Father, Son, Holy Ghost is the new album by San Francisco indie boys, um, Girls. Their debut album, called simply Album, made waves on its release in 2009 and this follow up is even better (if you ask me). There are sounds here reminiscent of early 90s grunge and shoegazing, but more than that Father, Son, Holy Ghost just drips mid-70s FM radio rock vibes. In a good way. Whereas some bands can really over egg their puddings using the kitchen sink-formula (choir! organ! strings! fuzzy guitar! bland mush!) Girls have got it just right, tempering their mix with the right balance of romance and melancholy. Check out this sweet car-fetish video for the single “Vomit”, which is available as a free download from the band’s Facebook page:

Girls - “Vomit”
 

 
Don’t worry - despite the title there’s nothing sick or NSFW in there, even though I detect shades of both Dazed And Confused and Cronenberg’s Crash. Father, Son, Holy Ghost is out now on Fantasy Trashcan/Matador records - there’s more info, including tour dates, on this page. If you like “Vomit” you can listen to the whole album right here:

 
Last night Ralph Nader appeared on Fox News to discuss a democratic primary challenge he’s helping to organize against Barack Obama to “hold his feet to the fire.” I think what Nader means by this is that Obama needs to start doing some liberal stuff.

“The important thing here is if he’s not challenged from the progressive-liberal wing of his party, that elected him, it’ll be a very dull campaign, people will not be very enthusiastic, more and more people will stay home, it’s not good for him,. If he’s a good debater, if he knows his facts, he’ll want to be challenged because he’ll come out much sharper.”

It’s surprising how little Neil Cavuto challenged Nader in this segment. To his credit, he hardly even tried and let Nader say some things you wouldn’t normally hear on Fox News without someone else trying to shout over it.

Or maybe it’s just that Nader isn’t exactly saying anything too positive about Obama… Either way, I’m glad Cavuto’s audience got to hear this.
 

 
Via Mox News

 
If you’re a regular reader of Dangerous Minds, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a huge Ramones fan. One of the reasons I started my own punk band in 1976 was a result of hearing The Ramones’ debut album and my love for the group hasn’t diminished over the years. As far as I’m concerned, they’re the best rock band to appear in the past four decades. They were essential in the re-birth of rock and roll in the Seventies and their influence has been enormous on virtually every hard rock band to arise since the boys erupted on the Bowery in 1975.

Today is the seventh anniversary of Johnny Ramone’s death at the far too young age of 55. Without question one of the best rock guitarists of all-time, Johnny never really got his due during his lifetime. Fortunately, that’s changing.

Here’s some of my favorite live footage of The Ramones. Performing in London, where they were far more appreciated than in their home country, the band tears it up at The Rainbow in 1977. 26 minutes of pure unadulterated R&R.
 

 
Someone needs to patent an ice bong mold quick! I can’t find anywhere on the Internet where one exists.

Don’t say I never gave you nothin’...

(via reddit)

 
He couldn’t play the bass, but he certainly could paint. The trouble is, Stuart Sutcliffe never lived long enough to fulfill the destiny his talents promised, tragically dying at the age of twenty-one from a brain haemorrhage.

As The Beatles original bass player, and John Lennon’s best mate, Sutcliffe’s legend has grown over these past fifty years, and this documentary Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle examines the short life and long myth of the man who quit the Fab Four to follow his own star.

Told via interviews with an impressive array of Sutcliffe’s family and friends—and through uniquely descriptive quotes from his letters—this hour-long documentary reveals a lot of intimate detail about Sutcliffe’s transition from promising art-school student in Liverpool (and best friend of John Lennon) to reluctant musician (pressed into service by Lennon) to determined painter within the German avant-garde scene. A lot of Stu’s story, as Beatles fans know, is set in Hamburg, during and after the days the group was a house band in the city’s red-light district. Familiar tales of friction between Sutcliffe and Paul McCartney abound. But these are offset by a tremendous amount of fresh insight and detail offered by such important Beatles-saga figures as rocker Tony Sheridan, Klaus Voormann and—most crucially—Astrid Kirchherr, the photographer who influenced the Beatles’ look and who became Sutcliffe’s lover until his death.

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Jimmie Nicol: The Beatle Who Never Was

 
More on Stuart Sutcliffe, after the jump…
 

Mural at 112 Avenue A in NYC.
 
Here in it’s entirety is Julian Temple’s very fine 2007 documentary on Joe Strummer.

Featuring members of The Clash, Don Letts, Jim Jarmusch, Bernie Rhodes, Joe Ely, John Cooper Clarke and many more.

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten does justice to a complex and brilliant man who was constantly grappling with his fans’ expectations, his own demons, while all the while trying to age gracefully as the face of rebellion and punk rock music.

In English with Spanish subtitles.
 

 
David Bowie doing a live vocal to a backing tape on Les Rendez-Vous Du Dimanche from French television in 1977.

The interview he did afterwards with host Michael Drucker is after the jump.
 

 
Thank you Spencer Kansa!

 
In this rarely seen (for obvious reasons) clip, the fabulous Leigh Bowery keeps his composure as the be-quiffed pop star stumbles through his questions, rambles, misses the point and seems at times lost like a patient woken up for his meds.

Taken from Glitter’s late night chat show Night Network, Bowery shines, while Glitter’s inappropriate questions reveal more than he perhaps intended:

“I know how to make a young boy happy.”

I’m sure you do, Gary, I’m sure you do.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Leigh Bowery’s Raw Sewage

 
Just wait for it! BTW, how in the hell is this still up on YouTube?!

 
(via reddit)

 
“I bet if Jesus came back right now…”

A lot of people were seriously skeeved out by the audience at the GOP Tea party/CNN debate cheering on the notion of allowing an uninsured man to die.

Liberal group ThinkProgress asked students at Liberty University, the conservative Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia, what they thought about the matter. Although the students were unanimous in their disapproval, calling it “un-Christian” to allow an uninsured person to die simply because they were uninsured, I wonder how many of them would still blindly vote for a GOP candidate who espoused such a morbid viewpoint every single time rather than for a theoretical Democrat whose position they actually agreed with?

Such is the berserk disconnect of modern American life…