The women of Crass: Gee Vaucher, Joy DeVivre, Eve Libertine 1982
 
A couple of Crass things of note this week:  The first fruit of their long planned remastering/repackaging program aka The Crassical Collection emerges this week (although I can’t find anybody selling this in the states yet, unfortunately) with the first Crass LP The Feeding of the 5000.

After many years of being out of print, this legendary album has been been restored from the original analogue studio tapes, repackaged and bolstered by rare and unreleased tracks, and stunning new artwork from Gee Vaucher, who has lovingly created what could only be considered a real artefact. Included in this package is a 64-page booklet featuring all lyrics along with extensive liner notes from band members Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant, which shed light on the making of the record. Also included is CD-sized recreation of the iconic original fold-out poster sleeve.
‘Five thousand’s a crowd (four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more than I imagined were going to buy the record), but two’s company (I knew for certain that my Mum would want one), so it was on the plate, ready to serve, The Feeding of the Five Thousand’. ‘We were setting out as purists: hard, uncompromising and utterly bemused’. ‘On one thing we were very clear, in bringing a prosecution of Criminal Blasphemy against us the authorities would have been giving us the kind of publicity which overnight would have made us a household name. They were aware of this, and so were we. It was a situation that allowed us carte blanche to say pretty much whatever we wanted without any real fear of incrimination, a situation which over the next seven years we exploited to the hilt’.

Epic want ! The other epic thing is this lengthy new interview with Penny Rimbaud which reveals some surprisingly bitter battles between the players accompanied by some fantastic, never before seen photos (two of which I used in this post).
 

 
Below: a fan vid for one of the most striking tunes on Feeding of the 5000

 
ANARCHY AND PEACE, LITIGATED:A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE IDEALISTIC PUNK ICONS CRASS, AND WHY IN 2010 THEY ARE GOING TO COURT OVER SOME TOTAL BULLSHIT (Vice Magazine)
 
THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND - REMASTERED EDITION (picadilly records)
 
Crass previously on Dangerous Minds here, here and here

 
I know it’s a tired meme, but OH MY GOD rainbows in space!

“This is what we see when we all die.”

(via Nerdcore)

 
(via GraphJam)

 
R. Crumb’s Motor City Comics #1, “the only true workingman’s comic book,” featuring Lenore Goldberg and Her Girl Commandos. Another gem from “The Lizard Collection” over at Little Green Footballs.  I like the back cover even more than the front. From Crumb’s Marxist phase? Nicely!
 

 
Thank you Charles Johnson!

 
Well, maybe 40 years ago…

Update: Jimmy Lee Wirt points out, “Obviously, she is experienced.”

(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)

 
Wow ! I had never seen this animated/live action film for the mini-song Sleeping In A Jar from the epic 1969 double LP Uncle Meat before. If this was, as I suspect, created as a TV ad for the LP then it’s no wonder it was never shown (except this one time on Swedish TV in 1971), given the none-too-subtle 7-UP bottle fellatio seen in the clip. As always, FZ brought the wholesome family entertainment.
 

 
Thanks Tony Coulter !

 
Rachel Bloom wrote and stars in Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury and embodies just about everything I love about women. As Dr. Tim said, “intelligence is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” A woman with a well-stacked bookshelf is my idea of bliss. And anyone who wants to fuck Ray Bradbury is a friend of mine.

Ray’s 90th birthday is on August 22nd. There’s a groovy article on the master at the L.A. Times website. Click here.

 
Don Letts made a documentary about the great Sun Ra? Yup, apparently so. I know what we’ll be watching tonight! How did this one slip past me???

Born in perhaps the most segregated place on Earth – early 20th-century Alabama – Herman Poole Blount rejected his name, his origins and the conventions of the time (or any other, for that matter), re-creating himself as Sun Ra, emissary from Saturn (“planet of discipline”) and musical genius. Blending Egyptology and Space Age imagery, he projected a philosophy of radical empowerment for the entire cosmos; keeping a big band on the road for decades through independence and communal living, he became a patriarch of jazz and an avatar of freewheeling space music. Turning from the punk and reggae with which he’s most closely associated to one of the key figures in 20th-century sound, famed DJ/filmmaker Letts presents the Sun Ra story in all its glory, combining powerful footage of Ra and his legendary Arkestra, interviews with band members shot at their famous group house in Philadelphia and testimonies from sax great Archie Shepp, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and other admirers.

-Keith Jones/musicfilmweb

Via Pathway To Unknown Worlds. Note that there is a download link.
 

 
Thanks William Meehan!

 
(via TDW )

 
Nuff said. Get yours at The Nuns Are On The Sea Wall

 
Wait for the bass to kick in. God, I love this kid!

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Fred The Raver: Toddler Trippin’ Balls

Thanks, Nico!

Illustration by Reuben Munoz/Los Angeles Times
 
My review of Michael Largo’s new book, God’s Lunatics: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man’s Eternal Search for the Divine appeared in the Sunday Los Angeles Times book section. I had fun writing this:

Sometimes the best place to hide something is out in the open. Michael Largo chose to veil his wry polemic against the excesses of religious dogma and superstition in the form of an alphabetized reference book. In this deceptively benign format, even something with a title like God’s Lunatics — hardly a coy understatement — can come across more measured and nuanced, than, say, one of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens’ slash-and-burn screeds against faith, which can strike even nonbelievers as unnecessarily offensive to those who do believe.

In Largo’s hands, the origins and customs of the world’s great religions are purposefully given equal time alongside tales of lecherous popes, greedy gurus and apocalyptic cult leaders. With example after example of often stunning religious lunacy, Largo marshals a powerful and difficult argument to refute, namely, that religion has done far more harm than good for mankind. By the time readers have traveled from entries on the afterlife and the Akashic record to those on the Westboro Baptist Church and the Salem witch trials, Largo’s exhaustive examples of religion’s excesses will leave them, well, exhausted.

Among the head-scratching notions found in God’s Lunatics is the fact that 59% of Americans believe that the events described in the biblical book of Revelation will actually come to pass. The extraterrestrial aspects of not only Scientology but Islam are discussed (each day, Largo writes, more than a billion people pray in the direction of Mecca, not because it is the birthplace of Islam but because of the Black Stone, a meteorite sitting in the Kaaba). Levitating ascetic St. Thomas Aquinas and the virgin martyr St. Agatha — normally depicted carrying her breasts on a platter — compete for space against decidedly less saintly types such as self-described Victorian-era “Antichrist” Aleister Crowley and the Robin Hood-esque Jesus Malverde, protector of those who would traffic in los drogas. (DEA agents know that the presence of a Malverde medallion or dashboard saint is usually a dead giveaway that narcotics are present.) In one entry, Largo details the staggering number of King David’s sexual conquests. (Tiger Woods has nothing, I repeat, nothing, on the Jewish patriarch.)

Although the author doesn’t hesitate to employ coldly withering prose when describing religious con men and faking fakirs, his smartly written A-Z capsule entries allow readers to come to their own conclusions. Surprisingly, the author has a lingering affection for “seekers” — who he seems to think are born every minute. Despite his clear misgivings about organized religions and cults alike, Largo still harbors a grudging respect — even envy — for those who would spend their lives questing after religious ecstasy. There’s no shame in wanting to know why we exist and if there is a creator and what his or her master plan might be — but he’s markedly less generous with those who would claim to possess that creator’s secrets or dispense them.

Dexter Gordon
 
Jazz photographer Herman Leonard has died. Leonard’s black and white photographs of jazz greats such as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington were masterpieces of lighting and mood. He captured moments in time that became an indelible part of jazz culture. Like the musicians his camera chronicled, his photographs sang.
 

Billie Holiday

 
I’m sure his heroine would have been proud of him! Then again, she was all about people who accomplished things. What does this silliness prove?

One man drove 12,238 miles across 30 states to scrawl a message that can only be viewed using Google Earth. His big shoutout: “Read Ayn Rand.”

Nick Newcomen did a road trip over 30 days that covered stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. First, he identified on a map the route he would need to drive to spell out the message. He put a GPS device in his car to trace the route he would follow. Then, he hit the road.

“The main reason I did it is because I am an Ayn Rand fan,” he says. “In my opinion if more people would read her books and take her ideas seriously, the country and world would be a better place — freer, more prosperous and we would have a more optimistic view of the future.”

Fuck off.

Man Scrawls World’s Biggest Message With GPS ‘Pen’ (Wired)

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Ayn Rand Assholes

 
It lives! Richard and I have taken the leap and are aiming to post a new episode of Dangerous Minds Radio Hour every two weeks. It’s serious fun for us to sit around and play records and chat about them, so listen in and know the pleasant feeling of being in a small room in Granada Hills with a couple of total music nerds for an hour or so.
 
Sir George Martin: “Theme One” (BBC Radio One theme)
The Fall: “Fit and Working Again”
Material w/ Nona Hendryx: “Take a Chance”
Nervous Gender: “People Like You”
The Turtles:“Somewhere Friday Night” (produced by Ray Davies of The Kinks)
Lilys: “And One (On One)”
Meredith Monk (with Don Preston): “Candy Bullets and Moon”
Love: “Willow Willow”
Firesign Theater: “Station Break”
Tyrannosaurus Rex: “Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart”
Marsha Hunt: “(Oh No! Not) The Beast Day”
Klaus Nomi: “Za Bak Daz”
Talk Talk: “It’s Getting Late in the Evening”
The Goon Show:“The Ying Tong Song” (Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan & Harry Secombe. Produced by Sir George Martin)
Orchid Spangiafora: “Dime Operation”
 

 
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Listen to Dangerous Minds Radio Hour episode 1