What a beautiful day. The sun us shining, birds are singing in the trees, flags are fluttering in the breeze. It is, indeed, a nice day for a white wedding. And down in old London town, ancient rites of passage are being replayed as we, the British Nation, stand as one in mind, body and spirit to salute the dawning of a new era, the start of a new chapter in how we the common people are governed over by ancient power elites. 

As the future king takes his bride-to-very-shortly-be up the aisle, I too would like to do my small (but perhaps significant) part in helping write this page of history. Tonight I shall be dressing as a priest and singing “Gett Off” at a gypsy wedding reception in Salford, but until then I will turning the volume up, banging my head, and revelling in the girl-powered noise glory of Glasgow’s Divorce.

Inspired to form at a gig by modern noise legends Aids Wolf, Divorce launched in 2008 with a core ratio of four girls to one boy, and a run of chaotic but highly energised gigs around the city. The mosh-pits they inspire are instantaneous and legendary, with as many women being thrashed about as men. The group released their first (self-titled) 10” single on the Optimo label in 2009, to considerable acclaim, and have gone on to release split singles with Comanechi and Ultimate Thrush. A full album was recorded and mixed for release in 2010, but was put on indefinite hold after the departure of the singer Sinéad and guitarist Hillary.

While this may seem like a career-ender for anyone less committed, Divorce have taken it in their stride, moved on and hired a new singer called Jennifer. There have been some new demos floating around on the net of this new line up (that sound great) and having seen Divorce mark II play I can confirm that they have lost none of their energy and connection with the crowd. Now, if only they can get their fingers out and finish another album, then we’d really have an excuse for the country to take a day off work, get blind drunk, and beat up anybody perceived to be even slightly different.

Divorce - “Amuse Bouche”
 

 
Divorce - “Pipe Down”
 

 
Divorce (mark II) - “Love Attack”
 

 
 
For more information on Divorce, visit the Divorce blog, or if you are really desperate, here is their Myspace. The “Divorce” 10” on Optimo Music is available to buy here.

Divorce play live in Glasgow tonight, as part of Optimo’s “TIl Death Do Us Part(y).”

 
Oh this is lovely. X Ray Spex do a rousing version of “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” at London’s Roundhouse on September 6, 2008.

X Ray Spex redux: Paul Dean on bass, Sid Truelove (Rubella Ballet and Flux of Pink Indians) on drums, guitarist Gt. Saxby and sax player David Wright (Rip Rig & Panic, Jah Wobble, Don Cherry and The Slits).

Joining Poly Styrene on vocals are her daughter Celeste Bell-Dos Santos and Zillah Minx from Rubella Ballet.
 

 
Fun, fun, fun cartoon music video of Richard Hell And The Voidoids “The Kid With The Replaceable Head.”

The version of “...Replaceable Head” used in the cartoon is the remixed and partially re-recorded version that appears on the Destiny Street Repaired album which was released in 2008, a reconstruction of 1982’s Destiny Street. The history of the record is an interesting one. In his review of Destiny Street Repaired, Bill Meyer gives us some insight to the album’s resurrection. Here’s an excerpt from Meyer’s article:

It took Hell five years to get around to recording a follow-up to Blank Generation. The Voidoids had been defunct for over a year and the man was soul sick, junk sick, and ready to give up the rock game. But he had some songs, a label ready to give him some money, a palpable need for that cash, and guitarist Robert Quine’s phone number, so in 1982 they pulled together a band — Hell on bass, Quine and the one-named Naux on guitars, Fred Maher on drums — to make one more record. Things went as planned for a week or two, but after cutting the backing tracks Hell lost his nerve and refused to come into the studio for a week and a half. According to Quine, he and Naux spent that time overdubbing every idea they’d ever wanted to try, which depending on your perspective turned the music into either “high-pitched sludge” (per Hell in the liner notes to the Spurts career retrospective) or the aforementioned glorious mess. After Hell finally dragged his sorry ass into the studio to finish the record, it sat in bad business limbo for another year before Line Records finally put it out.

Ever since then he’s expressed his disappointment with the result, and in 2008 Hell geared up to put it right by re-recording the vocals and lead guitars over rough mixes of the rhythm tracks.”

Hell brought in Bill Frisell, Ivan Julian and Marc Ribot to contribute to Destiny Street Repaired and the result was an album shocked like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster into new life. As Meyers puts it, the album is “more full and satisfyingly full-on.”

Despite the fact that overall there are fewer guitar tracks, the guitars are actually louder on Repaired than they are on the Line LP, and any record that showcases Ribot, Julian and Frisell in a rocking mood is nothing to ignore. The weirdly striated frequency spectrum of the original mastering job, which seemed as thin as mountain air in the higher frequencies, has been replaced by something much more full and satisfyingly full-on. And as a singer, Hell Mk 2008 manages to hit more of the notes with more force than his more desperate and debilitated self a quarter century earlier without going for any misguided notion of perfection.”

Bill Meyer’s entire review of Destiny Street Repaired can be read at Dusted.

Update 4/25: Meyer gives credit to German label Line Records for being the first label to release Destiny Street, which may be true for Germany but not the USA. In fact, it was released in the States on Marty Thau’s legendary Red Star records. In France, it was released by Celluloid. All in 1982. As to the source of the money for the making of the record, my bet is on Thau. I’ve e-mailed Marty and am waiting to hear back.
(Thanks, Mona).

Update 4/25: The always gracious Marty Thau responded to my questions regarding Destiny Street and its intriguing history:

“The Kid With The Replaceable Head (2008)” is available as part of the Richard Hell retrospective cd and can be purchased here.

Here are both versions;
 

 
Personally, I prefer the sludgy, raw basement sound of the original recording. The re-recorded version is a little clean with a slick sheen and the poppy background vocals up in the mix work against the punk Voidoid vibe. But, either way, it’s a great song and Richard Hell is undoubtedly a legend not to be messed with…unless he doin’ the messin.
 

 
Patti Smith plays dress-up for a pirate-inspired photo shoot by Annie Liebovitz in the London studio where the latest Johnny Depp pirate movie is being filmed for Disney. The shoot took place last September.

In the video, Patti makes the connection between rock and rollers and pirates and manages to look like both.

Philip K. Dick, Germs-manager Nicole Panter, author KW Jeter, and artist Gary Panter, at Philip K. Dick’s Santa Ana condo. From Nicole Panter’s Flickr account.

A rare look at the inside of Philip K. Dick’s condo! Here is the attendant interview, from Slash magazine, May 1980:

Philip K. Dick is 51 years old. Since 1955 he’s written 35 books that have been translated into eighteen languages. He has five ex-wives, two cats and lives 10 minutes from Disneyland. Of the books he has written, his personal favorites are, The Man in the High Castle, Dr. Bloodmoney, and Through a Scanner Darkly. His latest book, VALIS, will be released in February, with the sequel to be published sometime in the spring. Mr. Dick says he doesn’t take drugs anymore, but thinks about them all the time. Despite stories to the contrary, he’s a real charming guy.

The interview was conducted in Mr. Dick’s conapt by Gary and Nicole Panter. K.W. Jeter, one of Dick’s close friends and author of the yet unpublished but excellent DR. ADDER, attended and added his comments.

DICK: Um … fuck.
JETER: Beer?
SLASH: I don’t drink beer.
DICK: I don’t drink beer either. What’s so … so … I’m tired of all this circle of … of effete intellectual … this circle of intellectuals who drink beer. (laughter)
SLASH: Is this a conapt?
DICK: It definitely is a conapt.
SLASH: Is a conapt a combination of condominium and apartment?
DICK: Yes.
SLASH: So the people in your stories own their own apartments?
DICK: They own them and are doomed to live in them. And they are also doomed to participate in meetings with the other owners and have complaints made about their moral lives.
SLASH: Like in small towns … do you go to these meetings?
DICK: Yes, it’s mandatory.
SLASH: What do they say?
DICK: They say how come your car has got dust all over it? So I park in a dark corner of the garage so no one can see it. This one old lady built a little door for her cat to go in and out of and in a meeting someone complained that they saw cat shit out on the walkway and now she’s responsible for all the cat shit anyone sees around.
SLASH: Can they make you move out if the other tenants don’t like you?
DICK: No, they can’t get you out they can just sue you to death.
SLASH: Were you raised in a religious organization?
DICK: No.
SLASH: Are you anti organized religion?
DICK: Yes. Technically, I’m Episcopalian, but I don’t ever go. I’m interested in them because they’re a barrio church and they do lot of civil service work … technically I’m a religious anarchist.
SLASH: Is this Orange County?
DICK: Very Definitely … I bet that’s good beer. The Germs are breaking up, huh? The cat’s laughing at me … But Darby Crash is going to start his own band.
SLASH: Yeah, how’d you know?
DICK: I know … I know this stuff. Did I do that right? I sure like the Plugz. Now the beach bands like the Circle Jerks …
SLASH: Darby has a mohican now which brings up the kids you wrote about that modeled themselves after South American Indians or was it Africans. When did you begin to write about mutant youth cultures?
DICK: In my writing? TIME OUT OF JOINT in 1958.
SLASH: Were you a beatnik then … a bohemian?
DICK: I was all of those things. I knew the first beatnik. His name was Charles McLane … oh, the first hippy. I’m sorry. He was into drugs - that would be hippy.
SLASH: What made a beatnik, alcohol?
DICK: Some were into drugs. The difference was there was more of an emphasis on creative work with the beatniks. You had to write … much less emphasis on drugs.
SLASH: How far does a bohemian or lunatic fringe go back?
JETER: To the Bohemians in the twenties …
DICK: Wrong! Puccini’s LA BOHEME describes people who were poets and singers and who burned their pictures in the 19th Century. The furthest I can remember back is the thirties to the WPA artists paid by the government. They became the bohemian strata of the United States.
SLASH: What prompted you in 1958 to begin writing about this kind of youth culture? Kids with teeth filed to points?
DICK: Yeah, I don’t know. It wasn’t until ‘71 in a speech I delivered in Vancouver that I was consciously discussing the rise of the youth culture. I glorified punks “kids who would neither read, watch, remember, or be intimidated.” I spoke of the rise of a youth culture which would overthrow the government.
SLASH: Do you still think that’s the case?
DICK: I certainly do.
SLASH: Have you got a timetable?
DICK: What time is it now? (laughter) Any day now I expect to hear that swarms have entered the White House and broken all the furniture.
SLASH: What comes after that?
DICK: Oops!

More of the Philip K. Dick interview from Slash magazine after the jump

 
Iggy, Scott Asheton, Mike Watt, James Williamson and a fucking orchestra play “I Wanna Be Your Dog” in tribute to Ron Asheton at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on April 19.

The sound is shit but the camera is so thrust into the meat and bone of Iggy’s performance that the end result is exhilirating and the bad sound actually starts to sound perfect. Distortion transcended.
 

Contact High liner notes.
 
The Godz first album, Contact High, rearranged the furniture in my head when I first heard it back in 1966. I was 15 years old and had never heard anything so fucking weird in my life. The Godz’ hypnotic, electronic, cowboy ragas and high lonesome mantric wails sounded like Hank Williams, Sun Ra and The Fugs being wok-fried in the Mongolian barbecue of absolute reality. Their subversive drone was immortalized on vinyl a year before The Velvet Underground’s debut, which leads one to wonder if VU picked up on The Godz twisted vibrations.

The liner notes for Contact High are worth reading in their entirety. They capture a very specific place and time in rock and roll’s ascension:

“THIS IS THE GODZ’ TRUTH: two sides of eight original tunes by four New Yorkers who don’t give a good God-damn whether you dig it or not. They are human, alive, and hot in the blood, creating their own song, forging their own sound with a beat like an elephant’s heart. They are that way because they hold honesty dear, and have no need for arrogance.

By name the GODZ are blond Jay Dillon, 24, a psaltery player by choice and a graphic designer by trade; Larry Kessler, 25, a sometimes craps dealer, dishwasher and itinerant record salesman. Record salesmen also are Jim McCarthy, 22, guitarist, harmonica and plastic flute player, and drummer Paul Thornton, 26, who never played that instrument before this date. To all of them, musical instruments are but so many vehicles by which they express all they cannot consciously define in any other way. Now if all this stops you, don’t read further and for GODZ’ sake don’t buy this record album.

But if you want to hear about love and the lack of it by victims unashamed, about hate and too much of it in the world, or the passion of these realistic young men who know dream can be another name for nightmare, then you can say these are your kind of people and make it stick. For it is a new, honest, emotion laddened telling-it-like-I-feel-it kind of music, which is, really, the only kind of music this country has produced, and is, therefore, very American, Lyndon Johnson and the critics notwithstanding.

The GODZ in short are hip and wise to the ways of the world, its put-ons and all of that. They don’t dig Mom’s apple pie and I’ve never seen them in church on Sunday. They stand in the margin of life and that is where their music is, and this is what they offer you in this, their first recorded album.”  Marc Crawford.

Contact High was followed by Godz 2 in 1967 and The Third Testament in 1968. All three albums blend a proto-punk rawness with alt-jazz and deranged country weirdness into something that still sounds as adventurous and irreverent as it did back in the sixties.

The Godz opened up the field of possibilities for rock and rollers, expanding our notion of what rock is. But I’m sure they’d never claim that. It doesn’t sound fun enough.

In this rarely seen (until now) video, legendary experimental film maker Jud Yulket shoots The Godz in their Manhattan apartment in 1966. The silent 8mm footage was overdubbed with the band playing an extended medley of two of their songs, “Lay In The Sun” and “Come On Girl Turn On,” and some improvised jamming. The music track has never been released on vinyl or CD. Sloppy but evocative, this is not The Godz at their musical best but it does take you back to a time when space was the place and rock and roll was vital mojo in a shaman’s trick bag.
 

 
“Radar Eyes” from Godz 2 is edgy psychedelia with some seriously sinister overtones. Cooler than punk and twice as deadly.
 

 
Dave Markey’s 1991: The Year Punk Broke is a slab of D.I.Y. rock history. Markey films Sonic Youth and some of punk and grunge’s legendary groups as they tour the European festival circuit. This is before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was released and Nirvana went from being an underground band to an international phenomenon.

Featuring Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Babes in Toyland, the Ramones, Mudhoney and more.

See 1991: The Year Punk Broke on Google while you can.

On April 29, 2011 videos that have been uploaded to Google Video will no longer be available for playback. We’ve added a Download button to the Video Status new window page, so you can download videos that you want to save. (The Download feature will be disabled after May 13, 2011.)

There’s a tremendous amount of cool stuff available on Google Video. Check it out. I, for one, will miss it. It’s one of the few free sites with hard-to-find and out-of-print feature length films and videos. A tremendous resource for film buffs and pop culture junkies.

1991: The Year Punk Broke is finally going to be released on DVD with lots of bells and whistles. For more info, go here.
 

 
Thanks Mirgun.

 
Today is the 10th anniversary of the death of one of the genuinely great front men in rock and roll, Joey Ramone. If you’re a Ramones fan like I am, I know how much you miss him.

This video is just plain beautiful. Joey and his mom. We’re a happy family, indeed.
 

 
Thirty years ago today, the famous Brixton riot of spring 1981 brought the long-simmering issues of class, race and police repression to the front pages and TV screens of England.

Brixton was definitely not the first sign of racial unrest in the Thatcher era. A police raid on the Black & White Café in Bristol’s economically hard-hit St. Pauls district the year before had led to a day-long riot among Caribbean youth. And police apathy in investigating a fire at a party on New Cross Road in early ’81 fuelled the notion in South London’s black community that their lives were perceived by the cops as worthless.

In the days before things jumped off in Brixton’s Lambeth area on April 10, cops had launched the charmingly named Operation Swamp 81 in an attempt to curb local robbery and burglary. Over a week, officers stopped almost 1,000 mostly black people—including three members of the Lambeth Community Relations Council—and arrested 118.

Combined with the extremely high unemployment rate among Brixton’s sons and daughters of the Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants, and the rise of organized white racist activism, the community’s temperature was at peak. As one of the youths put it in one of the films below: “Jobs, money, then National Front…something was bound to happen.” Confusion and bad-faith rumors around police involvement around a stabbing incident was all it took to set off two days of fighting.

The implications of the multiracial Brixton riot unfolded throughout the subsequent summer of that year in Handsworth, Chapletown and Toxteth. Despite the improvements and gentrification that Brixton has seen since ’81, the place hasn’t been free of unrest.

In 2001, director Rachel Currie produced The Battle for Brixton, one of the authoritative video chronicles of the revolt, for the First Edition program.
 

 
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
 
After the jump: on-the-ground footage from community members, and Brixton’s impact on music.