BEDEMON DELAYED!

NATION REELS IN SHOCK!

“How much disappointment can the people withstand?”

An already-fatigued populace took yet another hit as Bedemon announced that their much-anticipated reunion recording session would have to be postponed until early 2002. According to spokesdemon B. Hazelbubb, plans were firmly in place for the sessions to take place in California from Oct. 27th through Nov. 3rd. “We had everything set up,” according to the red-leather clad, tiny-horned befangled representative. “We had cauldrons rented, the band members were booked into a beautiful two-room mausoleum (complete with kitchenette), we even hired a virgin, no easy task in California, just in case they decided to sacrifice one on Halloween. But, it was all for naught.”

The problem? Legendary Bedemon founder Randy Palmer was unable to free himself from the chains of his postal employment. Not figuratively; Palmer is actually chained to his desk to prevent escape during working hours. “And there’s that whole full-moon thing…”, adds Palmer with a tinkle in his yellowed, bloodshot eye.

Immediately upon hearing the news, celebrities rushed to offer their services, suggesting a benefit concert. “What good would that do?!!” asked a bewildered Palmer. “Other bands play because we can’t? What a bunch or morons!”

On reflection, Palmer later added: “We think it’s important that the metal fans out there know we haven’t slowed down working toward our new goals. The delay in getting our 2002 material together has nothing whatsoever to do with the band as a musical entity. But, since our work schedules have become a momentary roadblock in our pursuit of metallic musical mayhem, we’ve decided to concentrate our efforts on speeding up the remastering of the original so-called “Child of Darkness” tapes in order to get them ready sooner than later.

“For the past few months we have been working with a professional recording engineer, who generously agreed to give up his personal time to help in the remastering of the original Bedemon tapes from 1970-78. This is the material you may have already heard in atrocious bootleg form on certain CDs, vinyl, or cassette. We urge you not to buy these products and we hope you don’t share them with your metal pals because, frankly, the original “basement tapes” sound significantly better! Our engineer who is working on remastering these tapes has already proved to us how meticulous fine-tuning can eliminate unwanted tape hiss, out-of-synch phasing effects, etc., and at the same time boost the instrumentation to levels that really bring out the heaviness of the material. We have shared a small preview of the remastered material with you via the “mp3″ files on this website, so you know how much better the old material is going to sound when our engineer is finished with the tapes. We hope you will be patient a while longer and wait for this material to be offered in a legitimate, band-endorsed form, either via this website or via the metal specialty record company we have been talking to over the past few months. Stay tuned for further developments!”

BEDEMON IN PRINT!!!

We that be Bedemon were very pleased with the coverage that “Metal Maniacs” magazine afforded us, although to sell the story, author Perry Grayson was forced to submit it as a “Pentagram” piece. In fact, as many of you are already aware, the connections between Pentagram and Bedemon are so entwined, that we really can’t complain. After all, coverage is coverage! (For the uninitiated, ignorant or memory-challenged, Randy Palmer was a member of Pentagram during two separate periods and Geof O’Keefe co-founded Pentagram in 1971 with vocalist Bobby Liebling, who sang on the 70s Bedemon recordings.) A second Bedemon/Pentagram article appeared in the D.C.-based music newspaper Snap Pop!, also written by Grayson. You may know that Perry was one of the driving forces behind Destiny’s End, which has released two terrific metal albums featuring the voice of legendary Texan metallers, Helstar. Perry left Destiny’s End after the 2nd release and created Artisan, which we believe will rapidly reach the same heights as early Fates Warning and current progressive/metal faves The Quiet Room. Check out Perry’s band at www.artisanmetal.com. The interviews Perry did with Bedemonites Randy, Geof, and Mike are also destined to find their way into several other specialist metal fanzines and/or websites before long. We’ll announce the titles of these publications and sites, their country of origin and addresses as we learn of them ourselves.

NEW BEDEMON MATERIAL!!!

The three of us (Randy, Geof, Mike) have been working on all-new material for the projected Bedemon 2K2 album, and we expect to have enough material for 2 albums by the time we finish rehearsing! Just imagine: a Bedemon Bedouble CD! But, we may just whittle it down to one CD jam-packed full o’ riffs of doom. No ballads, no rap, no techno-drum tracks, no speed metal…just neck-twisting, skull-drilling, lava-heavy riffs.

The “Bedemon 2K2” album will include the single 1986 composition, “Night of the Demon” (inspired by Randy’s all-time favorite horror film, “Curse of the Demon”), plus our latest tunes, among them “Godless,” “Infected,” “Creeping Unknown” (another movie reference, for all you Hammer film fans), “D.E.D.” (Dying Every Day), “Exterminator,” “Days of Isolation” and others currently being written and demoed . If there’s any room to squeeze in another, we hope to do the only existing Palmer-Liebling co-write, “Starlady,” which appeared once on a previous Pentagram compilation album. (It should come as little surprise that the Bedemon version of “Starlady” would be significantly heavier than the earlier one!)

BEDEMON LOOKS TO THE FUTURE!!!

We haven’t really thought about anything beyond the Bedemon 2K2 album project; but honestly, if these two albums are received as warmly as we hope, there’s no reason why Bedemon can’t continue onward into 2003, 2004, etc….at least until one of us drops dead!

BEDEMON ON B. LIEBLING:

We’ve received a number of messages from fans asking about Bobby and his involvement in Bedemon’s new projects. While he was an undeniable part of the original Bedemon recordings, we are not working with him at this time. He has his claws full with Pentagram, whose new album, “Sub-Basement,” is due imminently. Obviously, Bobby must continue to devote most of his time to Pentagram. We’ve already had several queries from singers interested in Bedemon 2K2, and although we are not at a point where we are thinking about auditioning anyone, when the time comes, we’ll make the right move. Come back and visit us again often!

Happy Thanksgrieving From the Gobblers of Gore!!!

Randy – Geof – Mike