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Dangerous Minds Radio Hour Episode 18
03.21.2011
06:20 pm
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Another solo DJ excursion from Richard Metzger, spinning tunes from the Monkees, Lydia Lunch, Hawkwind, Mick Farren, Ru Paul, Liam Lynch, Big Daddy Kane, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Lene Lovich, Blur vs. The Pet Shop Boys, Eels, Jeff Beck, the Dandy Warhols, Super Furry Animals, obscure 70s glam rocker Brett Smiley and more.

01. Monkees: Tema Di Monkees
02. Monkees: PO Box 9847 (alt stereo mix)
03. Malvina Reynolds: Little Boxes
04. Lene Lovich: Lucky Number
05. Lydia Lunch: Carnival Fatman
06. Hawkwind: Silver Machine
07. Mick Farren: Aztec Calendar
08. The Tomorrow People: Delia Derbyshire, Dudley Simpson, Brian Hodgson & David Vorhaus
09. PJ Proby: You Can’t Come Home Again If You Leave Me Now
10. Blur vs Pet Shop Boys: Boys & Girls
11. Ru Paul: Ping Ting Ting
12. Liam Lynch: My United States of Whatever
13. Monkees: Zilch
14. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien: Mister Bobalina
15. Big Daddy Kane: Warm It Up Kane
16. Jeff Beck: Hi Ho Silver Lining
17. Brett Smiley: Va Va Va Voom
18. Eels: That’s Not Really Funny
19. The Dandy Warhols: Bohemian Like You
20. Super Furry Animals: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
 

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

Posted by Tara McGinley
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03.21.2011
06:20 pm
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‘Shout!’: Scenes from an imaginary film on the life and music of superstar Lulu
03.21.2011
05:17 pm
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Scene 1

Exterior Night: Glasgow.

W/S of cranes and ships along the river and docks, tinged orange by winter’s twilight. City lights sparkle, the small theaters of tenement windows, the sound of distant traffic, blue trains rattling to the suburbs.

Caption

: Glasgow, 1963

Interior Night: The Lindella Nightclub. Wisps of smoke, tables along one side of room, a bar with a scrum of customers, eager to get drunk, enjoying themselves. Backstage - a band, The Gleneagles, are ready to go on. They can hear the audience getting restless. The bass player asks if everything is okay? Over the sound system, the voice of the compere introducing the band. This is it. A ripple of applause, a rush, then the band is on stage. At the rear, a young girl, who looks hardly in her teens, her hair bright red, sprayed with lacquer, and set in rollers. She has a cold, but smiles, and looks confident. A pause. She checks with the band. The audience are uneasy, mutter quick comments (“Away back to school, hen”). Laughter. Then 14-year-old Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, opens her mouth and sings:

Lulu

: Wwwwwwwweeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!

The voice is incredible. Little Richard, Jerry Lewis and The Isley brothers all rolled into this tiny figure at the front of the stage.

At the back of the room, a woman stands slightly away from the crowd, which is now mesmerized by the young girl’s singing. The woman is Marion Massey, and she will become Lulu’s manager.

Lulu

: (V/O) When I was fourteen, I was very lucky. I was discovered - to use a terrible term - by a person who was absolutely sincere. Since I was five, people had been coming up to me saying: ‘Stick with me, baby, and I’ll make you a star’. In fact, nobody ever did anything for me. Then Marion came along.

CU of Marion watching Lulu perform.

Marion Massey

: (V/O) She looked so peculiar that first time I saw her. Her hair was in curlers underneath a fur beret. She had a terrible cold, was very pale and wore three jumpers. But I was very intrigued by her. It wasn’t her singing;There was something tremendously magnetic about this girl. I knew she had the makings of a great star.

Cut To:

Scene 2

Caption

: London, 1964

Interior Day: Lulu performs on Ready Steady Go
 

 
More scenes from Lulu’s life co-starring David Bowie, Sidney Poitier, Maurice Gibb and Red Skelton, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.21.2011
05:17 pm
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Françoise Hardy Collection Vol.1 (1963-1979)
03.21.2011
12:12 pm
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From our friends at Mod Cinema comes this fantastic forty song collection of TV performances, promo films and some wonderful duets featuring breathtakingly gorgeous French chanteuse Françoise Hardy. I was introduced to her at party in the the mid-90s and believe me when I tell you, it was a special thrill just to touch her hand. She was in her 50s at the time, and she was still one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever laid eyes on. Talk about a MILF…!

Françoise Hardy covered more stylistic ground and owed more debts to pop/rock than she’s given credit for. Immensely popular in her native France, the chanteuse first displayed her breathy, measured vocals in the early and mid-‘60s. Her (mostly self-penned) recordings from that era draw from French pop traditions, lightweight ‘50s teen idol rock, girl groups, and sultry jazz and blues—sometimes in the same song. The songs are invariably catchy and the production, arrangements, and near-operatic backup harmonies excellent, at times almost Spector-esque. This DVD compiles rare footage of Françoise performing on French television. Over 40 songs including “Tous les garçons et les filles”, “Le premier bonheur du jour”, “Ton meilleur ami”, “Mon amie la rose”, “La maison où j’ai grandi”, “Voilà”, “Comment te dire adieu?”, “J’écoute de la musique saoûle”, as wells as duets with Jane Birkin, Sylvie Vartan, Patrick Bouchtey, and Sacha Distel.

This two-hour collection is an embarrassment of groovy goodness. And the quality of the clips is uniformly very high.

Order a copy of the Françoise Hardy Collection Vol.1 (1963-1979) from Mod Cinema

Below, Françoise Hardy performing “Ma jeunesse fout l’camp”
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.21.2011
12:12 pm
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Sandals full of dogshit: Channel 4’s ‘The Word’ ft L7, Hole, Stereolab, Snoop vs Emu & more
03.20.2011
10:06 pm
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More Nineties nostalgia to round out the weekend. Growing up as a kid in that decade I was subjected to huge ignominies in the name of yoof TV. “Yoof TV” was the British expression for television programs made by people in their thirties and forties for people in their teens and early twenties, trying hard to represent the energy and anarchy that being young supposedly represented. YEAH!  Like down wiv ver kids anthat?! Yoof!! Energy!!! Rissspekt!!!! YOU KNOWORIMEAN?! It was baaad (meaning just bad). MTV built an entire channel around it, but the biggest, smelliest turd lurking at the bottom of the yoof barrel was undoubtedly The Word.

The Word was Channel 4’s first stab at a concept called “post-pub” television, and as the name would suggest it had a rowdy, boozy, “anything goes!” atmosphere, though I think the show’s primary audience were still too young to go to the pub. Launched in 1990, it was presented by the annoying Manc Terry Christian with a rotating cast of inept co-hosts, most famous of which was probably the ex-model/whatever Amanda De Cadanet. She lives in LA now, and you can have her. Fans of River Phoenix, watch this clip and prepare to have all your romantic illusions about the best and/or best looking actor of his generation (and his crappy band Aleka’s Attic) shattered.
 
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The show certainly was ground-breaking, paving the way for reality tv and the general circus-of-humiliation we now take for granted on the goggle box. One popular feature was called “The Hopefuls” where people would do anything (literally anything) to get on TV. Giving a homeless person a toe-job, drinking a pint of puke, licking an obese man’s bellybutton sweat, yeah these crazy yoofs will do ANYTHING man! Like putting on a pair of sandals filled with dog shit?! Yeah they’re so desperate it’s KERRAZY!

There were moments of genuine unscripted tension too. The best of the co-hosts, Mark Lamarr (currently a dj for BBC Radio 6) famously took issue with Shabba Ranks over his homophobia. Oliver Reed was secretly filmed getting drunk in the dressing room (a very classy move by the producers). The British riot grrrl group Huggy Bear and their fans were forcibly removed from the studio for protesting over a segment about a couple of porn star twins, and funniest of all was an altercation between Snoop Dogg (then just emerging with Doggy Style) and the British kids TV host Rod Hull’s puppet Emu, which had a reputation for violently attacking guests.
 

 
There’s a piece on the Guardian’s website by The Word’s creator Charlie Parsons called “How The Word changed televisiion for ever” that would be funny if it were not so depressingly true.

The show provided a glimpse of the future of television – some would argue a horrifying one. No longer could celebrities be treated with total reverence, as on The Des O’Connor Show or Wogan. Five-minute videotaped pieces tackled subjects that would these days be given whole series on ITV – dog plastic surgery, fat farms, child beauty pageants.

Yet, while Parsons only mentions it in passing at the start of the piece, 20 years later The Word does have one lasting positive legacy - the live music. Sure, they went for what was then currently popular, but this ensured a diverse range of bands and lead to the television debuts of both Nirvana and Oasis (Nirvana’s spot including the infamous moment when Kurt declared that Courntey Love was “the best fuck in the world”). The tone may have been jarring (see the fluffy bra podium dancers gyrating to Stereolab’s kraut-punk!) but the energy was real. This was one of the very few places on TV you could see bands whose shows you had only read about, and if you were lucky they gave good show too - like L7’s Donita Sparks dropping her pants. Charlie Parsons, speaking as someone who WAS a lonely teenager in a bedroom at the time, THIS is why we watched your towering pile of faeces of a show. Not for “The Hopefuls”, not for the interviews, the wackiness, the innuendo, the edginess, the supposed rule breaking, the sticking-it-to-the-man-down-wiv-yoof-culcha-yah - we watched your show for THIS: 

L7 - “Pretend We’re Dead” live on The Word
 

 
After the jump: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Hole, Stereolab, Blur, Daisy Chainsaw, Pop Will Eat Itself with Fun-Da-Mental & Huggy Bear

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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03.20.2011
10:06 pm
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Ron Grainer’s classic film and TV themes from the Sixties
03.20.2011
09:16 pm
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For my tenth birthday I received a copy of the MFP record Geoff Love and His Orchestra Play Your Top TV Themes. MFP was the acronym for “Music for Pleasure” a low budget English record label formed between EMI records and book publishers, Paul Hamlyn. MFP released session musicians performing hits of the day, or artists from the EMI back catalog. The local supermarket had a carousel of MFP discs, ranging from Frank Sinatra, Semprini, Edith Piaf, Dean Martin, Benny Hill, Liberace, to The Beach Boys, The Monkees, The Move, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and T.Rex.

There was an unspoken consensus amongst my peers, that If it was MFP then it was suspect; as MFP was either ersatz, or some original recording that had bombed. I knew what they meant, but didn’t agree. I thought of it more like a book club edition, if you couldn’t afford the top dollar for the first print run edition, then there was always MFP.

Music for Pleasure, in many ways, gave me a good musical education. The first record I bought, at a rummage sale, when I was 5, was Russ Conway’s “Snow Coach”. From this jaunty instrumental, I progressed on to the magic of Herb Alpert via The Tijuana Sound of Brass, Edith Piaf, Johnny Cash and Beethoven. While my older brother fed me The Stones, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Move, and later T.Rex, and Bowie.

Music was key, along with books, films and TV, and whenever any of these fused, it was something special. Remember this was the sixties, the early seventies, there were no pop promos - only The Monkees on TV, and later Ken Russell’s Tommy in the cinema.

This was why I liked MFP, which released records that were often compiled of tracks unavailable elsewhere, like Geoff Love and His Orchestra Play Your Top TV Themes. Where else would you find the sophistication of John Barry’s “Theme to The Persuaders” next to “Sleepy Shores”, the theme for Owen M.D.? Or, Mort Stevens’ “Hawaii Five-O” on the same side as Geoff Love’s jolly sit-com theme “Bless This House”

Geoff Love was a hero. A black trombone player from Yorkshire, who when not writing theme tunes, worked with Shirley Bassey and entertainer Max Bygraves. Geoff Love arranged and recorded a whole library of theme tunes for MFP, including Big War Movie Themes and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Other Disco Galactic Themes. Each album was a wonderful aural adventure, where part of the enjoyment was working out what Love had done to replicate or improve upon the original theme. For that reason Your Top TV Themes, was and still is a class album. 

This liking for signature tunes brought me to Ron Grainer, who in many respects wrote some of the themes that best defined British TV in the 1960s.

Grainer was born in Queensland, Australia, and studied under Sir Eugene Goosens at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music. His studies were cut short by the Second World War, which saw the young composer seriously wounded - nearly losing his leg. After the war, Grainer moved to England where he began his career in earnest as a composer and musician.

In the 1950s, Grainer collaborated with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop on variety of projects, most famously on his theme for Doctor Who. The success of this track was in part due to Delia Derbyshire, whose hard work re-interpreting Grainer’s composition, note-by-note, made it unforgettable. When Grainer heard what Derbyshire had done, he could hardly contain his delight. Grainer said “Did I really write this?” to which Derbyshire replied, got the answer “Most of it.”

Together they had produced a work of brilliance. Grainer wanted to give a co-credit to Derbyshire, but the dear olde fuddy-duddies at the bureaucratic BBC preferred to keep their talents under a bushel. Damn shame, as Derbyshire deserved much recognition for her pioneering work.
 

Original ‘Doctor Who’ Theme (1963)
 
In 1967, Grainer wrote “The Age of Elegance”, which became a perfect synthesis of image and sound in Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner.
 

 
More classic Grainer themes from the sixties, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.20.2011
09:16 pm
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Riot at SXSW Death From Above 1979 show
03.20.2011
03:48 pm
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Death from above 1969, Altamont.
 
I couldn’t get in so left just minutes before the shit hit the fan outside the Beauty Bar during the Death From Above 1979 SXSW showcase.

According to the Houston Press the scene was…

[...] a mini-riot complete with a shoddy, downed fence, beer cans flying through the air, Austin police officers on horses, tasers going off, mace being expelled, and cops using extreme force to quell the crowd who couldn’t get inside the tiny patio venue.”

This was just one of several bad vibe situations at SXSW this year. With gatecrashers bumrushing the packed Strokes show, Ben Weasel’s freakout, Odd Future’s punkass tantrums, the camera jib disaster at the OMD show, Cee-lo Green and Lupe Fiasco’s no-shows (two of several acts that canceled at the last minute) and hundreds of invited guests being turned away at the Kanye West ego-stroke, this year’s SXSW was the Altamont of music industry circle jerks.

I live in Austin and attending SXSW doesn’t involve costly travel or expensive hotel rooms. It’s relatively cheap way for me to see emerging bands and old warhorses. So I go. But this year was a fiasco for me and 1000s of attendees. I was turned away, like so many others, from most shows because of the overselling of wristbands and badges and hype-driven showcases of bands no one will even remember a year from now.

As someone who has organized concerts and run music venues, I understand the complexities involved and that there are things beyond any organizers control. But SXSW has allowed itself to become an unruly monster that has little to do with the exposure of new bands to the press, music industry and public.

SXSW has become less about music and more about creating an illusion of relevance and importance. I’m not sure what the bands or the dying music industry think SXSW is going to do for their careers. There was a sense of desperation at SXSW this year that comes from the deep down knowledge that everyone attending was being scammed on some level. From the delusional music business lackees looking for one last gasp of the rarefied air of rock and roll privilege to the bands playing in parking lots and alleyways for a dozen people while established stars like Kanye are packing them in at a converted power plant (power is right), SXSW has turned into the very thing it was originally designed to be an alternative to: a music industry dinosaur. It needs to either be radically re-designed or put out of its misery because, like a rotting hunk of prehistoric meat, it’s starting to stink up the place. The folks behind SXSW need to do some serious soul-searching and do it now.

Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark’s Andy McCluskey is quoted in the music press as describing the SXSW venue he played in as being a “shithole.” And this was even before a camera jib collapsed into the audience at OMD’s show the following night resulting in several injuries. Why are rock fans and bands willing to be treated like shit by concert promoters? From having to piss in rank smelling porta-potties to standing for hours in long lines and being herded into clubs like cattle, rock audiences seem to be gluttons for punishment. Since when did it become a badge of honor for a rock fan to be abused after spending a few days wages on a rock concert? Does this go back to some primal collective cultural memory of dancing in mud and shit at Woodstock or pool sticks pounding flesh at Altamont?

I went to SXSW 2011 with cautious optimism, being somewhat cynical after my lousy experience last year. I was hoping for a better organized and more equitable fest and it did have its positive moments and certainly should be credited for the shows that did result in upbeat energy for the audiences and bands. Among the ones I saw, TV On The Radio, Psychic TV, Hong Kong Blood Opera, OMD, Charles Bradley, Mark Eitzel, Noah And The Whale, Foster The People, The Black Angels, The Vaccines, Jesse Malin and Scala & Kolacny Brothers were good to great. But these bands are touring, signed or been around for awhile and can be seen in far less chaotic settings than SXSW. 

And to the people who spent $750 on badges, was it worth it?  With average ticket prices for concerts in Austin generally running $25 or less throughout the year for many of the bands that appeared at SXSW 2011, that $750 could have bought tickets for 30 or more live shows. And for out-towners who spent their cash on travel, hotels and badges, you could have stayed home and with the money you saved hired a few of the struggling indie bands to come play at your house. Your own mini SXSW in your own crib. And I bet your living room has better lighting and sound than the alcove of a coffeeshop where I saw one band heroically try to put on a show as they watched their SXSW dream slip away.

Of all the shit that goes on at SXSW, it is seeing the little guys, the unknown groups, the frontline of rock and roll, get fucked by the heartless greed machine that this perversion of a festival has become. SXSW is an aging vampire sucking the vital fluids of young rockers while the music industry zombies are working up their pathetic hard-ons and tossing off like guilty priests in their the corporate goodie bags. That smell in the air ain’t teen spirit, it’s the foul scent of aging scrotal sacs contracting for one last spurt before they deflate into useless flaps of flesh. I’m having visions of Pasolini’s Salo dancing in my head.

What are Foo Fighters, Duran Duran, Kanye West, Queens Of The Stone Age and corporate flame-outs like Panic At The Disco and The Bravery doing at a festival that is ostensibly about new music? Or is it about new music anymore? Do established bands come to SXSW to restore flagging careers or re-ignite indie cred?  I have nothing against big acts attending SXSW other than they draw crowds away from some young band that has traveled to Austin at great expense to play in an empty dive bar. These are the bands that should be getting the attention because they need it. Fuck Kanye.

Part of the problem lies not with SXSW but with all of the corporate sponsored parties and temporary venues that occur simultaneously with SXSW, feeding off of its energy. These events bring in more bands and more people resulting in more traffic and more chaos. The thing is SXSW benefits from being associated (unofficially) with big gun brands and bands. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship but adds 1000s of additional people to the already maxed-out 19,000 official attendees. It is more than the streets and hotels can handle. Car and human gridlock make the festival a frustrating and occasionally dangerous spectacle.

My suggestion is to kill the music festival and keep the SXSW film festival. For $70 a film fan can get into virtually any film screening at the fest and the venues are mostly state-of-the art. For music, Austin City Limits and Fun Fun Fest are doing a far better job of bringing music to the people.

Here’s what I missed at the Death From Above 1979 gig:
 

 
Ben Weasel beats up women after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.20.2011
03:48 pm
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Bob Dylan plays ‘Hava Nagila’ (w/ Harry Dean Stanton)
03.20.2011
02:12 pm
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Bob Dylan gets in touch with his inner Zimmerman, playing “Hava Nagila” with his son-in-law Peter Himmelman and Big Love patriarch, Harry Dean Stanton on a telethon.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.20.2011
02:12 pm
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Steven Hyden’s ‘Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation?’
03.19.2011
09:22 pm
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Over on AV Club journalist Steven Hyden has come to the end of his ten part look-back over the alternative music of the 90s called Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? Cataloging his musical obsessions year by year from 1990 to 1999, the series (named after the long-defunct MTV alt-rock show) is a great read, and ends on a spectacular low point for pop culture - Woodstock ‘99.

Remember Woodstock ‘99? The one where lots of people got beaten and raped? Just as we had almost completely erased it from the collective conscious, back come memories of Fred Douche shouting at a bunch of drunken jocks to “RAPE SOMETHING!!” in his squeaky, balls-not-dropped voice, while security throw their badges an the ground and dive into the mosh pit. OK, so he didn’t encourage rape (not that I’m aware of anyway), but the point is still the same. The ‘90s pretty much started with Kurt Cobain in a dress, and ended with Durst’s audience forcibly ripping dresses off harassed women. What a fitting end to the decade, this series, and the story of rock music itself over those years.

So here’s a clip of Limp Bizkit playing “Break Stuff” at the festival. Yes, sorry, it is more terrible music on DM this week, but whereas I can find genuinely interesting aspects of Gaga/AntwoordAndrew WK, I cannot for the life of me see a shred of redemption for anyone involved in this aside from car-crash attraction. Durst goads the crowd into breaking stuff, advice they take literally, and then bemoans their lack of attention for almost two minutes while asking “is this mic working?”. An audience member tells him it is - presumably the crowd are too busy rioting or trying to avoid danger to pay much attention to the band. The situation has the strange, menacing air of a child playing with grown-up forces they don’t truly understand. And that pre-pubescent, squawking, try-too-hard-yet-not-hard-enough MC style of his is in full effect between 2:40 and 2:50, delivering hilarious lines like “I pack a chain saw!”

Hey it’s ok, you don’t have to watch this if you really don’t want to:
 

 
OK enough of that crap, back to WHTAN? The current article “1999: By The Time We Got To Woodstock ‘99” contains some interesting and chilling details from Woodstock ‘99, including stories of women getting gang raped in mosh-pits or being forced to bare their breasts to large groups of drunk guys, and security being woefully under-staffed and themselves being refused drinking water from the festival organizers. It begs the question - how the fuck did this festival ever take place? Oh wait, it’s that old devil called greed again. Greed and the fact that the hippy ideal hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that by the end of last century it had been almost completely wiped out. But then how the hell did acts like Korn, Kid Rock and Metallica embody Woodstock’s ideals in the first place? Needless to say the organizers of Woodstock do not come off looking good in this article.

So, were the late Ninties a complete curtural waste ground? No. Of course not. If I have a complaint about WHTAN? it is that it’s too rockist. I left this comment which describes how I personally feel about the path of “alternative” music in the 1990s:

“Great series but it just underlines for me how spent a cultural force rock became over this period. The original sense of anarchy and rebellion that made rock so engaging was strip mined to nothing in the Nineties. The real story of the decade is how rock, or alternative, was superseded by other genres and how people who before would have dismissed those genres started to like them. A lot. It’s what happened to me.

I would like to see someone write about what was REALLY alternative and fresh in the Nineties. Hip-hop (THE genre that defines those times), house (the early-to-mid 90s was probably the most gay-friendly period the mainstream has ever been), electronica (producers like Aphex/Squarepusher pushed boundaries that rock bands are still catching up with), drum & Bass, rave, Daft Punk etc. Real progression / boundary breaking in 90s music was being done by kids with samplers, computers and machines, not by guys with guitars trying to fit into patterns established 30 years before. Not to mention that the drugs were better. I hope someone will write a series about music beyond rock in the 90s, because that is the real story waiting to be explored. “

This post was brought to you in association with Niallism.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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03.19.2011
09:22 pm
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Psychic TV at SXSW: A roaring of angels
03.19.2011
05:35 pm
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Psychic TV’s performance at SXSW was one of the highlights of the festival thus far. Genesis P-Orridge fronted a growling beast of a band that mesmerized a capacity crowd.

Genesis was in town not only to perform but also to attend the Austin premier of a film about her/his life and love affair with partner Lady Jaye. The Ballad Of Genesis and Lady Jaye, directed by Marie Losier, is a moving document of two people attempting to spiritually and physically merge as one. Part performance art and part metaphysical quest, Genesis and Lady Jaye alter their appearance over the course of several years in order to not only look like each other, but to become an entity beyond duality, a form of alchemy utilizing flesh and soul, creating their pandrogyne.

Losier’s direction of the film evokes the experimental movies of the 60s. Shooting with an old Bolex, Losier creates a mystical and dreamlike vision that seems to flutter at the borders of consciousness, a grainy living thing. Some of the footage recalls the look of Warhol’s Factory films and the work of Jonas Mekas. At the heart of the movie is the romance of two deeply committed lovers, but Losier also explores the many layers of Genesis’s art, from Pyschic TV to Throbbing Gristle to books written and archival documents from P-Orridge’s past. It’s a fascinating life lived on the edge of always becoming.

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: vocals, violin
Edley ODowd: drums, samples
Alice Genese: bass, backing vocals
Jeff ‘Bunsen’ Berner: guitar
Jess Stewart: keyboards

Here’s Psychic TV at SXSW creating a dark and beautiful roar.

Watch it in high definition.
 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.19.2011
05:35 pm
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Some bad mojo at SXSW: Giant camera crane crashes into crowd injuring several people
03.19.2011
07:41 am
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A heavy 30 foot plus camera jib (boom/crane) fell into the audience this morning at the start of Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark’s concert during SXSW. At 1 a.m. the giant metal rigging smashed into the first few rows of people standing in front of the stage immediately knocking them to the ground. The extent of the injuries are unknown at this time but it appeared that there were no fatalities. There was blood and people were being led from the scene in stretchers.

I was shooting video at the show and was acutely aware throughout the night of the intimidating jib and it’s position just above the heads of the audience. People were complaining about having to duck to avoid the giant metal arm and its wiring. In my opinion, it was an accident waiting to happen. The jib operators were either inexperienced or just plain reckless.

Marconi19d commented on The Daily Swarm website: “Thank you boom operator! You grazed my head about 5 times as the wires dangled from the huge camera rig that floated above us…but that was not enough, so why not go for it all and just drop the whole thing on me and several people who shed blood at Stubbs for SXSW. My first one and I will never forget this!:”

One concert goer who mistook me for a reporter told me she overheard the crew operating the jib complain that they had had problems with it all evening.

Several photographers were prevented from photographing or filming the scene by the cops and venue security. A reporter for the Austin Statesmen was reputedly ejected for trying to shoot photos. Who were security protecting? The injured? Or the venue, the jib operators, SXSW and the sponsors of the show?

Andy McCluskey of OMD joked “Shall we wait for the lawsuits or shall we start?” When he realized the severity of the situation he turned somber and the band left the stage.

With the cops and security playing tough guys, I may be the only one on the scene to have shot footage of the incident as it happened. I will gladly give it to anyone who was injured in this sad sad accident if it can help in any way.

My fiancee Mirgun was literally a matter of inches from the falling boom. It was gutwrenching for both of us. I was shooting video in another location and there were several minutes in which I was in a panic thinking she might have been injured. The photo at the top of this article was taken by her just as the boom crashed in front of the stage. You can see the hands of someone trying to lift it off of themselves. Damn.

The medics handled the situation efficiently and compassionately. Other than a few overzealous cops and junior G-Men in t-shirts that shouted “security”, the men and women whose jobs it was to rescue the injured were swift and sure.

Update: Austin 360 reports that SXSW did not authorize the video shoot. “We did not know about this video shoot,” said Roland Swenson, spokesman for SXSW who added that there are about 400 crews who are doing video shoots at venues throughout the conference. “It didn’t come through our process. He said that the Steve Madden company that sponsored the show at Stubbs hired another firm, On Slot, to do the video shoot. The video production company (On Slot) set up the equipment. We looked at the equipment and couldn’t tell if it was equipment failure or user error.”

According to KXAN television, four people were injured and the injuries were not life-threatening.

Update 3/21: Andy McCluskey of OMD discusses the camera jib accident and his SXSW experience:

Andy - Once we realized what had actually happened, and that there were people who needed medical treatment it was obvious that we could not start playing. I guess that if there was any ‘luck’ involved.. it was the fact that the camera crane fell before we actually started.. it would have been much more confusing and slower to resolve if we were into the set. I expected the concert to be canceled. We just waited to see if the injured were going to be OK.. (I hear that they are OK). Once the police said it was fine to play we decided that we should at least do something for those who had paid money and waited until 1.30AM.. Even though the 2AM curfew would not be pushed back! It felt rather weird at the beginning, but slowly the band and audience started to re-connect.. it was actually a great 7 song set! And an even greater relief that no-one is permanently hurt!

Interviewer - How would each of you you sum up your SXSW experience?

Andy - Strange gigs, at stupid times, in crap venues with impossible turn around times..Otherwise.. just lovely.

Interviewer - What steps do you hope SXSW will take to improve things in the future?

Andy - It seems that it is now so big that in reality it is a waste of time for new or unsigned bands as people only have time to find the gigs by bands that they have heard of.

Interviewer - Do you think you’ll ever return to SXSW?

Andy - No.
 

 
Update 3/21: Austin print and TV media continue to downplay the injuries sustained by the four people injured by the camera boom collapse calling their injuries “minor.”  I am beginning to wonder whether there may be a cover-up going in Austin to protect the reputation of the local cash cow that is SXSW.
 
See a photo of a “minor” injury after the jump….

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.19.2011
07:41 am
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