Tonight as part of their ambitious month-long Nightmare City festival, Cinefamily presents a perfectly paired double bill:

THE SHOUT – 8:00pm

A gonzo gothic fantasy played straight, The Shout showcases Alan Bates as an unspeakably chilling dark stranger who emerges from the dunes of a sleepy English seaside village, to wreak havoc on an avant-garde composer of musique concrète (John Hurt) and his wife (Susannah York). Insinuating himself as an unwanted houseguest, Bates regales his hosts with tales the “terror shout,” his ability to shriek so penetratingly that any creature within earshot will be struck dead. As Hurt cannot resist this sonic novelty, and as York develops an irresistible desire for the lurking sorcerer, the narrative in impossible directions, while also finding time for extended synth montages, inexplicable role reversals, wild symbology, frame stories within flashbacks, and at least one false ending!
Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978, 35mm, 86 min.

JACOB KIRKEGAARD PERFORMS “LABYRINTHITIS” AND “THE VISITOR” (WORLD PREMIERE!) – 10:00pm
There is no better sonic pairing for The Shout than world-renowned Danish soundmaker Jacob Kirkegaard, who tonight brings us two astounding performances focusing on the reactivity of acoustic spaces, and phenomena usually imperceptible to the ear. Past “instruments” have included a geyser, a sand dune and the abandoned rooms of Chernobyl, but tonight, Jacob harnesses sounds from both the Silent Movie Theatre itself, and from our own inner ears! First is the impossibly cool LABYRINTHITIS, in which Jacob collects the frequencies resonating within his own ear canals, then processes and orchestrates them to tweak frequencies within the audience’s own eardrums.

Then, it’s the world premiere of THE VISITOR, commissioned exclusively for Nightmare City. With inspiration from Alvin Lucier’s pioneering “I Am Sitting in a Room”, Jacob will record the seemingly silent auditorium, play it back, record that, play that back, and so on. This looping condenses the aural space until it reverberates in a sonic invocation, making the Silent Movie Theatre (and perhaps the spirits of its “storied” past) speak to the audience in its own resonant tones. THIS IS SOME AMAZING STUFF!

Tomorrow night Cinefamiy presents The Hands of Orlac, the haunting 1924 silent German Expressionist horror classic directed by Robert Wiene (of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari fame) with a live score by prepared piano maestro Hauschka.

And on October 28th, they’ve got a special event planned with composer Claudio Simonetti (the original keyboardist of Goblin) including a dinner, Q&A and a screening of Dario Argento’s Tenebrae struck from one of the world’s few remaining fully-uncut 35mm prints. More information at Cinefamily’s website.

Buy tickets here. Nightmare City is co-presented by The Woodshed Horror Company and Cinespia.
 

 
“A record Romney can’t run away from.”

From the press release:

Best-selling author teams up with Brooklyn’s “Caged Animals” leader to create a Romney mash-up.

“My blood pressure was escalating with every utterance out of Mitt’s two-faced mouth,” says author Larry “Ratso” Sloman, whose bestsellers included books with Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a soon-to-be major motion picture adaptation of his book on Harry Houdini.  “Rather than duke it out on Facebook, I made a slightly inebriated late night call to Vin Cacchione, leader of Caged Animals and a great producer.  Two days later, we had a mashup that reminds everyone just who this character is.  And you can dance to it!”

“If this helps in any way in releasing our women from their binders and letting them shake their booties, then we feel we’ve done our job,” Ratso said.

Visuals compiled and edited by Ryan Littman + Sebastian McClard
 

 
Thank you Michael Simmons!

 
As we draw closer to Halloween, there is no better time to address the horrors of youth.

Boris Karloff narrates this 1964 Movietone featurette, Today’s Teens, on the terrifying world of teenagers and rock ‘n’ roll where no one is safe from the voodoo beat that enchants, seduces and drives kids utterly insane.
 

 
Madness are now as loved as the Queen Mother was once adored by London cab drivers. Understandable as they have been making people happy with their infectious music for over 30 years.

This is Madness live in Nottingham from 1980. Originally recorded for the BBC, it’s a great show, and although the audio isn’t perfect, it’s difficult not to watch without a grin on your face.

Madness Graham ‘Suggs’ McPherson, Mark ‘Bedders’ Bedford, Lee ‘Kix’ Thompson, Carl Smyth (aka Chas Smash), Dan ‘Woody’ Woodgate, Chris Foreman (aka Chrissy Boy), Mike ‘Barso’ Barson

Set list:

01. “Night Boat To Cairo”
02. “E.R.N.I.E”
03. “Mistakes”
04. “Close Escape”
05. “Crying Shame”
06. “Razor Blade Alley”
07. “Baggy Trousers”
08. “My Girl”
09. “Land Of Hope And Glory”
10. “Embarrassment”
11. “On The Pete”
12. “The Prince”
13. “One Step Beyond”
14. “Madness”

Madness will be touring for the release of their 10th studio album Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da (with a cover by Peter Blake), which is out on October 29th, more details here.
 

Faust at The Comet, Seattle, 10/15/2012 by Ian Buck

A friend of mine asked me the other day if I was going to see Faust play and I said “No” and then I saw this apocalyptic footage of Tuesday night’s show at The Comet Tavern in Seattle and I think I might change my mind!

Emily Pothast writes on the translinguistic other blog

“HAVE YOU EVER PARTICIPATED IN A GENOCIDE?” a wide-eyed Jean Hervé-Péron asked a roomful of enraptured onlookers. “YES,” he answered himself, with a near-maniacal grin. “AND SO HAVE YOU.”  As the improvised cacophony swelled around him, abstracted, acid-damaged images of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama arose and melted away like candied phantoms emerging from a zig-zagged field of processed video feedback.

I’m admittedly biased, since I had something to do with coaxing the event into existence in the first place, but I’m fairly certain that I just witnessed history being made.  Faust—yes that Faust, the sublimely absurdist German “krautrock” band—just performed a concert that opened with an improvised soundtrack to a live feed of the US presidential debates, psychedelicized by Hair and Space Museum (the multimedia duo comprised of David Golightly and myself.)

The happening happened at the Comet Tavern, a Seattle dive bar that barely accommodates 150 patrons (a far cry from the music halls that Faust has commanded in Europe for decades). It came together at the last moment as the result of a half-joking fantasy about how to best spend the day off that Faust had to kill between scheduled Seattle and Vancouver shows.  (My band Midday Veil played both shows with Faust. I am infinitely humbled by the opportunity to spend time with these amazing artists.)

If it weren’t for Faust, many people in the room would have probably been at a regular bar watching the debates for real, myself included, but I think this actually may have been the more informative way to experience them. There was a moment during the set, when Jean-Hervé was singing into the cement mixer, the sound of gravel nearly drowning out his voice as a horrific, hot-pink Romney floated ominously overhead, when I thought to myself, “Huh. This may well be the single most inspiring artistic performance I’ll ever witness.”

What the hell was I thinking? Faust play tonight in Los Angeles at REDCAT and tomorrow night at CalArts.
 

 
Thank you Chris Musgrave of Lumerians!

 
The wonderful WFMU alerted me to Giorgio Moroder uploading some amazing mixes and rarities to Soundcloud. My Friday just got a whole lot funkier...
 

“He’s a friend – to the friendless
He’s a father – to the fatherless
He’s your joy – he’s your sorrow
He’s your hope – for tomorrow”
(“He’s Able”)

This week I’ve been busy putting various menial finishing touches to an exciting forthcoming Headpress release on music and the occult by Mark Goodall, Gathering of the Tribe: Music and Heavy Conscious Creation. The collection includes essays on various “occulted” artists ranging from Captain Beefheart to John Coltrane, the Beatles to the Wu Tang Clan, and features contributions from Mick Farren, David Kerekes and myself, among others.

For the last day or two, I’ve been mostly embroiled in the book’s final chapter “Mindfuckers: Cult Groups, Outsider Artists and Their Sounds,” and so by osmosis have ended up predominantly listening to music made by psychopathic demagogues and their unfortunate minions. Most distinctive of these, perhaps, is the saccharine, sunny, seventies pop gospel of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple Choir, almost all of whom would be wiped out in the Jonestown massacre about five years later, resulting in the re-release of their 1973 He’s Able album with a far darker cover (see above) than the one in which it first appeared. The playlist below treats you to the entire life-affirming record – which was once described as, “coming out of your stereo speakers like a sunbeam through a stained glass window.” 

Hands up who’s in the mood for a refreshing glass of Kool-Aid?  
 

 
A young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards relax playing “I’ve Just Seen A Face” and “Eight Days a Week,” as an unamused Charlie Watts looks on. From the upcoming expanded version of Charlie is my Darling, Peter Whitehead’s seldom-seen film documenting the Stones’ 1965 trek across Ireland:

ABKCO Films presents a meticulously restored and fully-realized version of this first-ever, legendary, but never released film. Shot during a quick tour of Ireland just weeks after (I Can t Get No) Satisfaction hit # 1 on the charts, The Rolling Stones Charlie is my Darling - Ireland 1965 is an intimate, behind-the-scenes diary of life on the road with the young Stones. It features the first professionally filmed concert performances of the band and documents the early frenzy of their fans and the riots the band s appearances inspired. The band is shown traveling through the Irish countryside by train; dashing from cabs to cramped, basement dressing rooms through screaming hordes of fans. Motel rooms host impromptu songwriting sessions and familiar classics are heard in their infancy as riff and lyric are united. Charlie is my Darling is the invaluable frame that captures the spark about to combust into The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World.

 
Thank you, you know who you are!

 
Here’s a rejection note for an Arthur Russell demo tape from a Warner Brothers Records junior A&R guy named David Berson. Berson must have been perplexed by Russell’s demo because he wrote: “Who knows what this guy is up to – you figure it out.”

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Arthur Russell died 20 years ago today

Via Post Punk Tumblr

 
B-52s’ frontman Fred Schneider has teamed up with Ursula 1000 for a new (and super catchy!) Halloween-themed novelty number and video called “Vampire Vamp.”

From the press release:

Ursula 1000 is the alter ego of Brooklyn, New York based producer/DJ/multi-instrumentalist Alex Gimeno. His five albums and mix sessions have taken on a broad scope of retro tinged spy grooves, bumping Latin disco funk, hints of post-punk, electro, trashy garage rock, sleazy glam…not just a road trip of pastiche but more like altering the past for a better tomorrow.

Fred Schneider is of course the inimitable voice of the classic American new wave band The B-52s. The Superions is Fred’s comedy synthpop side project alongside Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall. It’s on their “Totally Nude Island” single where Fred and Ursula 1000 joined forces (Ursula did a remix of it). After that they continued to collaborate.

After working on the song “Hey You!” from Ursula 1000’s Mondo Beyondo album, Fred thought “Hey, let’s do a Halloween album!”. Well, after some mad lab experiments and a couple of bottles of wine, “Vampire Vamp” appeared! This is the first song from an upcoming Halloween themed long player.

Isn’t it about time that someone resurrected the novelty song from the grave? Are you ready ghouls? Start stalkin’!

Purchase “Vampire Vamp” on Amazon.
 

 
“Vampire Vamp” video directed by Tom Yaz. Thank you Syd Garron!