Matricidal Sons of Bitches

CD version comes in a 4 panel mini-LP style gatefold package.  Double LP version is housed in a gatefold jacket and includes a free download coupon.

Matricidal sons of bitches was conceived and produced by Matthew Friedberger in Paris, where he now stays, and inspired by the films of Poverty Row. The production values and narrative techniques of these films became the basis for Matricidal sons of bitches. As Matt tells us:

Matricidal sons of bitches is not the soundtrack to not a film. But what if it wasn't?
"Poverty, always poverty." Since the building of my opera house is delayed (see spring 2013), I decided to to go into the picture business; I decided to start a movie studio.
I set up my office in the rest of the one room where everything, and by everything I don't mean much, else is already.
And by picture business I mean non-picture business. Since what could be more predictable then yet another film made up of something filmed? What could be more boring? And who could afford to do such a thing--film something, with some sort of equipment equipped to do so--anyway? Not I, says me. We'll leave questions of know-how to what's-his-name. But I digress.
What's more rock-n-roll than the red-carpet radio-interview exposition-sequence at the beginning of Singin' in the Rain? Where the tag-line is: "Dignity, always dignity."
Many, many things. And maybe the only thing more exciting than a shot of a Cowboy jumping on an Indian is a shot of people running around as fast as they can trying to shoot a shot of a Cowboy jumping on an Indian.
All that kind of thing has something in common with rock-n-roll--one might think. I've always assumed it does. What am I talking about? In the sequence mentioned above--think about it--Mr. Kelly says he and his partner spent some time down on: Poverty Row. It seems the audience is expected to know what that means.
And if they don't, well--then they're shown the Cowboy jumping on the Indian and the people jumping around filming the Cowboy jumping on the Indian.
That must be Poverty Row. Where they haven't got a moment to lose. "No time to'lose!" A very dramatic place to be.
What a minute. I'm thinking about it. Just a moment. I've got it all wrong. It's not Cosmo Brown and the other guy. From the first part of The Bad and the Beautiful, it's Shields and Amiel: they catch a quickie down on Poverty Row. And what's more, it's the Indian that jumps on the Cowboy.
Hmm. The hypothetical location of the sort of film studio or movie-making process where you had to pick up the camera and run to set up the next shot, which you didn't have time to set up: Poverty Row. I don't mean to bore you, but to leave out the dashes for once, a Poverty Row picture was a not even a B picture. For instance, the production budget didn't really have the money to pay for a decent script, or acting, or photography.
So: my new-fangeled old-fashioned Poverty Rue (in France) production didn't have the money to pay for a script, or acting, or photography. Score one for me
Being challenged all the way round, a Poverty Row movie certainly couldn't often pay for original music. A film would have to fill itself out, in general, with stock, 'royalty free' cues from a "Synchronization Service".
Well then. Keeping to tradition, here on Poverty Rue my non-filmed film would have to have as, or on, its non-existent ("non-existent", because the (non-existent) soundtrack is not the soundtrack, but the picture (or the not a picture) itself) soundtrack as much ready-made sort- of things-you've heard-before as possible. Or at least, as is feasible.
You'll see what I mean. Well, you won't see what I mean. Matricidal sons of bitches is a horror movie, by the way. A scary thought. The jealous rage of lonely old ladies; the desperate wrath of dads disappointed; the hormonal high jinks, how often hateful, of young men
at loose ends, haunting the boulevards, hiding in the cités, clambering up the drainpipes, whispering sweet nothings to the moon, outrageous obscenities to everybody else, counting their misfortunes, blaming those responsible; or 'responsible'; daughters or sons bent on revenge; domestics on the sixth floor, whose lives are broken records; crazy courtships and parental prerogatives; scientists in cemeteries; maternal substitutions: all this and much more is not depicted in, or on, Matricidal sons of bitches. I mean that literally. And the music isn't even scary.
Or is it? What could be more frightening, or maddening, than slow, unvarying, quarter-note accompaniment to an old, sentimental, simple type of tune? Over and over again. And then some more. Or: what could be more nice?
"Lots of sound and fury, signifying cacophony." To quote Bill Littman. See for yourself. I mean, don't. Listen as you like. Whistle as you work! Slumber as you sleep!

And so, Matthew Friedberger presents Matricidal sons of bitches, a horror movie made so economically that the film itself is unneccesary. Fortunately for the rest of us in front of the imaginary screen, he has decided to take this opportunity to take this show on the road, and will be playing some of his first solo performances in the past half-decade in support of the film.