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Underground film pioneer George Kuchar dead at 69
09.07.2011
05:03 pm
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Sad to hear that pioneering underground filmmaker George Kuchar has died at the age of 69 in San Francisco. Kuchar’s high camp films, sometimes made with his twin brother, Mike, included Corruption Of The Damned, Hold Me While I’m Naked and nearly 200 other shapeless, formless weirdo films. Kuchar taught at the San Francisco Art Institute since 1971. The Kuchar Brothers were the subject of Jennifer M. Kroot’s delightful documentary, It Came From Kuchar (which you can watch on Netflix VOD).

Bradford Nordeen, curator of the Dirty Looks queer film series, wrote about George Kuchar for indieWIRE:

George Kuchar was a man of many careers. He began making 8mm films at the age of twelve, collaborations with his twin brother, Mike, on a camera gifted from their parents. These early works are sensational remakes of the movies that played in their local Bronx theaters. Even in their adolescence, the twins showed an alarming understanding of cinematic conventions, with special respect paid to woman’s pictures (George’s fave) and swords and sandals epics (Mike’s). Fusing toilet humor with wrenching pathos, these early films were profoundly camp and made a huge impact on a young John Waters. “The Kuchar borthers,” Waters would later explain in the introduction to George and Mike’s illustrated memoirs, “Reflections in a Cinematic Cesspool,” “gave me the self confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision.” Throughout his early career, George worked by day in commercial arts, an industry he described as “that Midtown Manhattan world of angst and ulcers.”

By the mid-sixties, however, the Kuchars were discovered by the burgeoning Underground Film movement and heralded by Jonas Mekas in his Village Voice column and in the magazine Film Culture. In the latter publication, George’s writings appeared alongside prominent figures like Andrew Sarris, Jack Smith and Gregory Markopoulos. After accepting an invitation to teach a summer course at San Francisco Art Institute in the early 1970s, George met Curt McDowell, a student-then-lover, who campaigned to secure a permanent faculty position for George, where he would teach for the remainder of his life. The duo collaborated on many films, including George’s “The Devil’s Cleavage” and McDowell’s experimental/horror/porno, “Thundercrack!,” where George also stars - opposite his character’s love interest, a gorilla.

George changed with the times, influencing a whole new generation when he embraced consumer grade video. He humorously described himself as “a traitor to his medium [film],” but George galvanized the video form with his signature gusto, yielding dozens of video diaries (most renowned were “The Weather Diaries,” in which George documented seasonal – as well as emotional – storms in Oklahoma). Also a skilled visual artist, George worked alongside leading graphic artists like Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, exhibiting internationally. Recent venues included [ 2 nd floor projects ] in San Francisco, Mulherin + Pollard in New York and ADA Gallery in Virginia.

George inspired four decades of SFAI graduates, who played cast and crew to a yearly creature feature course, making movies like “The Fury of Frau Frankenstein” and “Jewel of Jeopardy.” George was cherished, by his SFAI students and international audiences alike, for his wild humor, exuberant spirit and intuitive production ethic; if something didn’t work in a “picture” (as George referred to all his works), he merely changed the story to suit the circumstance. This approach led to his magnum opus, “Hold Me While I’m Naked,” 1966 an early solo venture which became a film about isolation and filmmaking when regular actress Donna Kerness abandoned the project. The result was named one of the 100 best films of the 20th Century by the Village Voice. Truly one of the most visionary artists of his time, George’s impact on six decades of film, visual art and popular culture is immeasurable.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Nothing is rare: George Kuchar’s 1966 underground masterpiece, ‘Hold Me While I’m Naked’
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
05:03 pm
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Hilarious Westboro Baptist Church counter-protest sign
09.07.2011
04:55 pm
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(via reddit)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.07.2011
04:55 pm
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Why are pot smokers skinnier than everyone else?
09.07.2011
03:38 pm
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Marijuana is usually comically associated with “the munchies” and junk food binging, but a new study from France indicates something researchers weren’t expecting to find: Potheads tend to be skinnier than non-stoners. Via The Week:

What did the study find?
Dr. Yann Le Strat, a psychiatrist at France’s Louis-Mourier Hospital, looked at data from two studies of U.S. adults from the early 2000s and noted the weight differences between those who used cannabis and those who didn’t. In both studies, cannabis users had relatively low rates of obesity: 14.3 and 17.2 percent. American adults who didn’t use cannabis had obesity rates of 22 and 25.3 percent.

Is this what researchers expected?
Nope. “Cannabis is supposed to increase appetite,” says Le Strat. “So we hypothesized that cannabis users would be more likely to have higher weight than non-users and be more likely to be obese.” Marijuana activist Michelle Aldrich isn’t all that surprised. “It’s true,” she says. “I don’t know too many fat marijuana smokers.”

What’s causing this phenomenon?
“There could be many other reasons why pot smokers have less obesity,” says dietitian Andrea Giancoli. “Maybe they’re inclined to exercise more, be outdoors more, eat more fruits and vegetables.” Aldrich thinks it could be related to the body’s endocannabinoid system — a group of receptors, primarily in the brain, that respond to compounds in marijuana. But the bottom line is that the exact mechanism responsible for this correlation remains a mystery — for now.

One obvious thing I’m not seeing here is that many potheads don’t drink alcohol or don’t drink that much of it.

But if this isn’t reason enough to toke up, one of the oldest people who ever lived credited the chronic for her longevity.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
03:38 pm
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PJ Harvey wins the 2011 Mercury Prize
09.07.2011
03:12 pm
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PJ Harvey has won Britain’s 2011 Mercury Prize for her album Let England Shake, which also happens be one of my favorite favorite albums of the year.

Here’s a clip of PJ performing “The Words That Maketh Murder” at the awards ceremony
 

 
Harvey accepts her award after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.07.2011
03:12 pm
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Tea Party Zombies Must Die!
09.07.2011
02:53 pm
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Tea Party Zombies Must Die” is a new first-person shooter game from StarvingEyes Advergaming, a company set up to make viral Internet games. Looks like they’ve got a winner in that department with this in-house produced game:

DON’T GET TEA-BAGGED! The Tea Party zombies are walking the streets of America. Grab your weapons and bash their rotten brains to bits! Destroy zombie Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, the Koch Brothers, and many more!

Apparently the way this works is that the shooter, er, player, blasts their way into the Fox News studio encountering “Factory-made Blonde Fox News Barbie Who Has Never Had a Problem in Her Life Zombie” and then moves through the levels encountering the “Koch industries Koch Whore lobbyist pig zombie,” “Generic Pissed Off Old White Guy Zombie,” the “Pissed Off Stupid White Trash Redneck Birther Zombie” and the “Climate Change Denying Zombie.”

Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Brit Hume, Mike Huckabee and the ever hapless Rick Santorum also provide “undead” fodder for the game.

Cue Fox News making a huge controversy over this, and blaming Obama for it somehow…
 

 

 
Via The National Review

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
02:53 pm
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Banning All Religion?
09.07.2011
02:18 pm
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Australian TV gameshow The Gruen Transfer brings together competing advertising agencies and pits them against each other in an almost American Idol-type scenario. A segment called “The Pitch” gives them a subject like “Child labor should come back” or a similarly controversial topic and asks them to come up with a 30-second spot meant to promote it. A panel of advertising industry experts judges the ads.

In the four years of the program, the only subject they had agencies actually decline to compete on was “Banning religion is a good idea.”

However, two agencies took the challenge and the results were pretty amazing (especially the first one, IMHO). Can you imagine something like this on American TV???
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
02:18 pm
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Eric Roberts lunchbox
09.07.2011
01:23 pm
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Just in time for back to school, a very awesome Eric Roberts lunchbox by Brandon Bird. It’s $20.00 + shipping over at Brandon’s website.

Genuine plastic Thermos-brand lunchboxes (Made in America!), some of the last ever manufactured, available in “Eric Roberts” and “Gran Torino” styles. Perfect for holding your lunch, your art supplies, your Star Wars action figure collection, pretty much anything that can fit in an 8” x 7” x 4” box (image area on the front measures 7” x 5.25”).

(via Superpunch)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.07.2011
01:23 pm
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Jim Hendrix on French pop TV show ‘Dim Dam Dom’
09.07.2011
12:07 pm
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The folks at Mod Cinema just keep the goods rolling out, don’t they? It’s hard to stay up with the embarrassment of riches on offer from them. Take for instance their recent duo of double DVD sets featuring unedited episodes of Dim Dam Dom, the distinctive, ultra-hip, fashion-forward late sixties French pop TV series. Dim Dam Dom had a very French “mod” sensibility, giving it a vastly different look and feel to British programs like Colour Me Pop or Top of the Pops and American counterparts like Shindig! and Hullabaloo.

Dim Dam Dom was a music variety hour produced for the Deuxième channel in France. The title summarizes this shows concept, “Dim” for Sunday, “Dam” for ladies, and “Dom” for men. Pioneering the creativity of the show was Daisy Galard. From the elaborate dance choreography, to the set design, to the production and staging, Dim Dam Dom serves as a colorful time capsule of pop music in 1968.

Included in Mod Cinema’s two 2-disc Dim Dam Dom sets are several complete unedited episodes (most in color, a few in black & white) with rare performances by Johnny Hallyday, Mireille Darc, Grapefruit, Marie Laforêt, Nino Ferrer, Eddy Mitchell, Stone, Memphis Slim, Ronnie Bird, Françoise Hardy, Procol Harum, The Electric Prunes, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity, Sylvie Vartan, Jacques Dutronc, Pussy Cat, The Moody Blues, P.P.Arnold, Serge Gainsbourg, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jacques Dutronc, “Les Bee Gees,” Claude François, The Easybeats, Manfred Mann, France Gall (who also sings the shows “theme song”) and many many others.

Order Dim Dam Dom from Mod Cinema here.

Below, The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”
 

 
Bonus clip after the jump: A young Keith Emerson and The Nice performing “Karelia Suite” on “Dim Dam Dom,” 1969.

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
12:07 pm
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Watch The Melvins live at Hellfest 2011 in full
09.07.2011
06:23 am
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Poster by Alan Forbes, from Secret Serpent blog.
 
That’s some heaaavy shit. A full length, hour-long video of the original stoner/sludge/grunge/whatever rock icons The Melvins playing at France’s Hellfest earlier this year. Now with added second drummer for extra impact - ooft! I have yet to experience these guys live, but after seeing this I will be ordering tickets for their next tour later this afternoon. Setlist:

Hung Bunny

Roman Bird Dog

The Water Glass

Evil New War God

It’s Shoved

Anaconda

Queen

Second Coming

Ballad of Dwight Fry

Sacrifice

Hooch
Honey Bucket
With Teeth

Sweet Willy Rollbar

Revolve
Night Goat
 

 
Thanks to Lee Mann and uploader EvilManTheOne.

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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09.07.2011
06:23 am
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Emo’s East: Austin’s new rock venue gives audiences and musicians some respect
09.07.2011
04:38 am
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The closest thing Austin, Texas has to a CBGB-style rock venue is the venerable shithole Emo’s, a dilapidated, barn-like dump with bathrooms that come close, but not quite, to the urine-soaked hell-holes of Hilly Kristal’s legendary Bowery punk venue.

Like CBGB, Emo’s has established itself as one of the great rock and roll venues in the world and, like CBGB, it’s a lousy place for bands and audiences to experience rock and roll. Fuck street cred, we’ve all outgrown rock venues that charge $30 and more for a ticket and in return offer an environment suitable for firing squads and hangings.

I’ve been pissing and moaning for years that rock audiences are masochists, willing to put up with the worst kinds of settings in which to listen to the music they love. I can’t imagine theater goers, opera or ballet fans lining up to take a shit in port-o-johnnys that are belching methane like over-stuffed plastic cows or suffering through security checks by no-neck thugs looking to find contraband like bottled water and video cameras.

I guess Emo’s arrived at a similar conclusion: rock audiences need to be treated with respect and so do the bands that entertain us.

This coming Sunday, Emo’s will be opening a new state-of-the-art music club with a performance by The Butthole Surfers and I think the new venue will be great for the bands and the fans.

What the audience will pay for (and, hopefully, benefit from) includes elephant bark flooring (great for acoustics and soft on the feet), 100 tons of A/C, a group of tiled bathrooms, three large bars, double sheetrocked walls (again, for sound), a large outdoor smoking patio and 500-plus parking spots.

The bands will kick back in a green room with flat screen televisions, a washer and dryer (life on the road is tough) and shower facilities; and, of course, they’ll have ample tour bus parking with a private back entrance.

For smaller acts, the 1,700 capacity room can be partitioned into one with an 800 cap.

Great for both band and ticket-holders? A 48-foot ceiling that transitions back to a 12-foot height, meaning there is hardly a bad line of sight in the house.

The Butthole Surfers’ gig is a test run for the venue, not its official opening. The fact that the Surfers wanted to do this on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 seems either perverse or perhaps something else…we will see. I’ll be there and get back to you.

In the meantime, here’s Alex Winter’s homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre featuring Gibby and the boys.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.07.2011
04:38 am
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