The strangest band I ever played in was the Devil Bell Hippies. It wasn’t really a band, per se, but rather just a vehicle for the mad genius of Martin Billheimer. Martin is one of the smartest motherfuckers I’ve ever met. And delightfully odd to boot.
The Hippies started out as a goof when somehow Martin was able to reserve a block of time on a local public access cable station. I think he pitched it as a show featuring his band. I’m sure the powers that be just thought these were a group of nice young lads from Lincoln Park High. To see Martin you would never guess just how bizarre he really is.
In any case, the tape they submitted featured a mini-“concert” with the Hippies spitting out all manner of dissonance while Martin attempted to conjure up the devil and mumbled some shit about the
Necronomicon. It ended with a full on black mass which included the recitation of The Infernal Names. The band members were all wearing black hoods. One of the guys had on a fabulous pair of brown corduroy bell bottoms and he made sure to point them out for the camera.
I played guitar for them a couple of times during live sets. There wasn’t much song structure. I simply tried to coax as many weird sounds as I could from the amplifier. I remember that during one of the shows Martin pulled a set list from the pocket of his jacket. It appeared to be a 3” x 5” card at first but when it unfolded onto the stage it was about twenty feet long. Red Stripe beer and Balaam. Fuckin’ punk rock, man! Delamer Duverus swallowed the soul of Edward Aloysius Roberts.
Anyway, these go out to everybody who loves Satan and flared pants as much as Mr. Billheimer and I do.
https://soundcloud.com/chipchilupa/disco-satanhttps://soundcloud.com/thedelrios/weari ... es-for-thehttps://soundcloud.com/thedelrios/delam ... dean-titanI'm posting this just for Bagels and maybe Douchebag if he happens to be in town. If Martin ever does put this together it's a must see. Keep a look out for it.