Many of The Rolling Stones’ pre-1966 hits were never released in stereo. For example Satisfaction, although originally recorded in stereo, was released only in monophonic sound.

In the mid-80s a true stereo version of Satisfaction appeared on Japanese and German editions of Hot Rocks 1964-67, which are long out of print. They’re available from collectors, but expensive.
 
In this true stereo version of Satisfaction, you can hear instruments that were mostly inaudible on the mono version. Brian Jones acoustic guitar (left channel) and Jack Nitzsche’s piano are now much more present, particularly Brian’s guitar.

We’re so accustomed to hearing the mono mix, that at first, the stereo mix seems too airy, the stereo spread too wide, the result slightly flabby and lacking punch. We miss the stripped down, punky, intense edge of the mono version. But, after repeated listening, the stereo version yields its own charms, a different but satisfying (pun intended), experience.

If for no other reason than to hear Brian’s guitar with such clarity, the true stereo version of Satisfaction is a great discovery.
 

 
The Fabulous Echoes (also know as The Fab Echoes) were Hong Kong garage rockers who, in the early 60s, had a string of regional hits on Diamond Records. They were a big touring act in Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Though based in Hong Kong, none of the members of the group were Chinese - four were Filipino, the drummer was from Scotland, and lead singer Cliff Foenander was from India.

In this clip, Fab Echoes’ member Bert Sagum (a proto Lux Interior) does a totally insane version of It Won’t Be Long. Man, could these cats rock!
 

 
A Forever 21 clothing store located on Times Square, in the building that used to house the Virgin Mega-Store, has taken a Tron-like approach to advertising.

A digital 61 foot electronic billboard features virtual models interacting with people on the street below. The model takes photos of onlookers, which are then instantly displayed on the billboard. In addition, the models can pick people out from the gawking crowds, create digitized images of them, kiss them and turn them into frogs or pick them up and drop them into “Forever 21” branded shopping bags.

The dystopian mindfuck also displays “love tweets” from so-called “fans.”

Madison Avenue is a very powerful aggression against private consciousness. A demand that you yield your private consciousness to public manipulation. - Marshall McLuhan

For more info and photos on the billboard check out design boom.

 
In this brilliant remake of Alica Keys and Jay-Z’s ode to New York City, Empire State of Mind,  rapper Alex Warren and singer Terema Wainwrite celebrate the Welsh city of Newport. Ymerodraeth is Welsh for empire.

The video’s director Morgan-Jane Delaney says she…

...wanted to make something people from Newport would be proud of and we have had some really positive feedback.

“I hope Jay-Z and Alicia get to see the video as long as their publishing people don’t force us to take it offline. It’s only tongue in cheek.”

What make’s this different, and quite special, is the Welsh spin, the accents. And Terema Wainwrite is quite a belter.The whole thing reminds me of Shane McGowan and Kirsty MacColl.

 
I’m so flabbergasted that I found this fan-made video on the you-know-what for a song by a band I helmed as a teen in the 80’s, Steaming Coils, that I decided to share it here. Steaming Coils was essentially myself making the music and my good friend and lyrical genius David Chrisman singing. Over the years many other cool people did time in the band as well and we put out three LPs , a handful of cassettes and recorded hundreds more songs. ALL of which are available for free download at Mutant Sounds. I’m still really proud of what we did in Steaming Coils. As a rule, we over-extended our musical reach. We were listening to and worshipping really complex progressive and experimental music and wanted to play like our heroes but our skills were more at the budding punk-rock level and I think that’s what makes it interesting to hear now. The song in the video (which is pretty damn odd, but huge thanks to whomever created it !) is one of the last and best things we ever did, from our Breaded LP. Hope you enjoy it !

 
Steaming Coils - Never Creak LP (1986)
Steaming Coils - The Tarkington Table LP (1987)
Steaming Coils - Breaded LP (1989)
Steaming Coils - Archive (1983-1990)

 
Hollywood no longer provides the buzz that a hardcore movie junkie like myself requires. So, I’ve had to go to other sources for my celluloid kicks. For the past couple of decades, I’ve turned East to Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Bollywood to satisfying my cravings for a dose of the old silver nitrate.

As anyone who has followed my blogging on DM knows, I love Bollywood. And one my favorite Bollywood performers is Indian mega-star Rajinikanth. The guy is bigger than life, an action star, romantic lead, buffoon, singer and dancer. Like most Bollywood leading men, Rajinikanth can do all. And he’s never been better than in the 2007 film Sivaji.

Indian films are rigorously censored and sex is not allowed, so, whenever a couple is about to get it on, they usually break out in song and dance. But in Sivaji, instead of dance, sex is supplanted by a non-stop barrage of gunplay and violence. Bullets have replaced kisses, bombs orgasms, the scent of woman is gunpowder. It doesn’t take a degree in psychoanalysis to see the Freudian gun as cock symbolism in this shoot em up. 

As the hero of Sivaji, Rajinikanth displays his flamboyant style in action sequences that mash up Hong Kong bullet ballet with Spaghetti Western macho cool and psychedelic Peking Opera visuals. Note the incredible set design and use of color. No matter what the subject, be it lavish costume dramas or modern gangster films, Bollywood sees the world through prismatic glasses. In Bollywood, every day is the day the world turned day-glo.

Rajinikanth’s motorcycle entrance at the beginning of this clip is one of the greatest in the history of the movies. You’ll see what I mean.

The music is by A.R. Rahman, India’s greatest modern film composer.
 

 
By the time Montreal-born filmmaker Arthur Lipsett made his nine-and-a-half-minute long dystopian short 21-87 in 1963, he was well-aware of the power of abstract collage film. His short from two years earlier, Very Nice, Very Nice was a dizzying flood of black & white images accompanied by bits of audio he’d collected from the trash cans of the National Film Board while he was working there. And wildly enough, it got nominated for a Best Short Subject Oscar in 1962.

But with 21-87, the then-27-year-old Lipsett was not only using moving images, he was also refining his use of sound. And it got the attention of the young USC film student George Lucas, who’d fallen in love with abstract film while going to Canyon Cinema events in the San Francisco Bay area. 21-87’s random and unsettling visions of humans in a mechanistic society accompanied by bits of strangely therapeutic or metaphysical dialogue, freaky old-time music, and weird sound effects, affected Lucas profoundly, according to Steve Silberman in Wired magazine:

’When George saw 21-87, a lightbulb went off,’ says Walter Murch, who created the densely layered soundscapes in [Lucas’s 1967 student short] THX 1138 and collaborated with Lucas on American Graffiti. ‘One of the things we clearly wanted to do in THX-1138 was to make a film where the sound and the pictures were free-floating. Occasionally, they would link up in a literal way, but there would also be long sections where the two of them would wander off, and it would stretch the audience’s mind to try to figure out the connection.’

Famously, Lucas would later use 21-87 as the number Princess Leia’s cell in Star Wars. But although his success allowed him freedom at the NFB, Lipsett’s psychological problems would lead him to commit suicide in 1986, two weeks before he turned 50.
 

 
After the jump, compare with Lucas’s equally bewildering short Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB!
 

 
You don’t have to speak Mandarin in order to appreciate this scathingly funny Sarah Palin animation from Taiwan television.

It appears that Asians find Palin as ridiculous as most clear thinking Americans do. Scary thing is, the reality is so absurd it’s almost beyond satire. How much more of her shit is this country willing to swallow?

 
Internet superstar Mark Gormley’s new video is absolutely epic! In additon to amazing production values, stunning choreography and mindbending mysticism, it has all the visual and erotic magic we have come to expect from Mark . Director Phil Thomas Katt, the Gerard Damiano of rock videos, has simply outdone himself. He may entering his Kubrick phase.

Be prepared to have your breath taken away. I suggest eating some mescaline for a totally enthralling experience. The song is called All You Need and it is all you need.

Mark, now more than ever!
 

 
Found randomly on Ebay: A signed self-portrait caricature by W.C. Fields himself!

Original Signed Sketch, penned in black ink on a 6 ¼ in. x 8 in. album leaf.  Fields, an accomplished pool shark, perfected many billiards tricks which he later used in stage and film comedy.  Depicted here is one such gag:  in the center of the page, Fields has drawn himself as a hapless billiards player attempting a shot with an enormous pool cue!  Signed with sentiment just beneath, “Best wishes, W.C. Fields”.  Minor stains; otherwise, in fine condition.  A delightful image, drawn entirely by Fields himself.

The opening bid is $3500. I actually got to see Fields’ original trick pool table at the Magic Castle recently.