Left to right: Donald Cammell, Dennis Hopper, Alejandro Jodorowsky & Kenneth Anger.
Cinematic shaman Alejandro Jodorowsky discusses his work. Taken from the over five hours worth of extras that will come with the much-anticipated re-release of Santa Sangre on DVD and Blu-ray by Severin Films on January 25th. Pre-order a copy of Santa Sangre.
I deliberately avoided putting this video in yesterday’s Haunted Retro post because I think it deserves a post all of its own. It represents visually what War, Pink et al represent musically. It’s indecipherable without being shoe-gaze, it’s psychedelic without sounding like it came from the Sixties. It’s lo-fi, it’s esoteric, it’s fun - everything this imagined genre should be. It’s from the album Horribles Parade on Sacred Bones, which you can get here, and if you want to hear more here is the Gary War MySpace. Broadcast fans will find much to like in this:
Despite my denials, it’s true, LSD babies were the product of my generations selfless longing for illumination, enlightenment and the drug-crazed delusion that life could transcend the narrow limitations of ego and burst beyond the grasping self into some sublime open field where all things were one and living in perfect absolute harmony.
But it was not to be.
Teenage girls gave birth to nine pound day-glo frogs and young boys slithered within the skin of hideous snakes through crepusculating psychedelic forests, their adolescent tongues darting like stroboscopic slabs of slimy pink despair into the peach fuzzed meatpit of absolute reality.
The era of the Aquarian Age turned into a sideshow of chromosome altered freaks that roamed the garbage strewn streets of the Mission District and the Lower East Side. Within the dark alleys of crumbling cities the LSD babies gathered in schools of glistening green-eyed bat creatures and colonies of sad little frog people with speech impediments and post nasal drip.
What had once been metaphoric had become literal: WE HAD THIRD EYES!
This letter from Jack Kerouac to Marlon Brando in which Kerouac pitches the idea of a movie version for On The Road starring Brando was auctioned by Christies for $36,000 a few years ago. A check Jack can’t cash.
I’m praying that you’ll buy ON THE ROAD and make a movie of it. Don’t worry about the structure, I know to compress and re-arrange the plot a bit to give a perfectly acceptable movie-type structure: making it into one all-inclusive trip instead of the several voyages coast-to-coast in the book, one vast round trip from New York to Denver to Frisco to Mexico to New Orleans to New York again. I visualize the beautiful shots could be made with the camera on the front seat of the car showing the road (day and night) unwinding into the windshield, as Sal and Dean yak. I wanted you to play the part because Dean (as you know) is no dopey hotrodder but a real intelligent (in fact Jesuit) Irishman. You play Dean and I’ll play Sal (Warner Bros. mentioned I play Sal) and I’ll show you how Dean acts in real life…we can go visit him in Frisco, or have him come down to L.A. still a real frantic cat. All I want out of this is to able to establish myself and my Mother a trust fund for life, so I can really go around roaming around the world…to write what comes out of my head and free to feed my buddies when they’re hungry. What I wanta do is re-do the theater and the cinema in America, give it a spontaneous dash, remove pre-conceptions of “situation” and let people rave on as they do in real life…The French movies of the 30’s are still far superior to ours because the French really let their actors come on and the writers didn’t quibble with some preconceived notion of how intelligent the movie audience is…American theater & Cinema at present is an outmoded dinosaur that ain’t mutated along with the best in American Literature.
Come on now Marlon, put up your dukes and write! ...signed in blue ink Jack Kerouac
Thanks 3 A.M.
“The Words That Maketh Murder” is the single from PJ Harvey’s new album Let England Shake which will be released on February 15. Of what I’ve heard of the album so far, this is sounding like Harvey’s best work in years. I do so want to love it.
Rough Trade has released “The Words That Maketh Murder” on 7 inch vinyl. Got a turntable? Get the single here.
Shot in New York City in 1986 by Dutch filmmaker Bram van Splunteren, Big Fun In The Big Town contains a motherlode of amazing footage of Schoolly-D, DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Biz Markie, Jam Master Jay and more.
Check out Doug E. Fresh beat-boxing Kraftwerk’s “Tour de France” on a Harlem street corner.
I look at the new rock ‘n rollers…it’s a shame what they did to it, and I hope that rap don’t go that same route – where they take the rawness away…just then make it too pretty! I don’t think rock ‘n roll was meant to be pretty. Rock was meant to be bad – just like rap” - Schoolly-D
In English with Danish Dutch subtitles.
This shit is golden.
A peek into the future of the Internet as featured on a mid-1960s episode of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World.
“Every home will have its own terminal plugged into a central brain.”
Well, well, well, at long last the LA City Council has actually done something I can respect: On January 5th, they adjourned a meeting early in honor of the passing of Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart and presented this certificate of (??) at the recent Beefheart symposium in Los Angeles.
I guess any excuse to get off early with that lot, but the sentiment is appreciated (and at least they weren’t at work further messing up the medical marijuana situation in the city!)
This track “Chance” by Joy Division popped up on You Tube today - it’s listed as an “Unofficial Release - from the Piccadilly Radio session 4th June 1979.” “Chance” is an early version of the song that would later become “Atmosphere”.
According to Shadowplay a website dedicated to all of Joy Division’s recordings, the lyrics to “Chance” vary from “Atmosphere”:
“Chance”
Walk in silence
Walk away in silence
See the danger - always danger
Endless talking - life rebuilding
Don’t walk away - face the dangerWalk in silence
Don’t walk away in silence
See the danger - always danger
Rules are broken - false emotions
Don’t walk awayPeople like you find it easy
Always in tune - walking on air
They’re hunting in packs
By the rivers, through the streets
It may happen soon
Then maybe you’ll care
Walk away
Walk away from danger
“Atmosphere”
Walk in silence
Don’t walk away in silence
See the danger - always danger
Endless talking - life rebuilding
Don’t walk awayWalk in silence
Don’t turn away in silence
Your confusion - my illusion
Worn like a mask of self-hate
Confronts and then dies
[or on the Effenaar live version:
Corrupts and then dies]
Don’t walk awayPeople like you find it easy
Naked to see - walking on air
Hunting by the rivers
Through the streets, every corner
Abandoned too soon
Set down with due care
Don’t walk away - in silence
Don’t walk away
The Piccadilly Radio also version has the following additional words:
I’m - I’m just crossing the line - just crossing the line
Trying to get back - right where I was
Back where I was - see me crossing the line
Don’t walk away—
Peter Hook allegedly claimed “Atmosphere” was Joy Division’s best song, not surprising then that it was voted the Greatest Song of the Millennium by listeners to the late and lamented John Peel’s BBC radio show.
Bonus clips of ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Digital’ after the jump…
No comment…
Rep. Darrell Issa, the ultra-conservative Republican congressman from California who will lead the House’s investigations of the Obama administration, has pledged to do whatever he can to obstruct, distract or embarrass the President, because he can. Darrell Issa is the same multi-millionaire politician who bankrolled the successful effort to recall former California governor Gray Davis back in 2003. Sadly for the un-charismatic Issa, who spent a cool million on the recall campaign, Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped in and cock-blocked him. Cold.
Although it was obvious to everyone that Schwarzenegger had caused Issa to drop out of the race, Issa nevertheless strenuously (and unconvincingly) denied this while ceding his dream to become the governor to the former body builder and movie star. At the press conference announcing his decision to withdraw, the foolish looking Issa cried like a little girl. It’s the kind of appearance that’s hard to live down in the age of YouTube (see below!)
Californians have long known of Darrell Issa’s questionable past. When he first ran for office in 1997, there were reports of things like Issa firing someone with a gun, multiple accusations of car theft and allegations that he burned down his business after upping his insurance premiums. Issa denied the allegation of arson and blamed the thefts on his brother who served time in jail while Issa went on to make millions (he’s the richest man in Congress, worth $250 million) from “The Viper” car alarm. (Sweet irony, huh? It’s even Issa’s own voice saying “Please step away from the car.”)
Now that he’s attained a higher rank of sleazy prominence as the new witchfinder general of the GOP, the rest of the country needs to take a closer look at Darrell Issa. This article from The New Yorker is a great place to start:
Issa didn’t even win the Republican primary. Although he outspent his main opponent, Matt Fong, the state treasurer, by some nine million dollars, he lost by five points. His campaign fell apart after a burst of investigative reporting raised serious questions about his honesty and his past. Many politicians have committed indiscretions in earlier years: maybe they had an affair or hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny. Issa, it turned out, had, among other things, been indicted for stealing a car, arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and accused by former associates of burning down a building.
In May of 1998, Lance Williams, of the San Francisco Examiner, reported that Issa had not always received the “highest possible” ratings in the Army. In fact, at one point he “received unsatisfactory conduct and efficiency ratings and was transferred to a supply depot.” Williams also discovered that Issa didn’t provide security for Nixon at the 1971 World Series, because Nixon didn’t attend any of the games.
A member of Issa’s Army unit, Jay Bergey, told Williams that his most vivid recollection of the young Issa was that in December, 1971, Issa stole his car, a yellow Dodge Charger. “I confronted Issa,” Bergey said in 1998. “I got in his face and threatened to kill him, and magically my car reappeared the next day, abandoned on the turnpike.”
What reason other than money—and lots and lots of it could explain how a creep like Darrell Issa came to have such an outsized influence over American politics?
Read more: Don’t Look Back: Darrell Issa, the congressman about to make life more difficult for President Obama, has had some troubles of his own (The New Yorker)
Top Ten Darrell Issa “Hall of Shame” Moments (Daily Kos)
Below, Darrell Issa crying his eyes out at a press conference in 2003 announcing that he was pulling out of the governor’s race after spending more than a million dollars of his own money (but it had nothing to do with Arnold, yeah right, you big crybaby) Tears start at approx. 7:30:
Thank you Michael Backes of Los Angeles, California!