FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
William Burroughs shoots WIlliam Shakespeare
05.10.2010
07:41 pm
Topics:
Tags:

 
William Burroughs, with the great illustrator Ralph Steadman, shooting one of Steadman’s prints, a portrait of William Shakespeare.

Via 3am Magazine and HTML Giant.

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
05.10.2010
07:41 pm
|
Ghosts of New York: The Limelight disco is now a mall
05.10.2010
06:45 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
When I was poking around trying to find a good image to go with the Michael Alig post, I happened across a few items related to the club where Michael and the Club Kids infamously held court, The Limelight. Opened in late 1983 by Canadian businessman Peter Gatien, the Limelight was one of the mega-clubs that followed in the wake of Studio 54. The club operated in a deconsecrated church which had been given historically “preserved” status by the city of New York. It was the scene of some epic debauchery, that club. Believe me when I tell you because I worked there for a little less than a year (when I was still three years shy of legal drinking age, I might add) during 1985.

But now, the legendary magnet for sinners is… a retail outlet? Yup, the site of some seriously fucked up shit—and many memories of my own ill-spent youth—now houses 50 small retailers including handmade chocolatiers, Le Sportsac and shoe stores. There is even a food court. Oh my, oh my.

The other news is that the one-time mega-promoter of gay NYC nightlife, Marc Berkley passed away in April. Marc got his career started at the Limelight with his Sunday night parties and went on to become one of the most powerful club promoters in New York. I recall him fondly, a quick-witted, sharp-tongued James Coco-type, who always seemed right out of a sitcom to me.  The manager of the club, a tall, taciturn fellow named Tom Buckley, also recently passed away.
 
image
Photo: Marc Berkley and friends.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
05.10.2010
06:45 pm
|
Brilliant yo-yo prankster K-Strass
05.10.2010
02:07 pm
Topics:
Tags:

 
Evidently this guy is going around tricking local news stations in the mid-west into letting him give these “yo-yo” demonstrations on live TV. Brilliant !
 

 
K-Strass, the yo-yo guy, strikes again
 
thx Thomas Wincek!

Posted by Brad Laner
|
05.10.2010
02:07 pm
|
Lena Horne R.I.P.
05.10.2010
01:34 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
In our supposedly post-racial world (not counting you, tea-baggers) it’s difficult to conceive of the indignities thrust upon Lena Horne for the crime of being of undetermined race, but her luminous beauty and mellifluous voice made her the “negro” who was safe for white America. She used this inroad to criticize the treatment of black soldiers during her many USO tours which led to her being “blacklisted” by Hollywood for many years. Of course civilization eventually evolved enough to begin celebrating her for her actual talents and not for her potential to pass as a white woman. Goodbye, gorgeous.
 

 
Nobody’s maid: Lena Horne, legendary singer, dies at 92
 
previously on DM : THE GREAT FLIP WILSON, LENA HORNE’S ROCKY RACCOON

 

Posted by Brad Laner
|
05.10.2010
01:34 pm
|
Quentin Tarantino’s Trunk Shots
05.10.2010
12:47 pm
Topics:
Tags:
Posted by Tara McGinley
|
05.10.2010
12:47 pm
|
Metal Machine Music (In Four Movements): California E.A.R. Unit/Sonic Boom
05.09.2010
11:51 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
When I read that Lou Reed and others were staging concerts of his infamous 1975 fuck you to RCA, Metal Machine Music, as if it was truly a piece of avant garde modern classical music—as Reed claimed—and not just speedfreak manipulated feedback, I thought this sounded like a terrible idea. After seeing a YouTube clip of one of the performances and reading Dangerous Minds pal Skylaire Alfvegren’s eyewitness report, I’m thinking this looks like a must-see the next time it gets performed in Los Angeles:

Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is often blamed for spawning the ear-throttling genre collectively known as noise. While musique concrète, city traffic and various 20th-century avant-garde composers were Reed’s inspirations as well, his 64-minute monsterpiece was largely improvised, and the fact that anyone — in this case, CalArts professor of Composition and Experimental Sound Ulrich Krieger (with help from Luca Venitucci) — would take the time to transcribe it into sheet music is both baffling and historic.

In the program, Krieger stated that “Metal Machine Music is a missing link between contemporary classic music and advanced rock,” and, hearing an even number of rock and orchestral elements in it, he figured out how to transpose Reed’s reel-to-reels and detuned guitars to the instruments of his own outfit, Sonic Boom, as well as those of the California E.A.R. Unit, an orchestral repertory ensemble which has been in residence at REDCAT since 2004.

Sans conductor, and with the music written in time notation, the musicians’ eyes darted frantically to a digital timer (a method first employed by John Cage in the ‘60s). MMM came across as far more musical than it does on disc; the transcription was madly inventive. Never had a trumpet player broken such a sweat onstage, nor had a tuba packed such a Mac truck wallop. Distinct bits stood out among the wash, which sounded like the inside of a barb-wired sea shell. Stringed instruments were amplified with pickups and microphones, and the rapidity of movement shredded bows. One viola player was so convulsive it looked as though she was going to fall out of her chair. Styrofoam was mic’d; velvet stretched like a trampoline and assaulted with lengths of heavy chain served as percussion. The effect — what an amplified pile of writhing nightcrawlers on amphetamines might sound like — was bliss or torment, depending on the lobes, an unholy din, an avant-horror movie score, hairraising in that maniac-around-the-bend kind of way. And like the music in Hell’s dentist’s office, it was uncomfortably soothing.

Read the whole thing here.
 

 
Above: Excerpt from Asphodel’s release of ‘Metal Machine Music’ performed by ZEITKRATZER.

“Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music may be the most misunderstood work ever created by a popular musician. The original two record set, released in 1975, was mostly noise: feedback squalls, amplifier hums and the tortured screech of electronic gadgets. Directed by Reinhold Friedl, the 11-member ZEITKRATZER ensemble from Berlin gave Reed’s album a thorough listen and and Ulrich Kreiger, the group’s saxophon transcribed the sounds to create an acoustic music score for their ensemble to play live.”

Below: An excerpt from the original Metal Machine Music:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
05.09.2010
11:51 pm
|
What motivated the Times Square bomber? The Death of Faisal Shahzad’s AMerican Dream
05.09.2010
09:21 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
I’ve noticed that little of the news reporting in America about Faisal Shahzad, the would be Times Square bomber, has compared his intended act to that of suicide pilot Joseph Stack, the fellow who flew a plane into the IRS building. Starck was at his wit’s end and saw suicide—and taking down as many people with him as possible—as his only way out. He’d lost everything and needed someone or some entity to blame for his broken life to make sense to him. Clearly he was a confused and overwhelmed man.

And this is the angle to the Shahzad story that’s getting short shrift here, as if the media is afraid to touch it: The death of Shahzad’s American dream. The media is selling this as another nutty Islamist who “hates our way of life” but that’s not all he is and it’s a very one-dimensional view of what motivated him. He’s also a guy—like Stack—who saw himself screwed over by the system. If he was going to go down, he would go down spectacularly, becoming in some quarters, a hero. A self-perceived loser reborn as an Islamist icon in an instant.

Three British reporters went digging a bit deeper in the pages of the Telegraph:

For answers to the mystery of what drove Faisal Shahzad to try to turn downtown New York into a fireball, a poke among the rubbish in the backgarden of his former home in Connecticut offers some torn and crumpled clues.

Blowing around last week on the overgrown lawn was a discarded cache of personal mail, dumped there during a clearout when he abruptly vacated the house last year.

The tale they tell, though, is not of contacts with shadowy terrorist groups or plots against the West, but a narrative that millions of ordinary Americans can identify with since the financial meltdown of 2008.

One is a letter from the Connecticut Superior Court, demanding he attend a repossession hearing on his home; another is from a debt collection agency, saying he owed them more than $15,000. A third message is friendlier in tone, but reveals just why his financial woes might have worried him so much - it is a pink greetings card addressed to him and his wife, Huma, which reads “Congratulations on your new little girl!”

Did hard times create the Times Square bomber? (Telegraph)

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
05.09.2010
09:21 pm
|
John Lennon - Mother
05.09.2010
02:17 pm
Topics:
Tags:

 
Very powerful and sad clip made by Yoko a few years ago for this amazing tune from one of the best Beatles solo LPs. Tears.

Posted by Brad Laner
|
05.09.2010
02:17 pm
|
Happy Mama’s Day!
05.09.2010
02:09 pm
Topics:
Tags:

 

 

Posted by Elvin Estela
|
05.09.2010
02:09 pm
|
I don’t have alien eyes!
05.09.2010
01:45 am
Topics:
Tags:


Maaan, why haters gon’ tell you you have googly alien hybrid eyes?

Posted by Jason Louv
|
05.09.2010
01:45 am
|
Page 2120 of 2346 ‹ First  < 2118 2119 2120 2121 2122 >  Last ›