Soul singer and percussionist Vin Cardinal left his home in Trinidad and moved to Sweden where he became a pop star in the 1960s. With his band The Queens, Cardinal toured throughout Europe and recorded several albums which were regional hits. In the early 1970s, he moved to the States and signed with Motown but never attained the popularity Stateside that he enjoyed in Sweden.

Vin is still alive and playing the club circuit.

This beautifully shot 1967 video of Vin and The Queens performing at the Bilzen Jazz And Rock Festival in Belgium is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile. The Queens are divine and Vin is a knockout of a singer. Man, would I love to see a re-union gig.

The video credit gets Vin’s name wrong. It’s Cardinal, not “Cardinale.”
 

 
Post modern bubble gum. Blondie on Japanese teen show Popteens in January 1978.

Way before they scored a hit in the States, Blondie were huge in Japan. They were the rock and roll version of Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup can, a distillation in one indelible image of something so American yet so universal. Pop!
 

 
Before Prozac, Paxil or Effexor, women treated their melancholia with kitchen appliances.

In the 1960s Westinghouse Corporation noticed that women across the nation were whiling away their hours in states of despondency bordering on catatonia. Young beautiful women were seen wandering through the woods in brightly colored pantsuits, aimlessly swishing their hair and staring listlessly at forest creatures. Were they on LSD? Had they turned into hippies?  Something had gone terribly wrong. What had compelled these seemingly normal women to turn into zombie-like extras from Night Of The Living Dead? And more importantly, how could society return them to the fold? Well, the geniuses at Westinghouse came up with a brilliant solution that was just crazy enough that it might work: mood altering refrigerators!

Here’s one woman’s miraculous transformation from the walking wounded to perky go-go dancing housewife. The Westinghouse cure… with a dose of bongo and Hammond organ.
 

 
According to the gospel of Saint Anthony H. Wilson, Manchester, England, was the center of the universe during the 1980s and 1990s. Not only for its music, its talent, its imagination, and sheer brass neck, but also because it had the Haçienda, the fabled night club where you could see Madonna one night and William Burroughs the next.

Designed by Ben Kelly, The Haçienda opened its doors on Friday May 21st 1982. Owned by Factory Records and New Order (the latter plowed most of their earnings into the venue), it was given the Factory catalog number FAC51. The mix of who played there reads like an A & R man’s wet dream and included, New Order, The Happy Mondays, The Smiths, OMD, The Birthday Party, Husker Du, The Stone Roses, Oasis, James, Echo and The Bunnymen, A Certain Ratio, and Divine, amongst others. Mike Pickering, Graeme Park and Dave Haslam were host DJ’s, and in the late 1980s and 1990s, the club was the catalyst for Madchester - the music and drug fueled Second Summer of Love.

Yet, as it is said, all good things must end and the Haçienda closed down in 1997; and the club was demolished to make way for “luxury apartments” in 2002.

When Peter Hook (legendary bass-player with Joy Division and New Order), guest-blogged on the NME back in 2009, he recalled his top 10 Haçienda memories. At number three, was William Burroughs performance at The Haçienda, October 1982, of which Hooky wrote:

“That was one of those nights when there was hardly anyone in but it was quite intense because of what William Burroughs was doing. The funny thing was that one of Joy Division’s first gigs abroad was with William Burroughs, a William Burroughs evening in the Plan K in Belgium so we had a little bit of history with him ‘cos he’d told Ian to fuck off when he asked for a free book. Even at The Haçienda I didn’t ask for a free book either. I was as scared of William Burroughs as he was.

Burroughs was always impressive when presenting his work on stage, and this clip, posted by orange object, is a great piece of pop and literary culture.
 

 
Previously on DM

Divine performs in front of stunned punks in Manchester, England, 1983

 
Shot in New York City in 1986 by Dutch filmmaker Bram van Splunteren, Big Fun In The Big Town contains a motherlode of amazing footage of Schoolly-D, DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Biz Markie, Jam Master Jay and more.

Check out Doug E. Fresh beat-boxing Kraftwerk’s “Tour de France” on a Harlem street corner.

I look at the new rock ‘n rollers…it’s a shame what they did to it, and I hope that rap don’t go that same route – where they take the rawness away…just then make it too pretty! I don’t think rock ‘n roll was meant to be pretty. Rock was meant to be bad – just like rap” - Schoolly-D

In English with Danish Dutch subtitles.

This shit is golden.
 

 
I am a big aficionado of “the art of the interview.” As a reader, I don’t really require for a journalist to spell something out for me. I’d rather hear what the subject has to say for themselves, but this hardly means that the interviewer is a superfluous part of the equation. Take if from someone who knows, you have to show up properly prepared if you want to achieve good results with an interview. A well-done Q&A can take the form of an interrogation or a narrative. I like both styles. A good interviewer knows how to get someone to reveal what makes them tick.

Longtime underground journalist, cinema festival organizer, filmmaker and screenwriter, Shade Rupe’s new anthology, Dark Stars Rising: Conversations from the Outer Realms (Headpress), is a collection of his interviews conducted over the past 26 years with some of the more transgressive and—okay, I’ll say it—dangerous minds out there. Many of the folks interviewed in Dark Stars Rising are even friends of mine, or people who I’ve met and interviewed before myself, so when the book came through the post the other day, my reaction was a pretty swift, “Yes!”

And chances are that if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might feel the same way yourself about a slick, well-designed 568 page collection of terrific interviews with the likes of Richard Kern, Alejandro Jodorowksy, Udo Kier, Tura Satana, Teller, Brother Theodore (incredible!), Divine, Floria Sigismondi, Hermann Nitsch, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Dennis Cooper, Gaspar Noe, performance artist Johanna Went Dame Darcy, Stephen O’Malley, Crispin Glover and many others. A lot of this material was original published in various underground zines, but here the interviews appear in their unedited form. Visually, it’s a treat. There are photographs (some in color) on nearly every single page and the “documentation” and ephemera contained in the book embellishes the discussions nicely.

If, like me, you appreciate being able to eavesdrop in on smart conversations between smart people—and if you’re nostalgic for the fast disappearing world of zine culture—Shade Rupe’s Dark Stars Rising, is a book you won’t want to miss.

 
French special effects genius Geoffrey Niquet collaborated with Gaspar Noe on the creation of the mindblowingly wonderful Enter The Void. Here’s a clip that shows the multi-layered visuals that were composed for the film. It’s like looking through a glass onion. For those of you have seen the movie, this will be a reminder of its loveliness. For those of you who haven’t experienced the Void, this will tantalize and perhaps compel you to see it.

Music by Sigur Ros.
 

 
Walking the fine line between clever and stupid, Klaus Manzert’s Silicon Dream was German synthpop with the calorie content of Italo disco. While Kraftwerk envisioned a world overrun by sophisticated robots, computers, and autobahns, Silicon Dream’s universe resembles the set from Zsa Zsa Gabor’s The Queen Of Outerspace and Manzert, looking like David Lochary in Female Trouble, plays Liberace to his boy toy dancers Angelo and Danny. Plan 9 crash lands in Las Vegas.

Here’s two fun tunes from Silicon Dream: “Andromeda” and “Marcello The Mastroianni .”
 

 
Lalo Schifrin puts the funk into the theme from Jaws as Legs & Co. are terrorized by cardboard sharks.

Schifrin’s discofied version of John Williams’ “Jaws Theme” appeared on the 1976 album Black Widow. The in-your-face bass groove and insistent wah wah guitar made this a big hit on the dancefloors.

The tacky glitz of Legs & Co. gets toned down in this extremely low rent homage to Spielberg’s shark shocker.
 

 
Previously on DM: The Liquidator.