A lifetime of gratitude to the blog A Basement of Curiosities for turning me on to the wonders of A.A. Allen, who was apparently a bit of a revolutionary in the pulpit as he was a pro-integration activist at the height of Jim Crow, separate drinking fountains and the rest of America’s big ugly period where the Constitution only applied if you were the right sort of white anglo-saxon-protestant jackass.

Progressive as Allen might have been on some fronts, he was a fire-and-brimstone loony and faith healer. But like all religious maniacs, he couldn’t heal himself and is said to have dropped off the twig in 1970 due to alcohol-related liver failure. Whoops!

This album cover is a treat. Allen looks more than a little like a Wild Bunch-era Ernest Borgnine, but that expression on his face implies that something long and wriggly has just crawled up his rectum. The title is a hoot–of COURSE God is a killer! Look at all those church collapses, Jihads and right wing holy wars. God’s in it up to his eyeballs, a river of blood to flood a thousand universes.

Funny thing is, Allen doesn’t seem to mind. From what I read at A Basement of Curiosities, Allen seems to get off on telling his audience that if they don’t wanna “get saved” God might just have to disembowel them (my words, not his) and send them downstairs to have sex with the devil. (My words again, I can’t help myself. Maybe I’m possessed.)

This one’s a real treasure.

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