Métal Urbain were contemporaries of the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Formed in 1976, the French punk rock group’s harsh and noisy sound was as aggressive—if not more so—than that of their English or American counterparts (with the exception of Suicide or The Screamers). Their lead singer, Clode Panik, sounded like a French version of The Fall’s Mark E. Smith.
The group’s second single, “Paris Maquis” was Rough Trade’s first record release and influential British DJ John Peel showed his support, but they never really made it and broke up in 1979. Métal Urbain’s sound has been a big influence on Big Black’s Steve Albini and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Métal Urbain reformed in 2003 and toured the US. In 2006, Jello Biafra produced their album, J’irai chier dans ton vomi, in San Francisco.
Below, Métal Urbain lip-synching “Paris Maquis” on French TV in 1978:
After the jump, a performance of Métal Urbain’s Gallic synthpunk anthem, “Panik”!
Totally creepy. The saddle with vibrator is a sex device only Leatherface could love.
Is it possible to get a sexually transmitted disease from a video?
Bold and brassy, cult figure Cherry Vanilla first came to the public’s attention playing a necrophilliac nurse in Andy Warhol’s freaky London stage play, Pork. Back in her hometown of New York City, she became David Bowie’s publicist during his Ziggy Stardust-era, working beside fellow Pork cast-member Leee Black Childers (who was the VP of Mainman, as Bowie’s then management company was called).
Later she moved to London, where RCA Records marketed her as “The First Lady of Punk.” Sting and Miles Copeland played in her backing band. Later, she went to work for composer Vangelis, running his US office, which she still does to this day. Cherry Vanilla’s memoir, Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla
Below Cherry Vanilla performs “The Punk” on Germany’s Music Laden television program in 1977:
How in the hell does something this happen?! By the way, the anaconda loses and the man survives with all his limbs still intact.
Update: A Facebook pal points out, “Not to be technical, but this is not an anaconda… video seems to be in Africa and that would appear to be most likely an African rock python (Python sebae)”
(via Unique Daily)
Dangerous Minds pal Steven Daly sent this Hollywood Reporter article my way this morning about a novel new way the beleaguered video rental store industry is fighting the severe downtown in their fortunes. With Hollywood Video and Blockbuster getting crowed out of the marketplace by bit torrent, VOD, Netflix and Red Box, how will the “mom-n-pop” indies survive? Well, that’s an interesting question and no, it’s not April Fools Day, either:
“Please enjoy the movie. Would you like a tan with that?”
At the rate big video-rental chains are closing up their shops, the 10,000 or so independently owned stores are getting creative to ensure they don’t suffer a similar fate. Combining movie rentals with tanning beds is one popular move.
More than 3,500 independently owned video-rental stores have added a tanning salon to their stores, estimated Ted Engen, president of the Video Buyers Group, an industry trade association.
A good tanning bed—one that consumers won’t mind paying about 50 cents a minute to use—can cost up to $15,000. Despite the hefty upfront cost and fattened energy bills, rental time combined with ancillary product sales like suntan lotion translate into a profitable business.
Engen said peak hours, days and seasons for tanning coincide nicely with the slow times in the movie-rental business, so traffic is drawn to the combo stores fairly consistently. A store with a half-dozen beds typically will garner 40% of its revenue from tanning and 60% from DVDs.
Video Rental Stores’ Bizarre Survival Strategy (THR)
Warning: You may actually crap yourself while watching this video.
As a YouTube commenter so eloquently puts it, “Dear mother of god! Watching that made me shit myself.. Balls - they have huge ones!”
(via langweiledich.net)
During the 1980s, Andy Warhol occasionally walked the fashion runways and did product endorsements, represented by the Ford Modeling Agency. This print ad for his friend Vidal Sassoon hair products was a frequent sight in trendy magazines circa 1985.
Surfer and filmmaker Mickey Smith made this breathtaking video that summons up the most sublime sense of being alive and in touch with the world we inhabit.
Smith worked with Allan Wilson from the Astray Collective, who acted as Director of Photography on the project. Together they logged hours of footage across the Atlantic coastline, traveling around Ireland, Cornwall and Manchester. Shot in Super 16mm film, as well as groundbreaking work with Canon 5D mk11 Digital SLR, Smith also projected images of the huge walls of water within which he works, on to monster urban landscapes such as sky rises and castles in Manchester, as well as the cliff lines at his home of Ireland.
Dark Side Of The Lens
There’s more right about this record than I could ever elucidate in a couple of pithy sentences. Best to simply bathe in its glory. You’ll be non-stop dancing in no time.