Hilarious. The bigoted homophobic cretins at NOM (National Organization for Marriage) got punk’d bigtime yesterday when they hotlinked to a cartoon from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. There was only one problem, SMBC’s main man, Zach Weiner, changed the image… to the Freedom Flag!
Brilliant! Fuck these assholes, they deserve far worse. Name ‘em and shame ‘em, that’s what I say. Name ‘em and shame ‘em.
Via The Daily What
Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson perform Steve Reich’s minimal piece “Clapping Music.” As one YouTuber points out, “His shoulders must be SO SORE.”
(via TDW)
Demdike Stare stand at the crossroads of dub, minimal techno, ambient electronica and abstract expressionism. At midnight under a full moon. Performing ritual musik magick. The duo of Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker, from the greater Manchester area and part of the Pendel Coven family of acts, have been slowly and subtly carving out their own niche over the last few years. They are very witchey, and slightly housey, but this is not witch house. This is something else.
Tending to keep a low profile, their vinyl releases on the Modern Love label have come in beautifully packaged limited editions (with artwork by renowned DJ and designer Andy Votel) and have seen them gain a dedicated following among future music heads. Now all three of their previous albums have been gathered into one deluxe CD set called Tryptych, which also features 40 minutes of bonus material. Tryptych is available from Boomkat in the UK, on both CD and digital formats. This is real headphone music - listen closely to hear the subtle psychedelic details, and to feel the ebb and flow of the seemingly free form tracks. Beautiful, haunting pianos and strings rub up against layers of found sound, treated heavily but subtly, and all underpinned by some seriously heavy bass.
The Demdike Stare live show is worth catching if you can, as they are accompanied by some beautiful visuals made up of obscure vintage horror films,worked live to correspond to the music. There are a few of these audio/visual clips on YouTube, like this one for “Forest Of Evil” (which contains both male and female nudity).
Demdike Stare “Forest Of Evil” (most likely NSFW)
After the jump, more Demdike Stare videos, and artwork by Andy Votel.
Singer with The Cramps, and legendary rock’n'roll front man, Lux Interior passed away two years ago today. It seems more fitting to celebrate the man on the anniversary of his death than his birth (October 21st), and besides, any excuse to get some Cramps up on DM is always welcome.
Lux is up there with Iggy Pop for sheer rock magnetism. His early performances are mind blowing - the way he moved, the way he sang, his physical appearance, it’s just incredible. Many people have tried to cop his moves, but none could do it like Lux. Outside of drag Lux was the only man to ever look good in a pair of stilettos, and I am always amazed at his pants’ ability to stay up even with the flies wide open and his hand in there. It’s what rock’n'roll should be about, but sadly rarely is. Here’s to his memory, and to all the folks missing him on this day.
Here’s the Cramps performing “The Crusher” live in Germany in 1993:
After the jump, more Lux performance footage, Lux in SpongeBob SquarePants, and an interview with the Cramps...
Actor Maria Schneider’s death yesterday brought to mind a film she starred in with Jack Nicholson in 1975: Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger. Like all of Antonioni’s films, The Passenger uses space, emptiness and architecture to create a sense of spiritual longing in an existential void. The film’s final scene is considered to be one of the great cinematic achievements in the history of the medium—a seamless tracking shot that moves through a gated window enters a courtyard and does a 180 pan and returns to the window from the opposite point of view from which it left, no edits. It was quite some time after the film was released that the method in which it was done became known to film buffs who had been baffled by Antonioni’s seemingly impossible feat. The definitive description of the seven minute long scene is this Wikipedia entry:
There were a number of reasons why the shot proved so difficult to accomplish and is so studied by film students. The shot needed to be taken in the evening towards dusk to minimize the light difference between interior and exterior. Since the shot was continuous, it was not possible to adjust the lens aperture at the moment when the camera passed from the room to the square. As such, the scene could only be shot between 5:00 and 7:30 in the evening.
Difficulties were further compounded by atmospheric conditions. The weather in Spain was windy and dusty. For the shot to work, the atmosphere needed to be still to ensure that the movement of the camera would be smooth. Antonioni tried to encase the camera in a sphere to lessen the impact of the wind, but then it couldn’t get through the window.
Then there were further technical problems. The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room, and when it emerged outside the window it was picked up by a hook suspended on a giant crane that was nearly thirty metres high. A system of gyroscopes had to be fitted to the camera to mask the change from a smooth track to the less smooth and more mobile crane. The bars on the outside of the window were fitted on hinges. As the camera came up to the bars they were swung away at the same time as the hook of the crane attached itself to the camera as it left the tracks. The whole operation was co-ordinated by Antonioni from a van by means of monitors and microphones to assistants who, in turn, communicated his instructions to the actors and the operators.
In the DVD commentary, Nicholson states that Antonioni constructed the entire hotel entirely so that the final shot could be accomplished.
Here’s the scene. Watch it closely and be prepared to amazed. It was shot by Luciano Tovoli. The clip begins with a little bit of visual “noise” that is not part of the original film.
There’s a Sky Saxon tribute album in the works and it looks like some very fine musicians are involved, including some of Sky’s 1960s brethren. The list thus far includes Davy Jones of The Monkees, ? And The Mysterians, The Black Angels, The Damned, Iggy Pop, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Hawkwind, Mike Watt, Arthur Brown, The Electric Prunes and many many more. It’s a formidable line up and looks to be a fitting tribute to one of rock and roll’s true originals.
Sky’s wife, the amazing Sabrina Smith Saxon, plans to use any profits from the album to go toward the creation of…
[...] two resting places for Sky’s ashes. First and foremost, I will fly to Hawaii and meet with Sky’s spiritual family and scatter his ashes in the area where his spiritual father’s ashes are spread. Secondly, due to requests from fans for a place they can visit and show their respects, we will purchase a space in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
For more information visit Sky’s homepage.
I dig this slow burning psychedelic version of “Pushin’ Too Hard” by The Electric Prunes.
British film maker Peter Whitehead chronicled London’s sixties counterculture scene in Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London and the seminal rock and roll of the decade in videos and documentaries for The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. What Whitehead did for pop culture, he did for poetry in the combustible Wholly Communion.
On 11 June 1965, the Royal Albert Hall played host to a slew of American and European beat poets for an extraordinary impromptu event - the International Poetry Incarnation - that arguably marked the birth of London’s gestating counterculture. Cast in the role of historian, as a man-on-the-scene, and massively elevating his limited resources, Whitehead constructed the extraordinary Wholly Communion from the unfolding circus. As Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Harry Fainlight, Alexander Trocchi and others took to the stage, Whitehead confidently wandered with his borrowed camera, creating a participatory and anarchic film that is as much a landmark as the event itself, and launched his career.
When poets were rock stars. Enjoy Wholly Communion in all of its delightful chaos.
PJ Harvey talks about her new album Let England Shake on New Musical Express TV.
Harvey explains how politics, Stanley Kubrick, Ken Loach and Harold Pinter have influenced her recent songwriting.
Let England Shake hits the streets on February 15. It’s the most eagerly awaited album, for me, of 2011 so far. The tracks I’ve heard are a return to her peak form of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. You can buy the CD here.
Part II after the jump…
John Cassavetes, who died 22 years ago today, was the title character in the short lived TV show Johnny Staccato, which aired for one season in 1959. In the episode “The Poet’s Touch,” jazz musician and detective Staccato mingles with the beatniks of Greenwich Village and gets propositioned by the stunningly beautiful and bohemian Sylvia Lewis.
Miss Lewis has had a long career as a dancer and actress and is still very much alive. Check out her homepage here.
As Staccato enters a building there’s a sign for The Helen Hayes Equity Group, a sly homage to a theater company where many of Cassavetes acting peers got their training.
