“Giant Ants Ate the Blues Player,” an entry on Undead Backbrain

“Giant Ants Ate the Blues Player,” an entry on Undead Backbrain


Home About this site Links New on Undead Brainspasm Backbrain Film Reviews Giant Monster Movie List Zombie Movie List Ghost Movie List Evil Doll Movie List Avery’s Top 20 Craziest Kaiju List Kaiju Forums RSSSkip Undead Backbrain


« Tales of King Komodo Part 2 | Home | Weekend Fright Flick: Lizard of Death »

Giant Ants Ate the Blues Player
Kaiju Search-Robot Avery has discovered that Bakersfield, California country blues player Hank Ray is making a movie about giant ants.





Taking the classic truth-in-advertising approach to titles, it’s called Giant Ants Eat Bakersfield. It will be about 30 minutes long and the director hopes that it will be available online after a run at the Kern Country film festival. He’s billing it as:

The first Country Music Horror Film ever! It’s A Musical And It Has Giant Ants Eating Bakersfield.




Apparently, filming began about a year ago. Hank commented to Avery: “I filmed this all over Bakersfield. We almost got busted filming on the roof of the old BUCK OWENS recording studio. The film is not finished, and I sort of put it on the shelf. I have had some really good feed back lately so I will start on it again this weekend. Yours was the best feed back so far. I will keep you updated.”

So Avery’s enthusiasm for no-budget independent monster flicks may have caused a potential renaissance in the Bakersfield Giant Ant film industry.

Below is a conceptual image for the film (NOT the real advertising poster), which Hank bodgied up from a classic poster from one of his film’s inspirations, the greatest giant ant movie of all time — Them!




According to Hank, the giant ants are a metaphor for the way the New Country music has come in and taken control of the Old. Now that’s a metaphor that hasn’t been explored in giant monster films before this. He told the Backbrain:

Well, Bakersfield used to stand for an underground or rebellious response to Nashville country Music. When Buck Owens passed away a while back, I went to his funeral. I later wrote some songs about that and one was called “Giant Ants”. It was as though corporate music was like giant ants that took over country music and Bakersfield was one of the things the corporate ants ate. I suppose I am a nut.

Here are the lyrics of Hank’s song on the subject:


ACT ONE SONG:
The old country music is gone

The old country music is gone
You know it never had a chance
The old country music is gone
Corporate music killed it just like giant ants.
Corporate music came to call
Like some giant ants they killed it all
I’d like to hear more like Clarence and Hank
But big corporate music owns all the money in the bank
The old country music is gone
You know it never had a chance
The old country music is gone
Corporate music killed it just like giant ants
America has sold it’s music out
They forgot what Bakersfield and Nashville was all about?
Watch ‘em on TV become a Nashville star
I can’t believe it’s gone this far.
The old country music is gone
You know it never had a chance
The old country music is gone
Corporate music killed it just like giant ants.

The film is meant to be a take-off of those really old B-moster movies where the monsters are so fake that they are cool. Like the tree monster and some of the ones on the old Star Trek.

Anyway, I went to Buck Owen’s ranch and made a mini film of Buck’s son’s band BUCKSHOT for Brighthouse. It showed on cable. That’s how it started. I have others that are helping — Dr. B.L.T., a local song writer, and some local hot-rod club members. My friend Ron Ramos, who almost got pinched on the Buck Owen’s studio roof, helped a lot.

The reason we had to get on the roof was, the studio had just sold, so we made a sign — like the studio was still open and put it on the marquee . Then we took a giant ant off an old pest control truck and painted it with rubberized undercoat, so it looked better. After that I bought some fake human skulls at the holloween store in Bakersfield and some dry ice for smoke.



One night I was wrestling the ant under the giant Bakersfield Arch sign at Buck Owen’s Chrystal Palace. It was so bizarre a sight that the 99 Freeway slowed to a crawl above the Palace.

A lot of the film footage got ruined when I spilled beer on it at a local honky tonk where I’d been filming.

Ah, the unique difficulties that come with country music monsterdom!










Below is a clip of Hank singing a song about a mastodon:

Woody’s Dream


Good luck with the film, Hank.

Source: Hank Ray via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery
Hank Ray’s Journal
Hank’s MySpace page (where you can hear more of his music)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About this entry
You’re currently reading
Published: Apr 19 2009 / 10:03 am
Category: Big Bugs, Film, Giant Monsters, Kaiju Search-Robot Avery, Music, News

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 Comments
Jump to comment form | comments rss | trackback uri
Avery

04.19.09 / 10am
A country musical with giant insects?! I can’t wait to see more from this cool little big bug flick! It looks like a blast. Hank’s a great guy too! Lots of fun!

Giant Ants Ate the Blues Player

04.19.09 / 10am
[...] Original post by Undead Backbrain [...]

Topics about America » Archive » Giant Ants Ate the Blues Player

04.20.09 / 2am
[...] After Armageddon created an interesting post today on Giant Ants Ate the Blues PlayerHere’s a short outlineKaiju Search-Robot Avery has discovered that Bakersfield, California country … America has sold it’s music out [...]