The incomparable Mae West proving she was still “Hard to Handle” at the age of 77. Here Ms West sings the Otis Redding classic from the 1970 movie Myra Breckinridge. The film, based on the novel by Gore Vidal, and starred Raquel Welch, Farrah-Fawcett and Mae West, but was sadly a flop. Watching this fab little clip, who couldn’t be won over by the incorrigible Statue of Libido?
Steven Severin has always been cool as fuck. From when he first appeared on TV, looking edgy at the back of the infamous Bill Grundy interview that launched The Sex Pistols’ “filth and the fury” onto the nation, through Siouxsie and The Banshees, to his position now as one of our leading film composers. Just take a look at Mr. Severin in this interview for Music Box, from 1987, with his blonde crop and silk waistcoat, and compare him to the mullet haired interviewer, who looks like he’s come off the set of Miami Vice, or failed the audition for Conan the Barbarian, again. Mr. Severin has always been ahead of the pack, and that’s what makes him so interesting musically, creatively, intellectually, and in his sense of style.
In this brief, rare interview, Steven discusses how he first met Siouxsie (at a Roxy Music concert in 1975); why the band’s line-up has changed for the better; his thoughts on being the first band to tour Argentina since the Falklands war; why The Banshees recorded “Dear Prudence” in Stockholm; and how tax problems affected The Glove, his band with Robert Smith.
Steven Severin is touring with his superb score for Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr in May and June this year, details here, where you can also buy a copy of his Vampyr CD.
Justin Hawkins, Dan Hawkins , Frankie Poullain and Ed Graham with Brian May at the Hammersmith Apollo on November 2011.
Fellow Austinites, The Darkness will be at Stubb’s on May 25. This, for me, is a must-see show. Just when rock and roll seems to have been taken over by bands that are smaller than life and waaaay too serious, The Darkness returns to crush the twee brigade into fine dust.
Whimsical segment from the seventies prime time TV program Real People featuring Klaus Nomi, Joey Arias and others (I also spotted a young John Sex and Kenny Scharf frugging away) dancing in the window of the Fiorucci boutique, which used to be across the street from Bloomingdales.
Here’s something for you folks with a taste for the bizarre: a video mix of Indonesian horror films and garage/psyche rock from Southeast Asia.
Look Back In Angkor featuring music by Srei Sothear, Sin Sisamouth, Prum Manh, Meas Samon, The Gang Of Harry Roesli, Aka, and lots of tracks by artists unknown that appeared on rare homemade audio cassettes.
England: Thirty-five years on from Punk, and what the fuck has changed? The Queen is still on her throne. Celebrations are underway for another jubilee. The police continue to be a law unto themselves. The tabloid press peddles more smut and fear. The Westminster government is still centered on rewarding self-interest. And Johnny Rotten is a popular entertainer.
The promise of revolution and change was little more than adman’s wet-dream. All that remains is the music - the passion, the energy, the belief in something better - and that at least touched enough to inculcate the possibility for change.
Raw Energy - Punk the Early Years is a documentary made in 1978, which details many of the players who have tended to be overlooked by the usual focus on The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Here you’ll find Jordan (the original not the silicon pin-up and author) telling us, “it’s good females can get up on stage and have as much admiration as the male contingent”; the record execs explaining their dealings with The Pistols, The Clash, The Hot Rods and looking for the “next trend”; a young Danny Baker, who wrote for original punk magazine Sniffin Glue, summing up his frustration with “all you’re trained for is to be in a factory at the end of 20 years, and that’s the biggest insult…”; the comparisons between Punk and Monterey; the politics; the violence against young punks; and what Punk bands were really like - performances from The Slits, The Adverts, Eddie and The Hot Rods, X-Ray Spex, and even Billy Idol and Generation X.
Etsy shop Alltheway Emporium make these rather odd yarn portraits of totally random celebrities like Harry Dean Stanton and… ‘70s teen heartthrob Robby Benson!? And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also Richard Pryor, the kissing scene from 80s flick Some Kind of Wonderful, Dolly Parton, “Blake” from the TV show Workaholics and The Big Lebowski‘s “Jesus.”
All of these yarn portraits were “created one string at a time” and will cost you anywhere from $200 to $300.
In 1993, legendary avant-jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock accepted a gig (along with drummer Lance Carter) doing music for the Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost Coast To Coast. The combination of Sharrock’s “futuristic electronic folk music” and the surreal sensibilities of Space Ghost’s creators melded beautifully. Sadly, Sharrock died of a heart attack at the age of 53 during the show’s first season. In 1996, the show paid tribute to Sharrock in fittingly offbeat fashion.
In this very special episode, Thurston Moore incarnates one Fred Cracklin in a brief non-sensical cameo which is but a pretext to pay homage to the great avant-noise-jazz-blues guitar player Sonny Sharrock, who had recently expired. If the Coast to Coast series is bizarre for any standards of good TV conduct, the Sharrock episode is particularly strange in that its plot is a lame excuse to pay tribute to the musician and listen to several minutes of his ethereal noise-jazz guitar, thinly framed by some silly jokes between the Ghost and his adorable sidekicks.” - Sound Of Eye.
Twelve minutes in which television touches on the sublime.
More than an artist, Duggie Fields has been an Art Movement over the past 5 decades. His paintings, films, animation, photography, music, and design, have been at the pioneering edge of British Art and Culture. And he has collaborated with the likes of Ken Russell, Stanley Kubrick, Derek Jarman, and Andrew Logan.
In the 1990s, Mr Fields devised a new Philosophy of Art - MAXIMALism, which he described as “minimalism with a plus, plus, plus” and “the individual use to create chaos out of order and vice versa”. As Mr Fields developed his MAXIMAList Art Works, he produced a series of short art films and music videos. This is one of those many gems, THE BIG RIDDLE from 1993, written by Fields, with music co-written with Howard Bernstein, and directed by Mark Le Bon.
Whether you were a Britney Spears fan or not, like it or not, you were forced to watch her very public meltdown in every newspaper, magazine, entertainment website, and everywhere else. I always felt extremely sorry her. It seemed like the world couldn’t wait for some new tragedy or misfortune to befall the poor woman so they would have something new to gossip about at the water cooler or post on their Myspace page.
While watching the photos of her face morphing throughout the years, I noticed her eyes. When she was young, her eyes sparkled. She was happy, but as time goes by it’s like the massed machinery of the mediadrome sucked the very life right out of this young woman. Heartbreaking.