By Chuck Chadwell

Pitch those Pearl Jam bootlegs. Make room for the No Talent Ass Clowns bootleg, “Live at the Route 40 Lounge.” Recorded just after their first CD, “Behind the Times,” this is vintage Ass Clowns in concert. The good news is they play several songs from Gunblade’s former band, Factory-Sealed Fornicators. The bad news is… they play several songs from Gunblade’s former band, Factory-Sealed Fornicators.

All of the staples of early Ass Clowns shows are here. Bad sound, out-of-tune guitars, endless sound problems, bad notes, forgotten lyrics, Lars Gunblade taunting his audience, it’s all here. Where else are you gonna to hear a 30-minute “Blow Chunks Ballet” or a blues version of “Sex Me Up, Hose Me Down”?

The asking price is pretty damn steep. For $800, I expect more than a disc with no liner notes or song titles listed and photocopied artwork. If you can find this disc, I recommend picking it up. It’s not likely to be around long!

By Chuck Chadwell

The new CD by rock superstar Lars Gunblade has been cloaked in secrecy.

Luckily, janitors at the record label are easy to bribe.  I say easy but actually I’ll be sick every time I think about what I did to get this scoop. I hope you appreciate it because, whoa, it was a steep price.

Finally, after months of wondering what the new CD would contain, here are the tracks:

1. Dumb as sand
2. Let’s talk about me
3. Your place or mine?
4. Likin’ what I’m seein’
5. Less talk, more action
6. I finished, now get out
7. There’s the door, use it!

If the video for “Dumb as Sand” is any indication, we’re in for a wild ride. Lars has never let us down before so we can expect lots of pointless aggression and no brainpower getting in the way. Some have said rock music should be gloriously and righteously dumb. If that’s the case, our man Lars is the glue that holds rock music together.

By Chuck Chatwell

Great? Maybe not.

At first glance, “Am I Great Or What?” by Ass Clowns lead singer, Lars Gunblade, would seem like any other self-serving narrative penned quickly by an illiterate musician struggling to sound profound and at the same time justify behavior anyone else would be in jail for. Yet, this is so much more here.

Lars Gunblade has been a force on the rock scene for many years. Between controversial concert tours and numerous arrests, Gunblade has managed to slip under the radar of the establishment music press while maintaining undisputed street cred among hard-core heavy metal fans.

Yet, none of this matters very much when readers get to learn a whole lot more about certain perversions of Gunblade’s than most would care to know. For example, I could have gone my entire life not knowing that if you spread whipped cream on… never mind, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

Anyway, it’s a quick read with no big words and F-bombs in literally every sentence. Is Lars great or what? Yeah. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for his forthcoming book.

Vas’ first solo CD – “Worship My Guitar”

by Chuck Chadwell

What can I say? The new Vas CD is different. Real different. The kind of different most people tend to avoid like the plague.

Vas, you’re a good friend of mine but I think you’re going off the deep end with this.  Why all the vomiting sounds toward the end? Why so many? The non-stop distortion is hard to take when you don’t go anywhere near a hook or melody.

Vas, the next time you decide to record something without the other Ass Clowns… don’t!

“The sound is disturbing and unpleasant,” said Vas in an interview. “There’s nothing cool about it and there are no melodies or lyrics. I made myself throw up over and over and recorded it. You can hear it real loud near the end. It’s great. You can hear it splat on the floor and everything.”

To tell the truth, some of this could have really worked. At one point, we hear a woman having an orgasm repeatedly. I was liking that a lot. The only trouble was Vas intermixed her orgasm sounds with his throwing up sounds. Throwing up noises and female orgasm noises don’t go together, Vas. You’re creeping me out here. Stop it.

When this reaches the stores in a few months, you may be tempted to buy it. Avoid this temptation. Listening to it is time you’ll never get back.

Better luck next time, Vas. Next time, how about a few power chords, dude? Make us happy.