Fall Off the Earth featured in the teaser trailer for the feature film Blood Was Everywhere

Boduvians

Zuben here.   This summer I (in my alter ego of mild mannered Phil Ristaino) had the good fortune to act in a cool slasher film called Blood Was Everywhere.  I played Kevin, a funny stoner mooch brother of the main character Angela.  It was a great experience, everybody in the cast and crew were top notch, and it should turn out to be an unusual take on a slasher movie-- sort of a cross between Gus Van Zandt's Elephant or Last Days, Linklater's Dazed and Confused, and the original Friday the 13th films.

I also managed to hand out a bunch of AoV albums to everyone involved, which has led to our lead off track, Fall Off the Earth, being featured on the teaser trailer for the film, which was just released this past week.

Grok it:


You can find out more about Blood Was Everywhere at their website or on facebook.

Ride a Boduvt All Over the Web (or, LastFM is pretty cool)

Boduvians! At long last, Agents of Venus' new album is all over the web.

If you look to the right, you'll find links to buy the album on ITUNES, AMAZON, and CD BABY.

The best deal to get the physical CD is on CD Baby, only $9.99 (which also sells the album on MP3 for the same price). You can download Boduvt on Itunes for only $9.99, too! The best price to get the MP3 album is on Amazon - only $8.99! Sweet, yeah? Seriously, this is a freakin steal. You can also purchase the CD on Amazon, (its a little pricier, but if you want to spend the dough, we ain't gonna stop ya). Any of you NAPSTER freaks can listen to full songs and buy AoV:Boduvt here.

And the coolest discovery: LAST FM! This site is great. Not only does it allow you to hear new tracks from our album, you can also add it to a music library, along with music from any other band you may dig, and Last FM will create a playlists for you, free streaming your own AoV inspired radio station. Dope! Make it happen here!

So what are you waiting for? Ride a Boduvt to Synchroni City all over the web, and grok hard with your Agents of Venus!

Venus as a symbol of western civilization

Zuben here.

Two esoteric researchers I've really been enjoying, and who directly influenced the naming of Agents of Venus, are Freeman and Henrik Palmgren.  The former is the son of a freemasonic grandmaster who went on to do some heavy research into the history of the masonic order in America and the occult meanings of their writings, corporate symbols, and government systems.  The latter is a Swedish researcher who has created an amazing website, Red Ice Creations, that carries on the important conversation of understanding the occult symbolism in European and western culture and the European Union.  Sometimes you might find Henrik interviewing Freeman on his site.  Both researchers explore conspiracy, spirituality and gnosticism, lost mythological history, extra terrestrials, world power systems, religion, cutting edge science, and lots of other goodies your not supposed to discuss in polite company.   If you have an hour and a half, I would recommend you check out these two films that explain Venus' relation to the power structures in western civilization.   Its certainly worth your time to attempt to understand what your governments believe in.  Did you know that Venus is the goddess of America and the European Union?  Is she the goddess Columbia?  Is she the goddess Europa?  If you live in these civilizations, and serve their political and economic systems, doesn't that make you an Agent of Venus?

Freeman's Perspective on Venus as Columbia and the symbolism of the US


Henrik Palmgren on Venus as Europa and the hidden roots of the European Union


You'll notice after watching both videos that Henrik and Freeman both draw the connection between the planet Venus and Lucifer, both being known as the "morning star" in popular culture and historical writing. This connection starts to introduce a darker side to the Venus mythology, one I have been working up my courage to explore in this blog at some point. Today I found an excellent article at Red Ice Creations that makes the connection between the planet Venus' movement around the sun, Lucifer, the Roman blacksmith god Vulcan (the Volcano God), extra terrestrial contact, Princess Di and Michael Jackson, Vulcans from Star Trek, Arthur C Clark, the Vatican, the Mayans,  and the world cataclysms we've been seeing, especially the recent volcano eruptions. Please go here to check it out. I'm not familiar with the website this info is from, but the pulled back perspective, the large overhead mapping, the grand level of connections these guys are making are certainly worth a glance.

Agent Lodog gives AoV: Boduvt the big push

Agents....

Good buddy Lodog aka Lorin Kalisky has given a rather well written review of Boduvt, just a testament to the quality of the record, in my (not so) humble opinion.  You can read it at CD Baby, as you also listen to clips of the songs and then buy the album or mp3s, or you can haul ass over to Lo to the Dog's blog and dig in, cause Lorin ain't just whistlin' -- homeboy's a busy man.  Lorin tells me he wrote this review after listening to the album "20 times in a row."   An even greater testament, in my ever unhumbled opinion....

yer pal Zuben

Zuben El Genubi interviews, AoV songs on The Invisible World with Frank Todaro

Agents ahoy!

Your pal Zuben aka Phil Ristaino, Agent of Venus here.  Glad to see you back.  This is a quick post.  Over the past month, month 1/2, I've been interviewed twice on the magnificent The Invisible World with Frank Todaro.  Frank is an actor who lives in NYC with a great voice for radio, as well as a fellow sci fi promulgator and comic book buff.  Up until mid last year, we performed together in the NYC long form episodic improv group Start Trekkin NY.  Frank became a great friend, and we would have long conversations about paranormal phenomena and fictional fascination.  Fortunately, Frank is channeling his love for BSG, Dr Who and the X Men into a weekly online radio show.  It gets better and better every week, so get on over there and download his shows!  You can hear new ones at his show's site every Tuesday night.

In the mean time, Frank was kind enough to feature two Agents of Venus tunes on the show:  Hero with 1000 Eyes in the first interview, and Cobalt Silver on the second.  Hopefully this trend will continue and we will play the entire album over the course of 12 interviews, if Frank says its cool.  Thanks, Agent Todaro!

Also featured in the interviews:  my take on synchronicity, stories of phenomena I've experienced that I can't truly explain, visions, 2012, precognitive dreams, and lots more.  Dig it and dig in!

Invisible World interview 3/23/2010

Invisible World interview 4/20/2010

the significance of Venus in 2012

Welcome back to the Agents of Venus blog. In an effort to kick start the project since our record release show about a month ago, I (Phil aka Zuben) will start posting things of significance either to the band or to Venus herself in hopes that it will generate some momentum. I have been having a bit of a hard time pulling it together financially since finishing the album, so I've been focusing more on that than on keeping this blog alive, but there have been some developments I want to report on in the coming days that involve our band, as well as some significant things I've discovered that involve both our world and Venus, and I wanted this blog to be big and small, so to speak, taking on a larger perspective of the significance of Venus to our world and hopefully finding 'smaller' connections to the themes of the AoV project. My objective lyrically was to be 'large and small' simultaneously, so I always wanted this blog to reflect that.

Once the name 'Agents of Venus' was selected for the band (literally as I was finishing the album cover - 7 years creating music under no name, and then in the final hours of production, the name sort of coagulated out of nothing - this is how the universe truly works - things are provided when they are needed and the quester is ready for the answers, and not before), I found that there was so much to talk about that choosing "Agents of Venus" as the name for this band was almost overwhelming. It was like I had opened a door I didn't even know was there and it led to an entirely knew wing to my own house, if that makes any sense. Hopefully this blog will help explore that entire new 'wing,' and together we can get to know the significance of this idea of what it means to be an "agent of love" together. I encourage your responses to any thing you might read on this blog, in hopes that it add more and more facets to this concept over the coming years. With all that in mind (and because my sister wanted to see this video):

There has been a lecture series event about the significance of extra terrestrials going on over the past couple years called Alien Event. You can go here to read up on it. I thought this video in particular was significant to a band calling itself Agents of Venus, as Sean David Morton talks about the significance of a Venus transit across the Sun in relation to Earth in June, 2012.   According to Morton, the Mayans say this is the return of the divine feminine, the restoration of the quantum spiritual side of the brain, the twin flame of Quetzoquatl, the arrival of a female messiah.  He does a real nice job of making things seem clear, so I thought I'd just introduce the idea here and let him do the talking. Enjoy:


ALIENEVENT Sean David Morton The Prophecy Of 2012 The Road To Tomorrow And Beyond LOS ANGELES, NOV 14, 2009 from Saeed David Farman on Vimeo.
PS -- I've mailed out a significant # of albums to the honorary agents who donated to our Boduvt fund, and I'm keen to hear anyone's take on the album. If you have something to say about our record, please drop me a line at agentsofvenus@gmail.com.

Please Donate to Our Boduvt Fund: here's why...

Hey everybody. Thanks for stopping by. If you've gotten this far, please read through this whole post, there's important info at the end.Phil Ristaino aka Zuben El Genubi, Agent of Venus talking to ya. Right out of the gate, I encourage you to click on the music player just to the right of this post and check out three original tracks from Agents of Venus' new cd. Just to get you in the mood, so to speak.

We here at the Agency are super excited since we are just about to release our brand new album, Boduvt (which means "a round boat" according to a 4 year old named Felix, but I'll explain that in another post sooner or later). Its a record that is technically 17 years in the making, since the first song Allen Towbin and I ever wrote together in 1993 is the epic album closer "Weightless," which has existed in at least 3 permutations and 3 bands over the past two decades. Most of this album was written and recorded starting around 2003 up until last year, so its really a Bush-era record, but I personally am amazed at how much the themes of the album resonate with the state of the planet in present day 2010. And there is some serious production going on behind this record. Master Towbin really slaved over the boards for years to get every little ping, twang and thud sounding perfect and in its proper place. Not to mention the top notch musicians we assembled (and many thanks to Mike, Homey, Scott and Stevey D for their contributions and patience with us). I think we might have something special here to offer you.

Which brings me to my call to action. The Agents of Venus want nothing more than to get this album in the hands and ears of any and every discerning listener as soon as possible, but we've hit a slight snag down the final stretch. The album is on its way to being pressed, the websites are being built, it'll be made available for digital download, we'll even be having a record release party in conjunction with my brother Andy Ristaino's gallery show and graphic novel release at Mission Comics and Art on 20th st in San Francisco on April 3rd (more on that later, too). But we need your help to finish paying off the costs incurred for producing the record/art/website. We tried to figure out another way, and we've even gotten some inspiring donations to get us this far, but much to our chagrin, we've fallen short in the 11th hour.

So, you might be sitting there thinking, "Why should I help you? You're just a band, not a 3rd world country ravaged by earthquakes and famine. Get a grip, you drip!" And in that way, well, you may be right.

But we do have wonderfulness to offer you in honor of your donations.

If you go to the side tab of this blog, you'll see a little "donate" button, where, with a simple click you can make two 30 something songsmith's dreams come true. We hope you'll consider anywhere from $5 up.

If you do decide to donate to our cause, we will send you:

1. A copy of our 13 track magnum opus Agents of Venus : Boduvt! This is a rollicking good time, filled to the cd's edge with stylistically and thematically diverse tracks that harken back to the likes of the Beatles, the Cars, Radiohead, Soundgarden, the Foo Fighters, Gnarles Barkley, and Steely Dan, with a tip of the hat to power pop masters like XTC, Jellyfish and Jason Falkner, as well as some hip hop, funk, dance music, total psychedelia, and stuff we hope you've never heard before. Its good! You like very much!

2. A signed print of original Agents of Venus album cover art by yours truly, Phil Ristaino. These will be rare prints, trust me, no one will have these things. If you dig drawings of space people in full regalia, blazing forth into the new frontier, then maybe you'll also like my original work, which is kinda sorta something like that.
Moderately Neato!

3. You will become an honorary Agent of Venus, with full authority to go out and spread love, chaos, and melted marshmallow peeps on anything or anyone in your area! Also, you will be added to our Agents of Venus members list which you'll see to the lower right of this page. There we will link to your particular website or charity of choice, hopefully to encourage Agents worldwide to check out your jam and groove and froth to your gibe! Agents Unite!

4. There is no 4.

So there you have it. IMPORTANT: If you do decide to donate to AoV, and you want to receive your goodies, please contact me (Phil) at agentsofvenus@gmail.com and let us know you donated. Please include your full name and address so we can get you the goods! And if you have a website or cause you want us to link up to, please make sure you mention that too. Excitement abounds!

Sorry for the long winded message, I'm really up to my nose in this thing, and I can't wait for everyone to hear these tunes. They rule! Honestly! I mean it!

No, really, they're actually pretty good.

Thanks again for stopping by, please drop by again, and tell your friends: The Agents of Venus are coming!

love always
Phil aka Zuben El Genubi