I’ve just received some excellent praise for my “Curse of the Daimon” album from Sanford Allen. In addition to being a cool-cat Texas author of horror and dark fantasy, Sanford is a long-time guitarist/vocalist for Boxcar Satan, the “three-piece band from San Antonio, Texas, that deconstructs American roots music and pours a particularly venomous brand of self-loathing noise from the demon bottle.” So I value his musical opinion.
He and I hung out extensively at last weekend’s ArmadilloCon — see my con report and his con report for our respective reactions to this year’s installment of Austin’s venerable fantasy/SF/horror literature convention — where we found time among the various conversations to exchange copies of our albums. I ended up with a disc of Boxcar Satan’s nifty “Hobo Nouveau,” which features the band playing with Ghostwriter, Oregon’s one-man act billed as “the original punk-folk troubadour.” I’ve been digging it for a week now.
Here’s what Sanford said to me in a note a couple of days ago:
As a musician, I get handed a lot of free CDs. Most of them suck. Yours did quite quite the opposite. It sucked me in. I’ve had it on constant play in my car and continue to be amazed at what a complete and well-executed work it is. I hear snatches of a lot of stuff I like — Goblin, Iron Maiden, Blue Oyster Cult, and Coil, for starters — and you integrate them all into something that’s more than just a pastiche of influences.
Thanks for that, buddy.
And to the rest of you: Yes, the album is still available in both disc and downloadable digital format at at CD Baby. And through iTunes. And at CD Universe. And at Amazon. And so on. And yes, it bears Jason Van Hollander’s remarkable original cover art.
