POST HIP GNOSIS

Don joined the Church of the SubGenius as a card-carrying reverend in early 1981. That August, Sacred Scribe Rev. Ivan Stang invited The Dancing Cigarettes to play the First World SubGenius Convention in Dallas, TX, but regrettably, the band couldn't make it. When the call came in the next year, they stormed the 1982 Convention in Chicago, as Stang reported in The Stark Fist of Removal: "The music took a giant step into the underground with The Dancing Cigarettes' inspired performance. They aren't a 'Church Band,' but strong Dobbs sympathizers. Subversive characters. I knew band member Rev. G. Don Trubey from the older days when we were fellow members of a Firesign Theatre support network, trying to push George Papoon— a vaguely 'Bob' like, elusive character himself— for President. The Dancing Cigarettes have a highly original sound that has the frenzy and insanity of a Doktorband, but very tight. Their show effectively builds to a hair-raising peak of fast bulldada. They're serious musicians."  (( Click here to read selected pages of The Stark Fist that dig into the '82 World SubCon ))

On February 20, 1983, Don unveiled his SubGenius Trilogy ("Personal Savior Blues," "Dobbstown," "Hymn 999") at ER Night— a music/ film/ rant fest at the Monroe County Library Auditorium in Bloomington, IN. Unfortunately, the set was a fabulous disaster due to the fact that Don'd been up for a solid week on Mother's Little Helper™ and he crashed and burned before our very eyeballs. Over the next few years, Don contributed art and writings to Church publications, but it weren't until 1987 that he fervently fashioned and unleashed a tape of Dobbs-specific tunes— including the re-recorded Trilogy. The tape, entitled Post Hip Gnosis, featured the pharyngeal Philo Drummond and several erstwhile Dancing Cigarettes. Then, in 1991, Don was asked (by the Brooklyn Clench) to perform at a SubGenius shindig called "'Bob's Bowery Bash" at CB's 313 Gallery, the left wing of CBGB in NYC. Luckily, he had a band at that time that could play out— Saint Ballantine. So he taught 'em a few of the "psalms" and, for this one shot, dubbed the band: Post Hip Gnosis.  (( Click on the bouncing "Bob" head for photos ))

      ~ Uncle Roy ~ Jan 2000

POST HIP GNOSIS

1987 / 60-min cassette tape

Yet another hilarious collection of rants, ravings, and songs from everyone's favorite neo-fanatic religious cult parody, the Church of the SubGenius. Rev. Don Trubey and his pals provide offerings from the Church's bottomless musical collection plate, ranging from pop and electric urban blues to thrash and even a hymn entitled "There's a Pipe in the Sky" (for you infidels, a briar pipe is a trademark of sorts for the Church's diety, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs). Whereas many other SubGenius tapes divide time between "rants" and music, this tape is almost all music. Spoken words are still used here and there, like the nifty use of excerpts from various Jimmy Swaggart sermons played over synthesized dance music. Secular humanists out there will find this tape a real hoot.

      ~ Bryan Sale ~ Option Magazine ~ Sep/Oct 1988