Marlene Dietrich performs a screen test for director Josef von Sternberg in 1929 for the movie The Blue Angel.
Is she in character as the femme fatale Lola Lola or is she being a prima donna? Either way, she was obviously right for the role.
The Blue Angel premiered at the Gloria Palast theater in Berlin on March 31, 1930 and received rave reviews. The film propelled Dietrich to International stardom.
More synth-doom goodness. Age Of Consent are one half of the now defunct Glasgow-based dance-punk party starters Shitdisco. Ex-members Joe Reeves and Darren Cullen have thankfully put away the glowsticks have turned their hands to making electronic pop influenced by The Knife, Yeasayer, Japan and as the name would suggest, New Order.
“The Beach” is the band’s debut single, and is self-released on 7 inch on September 5th. You can pre-order the vinyl at their bandcamp site, or if you prefer you can buy the tracks digitally. And what would you know - on the digital release someone called The Niallist has turned in a remix that takes the English fops out on the dancefloor of an imaginary 1983 New York and spanks their asses ‘til the break of dawn:
Fans of electronica might recognise the name Legowelt. Danny Wolfers has been releasing quality analog techno and electro since 1996 on respected labels like Ghostly International and Clone. His sound is heavily influenced by Detroit techno and Chicago house, as well as early 80s Italo disco and 70s electronic horror soundtracks, and his studio set-up puts live sequencing and classic synths above digital trickery. On the Legowelt Wikipedia page, he describes his sound as “a hybrid form of slam jack combined with deep Chicago house, romantic ghetto technofunk and EuroHorror Soundtrack.”
Now Wolfers has just released his new album, The Teac Life, for free through his own website. He has this to say about it, and the state of modern techno - it’s definitely Not Safe For Work:
Ok people here it is the new Legowelt album which is free to download for u all.
Its got a hella lot [of] deep tape saturated forest-techno tracks on it and when I say Techno i don’t mean that boooooooooooring contemporary shit they call techno nowadays with overrated talentless pretentious douchebag cunt DJs playing a few half-assed dumb mongo beats and being all arty fartsy about it.
F*ck that, I am talking about: Raw as fuck autistic Star Trek 1987 - Misty Forests- X-FILES - DETROIT unicorn futurism made on cheap-ass digital & analog crap synthesizers recorded in a ragtag bedroom studio on a TEAC VHX cassettedeck in DOLBY C with an unintelligible yet soulfull vivacity.
Electronic music fans and analog synth freaks, this is a must. Wolfers is the real deal. If you’re a fan of John Carpenter soundtracks and the pre-pop Human League, the early output of labels like Warp and Rephlex, or even just strange homemade lo-fi music, there is much to enjoy here. You can listen to The Teac Life exclusively on the Legowelt website, or you can download the album from this link. In the meantime, here’s a great fan video of Legowelt’s “Into The Storm” (not on the album) featuring footage from 1967 Soviet horror flick Viy:
This is an excellent short film, Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life, written and directed by the immensely talented Peter Capaldi. It stars Richard E. Grant, Elaine Collins, Phyllis Logan, Cripin Letts and Ken Stott, and is a comedy about Kafka’s frustrations in writing Metamorphosis - with a little nod towards the work of Frank Capra. This was a deserved Oscar winner back in 1995, for best short film, and Capaldi is now better known for his foul-mouthed Maloclm Tucker form The Thick of It. One hopes he will return to writing and directing soon.
The rest of ‘Franz Kafka…’ plus the best of Capaldi as the foul mouthed Malcolm Tucker - NSFW, after the jump….
Heresy, I suppose, but I was more pissed off at the demise of the Bonzo Dog Band than I was by the splitting of The Beatles, the retirement of Ziggy Stardust, or the return of Take That. The Mop Tops were grown-up music and a different generation, and after Stardust there was always Aladdin Sane, but neither could have inspired me to run home from school as I did for Vivian Stanshall, Neil Innes and co. when they shared billing with the proto-Pythons, Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam on Do Not Adjust Your Set. Now that’s the kind of thoughtful anarchy parents should encourage their children to watch, not Glee or High School Musical, but something with wit and humor that leans towards culture and art and thinking about life, with all its wrinkly absurdities.
It was always Vivian, of course, that rather scary looking Ginger Geezer, who was the Peter Cook of Pop, a chummy Evelyn Waugh, a more interesting Stephen Fry, the missing link between The Beatles and Monty Python.
I saw Vivian Stanshall’s Week when it first went out in 1975, then or thereabouts, and was mesmerized by the great ginger god’s wit, surreal humor and seemingly boundless energy, who, I knew (as did everyone else, surely?), made life that little bit more fun.
The print of this documentary is water-color cloudy, but honestly it does somehow underline the unreality that such a superb human should have ever visited this blue marble planet and in our life time to boot. Well, dearhearts, how lucky are we?
Now here’s what the blurb says:
‘In this film shot in 1975 (after the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and before the Sir Henry movie) Viv articulates his interests and obsessions with his usual surreal humour and some intoxication by the river.
“If I had all the money I’ve spent on drink — I’d spend it on drink.”
Time Escape - a short edit of neat time-lapse photography made during Time Fest 2011 and shot by Tom Lowe, Vince Laforet, Carson Garner, Tom Guilmette, Shawn Reeder, Dustin Kukuk and Eric Kessler.