Saturday: Linus Pauling Quartet Releases 3-CD Anthology/D&D Module(!), Plus a Badass New Video, Exclusive to SCR

These days, anybody can put out an album. All it takes is a couple of instruments, a mic, and a computer, and poof: instant bedroom-studio rock that you can dump out onto the Web for all to hear and comment on (and okay, maybe even buy). After a while, though, that whole “album” thing, it gets boring, played out. When that happens, well, what the hell do you do next?

If you’re H-town psych-stoner-rockers the {Linus Pauling Quartet}, at least, and you’re looking at putting together a 3-CD anthology of all your best songs from the nearly 20 years the band’s been around, you do something completely different. Like, say, create your own freaking role-playing game module to go with it.

No, I’m not even kidding. Those crazy, strange, no-fucks-giving guys in the LP4 are releasing their pseudo-greatest-hits anthology on Homeskool Rekordz as three CDs full of music (42 songs’ worth) and a Druids & Demons module entitled Assault From The Vault of the Ancient Bonglords.

A limited number of copies of the anthology will come with both the music and a real-live, playable D&D module including maps, character sheets, and whatnot. Losers who can’t get one of the limited-edition ones will be able to download & print PDFs of ’em (which, obviously, is nowhere near as awesome).

Naturally, me being a big role-playing game dork for most of my youth, the first thing that went through my head when I heard the news was essentially just, “Yes. Yes. YES.” I’ve been fortunate enough to sneak a peek at a preview of the module, and holy fuck is it awesome; I’m actually pretty damn astounded for the amount of work that these guys have put into this. It’s magnificent, seriously, and packed full of little shoutouts to fellow Houston musicians and scenesters.

So, as hinted in the title above, the official release show for Assault From The Vault of the Ancient Bonglords is this coming Saturday, December 15th, over at Cactus Music at 1PM. It’s free, and there’ll be free Saint Arnold’s beer, to boot.

Now, if you can’t wait that long (and no, I can’t blame you), SCR is privileged to be able to premiere the new video the band’s put together for AVABL, complete with a brand-new theme song that features stirring, heroic lyrics apparently hurriedly penned by band members Ramon Medina & Charlie Naked on the back of a Star Pizza box.

Favorite bit? Well, while the hand-drawn backgrounds are badass, I’d have to say it’s when one of the characters played by Charlie gets killed and he has to mime the blood spurting out of his neck, using his hand. Seriously, this is like all those crappy videos you made with your dad’s camcorder when you were a kid, only cranked up to 12 and fueled by a whole lot of beer, weed, and Sabbath. (Oh, and it features members of fellow Houston bands {From Beyond} and {Burn The Boats} in various roles.)

It’s low-budget, lo-fi, half-assed, mostly-drunk, and absolutely hysterical and brilliant. Here goes:

Okay, so now that you’ve picked yourself back up off the floor (where you were indubitably tossed by the mighty power of Rock), make your plans for Saturday afternoon, y’all…