“He’s a rewarder of those who seek him. Some say God is a punisher, but do you know what we do with child abusers today? We put child abusers in prison if we find out about ‘em. God is not a child abuser! God is a good god. Why don’t you just say that out loud with me right no? God is a good god, you always remember that! God is not gonna do you harm… (pause) There is a judgement coming someday…”

—“Mrs. Hook” from The Christian Pirates cable access show.

History will note that for a short period at the end of the 20th century, there was this “format” called “VHS” (“Video Home System” is what it stood for) that allowed people to do something called “videotaping” “off” their television sets (it didn’t work exactly like that, but it’s, you know, close enough). But what history might neglect to record is that certain things got passed around from hand to hand on this format samizdat style in what was then called the “VHS tape trading underground.” During the mid-1980s to the late 90s, traders and flea market dealers were making pirated copies of things like the banned Rolling Stones movie Cocksucker Blues, Heavy Metal Parking Lot, “Screaming Boy” (lunatic Dallas public access preacher Jonathan Bell, later made famous by The Daily Show), a tape of a groupie blowing out a candle with her pussy for guitarist Steve Vai and “The Great Satan At Large,” a satanic talk show, among hundreds of other things.

One of the most heavily circulated items during the “VHS tape trading underground” days was a synapse-frying excursion straight into the dark heart of the most deeply disturbed, bat-shit crazy 80s TV evangelism titled “Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks.”  When the tape began making the rounds in the early 90s, the jaw-dropping selection of low IQ buffoonery, superstitious insanity and wildly inappropriate kiddie shows made by people who should NEVER BE LEFT ALONE UNSUPERVISED WITH YOUNG CHILDREN was the centerpiece of many a weed and alcohol-fuelled viewing fest.

An unnamed Internet reviewer said this of “Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks”:

Americans: See why the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of blithering idiots!

Rest of the world: See why Americans are a bunch of blithering idiots!

That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell.

One of the more perplexing things on exhibit in “Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks” is the clips from the no budget “Christian Pirates” cable access show where godless children are forced to “walk the plank” by one-legged Captain Hook and they sing songs about hoping that Satan gets paralyzed and has to use a wheelchair. There’s Jimmy Swaggart’s tearful confession of whore mongering (a masterclass in fleecing the faithful with the “I have sinned” ploy). A Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker press conference. There’s a lot of asking for money, natch, some racist Bible prophecy, preaching against something one of them calls “Marxism” and a “joyous” man with hands growing from his shoulders who, er, counts his blessings. It’s not just Christianity that takes a beating here. New Age beliefs are lampooned and there’s even an appearance by Queen Uriel from the nutty Unarius Academy of Science.
 

 
“Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks” was produced by a Boston-based zine called Zontar. It came with an attached pamphlet that you can see reproduced here. Aside from being a masterpiece of video folk art (YES, this should preserved and elevated to museum status) it’s one of the single best things ever to get stoned and watch. I guarantee you’ll be blown away by “Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks” (and if you’re not, you’ll be issued a full refund...)
 

 
BONUS VIDEO: Disgraced—but still currently raking it in like a gangsta on BET—TV evangelist Robert Tilton in the infamous “Pastor Gas” video that has made the rounds on the Internet since the first days of MySpace. My VHS copy of “Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks” included this:
 

 
Telefís—the Irish Gaelic word for television, pronounced Tele-feesh—is the name of a new musical collaboration between Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney, The Fatima Mansions) and producer/musician Jacknife Lee (who’s worked with everyone from Taylor Swift and Christina Aguilera to REM, U2, and Modest Mouse). The pair are aiming to update the synthpop duo paradigm with an album titled a hAon, which translates as “the first” or “#1” in, you guessed it, Gaelic. After February 11 you can stream the album at all the usual places, and the vinyl version will be in record stores on March 4. They’ve also been churning out videos at a rapid clip which you can sample at the Telefís YouTube channel.

Prior to the release of the album, Telefís teamed up with Jah Wobble for a series of collaborations. Their latest is a dub version of their earlier alliance, “Falun Gong Dancer.” I asked Cathal Coughlan for a statement about the video and this is what he sent me:

Near Dublin, the Capital City of the Irish Empire, a select group of religious tyrants are gathering together in a specially-constructed TV studio to create a media presentation which will end the Permissive Society of the 1960’s for once and for all. Meanwhile, in distant London, a group of smartly-dressed working emigrants from the Irish mainland assembles in order to socialize in a convivial environment. This is a place where they will not be derided for their manners and speech, which while both are imbued with a grace and elegance, are not shared in common with the majority of the host city’s population. An outbreak of set-dancing occurs, sending the dance floor into a controlled and courtly frenzy.

The music filling the space is the “Donkey’s Gudge Dub” version of the song “Falun Gong Dancer,” by the Irish expatriate group Telefís, a version heavily featuring the bass stylings of Jah Wobble, himself a son of the Irish diaspora in London. Jah Wobble is one of the most distinctive instrumental voices to have emerged in this neck of the woods since the punk era, a ferment which drew him into highly distinctive work with Public Image Ltd., the Invaders of the Heart, and a host of diverse and adventurous projects.

In fact, coincidentally, given the title of the tune, the dancers in London soon take a break from the dance and enjoy a psychotropic snack in the form of “donkey’s gudge” cake, a strange concoction originating in the homeland, on this occasion fortified with some of the mind-bending fungi which grow on nearby Hampstead Heath. After this, the dance assumes a supernatural glow, and the dancers are watched jealously via a Russian satellite link by the theocrats in Ireland.

Composure is retained by all, but Jesus the lights look peculiar, and why is that man’s elbow in three places at once? His elbow is the Holy Trinity, of course!

The debut Telefís album “a hAon” (“the first”) will be released on February 11, 2022. The vinyl version of a hAon will be released on March 4. Preorder here.
 

Pink Floyd circa 1967.
 
Ten years ago, upon the passing of Dick Clark, a long-time contributor to Dangerous Minds Marc Campbell homaged Clark by posting footage of Pink Floyd’s appearance on American Bandstand. As Campbell pointed out, Clark would select acts for Bandstand and his choice of Pink Floyd in 1967 demonstrates how far ahead of the musical curve Dick Clark was. Now, with a hat tip to another long-time contributor for DM, Ron Kretch, let me treat your eyes to newly colorized footage of Floyd dreamily miming along to their third single “Apples and Oranges” on stage at ABC Studios in Burbank (or perhaps ABC Television Center studios as an intrepid DM reader has noted), California on November 7th, 1967.

Before we get to this nothing short of glorious colorized footage, I’d like to touch on the fact that it took nearly a year of work to recreate this moment and it shows. A YouTuber based in Sweden known as Artist on the Border has been creating their own visual representations of Pink Floyd for the last two decades. The colorization adds a dream-like appearance to the members of Pink Floyd who had just arrived in America for the first time a few days before their appearance on American Bandstand. So stop whatever it is you were doing and let the colorized chill of Pink Floyd wash over you. Also, beware the colorized version of Syd Barrett may give you a hell of a contact high. In the event the footage below becomes unavailable, click here to view it on YouTube. 

Pink Floyd’s performance of ‘Apples and Oranges’ on American Bandstand, 1967.

 
This is a guest post by Spencer Kansa, author of Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron, Zoning and Out There: The Transcendent Life and Art of Burt Shonberg.

Is David Bowie’s musical legacy really only worth half that of Bruce Springsteen’s? This was the first thing that sprung to mind when I read the news earlier this week concerning the financial deal inked between the Bowie Estate and Warner Chappell Music, which handed the rights to the Duke’s back catalogue, including the “lost album” Toy released this Friday (on the eve of what would’ve been his 75th birthday), for the modest sum of $250 million, 50% less than The Boss received for his songbook from Sony. If accurate, these figures only confirmed what I’ve long suspected: America never really deserved Bowie.

Trawling back through the tsunami of US press coverage that broke out in the wake of his devastating death six years ago, it’s all too apparent that the Special Man remained a spiky and alien presence in the American psyche; an outlier who was never fully embraced into the mainstream bosom of a country that had fascinated him since boyhood. Bowie is conspicuous by his absence from the Kennedy Center Honors and it remains a mystery as to why, as a self-confessed gridiron fan, he never performed at the Super Bowl halftime show.(1)

His championing of bisexuality and use of dramatic make-up early on in his career certainly handicapped him in what remains a far more puritanical country than most in the West. But while it’s true he never had the same commercial clout in the US as he did in the UK, Europe, Australasia and Japan, his influence on popular music and culture in general—and the States in particular—dwarfs not only coevals like Elton John and Rod Stewart, but those colossi that went before him such as The Beatles, the Stones, Dylan and Elvis, and he continues to wield a transgenerational appeal like no other. Every four-year cycle in music over the last five decades has thrown up a whole new crop of Bowie-inspired clones and imitators, most recently with the arrival of the K-pop androgynes.

So while his passing was publicised far and wide Stateside, there was a definite lack of depth in analysing his all-encompassing significance. Time and again, obituary writers failed miserably to hit the milestones of his accomplishments, especially his crowning achievements: that astonishing sequence of albums he made between 1970-1983 that remains the greatest run of albums in pop music history, during which he revolutionised how rock music was presented on stage, on video and album covers. Or the fact that many sub-genres of popular music simply wouldn’t exist without him—from Glam Rock, Punk and New Wave to Synth-Pop, Art-Rock and Goth.

Putting to one side the fact that none of his classic albums from the 70s were even nominated for a Grammy, let alone won one (Bowie never put much stock into such award ceremonies anyway, and the Grammys have always been a notoriously middle-of-the-road organisation with a sketchy reputation for presenting awards based not on merit but backroom deals), and the surprising fact, for many, that Blackstar remains his only album to reach the top of the Billboard Chart, the American eulogies were often marred by faulty chronology, lazy clichés, and serious omissions. For instance: other than a sole mention by Tamron Hall on NBC’s Today Show, Bowie’s persona of Halloween Jack was MIA from Bowie’s roster of dramatis personae, quite an oversight considering that it was while performing in that incarnation—far more than Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane—that broke Bowie big in America, seeing him selling out arenas on the critically and commercially acclaimed Diamond Dogs tour of 1974. While in a widely syndicated paragraph that appeared in USA Today and other newspapers, readers were told that Bowie’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and his Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 were among the “few major honors bestowed on Bowie in his lifetime,” because whoever dreamt up with those lines couldn’t be bothered to read the Wikipedia page dedicated to the list of trophies he garnered over the years.(2)

Another egregious example was the truly abysmal write-up in the New York Times, where John Pareles found it fit to mention inconsequential factoids such as how ‘Under Pressure’ was sampled by Vanilla Ice while failing to cite Pauline Kael—acknowledged as one of the finest film critic of her time—who hailed Bowie’s presence in The Man Who Fell To Earth as “the most romantic figure in recent pictures.” 

While the journalist Bill Wyman chose his Bowie remembrance for Vulture as the moment to argue that Bowie had not written a major song since 1980 and to dismiss Low and Heroes as “overrated.” Though he did profess surprise that not one of Bowie’s landmark long-players of the 1970s made it into Robert Christgau’s annual Top 10 Pazz and Jop poll for the Village Voice, which aggregated votes from most of the leading American music critics at the time.(3) This only reinforced how completely out of step many American music critics were with Bowie’s fleet-footed manoeuvres during his Imperial Period. Some, like Lester Bangs, were openly hostile, but if you fancy a giggle, you should read up and see some of the forgettable dreck they did praise at the time, in his stead.

Furthermore, as most of the obits were penned by men of a certain vintage (Tara Bahrampour at the Washington Post was a rare exception), Bowie’s physical attributes, such as his shattering beauty, through all his guises, as well as his status as one of the major sex symbol’s of the 20th-Century, were barely touched upon; neither were all the beguiling sides of his prismatic personality. Indeed, the picture painted of Bowie as the High Priest of Glam was so overstated in the coverage it ignored the fact that, for the vast majority of his career, Bowie comported himself not like a polysexual vampire from Mars, but as the quintessential suave English gentleman, or “the Cary Grant of Rock” as his sometime sideman Adrian Belew once memorably dubbed him. Accounts of the mesmeric power of his stillness on stage and screen were also only sparingly touched upon, as were illustrations of the intellectual heft of his work, or how his stage name has become an adjective and byword for an artist or any creative work deemed to possess magical, supernatural qualities.

Some American fans were also rightfully miffed that there was no official tribute paid to him by President Obama. (So much for the so-called “Cool President!”) (4) While it’s true Bowie remained a British citizen, his status was that of a global icon who’d lived in America, off and on, since 1974, permanently since 1995. And with millions of American fans, it would’ve been more than fitting for the president to say a few words or release a statement. But Obama wasn’t the only high profile political snub.

During the ‘90s, Bowie and Iman stumped for the Clintons. They were in attendance at the Democratic Convention in 1992 and were pictured in the company of “Bubba” several times since, yet no encomiums were forthcoming from him or his wife either. Actually, I could find no plaudits penned by leading Democrats at all; whereas in stark contrast, Bowie was praised by then-Republican presidential candidates John Kasich, Rick Santorum and, most notably of all, Donald Trump, who described Bowie as “a great guy” and “a great talent.” Bowie even wormed praised from right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, who conceded that Bowie was a “supremely talented rock ‘n’ roll crooner,” although the porcine bloviator couldn’t resist a jab at Bowie’s sylphlike frame.

Considering that, in the second half of his life, Bowie appears to have settled into a broadly Social-Democratic position on the political spectrum, it’s ironic that the most intelligent and insightful homages to him came not from left-leaning publications but from conservative periodicals, particularly the National Review, where, in a frank admission, Carl Eric Scott wrote: “Bowie mattered. And social conservatives, part of the reason he mattered is that he was our opponent. A classy, beautiful, intriguing, attractive, articulate, and poetically potent opponent, but all the more damaging to our vision of the good life because of those qualities.” Liberal outlets, meanwhile, whittled on endlessly about Bowie’s influence on transgenderism, a questionable claim, and something he scoffed at when the subject was raised with him in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia in 2002.

Which brings us onto the biggest Bowie slight of them all to occur during this shiva period. Although some of the US cable channels scrambled to put together tribute programmes dedicated to him, none of the network TV channel schedules were altered to accommodate his legacy or mark his passing, providing yet another example of how irrelevant traditional media outlets have become. However, 60 Minutes, the country’s flagship news magazine, did finally run an unaired profile of Bowie that they produced back in 2003 to promote the forthcoming Reality album and tour. But what was billed as a belated celebration for a cultural icon lasted all of three minutes—right at the end of the programme! And to add further insult, they consigned some extra footage, that could and should have been broadcast, to their website. The programme-makers not only squandered the opportunity to pay a substantive salute, but they provoked an unnecessary backlash that was completely self-inflicted.

Notes:

1)Of course, it’s possible that, like the Crown Honours Lists in the UK, Bowie was offered such enticements but discreetly turned them down.
2)This page is also missing several other notable achievements including Bowie’s award for Best Male Singer in the British Rock and Pop Awards of 1980; the Berolina Award for Commitment and Service to Berlin 1987; the World Music Legend/Outstanding Contribution to Music Award of 1990, and Bowie’s designation as the Greatest Entertainer of the 20th Century voted by the British public for the BBC’s Icons TV show in 2019.
3) Hunky Dory did in fact make the top 10, but only just, by taking the final spot. The Pazz and Jop poll went AWOL between 1972 and 1973, but although Christgau personally bestowed a solid B+ rating on both LP’s, there’s little confidence that either Ziggy or Aladdin Sane would’ve made it into the Top 10.
4) The Clinton Library Twitter account did release photographs of Bowie visiting the Clinton White House in 1995. One reason for the silence from the Obamas may have been due to comments made by Iman to Parade magazine back in 2009, in which she stated: “Mrs Obama is not a great beauty,” which garnered headlines, although her following remarks put that opinion in context: “But she is so interesting looking and so bright. That will always take you farther. When you’re a great beauty, it’s always downhill for you. If you’re someone like Mrs Obama, you just get better with age.” If this was indeed the cause for the absence of a presidential panegyric, then it suggests pettiness in the extreme on behalf of the First Family. When the subject of Bowie’s death was raised by the White House press corps, Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, admitted he wasn’t sure whether the president was a Bowie fan but opined: “There are a number of people all across the globe who have talked about how they had been inspired by (Bowie’s) life and his work… there’s no denying the impact of his contribution to art and music and film.”

A live vocal performance of “Heroes” on TOTP in 1977

 
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the long deceased leader of the Gun Club, has been variously described as brilliant, tortured, visionary, even lovable, but mostly he seems to be recalled as an utterly contemptible asshole and colossally detestable fucked up junkie and drunk. This doesn’t mean he’s not one of the finest and most important musicians of the post-punk era—because he most certainly is that, too—just that it’s difficult to find anyone, anyone at all, willing to say something nice about him. Exhibit A would be Ghost on the Highway, Kurt Voss’s 2006 Gun Club documentary. You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but what if that’s all there is to say about someone?

To be honest, knowing that Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a major jerk does absolutely nothing to change my opinion of the man. It’s got nothing to do with appreciating Pierce’s art. Anyone who has ever explored the recorded output of the Gun Club finds there, if not a criminally overlooked musical and lyrical genius, then a savant who channeled his own authentic, mutant strain of the Blues. I once read that the Texas-born Pierce had an epiphany about marrying punk rock with Marty Robbins’ cowboy songs and that this is what animated the unique sound of the Gun Club. That is an extremely inspired idea if you ask me and that musical vehicle became Pierce’s lifetime muse. You can always tell a Gun Club song from the first few bars. Even if the band’s personnel changed over the years, the signature sound that Pierce and company generated under the Gun Club moniker always remained remarkably consistent. 

The Gun Club (read: Jeffrey Lee) was well known for being magic or tragic live, but when I saw them perform at the Electric Ballroom in London in 1984, it was one of the very best, most memorable concerts that I have ever attended. The group was touring in support of The Las Vegas Story, an especially strong album. It was my 19th birthday and I was extremely stoned and as drunk as a skunk before I even got there. I reckon the only person in the venue drunker than me that night was Jeffrey Lee himself, who sat drinking alone at the upstairs bar while the opening act—the Scientists—played their set. I stood directly at the front and at one point Pierce drunkenly fell off the stage and right on top of me, but neither one of us felt any pain. Kid Congo Powers and Patricia Morrison were in the band then and visually those two, plus Pierce looked really amazing onstage together. Terry Graham’s drumming was ferocious. The noise they made was HUGE, and fearsome. They opened with “Walking With the Beast” and it was awe-inspiring. Considering the heroically inebriated state of their frontman, they were incredibly tight, and notably so. His unintentional stage dive on my head notwithstanding, musically Pierce hit all of his marks and was in fine voice. It didn’t last. Within a few short months, this iconic Gun Club line-up would fall apart. 

It’s been a quarter century since Pierce’s death, but in recent years, it’s become easier for the Gun Club to gain new fans than it ever was during the band’s lifespan. Whether they’re stumbling across them in record stores, via streaming, or through big ups from Nick Cave, Jack White, Debbie Harry and many others, of late there seems to have been a significant uptick of awareness of the profound and combustible talents of America’s premiere Mexican-American post punk Southern Gothic voodoo bluesman. There’s even an official Jeffrey Lee Pierce feature documentary, Elvis from Hell, that’s been in production since 2019. I think he’s an artist who’ll be “rediscovered” every few years.  
 

 
And if you aren’t already a Gun Club fan, dear reader, what are you waiting for? Every canonical Gun Club album is either a masterpiece, a near masterpiece or at least really, really fucking good and although there exists an over generous surfeit of legit, quasi-legit and just flat out bootlegged Gun Club live albums, many of these outings are also fantastic. A new Gun Club box set, Preaching the Blues (Flood Gallery) examines six of the group’s best 7” 45rpm singles issued between 1981 and 1993 along with an extensive booklet, a bonus single from the Miami sessions, there’s even a “Fire of Love” fanzine and a Gun Club badge (for that authentic 80s touch?)

Preaching the Blues is released on January 21st. Preorder here.
 

1983 TV appearance with a blistering performance of “The Lie.”

 
One day at the record store I saw a used copy for sale of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King and I bought it and took it home. I had gotten interested in the work of minimalist composer Julius Eastman and I knew that he’d sung what I’d read described as basically a weird opera, but I was otherwise unfamiliar with the piece.

The title was intriguing. What would something titled Eight Songs for a Mad King sound like? I was about to find out.

The first time I played the record, I’ll confess, it left me rather puzzled. It’s a difficult listen. I frankly didn’t know what to make of it, but one thing seemed certain, there’s nothing else even remotely similar to Eight Songs for a Mad King in modern classical music. Actually it’s not quite an opera, technically it is musical theater, a monodrama, with just one vocalist. Peter Maxwell Davies—then the enfant terrible of avant garde composers—was inspired to write the score expressly for the extended vocal range of South African actor (and world renowned vocal coach) Roy Hart and indeed the piece takes full advantage of a baritone with a five octave range. The music was arranged for six players on flute/piccolo, clarinet, percussion, piano/harpsichord, and violin/cello.

The “mad king” of the title is King George III, who suffered from acute mental illness. During his rule, George III became seriously deranged, speaking nonstop for several hours until he was foaming at the mouth and constantly repeating himself. He was delusional and hallucinated. It was claimed that the psychotic sovereign once mistook a tree for the King of Prussia. In his later years, the King tried to teach his bullfinches to sing and the players (minus the percussionist who represents the King’s handler) portray these birds musically and enact a dialogue of sorts with the insane monarch. The songs heard in the piece are actually based on the music played by a still extant miniature mechanical organ that was owned by George III that he employed to train his birds. There are snatches of Handel’s Messiah—a favorite of George III—heard during the score. The libretto was written by Randolph Stow and is derived from the words of George III. It takes the form of eight monologues delivered by the King to his bullfinches.

Eight Songs for a Mad King premiered on April 22, 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London with Hart in the lead and although it was generally well-received by the audience—which included a 22-year-old David Bowie—there were smatterings of boos, heckling and several walkouts. There is little doubt that the members of the audience had never seen or heard anything like this. Peter Brooks’ Marat/Sade is the only thing even remotely comparable, but musically that play is still somewhat conventional. Hell, Captain Beefheart or the Residents sound conventional compared to Davies’ representation of the drooling mad monarch. This is not classical music for the faint of heart. The timid listener need not bother.
 
More… insanity, after the jump…

‘A Sight for Sore Eyes, Vol. 1’
 
For about 50 years now, the Residents have operated in secret, hiding their identities behind masks and costumes. But now you can see the members of the band full nude!

Yes, the Residents are the subject of a handsome new coffee-table book from Melodic Virtue, the publisher of like retrospectives about the Butthole Surfers, Pixies, and Ministry. The Residents: A Sight for Sore Eyes, Vol. 1 collects beautifully printed reproductions of art, photos, correspondence, press clippings and ephemera from the first 13 years of the Eye Guys’ career, opening in their humble San Mateo dwelling in 1970 and concluding on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before the triumphant 1983 Uncle Sam Mole Show. 
 

‘Not Available’
 
While their faces remain mostly obscured in these pages, the Residents’ bare genitals are reproduced in black and white in more than one spread, so if you ever run into a pants-less member of the group, you’ll have no trouble recognizing him! That alone is worth the price of this volume. 

But let’s suppose you’re jaded about seeing the Residents’ junk; say you’ve already got enlargements of the Delta Nudes CD cover tacked up all over your walls, and Kinko’s quality is good enough for you. Well, how about a sharp full-color photo of the Mysterious N. Senada’s saxophone and another of its case, bearing the word “COMMERCIAL” in giant red capital letters? Do you have that, Mr. Great Big Residents Fan? How about shots from inside Poor Know Graphics’ design studio circa 1972, hmm? You got pictures of Snakefinger’s wedding? I’m so sure. What about the fucking floor plans for the Residents’ old Sycamore Street headquarters in San Francisco?
 

‘Eloise’ from ‘Vileness Fats’
 
Many of the book’s contents are things I’d hoped to find inside—shots from the set of Vileness Fats, beautiful stills from Graeme Whifler’s “Hello Skinny” film, W.E.I.R.D. fan club papers—but nearly as many are treasures I didn’t know I’d been missing, such as images from a proposal for an Eskimo opera, or screenshots from a prototype Mark of the Mole video game for the Atari 2600, or a snap of a promotional packet of Residents brand Tunes of Two Cities aspirin (to treat “the newest headache” from the band). Old favorites like the black-and-white promo photo of the band shopping for groceries are accompanied by contact sheets and other prints from the shoot. Turn the page, and it’s like The Wizard of Oz: the Residents are standing in the checkout line in Technicolor.
 

‘The Act of Being Polite’
 
Peppered throughout are testimonials from the group’s many-generational cohort of colleagues and fans. Collaborators and Ralph Records alumni like Mole Show emcee Penn Jillette, members of Tuxedomoon and Yello, and all of Renaldo & The Loaf get in reminiscences. Don Preston of the Mothers of Invention tells how he came to play his Moog parts on Eskimo; Patrick Gleeson conveys his delight at the Residents’ “fuck-you-ness”; Andy Partridge of XTC (a/k/a Commercial Album guest Sandy Sandwich) apostrophizes the Eyeballs in verse.

Then there’s Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten remembering the Berlin record store that turned him on to The Third Reich ‘n Roll in the Seventies, and Les Claypool takes us to the living room in El Sobrante, California where his teenage girlfriend first played him Duck Stab on her Marantz. Danny Elfman hears a different path his own life might have taken when he listens back. And bringing down the mean age of this all-star gang are some of the Residents’ “children”: Eric André, members of Steel Pole Bath Tub, Death Grips, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum…
 

Handwritten ‘Lizard Lady’ lyrics from the ‘Duck Stab/Buster & Glen Notebook’
 
The book includes a seven-inch of “Nobody’s Nos,” an unreleased song composed for the early masterpiece Not Available. There’s also a signed deluxe edition that comes with a picture disc of “Nobody’s Nos” and a supplementary 24-page book of notes and handwritten lyrics from the making of Duck Stab/Buster & Glen. Mercy.

Below, the band Star Stunted (Sam Coomes, Rob Crow, Zach Hill, Mike Morasky, and Ego Plum, all of whom contributed to the book, along with its author, Aaron Tanner) performs the Residents’ 1972 holiday heartwarmer (heartwormer?) “Santa Dog” in an exclusive Dangerous Minds premiere.

It’s a Christmas miracle!

’‘Black Christmas’ (Canada, 1974)

Every year around this time, Westgate Gallery‘s poster concierge extraordinaire Christian McLaughlin drastically cuts prices for his annual Black Xmas 50% Off Sale.

Anyway, my pal McLaughlin, a novelist and TV/movie writer and producer based in Los Angeles, is the maven of mavens when it comes to this sort of thing. You couldn’t even begin to stock a store like his if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for in the first place, and if you want a quick (not to mention rather visceral) idea of his level of deep expertise—and what a great eye he’s got—then take a gander at his world-beating selection of Italian giallo posters. Christian is what I call a “sophisticate.”

He’s got a carefully curated cult poster collection on offer that is second to none. His home is a shrine to lurid giallo, 70s XXX and any and every midnight movie classic you can shake a stick at. But why would you want to shake a stick at a bunch of movie posters to begin with? That would be pointless. And stupid.

The Westgate Gallery’s Black Christmas 50% off sale sees every item in stock at—you guessed it—50% off the (already reasonable) normal price. At checkout your poster tab will be magically cut in half.

The selection below is only a very tiny sliver of what’s for sale at Westgategallery.com.
 

’‘Acid Eaters’ (USA, 1968)
 

’‘Don’t Look Now’ (UK/Italy, 1973)
 

’‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’ (USA, 1965)
 

’‘Lips of Blood’ (France, 1975)
 

’‘Lost Highway’ (USA/France, 1997)
 

’‘Master Beater’ (USA, 1969)
 
Many more after the jump…

All photos by Andrew Leo Photography

Way back at the start of 2020, I already knew that I’d probably end up naming Scott Lavene’s second album, Milk City Sweethearts, as my top album of 2021—just as I named his Broke my favorite album of 2019—because I’d heard nearly every song on the album in demo form long before it was released. The demos sounded like finished songs, and as my long-suffering wife will attest to, I played the shit out of those demos. Over and over and over again, for like three or four months straight. (Luckily she liked them, too. “That fucking love song about amphetamines is now stuck in my brain forever,” she told me.)

Milk City Sweethearts—out now on vinyl and streaming in all the usual places—is a damned fine album. There are no weak songs on it. It’s all killer, no filler, but certain numbers do still stand out. Lucky for you, I’ve posted it below. There is no obstacle whatsoever between you and hearing what I think is just… the very finest example of an up & coming singer-songwriter making music today. I get it, you’ve never heard of the guy, nevertheless I am not wrong. If you like the likes of Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Squeeze—or Father John Misty—you will, I am absolutely certain of it, find much to love in Scott Lavene’s music. Maybe even scroll down and play it as the soundtrack to reading the rest of this post? You won’t regret it.

And it’s not just the music, because he is also a wonderfully charismatic performer. It is impossible not to be charmed by his (often quite elaborate) music videos and easy to imagine The Scott Lavene Show turning up on television one day. Sketch comedy, celebrity guests, a little song and dance… He’s that sort of “old fashioned” performer. You don’t encounter his particular brand of talent much these days, you just don’t.

So yeah, Milk City Sweethearts is my very, very favorite album of the year (the runner-up is Cathal Coughlin’s terrific Song Of Co-Aklan). I think you should hear it. And if you like it (what’s not to like???) you should tell all your friends. Scott Lavene, at this point in his career, is still very much a word-of-mouth sort of artist, so please spread the love and maybe follow him on Twitter?

What more can I say? Time for me to give Scott a chance. I asked him a few questions over email. Below you will find an embedded a Spotify playlist, and several of Scott’s latest videos, including the premiere of “The Toffee Tickler,” directed by the very talented Ryan Anderson, who often collaborates with Lavene.

As you don’t have an obvious fit with the same pop charts that recognize Dua Lipa, BTS or Olivia Rodrigo, how do you and your label go about promoting your music? What is the strategy?

The strategy is mainly banging on closed doors. Sending emails to radio and bloggers and magazines. Sending hard copies of the album when they show up. We have distribution which helps get the record in shops. For this album we had funding for some PR but they did pretty much nothing so we just rely on word of mouth. But, since the pandemic it seems i’ve got more of an audience as more people are coming to my shows and we’ve sold more pre orders. It’s growing. People that like my music really really like it.  Broke wasn’t really doing much until Dangerous Minds found the record so we just crack on and wait for the little breaks. 

Where do you see yourself fitting in?

I’m not sure I fit in anywhere. Everyone I get compared to is from the 70’s. I think of myself as an old fashioned songwriter though I’ve been added to a couple of post punk playlists so I guess I’m also that, which is ok as it’s a bit of a thing at the moment. But, oh my do I love writing ballads. I’ve written a new album that I’m hopefully going to record soon and it’s more of the same odd stories and trying to make pop songs out of mental health problems. Then after that I’m going to make a whole album of ballads. Big stinky, cynical, weepy ones. I guess I don’t want to fit in. A lot of my heroes just made what they liked and didn’t fit in anywhere other than in their own worlds and that’s what I’m aiming for, invites into my delicious environment of bad love and misfits.

Well I have noticed that nearly every single time that I’ve pestered someone to have a listen to what you do—and they actually listen—you make an instant convert. I sent a link to “The Ballad of Lynsey” to a arch rock snob friend of mine and his immediate reply was “You’re right, this guy is some kind of genius.” Bart Bealmear, one of the writers at Dangerous Minds heard about you first via that post I did about you in 2019, and he told me that his wife and also his mother-in-law became big fans of Broke as well. It seems to me that anytime someone with good taste is exposed to your music, you gain a new fan.

Yeah. It seems that when people get it, they really get it. And they get it bad. These are the people that make it all worth it, that make me think I’m not just churning out shit. I’m terrible at networking and getting in people’s faces. I just can’t be bothered, and I’m shy. But, anyway, I feel successful. There was a time when i thought I might not play again. Plus, I’ve made some great music in the last few years, music I’m proud of, music that’s taken years of living to make. Teenagers, the middle aged and oldies buy my records. I love it.
 

 
I think tenacity is the key and that you’ll just have to keep plugging away, and producing new music and eventually the fans will find you, and then they’ll have an deep back catalog to discover. You’re like a one-man version of the Go-Betweens, but eventually people did catch on to them. I think it will happen for you, I really do. Your music is just too good. Now what about your publishing? I can easily imagine your stuff being used in TV and movies.

A one man version of the Go-Betweens is my new favourite compliment, thank you. I think I’m getting better. I thought I’d never write an album like Broke but Milk City Sweethearts is better yet and this next one I’m working on is going to be amazing. And yes, I’ve got a new publisher. A small but great one based in Newcastle called Wipeout Music. They’re working away on that side of things so we’ll see. It used to be called selling out but fuck that. If it means I haven’t got to get a normal job for a while then I’ll sell out in a flash. However it would be ironic to make advertising money from a song called “Broke.”

Much more with Scott Lavene after the jump, including the premiere of his latest video, after the jump…

 
In the mid 1960s, the group Jim and the Lords inked a deal with producer Dave Hassinger’s production company. After a name change, the first Electric Prunes 45 was released. Their next two singles, 1967’s “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time,” are excellent examples of American psychedelic pop/rock, and both were Top 40 hits. Those tunes were written by outside songwriters, and so was much of the Electric Prunes’ self-titled debut album (1967), as Hassinger only permitted two group compositions on the LP. While the band successfully lobbied to have more of their own material included on album #2, Underground (1967)—and it’s a better record—there were no hit singles from it, and the LP didn’t do much in the marketplace. Things were about to change for the band in a way none of them could have foreseen. 
 

 
For the third Electric Prunes record, the trio of Hassinger, Prunes manager Lenny Poncher, and noted producer, arranger, and composer David Axelrod came up with the idea for the group to record an album of Axelrod’s compositions. The LP would combine classical and religious music with psychedelic rock. Once in the studio, the band was slow to pick up the material, as most of them didn’t read music. The pace of the learning curve wasn’t to Axelrod’s liking, so another group, the Canadian outfit the Collectors, was brought in, along with session musicians. In the end, the actual Electric Prunes only play on side one of Mass in F Minor (1968), though a few members, including lead singer James Lowe, appear on all the tracks. The album—a rock opera in which all the lyrics are sung in Latin—is a mixed affair. It’s certainly odd and obtuse. The opening number, “Kyrie Eleison,” is the highlight and the record’s best-known song, as it later appeared in the film Easy Rider (1969) and on its soundtrack. It’s the only track on the album lacking any orchestral accompaniment.

Following the album’s release, the Electric Prunes broke up. Though their moniker lived on.
 

 
The Electric Prunes’ name would continue to be used on subsequent LPs, despite the fact the no original members remained. Which brings us to album number four.

Continues after the jump…