Spare a thought for the Doors fan who has already spent time with 13, Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine, The Best of the Doors (1973), Greatest Hits, The Best of the Doors (1985), Classics, The Doors (Original Soundtrack Recording), The Doors Box Set, The Best of the Doors (2000), The Very Best of the Doors, Legacy: The Absolute Best, Love/Death/Travel, Scattered Sun, and The Platinum Collection. You could forgive such a person for regarding a new Doors compilation with suspicion, if not hostility. Again the Lizard King is passing the hat? Now he wants a swimming pool for his celestial mansion, I suppose?

But The Singles is a welcome addition to the Doors catalog, especially because of its mono and quad content. The mono tracks walk up to you, poke you in the chest and box your ears. It is startling, for instance, to hear “Hello, I Love You” in its radio version, so mixed as to sound kickass on a 1968 clock radio or the fillings in your teeth. Something unwholesome has been restored to it, and when it ends, I expect to hear “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” or “Louie Louie.”

Disc two presents the five singles the Doors released after Jim died, making this the first collection to acknowledge the Other Voices and Full Circle years, a period other retrospectives pass over in embarrassed silence (cf. the Clash, Cut the Crap). While I doubt the appearance of “Treetrunk” on CD will bring anyone to orgasm, it is interesting to hear “Tightrope Ride,” “Ships w/ Sails” and the rest of the trio’s 45s in the same sequence as “Roadhouse Blues,” “Riders On The Storm” and the other FM evergreens (though not “L.A. Woman,” an album cut).

Thirty-five minutes of post-Jim Doors is a lot of time to reflect. Why should it be the case that some qualities are pleasing in the human voice, and others less so? The songs are pretty good, even—Densmore’s “The Piano Bird” is class all the way—but again and again, there’s that disorienting shift in lyrical perspective. “The year 2000 is the cutoff point,” Ray warns mysteriously on one song. “It wouldn’t matter but it’s time to meditate,” Robby sings on another. Huh?
 

 
Balancing the contraction of the mono material is the expansion of the The Best of the Doors (1973), here on Blu-ray in its original Quadradisc mix. For all the 40th anniversary surround mixes’ fine points, some of their novel presentations lacked the immediacy and clarity of the originals. While the placement of instruments in the quad mix may be crude at times, it deserves credit for enlarging the hits without fucking around with them so much.

The Quadradisc opens with the monstrous “Who Do You Love?” that starts Absolutely Live. At “Somebody scream!” a lone WAUUUUUGH! erupts from the right back channel. Too, Jim’s ghost whispers in your ear during “Riders On The Storm.” Heavy! But the best way to have fun with this Blu-ray is to walk around among the four channels of “Hello, I Love You” as if you were at a freshman mixer. You pay a visit to the fuzz guitar for a minute, and then you go check in on the keys, see how their summer was. Mingle.

More after the jump…

 
Let’s see… things I am and am not a fan of: The UK anarcho-punk band Crass? Yes, I am a fan. NASCAR? No, but my parents seem to like it quite a bit. The fetishization of the Confederate flag? Nope, not a fan. Mashups? Not generally, but...

I guess every now and then there’s a mashup that is so exceedingly clever or well-done that it gets a pass based on those merits.

The CRASSCAR shirt is not one of those.

Still, though… I have to admit, this thing did make me chuckle. Quite a bit, actually. It’s like “who is the audience for this?”

This shirt with the Crass logo done in a confederate flag style with the stencil lettering (based on lyrics from Crass’ “Reality Asylum”) “Earnhardt died for his sins, not mine” is certain to piss off both racing fans AND peacepunks alike.

I guess that’s why I sort of love it. It’s just obnoxiously wrong on every level.

More after the jump…

 
Wiley Wallace‘s meticulous canvases depict a peculiar universe in which fantastical things happen, usually in nature with kids involved. They suggest an unholy mashup of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy and Jeff Nichols’ 2016 movie Midnight Special. (Why Wiley’s work reminds of works by people named “Jeff” is as yet not clear to me.)

Wallace’s art is what you’d get if you tried to create a Spielbergian “kids in peril” classic on mescaline. Interestingly, Wallace says that he uses his own children as models for the characters in his paintings. A press release states that “at times realistic depictions deliquesce into abstract blurs of bright colors, while at others subtle apparitions make their way into otherwise unassuming everyday scenes.” Yeah, they “deliquesce”......

At any rate, I hereby nominate Wallace to be given the contract for the key art of Stranger Things season 3. (Season 2 of Stranger Things starts in just a few weeks, by the way.)
 

 
More of Wallace’s paintings after the jump….....
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds, m’colleague Cherrybomb highlighted the amusing trend in Asia for wearing wildly offensive t-shirts and wondered whether the wearers of such sartorial eloquence knew what their shock tops actually meant?

The answer is: probably not.

These fashion statements are like those unfortunate Chinese tattoos hipsters sport which identify the wearer as being “Ugly,” or “Unclean,” or a “Pimp.” But at least with a t-shirt, the offending words are not so permanent and can be easily replaced with something more suitable.

Certainly, it’s unclear whether all of these fashion faux pas are worn by accident rather than by design. I doubt the children know what they’re broadcasting (“I ♡ Female Orgasm”—but of course you do!), though do think a few of the college students just might (“I may not be Mr. Right but…” etc.). It’s probably just “cool” to wear something written in English. Like when I was a kid, I thought it cool to wear a fashionable dress shirt covered in pictures of Steve McQueen and various quotes from the film Papillon. The text was tiny but on closer examination, discovered it contained a litany of “fucks” and “fuckings” and a paragraph all about masturbation and how it sapped strength. Who knew? I certainly didn’t, nor did my parents—until it was too late. But knowing that this shirt may have caused offense or have people think I was some kind of compulsive masturbator never once stopped me from wearing it. Why would it?

All of these pictures are the work of street photographer Alex Greenberg, who documents every day life, its quirks and fashions, on Shanghai’s busy streets. He shares his pictures via his Shanghai Observed Instagram and Facebook accounts and for amusement purposes alone is well worth following.
 

 

 
More sartorial eloquence, after the jump…
 

 
As quickly as the young Kate Bush had won over the British public, she was even more of an overnight sensation in Japan where she performed “Moving” at the Nippon Budokan arena during the 7th annual international Tokyo Music Festival. The performance was broadcast on Japanese television on June 21, 1978 and was watched by an estimated audience of 35 million people. Bush came in second, awarded the silver prize, to American soul singer Al Green.

You’ll note that her microphone is nestled inside of the flowers that she’s wearing, allowing her free movement during a song called… “Moving” (inexplicably retitled as something that translates as “Angels and Little Demons” when it was released in Japan as a single). The song was from her debut album The Kick Inside and is a tribute to Lindsay Kemp, who taught Bush (and before her David Bowie) mime in the mid-Seventies.
 

Kate Bush performs at the Tokyo Music Festival in June 1978.
 

 
Bush may not have nabbed the top prize at the contest, but an offer did come her way immediately afterwards for a lucrative commercial sponsorship deal for Seiko watches that must’ve taken the sting out of losing.

More after the jump…

Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant back in the day, perhaps recalling some good times at Chat Noir in 1973.
 
I haven’t really thought about Led Zeppelin in a while, so the other day I started poking around looking at photos of the band taken back in the early 70s (don’t judge). It was one hell of a rabbit hole where I came across an infamous shot of Zeppelin taken by photographer Bengt H. Malmqvist in Stockholm in 1973. The photo in question featured the members of Zeppelin watching a couple have sex on top of a table displaying their gold records. The bizarre image was part of a larger series attributed to Malmqvist containing 56 black and white negatives, one set of photos and two contact maps which were up for auction in 2010—though it’s unclear if they ever sold. The photos of Zep taken by Mr. Malmqvist were shot inside Chat Noir—one of Stockholm’s premiere sex clubs, and according to the auction site Bonhams, Malmqvist was the only photographer allowed to shoot the event.

The Chat Noir itself was the epitome of what one might imagine a high-end sex club to be like. The establishment prided itself on being “classy” by offering what they described as a “luxury” sex experience which would routinely feature female stars from Stockholm and other locations around the world, and even some sort of sexy “wizard” which according to folklore about Chat Noir was especially popular with Japanese businessmen. The club, considered at the time to be one of Stockholm’s most glamorous, was also a popular site used by the Swedish sex film industry and several movies were shot on there including Anita: Swedish Nymphet. That film came out the same year Led Zeppelin was welcomed by the club to receive four gold records from Metronome Records in honor of their record sales. True to form, the whole salacious event was orchestrated by the band’s manager, the notorious Peter Grant. 

Below, a few of the images from Zeppelin’s infamous visit to the Chat Noir, plus a full page account of what went down that night that was published in a Swedish magazine in 1973.
 

Robert Plant and a friend at the Chat Noir, 1973. Photo by Bengt H. Malmqvist.
 

Jimmy Page, (allegedly) Pamela Des Barres, and John Bonham hanging out at Chat Noir in 1973. Photo by Bengt H. Malmqvist.
 
More after the jump…

A gorgeously vibrant poster “Space is the Place” by Kilian Eng. The poster was created for a 2015 exhibit called “Alien Encounters” curated by the Nottingham Contemporary Museum.
 
Kilian Eng is a digital artist working under the moniker of DW Design in Stockholm, Sweden. Now 35, the artist has been actively working in the digital illustration industry after graduating with both a bachelor and masters degree in illustration and storytelling. His futuristic and often psychedelic work has been published by magazines and other periodicals around the world such as Heavy Metal, The New York Times, as well as creating movie posters for the Austin, Texas-based Mondo.

Eng’s medium is modern however his many influences are artists who came long before his time such as the masterful Moebius, and American comic book legend, Geof Darrow. Darrow is best known for his work for the gritty comic from Dark Horse, Hard Boiled which was written by the equally legendary Frank Miller (Daredevil, Sin City and a litany of other notable comics too numerous to name here). His work is visually arresting as is his use of color schemes to entice the viewer. Eng’s vast work with Mondo includes his trippy artistic treatments for the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Carpenter, and David Lynch. Given his reputation, some of our readers are probably already familiar with Eng’s work. If you are not then you are truly in for a treat as I’ve posted an excellent, large selection of Eng’s impossibly cool work below for you to scroll through. If you like what you see, you should look into picking up one or all of Eng’s uber-successful trilogy of books, Object 5: Works by Kilian Eng, Object 10: Works by Kilian Eng, and 2016’s Object 15: Works by Kilian Eng. 
 

 

“String Puppets.”
 

 
More after the jump…

Micky Dolenz directing the final episode of ‘The Monkees’
 
After the Monkees, after Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart, after the stage show of Harry Nilsson’s The Point!, Micky Dolenz spent a few years working as a TV director in London. He nearly made a career out of it. Dolenz was behind the camera of the robot sitcom Metal Mickey (namesake of Suede’s second single), the British version of Fernwood 2 Night (LWT’s For 4 Tonight), and the Bill Oddie series From the Top.

Dolenz also directed the TV film of a one-act play by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. The Box was based on Buchanan’s Finest Hour, the second of two short plays that made up Palin and Jones’ Their Finest Hours. A footnote in Palin’s diaries gives these plot summaries:

Underwood’s Finest Hour is set in a labour room with a mother straining to give birth and a doctor straining to listen to a particularly exciting Test Match. Buchanan’s Finest Hour is about a marketing idea gone awry. The cast, including the Pope, are trapped inside a packing crate throughout.

Watch ‘The Box’ after the jump…

Typical girls?

Everyone has something—that ONE THING—from their youth that they wish they had kept and still had today. Mine? The most regrettable thing I’ve ever loved and lost? A nearly lifesize cardboard cutout “standee” advertising the Cut album by the Slits. All three of them, covered in mud and at least 4 1/2 feet tall. In pristine condition, too. Yep, I used to own that. I can psychically feel the envy of several of you reading this. I bought it for eight pounds at the Portobello Market sometime in 1983 and carefully dragged it home via the London underground back to my squat on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. I loved that thing. It was unquestionably my prized possession at the time. Problem was, when I moved to New York in late 1984, there was no practical way to get it across the Atlantic that wouldn’t have been prohibitively expensive to then 19-year-old me without bending it and fucking it up too much. It was too fragile and unwieldy for anything other than fine art shipping, so I ruefully gave it to a friend who was more than happy to eagerly take it off my hands.

I’m bummed out just thinking of it. It sucked then and it still sucks today, some 33 years later. Don’t think I haven’t scoured eBay for years searching for another! Can you imagine how much such a museum-level artifact of punk would go for today? SHIT!
 

 
I bought Cut when it first came out and I saw it filed in the “import” section of the local mall’s Musicland store (the same bin where I’d also discover X-Ray Spex, Henry Cow, Peter Hammill and Tubular Bells). Its punky reggae sound was very, very appealing to me straight off the bat. I’d read about the Slits, in books like Caroline Coon’s 1988 and in the few issues of Melody Maker that made their way to my rust belt hometown, but they were probably the last of the formative punk bands to put a record out. When I did finally hear them, Cut was a bolt from the blue to my teenaged, rock-crazed brain and the Slits more than lived up to the larger-than-life idea that I already I had of them. It sounded exactly like I expected it to, in other words. The Slits were, to my young ears, amongst the most sonically “far out” and experimental of the post-punk groups, in the same category as Public Image Ltd. (who were my #1 favorite band) in terms of the astonishing originality of their music.

For the Slits’ sound was like none other, a perfectly melded hybrid of playfully loopy, almost itchy punk, dub-drenched reggae and Afro-pop with the riotous white-Rastafarian-cum-St. Trinian’s-girl-run-amok front woman in the form of Ari Up (who was all of fourteen when she joined the group). Truly the unruly, inspired, nearly uncategorizable MUSIC of the Slits deserves a better place in the history of modern music than it’s been accorded thus far. Of course, their gender has everything and nothing whatsoever to do with what made the Slits so great.
 

 
One reason for this disconnect between their by now historically well-established reputation as formative feminist icons of British punk and how amazing and special their actual music was, is clearly the fact of the relative unobtainability of Cut‘s arguably better follow-up Return of the Giant Slits. That album was never released in America at all. Additionally, for the better part of 26 years it was only ever available from 2004 on as a pricey Japanese import CD until it was finally reissued in 2008 by Blast First. Sadly, to this day few people know the album, including no doubt many, if not most, of the people who profess to love its more roughly-hewn predecessor.

Return of the Giant Slits represented a huge leap forward for the group who were joined on drums and percussion by Bruce Smith of the Pop Group. Aside from Ari’s almost childishly obnoxious vocalizing, there was precious little in common with their first album. The shambolic, off-kilter feel of Cut was replaced by a lighter, more nimble sound. Viv Albertine’s guitar sound went from being (perfectly) plodding to scratchy, skittish, skipping, full of uniquely oblique angles and wonderfully complemented by Smith’s complex Afrobeat-inspired percussion and Tessa Pollitt’s rubbery bass. Much credit is deserved by the noted British multi-instrumentalist Steve Beresford whose tripped-out, atmospheric sound effects, melodica and trombone contributions—he’s all over the album—elevate the proceedings to another level entirely. Once I was able to get my hands on some “real” (Jamaican) dub, I was disappointed that it seldom lived up to the psychedelic standards set for me by Return of the Giant Slits.

Take a moment, won’t you, and LOUDLY play “Earthbeat,” the incredible lead off track from Return of the Giant Slits:
 

 
Much more Slits after the jump…

 
It’s a fair bet that a large part of many (most?) record collections includes a good percentage of covers by the legendary London-based graphic designers Hipgnosis.

Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell who were the original founders of Hipgnosis turned out a massive array of iconic designs for bands as varied as Pink Floyd (who had been the first band to commission the duo), T.Rex, Hawkwind, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, 10CC, Wings, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Genesis, Jon Anderson, Depeche Mode, XTC, ABC, Megadeth, and even England’s former poet laureate John Betjeman.

Apart from album covers, Hipgnosis also designed a series of fashion spreads for the softcore porn mag Club International and its more hardcore American edition Club.

Club International was founded by porn supremo Paul Raymond, who ran the legendary strip club the Raymond Revuebar in London’s seedy Soho district and a series of best-selling porn mags. Under its first editor Tony Power, Club International was intended as a high-quality adult entertainment magazine mixing the best of writers with the finest photographers and designers.

Hipgnosis was hired to add a classy touch to the magazine’s fashion spreads. The gig allowed Thorgerson and Powell to try-out a few ideas which they would later re-use on album covers—the flasher who would reappear on Pink Floyd’s A Nice Pair, for instance, while the water-in-the-face shots would feature on Peter Frampton’s Something’s Happened. See more Hipgnosis glorious work here.
 

 

 
See more of Hipgnosis’ fashion work for Club International, after the jump…