DEAD GODS

Dead Gods, AKA Dead Gods Without Heads, were formed in Blacksburg, VA, by Brian Idle, Edsel Diederich, Steve Loschi, and Wayne Ciccolo. Their style was called Ultrafast, Thrash, Noise in Maximum RocknRoll.

The band practiced in Brian’s apartment, a basement lacking a shower. They rehearsed next to the big ole furnace with many potentially live wires hanging around with seemingly no purpose. No one knew what they were for. Pipes hung everywhere, and scattered amongst the chaos were televisions with exposed cathode ray tubes that were often glowing. If not for the drummer from Brian and Steve’s previous band, who had left his drums in Brian’s place after that band fell apart, Brian, Steve, and Wayne may not have even started jamming, and Dead Gods would never have existed.

This three piece band committed themselves to taking speed and power past any limits. They were trying to find a way to take their musical ideas to another level. There were tape loops of people talking and other effects while they played. They played at many big house parties and bars in the college-friendly town of Blacksburg.

During a band hiatus, Brian and Wayne drove cross country and settled into Berkeley, CA, where one worked at Blondie’s Pizza and the other at Val’s Pizza. After that, Steve and Brian moved to their hometown of Virginia Beach, where they kept the band active. They practiced in a tin storage shed that was padded up like in a dingy insane asylum with spotty mattresses and soiled rugs that had been stripped out of abandoned homes. The storage shed was next to a trailer park behind the Robo Car Wash on Virginia Beach Boulevard.

The band recorded “Dead Gods Without Heads” in Blacksburg. Loschi said, "Even the name of the tape was Art Nouveau. Not just ‘Dead Gods’ but ‘Dead Gods Without Heads.’ It's like reducing idols to nothing but functionless torsos. The band would jam out, noise improv, or whatever for days until the music melded into actual songs.”

In 2025, they released the album Dead Gods on a 12” split vinyl with the band Megadosage on My Weed Records.