page_title: American Murder Song
section_title: 2018–19: Murder Ballads from The House of Cain: The Killing Place
hierarchical_section_title: American Murder Song / History / 2018–19: Murder Ballads from The House of Cain: The Killing Place
caption_attribution_description: English: Saar Hendelman and Terrance Zdunich performing at the Kansas City Anti-Recital, September 2018
context_page_description: American Murder Song is an American musical act founded in 2016 by cult film composers and performers Terrance Zdunich and Saar Hendelman. The project uses the murder ballad genre to explore American history, especially 19th century America.
  In American Murder Song, Saar and Terrance play the role of roguish balladeers Mister Storm and Mister Tender who make a pact with the bible's Cain to chronicle the tales of killers, known as Survivors, who bear The Mark, an American Mark of Cain.
  By way of live shows, music videos and albums, American Murder Song has so far explored 1816, also known as "The Year Without a Summer," The Donner Party's deadly journey of 1846 and “The Killing Place, ” a metaphoric house of Cain where all murder ballads reside.
context_section_description: In March 2018, Terrance and Saar hosted another Facebook Live video stream for American Murder Song's “Two-Year Anniversary Feast.” The broadcast was a fundraiser where Saar and Terrance celebrated by ingesting a menu of Donner Party-themed boiled offal. During the stream, Terrance describe the undertaking as “American Murder Song by way of Jackass.” The duo didn't resort to cannibalism during the live stream, but the dishes for the evening did include bull testicles and pig stomach.
  In the days leading up to the “Two-Year Anniversary Feast,” Saar and Terrance asked online fans to submit popular murder ballads as potential tunes for American Murder Song to cover. This concept of reinterpreting well-known songs about killers would play a major role in the album and tours that followed.
  American Murder Song performed a cover song on each of its first two tours, reimagining the Violent Femmes' “American Music” as a Colonial tavern sing-along on The American Wake Tour and Louis Prima's “The Closer To The Bone (The Sweeter Is The Meat)” as a cannibal's love song on The Donner Party Reunion Tour.  But outside of “Edward,” American Murder Song had not yet delved into reinterpreting traditional murder ballads.
  In April, Terrance and Saar began recording their third studio album, The Killing Place, which was released in November, 2018, and featured cover versions of popular tunes involving murder, including a double kick gunslinger take on Foster The People's “Pumped Up Kicks,” about a school shooting, and a rock 'n' roll chain gang rendition of “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” by The Killers, based loosely on the 1986 murder of Jennifer Levin by Robert Chambers. The Killing Place also included a revamp of “In All My Dreams I Drown,” a number written for a scene that was deleted from The Devil's Carnival, but nonetheless became one of Terrance and Saar's most popular compositions.
  In June, Saar and Terrance announced their third tour together, which also was a departure from their established American Murder Song fare. They called it An Anti-Recital With Terrance & Saar and billed it as “A Private Room. No Stage. No Microphones. Just You, The Boys & A Piano,” where they encouraged fans to “Dress To Kill.” The Anti-Recital was held at a series of publicly undisclosed locations that ranged from oddity shops to tattoo parlors, and recording studios to small theaters. Ghastly Grinning described the Anti-Recital experience as “... casual and familiar, it’s a cocktail hour at a friend’s house, yet the dress code and lack of technology lends it a bit of finesse, a grace and dignity that calls to mind the feel of exclusivity, of being included in something much more intimate than a crowded show or auditorium screening meet-and-greet.”
  In August, Saar and Terrance announced that American Murder Song would be the opening act for the cello rock group Rasputina on their West Coast US tour. The Rasputina tour was followed by the Anti-Recital tour in September, which sold out, prompting Terrance and Saar to book a “Hardcore Encore,” taking the Anti-Recital to new stops in America and Canada, as well as debut performances in the UK, Netherlands and Germany. The Anti-Recital Hardcore Encore is scheduled to kickoff in February 2019.
caption: Hendelman and Zdunich performing at the Kansas City Anti-Recital, September 2018
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