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‘Genius is pain!’: National Lampoon’s ‘Magical Misery Tour’ is the best John Lennon parody, ever
03.05.2021
07:07 pm
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National Lampoon editor Tony Hendra—probably best-known as Ian Faith, the irritable, incompetent manager of Spinal Tap—died yesterday. He’d been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2019 and was 79. Hendra was an author, one of the creators of Spitting Image and he even opened for Lenny Bruce at the Cafe Au Go Go.

He also did the fucking funniest John Lennon parody of all time.

Technically “Magical Misery Tour (Bootleg Record)” isn’t a parody so much as it’s a pointedly vicious satire. Hendra used direct quotes from John Lennon’s infamous 1970 Rolling Stone magazine interview with Jann Wenner (later published in book form as Lennon Remembers) for this hysterical bit.

At the time of Lennon’s Rolling Stone sitting he was undergoing Primal Scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov and he really let it rip, shitting on his own fans, Mick Jagger, Paul and Linda McCartney and several others. All Hendra and Michael O’Donoghue did was handpick the best parts and arrange them into lyrics. Still as funny today as when it was released on the classic National Lampoon Radio Dinner LP in 1972.

Hendra does an absolutely boffo Lennon impersonation here, razzing the former Beatle’s very public bitching and moaning. The music’s by Christopher Cerf, it was arranged by Christopher Guest and that’s Melissa Manchester making a cameo appearance as Yoko Ono at the very end.

In his 1987 memoir Going Too Far, Hendra tells the tale of an FM radio disc jockey playing “Magical Misery Tour” for a visiting John and Yoko. Allegedly the color drained from Lennon’s face and he just got up and left.
 

 
RIP Tony Hendra (1941-2021).
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.05.2021
07:07 pm
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The Universe is laughing behind your back
03.04.2021
07:14 am
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Although its, uh, cultural cachet, I suppose, has fallen in recent decades, a doofy poem called “The Desiderata of Happiness” used to be something that you’d see on the walls of doctors’ and dentists’ offices, at your grandmother’s, a great aunt’s house, or maybe in the very home that you yourself grew up in, during the 1960s and 70s. (At one point the hippies even adopted it.)

You don’t see it so often today, but it’s still around. Now that you’ve had your attention called to it, the next time you see it (normally as a varnished wooden wall plaque in a junk shop) you’ll remember this post (and wince).

Here’s an example of the proto-New Age almost meaningless wisdom you will find in “The Desiderata of Happiness”:

You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

“The Desiderata of Happiness” was written in 1906 by a lawyer named Max Ehrmann, but it was unknown during his lifetime. Its slow burn to popularity began in the 1950s when a Baltimore pastor printed it up in some church materials. The poem’s advice to be humble, live a clean and moral life and to even have respect for dipshits (it doesn’t use that exact term, of course) seems simplistic even by Forrest Gump standards, but for whatever reason this thing struck a chord with the public. (You can read more about its history at Wikipedia).
 
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In 1971, a “groovy” American radio talkshow host by the name of Les Crane (once married to Gilligan’s Island‘s Tina Louise and considered by some to be the original “shock jock”) narrated a spoken word/musical version of the poem (avec gospel choir), that reached #8 in the Billboard charts and won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Performance of the Year. It was on the British pop charts for 14 months.

 


 

The following year, a parody version titled “Deteriorata” was created by the National Lampoon’s Michael O’Donoghue, Tony Hendra and Christopher Guest (The words were Hendra’s, the music is Guest’s) released as a single and on the classic Radio Dinner album. Melissa Manchester sings on the record. The humorously ponderous reading was handled by Norman Rose, who was THE voice over announcer of the era. You’ve also heard his voice in Woody Allen’s Love & Death and The Telephone Book.

There are a few then current references in the song that might need some context for listeners almost fifty years later: The line about your dog’s diet refers to a TV dog food ad which wondered, “Is your dog getting enough cheese in his diet?” The “Remember the Pueblo” bit refers to a rightwing bumper sticker rallying cry about the capture in 1968 of the USS Pueblo by North Korea. “Do not bend, fold, spindle or mutilate” was a phrase employed on government checks. And again, bear in mind that narrator Norman Rose would be the equivalent to say, Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones reading it today.

Years later, Les Crane was asked about “Desiderata” and said “I can’t listen to it now without gagging,” adding that he preferred the Lampoon’s piss-take. Eventually the parody became better known than the original hit record due to frequent spins on the Dr. Demento radio show. Below is the original version, Les Crane version:
 

 
“Deteriorata,” the National Lampoon parody:
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.04.2021
07:14 am
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‘I’d like to put all oppressors in an oppressed position’: An interview with Phil Lynott, age 19
02.08.2021
06:13 pm
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A nineteen-year-old Phil Lynott photographed for Irish magazine Women’s Way in 1969.
 
In 1969, Thin Lizzy vocalist Phil Lynott was already singing with his fourth band, Orphanage, following his dismissal from the band Skid Row (featuring guitarist Gary Moore). Lynott was pretty laser-focused on making rock and roll his primary profession from a very young age after forming his first group, Black Eagles—a cover band, and his second, Kama Sutra, when he was fifteen. In 1969, during his short time with Orphanage, from which Thin Lizzy would soon spring, he was interviewed by one of the most popular women’s magazines in Ireland at the time, Women’s Way, for a column called “Beat Up” by journalist Heather Parsons. During his youth, Lynott had gone through more than his fair share of difficulties. His father was absent, and the young Lynott was subjected to relentless racially-motivated verbal attacks because of his mixed heritage. The racism was so bad in Manchester that Lynott’s mother Sarah sent him off to live with his grandparents in Dublin. All of these experiences, as well as others, made a deep impression on Phil, which he articulated in the interview in a rather profound way. Here are a few of the insights he shared with Women’s Way when he was just nineteen and about to become the biggest rock star in Ireland, and later known worldwide as the charismatic, cock-sure vocalist for Thin Lizzy. Let’s start with my favorite moment from the interview, when Phil was asked what he disliked the most:

“I’ll tell you what I dislike the most of all—those superior types who look down on any girl who hasn’t got the same views. What right does anyone have to be so critical? We’ve all got our own lives to lead and different ideas on how to do this. The place money has in people’s lives annoys me too. Okay, I know it’s essential, but at the moment it’s all-important to too many people. Another thing is social injustice. No. I’m not going to say anything about racial discrimination because people just say, ‘Oh, another coloured fella with a chip on his shoulder. Take all the things Bob Dylan writes about though—housing problems, people starving and dying, wars. I sometimes get very frustrated because I feel so strongly about these things and can’t do anything about them. I’d like to put all the oppressors into the oppressed position.”

If you just high-fived your laptop screen, congratulations. You, my friend, are on the right side of history along with Phil Lynott. Here’s a little more from Phil on the desire to have a child and be a good father, unlike his own father:

“Do you know what else I’d like to do? Adopt a kid. Now, why can’t single people do that? I’d like a kid, and I’d be good to him and look after him and give him a good life—better than he’d have in an orphanage. No pun intended!”

Of course, since this is a nineteen-year-old burgeoning rock star we’re talking about here, Lynott does give some insight into the stuff you’d expect a nineteen-year-old dude to be interested in. Such as girls with strawberry blonde hair, cars (especially if they are “kinky”), and not being the marrying type because he’s too much of a “flirt.” (He would marry Caroline Crowther eleven years later on Valentine’s Day.) You can read the entire interview here.
 

Phil Lynott giving a spoken-word performance of the song “Shades of a Blue Orphanage.” Lynott wrote the song as a tribute to his grandmother Sarah who raised him with her husband, Phil’s grandfather, Frank. It is taken from the television special ‘Me & My Music’ recorded in 1976 (but broadcast in 1977).
 
HT: Brand New Retro

Posted by Cherrybomb
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02.08.2021
06:13 pm
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DEVO’s Booji Boy, David Bowie, Hunter S. Thompson, Lemmy & Wendy O. Williams as marionettes
01.25.2021
09:09 am
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Lemmy and his trusty Rickenbacker bass and his pal Wendy O. Williams with her chainsaw. These marionettes were made by Canadian artist, Darren Moreash of Darrionettes.
 
If there is one thing I have learned as a contributor to Dangerous Minds for the last seven years is this—you can always count on the members of this collective to bring things to your attention that you perhaps did not know existed. I’ve done this many times myself here, including when I wrote about the fact an anatomically correct GG Allin marionette exists, poop stains, and all dubbing him the “Masturbator of Puppets.” I still get a kick out of that wordplay because I am, as far as you know, a fifteen-year-old boy. Also, my DM colleague, the always intriguing Paul Gallagher posted about these gorgeous marionettes fashioned after rock and roll royalty last summer, and boy, did you all dig that (as you should).

Anyway, as people do, I recently spent too much time scrolling through my social media feeds and looking at old photos of Alice Cooper from the early 70s and BOOM. Suddenly there was a photo of Alice holding an Alice Cooper puppet by its little paddle control that pulls its strings, and the search to find out more began.

This brings us to Canadian artist (and stand-up metal fan, I might add) Darren Moreash—the self-dubbed “Geppeto” of Harrietsfield, Nova Scotia. And Moreash’s efforts have brought him good fortune. Apparently, when he was still dating his soon-to-be wife, he gifted her with an Alice Cooper marionette. In 2012, Cheap Trick used puppets Moreash made in their images for their video “I Want You For Christmas.” Of the countless marionettes Moreash has produced during his lifetime, he has been able to gift them to many of his childhood heroes like Lemmy Kilmister and Stan Lee.

Now, I have to say that my kid went through a phase when he was a little kiddo, during which he became quite enamored with marionettes. And I gotta say, they were a lot of fun to play with once you got the hang of making them move the way you wanted. If I had known about Moreash during that time period, I would absolutely be the proud owner of a David Bowie marionette that I would lie to people about, telling them it’s really for my kid. In the past, Moreash’s marionettes have been auctioned off for charity fetching as much as $500. Anyway, as it’s the photos you came here for so, I’ll stop jawing so you can keep scrolling and see some of Moreash’s marionettes. If you are curious, yes, it does appear that you can get in touch with Moreash and have one of his wooden creations for your very own, such as his latest, a marionette in honor of the Bernie Sanders mitten meme. More info on that, here.
 

Feel the BERN!
 

Booji Boy!
 

Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO wearing his red energy dome.
 

Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman.
 

 

Peter Gabriel.
 
Many more of Moreash’s marionettes after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Cherrybomb
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01.25.2021
09:09 am
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Black Xmas poster sale: Half off classic cult movie posters (for the weirdo on your shopping list)
12.08.2020
07:02 pm
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Baba Yaga’ (Italy/France, 1973) 
 
Every year around this time, Westgate Gallery‘s poster concierge extraordinaire Christian McLaughlin drastically cuts prices for his annual Black Xmas 50% Off Sale.

Anyway, my pal McLaughlin, a novelist and TV/movie writer and producer based in Los Angeles, is the maven of mavens when it comes to this sort of thing. You couldn’t even begin to stock a store like his if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for in the first place, and if you want a quick (not to mention rather visceral) idea of his level of deep expertise—and what a great eye he’s got—then take a gander at his world-beating selection of Italian giallo posters. Christian is what I call a “sophisticate.”

He’s got a carefully curated cult poster collection on offer that is second to none. His home is a shrine to lurid giallo, 70s XXX and any and every midnight movie classic you can shake a stick at. But why would you want to shake a stick at a bunch of movie posters to begin with? That would be pointless. And stupid.

The Westgate Gallery’s Black Christmas 50% off sale sees every item in stock at—you guessed it—50% off the (already reasonable) normal price. All you have to do is enter the discount code “BlackXmas2020” at checkout and your tab will be magically cut in half.

The selection below is only a very tiny sliver of what’s for sale at Westgategallery.com.
 

Cinderella 2000’ (USA, 1977)
 

Dead Alive’ (New Zealand, 1992)
 

Exhausted’ (USA, 1981)
 

Femmes de Sade’ (USA, 1976)
 

Man Who Fell To Earth’ (USA/UK, 1976)
 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.08.2020
07:02 pm
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‘Test Driving The New Prius,’ a radio play by Jim Fry And Luke Haines
12.07.2020
05:12 pm
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I’ve posted here before about Luke Haines’ excellent Righteous in the Afternoon show broadcast every Tuesday on Boogaloo Radio. It’s a fun time for rock snobs and I highly recommend it. Anyway, tomorrow he’s got something special planned, not the usual record spinning he does, but an original radio play.

From the press release:

“A man can only see clearly when he has been blind drunk for 30 years.” – Lord Reith.

This is not the story of a man at the top of his game. This is the story of a man at the end of his game. Let’s call him Endgame Man. Endgame Man is aged somewhere in his 50s. Success has dabbled with him and has long been dabbling elsewhere. The last chance saloon closed on Sunday night and it’s now a nothing Tuesday afternoon. The action begins on a bench in a scrubby enclosure in front of an estate in North London. Endgame Man’s’ daily trip to the Costcutter makes Captain Willards journey down the Nung River look like a gentle punt down The Cam.

‘Test Driving The New Prius’ is a 35 minute radio play (with sound effects) written and performed by Jim Fry (Earl Brutus, Pre New) and Luke Haines. (The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof ) Just as that other modernist masterpiece Ulysses depicted a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, Test Driving The New Prius follows the life in a daze of Endgame Man. In this tale of derring-do our hero acts out a perilous adventure in the 400 yards between his home, his local pub and the off-licence. With nervous system reduced to a series of involuntary twitches and reality reduced to a background hum of decades of half absorbed mindless daytime TV wittering. Can Endgame Man get home and make it through to Wednesday with only his spirit familiars – an endless trail of 75cl bottles of Glen’s vodka to guide him? Tune in to Boogaloo Radio at 2pm (9am EST) on the 8th December to find out.

Cast:

Jim Fry
Luke Haines
Scott King

With cameos from* Jayne MacDonald, Brian Eno, Martin Degville and the cast of Blankety Blank (1980).

*Sort of.

Broadcast on Boogaloo Radio at 2pm and 3pm (9am and 10am EST) on December 8th, then afterwards available to buy on cassette tape via Industrial Coast.

“Smash the System” from 2016

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.07.2020
05:12 pm
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Roy Smeck: The Eddie Van Halen of Ukulele players
10.20.2020
06:14 pm
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The great Roy Smeck surrounded by his instruments.
 
One of the many rumors passed around the Internet (imagine that!) concerns musician and ukulele player Roy Smeck, known as “The Wizard of the Strings.” It turns out that a lot of people seemed convinced that Smeck was actually Eddie Van Halen’s father and an innovator of “two-hand-tapping,” a method of playing a stringed instrument by tapping the strings with an object or your fingers. The technique has been traced back to the late 1700s, but as far as the popularization of two-hand-tapping, that honor belongs to Roy Smeck – a visionary ukulele player who rose to fame as one of vaudeville’s premier attractions. Smeck’s popularity was such that he was invited to play at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration celebration in 1933. Getting back to the popular notion Smeck was EVH’s dad…after the devastating loss of Eddie earlier this month, keyboard warriors started sharing videos of Smeck tapping away on his uke with lightning speed, with the caption “this is Eddie Van Halen’s father.” I suppose it was an easy mistake to make, given the skill level Smeck possessed, and its eerie similarity to one of Eddie’s calling cards, his blink-and-you-missed-it guitar tapping wizardry.

Ed’s real father, Jan Van Halen, was, of course, a great musician in his own right and mentor to both Eddie and Alex Van Halen. He was also born twenty years after Smeck in 1920. To my knowledge, Eddie has never credited Smeck as a source of inspiration for his style. Though he has given the nod to another musician known for his finger-tapping innovations, Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. In a 2012 interview with Ultimate Guitar, Hackett credited himself as being the “inventor of tapping on record,” which isn’t really true as guitarist Jimmie Webster was known for his tapping (or the sexy-sounding “touching”) technique, which you can hear on at least one recording, Webster’s Unabridged, from 1959.

But let’s get back to the talented Mr. Smeck, whose first 78 rpm recording came out in 1928, shall we?

Roy Smeck was born in 1900 in Pennsylvania. Starting at a young age, the future virtuoso would teach himself to play the guitar, steel guitar, banjo, octo-chorda (or “octachorda,” an eight-string steel guitar), jaw harp, harmonica, and his weapon of choice, the ukulele. While still in his early 20s, Smeck would become one of vaudeville’s most successful stars without uttering a single word during his energetic performances. Smeck preferred to dance for his fans while he frantically tapped on his uke. He’d also play it upside down with the same alarming speed and precision. His early exposure in vaudeville would lead to a myriad of incredible opportunities. His music would be featured along with the 1926 film Don Juan—the very first film to use Vitaphone sound-on-disc, which allowed both music and other sounds to be played in sync with the moving picture. His Pastimes, a short preceding Don Juan, featured an electrifying uke performance by Smeck would send his star soaring. The following year, he was approached by Jay Krause, the president of the largest string instrument manufacturer in the U.S. (at the time), the Harmony Company of Chicago. In a 1984 interview with an 84-year-old Smeck, he recalled Krause’s proposal that Smeck “produce” a Hawaiian guitar, uke, banjo, and guitar exclusively for Harmony. Smeck’s bosses at Warner objected to the use of the word Vitaphone for the line. Smeck and Kraus changed directions slightly by naming the various instruments as “The Roy Smeck Vita-Uke,” The Roy Smeck Vita-Guitar,” etc.
 

 
None of the instruments in Smeck’s Vita line of instruments were crafted by the musician, though they contained some of the master uke player’s preferred modifications, such as the graceful sound holes at the base of the Vita-Uke neck. Though it’s important to note, the shape of the holes, which Krause would describe as “seal-shaped,” also were not designed by Smeck. In fact, it’s unclear whose idea it was. What is known is that when Harmony presented Smeck with the array of instruments they were creating for his namesake gear, he would choose the one he felt had the best “action.” Amen to that, Mr. Smeck. Harmony’s Smeck line was so successful, it gave birth to a sister line—Supertone—for Sears and Roebuck. During this time, Smeck was traveling around the country promoting the Vita line performing live at record shops, theaters as well as showing up to local uke contests where he would razzle-dazzle onlookers with his remarkable dexterity. During his long career, Smeck would release 500 recordings, a huge collection of instructional manuals, song books and more. In 1976, the sadly now defunct record label Yazoo released a vinyl retrospective of Smeck’s work, Roy Smeck-Plays Hawaiian Guitar, Banjo, Ukulele, And Guitar 1926-1949 with cover artwork by Robert Crumb. There is also a wonderful Academy Award-nominated documentary short on Roy Smeck, Wizard of the Strings (1985), that is well worth your time if this is the kind of history you like learning about. At the very least, you can now politely shut down the next person who tries to pass Smeck off as Eddie Van Halen’s dad. Lastly, but certainly not least, the legendary Leonard Cohen was a huge fan of Roy Smeck and met the Wizard of the Strings when he was just ten and an aspiring, enthusiastic ukulele-player himself.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.20.2020
06:14 pm
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‘CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine’ The Movie
08.05.2020
11:49 am
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If you are a big “rock” fan of a certain age—and American—you almost certainly grew up reading CREEM magazine. I sure did. I loved CREEM. The magazine was one of the first indications to my young mind that there was a much bigger, much badder and much cooler world outside of my dingy hometown. I read every issue until I memorized the articles. It informed my foundational musical tastes more than any other influence, and by some margin. Even the way I write.

The very first time I bought CREEM was the March 1975 Lou Reed cover. I spotted it in a downmarket hillbilly grocery store in Wheeling, WV. It looked weird and interesting. Certainly it stood out on the newstand of the era. I was a nine-year-old kid who’d only recently moved on from Planet of the Apes and James Bond movies after hearing “Space Oddity” on AM radio late one night and having my mind completely blown. I knew there was some connection between David Bowie and Lou Reed, but that was about it. What made me decide to spend my weekly $1 allowance on the magazine was the title the author, Lester Bangs, had given that cover story: “Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves (or how I slugged it out with Lou Reed and stayed awake).” I found this very intriguing and mysterious. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. What’s a death dwarf? And why was Lou Reed a famous one?

That legendary encounter between Reed and Bangs is today something studied at universities, an iconic bit of rock lore and a classic piece of gonzo journalism. It had a tremendous hold on my not-so-innocent young imagination. It might have been the first thing I’d ever read that made drugs seem really cool. It also made me want to talk—and write—just like Lester Bangs. As a literary stylist I put him on the same level as Kurt Vonnegut, that’s how much I liked what he did. Plus Bangs had tremendous taste in music. If he championed a group or performer, I had to hear it, even if that meant—in the case of the Velvet Underground or the Stooges—doing yard work for my parents and neighbors until I could save up enough money to buy German imports via Moby Disc, an LA-based record store that advertised their mail-order business in CREEM. (My mother had to get money orders from the post office for me to do this. It would take four to six weeks to get the album, but if you were in a rural area, this was your only option back then. If anything it goes to show the lengths someone would go to purchase as-yet-unheard music that Bangs had rhapsodized about. His prose was so good and evocative that I just knew—I was sure of it—that if he was enthusiastic about something, I was no doubt going to love it, too. Lester never let me down, not ever, not once.)

I discovered so many things via CREEM: Obviously Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Hawkwind, Kraftwerk, Patti Smith, MC5, the New York Dolls, Ramones, Sex Pistols, the Clash. Yeah, CREEM really warped me, but in a good way. Had I not found it when I did, who knows, I might have gone on to become a respectable adult. 

It should come as no surprise then, reader, that I heartily enjoyed the new documentary, CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine.  The briskly-paced, well art-directed film was produced by JJ Kramer—son of CREEM publisher Barry Kramer—and directed by Scott Crawford, who made 2014’s Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington DC, 1980-90. It’s a real family affair—they had access to everything—but not in a way that pulls any punches about some of the complex personalities involved. You get the viewpoint of many of the insiders who were actually there (including Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus and co-producer Jaan Uhelszki) and several notables who weren’t, but who were greatly influenced by the gang of misfits who produced the magazine (Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tells the charming tale of realizing that CREEM had moved their offices to his Michigan hometown and riding his bike over there only to see Alice-fucking-Cooper on his way out the front door!) 

This is a really great time capsule pop culture piece and a film that needed to be made just for history’s sake, but it’s not merely a nostalgia stroll for old men. A young person watching this doc, especially in the context of what’s happening globally, sees the birth of a scene and how it was the sheer force of Barry Kramer’s personality that initially birthed it, but also how CREEM became this strange attractor of such bright-burning talent. If you read between lines (of speed, coke or “green”—some of you will hear that dog whistle) the takeaway, dear young people of 2020 is that if you want your own scene, you gotta start it yourself.

Recommended.

CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine is released Friday, August 7, on digital and in theaters. 
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.05.2020
11:49 am
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EXP-TV: Freaktastic new video channel will rip your face off and eat your brain
06.29.2020
02:36 pm
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There are certain things you don’t know you’re missing in life until you’re exposed to them, right? EXP TV just might be one of those things. It’s got an aesthetic that hovers around the same territory as Everything is Terrible! and Vic Berger, it even reminds me of Mike Kelley’s stuff, but that’s only going to get you in the ballpark. Which is good enough, but you just have to click on the link and see for yourself. It’s a barrage of strange imagery and is really quite an inspired—not to say elaborate and work intensive—art project. And just in time for a pandemic. Bored with Netflix? Have enough Amazon Prime? Maxed out on HBO Max? You need to tune in, turn on and drop your jaw to the floor at what’s screening on EXP TV.

EXP TV the brainchild of Tom Fitzgerald, Marcus Herring, Taylor C. Rowley.  I asked them a few questions via email.
 
What is EXP TV? What should someone expect to see when they get there?

EXP TV is a live TV channel broadcasting an endless stream of obscure media and video ephemera from our site at exptv.org.  We stream 24/7.

The daytime programming is called “Video Breaks”—a video collage series featuring wild, rare, unpredictable, and ever-changing archival clips touching on every subject imaginable. Similar to how golden era MTV played music videos all day, daytime EXP TV streams non-stop, deep cut video clips filtered through our own distinct POV.

What treasures would reward the loyal Video Breaks viewer?  Ventriloquist dummy sales demos, Filipino Pinocchios, LSD trip-induced talking hot dogs, Liberace’s recipe tips, French synth punk, primal scream therapy seminars, Deadhead parking lots, empty parking lots, Israeli sci-fi, scary animatronics, teenage girls’ homemade art films, Belgian hard techno dance instructions, Czech children’s films about UFOs, even Danzig reading from his book collection. And that’s all in just one hour!

We’ve been collecting obscure media for decades, but we’ve sorted through it all and cherry-picked the funny, the bizarre, the relevant, the irrelevant, the visually stunning, the interesting, the infamous, the good, the bad and the fugly.  We’ve done all that so the viewers don’t have to.  They get to kick back and experience the sweet spot without having to dig for rare stuff themselves or sit through an entire movie waiting for the cool part.

Our Nite Owl programming block features specialty themed video mixes and deep dives on everything under the sun: Bigfoot, underground 80s culture, Italo disco, cults, Halloween hijinks, pre-revolutionary Iranian pop culture, midnight movies, ‘ye ye’ promo films, Soviet sci-fi, reggae rarities, psychedelic animation and local news calamities. On any given night you could watch something like our Incredibly Strange Metal show followed by a conceptual video essay like Pixel Power—our exploration of early CGI art.

Aside from our unique tone and deep crate of video materials, one thing that really sets us apart in 2020 is our format.  We are *not* on demand, we are *not* interactive—just like old TV!  You can tune in anytime and something cool will be on. 

That’s EXP TV in a nutshell.  It’s funny, it’s art, it’s music, it’s infotainment, it’s free and it’s 24/7.

It’s 24/7?

Yes.

What does EXP stand for?

EXP stands for…experimental, expanded, experiential, expert, exploration, expressive, expounded, exposed, explained, expeditionary, unexpected, exponents, expatriot, expedited, expectorant, exposure, expelled, expendable, expensive, express, exploded, expired…EXP TV!

We have a little bumper on our Instagram @exp.tv that illustrates this

How much material did you have in the can, ready to go at launch?

We had been quietly working on the channel for over a year so we had quite a bit of material.  When the pandemic hit, we decided to launch early as a beta so people could have an alternative to the big streaming channels - something totally different.

In this modern world of all these different streaming platforms, it feels like you spend more time deciding what to watch than you do actually watching something.  We wanted to make something you could just turn on and leave on for hours—days even—and you’d be guaranteed to catch something interesting.  We basically just made the channel we wanted to watch.

Right now, we have about 60 hours in rotation and we are regularly adding new material—new Video Breaks, new episodes of our ongoing series, and hatching entirely new concepts for shows. Stay tuned for Kung Fu Wizards coming soon!

More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.29.2020
02:36 pm
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Keeping the Monster in Check: An Exclusive Interview with Butcher Billy
06.24.2020
09:15 am
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Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) once said that “Heroes are made by the path they choose, not the powers they are graced with.” Artist Butcher Billy chose a path which eventually allowed him to use his superpowers to their greatest potential. Like all superheroes, Butcher Billy balanced a dual life of graphic designer by day, and iconographic pop artist by night.

Born in Brazil, Butcher Billy (aka Billy Mariano da Luz) started drawing pictures from the day he first picked up a crayon and waxed blank paper with art. He grew up in a world of unnerving political turmoil which he filtered through comic books, TV cartoons, and eighties pop music. He grew up and studied and became a graphic designer. But somehow creating art for others was not enough. In the quiet of the night, he started drawing pictures that revealed his true identity. Pictures of pop icons as comic book superheroes, movie stars as subversive heroes. Butcher Billy was born.

He started sharing his work online. His pictures were soon picked by sites like the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and of course, Dangerous Minds.

As a longtime admirer of Butcher Billy‘s artworks, I dropped him a line and he very kindly replied. Now in an exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds, Butcher Billy discusses his background, his artwork, his inspiration, and his favorite artist.

Okay, let’s start with the easy ones: Can you tell me something about yourself? Where were you born? How did you get into art? When did you start drawing?

Butcher Billy: I was born in south Brazil in 1978. My childhood scenario was the last few years of a decades-long military dictatorship. Although the difference between that and a full democracy was hardly noticed by a six-year-old introvert kid, I do remember watching everything live on TV—the news reported rights movements, protests on the streets, military police everywhere. That ended up mixed with all the goodies the 1980s had to offer: pop music, blockbusters, Saturday morning cartoons, comics, fantasy books, video games etc.

So as much as I couldn’t understand, there was a sense that the world was going through uncertain, turbulent times—while also I was getting exposed to all these exciting new discoveries as a child. That dual feeling is something that I carried through life. It even reflects on my body of work now, in which you can often see two (or more) different concepts clashing.

I believe I started drawing as soon as I was able to hold a crayon with my own hands. I have always felt the need to express myself through art.

What happened next? What inspired you? How and why did you start creating your own artworks?

BB: My teenage years in the 90s were absolutely immersed in pop culture, while I observed the world going through all the changes in politics, religion, society, technology etc. So of course pop art caught my attention early on, for the use of popular everyday symbols, and comments on any of the aspects of society and human behaviour through irony and parody.

However, when the time came to go to college, graphic design ended up being my choice—the concept of becoming a full on artist as a way of earning a living was too subjective to me at the time (that clash of feelings again).

After college I worked for years as a graphic designer in ad agencies, becoming increasingly frustrated. That’s when I decided, just for fun, to start playing on my sleep hours with all of those early creative influences in cinema, music, comics, games, art, politics, religion, history etc. By releasing personal art projects online, I began to spread my name and ideas out there, until I felt secure enough to let go of everything and finally become an indie artist.

I wasn’t even thinking about working for brands. What I wanted was to create a body of personal work by developing my own ideas, without interference. And through that decision I indeed found that freedom, in which now I’m actually able to choose if I want to work for a brand or not, when I want, and only if it’s the right fit for me.
 
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When/why did you take the name Butcher Billy?

BB: I still had an agency job as a creative director back in 2012 when I had my very first pop art series ready to be released. As I said before, I decided to do it as a way to just have some fun and relieve work frustration. I had a bit of a local rep in advertising, and as much as I didn’t have any ambitions on a side project, I thought it was important to create a persona to separate that from the corporate work I was doing, which was very different in concept.

So that’s how I came up with Butcher Billy—at first I thought it would be a great way to stay anonymous, and kinda worked initially. However, soon after when the artworks began to go viral, the fact I was using a pseudonym actually helped to make people even more curious about who that guy was. “Nobody cared about who I was until I put on a mask” (saying that with a ridiculous Bane voice)
 
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What has the response been to your work?

BB: I try to achieve that state of collective mind where art communicates ideas all over the world, often without words, for people of distinct languages and cultures who understand the same message. In that aspect it’s always great to see how far an art piece can go when I release it on the internet—considering how different the concept of popular culture can be in some places.

Also spreading your own ideas and style means that people will approach and hire you because they want you to do your own thing for them. In that sense I’ve been invited to collaborate with brands from Japan, Scotland, EUA, England, France, Germany, Netherlands etc. Projects can be as different as TV series props, beverage packaging, movie posters, vinyl sleeves, book covers… I was even asked to design a pizza box for a record label, as merchandising.

Versatility is exactly what I aim for as a pop artist—I don’t want to be known as a t-shirt designer or whatever. I want to make art, and art that can be applied to anything.

It’s funny that my work seems to be a lot more recognized overseas. I’ve never been invited to exhibit in my own country. However, I had pieces showcased in cities all over the world like London, Dubai, Lisbon, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Birmingham, Chicago, Miami etc. Also I’ve had 2 art books released in France. Pretty sure that after I die they’ll hold an exhibition in Brazil—that’s how it works around here.

Who is your favourite artist?

BB: Hard to say! I admire so many people for different reasons—painters, designers, producers, musicians, directors, photographers, actors, activists, composers etc. But if I have to say just one, it would certainly be David Bowie. The man embodied everything, to the point of actually becoming art through his personas. He paid the price, and managed to remain down to earth. He also planned his own death to be an art instalment.
 
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See more from Butcher Billy, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.24.2020
09:15 am
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