La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

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Flack
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La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

Post by Flack »

A Look Back at White Zombie's La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1: 30 Years Later
Released March, 1992.

Born as a "noise project" and founded by art majors Robert Cummings and Sean Yseult, White Zombie spent the last half of the 1980s creating, by nearly all accounts, some pretty terrible music. It took the band half a decade, two full-length albums, and multiple EPs to hone the sound they would become known for: "groove metal with b-movie samples" according to Cummings, who temporarily adopted the moniker "Rob Straker" before permanently changing it to Rob Zombie.

Yseult, Zombie's girlfriend at the time, began her musical career as a keyboard player before switching to bass. It was Yseult who invited the drummer from her former band (Ivan de Prume) to join the pair in their noisy project. The band went through half a dozen guitarists before drafting Rights of the Accused founder Jay Yuenger on guitar. The addition of Yuenger permanently altered both the sound and trajectory of the band as they moved away from "noise rock" and into the world of heavy metal. The band's previous release, 1989's "Make them Die Slowly," was the first to prominently include samples from horror films and b-movies, which would become a staple of the band's sound and set them apart from other bands. White Zombie's unique sound, combined with a nonstop onslaught of visuals provided by Zombie and Yseult, got the band a deal in 1992 with Geffen records, where the lineup of Zombie, Yseult, de Prume and Yuenger would record La Sexorcisto.

Three things stand out in regards to White Zombie's major label debut. The first is the wall of sound presented by the band. Instead of laying back with the drums, Yseult's bass almost always duplicates Yuenger's rhythm guitar tracks, creating a thick and unified sound that spreads the metal riffs across multiple octaves. Second are the non-stop movie samples; Rob Zombie wears his influences on his sleeve with a constant stream of audio clips borrowed from Universal monster films and Russ Meyer flicks. Finally, there's Zombie himself, a larger-than-life figure with dreadlocks and goggles who wrote nonsensical lyrics and somehow managed to get away with rhyming "yeah" with "yeah" on more than one occasion. It was this concoction that, like the band's eponymous Black Sunshine, helped White Zombie "explode on the highway like a slug from a forty-five."

White Zombie's breakthrough album (awkwardly titled "La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1") was released in the spring of 1992 and, despite having all the pieces in place, didn't make much of an impact on music fans upon its release. Both of the band's singles, "Thunder Kiss '65" and "Black Sunshine" failed to make an impression and the band was on its way to obscurity when, as legend has it, both videos were featured a year later in 1993 on the MTV television show Beavis and Butt-Head. The AC/DC and Metallica shirt-wearing duo sang White Zombie's praises, and the band would go down in history as the first band to have their careers launched by Beavis and Butt-Head. Despite being released in March of 1992, the album didn't chart until after appearing on the show, rising to #26 on the Billboard Top 200 in 1993. The album would be certified double-platinum later that year, go on to win multiple awards, and appear on several lists including Rolling Stone's "Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time."

I had the pleasure of seeing White Zombie perform live twice -- once with Danzig during their first tour, and again a few years later while supporting their second album, that time with the Melvins and Reverend Horton Heat. While the studio perfected the band's sound, the essence of the band was only available on stage, with the band flailing, spinning and headbanging while surrounded by flashing stobe lights and Halloween decorations. The second time I saw them, in 1995, was like entering a haunted house on the boardwalk midway and discovering a band of monsters were having a concert.

Prior to White Zombie, heavy metal to me consisted of hair metal from the 80s and flannel-wearing grunge of the 90s. White Zombie took a bunch of things I loved -- horror movies, loud music, thick guitars and psychedelic artwork -- and combined it into something I'd never experienced. White Zombie played new music that made me want to watch old films, to wear weird shit and to think of everything as a canvas -- your clothes, your arms, your walls... name it. I'll never look like White Zombie, but sometimes, inside, I feel like they look.

---[TRACK BREAKDOWN]---

Track 01: Welcome to Planet Motherfucker/Psychoholic Slag (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

The first 90 seconds of the album give listeners a taste of what's to come. The track opens with a series of weird samples that fade into Yuenger on guitar quickly followed by de Prume's fading in drums. Just over a minute into the track, Yuenger breaks into the first of a hundred groove metal riffs. The guitars are (at least) double tracked, with a wailing, soloing lead layered atop a riff that's almost impossible not to nod along to. Yseult doubles down by mirroring the rhythm on bass with de Prume's drums thick enough in the mix to carry their own weight. At center stage is Zombie himself, who sings about whirlpools of drag-o-rama, swamptime locomotion, time travel and psychoholic slag. The track is actually two songs bashed together with a breakdown between the two; as the music fades leaving behind a straight forward drum beat, Zombie slips in a quick sample: "do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with?" from 1932's "The Mummy." The song's chorus includes multiple samples from another b-movie classic, Russ Meyer's Valley of the Dolls. Heavy groove riffs, layered bass, movie samples, and unintelligible lyrics -- everything that is White Zombie appears in the first track, and never quits. If any ball is dropped it's the visual style of the video, whose black and white concert footage fails to capture the band's technolor style.

Track 02: Knuckle-Duster (Radio 1-A)

The first of three soundscapes created to sound like someone turning the dial on a radio. Each of these contains clips from movies, sermons, and horror movies.

Track 03: Thunder Kiss '65 (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

The album's second song takes every concept introduced in the first track, wraps it up in a less-than-four-minute radio friendly package, and puts together a song people can sing along to even if they don't know what it's about or, sometimes, what they're saying. "Demon warp is coming alive in 1965." What's that mean? Who cares! Yseult does double duty on bass during the verses, spending the first half of each line with the kick drum before mirroring Yuenger's riff. On the choruses, Yseult and Yuenger hang together while a second soloing guitar track dances around. This time around, the video shows viewers exactly who and what White Zombie is. The band is featured in color, with hair flying and Zombie spinning. In between the live shots we get go-go dancers, guys in luchador masks, cow skulls and Frankenstein wearing a boa. We also get multiple samples from Valley of the Dolls again ("You're all shook up, aren't you?" "I never try anything, I just do it. Wanna try me?") This... this is White Zombie. If you're not on the White Zombie train by now, go ahead and get off.

Track 04: Black Sunshine (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

Slightly heavier than the previous track, Black Sunshine, thanks to a spoken-word intro by Iggy Pop, may be the album's most easily understandable song. It's about a fast Mustang named Black Sunshine. Yseult gets her first standout moment with an opening bass riff that quickly gets doubled by Yuenger once the track kicks in. The band pulls off a few things here that will be repeated throughout the album, like moving the main riff up a bit while repeating it, and ultimately playing big open chords (around the four minute mark) while hopping between octaves. Iggy Pop's spoken word performance makes up for the lack of samples here.

Track 05: Soul-Crusher (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

The track begins with a long intro riff which Yuenger plays four times in a row, breaks down, and repeats four times. Yseult's bass isn't given much to do at first but eventually comes in to (again) mirror the rhythm guitar. The wall of sound doesn't hit until 1:15 when the guitar, bass, and drums unify their attack in a hoppy riff designed to make even the most hardened metal fan bop in place. After the chorus is a transition with a bit of double-bass and heavy riffing before things coalesce once again like thick metal pudding. Yuenger frequently double and triple tracks his riffs, adding to the stewy thickness. Soul-Crusher is the first (but not the last) track on the album to feature a tambourine; like the cowbell in "Don't Fear the Reaper," once you hear it you can't unhear it. Like many White Zombie tracks, this one has multiple great riffs -- the opening one (I've tried to play it many times; I call it the "finger-twister"), the verse "bounce", and the disco metal toward the end which eventually circles back around to the finger-twister again. It's not that these songs have a great riff; it's that each one has four or five great riffs.

Track 06: Cosmic Monsters Inc (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

Lest anyone think White Zombie is taking themselves too seriously, track six opens with a sample from the 1966 television show Batman ("Behind the facade of this innocent looking bookstore...") The same Valley of the Dolls sample that appeared in Thunder Kiss '65 ("You're all shook up, aren't you?") is repeated here along with clips from Plan 9 from Outer Space. Cosmic Monsters Inc is another riff-led track, with at least three different riffs that could have been separate songs. With even more reverb and howling it becomes more difficult to discern what Zombie is singing the majority of the time. Also of note is that this track is a "fake" live track, a gimmick the band used previously on their 12" release covering the KISS song "God of Thunder."

Track 07: Spiderbaby (Yeah Yeah Yeah) (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

On the cassette release, Spider Baby is the last song of Side A. "Power breakdown, giiit on it." Like most of the songs on the album this one bashes together a few different riffs and ideas, but for the first time, at least for me, it doesn't quite work. Two mismatched riffs are followed by a slower drawn out middle, which itself is followed by yet another riff, this one featuring pinch-harmonics. While all of this is taking place, Yuenger noodles away on another track of solos while Yseult plays keep up. The track has a few good ideas that never quite gel and comes off as five minutes of filler created with leftovers. And while i literally have no idea what this song is about, it does contain samples from The Omen, The Exorcist, and Hellraiser, which gives me a pretty good guess. (And while I don't know if this is just a coincidence or not, Zombie's baby brother goes by the name Spyder. Spiderbaby? Spyderbaby? Maybe.)

Track 08: I Am Legend (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

Side B kicks off with "I Am Legend," a song that contains three things that set it apart from the rest of the album's tracks -- it opens with acoustic guitar (the only acoustic guitar on the album, I think), contains relatively few riffs, and no samples. In terms of albums with two sides, "I Am Legend" feels like a side opener because it is. The main riff gets more mileage than most others, running the length of the song save for the choruses.

Track 09: Knuckle Duster (Radio 2-B)

A second mood setting "fake" radio recording.

Track 10: Thrust! (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

After some shouting in Japanese (sampled from a manga cartoon), White Zombie falls back into the groove pocket with "Thrust!" Once again we have no idea what Zombie is singing about save for random bits. ("mumble mumble something TWO AND THREE AND FOUR AND FIVE"). After yet another powerful breakdown, we get a rather lengthy sample from Night of the Living Dead (one of the news broadcasts). The music is rather straight ahead until two and a half minutes in at which point Yseult (perhaps for the first time) separates from the pack with a lead bass riff. Soon, everyone in the band is off on their own direction with Yuenger noodling wildly and de Prume smashing the skins with all his might before the band comes back together just before the four minute mark. The song concludes with a concert-ending drum smashing and guitar crescendo and before soon you realize every song on Side B feels like it could be the last song.

Track 11: One Big Crunch

Another short soundscape intermission.

Track 12: Grindhouse (A Go-Go) (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

Once the band spells it out for us, sure, a lot of the songs here feel like they belong in a Go-Go dance club -- one with spiraling lights, crazy dancers, and... well, monsters. What's weird is, this song is not one of them. This track begins with a pounding drumbeat before Yuenger comes in with one of the odder riffs on the album. Instead of being a straight-forward, you know, Go-Go song, the riff stops and starts right in the middle of the chorus, breaking any momentum by giving it an overly "choppy" feel and turning the one song named after a dance club undancible. The second half of the track picks up the pace mostly thanks to de Prume's frantic drumming, but the stopping-and-starting riff returns and makes it difficult to maintain any momentum it builds.

Track 13: Starface (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

If this track weren't buried deep on the backside there's a good chance it could have been the follow-up to Thunder Kiss '65. It has a similar feel with a driving riff that never stops marching forward. It's not quite as memorable as the former single, but what it lacks in originality it gains in drive. Yuenger takes the lead multiple times with his sailing solos while Yseult holds down the charging fort and Zombie throws out every trick up his velvet sleeve. On the backslide Yseult holds court with the bass while Yuenger flies to the moon. The song's opening sample, which as a kid I thought came from THX-1138 ("One... we are one... one is the beginning...") is actually from the Star Trek episode "The Way to Eden". Only Zombie could combine samples from Star Trek and Phantasm on the same track and make it work.

Track 14: Warp Asylum (YOUTUBE AUDIO)

The album concludes neither with a bang nor a whimper, but possibly the heaviest sludge riff on the album. The riff isn't complicated (it's 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3...2..1...) but when doubled and combined with the bass it becomes a Nyquil nightmare, a venerable mudslide that hypnotizes you into submission. The track doesn't take off like a rocket; instead it rolls over you like a tank, repeatedly reminding you for five minutes that this will not stop. White Zombie, like their undead namesakes, will never, ever, stop.

---[CONCLUSION]---

A few years later, they stopped. After touring for two years to support their breakthrough album, Ivan de Prume quit the band and was replaced by former Exodus/Tempest drummer John Tempesta (who went on to play in Rob Zombie's solo band and is currently the drummer for The Cult). More detrimental to the band was the breakup of Rob Zombie and Sean Yseult. In the mid-90s Zombie would begin dating (and eventually marry) Sherri Moon (Zombie), who went on to star in many of Zombie's music videos and (I think) all of his films. "Astro Creep: 2000" (featuring the hit single "More Human than Human") pushed the bands groove-metal/sample sound even further, but after only two smash albums Rob Zombie called it quits and when on to form his own solo band. Both Yuenger and de Prume quit playing music and moved into the studio, while Yseult has played in multiple bands including Famous Monsters, Rock City Morgue, and The Cramps. While the specific events that led to the band's breakup have never been fully revealed, Rob Zombie has unequivocally stated that there will never be a White Zombie reunion, and that he hasn't talked to any of his former band members since the day the band broke up in 1998. (Yseult was particularly hurt when her input was ignored for a White Zombie box set, which was completely assembled by Rob Zombie).

---[BONUS]---

In between the release of the band's two most well known albums, several unreleased tracks ended up on soundtracks. The heaviest of these tracks, "I Am Hell," appeared on the Beavis and Butt-Head film soundtrack, maybe as a way of saying thanks. This live performance from MTV is before the band doubled-down on its stage show, but once the ball was rolling.

"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I appreciate you writing this. I wish I had a single interesting thing to say about White Zombie. I don't mind his movies.
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Jizaboz
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Re: La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

Post by Jizaboz »



I didn't see this back in the day, but it holds up.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

This sums up one of the problems with a BBS with like 5 users. You have Flack writing all this wonderful content about White Zombie. I think I would rather have tentacular torsion than have to listen to anything this Rob Zombie guy has ever done musically. Well, I am not going to shit on a band that - I think? - Flack likes. I don't want to go IT. SUCKS. to anything! Although, goddamn starting a "noise project" is the worst call to arms I have ever heard in my life as a starting point. Damn.

So we must applaud Flack for what he did and he and I blame the 20-30 people who are not here and do not know of this forum for not contributing more to the thread.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Ok, I listened to the song "Thrust!" and it is fine. So perhaps they make entirely listenable music and my impression of them was wrong the entire time.
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Jizaboz
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Re: La Sexorcisto: 30 Years Later

Post by Jizaboz »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2023 7:20 am Ok, I listened to the song "Thrust!" and it is fine. So perhaps they make entirely listenable music and my impression of them was wrong the entire time.
Yeah bro it really was a good band that I also just kinda ignored when White Zombie was blowing up. Probably didn't help that my mom was one of their biggest fans as I was neck-deep in shit like old Beck and Sonic Youth at the time lol. I also didn't mean to discount Flack's original post at all with such a short reply.. I just thought that link tied into the history a bit.

I had mad more respect for Rob Zombie and White Zombie after I ran into him at Toys R Us in Winston-Salem in 1998.
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