over, and over again.

Puzzle reveals new Rob Zombie album artwork

Rob Zombie posted a link on Facebook that leads to a puzzle (requires Flash). Solving the puzzle reveals the artwork for Rob Zombie's next studio album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, to be released 0n 23 April 2013. In addition solving the puzzle will play a snippet of the album track Dead city radio. Happy Puzzling.

Free download from Rob Zombie

Rob Zombie is probably one of the busiest people in both the music and film industries at the moment. 

His next film, The Lords of Salem, is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival the first week of September.

After that, he is headlining a two month tour of the United States and Europe with Marilyn Manson, billed as The Twins of Evil. 

Between being involved with the new film and organising a massive tour, he's also been recording a new studio album and done an interview about all of the above. 

And that's not all! Even with all that going on Rob Zombie still managed to find the time to drive around Los Angeles, listening to and selecting the tracks to appear on his newly released, career spanning remix compilation, Mondo Sex Head. 

As for that free download I mentioned, you can get it here. You'll have to work for it though by finding 13 zombie kitten heads. You can get an idea of what you'll be looking for from the image below. Happy hunting.