What the fuck!??!? The HEATHEN WORLD is at its wit's end trying to figure this one out. Once again truth is stranger than fiction. The ZOMBIE BITCHES. This band out of Louisiana is reportedly the real thing - real zombies, that is. After lucking into one of their rare live performances, I have more questions than answers. This poster is not for the show I saw.

First, a bit on the "real" zombies of legend. The age old voodoo art involves first "killing" the person with puffer fish secretions. The victim is paralyzed, in a deep coma, and looks dead. Voodoo priests of old would steal the victim's body shortly after its burial. The victim would slowly come to, already with some brain damage, tied up. The voodoo priest would dish out a couple weeks of lesser puffer poisoning, other drug doses, beatings and torture until the victim either died for real or ended up in a state of unreality, where vivid hallucinations and reality merged and free will was practically erased. The zombie could then be commanded to steal, assault, and generally scare the shit out of the local population. The creature would eventually die or become and uncontrollable and the voodoo priest would kill it. This is as factual as folklore gets.

What happened to the ZOMBIE BITCHES is a mystery. They may have been runaways or junkies victimized somehow similar to the folklore zombies, or they may be fucking twisted actresses. You decide.

Picture this scene at the Solstice Death Watch, a big outdoor party thrown by a bunch of scary looking gothic people near New Orleans.. A noisy generator powered a couple lights over a make shift stage. The setup: a beat-to-hell bass with a filthy amp on one side, a couple worse looking floor toms and 3 upside down metal barrels in the middle, and 2 saxophones that look like someone found them in a dumpster lay on a barrel on the other side. A rusty old panel van was parked behind the stage.

Suddenly the rear doors of the van flew open to a cacophony of chains and animal yells as 3 barely human looking women stumbled out. Heavy chains were attached to rings around each woman's neck.. they were filthy.. a couple layers of rotting clothes on.. hair sticking out, scars and scabs on their faces, arms and legs.. WILD eyes.. bloodshot, the twisted look of someone far gone on heavy drugs or mental illness. A huge biker type guy emerged from the van, holding the other end of the women's chains. He wrapped the chains around the bumper of the van, securing them somehow.

The dazed women wondered to their basic places on stage.. the drummer picked up the piece of pipe that was evidently one of her drum sticks, and stared at it with a horrified look.. like it was a tarantula crawling up her arm. The biker guy put the strap over the head of the bass player, turned on her amp, and hit a string to make sure sound came out.. she stared around blankly like Courtney Love at a Nirvana show. The third woman, a frightening, huge creature with half her face and one arm deeply scarred, and her hair almost gone on much of her scalp like she lived through a horrible fire, picked up one saxophone, knocking the other to the ground. She also picked up a piece of pipe, and started banging on the barrel next to her, slowly... The drummer zombie quit staring at her pipe, picked up another, and started beating on the barrels. The huge burned woman yelled "ATTACK!" and started blasting noise through her saxophone like her fucking life depended on it.

So a song called "Attack" was on.. The bass player started beating on her bass somewhat to the beat of the drummer. The drummer was something else.. drooling, screaming at random.. she lunged at the crowd, knocking down one of her toms, but was yanked almost off balance by the chain around her neck.. she flailed wildly, and almost knocked her barrels down as she half landed against them. She started beating the hell out of the barrels with her pieces of pipe. They basically kept a beat, like a drum circle made up of drunk homicidal maniacs. The bass player beat her bass as much as used the strings.. she grabbed a beer bottle from someone dumb enough to get near her, and used it as a slide of sorts on the neck.. hitting a specific note was obviously out of the question.

As far as I can remember the lyrics of the rambling dirge: ATTACK! ATTACK! SEE LONE MARK, ATTACK! ATTACK! SEE BRIGHT BLOOD, RIP! SHRED! RIP! SHRED! EAT LIKE A PIG. ATTACK! ATTACK! ..repeated many times.. They all screamed the chorus of ATTACK! .. only the sax player yelled out the rest.. then she would blow the hell out of the poor saxophone.. pure cacophony.. high squeaks and bellowing notes all at once.. she hit parts of the sax with her hands, but it didn't look or sound like there was much method to her madness. Then the lyrics again.. more aggressive.. it kept building and repeating for almost 10 minutes.. The only break was a couple minutes of slower beating with the bass player beating a beer bottle right over the pickup on her bass, all 3 women growled in low guttural noises, random screams and shrieks, drooling, then... ATTACK!! All over again..

The drummer broke the drum head and kicked her surviving tom over in frustration(?) She threw one of her pieces of pipe at the biker guy, hitting him on the shoulder. She went after him swinging her other pipe but he raced out of her reach into the audience.. She beat the hell out of the drums.. rhythm forgotten.. knocked them down, still beating out of pure anger.. The bass player heaved her bottle at the biker, missed and hit someone else. The biker positioned himself close to the singer, still in the audience. She suddenly threw her saxophone at him, hitting him full force in the face! He stumbled back, blood flowing from his face. She grabbed her chain so it wouldn't break her neck as she violently lunged forward. I swear the van was rocking from her yanking on the chain, spitting and yelling at the retreating crowd all the while..

"ATTACK!!! ATTACK!!!" all three women were yelling and throwing shit now.. the scene was utter chaos. The biker guy appeared behind the band, looking nervous, ready for a fight.. he had a big heavy burlap bag in his hands.. snuck up behind the drummer and WOOSH jammed it over her head.. and dragged her near the front of the van.. he somehow hooked her chain to the front bumper with a foot or so of slack.. forcing her to basically sit there and raise hell. The sax player finally noticed what was going on by the van and ran at the guy, shrieking and swinging at him. He stumbled against the van as she started to beat the hell out of him.. 5 or 6 more biker type guys lunged into the melee and fought with her.. I don't know exactly what happened.. but I saw her legs sticking up as she was thrown in the van.. the bass player was kicking her bass against her amp at this point.. a biker grabbed her and led her to the van without much problem.. more chaos..

After a few minutes the van started and lurched forward, mud flying from the spinning back tires, one headlight broken out and a big crack in the windshield. One of the chains dragged behind in the dirt, still attached to the back bumper. Evidently all 3 women were inside.

The Dwarves would've envied the chaos the ZOMBIE BITCHES caused in about 15 minutes. Some of the crowd was cheering, some were staring in a stoned stupor, and half the party didn't even notice because they were near the kegs about 50 yards across the field.

I found a straggly haired punk called Tombo beating on one of the barrels later. He filled me in a bit about the ZOMBIE BITCHES. Evidently they have a tape out on a half-assed label called Voodoo Records in New Orleans. Some guy named Vaughn, who sells voodoo items and live chickens to voodoo practitioners, also erratically sells the ZOMBIE BITCHES tape called VOODOO HELLFIRE. The tape is from a portable tape player set up at another party somewhere. Evidently Vaughn is hard to find for months at a time. Bars and parties are supposed to be the best places to find him. I couldn't even get a description of Vaughn out of Tombo. He was so drunk I couldn't understand him anymore. Tombo basically fell down near the bass and started making mournful slide guitar sounds on it by sliding his now empty Jack Daniels bottle around the strings, mumbling incoherently. I gave up. If you find out more about this band. WRITE TO US!! I wish to hell I had a camera that night. Remember, you read about this first on The HEATHEN WORLD.