Short documentary about the wonderfully anachronistic art duo of McDermott & McGough from the Revel in NY website. It says in the description below that they live as if in the 19th century, but I was under the impression that they are now allowing things prior to 1930 to infiltrate their lives. I love their work, it’s just incredible.
For over 30 years, the art duo of Peter McGough and David McDermott have been living as though it’s the end of the 19th century. From a townhouse in the East Village they created their art by candlelight, lived without modern appliances and traveled through Manhattan on horseback complete with top hats and the finest couture from nearly a century ago.
As painters, photographers, playwrights and filmmakers, the artists came of age during the same East Village art scene that made superstars of Keith Haring (their one-time roommate) and Julian Schnabel (who’s championed their work). Notorious in their own right and exhibited locally through Chelsea’s prestigious Chime & Reid Gallery, McDermott & McGough have been the subjects of countless stories told both in print and oral legend.
Blistering live version of Can’s Mother Sky on German television, 1970. Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, the human metronome Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli and the most singular vocalist in all of rock history, Damo Suzuki. From the album, Soundtracks.
I’ve been on a bit of a Marc Almond kick today and wanted to share this groovy lil’ number, called Sleaze. If I am not mistaken, this was originally a 1982 fan club only 12” (I have one, it looks like a bootleg) but that’s odd as it has a music video. Why would they have gone to the expense? It didn’t even get a proper release until 1997.
Nevertheless, here they are, Marc and the Mambas, in all of their druggyy sleazy, Warholian glory. Is he really singing what I think he’s singing? (“Someone blew a pony, someone threw a fit. Baby let me mambo with you a little bit”). Isn’t this a riff just begging to be sampled? Turn it up. You won’t get this song out of your head for a week.
Next week at the World Erotic Art Museum in Miami, it’s the second coming of Dangerous Minds pal Lenora Claire’s controversial—and hilariously funny—art world sensation, Golden Gals Gone Wild. This is an all new exhibit of all new sexy Golden Girls art. The first show, held at World of Wonder Gallery in Hollywood, completely sold out after being covered on TMZ, NPR, The Los Angeles Times and AOL News.
The show features art by Chris Zimmerman, Austin Young, Jason Mecier, Angus Oblong, Mironiuk, Sham, My Secret Life In Glass, Plastic God, Nouar, Darcy J. Watt, GiGi, Deluxe, Trevor Wayne and many more. All of the artwork will be on sale for under $1,000
World Erotic Art Museum, 1205 Washington Blvd., Miami. Opening night: Saturday, March 20th at 7p.m. The show runs until April 30th.
The Stuff is an eighties cult movie made by director Larry Cohen. It’s was a perennial grindhouse flick of the decade, although I personally saw it for the first time in the hallowed halls of Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, during a festival of Cohen’s films. The Stuff is the story of a tofutti-like substance that bubbles out from the ground, and tastes great. Everyone who tries The Stuff, can’t get enough… but are they eating The Stuff or is The Stuff eating them?
The Stuff was made on a low budget with several familiar faces like Garrett Morris (from the original cast of SNL), Paul Sorvino, Danny Aiello, Brooke Adams and Andrea Marcovicci. It has several fake commercials that looked quite real at the time cut in throughout the movie that up the camp value considerably. The Stuff is as much an anti-consumerist rant as it is a horror film. That’s why it’s so much fun. Check it out, it’s one of the better, more entertaining cult movies out there. It’s actually way smarter than the trailer below indicates.
Read more on The Stuff at the the House of Self-Indulgence blog. where The Stuff is described as: “A cautionary tale for all those who enjoy consuming dessert products on a regular basis, The Stuff is a hokey horror farce that manages to skewer everything from mindless consumerism to cold war paranoia, and yet, still be a movie about homicidal yogurt not from outer space.” Elsewhere on the web I saw the film describe as “yogurt product comes to life, causing devastation.”
Thanks to Soft Skull Press for sending me an advance paperback copy of Daniel Radosh’s “Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.” This book is righteously demented—true to the title, it’s a voyage through the bizarre world of Christian pop culture, in a time where it is essentially one more underground scene, a pocket pop universe just like juggalos or furries (though slightly bigger—as Radosh points out, this stuff totals up to a $7 billion a year industry). Radosh takes us on a voyage through the cult of Left Behind, Christian rock, and the rest of the American Christian scene. Along the way we get some serious gems like “BibleZine” (!!!), bumper stickers reading “Any Sex that can Put You in Hell ISN’T SAFE” and Jay Bakker (Jim and Tammy’s son), who runs his own punk rock church.
I mean, reading this, it’s like… this is the alternate universe version of Dangerous Minds’ readers, like we went into a wormhole and came out with goatees and freshly baptized.
There are some absolutely jaw-droppingly great snippets of “Christian” lore from the book. For instance, Radosh includes a depiction of the Rapture from one of the “Left Behind” books:
“[M]en and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin… Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ.
Gloria in excelsis Deo, motherfucker.
Awesome. Or try this one, from a Christian joke book Radosh finds:
One women’s libber started out a speech: “Where would you men be without us women?” A guy in the back shouted, “In the Garden of Eden!”
I gotta remember that one to impress the ladies with.
Anyway, excellent, hilarious, disturbing, sobering book. I imagine it would make a great read alongside Jeff Sharlet’s “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” for a look at where the Christian right is, both in politics and in culture at large, at this moment. (Interview with author below!)