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Eric Roberts lunchbox
09.07.2011
01:23 pm
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Just in time for back to school, a very awesome Eric Roberts lunchbox by Brandon Bird. It’s $20.00 + shipping over at Brandon’s website.

Genuine plastic Thermos-brand lunchboxes (Made in America!), some of the last ever manufactured, available in “Eric Roberts” and “Gran Torino” styles. Perfect for holding your lunch, your art supplies, your Star Wars action figure collection, pretty much anything that can fit in an 8” x 7” x 4” box (image area on the front measures 7” x 5.25”).

(via Superpunch)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.07.2011
01:23 pm
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Mike Leonard: The man who created Pink Floyd’s light show magic
09.07.2011
01:03 am
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Light show pioneer Mike Leonard worked closely with Pink Floyd in the mid-1960s when they were known as Leonard’s Lodgers (they lived in Leonard’s home) and later The Pink Floyd Sound. Working with colored cellophane and glass attached to rotating wheels and various prisms and lenses through which light was projected, Leonard managed to create lysergic effects that complimented Floyd’s psychedelic sound. While similar lighting experiments were soon to start taking place in San Francisco and New York, Leonard operated within his own orbit and by the time light shows had become a standard part of many a bands’ stage show Leonard was no longer in the business.

This video was shot in Leonard’s home in 1967 for BBC television program “Tomorrow’s World” and ends with some footage of Pink Floyd in an improvisational mood. Various sources claim this is Syd Barrett’s last filmed performance with the band.
 

 
Documentary on Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett after the jump…

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Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.07.2011
01:03 am
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Exclusive interview with legendary photographer Brian Sweeney
09.06.2011
07:33 pm
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It was his art teacher who first suggested he should pick up a camera. “My paintings were shite. I had a wee camera but didn’t really use it much till I went to college where I did this design for print course thing at the GCBP (Glasgow College of Building and Printing). Most of the photographers who were there at the time thought I was studying photography I spent so much time in the darkroom.”

That’s when Brian Sweeney found he had more than just a natural talent for photography. A talent that would lead him to become one of the most sought after, award winning photographers in the Europe. 

It was probably something that as always there in the background, as he explained in this exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds:

Brian Sweeney: ‘A-ha, the background. Funnily enough, I met up with some old schoolfriends of mine recently, who informed me I was always an arty-farty little bastard. I do remember being told by the headmaster that school was for learning and not a bloody discotheque - I’ve always loved that word ever since during that period we were all dressing up as Dexy’s Midnight Runners, something I still haven’t grown out of yet - well, that 80s period anyway.’

It was his fascination with music and fashion and soccer that led Sweeney to start documenting the clubs he and his friends hung out in.

Brian Sweeney: ‘I’d always been around bands from an early age. We were going into night clubs like Lucifers (now the Sub Club) and Fury Murrys to see a lot of later Factory bands. Then Acid House kicked off and I was sort of there shooting DJs, my mates etc, the scene basically for fun…..then ID, The Face, Melody Maker needed shots of the regional scenes and my name popped up quite a lot, so I started shooting for them up here [in Glasgow]. It just sort of kicked off…I then started shooting for all the labels, just in the right place at the right time. Everything happened very quickly from being on the dole and arsing around nightclubs to well earning money and shooting celebrities and arsing around nightclubs in London.”’

Arsing about or not, Sweeney is a legendary figure in the photographic world, known for his professionalism, enthusiasm and boundless energy, going from one location to the next, fashion shoots, adverts, documentary work, magazine work - his creativity never stops. Sweeney’s been described as the equivalent of Hunter S Thompson with a camera - but only far more talented - while his looks have been described as a grizzled Santa’s helper or a more handsome Billy Bob Thornton, take your pick. 

See more of Brian’s work here and here.

Selection of photographs from Were Antelopes Sleep below, for details check here.
 
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More from Sweeney and a selection of his photos from ‘Were Antelopes Sleep’, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.06.2011
07:33 pm
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Wonderful punk and post-punk era photographs by David Arnoff
09.06.2011
01:03 pm
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Stiv Bators, 1980
 
David Arnoff‘s post-punk era photography appeared in the NME, Melody Maker, Trouser Press, N.Y. Rocker and many other publications. The Cleveland-born, but London-based photographer and disc jockey’s work captures iconic bad boys and girls, relaxed and at their most playful. Arnoff is currently readying his photographs for a book and is looking for a publisher. I asked him a few questions over email:

Tara: Tell me about the Stiv Bators shot.

David Arnoff: I was hanging around with Stiv and his post-Dead Boys band in their hotel—pretty sure it was the Sunset Marquis—and we decided to do some shots of him on his own. He’d been messing about with a new air pistol, so we brought that along and just stepped out into the hall, after which it occured to him to maybe go back in the room and put some shoes on, but I said not to bother.  We started out doing some rather silly and predictable 007-type poses before he chose to just sit on the floor and look disturbed. I always thought the stripey socks made him look even more so.


Nick Cave, 1983
 
Tara: You worked with Nick Cave several times. He seems like a guy very concerned about his image, yet playful, too. What’s he like as a subject or collaborator?

David Arnoff: Nick is very easy and unaffected to work with. That shot with Harpo is the result of what started out as another cancelled session at the Tropicana Motel. He apologized for being up all night and indicated all the empty bottles on the TV as evidence, but was perfectly happy for me to carry on regardless even though he was not looking his best. The only downside was he was trying in vain to play “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” not really knowing the chords and the guitar was painfully out of tune.  Not an enjoyable aural experience. He was quite happy with the photos though.


Jeffrey Lee Pierce, 1983
 
Tara: Maybe it was the era, but several of the people you shot were junkies. Any “colorful” anecdotes about the likes of Cave, Jeffery Lee Pierce, Nico or Johnny Thunders?

David Arnoff: Far be it for me to say whether or not any of these people were actually junkies, but it’s funny you should mention Nick and Jeffrey together because I did squeeze all three of us into my little Volvo p1800 to go score on the street—Normandy, I think, around 3rd or somewhere. We then went back to my place in Hollywood, where Jeffrey became convinced they’d been ripped off. But Nick seemed more than happy with his purchase. Afterwards we went to that lesbian-run Mexican place near the Starwood. Nick tried to remember what he’d had previously and proceeded to attempt to describe what he wanted it to the baffled staff. I think they just gave up and sold him a burrito.

More with David Arnoff and his photographs after the jump…

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.06.2011
01:03 pm
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‘Love Exposure’: Sion Sono’s mindbender gets an American theatrical release
09.04.2011
05:39 pm
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Sion Sono and the 400 page script for Love Exposure.
 
I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Sion Sono’s (Suicide Club, Cold Fish) epically weird and wonderful Love Exposure.

Three minutes short of four hours long, Sono’s metaphysical black comedy is never boring and completely unlike any film you’re likely to see now or in the near future. Imagine a diabolically funny mix of John Waters, Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Hughes and David Lynch and you might get a sense of what Sono is up to in Love Exposure. Gory, romantic, spiritual and completely bonkers, this is a trip definitely worth taking. Somehow Sono (a poet turned film maker) performs the magic act of juggling what seems like a dozen film genres in the air with supernatural grace.

I dig film critic Simon Abrams’ take on the movie:

Love Exposure is, in a sense, Sono’s equivalent of the Great Russian novel. In it, his substantial disaffection for societal conventions is matched only by his monumental love for his spectacularly messed-up protagonists. These characters become deranged because they have to create their own belief system. There’s no God except for the ones that Yôko, Aya Koike (Sakura Andô), and Yû Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) make for themselves. God is represented by mundane authority figures, people who simultaneously project their own fear of loving someone else and lustful need to be loved. In other words, father/Father figures are all rotten to the core in Love Exposure, though they’re all rotten in unique ways.

Made in 2008, Love Exposure is finally receiving a limited American theatrical run two years after I first encountered it at Austin’s Fantastic Fest.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.04.2011
05:39 pm
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Patti Smith receives prestigious Swedish music award
09.03.2011
06:30 pm
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Jersey punk receives the 2011 Polar Music Prize from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf.
 
Patti Smith was awarded Sweden’s highest musical honor this past week.

Billboard reports:

The Polar Music Prize was first presented in 1992 and has gone to pop artists such as Sir Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and classical names such as Isaac Stern, Renée Fleming, José Antonio Abreu and Ennio Morricone.

Smith’s award was presented by one of her favorite authors, Sweden’s Henning Mankell. Speaking without notes, he credited Smith for inspiring women all over the world to write poetry and create music. He then read the citation, which lauded Smith for “devoting her life to art in all its forms” and for demonstrating “how much rock ‘n’ roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock ‘n’ roll.” Calling Smith “a Rimbaud with Marshall amps,” the citation said that she “has transformed the way an entire generation looks, thinks and dreams.”

In her acceptance, a visibly moved Smith had to stop for a moment to collect herself as she thanked her daughter Jesse Paris and son Jackson, as well as the musicians she has worked with for years, including “Lenny Kaye, who has played guitar by my side for over 40 years.” Smith also acknowledged the late Stig Anderson and “my late husband, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith,” guitarist for the rock band MC5.

“Receiving the prestigious Polar Music Prize is both humbling and inspiring, for it fills me with pride,” Smith told the audience at the Stockholm Concert Hall. “It also fills me with the desire to continue to prove my worth. I am reminded always how collaborative the music experience is and so I would like to thank the people, for it is the people for whom we create and it is the people who have given me their energy and encouragement for four decades.

No longer outside of society, punk’s elder stateswoman discusses her past, the present and the creative process with Stockholm journalist Jan Gradvall.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.03.2011
06:30 pm
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Classic Covers: Fabulous dust jacket facsimiles to novels by Vonnegut, Woolf, Kerouac and more
09.02.2011
05:32 pm
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Over at Facsimile Dust Jackets you can find (and purchase) an incredible selection of scans of dust jackets from classic novels by Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K Dick, Doris Lessing, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Christopher Isherwood, Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, Agatha Christie, Aleister Crowley, Dennis Wheatley, Robert Bloch, Len Deighton and many, many more. Have a look for yourself here.
 
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More fab facsimile dust jackets, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.02.2011
05:32 pm
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Andrei Tarkovsky’s first film: ‘The Steamroller and the Violin’ from 1960
09.01.2011
05:20 pm
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In 1959, a Polish journalist, Zdzislaw Ornatowski paid a visit to the Russian film studio Mosfilms. He wanted to meet the next generation of film-makers and hear their plans for the forthcoming decade. Amongst those Ornatowski met was a young and ambitious man, who discussed his forthcoming graduate film The Steamtoller and the Violin. Ornatowski was so impressed by this youngster that he made him the focus of his article, “Films of the Young”. In it he interviewed the young film-maker about his intentions for making his diploma film, The Steamroller and the Violin

“It will be a short-feature film. My original idea was not to use this screenplay for a full-length feature - that would ruin the entire composition. The story in the film is very simple. The action takes place within one day, the dramaturgy is without sharp conflicts, it is non-traditional. Its main characters are a young worker driving a steamroller at a road construction and a young sensitive boy who is learning to play the violin. They become friends. Those two people, so different in every respect, complement and need one another.

“Although it’s dangerous to admit - because one doesn’t know whether the film will be successful - the intent is to make a poetic film. We are basing practically everything on mood, on atmosphere. In my film there has to be the dramaturgy of image, not of literature. I offered the role of the worker to Vladimir Zamyansky, an actor from the youngest and perhaps most interesting theater “Sovremennik.” The little Sasha is played by a seven-year old music school student, Igor Fomchenko. I am very happy with them.”

The young film-maker was Andrei Tarkovsky, and The Steamroller and the Violin was his first film.

Ingmar Bergman once said of Tarkovsky:

“Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”

The Steamroller and the Violin is the first annunciation of Tarkovsky’s “new language”, from its poetic use of mood and atmosphere, to its dreamlike imagery and ending. Co-written with Andrei Konchalovsky, the pair spent 6 months on the script before committing a frame of film. It is a beautiful and memorable film, which tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Sasha, a little boy, and Sergey, the operator of a steamroller.
 

 
final part of ‘The Steamroller and the Violin, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Svetlana Volkova
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.01.2011
05:20 pm
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Creepy mom and dad tattoo
09.01.2011
04:12 pm
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This is what happens when you hire a tattoo artist with mommy issues.

In psychiatric terms, I think the tattooist is “projecting.”

While mother has taken a turn toward the demonic, dad ends up looking like a lovable drag king.
 
Via Ugliest Tattoos

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.01.2011
04:12 pm
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‘Saints and Sinners’: 66 whores, reprobates and scam artists from history
09.01.2011
12:54 pm
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Fantastic portrait series titled “Saints and Sinners” from New York City-based artist—and founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art SchoolMolly Crabapple. Each print is available for $80 over at Molly’s website.


 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.01.2011
12:54 pm
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