The current issue of the National Examiner newspaper

Of all the people you might see on the cover of the National Examiner supermarket tabloid—Loretta Lynn, Michael Jackson, Honey Boo Boo, the Clintons and of course the Kardashian family—one face that you’d probably never expect to find there is that of junkie novelist William Burroughs, but there he is, in the right upper corner, right above Burt Reynolds and to the left of the bit asking what the fuck Delta Burke did to her face…

See Burroughs there, along with Ted Kennedy, Claus Von Bulow and Susan Cummings, the original affluenza poster children? The question asks “Do the rich and famous get away with killing people?”

The short answer, of course as was most certainly the case with William Burroughs (whose brother bribed Mexican police to let him go after he’d blown his wife’s brains out at point blank range) is that they often do! Predictably there’s a sidebar about Claudine Longet, too.

I’m not normally in the habit of picking up cheesy supermarket tabloids, but I noticed this at the check out this morning at Ralphs (that’s what they call Kroger in So Cal) and had to share. The National Examiner has a reputation for bad reporting—if not just out and out making shit up—but they got the basic facts right for this one. Still, it’s got to be the most unexpected company ever for William Burroughs to keep.

Not so much Claus Von Bulow, but Delta Burke?
 

 

Photo via Ain’t It Cool
 
I was a little apprehensive when I heard there was going to be an Alfred Hitchcock action figure. Would Austin’s Mondo—known for their gorgeous posters—be able to do the great director justice in three dimensions? Well, I think they certainly have if this photo of the toy figure that’s starting to make the rounds on the Internet is anything to go by. Mondo did an excellent job with “The Master of Suspense,” IMO.

Sporting a fine-tailored suit, this replica of the legendary horror director comes with his directors chair, clapboard, cigars, and props from his most famous films—including a butcher knife, a raven and a seagull. The figure also comes with interchangeable hands and a stand.

I wish there were better images, but these will have to do for now. More to follow.

 
Via Superpunch

 
WFMU on Twitter hipped me to these insanely cool photos of psychedelic electronic music group Silver Apples’ homemade electronic gear. Holy hell these are great!

Silver Apples live in Los Angeles, 1968. “In this shot you can see I have the oscillators mounted horizontally in plywood along with echo units, wah pedal, and so on. Here I am playing the ‘lead’ oscillator with my right hand, keying in rhythm oscillators with my elbow on the telegraph keys, changing the volume on an amp with my left hand, and singing. This was typical.”
 

 

This photo was taken at an earlier, outdoor concert in New York City, again in 1968, “before the plywood configuration, where I just had all my oscillators, amps, pedals, and so on piled onto a table. There were 30,000 people in the audience — we were terrified!”
 

Photo by Syeus Mottel
 
These electronics in action on “Lovefingers” (1968):

 
via SOS, WFMU, HZ

 
Simply stunning vintage handbills for Detroit’s historic live music venue The Grande Ballroom. The majority of these trippy handbills and postcards were designed by Gary Grimshaw (who died in January of this year) and Carl Lundgren. Historically significant, yes, but from a design perspective, these are just jaw-droppingly, face-melting goodness, aren’t they?

 

 

 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

 
The most incredible mind in the history of rock n’ roll turns three quarters of a century today! Truly the greatest living treasure/encyclopedia of pop culture, and creator of it is still sharp as a tack! Here’s a run down of who Mr. Fowley is, taken from my liner notes from the new Kim Fowley compilation (Volume Four!) Technicolor Grease: Lost Treasures from the Vaults 1959-1969, Vol. 4 on Norton Records

As impossible as it may seem, the last living Rock N Roll computer is alive, in our midst and featured on this LP. The thought that one man’s every waking hour from the very first days of Rock N Roll to right this minute as you read this have been entrenched & dedicated to the original concept of the Outrageous teenage rampage, a finger in every pie musical & otherwise, is mind numbing. Mr. Fowley has a perfect grasp of every type of music & has produced/instigated/created it all. From rocking’ instrumentals, surf music, soul (real soul, yeah), real greasy rhythm & blues, rockabilly, tuff teen garage, all the stuff we dig including inventing the art of making insane anti-records aimed at failing, for his own amusement.

But wait! He didn’t ever stop. He was the star of the 1st Mothers LP (“Help I’m A Rock”) and on into demented psychedelia, Glitter Rock, Punk & more. He has had his finger in the big gold pies too. And the music we hate, much to his credit. Turn around & there’s Kim writing a Kiss song, or something with Nirvana! Yup. Kim techno music haha yes, even that. The guy never sleeps & has a grasp on it all.

NO ONE has gone all the way except Kim. And he retains unreal factoid minutiae. He will ramble off on any obscure Rock N Roll singer at length and always tell you something you don’t know. Ask him the same question twice? You will get a whole new set of answers. Fact check ‘em (if even possible) and it all checks out. I don’t know if he’s human & i’m not sure if Mr. Fowley was the original alien dumped on this planet to steer us whenever lost back in the WRONG direction. It’s all in that big Frankenstein head of his. And in that big Frankenstein heart that he hid so well for so long. But I have seen it folks! It is real.

Approaching 75, he has slowed down a little but will never stop. As we have spent our lives searching & researching Kim has been inventing & reinventing, always making trouble. It’s all one thing to him, one continuous movement, one mission. Even if we want to stop it at 1966, he will never understand what that means. It stops when Kim stops. When he stops much will halt & NOTHING will ever be the same.  Kim Fowley has all the answers. Here are 16 of them.

 

 
The first three volumes (One Man’s Garbage, Another Man’s Gold and King of the Creeps) are a perfect primer of the inside and WAY outside of rock ‘n’ roll from the very beginning, as I said, the man has done it all. Norton Records book division Kicks Books has put out what is literally, to these eyes, the best rock n’ roll autobiography I’ve ever read in my life! Lord of Garbage (which also comes with its own signature Garbage perfume, as all Kicks books do) is part one of a multi-volume autobiography, and goes from 1939-1969 and is more shocking, more interesting, informative and insane than anything I’ve ever read. And it’s not even into the 1970’s yet! The last volume has been instructed to come out just after his death. If that day ever comes.
 

 
Though he has been battling cancer recently, he has, as he done before, kicked its ass. He has also been making underground films that you can see on YouTube (including Black Room Doom, Dollboy: The Movie, Satan Of Silverlake, The Golden Road To Nowhere, Frankenstein Goes Surfing, Trailer Park’s On Fire and Jukebox California). Kim was portrayed by actor Michael Shannon in the 2010 film The Runaways. Also check out his radio show on Sirius radio.

Our Animal Man never stops and never will! Please join us in celebrating the man that has more energy than three 25 year olds! Kim Fowley, happy 75th!
 

 
Below, the author wishes the Animal Man a happy 71st birthday:

 
Many of you have probably already seen these stills of David Bowie in his “tighty-whiteys” from a 1973 photoshoot. I think they should be resurrected from time-to-time here on Dangerous Minds. Never forget!

Admittedly, I still giggle like a young schoolgirl every damned time I see these.

 

 

 
h/t Britrockaholic

 
George Harrison’s 1966 trip to India was a major catalyst in the development of the Beatles’ sound, and pop music was forever changed by his sitar tutelage under Ravi Shankar. However, all the talk about the musical, spiritual and yoga training tend to obfuscate the real historic legacy of Harrison’s journey—selfies!!!  The quiet Beatle captured some really beautiful scenery (as well as his lovely face), using a fisheye lens to clever effect. Frankly, I’m a little surprised Instagram hasn’t pushed for a nostalgic fisheye comeback—who doesn’t like a little psychedelic bulge to their selfie?
 

 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
In the ‘80s VHS era, credible weirdness could be hard to come by unless you were well-connected. If you had that one slightly tweaked pal who hoarded nth-generation dubs of Mondo films and suchlike (and of course, some DM readers surely were that guy) you were golden. But otherwise, your average hinterlands video store probably never got any deeper into video arcana than Faces of Death, if even that.

So it was mighty cool of Amok Books to compile and distribute Amok Assault Video. Amok was an LA-based outré bookstore, noteworthy in its heyday for publishing thick catalogs, the 4th and 5th editions of which were themselves more compelling reads than some of the material they purveyed, and which could serve extremely well as a neophyte mutant’s introduction to deeper levels of cultural fuckedup-ery, even surpassing the admirable Loompanics catalog in many respects.

Though it wasn’t the most extreme stuff available, some scenes in Assault Video are nonetheless very intense. It was clearly contrived to cater to the interests of Amok’s more jaded customers—it’s an insane assemblage of footage, including questionable old cartoons, assorted Third-World atavisms, cattle mutilation, behind-the-scenes footage from Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane’s attempted Hawaiian travel doc, after the production of which he was murdered (retribution for offending the island gods?), the infamous CBS Evening News video of a dog attack on an animal control officer, a bonkers occult theory about the cartoon character She-Ra, creepy scenes of an altered seeming Alice Coltrane from her religious TV show Eternity’s Pillar, other televised religious/spiritual nuts, and OF COURSE, that disturbing touchstone of ‘80s VHS-swap culture, the Budd Dwyer suicide.

If you’re at work, you’re hereby forewarned, there’s graphic nudity and violence herein. It’s appeared on and disappeared from YouTube before, so if you’re keen to watch it, don’t dawdle.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Tell me your nightmares: ‘The Asylum for Shut-Ins: Video Psychotherapy” 80s cable access insanity

 
Over the weekend, when the sad news spread about the passing of Tommy Ramone, a really touching image circulated online, showing the Ramones debut LP, then the same cover with Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Photoshopped out, and then, at last, Tommy removed as well. Dangerous Minds even shared it on our Facebook page.
 

 
The middle image, of Tommy standing alone in front of that iconic brick wall, seems to have come from a Tumblr called “Live! (I See Dead People),” which is devoted entirely to skillfully removing deceased musicians from their LP covers—sort of like “Garfield Minus Garfield,” but with a more serious intent. The subjects range from cult figures like Nick Drake to canonical rock stars like Nirvana and The Doors, and the results are often quite poignant. The blog hasn’t been updated in almost three years, so it seems unlikely the artists behind this project, Jean-Marie Delbes and Hatim El Hihi, will re-do that Ramones cover. Indeed, their Morrison Hotel still features Ray Manzarek, who passed on a little over a year ago.
 

New York Dolls, s/t
 

Ol Dirty Bastard, Return to the 36 Chambers
 

Nick Drake, Bryter Layter
 

The Who, Odds & Sods
 

Johnny Thunders, So Alone
 

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
 

Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
 

Jeff Buckley, Grace
 

The Doors, Morrison Hotel
 

John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy
 

The Clash, s/t
 

Elvis Presley, s/t
 

 
Hat-tip to Derf for this find.

 
Yesterday DM contributor Martin Schneider wrote about the incredible H.R. Giger bars. And someone in the comments—who’s perhaps a world traveler—mentioned they’ve visited a Giger bar in Switzerland and a Depeche Mode-themed bar located in Tallinn, Estonia. When I first read that I immediately had to Google this magical place—that I didn’t know existed—and find out what’s all about.

The name is actually Depeche Mode Baar and it opened its doors back in 1999 by a devoted fan of the band. Apparently, it really grew in popularity in 2001 after Depeche Mode band members partied the night away at the bar after their concert in Tallinn. Since then, the bar has been highlighted on a few news features including a segment for BBC TV.

I don’t know what else to say except to quote Liz Lemon, “I want to go to there!” I mean, a Depeche Mode bar?!