Scarred Eardrums

Please disrobe
get on the table
the good news is your condition’s stable

Stick the flashlight in your ear
I can see the damage it’s very clear

Eardrums all scarred
shot to hell top to bottom cracked
tommy can you hear me I think your hearing’s all whacked

Scarred from all the lies I’ve heard
endless libel and slander
Exaggerations
renumerations
reprimands incomprehensible explanations
that you want me to gander

Eardrums all scarred
shot to hell top to bottom cracked
tommy can you hear me I think your hearing’s all whacked

Fake excuses verbal abuses
all the double talk you can eat
vulgar insults the sheep always bleat

Digging their graves with their tireless mouths
armed to the teeth
in their glass houses

Eardrums all scarred
shot to hell top to bottom cracked
tommy can you hear me I think your hearing’s all whacked

Poetry and music Copyright 2026, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved. This work is NOT royalty-free and cannot be used for AI harvesting.

Andy Seven Ltd. · Scarred Eardrums

The Plugged Nickel

The Plugged Nickel

Have you ever been to The Plugged Nickel
right between Slugs and The Bitter End
and if you ever lose your way down the alley
just peel your eyes and ears for the muted trumpets, my friend
well, rainfall and thunder comp a backbeat

Drinks are stiffer than The Bad Penny
café espresso is stronger than The Thin Dime
lost, wayward girls wear their hats and coats
dashing in from the fog and rain all the time

No, it’s not like The Screaming Bean
with its plucked dulcimers, autoharps and banjos
and they pass the straw hat around
cracked peanuts and sawdust litter the tired floor
make a detour to the shack with the abstract sounds

Well, the PA system crackles
and the lights shoot off sparks
half the customers think its entertaining
and the rest of them think it’s art

And the notes fall like raindrops
on a cobblestoned street
the notes drippety drop like hail stones
on a cobblestoned road
the bass booms like thunder
the cymbals flash like lightning

On a good night you can catch Miles
even better if you see Monk
but it’s snake eyes if you fall in
and catch a poet strung out on junk

Andy Seven Ltd. · The Plugged Nickel

Deck of Muses

Previously published in Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly Spring 2026

There's a whiny voice shrieking from the jukebox
some high pitched wail
"If you leave me I'll just die"
in that case
i've died a thousand deaths

They leave you for a jerk with drugs
they leave you for a jerk with money

But, but butt butt...
i have no drugs
i have no money
i have no friends

What do i have
i've got edgar allen poe's muse
i've got annette peacock’s muse
i've got rahsaan roland kirk's muse

All that inspiration
comes with an expiration…date
catch the spark, catch a fire
Baby, before it’s too late

I've got a deck of muses
i've got a full house
chips stacked sky high on the table
i'll never fold

Got hit with a fevered need
I’ll launch a voluminous screed
I’ve got leonor fini’s muse
I’ve got stephen crane’s muse…
I’ll never fold

Andy Seven Ltd. · Deck of Muses

Prose and music Copyright 2026, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved. Work is not royalty-free and not approved for AI usage.

Chemtrails

Chemtrails, chemtrails
snaking around the sky

Vapor trails, cloudy centipede
hanging in the atmosphere

Chemical trials, chemistry vials
fighting off cellular battle

Ghost writers in the sky
Skribbles to heaven

Laying out white lines in the blue
powdered sugar messages have bled into
my blue heaven

Feather wings feathers fall
birds of fire with leather claws

The sun may shine but don’t feel daunted
betraying the darkness
and the wind is haunted

Oh, say can you see
all the aerial aestheometry

Spider webs of clean white lines
get higher baby, get higher baby

Vapor exhaust, look up in the sky
what are you trying to say…and why

Words and music by Andy Seven Ltd. Copyright 2026, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved. This is not royalty-free, no matter what Meta/Facebook claims.

Andy Seven Ltd. · Chemtrails

Braintree

1.

Never eat from the Braintree
never listen to the hissing serpent
Dancing tongues, flickering tongues
poisoned fruit let it stay hung

2.

You’re not permitted to feed your head
grown-ups all thrown-up say
you should be burning books instead
tear a leaf from the book
Leaves from the Braintree

3.

Yonder down the meadow
rests The Crying Tree
where the lonely virgins dream in sad repose
right by the Scarlet Women
in their barely covered midnight clothes

4.

Persian vestal virgins lie by The Crying Tree
Babylonian whores lie by the other side
sap of murky burgundy blood trickles down
and the whores just laugh while the virgins cry

5.

Stay away from the strychnine orchard
stay away for heaven’s sake
Partake not the juice from the tattooed fruit
Despite the exhortations of the seething snake

6.

Jackals dance in the darkened forest
Ring around the Celtic Cross
never forget to drop 100 yards of sourdough breadcrumbs
perchance you realize that you’re lost

Andy Seven Ltd. · Braintree

Copyright 2026, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.

Oldboy - New Poetry Album OUT NOW!

Spring is here, and a young man’s fancy turns to poetry, indie poetry, punk poetry slam, darkwave poetry, a dying rose by any other name and all that. Two years after my last audiobook I’m here with the new opus, Oldboy. And as Sir Humphrey Pengallan (Charles Laughton) defiantly sneers, “What are you waiting for? A spectacle? You shall have it!!!” So polish up your spectacles, Andy Seven Ltd. has returned.

Oldboy is my fourth audiobook of poetry, fifteen prose poems that up the ante from previous efforts. While past audiobooks featured poems with more traditional soundscapes, the new work features dark ambient, industrial neofolk mixes and drum and bass rhythm tracks.

All music mixes aside, Oldboy is a wild mosaic of sonnets dedicated to horror films (Sadako, Succubus), Robert Williams-inspired sports sleaze (Demolition Derby, Bantamweight Vs. Flyweight), and a triptych of Southern California gothic (Bougainvillea, California Boyfriend, The LA River).

The title, aside from the movie, comes from my theory that some males are men from the day they were born and always remain men, while others will always be boys, even when they’re pushing their Seventies. Some boys always inhabit an adult form. The same goes for females. Some women will always be young girls no matter how old they age.

Making the transition from punk singing to poetry recital wasn’t a Herculean task. When I sang with my band Trash Can School the most common remark I heard was that my vocals were “monotonous”. Whether I was aware of it or not, the monotony of my vocals probably meant that I chose to recite my lyrics as poetry.

I could make a case for it by saying that singing was never the objective but just reciting my prose. So, in a very loose sense I’ve always performed poetry recitals back in the days of my band and I’ve continued to this day.

Islington High Street was about my all-nighter at Islington Screen on The Green spent fifty years ago watching The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and other future superstars like Billy Idol and Siouxsie Sioux. Slumgullion is a piss-take on Willy the Shake’s classic plays, some of my favorites. I love the surrealism of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Saints and Sinners was about a real saloon in the heart of sleepy Culver City. Transfigured Night is my surreal take on a dream where I walked through a forest accompanied by mutilated lab test animals. The dream world continues with Succubus, nocturnal eroticism let loose upon the bedroom walls.

Those expecting sermons from the mount taking a political stand will be disappointed, as the only track that shows a political angle at all would be Carrot in The Donkey’s Eye, which criticizes the punishing exploitation of the average worker, the most offensive culprit being factory and warehouse environments. I suppose Smog lies somewhere in social commentary, too.

While I’m on the subject of poetry, what are your favorite movies about poets? We don’t get a lot of cinema space, I see movies about Bukowski, Kerouac, Sylvia Plath, but I’d like to see a film about Anne Sexton or Rod McKuen. Rod McKuen was an awful poet but his life story is utterly fascinating.

My favorite movie about a poet is Orpheus by Jean Cocteau about a popular poet despised by the hipster cognoscenti because his work is too successful. His best friend is a poet so jaded with writing that his next book will be a volume of nothing but empty pages. Doesn't get more existential than that!

But back to Oldboy, ahem: Some poems have been published in the past, i.e. Bantamweight Vs. Flyweight, Succubus, and California Boyfriend were featured in Horror Sleaze Trash. Other poems like Slumgullion, Transfigured Night, and Sadako were included in several Dawn of Darkness witch house compilations, available for listening at The Internet Archive.

Oldboy can be streamed on You Tube, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Deezer. Hard media CDs can be purchased at Bandcamp. I’ll merch a few on eBay, too. Friends, Hollywood Babylonians, and countrymen, lend me your ears.

So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Bot

I never planned on returning to music. At this late stage of my life the last thing I wanted to do was harbor fantasies of being a big rock star. I deliberated with myself about presenting my poetry in the best way possible, and I knew that producing poetry books was falling down a black hole of obscurity. The success of a Bukowski or Rollins is a one in a million possibility.

Poetry books unfortunately don't attract people, and poets are generally laughed at in the United States, a country that amuses in literary shaming. If Stephen King is the national bard of choice then we're in deep shit.

Poetry readings with music have always fared well, though, from Patti Smith to Gil Scott-Heron to John Cooper Clarke to The Last Poets. I created sonic landscapes to go with my poems, and I enjoyed these crude, primitive recordings. The best testing ground for my work was to post it on SoundCloud, a sort of aural You Tube where you can just check in and listen to anyone's music for free. Like it or not, SoundCloud is one of the best because it doesn't have that Bandcamp "You reading or you buying" vibe about it.

But, but but....SoundCloud has its set of stalkers and sharks like any other site, too. Which brings me to my story (sorry it took so long). Two months ago I posted a poetry track called Smog. It got a few hits and likes, and then I got a message from someone who claimed he was an A and R (Artists and Repertoire) aka talent scout.

The DM went something like this: "Hi Andy, this is John from R****E Records. I stumbled upon your work and was blown away by your talent. We're currently seeking artists to join our roster, and I think you'd be a great fit. Let's explore possibilities. Please share your email address so we can send over more information on our offer".

Okay, I gave him my email, and his response was, "Thank you for your response! The Chairman will reach out to you with additional details about this exciting opportunity. Please check your inbox and kindly respond at your earliest convenience. Also, make sure to follow my SoundCloud page so you can stay updated on our latest opportunities and releases".

So, I got an email from the Chairman at R***E Records, and the first thing I did was look up the label, and lo and behold, this was not only a real label, but one that had serious cutting edge artists on their roster, in fact, I even owned some of these records! Now I was getting excited. If I recorded for these folks I'd be in serious company.

I even did a Wikipedia search on the label and the label CEO listed was the "Chairman".

Okay, here's his email: "Hello, This is L*** M***, CEO of R***e Records. We had a chance to check out your sound, and to be honest there’s a spark there that’s hard to ignore. The rawness, the energy, the originality, it’s the kind of foundation that can go far with the right push.
Our label was built for artists like you: creators who are ready to take what they’ve started and elevate it. We don’t just sign artists, we invest in them, making sure they’ve got the team, the guidance, and the creative freedom to break through in today’s industry.
I’d love to connect and talk about where your music can go from here, and how R****e can be part of that journey". Cool.

I gave him my phone number, but he didn't call. His response went like this: "Hello Andy. Thanks for your interest. I’m excited to connect with you!
To dive deeper into the deal we’re offering, I’d like to arrange a brief meeting via Microsoft Teams. This will give us a chance to review the details, address any questions you might have, and map out the next steps".

So, I met him on MS Teams and he began the conversation with this: "Hello Andy. Welcome to this exciting opportunity! I’m truly looking forward to collaborating with you and supporting your growth with the R***e Records family.
Before we dive in, I want to set clear expectations for how we’ll work together. Due to the high demands of my current schedule, I won’t be available for in-person meetings or calls at this time. For security and documentation purposes, all communication will be conducted here via instant messaging. This allows us to keep everything organized and professional while ensuring we stay focused on your success. I trust that works for you, and I appreciate your flexibility".

If there were no in-person meetings or calls how will anything get done, and where's the personal contact an artist requires? This was getting weird.

So, the CEO ran down the history of the label and offered the following perks for me as an artist, and frankly it sounded incredibly far flung for an avant-garde independent. Dig this:

"What We Offer
• Publishing + Distribution – Seamless global distribution across Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and more.
• Financial Support – Funding for equipment, software, studio sessions, and other essentials so you can focus on the art.
• Marketing + Promotion – Strategic campaigns including playlist pitching, digital ads, media exposure, and content creation.
• Creative Freedom – We respect your vision. Our role is to elevate, not control.
• Professional Network Access – Connection with respected producers, engineers, and brand partners to accelerate your career.

Why R***e?
We’re not just a label, we’re a partner. Our focus is authenticity, long-term development, and real relationships. We tailor our approach to your unique goals and sound, making sure your career remains true to your vision".

Now look, I've made records for a lot of indies and none of them can or even want to provide all this shit. "Financial Support"? Bullshit. And don't even talk to me about publishing, the bread and butter of all composers. Once they own your publishing they can do whatever they like with your work. And...by the way, did he even mention my track Smog at all? Or any of the other tracks I posted on SoundCloud.

Quite frankly, this entire rap didn't even sound like a real person, but some AI-generated hustle that no artist would even find believeable. Here's my response to all this fairy tale spininng:

"I see, I already have publishing, so I'm fine there. What I'd like to do is to submit my next album to your label and you can distribute it if you're interested.
I currently have three albums that are available on all streaming services out there, but it would be cool to have my next release on your label". No response.

"Your label attracted me because you lean towards the avant garde - Medeski Martin + Wood, Sex Mob, etc. It's great company. All my records are spoken word with music landscapes, so it's a little off the beaten path for some". No response.

I addressed all the pie in the sky perks he had promsied by saying, "I would probably just hand you an album to release and not ask for any kind of financial advance, so it wouldn't be a huge investment". So I had responded to the Financial Support, Publishing and Recording features I was supposed to be dazzled by. No response.

THE CEO HAD VANISHED

And then returned the next day on MS Teams without contacting me in advance with this strange message:

"Good morning, Andy. For my questions:
Section 1: Introduction + Background
1. Where were you born and raised?
2. What are your hobbies or interests outside of music?
3. What’s the highest level of education you’ve completed? (Include your field of study if applicable.)
4. What typically sparks your creativity or inspires your music?
5. What’s your current employment status?
6. Have you received any music-related education or training (formal or informal)?"

WTF, this guy is insane. What is this ridiculous AI-written shit? Imagine sending this horseshit to PJ Harvey or Bud Powell. Do you really see yourself doing business with an AI-communicating dunce." My hobbies. Employment status"...Poet? Isn't that enough? Ya think? Thank God recording my poetry is just my pastime.

*************

In addition to appearing on poetry compilations it's incredible to participate on some avant-garde music compilations where my poetry can reach a wider audience. Dawn of Darkness from Chile have added my tracks Slumgullion and Transfigured Night to their latest comp, The October Experimental Compilation. You can find the compilation on both ReverbNation or The Internet Archive for free doewnloading. Here's my poem Transfigured Night for your poetry listening.

Sidewalk Camp

This was a poem I wrote in response to political candidates using the homeless as a scapegoat in their pursuit of wininng votes. As someone who was once homeless himself I wanted to say something about this.

By the way, if you like what you hear please follow me on SoundCloud.

Andy Seven Ltd. · Sidewalk Camp

Sea Level Drive Spoken Word Album Available Now

Halloween 2022 marks the release of my second album Sea Level Drive. A definite labor of love, it’s my continued foray into spoken word recordings with soundscapes created by me and helped with by my two friends, Sad Boy and Robodyke.

Tracks from Sea Level Drive can be listened to on HearNow (andysevenltd.hearnow.com) and a few will remain on SoundCloud (Soundcloud.com/andysevenltd), too.

Not only do you get to hear me read my own poetry but I also read two pieces by the legendary Maxwell Bodenheim, Death and The Ballad of Jack Rose. Let’s go straight to the beginning and talk about the album:

Sea Level Drive begins with Ghosts of Hustlers, an abandoned gay horror novel I started years ago about a young man moving into an apartment off the Sunset Strip where his evenings are haunted by ghosts of murdered young runaways. It wasn’t bad but concepts are hard to sustain over 160 pages. I made it a poem instead. That wah-wah sound you hear is a trumpet, not a guitar. Too much!

Velvet Candybar comes next and I went for a sweet English melody while chanting about making love in a graveyard. The goth boy can’t help it!

The Hardcore Kid is my poem about the hooligan who refuses to give up the hardcore ghost long after the riot’s ended. “He tied a rag around his boot, spare changes for his loot, still lamenting the dead of Sid, he’s The Hardcore Kid.” The legendary 1-2-3-4 countdown runs the gamut from Johnny Thunders, Wilson Pickett, Little Richard, and Sir Paul McCartney.

Disc Over America (DOA) is a political song about murder in the name of church and state. This country feels more and more like a drug store that’s quickly going out of business.

Sea Level Drive finishes the first half of the album. It’s a small road on the extreme end of Malibu right after you pass Zuma and before you enter Ventura County. You could say it’s technically the very end of Malibu. It’s right by Lechuza Beach, which might be the narrowest beach in Malibu. It’s a poem about a couple strung out on drugs who have nothing but the ocean singing for them at night.

The second half of the album begins with Teethgrinder, a poem about the tension, anger and anxiety pouring out on the internet from all sides. People are angrier than ever, exhibiting not a single note of sensitivity or sympathy for each other. Savaging one another for the sake of winning a worthless argument, and most arguments are worthless in the long run. Everybody’s wrong.

The Ballad of Jack Rose by Maxwell Bodenheim features my Ibanez electric mandolin with a strong delay on my voice. It’s a pretty intense poem about a drug dealer who falls in love with an addict’s sister. This poem reminded me of The Panic In Needle Park and some Hubert Selby prose, too.

All The Madwomen is based on the Sam Fuller film Shock Corridor, specifically the scene where Peter Breck wanders into the nympho ward of the insane asylum he’s committed in. Naturally there are soundbites from the film floating all through the track. The original poem appeared in Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly.

Sometimes people ask me why there's no guitar on my records, and it's like this: once I saw Allen Ginsberg on a TV show reciting his poetry backed by a punk band, and in theory it should have been awesome, but it was horrible. Poor old Ginsberg read his poetry with all his heart and this band behind him were playing so loud, especially this douchebag guitarist cranked so loud like he was Shitface Ramone and ripping out a solo while Grandpa Beat was trying valiantly to have his prose heard. A real shitshow, but lessons learned. Leave the fucking guitar in the corner, preferably in the garbage bin.

In Bed With The Bomb is about the early days of the atomic bomb, its development and testing. “I’m in bed with the bomb, I’m about to kingdom come, Drop it now! Stop it, how? Duck and cover, my atomic lover”. I enjoyed adding the “Andy, are you okay?” soundbite from Happiness.

Oh, My Love Is Like A Rose is a small abstract piano frisson with some sped-up saxophone and trumpet tracks for the Frank Zappa fans. That sound never gets old.

Death by Maxwell Bodenheim is the first Bodenheim poem I ever read, and I was immediately hooked. Goth to the max with its reference to Death’s longing for me and silver braids of hair, well...I laid down some backwards synthesizer for extra death texture. I also made a video of it, which you can see here.

So that’s my new album, Sea Level Drive. Give it a listen on Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music or your favorite streaming sevice. If you’re going to listen to poetry/spoken word give it some electronic skronk with some free jazz horns and some lovely mandolin-driven folk to boot.

The tracks:
Ghosts of Hustlers
Velvet Candybar
The Hardcore Kid
On Her Bed of Roses
Disc Over America (DOA)
Sea Level Drive
Teethgrinder
The Ballad of Jack Rose
All The Madwomen
In Bed With The Bomb
Oh My Love Is Like A Rose
Death

Sea Level Drive is available for download or CD format via Bandcamp.com at https://andysevenltd.bandcamp.com/album/sea-level-drive. Meet me there.

On Her Bed of Roses

Many years ago – I won’t say how long - I went to a theater on Hollywood Boulevard that only showed vintage exploitation films, mostly from the Fifties through the Seventies. It was curated by Johnny Legend and Eric Caidin, long champions of cult, exploitation and lowbrow cinema. The films were screened in a small theatre which used to show X-rated films but eventually vacated the premises. There were two separate screening rooms, and both rooms were small with small screens, as well.

Some of the films I saw there were movies like The Gruesome Twosome, directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, the cult classic Night Tide, and the cinema of Ray Dennis Steckler. But there was this one film that got under my skin: Psychopathia Sexualis aka One Her Bed of Roses, directed by Albert Zugsmith.

Albert Zugsmith was more renowned for being a movie producer, his credits including High School Confidential and the noir classic Touch of Evil. But here he was directing a sleaze classic and a highly disturbing one, about, well let me see if I can adequately describe it:

Melissa Borden’s madly in love with her dad, but he’s so busy swinging he can’t be bothered with his daughter’s daddy complex. Meanwhile, her next-door neighbor Stephen Long has the opposite problem: his mother can’t stop climbing him and pawing him.

The only obsession Stephen has is his garden of roses by his gazebo in the back yard. Cutting to the chase, Melissa crushes on uptight Stephen, and the only way she can get him to make love to her is if she lies down in a bed of rose petals in the gazebo. What follows next is a tragedy of epic proportions, but you’ll have to see the film for yourself to find out.

The film was so nightmarish that I couldn’t get it out of my mind, so much so that I had to find out where I could find this masterpiece on VHS (DVD was not yet a thing). I went to Eric Caidin’s store Hollywood Book & Poster and saw the film sitting on the shelf, almost waiting for me like the demonic roses in the film. The tape was released by Something Weird Video, and I was about to take the ride of my life courtesy of the legendary Mike Vraney.

Mike Vraney first achieved prominence as road manager for punk bands like DOA, TSOL and The Dead Kennedys. He migrated to collecting endless reels of grindhouse and exploitation films, renting out several storage spaces to keep his enormous collection of movies – he collected comics and vintage radio shows, too, but that’s another story.

Something Weird Video became the primary home for exploitation video, even topping Rhino Video which had a hold on the scene for a while. Vraney had authorization from the filmmakers themselves to release their work – artists like Doris Wishman, David S. Friedman, and Herschell Gordon Lewis, among others.

After sending away for the Something Weird Video catalog, I found myself obsessed with everything in the catalog, films as obscure as you can imagine: films like She Man, directed by Bob Clark of Porky’s and A Christmas Story about a returning vet forced by blackmail to become a transvestite maid; Bummer, a Seventies exploitation film about a rock band with a homicidal bass player who kills groupies; and tons of Al Adamson classics like The Female Bunch about a gang of Raquel Welch-clone bisexual drug dealers, filmed near The Spahn Ranch.

I eventually met Mike and found him to be a great friend, and unfortunately part of our friendship was based on our love for smoking (I quit a little later, but sadly enough it took his life). I don’t know if this poem/song warrants this much of an introduction, but I always wanted to give props out to Mike and his wife Lisa because they brought so much entertainment to my life. I always had this title buzzing around in my mind, and here it is as a song:

On Her Bed of Roses

Her house screamed death in the night
the long grass grew oh, so wild
bones creaked right under the muddy dirt
all she did was smile and smile

On her bed of roses
On her bed of roses
On her blood red
Flaming bed of roses

She tore my face off every photograph
in her dusty, leather-bound book
the twisting, hissing snakes on her head
cried, slithered, shivered, and shook

On her bed of roses
On her bed of roses
On her blood red
Flaming bed of roses

She slayed sailors with her sad, sad songs
every lyric every line was cursed
not enough menfolk to quench
her bloodless, insatiable thirst

On her bed of roses
On her bed of roses
On her blood red
Flaming bed of roses

©2022, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.

Andy Seven Ltd. · On Her Bed Of Roses

In Bed With The Bomb

I recently watched my DVD of the great documentary The Atomic Café, a stunning compilation of newsreels, television broadcasts and other mixed media about the birth of the atomic bomb and tests conducted in the West Coast desert for its development.

The soundtrack to the film is a fascinating combination of country swing and folk songs all concerning the threat of communism, the bomb, and the threat of an impending nuclear war. I normally sandwich this film in between viewings of Kiss Me Deadly and A Boy and His Dog, but that’s another story.

I wrote a poem about the film and while it’s not as contemplative as I’d liked it to be, it’s close to expressing the anxiety that ran through every American at the time. I call it In Bed With The Bomb.

In Bed With The Bomb

I was just a gleam in a physicist’s eye
the final solution from a 12 o’clock high
blowing to bits to a teeny weenie
no people atoll in my radioactive bikini

I’m in bed with the bomb
I’m about to kingdom come
drop it now, stop it how?
duck and cover, my atomic lover

Then I lost my nuclear virginity
on a hot summer’s day in a place called Trinity
caught the atomic dose
in Los Alamos
a sleepy hollow
like Castle Bravo

Got the Manhattan Project in my pocket
hydrogen, neutron, can you fuel this rocket?
shield your eyes and drop the bomb
radiation bath fries in the napalm

Waving it around like a loaded gun
take a look around now everybody’s got one
you think the answer to it all is a mushroom cloud
I’d rather see your corpse wrapped up in a shroud

I’m in bed with the bomb
I’m about to kingdom come
drop it now, stop it how?
duck and cover, my atomic lover

Well, it’s not Phil Ochs but it’s not The Weirdos, either (“we don’t really want it but we got it anyway”). Since there was so much bluegrass in the movie I decided to play my mandolin hardcore punk style to give it an urgent, bluegrass tempo. Here’s the link to the “chune”:

Andy Seven Ltd. · In Bed With The Bomb

Minstrels Anonymous Spoken Word Album Available Now on Bandcamp

Today marks the release of my first full-length spoken word CD, Minstrels Anonymous. Tracks can be bought individually for download, or it can be purchased as a CD On Demand. There will be no vinyl or cassette releases (I can't believe people are making and buying cassettes again, but whatever!).

Minstrels Anonymous is my first solo album after several decades of making noise in the trashed-out back alleys of Hollywood. Years spent haunting clubs like The Masque, The Roxy Theater, The Gaslight, The Shamrock, The Hollywood Palladium, The Whiskey A Go-Go, and a million dead ballrooms.

After years of playing ear-splitting noise punk I've settled down to playing neofolk music on my mandolin and free jazz on my pocket trumpet and tenor saxophone. Neofolk is folk music with heavy goth and industrial influences, artists like Death In June, Emily Jane White and David Eugene Edwards, formerly of 16 Horsepower and now Wovenhand, just to name a few.

What prompted a writer who swore off a music career into making a spoken word record? When the pandemic hit and I went into lockdown I released a long-shelved novel, Red Coffee, and then proceeded to work on my poetry compilation, Year Of The Bat.

After editing, re-editing and rewriting Year of The Bat to my satisfaction I sent it off to the DIY publishing house for formatting. What they sent back was a nightmare.

It looked like a drunk five-year old got ahold of the manuscript and formatted the whole thing. Titles in tiny font running into the opening lines of the poem, pages not aligned properly, fonts changing up and down for no rhyme or reason - and not bad enough to even be deemed avant garde, for Christ's sake! It was like they hated the whole project and threw it back in my face.

After a week of nagging me constantly DO YOU APPROVE? PLEASE APPROVE? and then the annoying TELL US HOW WE DID begging, I sent back a message saying KILL IT and I WANT A REFUND.

Instead of crying in my beer about the savaging of my poetry book, I sat in front of my synthesizer. Then I played with my drum machine. Then I turned on my mp3 player in dictation mode and started reading these very same poems. I've since bought a Tascam 4-track recorder, but the earlier recordings have a weird metallic vocal sound to them. That's the mp3 player.

The first recording was Hollywood Is Killing Me, which I posted on SoundCloud. Ideas for new recordings started pouring out of my brain like a leaky faucet. I made the most of my lockdown by staying in and recording constantly, until the album you're holding represents the majority of my aural output for 2020.

As spoken word artists go, my main influences are monologists like Joe Frank, Ken Nordine, Lord Buckley, and the great Gary McFarlane. The Kenneth Patchen album with the Canadian Jazz Quartet was also a major influence on my album.

I made every effort to make each and every track sound unique and separate from each other to avoid any kind of monotony, which can often mar many spoken word recordings. Some tracks have folk backing. whereas others are heavily influenced by early Seventies electronic artists like Ruth White, Delia Derbyshire's White Noise, and Jean-Jacques Perrey.

Track listing:

1. PKW
2. Hollywood Is Killing Me
3. Stainless Steel Trees
4. Disney Superstar
5. The Scenester
6. Tomboys
7. Nerdy Girl
8. Rorer 714
9. Power Trio
10. Dreams That Money Can Buy
11. Action Painter
12. Suburban Adam & Eve
13. Halloween Birthday

Minstrels Anonymous is available for download or CD format via Bandcamp.com. You can find it at: https://andysevenltd.bandcamp.com/album/minstrels-anonymous

Newer tracks can be heard at: Soundcloud.com/andysevenltd

Dreams That Money Can Buy

Dreams That Money Can Buy - Andy Seven Ltd

Thin emaciated petite
and pale blonde
she had the gift of grift
deaf mute picking pockets

Shoplift shuffles
watched by 69 eyes
circuito cerrado
like an electric fly
like a hydra
the larcenous Medusa
weaving through aisles at all the busy shop floors
drifting and floating her way out revolving doors

Hitting up subway trains
a restless madame
shifting fingers
which never linger
restless grabbing claws
without a pause

Jamming the aisles
are oceans of crowded men
she’s sacrificing herself
for a fondle or ten
as she grabs wallets and watches
and scattered foreign swatches

Handbags with trapdoors
passageways in her purse
the take on her bed
the harpy’s nest
Irish coffee and a smoke
as she kicks off
her high heels
she flies again in the urban dawn

Copyright 2020, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved. From the album Minstrels Anonymous, available on Bandcamp.

Power Trio

Power Trio

Three guys walk into a bank
wearing cheap plastic rock star masks
there was Elvis, Gene Simmons and Ringo Starr
customers stood in line and
laughed at them

It was the day after Halloween
month end deposits
rent payments
welfare checks

Elvis swiveled his hips and flashed
white hot lead
shot the underpaid security guard dead

Well the laughter all stopped
and everybody dropped
Elvis covered the tellers
Gene Simmons swagged the merchants on the floor
while Ringo watched the door

Elvis shucked “thankyouvurrymuch”
Gene told everyone they should be honored he’s robbing them
and Ringo nervously tapped his feet

A few beats later you could hear a siren wailing
backbeat later a tear gas canister came crashing and sailing
Elvis moaned, “We’re caught in a trap,
we can’t walk out”

Shot Gene Simmons in the face and
his tongue flew off
then he shot Ringo in the neck
ever run riverrrun jugular fountain
then he put the gun in his mouth pulled the trigger
and went down to the edge of Lonely Street

Copyright 2020, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.

From the album Minstrels Anonymous, now available on Bandcamp

Stainless Steel Trees

STAINLESS STEEL TREES

I am cool, polished marble
i lie under stainless steel trees
around a lush green velvet lawn

Chameleons change to survive
changing to survive
too many destroying flesh
killing flesh
burning skin
and flesh
and bone
and hair

Change to survive
no more skin
no more flesh
no mare bone

So muuch killing
means nothing will ever
be the same

Change to survive
want to stay alive
like a chameleon
like a Rodin like a Henry Moore like a Michelangelo

I am cool, polished marble
smooth to the touch
frozen to the ends of time
with my stainless steel trees

Painting - The Big Game by Bernard Buffet.

The Scenester

The SCENESTER

A waterfall of ink black hair
spilling out of my painted skull
like a curtain about to open
over my face for the horror show

where do all the wild boys go

Big long restless hands like
bear paws falcon claws
punching writing washing playing
feminine lips trying to follow what I’m saying

Brown eyes turn to blue
like a crumbling lighthouse
with the light slowly dimming
eardrums smashed from too many nightclubs
like a deaf tom cat

closed captioned for the hearing impaired

Wide hips composed by my mother
shake it to industrial bands
endlessly running legs
endlessly tired legs
dance to the beat

let’s go back to the big long hands

*************

So in addition to recording this poem I thought it was time to get some of my mandolin in on the action. My playing is a little rough and the editing is even rougher, but it's okay. After this lockdown is over, I'm going to head over to a decent recording studio and engage in some decent overdubs. Should be good.

The echo on my voice was largely inspired by vintage country records, where the narrator talks about how he's serving time in prison for killing a man who took his beloved, forcing him to do the unthinkable. I love those records, and as long as I was doing a weird self-pitying narration here was my golden opportunity.

PM junk

him: Hey!!
me: hi
him: So, what’s going on?
me: nothing, what’s up?
him: I’ve been checking you out. You’re all kinds of fine. So, what’s going on? May I ask you personal question?
me: um, well…
him: Are you trans?
me: what?
him: Are you trans? Coz, you no, you’re like a hot chick but you have dude’s name.
me: I’m not trans, I’m me.
him: Are you trap? I’m from Pakistan. It’s a long way from you. So, are you trap?
me: no, I’m a boy.
him: I could make you feel like a woman. I have beautiful gray beard. Did I offend you? Are you trans?
me: what?
him: You look like a pretty girl. Do you like violent sex?
me: oh….you’re from Pakistan. I’ll bet the heroin there is totally pure. send me a few bags…Hazan, is that your name? send me a couple of balloons, Hazan.
him: No, I want to have sex with you, pretty girl.
me: sex is nothing, heroin is everything. send me your desert drugs.
him: You’re just a dirty drug addict! You’re filth! You disgust me, Trans! I spit on you, you ugly witch whore!
me: ah…so how about those balloons Hazan?
NO REPLY
BLOCK

The Andy Seven 2020 Halftime Progress Report

There have been no idle hands at work during the pandemic, and I daresay this may be one of the most fertile periods of creativity I’ve ever had. I have a lot of new things to report, so much stuff I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s take it from the top:

1.

I put up an Author Page on Book Baby’s website for your review. It has links to all of my current books on sale, and also includes news about any upcoming releases. Here’s the link with a small screen capture, too:
https://store.bookbaby.com/bookshop/profile/index.aspx?profileURL=andyseven

2.

Check out a great poem I wrote called “Succubus” for Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly, Spring 2020 Edition. It’s a sexy horror poem influenced by the films of Jean Rollin/Jess Franco. You can download a copy of it and read it here:
https://horrorsleazetrashcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/hstq-spring-2020_ebook-1.pdf

3.

All of my novels are now available for library-style lending from Hoopla.com. All you need is a library card and it’s absolutely free. Hoopla also has hundreds of CDs and DVDs you can take out, too. Here’s the link for Hoopla.com:
https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?page=1&q=andy+seven&scope=EBOOK&type=direct

4.

On a non-literary note I’ve posted a few obscure Trash Can School tracks and Cockfight remixes on my Soundcloud page, and once again, it’s absolutely free! If you have a Soundcloud account, please add Andy Seven Ltd. as a favorite artist. Here’s the link:
https://soundcloud.com/andysevenltd

5.

And last, but certainly not least, I have a new novel on the pipeline titled Red Coffee, due for an early June release date. My first book in four flaming years! If the title sounds familiar it’s because it was serialized in this blog many years ago and will finally see the light of day as a full-fledged work. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover:

In closing I wanted to mention that all excerpts and chapters from my novels have been taken down from this blog and will no longer be available for reading. If you want to enjoy them from this point on, you can either take the entire book out on Hoopla.com, or better yet, buy the whole thing on Amazon Kindle, iTunes, Book Baby, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo in Canada, or Oyster (if they’re still in business).

I have some new projects planned for later this year, i.e. another book in October 2020, more poetry in a wonderful comp titled Will To Flutter, and my first new music in years for sale on Bandcamp. The future looks bright, virus be damned.