It’s time Manchester did the decent thing and honored its most celebrated son. If their Merseyside rivals can honor John Lennon by renaming its international airport after the sarky mop top, then Manchester should do something similar and rename its bus station after Mark E. Smith.  But let’s not stop there - a local holiday should be adopted on his birthday, street parties held, and a statue erected in Broughton. Not much to ask for the man whose band The Fall have been essential listening over the past thirty-odd years.

Thirty odd years indeed, with Smith the only constant in The Fall’s ever-changing line-up through a long, difficult, but productive, and brilliant career. How the great Mancunian has survived the bitter fights, spiked drinks, broken bones and riots is proof of Smith’s creativity, ambition and touched-by-genius talents.

And let us not forget, Smith’s ability to be a thorn in the side of the condescending prissy-mouthed southern soft lad press, who’ve repeatedly written him off as a “piss-head,” failing to see that a piss-head could never produce such quality or quantity of work. Yes, let us rejoice, for we are alive in the days of Mark E. Smith.

This little gem is from 1983, when Smith gave his guide to writing - not the kind of shit you’ll get from those writing-by-numbers courses, but something far more interesting and entertaining.
 

 
Bonus clips of The Fall after the jump…
 

 
(via Nerdcore)

 
Episode #17 in Dangerous Minds ongoing effort to educate the public on drugs.

This brings back memories.
 

 
Aleister Crowley teapot by artist Charles Krafft. According to LAShTAL, the price tag is $666.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Aleister Crowley Action Figure!

(via Coilhouse)

 
Frenzied New Wave synthpop duo, Slow Children (singer Pal Shazar and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Chinich) put out two albums of smart music in the early 80s, both produced by Jules Shear (Jules and the Polar Bears) and future Pet Shop Boys collaborator Stephen Hague, who also played on the records.

They had three minor hits, “President Am I?” (an early MTV favorite),“Vanessa Vacillating” and “Spring In Fialta” (with a title swiped from a Vladimir Nabokov short story). Like a lot of people who remember them, I was exposed to Slow Children via the $1.99 RCA New Wave sampler called Blits, which also contained songs by Bow Wow Wow, Sparks, Shock (who I wrote about here) and the Philip Glass-produced group, Polyrock.

Slow Children reformed in the spring of 2010.
 

 
Graeme Ronald is the talent behind Remember Remember, a Glasgow-based electronic group, who has produced some incredibly beautiful, lush and rather brilliant music over the past two years - think Brian Eno meets Philip Glass.

Remember Remember’s self-titled debut album is a must-have, and the group are now about to release an EP.

Due for release on November 1st, RR Scorpii contains 4 tracks recorded at Glasgow’s Green Door studios. In addition to their collage styled electronica, the band have borrowed from psychedelica and the instrumental landscapes of 70s rock.

Containing some typically intricate compositions, Remember Remember seem to have developed renewed confidence. The Glasgow based seven piece move from relatively lush soundscapes to the brittle guitar instrumental ‘Aria’ unveiling a number of new influences.

Ronald has an incredible CV, having been a member of such highly-praised bands as Multiplies, The Royal We and Sexy Kids, and touring guitarist with Mogwai.

This short film was made by Gregor Barclay to accompany Remember Remember’s Imagining Things, a track once deliciously described as a “mindgasm”.

 
Via Iain David Stewart
 

 
Film footage of the photo shoot for the record jacket of “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?” The film was released as a promo for the record.

The infamous photo was shot in 1966 by Jerry Schatzberg.
 

 
While the Kenneth Anger / Jimmy Page dustup has been reported ad nauseum, this clip is new to me.

Led Zeppelin guitarist and leader Jimmy Page has been fired as composer for the soundtrack of the film ‘Lucifer Rising’ by it’s director, Kenneth Anger. Speaking in London on Friday, Anger decried Page for time-wasting and a lack of dedication to the project, and claimed that Page’s personal problems had made him impossible to work with. Page has been working on the film for the past three years and has so far delivered some 28 minutes of completed tape. The story of the collaboration -and the ensuing rift- goes back to 1973 when Page first agreed to compose and perform the movie soundtrack. He and Anger first met at Sotheby’s, at an auction of boots by the English Occultist/Magician Aleister Crowley. Both Page and Anger are students of Crowley’s teachings. Anger is a practicing Magus (a priest/magician) and his films’of which ‘Scorpio Rising’ is perhaps the best known—- are replete with occult symbolism. Anger himself describes them as “Spells and Invocations”.

 
CNN (cannabis news network) for potheads, the Republic Of Rastafari’s Underground News Network and its master blaster newscaster Ek Balam (Black Jaguar) is the alternate surreality to Fox and MSNBC and probably just as reliable.  Balam has uploaded close to 400 newscasts/manifestos to Youtube and his stream of consciousness raps are weirdly compelling. While toking on spliffs the size of a baby’s arm, Balam delivers disjointed (pun intended) mashups on the state of the modern world, the Mayan calendar, Hopi prophecies, conspiracy theories, Rastafarianism, Fortean pseudo-science, reggae, Islam, and a motherlode of other topics. In the thick haze of pot smoke, certain thoughts emerge with clarity while others flit around like stoned moths circulating the brushfire hanging from Balam’s lower lip. Edward R. Murrowjuana ina Babylon.

The out-of-synch audio adds to the overall strangeness of the experience.
 

 
The Black Jaguar on aliens from outerspace after the jump…

 
Strangely, despite the spectacle of under-18s cursing on camera, this lovely spot and campaign by political activist and nonprofit marketing consultant Luke “Sissyfag” Montgomery hasn’t made the outrage rounds on Fox after being posted 11 days ago.

Give it time, I guess. Meanwhile, Luke’s tactical approach here has come under a bit of discussion in some of the comments. But I’d think it’s immaterial since at this point it seems the play now is NOT to convert California voters since the issue of gay marriage is going to the Supreme Court, right?