Dangerous Minds pal Paul Gallagher posted a fascinating interview with animator John Butler at his wonderful Planet Paul blog where he writes about cultural obscurities and and things that interest him:

In 2001, Channel 4 television, in the UK, broadcast a 20-part sci-fi short animation series called Workgroup Alpha.  It starred Ed Bishop and dealt with a team of inter-dimensional consultants, lost on an intergalactic space mission. Bishop, with his association as Commander Straker from Gerry Anderson’s cult TV hit UFO, was ideally cast as Aquarius, the Enterprise Class Visionary, who with his fellow travellers explored “a whole new dimension in universal solutions.”

Though there is the passing hint of Frederick Pohl’s satirical sci-fi classic The Space Merchants, which imagined a world run by ad agencies, Workgroup Alpha offered an intelligent and witty critique of the growing cultural obsession with corporate speak, focus groups, PR consultants, and all those other anemic constructs that have depersonalized our world.

The end credit to the series was attributed to the Butler Brothers, the name by which John and Paul Butler operate.  Paul is the co-producer, writer and conceptual consultant.  John is writer, designer, animator, composer, co-producer, and director.

I first heard about the Butler Brothers through friends, though it was always John Butler who attracted the most attention.  His name was mentioned with that hushed reverential tone and nodding head of respect that said we had touched on some sacred matter.  It made Butler seem almost mythical – a great creative artist who lived somewhere (no one seemed quite sure where, or if they did, didn’t say), a garret most likely, where he created, with help from his brother, these incredible digital animations, of such intelligence and imagination.

I sent Paul a quick note last week that I had enjoyed his interview and he replied:

“Butler’s latest animation, Children of the Null, was inspired by Dennis Wheatley and to an extent, more Stephen King. When I asked him about it, he said the Children of the Null was about the occult practice of finance.

“I tend to think of Finance as an occult concern, hence the masks of the Transactors. The fact that during the collapse, derivatives were described as being too complex to understand confirms this suspicion.”

Though John is an atheist - he sees capitalism as an evil.

I think he just might have something there.”
 

 
Do androids dream of eclectic sheep? – an interview with John Butler (Planet Paul)

The Butler Brothers YouTube Channel

 
The Devil went down to King’s Road where he found a redheaded boy named Johnny and the Devil said to Johnny, “I am the Devil, dance with me.” And Johnny stared at the Devil and screeched, “I am an Antichrist!” And before the Devil knew what hit him, Johnny destroyed him!

Smog makes it hard to see the Los Angeles Civic Center on Jan. 5, 1948. Photo: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive/UCLA Library
 
In this age of climate-change consciousness, we’ve been thinking of pollution in epic-scale terms for so many decades that it’s become difficult to perceive it locally or episodically. On Wired.com’s This Day in Tech blog, Jess McNally notes  that on this day 67 years ago, residents of Los Angeles initially suspected that the unseasonable eye-stinging haze descending on their city was a Japanese chemical attack:

As residents would later find out, the fog was not from an outside attacker, but from their own vehicles and factories. Massive wartime immigration to a city built for cars had made L.A. the largest car market the industry had ever seen. But the influx of cars and industry, combined with a geography that traps fumes like a big bowl, had caught up with Angelenos.

 

Susan Morrow (left) and Linda Hawkins wipe tears from their eyes on a downtown street during a smoggy day in October 1964. Photo: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive/UCLA Library
 
It took Arie Jan Haagen-Smit, a Dutch scientist working at the California Institute of Technology, to point that out, but that wasn’t until the early ‘50s. Although the term smog—a portmanteau of smoke and fog—was coined in the early 20th century, L.A. made it truly famous.

Check out Wired’s fascinating selection of photos from the UCLA Library depicting the Southland’s struggle against smog from the 1940s through the 1960s.

 
After making one remarkable self-titled psych-pop album in the ‘60s that’s been a collector’s staple for years, Jamme are one of those bands that somehow slipped through the net. Their debut has just been reissued for the first time, 40 years later (via Now Sounds), and has a fantastic story attached to it.

In 1968, Jamme—a four-piece made up of two Brits and two Americans—were just another young group of musicians trying to make it on the Sunset Strip when they were handed the opportunity of a lifetime after John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas offered to produce an album for them, thinking he had found the new Beatles.

So far, so good. However, not everything went quite to plan. The band came into Phillips’ life in the summer of 1968, just as the Mamas and the Papas were breaking up, his marriage to Michelle Phillips was on the rocks and he was having an affair with Mia Farrow (right under the nose of Frank Sinatra!).

All of that contributed to a rather bizarre recording experience, all of which took place in the studio Phillips had installed in the roof of his Bel Air mansion—the same studio Sly Stone later used to make “There’s A Riot Goin’ On”—the entrance to which, incidentally, was hidden (James Bond-style) behind a secret panel on the first floor of the house.

The whole amazing story of the Jamme is detailed in the pretty lengthy liner notes that come with the reissue. For now, listen to their groovy signature tune, “Strawberry Jam Man”, which sounds it like it should be the theme to some whacked-out Saturday morning kids TV show, and enjoy this little nugget from the notes:
———-
One night, Michelle Phillips, Mia Farrow and Jamme drummer Terry Rae all dropped acid together in the lounge below the studio, while John was upstairs leading a session with the band. When the panel that lead out to the main house was closed, the room was cast into pitch blackness. They all laid underneath a table with their heads pressed together, legs sticking out like the spokes of a wheel, all giggly and loose.

“Wouldn’t it be great to go to France,” squealed Mia. “Just jump on a plane right now and go.”

“Let’s go to France, then,” added Michelle. “Let’s just go!”

Rae’s 18-year old acid-fried mind was having trouble taking all this in. He was sitting under a table in the dark with Michelle Phillips and Mia Farrow as they were discussing taking him with them halfway across the world on a Lear jet. When the talk turned to more intimate matters, Rae began to get feel uncomfortable.

“What would the sleeping arrangements be,” Mia asked out loud.

“What if John was here? You wouldn’t be talking like this,” Rae stammered.

But no sooner had he said it then the panel opened up, the room was flooded with bright white light and John Phillips’ voice boomed out: “I am here.”

He had been there all along, standing silently at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the studio, listening to every word. Rae was mortified. “Being on acid, it blew the whole thing up in my mind. I was just totally blown away that he might have thought I was doing anything. But he took the opinion that I was a threat and had all the intentions of going to France with them to get laid. It was just a crazy fantasy. A joke, basically. We were having fun. But it turned out to be my demise.”

Shortly afterwards, John pushed the other members of the Jamme into firing Rae. As he was not only acting as their producer but also bankrolling the sessions, they had little choice but to comply.

“Funny enough,” Rae reflects, “both Mia and Michelle were in love with John. There were obviously problems with Michelle, but I don’t think she would have ever frivolously just gone off with some guy to get laid.”

A month after he was fired from the band, Rae was bemused to get a call from Mia Farrow. She invited him to the house on Copa De Oro Road that afternoon on the pretext of showing him some candid photographs of her with the Beatles in India.

“Nobody had photos, you know, actual 4x4 photos of the Beatles. You never saw stuff like that,” he says, even while acknowledging that he again found the situation alone with Mia Farrow in Frank Sinatra’s house“really weird”.

After a fashion, Mia sighed. “I have a problem,” she said, gingerly. “My best friend is Michelle, but I’m in love with John. What should I do?”

“Stick with Michelle and don’t mess with John,” Rae offered, his advice colored by his own recent experience at the hands of John Phillips.
 

 
Buy Jamme at Amazon

 
Phew is the name of the Japanese punk chanteuse who first came came to notoriety as singer in the band Aunt Sally. These tracks from her 1981 self-titled LP are most notable, however for her backing band: Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit of Can and always brilliant producer Conny Plank. This is some wonderfully austere stuff from a period in which our man Holger could virtually do no wrong. And what a prescient sound this is. Any number of current backward looking bands would give their eye teeth for the vibe and drum/synth groove made by this unlikely combination of middle aged German gents and adorable art-waif.

 
More Phew after the jump…

 
Stunning video of a timestamp lightning storm slowed down 300x. This definitely gives a new meaning to “don’t mess with Mother Nature.” Don’t.
 
Update: Video was removed. Please enjoy this crappy lightning storm instead.

 
(via Interweb3000)

 
In this promotion for an energy drink, American skateboarding legend Steve Berra hooked up with Mexican skaters Jesus Gonzalez, Eder Martinez, Mario Saenz, Angel Santiago and New Yorker Luis Tolentino to create this jaw-dropping video filmed in Mexico City. Brilliantly directed by Garth Davis

Tolentino describes his initial response to participating in the video:

I was on tour and remember Steve asking me if I wanted to get lit on fire and I was like HELL YEAH!! I didnt think I would actually get a little burned. Ahh well! Gotta man up sometimes.

Music written produced & performed by Django Django.

 
thanks Luis Tolentino

 


Mark Fredrickson

 
Here’s something quite rare; the pilot of A Whole Scene Going, a show for teens that aired on British tv in 1965. This episode features fashion predictions for 1966, advice for young lovers from Lulu, a segment on the up and coming skateboard craze, footage of The Who, and an interview with a very cynical, sarcastic and witty Pete Townshend.
 

 
Roxy Music performing Virginia Plain and Love is The Drug on the last edition of British television’s Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, which aired on July 16. Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera, and Paul Thompson all sound terrific. But, where’s Eno? 

Roxy is touring Europe, but no US dates are currently scheduled.

Bryan Ferry/Jonathan Ross, separated at birth.