During a recent concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, pop singer Ke$ha performed her song “Blah Blah Blah” with six backup dancers dressed in The Residents’ iconic imagery of tuxedo-wearing eyeball heads sporting top hats

Although The Residents haven’t used that look onstage for some time, it’s practically their logo… What gives?

The NBC Bay Area website canvassed reaction on The Residents’ Facebook page:

Some fans think it’s an outrage, including Sara Creamcheese Brandau. “I’m not a naturally litigious person but if you can sue her you really should. Unless you guys are, honored by this tribute? Alright, I gotta throw up,” Brandau posted.

Others, like John H. Felix, don’t see a problem. “Fans of a band who have been maniacally appropriating pop culture for their own needs complain about musician appropriating band for her own needs, film at 11,” Felix posted.

Rick Gawel said, “She’s using the eyeballs and tuxes, so what? If it were Primus, who are huge Residents fans and have played with them, people would probably be OK with it.”

Chris Mathew, who shot the video, said he think Ke$sha is a Residents’ fan herself. “If I had to guess, Ke$ha’s secretly a fan of their [The Residents] stuff… the way she introduced everything, it sounded like she was trying to shoehorn eyeballs into the equation.  And then, viola!  Residents dancers,” Mathew said.

“They were so accurate that, for a second, I thought it was really The Residents onstage and this was just their latest stunt.  But then they started moving wayyyy too young-like for that to be the case.”

Loving homage or rip-off, the idea of Ke$ha being a big Residents fan seems likely since she was also seen wearing a Duck Stab! tee-shirt on her MTV reality show.

One fan, Neal Burgess, wondered if “Maybe Kesha bought 5 of those Ultimate Boxed Sets?”
 

 
H/T WFMU on Twitter

 
Iggy Pop takes a stroll around New York’s Lower East-Side, in May1993.

As Iggy explains it: he likes living in New York because he is a ‘high-strung, suggestible person,’ and the city gives him a structure in which he can operate. Los Angeles, on the other hand, made him crazy because there was no center.

Iggy highlights some his favorite things to Dutch film-maker Bram Van Splunteren, as he gives a guided tour of the neighborhood. The graffiti, the people, the vibrancy, the food, the street signs, the artists and his personal belief that no one will tell you to shut-up for making any noise—which means Iggy can make as much noise as he likes.

It’s a fun trip, and closes with Iggy talking about Rap, Ice-T, why cops made him fearful and angry, and why he listens to Bob Dylan.
 

 
Portrait of Iggy Pop by Karen Bones.
 

 
There will be those who will see these two tickets as evidence of what could have been one of the greatest tours ever.

David Bowie
(with very special guest Morrissey)
Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre
29 Nov 1995
7.30pm
Standing
£22.50

And, of course, there will be those who won’t.

Morrissey was originally the “special” support on the European leg of Bowie’s Outside tour in 1995, but after Mozz failed to turn-up for this gig in Aberdeen, he was dropped and replaced by The Gyres, Echobelly and Placebo.

Stories vary as to what actually happened, but it would appear there is still some kind of bad feeling between the two.

Earlier this year, Bowie refused to grant Morrissey permission to use a photograph of the pair of them together on the re-issue of his single “The Last of the Famous International Playboys.”

According NME, Morrissey then “rickrolled” Bowie by replacing the “Thin White Duke” with 1980s’ pop star, Rick Astley.
 

 
Updated June 16th—with thanks to David B Parkes
Via Nothing’s Changed and Bowie Songs Blog
 

 
Alice Cooper was described as “a violent and evil influence on the nation’s youth,” when he toured Britain in 1973. The dread Cooper inspired led six Members of Parliament to petition the Prime Minister to refuse the singer permission to enter the country. The petition failed.

Then, Mary Whitehouse, doyen of minding-other people’s business, campaigned to have Alice Cooper’s records banned by the BBC. Mrs. Whitehouse also failed, and “School’s Out” went to number one in the UK charts.

The fear of Alice Cooper and his like, led many on the Right to believe the end of civilization was nigh. Hard to believe now, but back then with a 3-day-working week, nation-wide power cuts, food shortages, rising unemployment, a failing economy, and an incompetent Conservative Prime Minister, there were those amongst the Establishment who considered a “Boy’s Own” military coup over their “salmon and lamb cutlets.”

Nothing happened, and Alice Cooper successfully toured the UK. But the “pace” of touring, with its chaotic hotel-living, took a considerable tool, and Cooper became an alcoholic. By the time he returned to the U.K. in 1978, the singer was sober and seemingly “rehabilitated.”

This rare (flickering) interview from the BBC News and Current Affairs show Tonight, in December 1978, has the late Donald MacCormick quizzing Alice about the changes to his life, his new show, and album From the Inside, which was inspired by Cooper’s stay in a New York sanitarium to cure his alcoholism.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous MInds

Alice Cooper: Certificate of Insanity

Through A Glass Darkly: Malcolm Lowry, Booze, Literature and Writing

 
With thanks to NellyM!
 

 
Comedy fans take note: Drag City will be releasing previously unheard “field recordings” made by the legendary dada comic Andy Kaufman in the late 1970s that show Kaufman pulling friends, family members and total strangers alike into his provocative acts of real life mayhem and reality-altering pranks. (My best friend once gave him a lift home from LAX. Kaufman, then a highly recognizable face on network televison, was hitchhiking).

Andy & His Grandmother was edited down from from 82 hours of micro-cassette tapes by Vernon Chatman, one of the geniuses behind Wonder Showzen (he’s also the voice of “Towlie” on South Park) and Rodney Ascher (the director of Room 237). SNL’s Bill Hader provided some connecting narrative and context between tracks and Bob Zmuda (who often played Kaufman’s “Tony Clifton” character) wrote the liner notes.. This is not some re-hash of Andy Kaufman material you’ve heard before.

The album drops on July 16th, below is a brief, confusing and very tantalizing audio edit for the upcoming release, exclusively for Dangerous Minds readers:
 

 
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has a lot in common with wealthy Wall Street bankers and corporate CEO’s. While most hedge fund managers and CEO’s have not gotten blow jobs during bass solos at concerts, Lars, bankers and CEOs agree that litigiousness is awesome, acquiring ugly expensive art collections is important and the piracy of your product is the sole locus of evil on earth. So, which quotes are from Lars?

1.  “People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress.”

10. “I think if anything we were just caught off guard by how passionate people were about this whole internet phenomenon at the time and it kind of blind-sided us, but we stood our ground and stuck with our principles and a lot of people now are patting us on the back and saying how right we were.”

Answers:

1.  Not Lars.  Alan Dlugash, partner at accounting firm Karks Paneth & Shron, LLP.
2.  Not Lars.  Quirky CEO Ben Kaufman.
3.  Not Lars.  Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
4.  Lars.
5.  Not Lars. Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.
6.  Lars.
7.  Not Lars. Bruce Schneier, Chief Technical Officer of Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.
8.  Not Lars.  Bill Gates.
9.  Not Lars.  Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison.
10 Lars.

 
The Château d’Hérouville where David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Elton John, The Grateful Dead, The Sweet and Fleetwood Mac recorded is up for sale.

Located near the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, in France, the property is described as a coaching station, built in the 18th century, which includes 30-rooms, and 1,700m ²  of living space.

The selling price is 1, 295, 000 Euros.

In 1962, composer Michel Magne purchased the property and developed it into a recording studio. Magne is best known for his Oscar win for Gigot.

The Château was particularly popular with British artists, starting with Elton John, who recorded three albums at the studios, Honky Chateau, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player and Goodbye Yellowbrick Road. Elton suggested the studio to Marc Bolan where he recorded his 1972 album The Slider; and Bolan recommended it to David Bowie who record Pin-Ups in July 1973, and then Low in 1977. 

But the Château wasn’t just known for its considerable musical pedigree. Producer Tony Visconti claimed star-crossed lovers Frederic Chopin and George Sand haunted the building—Chopin had trysted with Sand while living at the mansion. Bowie also noted the studios supernatural feel.

If this slice of pop history tickles your fancy, then check the details here.
 

 
More info and pictures, after the jump…
 

 
Neil Young’s 2012 autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream, contains fascinating memories and anecdotes about songwriting, guitars, folk and rock music, musicians, classic cars, Young’s impressive ongoing inventions (including an electric car and a music file format, PureTone, to rival and replace mp3’s), and, unexpectedly, model trains.

Young, like fellow rockers Rod Stewart and Bruce Springsteen, began as a model train hobbyist and collector – for the love of God, do not call them “toy trains” to a model train collector – and eventually dedicated space in his 2800-square foot barn to a massive 750-feet track layout with landscape, tunnels, and buildings. Young brought this track along on his HORDE tour and allowed fans to play with the display, carefully supervised by the six crew members hired simply to travel with, set up. and tear down the track.

Young first created a research and development company, Liontech, to help the storied Lionel, LLC train manufacturing company, founded in 1900, create model trains with sound systems and control units. Young then became part owner of Lionel, along with an investment company. It was Young’s designs and inventions for Lionel that helped to bring the company out of bankruptcy in 2008. Young’s first train-related invention was a control unit, the Big Red Button, that enabled his son, who has cerebral palsy, to control the trains. Other inventions of his include the first-ever wireless remote control device for model trains, the TrainMaster Command Control (for which he paid for the development out of his own pocket), Lionel LEGACY Command Control System, LEGACY RailSounds System, and LionVision, which provides each model locomotive with a digital camera and microphone, allowing a train-view to be shown on a video screen or online.

Young helped Lionel design their Postwar Celebration Series, re-imagining classic designs with new technological features, such as the 5344 NYC Hudson train, first manufactured in the 1930’s. In 2004 Lionel released a limited edition train set based on the Neil Young and Crazy Horse album Greendale, set in a fictional California town.

“I remember one day David Crosby and Graham Nash were visiting me at the train barn during the recording of American Dream, a lot of which we did on my ranch at Plywood Digital, a barn that we converted to a recording studio…Anyway, I saw David looking at one of my train rooms full of rolling stock and stealing a glance at Graham that said, This guy is cuckoo. He’s gone nuts. Look at this obsession. I shrugged it off. I need it. For me it is a road back.” – Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“Clyde Coil” = Neil Young’s pseudonym for train-related websites and articles. Is this video (I can’t embed it here) a “Bernard Shakey” (another of Young’s nom de plumes) production?

Now I want all future Thomas the Tank Engine movies to feature Neil Young as the voice of the conductor instead of Alec Baldwin.

Below, Young talks model trains with fellow Lionel enthusiast, David Letterman:
 

 
Around the time that Crispin Glover was making his infamous late night TV appearances and David Lynch fans were in Hollywood Blvd. theaters watching him stuff cockroaches down his own underwear as demented “Cousin Dell” in Wild At Heart, Crispin could be found literally down the street picking up his home video rentals for the week. Glover was an occasional customer at the Blockbuster video store on Sunset Blvd near Fairfax Avenue in the late 80s/early 90’s. The one that used to be near the KFC and the liquor store.

Glover exhibits incredibly good taste in films, his rentals include John Huston’s adaption of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, Rebel Without A Cause and the classic expose on conformity The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit.
 

 
Bryan Ray Turcotte, author the classic chronicle of punk rock handbills and posters, Fucked Up + Photocopied, has one of the largest private collections of punk rock-related ephemera in the world—he’s a one-man Smithsonian Institute of the counterculture, truly a maven’s maven.

When I got advance notice that one of the world’s most prominent archivists and historians on the matter of punk rock’s graphic design had made (with Bo Bushnell) a film about Black Flag and Raymond Pettibon , I was expecting something pretty great and… it’s excellent!

It went live this morning. I got the link a little while ago and promptly sat down and watched the whole thing:

On the first episode of “The Art of Punk” we dissect the art of the legendary Black Flag. From the iconic four bars symbols, to the many coveted and collected gig flyers, singles, and band t-shirts, all depicting the distinctive Indian ink drawn image and text by artist Raymond Pettibon. We start off in Los Angeles talking to two founding members, singer Keith Morris and bass player Chuck Dukowski, about what the scene was like in 1976 - setting the stage for the band’s formation, as well as the bands name, and the creation of the iconic four bars symbol. Raymond Pettibon talks with us from his New York art studio. Back in LA we meet with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, about how the art, the music, and that early LA scene impacted his own life and career. To wrap it all up we sit and talk at length, with Henry Rollins, at MOCA Grand Ave in Los Angeles, about all of the above and more.

What’s so compelling about this piece is how filmmakers Turcotte and Bushnell tell you a story that you haven’t already heard a gazillion times before by focusing in on the graphics and how important an iconic logo was back then for outsider kids to rally around, wear on their chests or have etched into their flesh.

In the film, Flea makes, I thought, an especially valuable contribution, because he was young enough then (like Rollins himself was, of course) to have been in the audience and he speaks to how seeing a group like Black Flag could change your direction in life. From what I have heard from a number of people, Flea’s supposed to have an absolutely first rate modern art collection. He’s really inspired when he speaks here.

A production of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. New MOCAtv  episodes exploring the visual identities of Dead Kennedys and Crass will debut soon at the MOCAtv YouTube channel
 

Above, Flea in his Pettibon-festooned bathroom
 

 
Thank you Tim NoPlace!