On April 24th, Music Video Distributors will release a rare DVD from the ultimate cult bands, Detroit’s Destroy All Monsters. Titled Grow Live Monsters, the 90-minute disc features no-budget homemade 8mm, super 8 and 16mm film fantasies that were created by the band between 1971 and 1976. According to the MVD press release, “most of the films revolved around a group of friends and the wall of noise they would create in basement cellars and in live performance.”  

Destroy All Monsters were all the rage when the Reverend lived in the Motor City, the logical next evolutionary step from Iggy & the Stooges and the MC5, perhaps the best band that never got signed from Detroit. Fronted by the hauntingly beautiful Niagra, these avant-garde musical pranksters were described as “psychedelic meets noise meets high and low brow art in a Midwestern blender.” Grow Live Monsters will also include performance footage, band memorabilia and photos and outtakes.

Label executives portrayed as blood-sucking vampires? Oh my, that’s quite a stretch, isn’t it? That’s the not-so-unbelievable premise of Gothic Vampires From Hell, a closer-to-the-truth-than-you-might-think-satirical movie that will be released on DVD by MVD on May 15th. The story of the fictional band “Gothic Vampires From Hell,” the film mixes up classic Gothic horror themes with the horrors of shady record deals and bloodthirsty A&R reps, throwing in an ultra-cool Goth/Industrial soundtrack that includes Christian Death, the Electric Hellfire Club, Leather Strap, Switchblade Symphony and Pitbull Daycare, among others. Sounds like a scary good time to me….

One of those ‘90s-era bands that everybody has heard of but relatively few people actually witness perform live, Chicago’s Jesus Lizard. On June 5th,  MVD will release Jesus Lizard – Live on DVD, a 65-minute performance video that documents a 1994 show in Boston by the original band. Frontman David Yow has long been considered one of the most recklessly charismatic singers in the post-punk hemisphere, and the band was notorious for their loud, violent and often unpredictable live shows.

Formed in 1987 by guitarist Duane Denison along with vocalist Yow and bassist David Sims, both former members of Austin, Texas noisemakers Scratch Acid, Jesus Lizard later added drummer Mac McNeilly to their ranks after originally performing with a drum machine (much like Steve Albini’s Big Black). The foursome recorded four albums for indie label Touch & Go, including their 1990 debut Head, before being signed to a major label deal on the wave of the decade’s alt-rock tsunami. Capitol released two albums on the band, and Jesus Lizard toured as part of the 1995 Lollapalooza Festival.

The label never really knew what they had gotten themselves in for, however, the band’s aggressive, abrasive, guitar-driven collage of noise a little too heavy for mainstream audiences, even with Kurt Cobain’s constant championing of the band. By 1999 it was all over, though, and Jesus Lizard broke-up. Denison, a classically-trained and extremely talented guitarist, would later form the Denison-Kimball Trio, which recorded three albums; tour with Hank Williams III; and play with Mike Patton in Tomahawk.  

The Jesus Lizard – Live DVD also includes five bonus songs filmed at a 1992 show at CBGBs in New York City.