The VHS release of The Grid (via Tumblr)
 
In 1980, the animator Joanna Woodward (a/k/a JoWOnder) cast her boyfriend Peter Murphy in a short film called The Grid. Now I know it’s hot on planet Earth, but goddammit! If In The Flat Field-era Peter Murphy playing a character called “The Dead” doesn’t put you in the holiday spirit, then maybe somebody’s forgotten the true meaning of Halloween.

Here are JoWOnder’s own notes about her movie, which she says was projected at Bauhaus shows in the 80s. I wish she explained what T.S. Eliot is doing on the soundtrack. Typos are hers.

A story about a time traveler and the search for the first cell of one’s existence. ‘The Dead’, played by Peter Murphy searches for and finds a ‘Grid’ which enables him to watch the beginning of his life -from the moment of conception.

Tip: For a better picture view: watch using the ‘Full Screen’ Option.

Filmed when, when Peter was the boyfriend of Joanna Woodward in the 1980’s, on Super 8 Film Format. This copy has been taken by Jo from the VHS which Peter sold copies of on his, 2000, international Just for Love tour. (The original a clear picture Super 8 copy having been mislaid).

The Grid, movie toured with Bauhaus and was projected on stage in the 1980s. Jo says;’ that she was much more interested in fine art and not so much commercial art or popular music. Punk was predominant at that time and it was quite common for things to get ‘gobbed at’ as a sign of appreciation.’

The closing music here is Subhanallah by Peter Murphy however, the original concluding music track, for The Grid was Kate Bush, Lion Heart. Jo finds both concluding music tracks satisfying however, the Kate Bush track was intended to echo the opera music earlier in the film and the female ‘creator of life’ bursting through. The film’s main soundtrack Jo devised herself on a synthesizer with live playing of a recorder. The tiny sound of ‘clicks’ that can be heard are, literally the sound of switching on and off equipment as she recorded live to the film picture with an open microphone.

Watch ‘The Grid’ after the jump…

Peter Murphy putting on his makeup before their first Chicago gig at ‘Space Place’ in 1980. Photo by Brian Shanley.
 
Chicago-based photographer Brian Shanley was on the scene when Bauhaus landed in Chicago for the first time (a staggering 36-years ago this month) and was was able to get up close and personal with the band during their gig at Space Place, an industrial-looking nightclub in Chicago’s meatpacking district.
 

 
According to Shanley he was allowed to photograph Bauhaus during candid moments and even got close enough to capture the Godfather of Goth, vocalist Peter Murphy, putting on his makeup. After the show Shanley partied with Bauhaus which included a rather life-defining moment in which he watched a VHS copy of John Water’s Pink Flamingos with the band, which they had never seen before. Damn.

It’s also worth mentioning that Murphy was a mere 23 years old at the time and the band had yet to release their debut album In the Flat Field. Their first single, goth blueprint “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (you can hear a live recording of the number at Space Place, here) was already deeply implanted in their fans’ brains. If you’re a fan of Bauhaus, Shanley has a large array of gorgeous black and white photos for sale.

And since we are speaking of Bauhaus, the group’s drummer Kevin Haskins is about to publish a coffee table book titled Bauhaus - The Archives. Haskins has amassed a huge collection of Bauhaus artifacts since the late 70s including vintage setlists, fan club fodder and handwritten lyrics—most of which have never seen the light of day, like the photographs in this post. Pre-orders for Haskins’ book are going on now with an expected ship date sometimes in November, 2016.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Variety has announced some news that should be mighty tantalizing to fans of the darker expressions of post-punk: Peter Murphy of Bauhaus and Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy will star in the forthcoming horror film BlackGloveKiller, by the Canadian composer/Fangoria editor/film director Chris Alexander.

The duo is set to begin later this year filming a story that they described as “an erotic, violent fever dream driven by mood, music and atmosphere.” BlackGloveKiller tells the story of a beautiful predator named Miranda who hunts for prey at night.

Alexander, who also wrote the film, said it “really aims to be a horror film like no other horror film, one that nods to its influence but is still distinctly the product of my own imagination.” The director previously made the horror pics Blood For Irina and Female Werewolf.

Both Ogre (née Kevin Ogilvie) and Murphy have prior acting credits. Ogre memorably played a character called, um, “Ogre” in Repo! The Genetic Opera, and had a role in Alexander’s 2014 film Queen of Blood. Murphy had a small role in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, credited as “the Cold One.” He also appeared, uncredited, in the classic vampire film The Hunger, in his capacity as Bauhuas’ singer, in club scene wherein he mimed the band’s signature song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.”

Continues after the jump…

 
The huge can of worms opened by the Northampton post-punk band Bauhaus when they exemplified the dark sound and cadaver-glam fashion ethos of Goth has still never been closed after 35 years.

In the mere four years from their transformative 1979 debut single “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” to their original incarnation’s final LP, Burning From the Inside, Bauhaus gave the seeds of a sonic and fashion lexicon to a romantically macabre strain of youthful angst that had never really had a name before, and out in front of that noisy doom parade was the gaunt, Bowie-ish figure of singer Peter Murphy, whose distinctively vampiric vocal affect and high-drama performance style are still imitated today. Born on July 11, 1957, Murphy celebrates his birthday today.

In the three decades since Bauhaus’ breakup, Murphy has performed in Dali’s Car with Japan bassist Mick Karn, released several solo albums, explored Middle-Eastern mysticism, and sang on a Bauhaus reunion/last hurrah LP. More recently, he ran afoul of the law in California, and was found guilty of a hit-and-run and possession of meth. But there seems to be reason to hope he’s gotten healthy again, as just last month, Nettwerk Records released Lion, his ninth solo LP, and it’s quite good.

Here he is in 1982, demonstrating what all the fuss was about:
 

 
More Murphy after the jump…

Bela Lugosi plead…

You probably recall the trouble Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy got into back in March when he was arrested in Glendale, California for driving under the influence of drugs, hit-and-run and possessing crystal meth. Police reports said he appeared confused and even had difficulty recalling what day it was.

Although the goth legend initially pleaded not guilty to all three charges, he changed his tune when he was sentenced on October 10 in a Los Angeles court. Murphy plead no contest to misdemeanor hit-and-run driving and guilty to the methamphetamine possession charge, as reported by Glendale News.

The singer must also attend 45 days of Narcotics Anonymous meetings, perform ten days of community service and submit to random drug tests.
 

“Bela Lugosi’s tweaked…”

Peter Murphy, the former lead singer of Bauhaus, was arrested in Los Angeles on Saturday night after an apparent hit and run that injured the other driver.

Veronica Rocha, reporting for the Glendale Times Community News, writes:

The eyewitness followed Murphy, 55, from the crash at Central and Goode avenues in Glendale to the 3400 block of Barham Boulevard in Los Angeles because “he was afraid [Murphy] would kill someone with his driving,” according to Glendale police.

Murphy, who was in a Subaru Forester, reportedly struck a Mercedes about 11:48 a.m. at the intersection, then drove around it and got on the Ventura (134) Freeway, police said. As he fled the scene, a witness who was washing windows, snapped a photograph of Murphy’s Subaru, which sustained moderate front-end damage.

The driver of the Mercedes was also able to write down Murphy’s license plate number before Glendale fire personnel hauled her away on a gurney, police said.

Meanwhile, the driver of a pickup truck reportedly followed Murphy to Los Angeles, where he pulled in front of him, blocked his Subaru and called Glendale police to tell them he was detaining Murphy.

Good for this guy. That’s a seriously impressive act of citizenship.

According to the report, Murphy copped to the traffic collision, telling police that he was jet-lagged.

Then there’s this:

Inside the Los Angeles police patrol car where Murphy had been detained, officers reported finding a small plastic bag, possibly of methamphetamine, police said. Murphy denied the bag belonged to him, but officers said they believed he was trying to discard it in the patrol car.

Murphy was arrested on suspicion of causing injuries while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, felony hit-and-run and possessing methamphetamine, police said.

As on Monday, Peter Murphy was still being held in police custody, remanded in lieu of a half million dollar bail. Police officers expressed concern that Murphy could be a flight risk, and they’re probably right.

What I want to know is this: What was the bloody King of Goth doing in fucking Glendale, anyway?

 
According to his Wikipedia entry, Peter Murphy, who in 1983 had only just recently departed Bauhaus, made “some brief dabbling with acting and dance – including a slightly odd televised performance to Bauhaus’s ‘Hollow Hills.’”

Wha? Naturally I googled this “slightly odd televised performance” and of course, there it was… His interpretive dance here is slightly odd, I’d have to agree (“naff” is a word that comes readily to mind as well). You’d have to think his former bandmates would have found this sand dune ballet on-the-floor, coughing-with-tears-hysterically-funny to watch.

Speaking of Peter Murphy, I heard the craziest story last night over dinner with my friend Adam Peters, a Hollywood composer who recently scored Oliver Stone’s Savages (and who arranged and played the famous cello part on Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon”).

We had been discussing Howard Devoto’s post-punk artrock band, Magazine and he told me about seeing Bauhaus open for Magazine in Guildford in 1980. The “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single was already out, but In The Flat Field had not been released yet. The third band was Crisis, with Douglas Pearce and Tony Wakeford later of Death In June and Sol Invictus, whose following included many skinheads.

Of course the Guildford skinheads had never seen anything like Bauhaus and, as skins do, started spitting at the band, Peter Murphy in particular. Adam said that Murphy tore his shirt off, grabbed a light on a stand and made like he was being crucified at the front of the stage, provoking a steady stream of gob as he stood motionless, shining the light directly into their faces, staring them down and daring them to continue. The band continued to vamp on the slow chords of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” he told me, for about a half hour as this went on, with Murphy absolutely drenched in spit.

Eventually it stopped and the skins left because this interaction had apparently freaked them the fuck out!

“That would be hard to top! Did Magazine actually play after THAT?” I asked him.

“They did, but they probably should have just tuned the house lights up. No one really cared about Magazine after that.”

If that isn’t the most Artaud-esque thing that’s ever occurred on a concert stage, I can’t imagine what would be…

Below, Peter Murphy’s “slightly odd televised performance” on Riverside, 1983:
 

 
Well, sort of…

And while one may be tempted to criticize Lee’s artistic interpretations of jazz standards, you do have to admire his spryness. He’s still incredibly involved in the community (this video was taken at Comikazi, a comic, sci-fi, and fantasy convention), and he’s never stopped working.

Lee’s Spider-Man Chronicle: A Year by Year Visual History is slated for release October first. Not bad for an 89-year-old!
 

 
Here’s a classic British TV commercial from the ‘80s starring Peter Murphy from Bauhaus. You can read on the Internet that he was on the label, seen above, and in the print ads, too, but was that really Peter Murphy, too? I think it’s someone else.

Peter Murphy’s birthday was July 11. He’s 53 now and still looks like this. I guess drinking the blood of vestal virgins keeps you young, eh?