The “Percolator” was a distinctive early 90s “line dance” craze, but one you might never have been exposed to unless you lived in, say, Boston, DC, Chicago or Detroit. Major Lazer’s animated music video, an hommage to “It’s Time for the Percolator” features cartoon stand-ins of Michael Jackson, Darth Vader, the couple from American Gothic and even physicist Stephen Hawking, who gets ejected from his wheelchair by an Avatar character. Woah!
Here, dancers on Detroit’s The New Dance Show (which I loved as a teenager) demonstrate how it’s done.
Who says sex doesn’t sell? We’ll soon find out when the band release their debut album ‘From 001 To 017’ on the 25th October. The release will tie-in with a series of gigs across Europe. Check here for details.
Today seems as good a time as any to post this clip of the great Peggy Lee, with the diva seductively singing the easy-listening standard, “What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?” in 1970. Surely one of the greatest love songs ever written.
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 !
A young Nina Hagen doing a punky—some might call it demonic—live cover version of “Ziggy Stadust” around the time of her Unbehagen album in 1980. I like the Bauhaus cover, too, but I like her version even better. It’s great to see how NIna Hagen has managed to retain such a devoted cult following for all these years. She works hard at it, that’s for sure. She deserves it.
Throbbing Gristle’s European tour dates have been announced. Speaking as a LONGTIME TG fanboy—and one who got to actually stand on the stage with them in Los Angeles last year (I was behind the speakers just a few feet behind Cosey and Gen) feeling the insane sonic power of the legendary group—I say to our readers in London, Prague, Bologna and Portugal, do not miss these shows!
TG will also be headlining one night of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, this year curated by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
23rd Oct - LONDON VILLAGE UNDERGROUND, UK
30th Oct - PRAGUE ARCHA THEATRE, Czech Republic
2nd Nov - BOLOGNA, ITALY
5th Nov - PORTO CASA MUSICA, Portugal
4th Dec - ATP, MINEHEAD, UK
Spurned on from a rumor Publishers Weekly overheard at the Frankfurt Book Fair, David Bowie’s website has confirmed that he’ll be publishing a coffee table book cum object d’art called Bowie: Object.
Bowie: Object is a collection of pieces from the Bowie archive, wherein, for the first time, fans and all those interested in popular culture will have the opportunity to understand more about the Bowie creative process and his impact on modern popular music.
Bowie: Object features 100 fascinating items that give an insight into the life of one of the most unique music and fashion icons in history. The book’s pictorial content is annotated with insightful, witty and personal text written by Bowie himself.
Designed by Barnbrook, Bowie: Object is simply and boldly designed and each of the objects is photographed in a clean, contemporary style.
Below is one of the objects that they strongly hint will be in the book, a Kirlian Photographic Device that Bowie was given by Dr. Thelma Moss at the Dept. of Parapsychology, UCLA, in 1975. There was a picture of it contained in the Station to Station tour guide memento. If the aim of this book is to show Bowie’s impact, not only on music, but culture in general, then this is a very good example.
Why you ask? To give you a personal (and very small) example of the multitude of ways David Bowie has influenced little old me, when I was 10 years old and Bowie was the guest on Dinah Shore’s afternoon talk/variety show, he was able to invite Dr. Moss on as a guest as well. Moss demonstrated the ability of the Kirlian device—a high voltage electric field “camera”—to basically take snapshots of plant and human “auras.” Because Bowie was fascinated by this wild new science of Kirlian photography, then, hey, so was I and—this is true—I built a home-made version of the Kirlian Photographic device for a grade-school science fair!
It was made with a battery, a wood base, some wires, a metal plate and used 2” by 2” film, which was placed under the plate, and sent a jolt via the battery to expose the film. Now, granted, at that age, I wasn’t testing the “before and after” side-effects of snorting cocaine on my aura (see above) like Bowie was—-I used leaves and my thumbprint—but still, you can see clearly in this stupid example of how I, a little kid at the time, saw David Bowie as this like, larger than life cultural avatar of the newest and coolest things around. I must say, I’m really looking forward to this book!
And if you haven’t heard, there is a brand new, just released massive 5 CD/3LP/DVD collector’s box (two different ones, actually) of Bowie’s monumental 1976 album, Station To Station, including the much-bootlegged “Nassau Coliseum ‘76” show from that tour and a new 5:1 surround remix of the album.
Below, A shit hot version of Station to Station’s “Stay” performed on Dinah! in 1976.
Don’t test the Jolly Boys: l-r Derrick “Johnny” Henry, Albert Minott, Joseph “Powder” Bennett
Bernard & boys, they’ve got yr techno right here. Gravelly-voiced Jamaican singer Albert Minott and his majority-septuagenarian group the Jolly Boys have eaten rock ‘n’ roll and new wave for lunch.
For over 55 years, the Jolly Boys have played a style of music called mento, which—much like Trinidadian calypso—dates back to the late-19th century, before ska, reggae and dancehall became Jamaica’s predominant styles. As with most things Jamaican, mento is simultaneously soulful, sweet and rugged.
Minott and his crew—including original members Joseph “Powder” Bennett on maracas, Derrick “Johnny” Henry on marumba box, Allan Swymmer on percussion, and Egbert Watson on banjo—have just released an album of covers called Great Expectations, produced by Jon Baker and Dale Virgo.
Tracks include versions of Iggy Pop’s “Passengers” and “Nightclubbing”, the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” and the Rolling Stones’ “You Can Always Get What You Want.”
After the jump: the Boys’ take on Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”…
, including the much-bootlegged “Nassau Coliseum ‘76” show from that tour and a new 5:1 surround remix of the album.