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Previously unseen color film footage of the legendary, raucous punk band, CRIME (a DM premiere)
11.01.2019
09:04 am
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CRIME 1
 
CRIME is one of my favorite bands from the punk era, and though they weren’t fond of the term “punk,” they most certainly fit the bill. Obstreperous outsiders who played by their own set of rules, CRIME were highly confrontational, possessed a strong sense of style and imagery, and had oodles of attitude, their raucous rock ‘n’ roll a blend of untamed ‘60s punk and Raw Power-era Stooges. During their relatively brief existence (1976-1982), they seemingly alienated everyone around them, including the San Francisco Police Department, as the group wore their standard stage attire—cop uniforms—on the streets on San Fran. CRIME’s entire recorded output consisted of just three singles before they disbanded, and though there have been quite a few archival audio releases, and there’s some video on YouTube, distribution of formerly unseen footage has been rare in recent years. That’s all about to change with an upcoming CRIME set, which will include a previously unreleased DVD—and Dangerous Minds has a preview.

CRIME’s live debut took place at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco on Halloween night, 1976. Though the band thought they sounded good, they essentially cleared the place out, and five songs in the owner put a stop to the proceedings. Looking for another venue to play future shows, they found an unlikely one in Mabuhay Gardens, a Filipino supper club that had hosted a Filipino Elvis impersonator, amongst other showbiz acts. The Mab would become CRIME’s stomping grounds, and the epicenter of the San Francisco punk scene.
 
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A 1978 CRIME article in the New York Rocker included a description of a typically turbulent CRIME gig at Mabuhay Gardens.

At the Mabuhay, as the band plays with a relentless anger, one enthusiast whips a water pistol from his coat pocket and starts squirting [singer/guitarist Frankie] Fix. “Keep that shit up and you ain’t gonna live,” sneers the 5 ft. 5 manic guitarist. The kid in the crowd continues to squirt. Fix jumps off the stage and gives the guy a kick in the chest that doubles him over. Fix remounts the stage and the band launch into “Rockabilly Drugstore,” a song about, in Fix’s words, “a drug store where people go and hang out and dance and the cops are banging down the door and the cops start dancing and taking drugs.” The kid with the pistol recovers and resumes his liquid taunting. Fix is furious. “I’ll kill you, asshole,” he screams, as he leaps off the stage, throws off his Flying V guitar and leaps on the inciter. The guitar hits the floor and the neck cracks off. [Drummer] Hank Rank pulls Fix off the startled kid. “People got to show a little respect,” mutters Fix, grabbing a spare guitar. Crime wrap up their set. No encore.

On November 29th (Black Friday), the San Francisco-based record label, Superior Viaduct, will release the double 7-inch/DVD set, San Francisco’s First and Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Band: Live 1978. Shot on color film at Mabuhay Gardens and stored away for decades, the 35-minute DVD features recently unearthed and edited together live CRIME performances and behind-the-scenes footage. The eleven songs that make up its soundtrack are spread over two 45s, which are pressed on translucent blue vinyl, presenting CRIME in all their ramshackle glory at the Mab. I was given an advance of the audio, and it sounds really good—it’s certainly the highest quality live recording of the group I’ve ever heard.
 
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Superior Viaduct previously put out the essential Crime collection, Murder by Guitar, which includes the six tracks that make up the three 45s they released during their lifetime, plus nine additional studio recordings.
 
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Pre-order the limited edition blue vinyl/DVD edition of San Francisco’s First and Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Band: Live 1978 via Super Viaduct’s website.

Here’s the premiere of a tantalizing teaser clip for the release:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Murder By Guitar: San Francisco punk band Crime live at San Quentin prison, 1978
Vector Command: The dark and mysterious recordings by former members of Crime —a DM premiere

Posted by Bart Bealmear
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11.01.2019
09:04 am
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Vector Command: The dark and mysterious recordings by former members of Crime —a DM premiere
09.27.2018
07:38 am
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VC1
 
Recently, I was saddened to learn that Johnny Strike, singer/guitarist for the pioneer punks, Crime, had passed away. Crime’s debut 45 came out in 1976—Year Zero for Punk Rock—and bursting from the grooves was a raw ‘n’ ramshackle combination of ‘60s garage rock and Raw Power-era Stooges. A few years later, Crime refined their sound, embracing new wave. When they disbanded in the early ‘80s, Strike and another member of Crime formed a group that took what the late period lineup had been exploring to a place that was both darker and more mysterious. Recordings were made, but an LP never materialized. That’s about to change.

It was late in the summer of 1979 when Crime found themselves in need of a bass player. Joey D’Kaye, who had been their sound guy/roadie, was recruited to fill the role. As the band changed direction, D’Kaye switched to the synthesizer. Crime’s third single reflected their new sound, though this would prove to be the group’s final release.
 
Crime
 
By 1982, Crime was finished, but Strike and D’Kaye decided they still wanted to work together. The two had similar interests, including soundtracks to science fiction films and electro-punk–elements they’d incorporate into their next venture. Initially called the System, the duo recorded their synth-based tunes from 1983-84, laying down enough material for an album. In ’84, after they changed their name to Vector, a tape of their demos received some Bay Area radio airplay, but nothing more became of the recordings. Soon, Strike and D’Kaye were being pulled in different directions, and the two went their separate ways.
 
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It would be decades before Strike and D’Kaye would dust off the tapes they had made in the ‘the ‘80s and begin preparing them for release. Though it’s taken some time to make it happen, HoZac Records is about to put out an LP. Credited to Vector Command, System 3 is a collection of creepy, atmospheric tracks that are strangely danceable (think dark wave). Some songs are more experimental, resembling sci-fi/horror film scores. One number, “E.M.W.,” is a remake of Crime’s weirdest tune (it was originally called “Emergency Ward Music”). It dates from a 2001 session, in which Strike and D’Kaye briefly revived the project. The track was the perfect Crime number for the duo to tackle, and sits comfortably amongst the ‘80s recordings on System 3.

Dangerous Minds has the web premiere of “E.M.W.”
 

 
Vector Command’s System 3 LP will be released on October 19th. The first pressing is limited to 500 copies. Pre-order yours here.
 
VC cover
 
Towards the end of his life, Johnny Strike reunited with Joey D’Kaye, along with fellow Crime alum, Hank Rank, to form the group Naked Beast. In 2017, they released their self-titled album.

A 1980 live clip of the synth-era Crime reveals the band in a state of transition. Strike and fellow guitarist/vocalist, Frankie Fix, are wearing DEVO-inspired outfits, while the other members, including D’Kaye, are still wearing the garb the band was known for donning—police uniforms. They’re playing an unreleased number known as “Space Face,” which is an update of an older song of theirs, “Samurai.”
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Murder By Guitar: San Francisco punk band Crime live at San Quentin prison, 1978

Posted by Bart Bealmear
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09.27.2018
07:38 am
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Murder By Guitar: San Francisco punk band Crime live at San Quentin prison, 1978
11.12.2014
10:21 am
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A 2012 reproduction of Crime’s San Quentin flyer.
 
So if anyone has been looking for an index of how the world has changed since 1978, here’s one valuable piece of data. That Labor Day, the San Francisco punk band Crime played a show in San Quentin State Prison. The members of the band wore matching dark blue police uniforms, and as they played such originals as “Crime Wave,” “Piss on Your Dog” and “Rockabilly Drugstore,” inmates waved flyers that screamed “CRIME,” the band’s block-letter logo, above a drawing of a leather-clad dominatrix in a jail cell. I’m no expert, but I don’t think any festivities along these lines are planned for San Quentin this year. I bet they’re lucky if the warden lets them watch a rerun of The Voice.
 

 
How did this supremely unlikely event come to pass? Drummer Hank Rank told an interviewer from Amoeba Music a few years ago:

Contrary to popular perception, there were not many venues for early punk bands. Bill Graham publicly declared that he would never allow a punk band to play any of his venues, and many smaller clubs were scared by what they read about the goings-on at punk shows. That’s why we were open to the idea of Museums Without Walls that put art and music in unlikely places, so when we were contacted with the opportunity by Lynn Hershman (now Leeson), we jumped. We were the only punk band on the show that hot sunny day in the exercise yard at the Q, and neither the prisoners nor the guards knew what to make of us. The window of the cell where Sirhan Sirhan was in solitary was directly opposite where we played, and I’d like to think that our show was the worst punishment of his life.

 

 
Hank Rank and singer/guitarist Frankie Fix described the show in a contemporary interview with New York Rocker:

On Labor Day of this year, Crime entered San Quentin and performed for over 500 prisoners. “It was something we had wanted to do for a long time,” said Rank. “We knew we’d be playing for a crowd that was really into crime.”

As the prison gig approached, Crime almost got cold feet. “As it got closer,” said Rank, “things we were hearing got scarier. They said we couldn’t wear blue jeans or a work shirt ‘cause in the event of a riot, they wouldn’t want us to get shot, mistaken for prisoners. Then they told us about the no-hostage rule which is that if you’re taken hostage by a prisoner, they will not bargain for your life. If he says he’s going to kill you if they won’t let him out, they’ll say ‘Fine, kill this person. We don’t care. We’re not letting you out.’”

According to the band, the San Quentin gig was not their best. “It was in the daylight,” explained Fix, who rarely rises before 5 p.m.

“It was blazing heat,” said Rank, “and they had a little speaker for a PA. And imagine, you’re looking out there at a mass of 500 people and all I could see were crimes written on their faces: rape, murder, mutilation. All the disgusting side of humanity was sitting there looking at us.”

 

 
Gimme Something Better, an oral history of Bay Area punk, gives a few more details:

Hank Rank: There was sort of a demilitarized zone between the stage and the prisoners. There was a rope, and then the prisoners were all behind that. And they really divided right down the middle, blacks on one side and non-blacks on the other. When a black group would play, all of the non-blacks would stand up and move to the far side of the yard. When a non-black group would play, the exact opposite would happen. So when we hit the stage, they all got up and moved away [...] It was a tough crowd. They didn’t exactly get the music, and the guards up on the tower with their guns, looking down, shaking their heads. Nobody there knew what to make of us.

Joe Rees [of Target Video, who filmed the show]: Up on the walkway was a black female guard with a high-powered rifle. She had an afro, and it was bleached blond. You’d think that she was part of the show. Policemen performing the music. Inmates with their eyes hanging out. It was so bizarre.

Johnny Strike [singer/guitarist]: Frankie was so nervous, he was popping Valiums. By the time he hit the stage, I looked over at him and I was like, “Oh man. He’s totally out to lunch, he’s singing the wrong song.” Somehow we pulled it off.

Murder By Guitar 1976-1980, released last year, collects all of Crime’s original studio recordings. Superior Viaduct put the album out on vinyl and MP3 this summer.

According to at least one Crime discography, Target Video released the whole show on VHS, but YouTube only has this great clip of “Piss on Your Dog.”
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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11.12.2014
10:21 am
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LA Confidential: Vintage crime photographs from the LAPD archives
04.22.2014
02:56 pm
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Morgue, man with floral tattoo, 1945
 
Back in 2001, photographer Merrick Morton—who also happens to be a reserve LAPD officer—came upon a massive archive of Los Angeles Police Department crime scene and evidence photos which had been hidden for decades in a huge storage facility in downtown LA. The photos were buried among 150 years of police records in cardboard boxes.

When it was discovered that some of the boxes contained decomposing cellulose nitrate negatives, a serious fire hazard, the Fire Department recommended that all the negatives be destroyed. The team lobbied for the archive to be only selectively destroyed and their efforts paid off; some boxes of images were determined to be unsalvageable and destroyed, while the remaining images were sent to a cold storage facility where they reside today.

Around one million photos have been unearthed so far and choice selections, presented by Fototeka, will be exhibited at Paramount Pictures Studios from April 25-27 in Los Angeles.


Detail of two bullet holes in car window, 1942
 

Shoes, arm, and knife, 1950
 

Victim’s feet hanging off bed, 1934
 

Detail of bullet holes in screen, 1930
 

Onion field reenactment, 1963
 

Bank robbery note, 1965
 
Via Feature Shoot

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.22.2014
02:56 pm
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Masturbating man attacked by marauding mushroom feeder
05.24.2012
11:22 am
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It doesn’t say if the masturbator was also fed mushrooms. Or if he continued masturbating. Either way, it all sounds very John Waters.

Thanks Boag!
 

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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05.24.2012
11:22 am
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Kony 2012 Campaigner Jason Russell arrested for masturbating in public

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Kony 2012 campaigner Jason Russell has been arrested for masturbating in public the Guardian reports:

One of the co-founders of Invisible Children, the San Diego-based charity which is campaigning for the arrest of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, has been hospitalised after police said he was detained for being naked and masturbating in public.

Jason Russell, 33, was picked up by police in San Diego at around 11.30am on Thursday after receiving numerous calls from the public about a man vandalising cars, being apparently under the influence of a substance and making sexual gestures while wearing only his underwear.

According to local TV station NBC, San Diego police spokeswoman Lieutenant Andra Brown told a press conference in the city that Russell was co-operative as he was detained by officers. “He was no problem for the police department. However, during the evaluation we learned that we probably needed to take care of him. So officers detained him and transferred him to a local medical facility for further evaluation and treatment,” she said.

A brief statement by the Ben Keesey of Invisible Children said:

“Jason Russell was unfortunately hospitalised suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition. He is now receiving medical care and is focused on getting better.

“The past two weeks have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us and that toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident yesterday. Jason’s passion and bis work have done so much to help so many and we are are devastated to see him dealing with this personal health issue.”

Read the full story here.
 
Via the Guardian
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.16.2012
06:46 pm
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Police use acne lights to get out of a spot of bother?

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Young troublesome teenagers may soon find themselves in a spot of bother, when Cardiff Police introduce pink beautician’s lights to disperse their unwanted presence. The “acne lights” will highlight any spots, boils, pimples, and blotches, which it is hoped will lead to much hilarity and so disperse the gangs. The police response comes after 18 ASBOs (Anti-Social Behavior Orders) were issued over the last 6 weeks. Acne lights have been previously used in Nottinghamshire. The Cardiff police are also considering other deterrents, including high-pitched mosquito alarms, and classical music.

I wonder what’s to stop these pesky kids from smashing the lights or nicking the speakers?
 

 
With thanks to Tom Law
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.12.2012
06:04 pm
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Human Remains found at Queen’s Estate, Sandringham, England

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Though there is a terrible tragedy at the heart of this story, I do wonder what David Icke will make about the news that human remains have been discovered on the Queen’s estate, Sandringham, in Norfolk, England.

A police investigation was launched after a dog walker reported discovering the remains around 16.00 hours on New Year’s Day. The Queen and Prince Philip, who are currently staying at the estate were told of the find on Monday night.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

The body was discovered shortly after the Royals attended a church service on Sunday.

Police said that a “detailed search” was being carried throughout the area of woodland in Anmer, near King’s Lynn, which is east of Sandringham House.

It remained unclear on Monday night how long the remains had been there, if they are in fact a body, if they had been identified, or the age of the victim or victims. The dog walker has also not been named.

The story has set David Icke’s forum buzzing, where one commentator (no doubt in regard of Icke’s theory that the Royals are shape-shifting, reptilian cannibals) wrote:

‘What if everyone suddenly foud out that David was right all along? It would blow their fucking minds. Spooky start to 2012…....’

Come to think of it, has anyone seen Icke recently?

Here’s Mr icke on money, religion, royalty and shape-shifting.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.02.2012
08:41 pm
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Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?: That time the Rolling Stones got busted for drugs

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The recent News of the World ‘phone hacking scandal wasn’t the first time the red top used illicit means to obtain stories. Back in the swinging sixties, the paper regularly bartered with the police for information to use in its pages. 

One of the News of the World’s tip-offs to the cops led to the most infamous drugs trial of the twentieth century, where Mick Jagger, Keith Richard of The Rolling Stones, and art dealer Robert Fraser were imprisoned in an apparent attempt to destroy the band’s corrupting influence over the nation’s youth.

For the first time, the true story behind the arrests and trial is revealed by Simon Wells in his excellent book Butterfly on a Wheel: The Great Rolling Stones Drugs Bust. Wells’ previous work includes books on The Beatles and The Stones, British Cinema and most recently, a powerful and disturbing biography of Charles Manson. In an exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds, Wells explained his interest in The Stones drugs bust:

‘As a student of the 1960s it was perhaps inevitable that I would collide with the whole Redlands’ issue at some point. Probably like anyone with a passing interest in the Stones, I first knew about it mainly from legend - the “Mars Bar”, the fur rug, the “Butterfly On A Wheel” quote etc. However, like most of the events connected to the 1960s, I was aware that there had to be a backstory, and not what had been passed down into myth. This story proved to be no exception, and hopefully, the facts are as sensational (if not more) than what has passed into mythology. Additionally, as a Sussex boy - I was familiar with the physical landscape of the story- so that was also attractive to me as well.’

Just after eight o’clock, on the evening of February 12 1967, the West Sussex police arrived at Keith Richards’ home, Redlands. Inside, Keith and his guests - including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, the gallery owner Robert Fraser, and “Acid King” David Schneiderman - shared in the quiet warmth of a day taking LSD. Relaxed, they listened to music, oblivious to the police gathering outside. The first intimation something was about to happen came when a face appeared, pressed against the window.

It must be a fan. Who else could it be? But Keith noticed it was a “little old lady.” Strange kind of fan. If we ignore her. She’ll go away.

Then it came, a loud, urgent banging on the front door. Robert Fraser quipped, “Don’t answer. It must be tradesmen. Gentlemen ring up first.” Marianne Faithfull whispered, “If we don’t make any noise if we’re all really quiet, they’ll go away.” But they didn’t.

When Richards opened the door, he was confronted by 18 police officers led by Police Chief Inspector Gordon Dinely, who presented Richards with a warrant to “search the premises and the persons in them, under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965.”

This then was the start of the infamous trial of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Robert Fraser.

It may seem we all know a small piece of this story, but in fact as Butterfly on a Wheel: The Great Rolling Stones Drugs Bust shows, we’ve never seen the whole picture until now:

‘It was such a well-known story, I was amazed no one had written a book about it before. It’s one of the most incredible stories of the 20th-century and I couldn’t believe that it had been ignored - given that every other angle of the Stones in the 1960s had been thoroughly explored. Obviously, as I worked my way through the story I became aware of just how the mythology of the tale had been constructed over the years. For a decade awash with drugs, it was somewhat predictable that the events that night had been blown up to such a stratospheric level.’

Wells has written a 5 star book, which explains the full background story, bringing new information to the events surrounding the bust, with particular emphasis on the nefarious activities of the News of the World and a dodgy copper, Detective Sergeant Norman “Nobby” Pilcher.

‘I suppose it was predictable during the star-studded 1960s that London’s otherwise anonymous police force would create their own celebrity copper. In this case it was Detective Sergeant Norman Clement Pilcher,’ says Wells. ‘Norman or “Nobby” as he was known to his colleagues was quite a character, as was his insatiable desire to rise swiftly through the ranks of London’s police. Pilcher may well have had an agenda to curb the activities of London’s musicians, but my own take on him was that he knew the value a celebrity bust. While seemingly the majority of the capital’s youth were engaged in some form of narcotic use, Picher knew that busting a celebrity would raise his profile (and by association, his team) enormously.’
 
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Richard Hamilton’s portrait of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser under arrest.
 
Pilcher waged a war on pop’s elite. During his time at the Drugs Squad, Pilcher was responsible for arresting Donovan, Brian Jones, John Lennon and George Harrison. Pilcher always got his man, by bringing along to any bust his own supply of evidence. He was lampooned as a rock groupie by underground magazine Oz, and John Lennon described him as ‘semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower’ in “I Am The Walrus.”

In our present world of anodyne music pumped out by record labels and TV talent shows as a soundtrack for malls, lifts, and supermarkets, it is hard to believe that once-upon-a-time, music, in particular pop music, was considered revolutionary and a very real threat to the established order. Think of this when imagining the world The Rolling Stones burst into back in 1963, as it was the Stones, their music and their alleged drug use that became the focus of British establishment’s ire.

‘As far as attitudes towards soft drug use were concerned,’ Simon explains, ‘I would say it was the most important moment of the 20th century. A massive watershed of opinion that for the first time pitched elements of the so-called “Establishment” against the rebellious young - best exemplified in the metaphor of The Rolling Stones. Obviously, once battle lines were drawn it was going to get messy. With the benefit of hindsight, the debate was far too premature – it was only 22 years since the end of WW2 – and obviously many in authority had seen active service and were aghast at the sight of these youngsters strutting their stuff unhindered. Many saw it as an affront.’

Unlike The Beatles, who played the game, and were considered cheeky and harmless, wore suits and smiled, The Stones were deemed dirty, surly, long-haired, and played Black music - R ‘n’ B, that inflamed their fans to riot. All of this wasn’t helped by manager Andrew Loog-Oldham statement if The Beatles were Christ, then The Stones were the Anti-Christ.

Things started to go wrong, after one of The Stones’ riotous gigs, where the famous five had been whisked away from the venue as quickly as possible, but without a toilet break. On the way home, they pulled into a service station, where Bill Wyman asked to use the gents toilet. The garage attendant didn’t like the look of Wyman and his long hair, nor his gurning friends in the back of the van, and refused the bass player access. Jagger and Brian Jones became involved, with Jagger saying he could piss anywhere, which the 3 of them duly did. The incident led to a trial and a fine and was the first hint that someone had The Stones in their sights. If not the Establishment, then rogue elements:

‘I was at pains to point out what really the “Establishment” consisted of during the mid-1960s, and how “they” sought to enact their revenge against Mick, Keith, and Brian. Ultimately, I don’t believe it was men in suits in Westminster discussing the Rolling Stones and plotting their downfall. It’s a hugely romantic image, but it is frankly ludicrous. In reality, there was a Labour government in power who - believe it or not - was attempting to understand the new movement, and equally, were to rationalize drug use through a sweeping review of the arcane narcotic laws that had been in place since the war.

‘However, there were other – less regulated - elements of the so-called establishment that were outraged at the antics by the nation’s youth as exemplified by their defacto leaders- pop groups. Obviously, with The Beatles still the nation’s favorites, The Rolling Stones were an obvious target for sections of the “moral majority” to vent their spleen on.  Predictably, it was the News Of The World who decided to infiltrate the Mick and Keith’s core circle and reveal their personal habits to their readership. The papers expose in turn gave the police carte blanch to raid members of the group. Soon, it was open season on musicians – but just not restricted to the UK, but elsewhere too. So the “Establishment” in a sense, yes, but not as many would like to believe.’

There was further rattling of teacups, when Richards purchased a 15th-century house, Redlands, in West Wittering, Sussex. The very thought that a working class guitar player could afford such a posh residence, curdled the milk on the breakfast tables of Middle England.

Add to this the shift in the news away from Wing Commanders and derring-do, to pop groups and hairstyles, saw a growing concern over the fall in the nation’s morals and its role models.

As The Beatles were unassailable, especially after Prime Minister Harold Wilson controversially honored them with MBEs in 1965, the press turned their eye to The Stones for any possible dirt.

Of particular interest was the rise in drug use amongst these young musicians. The News of the World set up a team of journalists to infiltrate The Stones’ circle and get the skinny on their drug use. One night, a journalist spoke with a drug-addled Brian Jones about his chemicals of choice. Thinking they had a major scoop, the paper ran the story. It was to prove a major mistake, as the News of the World couldn’t tell their pop stars apart, and believed they had caught Mick Jagger unawares, rather than Jones. When the paper published its story on Jagger and his alleged drug confession, the singer sued the paper. It led the tabloid to plan its revenge to discredit Jagger.
 
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  More on Simon Wells ‘The Great Rolling Stones Drugs Bust’, after the jump…  

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.30.2011
08:53 pm
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‘Detective City Angel’: A short film by Alessandro Cima

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Of his latest film, Detective City Angel, director Alessandro Cima says:

‘I think if you show this film to one thousand people, two will finish it. One of those will hate it. The other one won’t understand a damn bit of it. It’s too long and most people just won’t put up with it.’

A harsh and unfair summation from such a talented and original film-maker.

I like Alessandro Cima’s work, for it demands the full attention and response of its audience - it’s not enough to watch, Cima wants you to think about what you’re watching and question it. Dangerous film-making in these days of empty CGI spectacle and the worn words of scripts edited by focus group.

Films should be dangerous, and as Orson Welles once said:

‘A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.’

Which is a fair description of Cima’s vision.

Even so, he’s correct. Detective City Angel will not be to everyone’s taste - why should it? It’s a dream film that crosses genres, and plays with identity and authorship. it also hints at Goddard, Anger, Polanski, and Jarman, but is very much Cima’s film, in his own distinct style. Alessandro explained some of the ideas behind Detective City Angel to Dangerous Minds:

‘It’s a dream noir about Los Angeles and the unconscious creative mind which has several parts in conflict at all times. That conflict is deadly and life-affirming at the same time. The detective is perhaps an imaginary threat of failure, inertia or the eventual exposure of an artist’s feelings of fraudulence. The city is both muse and death dealer. Its outward mask presents sexuality and beauty which conceal a vicious survival of the fittest. The angel is seemingly innocent and always threatened with extinction. Its creative spirit is neurotic but ultimately pure. I try to balance all of these and keep them in some sort of pleasurable conflict.’

What was your intention in making it?

‘To make something totally mystifying. I wanted to mix genres in several ways. To mix the fundamental viewpoint of noir with documentary, abstract film, and narrative film, without any concern for reproducing the look and technique of noir. To make abstraction that collapses into a narrative, which sort of has the effect of making the viewer forget having seen the abstract part. I’m not sure if that works. It’s sort of like having a dream and not remembering what it was later in the day. I see no reason why experimental film should not mix freely with narrative film. In addition, I wanted to use the tendency toward secret identities in the world of street art and pull that into the crime genre. I think it’s a perfect fit and presents enormous possibilities for crime films.’

What drew you to the subject?

‘I’ve been somewhat involved with the art world and felt that the concealing of identity was in itself an interesting artwork. I was also intrigued by the surprisingly deep and wonderful history of Los Angeles. Noir and the crime film are the best available forms for representing L.A.

‘I make films in a rather dream-like state. I allow my thoughts to wander and actually spend time following false leads. I tend to operate in a general mode of playing with identity. No one is ever who they seem to be or think they are. The layering of image, sound and meaning demands that a viewer watch with extremely focused attention - a demand which is nearly impossible for a web viewer to fulfill. The film is a secret revealing itself very gradually and with many false impressions. It incorporates images that are both invented and real but it doesn’t want you to know which is which. Layering unrelated things, if done with seriousness, creates new meanings and propels a film in a direction that is not entirely under the director’s control. If something happens with layered images on any given day that suggests a new course for the film, then I take the new course. I use a few black & white found footage clips in this one to punch up certain noir/crime aspects.’
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Alessandro Cima’s ‘Glass Boulevard’


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.03.2011
07:31 pm
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Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg questioned about his conviction for arson
08.12.2011
09:21 am
Topics:
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Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg was interviewed on BBC Radio Nottingham by Alan Clifford yesterday, about the English Riots.

Clifford quizzed Clegg on the 20% reduction in police number, his views on the rioters, and whether Clegg’s own conviction for arson at the age of 16 had given him any insight into their actions.
 

 
In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2009, Clegg said of the incident:

‘I’d drunk too much, I was irresponsible, criminal’

He revealed he had set fire, whether by accident or design was left unclear, to a prize collection of cacti. Cole Morton, who carried out the interview wrote:

First, though, I want to know if this readiness to please means he’ll confess to the unvarnished truth about an episode he once passed off as ‘a drunken prank’. My understanding is that it was much more than that. It was arson, actually. He could have gone to jail, ending his chances of a political career before it had even begun. The property he destroyed, deliberately, was priceless. Can we talk about the cactus?

‘Oh, the cactus,’ he says, placing his head in his hands for a moment, then rubbing his face. ‘I just behaved very, very badly. I was on an exchange in Germany and I drank far, far, far too much. I was a teenager. I lost it, really.’

Lost it? He does seem genuinely agitated. ‘What I mean is I was drunk…’ Yes, he said that. What on? ‘They had this beer brewed in monasteries near Munich. Kloster Andechs. Unbelievably strong. Which clearly I couldn’t take.’

Clegg was 16 years old, a public schoolboy abroad. So what happened? ‘Yeah… I, erm, I was at a party and I drifted into a greenhouse with a friend, saw it was full of cacti and lit a match to find our way, as there were no lights on. The flame accidentally touched one of the cacti, which glowed rather beautifully.’

Was it an accident, then? He looks at me. Only at first, it seems. ‘We did that to a fair number of the cacti. Not really knowing what we’d done.’

I can’t help but laugh, at the story and the look on his face, but he objects. He treated this like a joke when, cleverly, he made it public at a fringe meeting in 2007, before the leadership election. He doesn’t think it’s so funny now. ‘No, it’s not… I mean, genuinely.It was the leading collection of cacti in Germany.’

The greenhouse belonged to a professor of botany whose life’s work had been to gather and nurture exotic specimens from all over the world. ‘He’d been to the jungles of Brazil and stuff to find these cacti.’

The boys weren’t arrested, because they ran away. ‘We didn’t know what we were doing. We were teenagers, we’d drunk too much - frankly, we did behave appallingly, irresponsibly, criminally. Next morning, one of the organisers of the exchange rang me up and said, “We know you did this.” I came clean.’

The boys were taken off to see the professor, who was livid, but he was somehow persuaded not to press charges. ‘Instead they created a kind of community punishment for us. Me and the other bloke ended up having to dig communal flower beds in the baking sun. Then I spent the summer with my mum, going round one specialised garden centre after another, trying to replace some of the cacti. Of course they were tiny, and his were all large.’

Read the full article here .
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg warned of riots if Tories elected in 2010


 
With thanks to Mark MacLachlan
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.12.2011
09:21 am
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Like a scene from ‘Pulp Fiction’: Would-be robber ends up as captive sex slave
07.13.2011
04:50 pm
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The headline says it all:

Robber who broke into hair salon is beaten by its black-belt owner and kept as a sex slave for three days… fed only Viagra

The Mail reports on a Russian man who is said to have tried to rob a hair salon, but soon ended up as the victim when the female shop owner overpowered him, tied him up naked and then used him as a sex slave for 3 days.

Viktor Jasinski, 32, admitted to police that he had gone to the salon in Meshchovsk, Russia, with the intention of robbing it.

But the tables were turned dramatically when he found himself overcome by owner Olga Zajac, 28, who happened to be a black belt in karate.

She allegedly floored the would-be robber with a single kick.

Then, in a scene reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, police say Zajac dragged the semi-conscious Jasinski to a back room of the salon and tied him up with a hair dryer cable.

She allegedly stripped him naked and, for the next three days, used him as a sex slave to ‘teach him a lesson’ - force feeding him Viagra to keep the lesson going.

The would-be robber was eventually released, with Zajak saying he had learned his lesson.

 
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A blurred image of Olga Zajac, who allegedly held would-be robber Viktor Jasinski prisoner for 3 days in a back room of her hair salon, where she fed him Viagra and had sex with him “a couple of times”
 

Jasinski went straight to the police and told them of his back-room ordeal, saying that he had been held hostage, handcuffed naked to a radiator, and fed nothing but Viagra.

Both have now been arrested.

When police arrived to question Zahjac, she said: ‘What a bastard. Yes, we had sex a couple of times. But I bought him new jeans, gave him food and even gave him 1,000 roubles when he left.”

All far too reminiscent of that famous scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction

Update

Thanks to DM reader Tom for posting a link to Kiri Blakely‘s blog on Forbes, which explains that this story is over 2-years-old:

The entire wacky incident happened over two years ago, in April of 2009. Here is the Moscow Times story on it. The story wasn’t exactly underreported, either. Google “sex slave Moscow hair salon” and over 200,000 results come up, all of them dated April 2009.

The Daily Mail also acts like the Russian sex slave incident just happened today. Was there some new news here that would entail [the Daily Mail and Gawker] republishing this two-year-old story? Maybe a trial or sentencing or something? Not from what I can see in either the Gawker or Daily Mail pieces. It’s the same old story—though granted, it’s a good one!

Read the whole article here.
 

 
Via the Daily Mail
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.13.2011
04:50 pm
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Peter McDougall’s Classic Gangland Film: ‘Just A Boys’ Game’ starring singer Frankie Miller

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In 1979, rock singer Frankie Miller landed the lead as Jake McQuillan in Peter McDougall‘s brilliant play Just A Boys’ Game. It was an incredible piece of casting for what was one of the best dramas produced for British TV in the seventies.

Indeed, it is fair to say McDougall, along with Dennis Potter and David Mercer, wrote some of the greatest and most powerful dramas produced during this time:

There can be no better justification for the modus operandi of the BBC drama department of the 1960s and 70s than the discovery of Peter McDougall. The most original Scottish voice of the era, McDougall might never have been given a break at any other time in broadcasting history.

McDougall started work at 14 in the Clydebank shipyards, alongside Billy Connolly. After a few years, he left and moved to London, where he became a house painter. One day, while painting actor and writer Colin Welland’s house, the young McDougall impressed the future Oscar-winner with his tales of marching and mace throwing in an Orange Walk. Welland encouraged McDougall to write his story down, which became the Italia Prix-winning drama, Just Another Saturday:

Just Another Saturday was first broadcast on 7 November 1975, as part of BBC2’s Play For Today. Britain, then as now, was a place of great inequality. Sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland were at their height. Issues of Scottish independence/devolution were in the spotlight, with the collapse of traditional industries such as shipbuilding on the Clyde, and the associated poverty, mirrored by vast wealth promised from North Sea oil in Scottish waters.

The script, screenplay, direction, film stock, lighting, photography, sound recording and editing of Just Another Saturday combine to give an understated, real-life appearance; making the emotional impact of picture and dialogue all the more intense. The use of brief close-ups of very human details add hugely to the emotional effect; faces in the crowds tell, evocatively, of Scotland’s pride and sadness. Outdoor shots especially show powerful visual imagery. The Duncan Street violence is that much more disturbing because much of it is hidden from view.

The play is about beliefs and innocence, and the desire to escape. As Lizzie tells John, “at least you believe in something”; Dan despises all “the organisations” on both sides of the Glasgow Protestant/Catholic divide: he ridicules what he sees their moral hypocrisies, like “suffering for the cause”. There is pointed irony in the fact that the only injury John incurs over the whole day is from a confused drunk. Dan points out the divisions that the organisations cause and the many contradictions from Scottish history that make their positions absurd. His quiet socialist conviction is delivered with great pathos.

Director John Mackenzie was flabbergasted at McDougall’s raw talent, and claims the finished film barely contained a single change from the original draft of the script. However the Glasgow police blocked filming on a drama they feared would cause “bloodshed on the streets in the making and in the showing.”

There wasn’t bloodshed, but considerable outrage that McDougall had highlighted so many of Scotland’s ills. McDougall was undeterred by the controversy, going on to write: The Elephant’s Graveyard (1976), with Jon Morrison and Billy Connolly; Just A Boys’ Game (1979),  with Frankie Miller, Ken Hutchison, Gregor Fisher and Hector Nicol; A Sense of Freedom, the story of Scotland’s notorious gangster, Jimmy Boyle: Shoot for the Sun (1986) with Jimmy Nail, and told the dark story of heroin dealers in Edinburgh; Down Where the Buffalo Go saw Harvey Keitel as US Marine stationed at Holy Loch naval base, and the slow disintegration of his life; and Down Among the Big Boys the story of a bank heist with Billy Connolly.

These days, McDougall’s work is rarely seen on TV, as those now in charge of drama commissioning are but mere “civil servants”, more interested in focus groups, audience figures and mediocrity, than genuine talent. It’s a shame, for McDougall is the best and strongest voice to have come out of TV over the past few decades.

McDougal’s Just a Boys Game is an equal to Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, and contains some of the finest performances put into a TV film - watch out for comedian, Hector Nicol’s sly performance as the elderly hard man, whose respect Miller wants to earn, as well as brooding Ken Hutchison (from Straw Dogs) as Dancer and a young Gregor Fisher (who later starred as Rab C. Nesbitt) as Tanza, and Katherine Stark as Jane. It is an brilliant, brutal and unforgettable film.

The astounding Just a Boys Game (Play for Today, tx. 8/11/1979), was another ‘play in a day’, pursuing hard man Jake McQuillan, whose life of alcohol, violence and emotional impotence is threatened by the arrival of a younger, razor-wielding thug. Jake’s casual ‘boys’ games’ ultimately result in the death of his only friend.

Featuring some of the strongest violence the BBC had ever dared broadcast, it was stunningly photographed by Elmer Cossey and featured McDougall’s most crackling dialogue and richest characterisations, all brilliantly evoked by a cast headed by blues singer Frankie Miller in a performance that melts the camera in its intensity.

Miller sadly suffered a brain hemorrhage in New York in 1994, while working on new material for a band with Joe Walsh of The Eagles. Miller spent five months in a coma, after which he went through rehabilitation. In 2006, Frankie released his first new material in almost twenty years, Long Way Home.
 

 
The rest of McDougall’s ‘Just A Boys’ game’ plus ‘Just Another Saturday’, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.01.2011
07:40 pm
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This Guy Has My MacBook
05.31.2011
07:04 pm
Topics:
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This reminds of the story in Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, when a woman called Ivana left her cell phone in a taxi. Thinking it lost for good, Ivana was surprised when a friend, Evan discovered the girl who had found the phone was using it as her own. They contacted the girl and asked her to return it. But the girl told them to go to hell. So Evan started a webpage called StolenSideKick, and blogged about the phone and the girls actions. As Shirky pointed out in his book:

“Everyone who has ever lost something feels a diffuse sense of anger at whoever found and kept it.”

And this “diffuse sense of anger” makes people behave in different ways.

When Joshua Kaufman had his MacBook stolen, he responded by taking direct action to get it back. He set up a tumblr page This Guy Has My MacBook and started posting photos from a hidden device contained in his Mac. It takes pictures of the person who allegedly has it:

On March 21, 2011, my MacBook was stolen from my apartment in Oakland, CA. I reported the crime to the police and even told them where it was, but they can’t help me due to lack of resources. I’m currently in the process of contacting the mayor’s office. Meanwhile, I’m using the awesome app, Hidden, to capture these photos of this guy who has my MacBook.

Check Joshua’s site, This Guy Has My MacBook, here.
 
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With thanks to Shahriar ‘Carlin’ Islam
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.31.2011
07:04 pm
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William Burroughs on trial for corrupting Turkish morality?

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Almost 14 years after his death, William S Burroughs is on trial for corrupting Turkish morality. The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into Burroughs’ novel The Soft Machine, which was recently translated and published by Sel Publishing House in January. Tukey’s English Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review reports:

The court referred to a report written by the Prime Ministry’s Council for Protecting Minors from Explicit Publications that accused the novel, The Soft Machine, of “incompliance with moral norms” and “hurting people’s moral feelings.” Sel Publishing issued a press release that included parts of their testimony in the court.

“It is impossible to understand the insistence in sending books written and published for adults to councils that specialize in minors. If we consider things from this perspective, then dozens of such reports could be written about TV channels, newscasts and thousands of books,” read the testimony given by the publishing house.

The testimony also argued that the Prime Ministry’s council had no credentials in literature, aesthetics or translation, thus causing what the representatives of the publishing house called a “freakish” decision by the council.

The council also accused the novel of “lacking unity in its subject matter,” “incompliance with narrative unity,” for “using slang and colloquial terms” and “the application of a fragmented narrative style,” while claiming that Burroughs’s book contained unrealistic interpretations that were neither personal nor objective by giving examples from the lifestyles of historical and mythological figures. None of the above, argued the publishing house, constitutes a criminal act.

The council went further and said, “The book does not constitute a literary piece of work in its current condition,” adding it would add nothing new to the reader’s reservoir of knowledge, and argued the book developed “attitudes that were permissive to crime by concentrating on the banal, vulgar and weak attributes of humanity.”

The representatives of the publishing house responded to these charges. “Just as no writer is under any special obligation to highlight humanity’s fair attributes under every circumstance, the measure of whether a book has any literary value or not, and the judge of what the book may add to the reader’s reservoir of knowledge, is not an official state institution, but the reader himself,” they said.

“Once again, societies comprised of modern, creative and inquisitive individuals are formed by reading and being exposed to literary texts and works of art that can be considered as the most extreme examples of their kind,” further asserted the defendants’ statement.

The testimony also invited members of the council to conduct “a simple Internet research” about the writer, and learn about the fact that Burroughs was one of the pioneers the “Beat Generation” that rebelled against the stagnant morality of the middle class in post-World War II America. The testimony also drew attention to the fact that the “cut-up” technique used in the book was once heralded as a great novelty among literary circles.

“Through this technique, Burroughs runs counter, not just to entrenched attitudes in people’s lifestyles but also in contradiction to [older] literary techniques. That being the case and since the aim of the book itself is to push boundaries, it is clearly absurd to search for criminal elements in the book by suggesting that the book does not conform with social norms,” further stated the press release.

“Moreover, it is also meaningless to expect William S. Burroughs, who was not raised in accordance with the National Education Law, or as an individual who ‘identifies with the national, moral, humanitarian, material and spiritual cultural values of Turkish society, and who always tries to exalt his family, country and nation,’ to have produced a text within this framework,” read the testimony. “It is clear and obvious that this case carries no weight nor any respectability outside of the borders of our country.”

“We demand an end to investigations that constrain our activities and the prosecution of books for any reason whatsoever,” concluded the statement.

 

Bonus: William Burroughs reads ‘Junky’ (abridged version)
 
With thanks to Steve Duffy
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.28.2011
05:26 pm
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