Braindead Soundmachine

After Coonce and Howell quit the Long Beach art-rock band Outer Circle in 1984, they founded Braindead Soundmachine in Los Angeles, California, United States, in 1989, with speed metal record producer Croyle. The trio conceptualized "metaldisco," a genre that melded Black Sabbath riffs topped by disco rhythm guitar and ethereal female vocals. The sound was rounded out by Shivers, a Los Angeles sound engineer, whose contribution consisted of non-musical screeching noises made from his collections of vintage analog synthesizers.

Braindead uses female vocalists, including those of Joan Jones from Sun 60, Khalsoum Salloum and JenJen (Jenny Homer from Downy Mildew{{cite web|url=http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=downy_mildew |title=Downy Mildew |website=TrouserPress.com |date= |accessdate=2014-08-21}}). The band followed the ethos that "there are no mistakes", with only one rule: "no chord changes."{{cite web |date=2005-01-13 |title=Reno News & Review - No mistakes - Book Reviews - Arts&Culture - January 13, 2005 |url=http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=23944 |accessdate=2014-08-21 |website=Newsreview.com}} The band's approach to making music was also informed by its insistence that Yoshi, a Japanese transgender woman working as a cocktail waitress in East Hollywood, was in fact "Dogvillasan," a deity (or "Coyote God") summoned by the group in the song of the same name.{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJa1M_4HLU | title=BRAINDEAD SOUND MACHINE - DOGVILLASAN (Official Lyric Studio) | website=YouTube | date=14 May 2023 }}

Image:Brainded-bandshot.jpg

In 1990, Braindead procured a recording contract with Chicago's Wax Trax! Records, which put out the band's first long-playing compact disc, Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby. Singles from that album included "I'm in Jail,"{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kOueo_n4KQ | title=Braindead Sound Machine - I'm in Jail | website=YouTube | date=8 May 2023 }} and a cover of Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight" (whose release included remixes of the song produced by KMFDM founder Sascha Konietzko).

In 1992, Coonce scored the Gregg Araki indie film The Living End, a queer road movie that also featured Braindead's version of the Jesus and Mary Chain song that gave the film its title.

As Wax Trax! began to go bankrupt, Braindead extricated itself from their contract.

Braindead's second album, Give Me Something Hard I Can Take To My Grave, was distributed on Shiver Records in the United States and Artlos in Europe.

The group disbanded in 1994 during pre-production for its never-released third album. Later, Mr. Reality suggested only using one chord per composition by mandating that new songs use only "one note," an idea that Coonce found unworkable. After it, the three founding members quit music and procured employment as sound engineers in game shows and the adult film industry, as documented in Coonce's memoirs about the music business, released in 2005, also entitled Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Qp7USDa7nIC |title=Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby - Cole Coonce - Google Books |accessdate=2014-08-21|isbn=9780971997714 |last1=Coonce |first1=Cole |year=2005 |publisher=Kerosene Bomb }}

In 1995, the band regrouped for its final musical endeavor, recording the source music for Dan Zukovic's cult film The Last Big Thing, a satirical attack on the entertainment culture of Los Angeles.

Eventually, Coonce changed occupations and became a freelance drag strip journalist for publications National Dragster,{{cite web|url=http://www.nhra.com/dragster/2003/issue07/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051224014135/http://www.nhra.com/dragster/2003/issue07/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2005-12-24 |title=NHRA: National DRAGSTER (Issue 7 February 28, 2003) |date= |accessdate=2020-03-19}}{{cite web |title=Introducing the panel |url=http://www.nhra.com/50th/top50/panel.html |website=NHRA |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509183850/http://www.nhra.com/50th/top50/panel.html |archive-date=9 May 2008 |url-status=dead}} Hot Rod Magazine and WIRED. Later, a feature-length book on the history of the land speed record, Infinity Over Zero.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hhJUczjM2rMC&q=infinity+over+zero |title=Infinity Over Zero: Meditations on Maximum Velocity - Cole Coonce - Google Books |accessdate=2014-08-21|isbn=9780971997707 |last1=Coonce |first1=Cole |year=2002 |publisher=Kerosene Bomb }} In 2007, JenJen collaborated with Coonce on a new musical venture entitled Prozac Pop Machine. Their first single is "Shampoo" and is currently available as a podcast-only.[http://www.kerosenebomb.com/Shampoo.mp3]{{dead link|date=August 2014}}

Croyle is now CEO of the multi-media conglomerate Reality Entertainment.{{cite web |url=http://www.reality-entertainment.com/music/index.html |title=Reality Entertainment Music |publisher=Reality-entertainment.com |accessdate=2014-08-21 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140321203951/http://www.reality-entertainment.com/music/index.html |archivedate=2014-03-21 }} Originally an outlet for ponderous and aggressive speed metal bands, Reality signed seminal disco music stars KC and the Sunshine Band to a recording contract in 2006, a move for which Croyle states that "KC has affected generations of music lovers around the world, we are thrilled to have KC on the Reality roster."

In interviews, Braindead cites their influences. They employed N.W.A's hip hop drum machine sound, Black Sabbath's bass lines and the guitar stylings of Chic, Fela Kuti and Funkadelic.{{Citation needed paragraph|date=March 2024}}

• Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby (Wax Trax!, 1991)
• Give Me Something Hard I Can Take to My Grave (Shivers Records, 1993)

• "I'm in Jail" b/w "Dogvillasan" (Nitro Records, 1990)
• "I'm in Jail" (Wax Trax!, 1991)
• "Walkin' After Midnight" b/w "Everybody, Everybody" (Wax Trax!, 1992)
• "Where the Pavement Ends" b/w "Soon Come, Goddammit" (Artlos, 1993)

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090106134323/http://www.kerosenebomb.com/braindead/ Braindead Soundmachine] Official Braindead Soundmachine website
• [http://www.myspace.com/braindeadsoundmachine MySpace] Braindead Soundmachine Myspace
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOMUlLn6530 Walkin' After Midnight] Braindead Sound Machine- Walkin' After Midnight video
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120215074728/http://www.prickmag.net/comedownbookreview.html Prick Magazine COME DOWN FROM THE HILLS & MAKE MY BABY book review]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081007012910/http://home.roadrunner.com/~cole/alternative-press.html Los Angeles Alternative Press COME DOWN FROM THE HILLS book review]

Category:Musical groups established in 1989

Category:American industrial rock musical groups

Category:Rock music groups from California

Category:Musical groups disestablished in 1993

Category:Wax Trax! Records artists