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Thom Gunn: ‘On the Move’
10.18.2010
05:27 pm
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“Hey, Johnny, What are you rebelling against?”
“What’ve you got?”

It’s the famous riposte from Marlon Brando in The Wild One, a line that sent a tremor of fear through the British establishment. Strange to think now, but back in 1954,  The Wild One was considered such a serious threat to British society it was banned by the Board of Film Censors for 14 years.

You see, those thin-lipped, blue-pencil censors believed Marlon Brando and his band of slovenly bikers would give youngsters “ideas on how to brutalize the public.”  This was hyped response to the fact the film was loosely based on a real event, when a band of bikers took over the town of Holister in California in July 1947, during the Gypsy Tour Motorcycle Rally. Around 50 people were arrested, mainly for drunkeness, fighting, reckless driving, and disturbing the peace. Sixty people were injured, 3 seriously. Even so, it’s hard to see how the chubby Brando and his non-sensical mumblings could have inspired anyone into revolt.

Afterall, austere 1950s Britain, with its food rationing and shell-shocked, ruined cities, wasn’t Technicolor America, something John Lennon found out when he visited his local cinema to see Bill Haley and his Comets in Rock Around the Clock. Lennon had heard how riots and revolution were taking place at the film’s screenings. However, instead of seat slashing and fighting in the aisles, the nascent Beatle was dumbstruck to find his generation watching the film in silence.

If it did cause any rebellion, then it was a revolution in the head of a young English poet called Thom Gunn.

On motorcycles, up the road, they come:
Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boy,
Until the distance throws them forth, their hum
Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh.
In goggles, donned impersonality,
In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust,
They strap in doubt–by hiding it, robust–
And almost hear a meaning in their noise.

 

 
More on Thom Gunn and bonus clips after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.18.2010
05:27 pm
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Discussion
Dangerous Minds Radio Hour episode 6
10.11.2010
10:59 am
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Episode 6 of the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour finds my fellow blogger and friend since 4th grade Ron Nachmann taking the reins for an expert excursion to many mesmerizing worlds of bass, dub and other booty-shaking points of interest. Listen in to Ron’s expertly textured world-wise selections, sure to become a regular feature of the DM Radio Hour.

Goran Bregovic – “In The Deathcar” (feat. Iggy Pop) Arizona Dreams OST (Wrasse Jamaica)
Junior Murvin & The Upsetters – “Roots Train Number Two” Sound System Scratch (Pressure Sounds)
The Upsetters – “Jucky Skank” Sound System Scratch (Pressure Sounds) pressure.co.uk
dubLoner & Isaac Haile Selassie – “Wicked Man [Kush Arora remix]” (Def’child Recordings)
Sub Swara – “Bend You” Triggers (Low Motion Records)
Commix – “Be True” [Burial remix] (Metalheadz)
I.D. - “Fashionist” (Voltage Music)
Shockman – “Shockout” (Voltage Music)
Mista Chatman – “Sidewinda” (more info)
A.J. Holmes and The Hackney Empire – “Fraudian Slip (feat. Kastro) [Uproot Andy Remix]” (Ghetto Bassquake)
Ibrahim Dicko - “Sida” DJ Spider remix Frikywa Vol. 1 (Six Degrees Records)
Tshetsha Boys – “Nwampfundla” Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa (Honest Jon’s)
Last Step – “Soda”You’re a Nice Girl EP (Planet Mu)
 

 
Download this week’s episode
 
Subscribe to the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour podcast at Alterati

Posted by Brad Laner
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10.11.2010
10:59 am
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Discussion
The Paranormal Peter Sellers
10.09.2010
07:23 pm
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Many actors are superstitious. Some like Peter Bull kept a collection of Teddy bears to bring him good luck; others like Jack Lemmon said the words, “It’s magic time,” before filming each scene. But few have ever been quite as obsessed with superstitions and the occult as comedy genius, Peter Sellers.

Sellers’ introduction to the Occult came via fellow Goon, Michael Bentine, the “Watford-born Peruvian,” who had grown-up in a household where seances and table-turning were regularly practiced. Not long after they first met, Bentine told Sellers of his psychic abilities - how during the Second World War, when Bentine served in the Royal Air Force, he had been able to tell which of his comrades would die before a bombing mission. Bentine claimed if he saw a skull instead of his colleague’s features, then he knew this person would be killed. How often Bentine was correct in these predictions is not known. No matter, Sellers was greatly impressed by the shock-haired comic and was soon obsessed with all things paranormal.

From then on, Sellers collected superstitions, as easily as others collect stamps. He refused to wear green or act with anyone dressed in the color. If anyone gave him something sharp, he gave them a penny. He read his horoscopes every day so he would always know what he should do.

Sellers often said he had no idea who he was: “If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.”  This was his way of renouncing any responsibility for his actions.  He claimed he found comfort and stability in consulting clairvoyants and fortune tellers, which again only underlines the fact he did know who he was - a control freak, who wanted power over his future. It was inevitable, therefore, that once under the spell of sooth-sayers and psychics, Sellers was open to fraudsters, tricksters and con-men.

The clairvoyant who had most influence over his life was Maurice Woodruff, the famed TV and newspaper astrologer, whose syndicated column reached over fifty million people at the height of his career. Woodruff received over 5,000 letters a week, asking for advice and had a Who’s Who of of celebrity clients, including composer Lionel Bart and actor Diana Dors. Woodruff had famously predicted the death of President John F. Kennedy and the end of the Vietnam War. Sellers was devoted to Woodruff, consulting him before he accepted any film roles, and regularly had tarot readings performed over the telephone. But Woodruff was heavily in debt and open to the persuasion of earning a little cash when film studios asked him to suggest film scripts to Sellers.

One famous tale, recounts how Woodruff was asked to suggest the initials of director Blake Edwards as being very important to Sellers. Unfortunately, Sellers failed to connect ‘B.E.’ with the famous Hollywood director. On return to the Dorchetser Hotel, his usual residence when in London, Sellers was smitten by the sight of a beautiful, young blonde-haired woman at reception. When he enquired who was this vision of loveliness, he was told Britt Ekland. Sellers recalled Woodruff’s prediction and married Ekland within weeks.

 
More on the paranormal Peter Sellers plus bonus clip after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.09.2010
07:23 pm
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Discussion
Bugger the Natives: The Trial of Howard Brenton’s ‘The Romans in Britain’
10.07.2010
10:05 pm
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Thirty years ago this month, a new play opened in London’s National Theater that was to change legal and theatrical history. Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain contrasted Julius Caesar’s Roman invasion of Celtic Britain with the Saxon invasion of Romano-Celtic Britain, and finally Britain’s involvement in Northern Ireland during The Troubles of the late 20th century. Epic in scale, Brenton’s intelligent analysis of the effects of imperialism was sidelined when The Romans in Britain became center of a farcical court trial over a simulated act of buggery.

The son of a Methodist minister, Howard Brenton was born in Porstmouth in 1942, educated at Chichester High School, and at Cambridge University, where he won the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for poetry. In 1965, he wrote his first play Ladder of Fools, described as an “Actable, gripping, murky and moody: how often can you say that of the average new play tried out in London, let alone of an undergraduate’s work.”

A highly talented and original writer, Brenton quickly proved he was unafraid to investigate controversial or contentious political subjects.  His first big success as a playwright was Christie in Love (1969), which examined the public’s fascination with murderers through the life of John Christie, who had murdered at least 6 women at his home, 10 Rillington Place. The play opened with a monster-like Christie rising from beneath a grave of torn newspapers, and then masturbating in front of the audience. His next Brassneck (1973) followed the rise of an inner city family over thirty years, from radical politics to drug dealing. While The Churchill Play (1974) questioned the rise of state security against individual liberty, and opened with a dead Churchill rising from his catafalque in Westminster.  The play briefly caused a national scandal, as it questioned Churchill’s actions as a political leader. Brenton followed this with Weapons of Happiness, an examination of a factory strike in London. In 1977, he was then commissioned to write The Romans in Britain.

Commissioned by Sir Peter Hall, director of the National Theater, a key establishment figure and founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who formed an odd collaboration with the left-leaning, libertarian Brenton. The key to their relationship was Hall’s genuine respect for Brenton, and his belief that playwrights should deal with contemporary political issues, in particular, at that time, the situation in Northern Ireland. To direct the production, Hall brought in Michael Bogdanov, a young, imaginative director, known for his acrobatic and physical productions for the RSC.

It was soon apparent that a key scene in the play would be troublesome. This scene centered on the anal rape of a native Celt called Marban, by a Roman centurion, played by actors Greg Hicks and Peter Sproule. The action was symbolic, but its effect was literal. Both actors bravely agreed to play the scene naked, and it was decided that Sproule, as the rapist centurion, would grasp his penis and extend his thumb to simulate an erection. He would then jab at Hicks’ behind in a simulation of sodomy. During rehearsals word went out that alleged hardcore sex was being performed by the actors under Bogdanov’s direction. This led to a planned boycott by the theater’s ushers. To stop this, Bogdanov invited the ushers, and any other concerned parties, to an open rehearsal. Beer was suppled and the audience gave the performers and their scene overwhelming approval - a literal thumbs up, one might say.

In October, The Romans in Britain opened to mixed reviews, ranging from a disparaging “These ignoble Romans are a national disgrace” in Now magazine, to discussions of the play’s political content. Only one thing remained constant, the shock of the rape scene. Its effect was later compared to that of the news of John F Kennedy’s assassination.

Tipped off by a journalist, Mary Whitehouse, a busy-body President of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, an unrelenting campaigner for censorship, who wanted anything distasteful (i.e. that she didn’t like) off TV screens, raised her concern that the play would “over stimulate” men and incite them to bugger young boys. Though she refused to see the play herself, as she was too frightened it would lead to the “corruption of her soul”, she requested the Metropolitan Police to examine whether the play was “an offence against the Theaters Act of 1968” which outlawed performances “likely to deprave or corrupt.” After a brief investigation, the Attorney General, Lord Havers, decided there was no case to answer. But Mrs. Whitehouse didn’t agree and discovered that a private prosecution could be brought against the director on grounds that he had “procured an act of gross indecency by Peter Sproule with Greg Hicks on the stage of the Olivier Theater,” a law intended to stop men wanking in lavatories.
 
More on ‘The Romans in Britain’ plus bonus clips after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.07.2010
10:05 pm
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Discussion
Leaving your holes open with Captain Beefheart: 1969 interview LP
10.04.2010
12:48 pm
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And the Beefheart mania continues in the Laner household: Long a treasured possesion of mine, this is a very amusing promo only interview LP conducted by one Meatball Fulton in July 1969. There are other poor quality versions of this floating around the innerwebs including this link to the full, unedited thing which is in the blasted RealAudio format and alas wouldn’t play for me, but this pristine copy is straight from my personal copy of the LP. Enjoy !
 

 
Much more Beefheartian wisdom after the jump…

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Posted by Brad Laner
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10.04.2010
12:48 pm
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Discussion
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