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Asking kids about the Beatles
05.03.2011
11:47 am
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Apparently the Fab Four consisted of John Legend, George Michael, George Lennon and Larry.

 
(via Nerdcore)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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05.03.2011
11:47 am
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‘50 Foot Woman’ cult actress found mummified in Los Angeles home
05.03.2011
10:54 am
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The mummified body of Yvette Vickers, a B-movie actress beloved by fans for her role as the mistress in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (and an early Playboy playmate) was discovered at her Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles. According to police, Vickers had not been seen for some time. A neighbor became suspicious and decided to investigate on April 27th. The state of decomposition may indicate the body was there for close to a year. From the Los Angeles Times:

Vickers had lived in the 1920s-era stone and wood home for decades, and it served as the background for some of her famous modeling pictures. But over time it had become dilapidated, exposed in some places to the elements.

Susan Savage, an actress, went to check on Vickers after noticing old letters and cobwebs in her elderly neighbor’s mailbox.

“The letters seemed untouched and were starting to yellow,” Savage said. “I just had a bad feeling.”

After pushing open a barricaded front gate and scaling a hillside, Savage peered through a broken window with another piece of glass taped over the hole. She decided to enter the house after seeing a shock of blond hair, which turned out to be a wig.
The inside of the home was in disrepair and it was hard to move through the rooms because boxes containing what appeared to be clothes, junk mail and letters formed barriers, Savage said. Eventually, she made her way upstairs and found a room with a small space heater still on.

She was looking at a cordless phone that appeared to have been knocked off its cradle when she first saw the body on the floor, she said. Savage had known Vickers but the remains were unrecognizable, she said.

She remembered her neighbor as an elegant women in a broad straw hat, dressed in white, with flowing blond hair and “a warm smile.”

“She kept to herself, had friends and seemed like a very independent spirit,” Savage said. “To the end she still got cards and letter from all over the world requesting photos and still wanting to be her friend.”

Savage said the neighbors felt terrible.

“We’ve all been crying about this,” she said. “Nobody should be left alone like that.”

Truly, a sad and lonely way to die.

Thank you, Douglas Hovey!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.03.2011
10:54 am
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The heavy metal cowboys of Botswana
05.03.2011
04:34 am
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These photographs by Frank Marshall of heavy metal devotees in Botswana, Africa are simply amazing, oozing style and attitude.

Botswana metalhead Tshomarelo Mosaka describes the scene:

Metal is given very extreme respect and great dignity in Botswana. A metal gig here is like a religious ritual among the metallers, they become very, very delighted or even crazy sometimes whenever there is an upcoming gig. They will spend weeks preparing their leather pants, boots and other metal attire – it’s like they are preparing for war!”

One of the only white metal musicians in Botswana, Giuseppe Sbrana, shares his take on where the scene’s fashion sense comes from: 

A good example of where we get the style from is Motorhead’s Ace Of Spades cover. Also, many metalheads in Botswana are cowboys from the villages and farms, so they mix the cowboy image with a biker metal look. Many wear hunting knives and parts of dead animals. We drink from the hollowed-out cow horns.”

Cue the Ennio Morricone.
 
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Some serious Misfits influence in this photo:
 
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The names these cats have given themselves are hardcore poetry: Bone Machine, Morgue Boss, Bound By The Moon, Coffinfeeder, Venerated Villain and my favorite Apothecary Dethrok. I’m buying some leather and changing my name to Malcolm Sex Formal D. Hyde Sinister Minister.

Be your own hero, anytime anywhere. Dudes, you rock!
 
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See more of these wild photographs and read the entire article over at Viceland:
Atlas Hoods: Botswana’s Cowboy Metalheads

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.03.2011
04:34 am
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Shaman of the Lower East Side: Ira Cohen R.I.P.
05.03.2011
02:30 am
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Poet, musician, film maker, photographer, publisher, world traveler, spiritual seeker and cosmic New Yorker, Ira Cohen has died at the age of 76

Author of dozens of books of poetry and “The Hashish Cookbook” (under the pseudonym of Panama Rose), Cohen also published the works of his friends William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin, Jack Smith Harold Norse and many others.

Cohen made many pilgrimages to India and Kathmandu (where he ended up living for several years) and chronicled his journeys in extraordinary photographs. His travels took him to Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Spain, Japan…but all roads eventually lead back to New York City’s Lower East Side.

As a film maker, Cohen developed a style distinctly his own by photographing images reflected in Mylar plastic. The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda and Brain Damage were directed by Cohen in the late 1960s using this mirror effect. The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda was released in 2006 on DVD by the folks at the late lamented Arthur Magazine. Cohen conjured some of the same cinematic spirits as his peers Jack Smith and Kenneth Anger.
 

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Jimi Hendrix photographed by Ira Cohen
 

In certain artistic and literary circles, Mr. Cohen was a touchstone. “Ira was a major figure in the international underground and avant-garde,” Michael Rothenberg, the editor of Big Bridge magazine, an Internet publication, said in an interview. “In order to understand American art and poetry post-World War II, you have to understand Ira Cohen.”

If you spent any time in downtown New York’s art scene during the past five decades you would have undoubtedly crossed paths with the open-hearted and wise gentleman who described himself as a “multi-media shaman.” Ira Cohen stayed relevant throughout his life, never square and never predictable. He was magic. His sphere of influence only grew larger as he grew older. His International reputation as a world class artist and wizard continued to flourish right up to his death on April 26.

Here’s an excerpt of The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda which features a score by the original drummer of the Velvet Underground, Angus MacLise.
 

 
A trailer from a film on Ira Cohen and scenes from his film “Brain Damage” after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.03.2011
02:30 am
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Dangerous Minds Radio Hour Episode #21
05.02.2011
08:15 pm
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The Dangerous Minds Radio Hour kicks off it’s 21st episode with special guest DJ Comet of Mod Cinema who excitingly rummaged through his musical collection to
bring rare tracks from France, Australia, Germany, Brazil, UK, Japan, and the good ol’ USA.
 
Francoise Hardy “L’amour en prive”
The Gibsons “City Life”
Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra “Oh, Oh, Oooh, Ei Ei Ei - Wo Immer Es Auch Sei”
The Doves “I’ll Cry If You Make Me”
Gal Costa “Lost in the Paradise”
Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf “Talk About a Girl”
Bertrand Burgalat “Pleased Me”
Alan Brackett & Scott Shelly “Best Times”
Steve Martin “Love Songs in the Night”
Connie Stevens “Tick Tock”
The Rotary Connection “Memory Band”
Dee Edwards “Why Can’t There Be Love”
M.E.D. “Can’t Hold On” (instrumental)
The Tremeloes “I Swear”
Oh! Penelope “Lait Au Miel”
Judy Mackenzie “New Song”
Pascale Audret “Affole-Toi Marie”
Cliff Wagner “Red Spots”
Lee Hazlewood & Ann Margret “Sweet Thing”
Chris Stamey “the Summer Sun”
Astrud Gilberto “Number One to the Sun”
Lyn Murray “Love Hate Love”
 

 
Download this week’s episode
 
Subscribe to the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour podcast at iTunes
 
Video bonus: Four years after Detroit soul group The Dramatics broke into
the Top 10 with their hit song Whatcha See is Whatcha Get they appeared
as themselves in the very strange 1975 Blaxploitation film Darktown
Strutters
.
 

Posted by Brad Laner
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05.02.2011
08:15 pm
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Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff: 1970 Campaign Ad
05.02.2011
07:43 pm
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Hunter Thompson ran for Sheriff in Aspen, Colorado in 1970. His campaign posters featured a fist clenching a peyote button. While running on a platform to legalize drugs, he promised that if elected, he wouldn’t do any mescaline while on duty. He clearly spelled out his plan for punishing drug dealers:

It will be the general philosophy of the sheriff’s office that no drug worth taking shall be sold for money. My first act as sheriff will be to install on the sheriff’s lawn a set of stocks to punish dishonest dope dealers.”

Hunter lost the election. Aspen continued its decline into an enclave for the super rich.

Here’s his ad campaign for Sheriff:
 

 
Via biblioklept

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.02.2011
07:43 pm
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‘Undead! Undead! Undead!’
05.02.2011
06:26 pm
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Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.02.2011
06:26 pm
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Ben Van Meter: Pioneer of psychedelic film making
05.02.2011
05:35 pm
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Ben Van Meter’s experimental movies of the 1960s are informed by psychedelic drugs, music , and light’s magic act on 8mm film stock. They reflect (literally) the mind-altering effects of psychedelia as they helped create it. Van Meter uses home movie footage of hippies and rock concerts as a launching pad for stroboscopic collages that replicate the liquid lightshows of the era. I imagine that Van Meter’s films were part of those shows.

Van Meter also has a formidable collection of concert posters and memorabilia from the 1960s here.

Van Meter covered the pre-summer of love in San Francisco music / hippie scene, filming such ‘happenings’ as the first “Trips Festival” (1965), and legendary promotor Bill Graham’s first ever concert at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium (December, 1965) ...featuring important San Francisco scene personalities such as Grace Slick with her first band “The Great Society”, “The Warlocks” (precursors to the Grateful Dead), “The San Francisco Mime Troupe”, “Quicksilver Messenger Service” and other icons of the era.”

I’ve compiled a handful of Van Meter’s work from his Youtube sight for your viewing pleasure, and pleasurable it is. Included are: Bolex Peyote Bardo, S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening, Human Be-In footage from 1967 with a Grateful Dead soundtrack and a truly bizarre and ironic (considering Linkletter’s history with LSD) appearance by Van Meter and Bruce Connor on the Art Linkletter Show.

Van Meter recounts the making of S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening:

In January of 1966 the San Francisco Trips Festival was held at Longshoreman’s Hall in San Francisco. This was the seminal event of the 60’s rock scene. A lot of different folks did their thing including Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. I filmed it in my then inmitable style. I have always described it as “A documentary of the event from the pov of a goldfish in the koolaid bowl.” It is written about in all of the scholarly books about experimental film and has been hailed by one academic as, “The most psychedelic film ever made.” Whatever.

Enjoy the lysergic cinema of Ben Van Meter:
 

 

 
More wonderful Van Meter trippiness after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.02.2011
05:35 pm
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Rush Limbaugh: Still a dickhead
05.02.2011
04:44 pm
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Rush Limbaugh laughed at media outlets who missed the obvious sarcasm of his praise for Obama’s military leadership, but he seems to be oblivious himself to the irony that in this instance—uniquely so—certain people were willing to actually give this lardass blowhard the benefit of the doubt that for once he might not be behaving like a total asshole.

As if. And how could anyone be taken in by this? That’s shameful. All it took was watching it, nothing more! I suppose that’s too much to ask?
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.02.2011
04:44 pm
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After the Royal Wedding: We are all criminals now
05.02.2011
03:49 pm
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Know your rights, for there is something going terribly wrong in the UK at the moment.

The Police have been arresting people on suspicion they may be about to commit a crime. It’s a bit like Minority Reportbut without the psychics.

In the UK you can be arrested if the Police:

have reasonable grounds for suspecting you are about to commit certain offences

In other words, if they think you’re up to something naughty, you’ll get done: or, ‘We’re all criminals now, and it’s only a matter of time before we’re all nicked.’

This was what happened to ex-professor of anthropology Chris Knight last week, when he (and two others) were arrested on suspicion of causing a possible nuisance.  The nuisance was a piece of street theater, London, where Knight and others planned to re-enact the beheadings of Royalty.

It is also what happened to Charlie Veitch, a former city banker who was arrested last week on “suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The connection between Knight and Veitch was the Royal Wedding, which allowed the Police to arrest anyone they thought might be planning, or, thinking of causing an offense.

But Knight and Veitch were only two of the 70 people arrested in pre-emptive raids of suspected protestors prior to and on the day of the Royal Wedding.

Nearly 100 people were barred from entering Westminster on the day of the wedding.

Now this is where it gets surreal: one demonstrator was arrested for singing ‘We all live in a fascist regime,’ to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”, as the Guardian reported:

About a dozen policemen grabbed the singer, sparking a clash with his colleagues, changing the mood of a small and peaceful gathering as he was handcuffed and bundled away. “He had articles on him to cause criminal damage,” explained Chief Inspector John Dale, to loud protests.

“You just incited a peaceful situation into violence,” shouted a bystander.

Police said they made a total of 52 arrests, which included 13 at Charing Cross railway station, where people were found to have “climbing equipment and anti-monarchy placards”. There was also 21 arrests made during raids of five squats in London on Thursday morning.

Officers also swooped on five people, three of whom were wearing zombie make-up, when they entered a branch of Starbucks on Oxford Street. They were arrested “on suspicion of planning a breach of the peace”.

They were all handcuffed and held in a police van and gave their names as Amy Cutler, 25, Rachel Young, 27, Eric Schultz, 43, Hannah Eisenman-Renyard, and Deborah, 19, an anthropology student at the University of East London.

“We’ve been pre-emptively arrested under suspicion of planning a breach of the peace,” Cutler told the Guardian from the police van. “We went to Starbucks to get a coffee and the police followed us in.”

“We were just dressing up as zombies,” said Amy, who was wearing a “marry me instead” T-shirt. “It is nice to dress up as zombies.”

While the right to peaceful demonstration in the UK is not absolute, it is “a vital part of a democratic society and has a very long and respected tradition in the United Kingdom.” Now with recent legislation brought in to deal with a range of threats, from terrorism to anti-social behavior, there is the a very real possibility that this “respected tradition” is being slowly taken from the British people.

Below Charlie Veitch‘s arrest and interview on ITV News, plus, 3 zombies, who were arrested, tell their story.
 

 
More from Charlie Veitch, plus interview with the arrested zombies, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.02.2011
03:49 pm
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