Beck Hansen’s Record Club is an informal gathering of musicians who, without rehearsing, cover a record album in one day. It’s a hit or miss affair that occasionally produces something really special. Here’s St. Vincent (Annie Clark) covering the INXS tune Never Tear Us Apart. I think it’s lovely.

 
Basil Marceaux, gubernatorial candidate for the State of Tennessee, is a breath of fresh new political air with an electrifying personality and a compelling platform:

Vote for me and if I win I will immune you from all state crimes for the rest of your life.

I will make sure that if national insurance is put in place, I will make sure the roots of such bill with not include any type measuring of the waist like other counties.

I will free the slaves at traffic stops from false arrest and jury fixing.

I will protect the right too bear arms against our government and not burglars.

See why dental is not in most plans a tooth aches hurt more than a back aches and no teeths depresses people

At a time when our government is poisoned by wingnuts, liars and socio-paths, Basil Marceaux is a clear strong voice in the political wilderness.

Basil discussing his platform on Nashville’s WSMV 4.

 
New York City was its own planet in the late 70s. Trying to describe it to someone who wasn’t there is like trying to describe electricity. It was wild intense and unforgettable. For a young musician like myself, Manhattan was a trial by fire, a neon dream/nightmare, harrowing at times, but mostly a non-stop feast of rock and roll, art, sex and drugs. Within its decaying magnificence, a spontaneous movement erupted of creative wide-eyed rebels, visionaries, punks and provocateurs. It changed everything. Today’s hipsters may try to emulate the fashion, but they’ll never reproduce the passion of New York in the 70s. That city is gone.

Directed by Shan Nicholson, Downtown Calling documents New York City at a time when it was struggling economically, crime was rampant, streets strewn with garbage, whole neighborhoods crumbling. Yet out of the mess… 

... a family of homegrown cultures that would forever change the world began to emerge. Downtown Calling not only documents, in detail, the evolution of New York City’s fertile music and art subculture during this period, but how its collective output continues to play a prominent, driving role in the international fashion, art and music industries today.

Downtown Calling is narrated by Deborah Harry and features Fab 5 Freddy, Cynthia Sley, Mos Def, Johnny Dynell, James Chance, Glen O’Brian, Chris Stein and many more. Catch it at the New York International Latino Film Festival on Wednesday, July 28th.
 

 

 

 
Not so much a Freudian slip, more a Fleudian srip, probably.
 
(Link) Via Neil Hambuger’s Twitter, HT Chris Campion

 
The world’s priorities are all screwed up. My God shame on all us:

This social experiment was carried out using hidden cameras in a townhouse complex in Johannesburg. Don’t condone violence by doing nothing. If you or anyone around you is experiencing domestic abuse please call the POWA helpline on 083 765 1235 or visit www.powa.co.za Counseling services and support is available.

 
Seefeel was the first act signed to pioneering electronic dance label Warp to feature guitars but you’d hardly know it from listening, so transformed and synthesized were those steel strings. They also sported floaty, ethereal female vocals, thus ensuring much love from the dream-pop set as well. They burned out around 1996 after a few releases and much touring but are now back, revitalized by a few new band members (including drummer E-da, formerly of The Boredoms), with a new EP and a one-off live show in London, both happening this September. Have a listen to this groovy new tune and an oldie, remixed by Aphex (not Apex!) Twin.
 

Seefeel - Faults by Warp Records
 

 
Seefeel: Return with first new material for almost 14 years + announce one-off London headline show
 
Thanks Hot Wookie !

I just keep swingin’
It creates a wild draft
And I stay cool

This is infinite
The end, the most
It pours from the soul

Everything in its place
And there’s some wild swingin’ places

 
Angelitos Negros, a ballad protesting racial discrimination, was written in 1948 by legendary Mexican actor and singer Pedro Infante. It is the title song of one of the classics of the golden age of Mexican cinema.

In addition to Eartha Kitt, Angelitos Negros (also known by its English title, “Paint Me Black Angels”) has been covered by Roberta Flack and Cat Powers.

Eartha is mesmerizing, relying upon nothing more than her extraordinary presence. As she weeps, she sings:

Though the Virgin may be white,
paint me some black angels,
for they go to heaven, too
as all good black people do.
Paint me some black angels now

In its unadorned purity, this video is absolutely perfect and the quality is amazing. I wonder when, where and by whom this was filmed.

 
Nothing like a good banning to warm an old gay punk’s heart—especially in the internet age. Looks like Australia’s classification of Toronto-based filmmaker Bruce LaBruce’s latest bit of hardcore underground gay gore, L.A. Zombie as pornography has prevented it from being screened at the Melbourne Film Festival. According to Melbourne talk-radio station 3AW, LaBruce couldn’t be happier:

‘‘My first thought was ‘Eureka!’… I’ll never understand how censors don’t see that the more they try to suppress a film, the more people will want to see it. It gives me a profile I didn’t have yesterday.’’

Virtually all of LaBruce’s films—from the skinhead-fetishizing No Skin off My Ass from 1991 through to the political-porno-zombie flick Otto; or Up With Dead People—have managed to shock and scandalize straights and gays alike with their violence and satirical stereotyping. It’s good to know there are some areas in the Western world that aren’t immune.
 

LA Zombie trailer
Uploaded by blankytwo.

 

 
In 2004, Nick Zedd, the bad boy of 70s East Village underground cinema, director of They Eat Scum and Geek Maggot Bingo, created an uncharacteristically lighthearted tv series for Manhattan cable. The Adventures Of Electric Elf  is a D.I.Y. comedy about a couple of costumed super heroes, one of whom is a chihuahua. Now, I’ve seen many of Zedd’s grimy transgressive films and none of them prepared me for this sweet, candy-colored spoof. Zedd seems to have mellowed since his Lord Of The Cock Ring days. Though, he has kept his street cred by casting NYC downtown legends Annie Sprinkle, Taylor Mead and Brenda Bergman.  

By day Electra Elf is Jennifer Swallows, a mild-mannered reporter for Art Star Scene Magazine and Fluffer is Boobie, a chihuahua-clothes model, but when danger calls, the two put on stylish leotards and kick butt, taking down corrupt senators, sleazy frat-boys, satanic cults, landlords, zombie-tourists and other miserable malcontents.

The Adventures Of Electric Elf is now available on DVD.