François Vautier says, “I installed an ant colony inside my scanner five years ago. I scanned the nest each week.”
 
Wow! This is pretty amazing stuff!
 
(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)

 
Hopefully Spider-Man isn’t sulking over it.
 
(via WOW Report)

The saddest book in the world by Avery Monsen and Jory John. One is the loneliest number.

All My Friends Are Dead

(via Pretty Heart Attacks and DW)

 
I mentioned before about my new LP of experimental pop tunes, Natural Selections coming out on August 24th, remember ? Well now my fabulous associates at the Hometapes label have released another mp3 and lovely video for the lead-off track, created by my brother Josh in advance of that event. You’ll note the Los Angeles theme of the video which ties in neatly with my Bunker Hill post from yesterday. See how I did that?  I’ll be posting again about it all soon, tempting you with gorgeous product shots of the groovy swirly colored vinyl edition. Meantime, please enjoy a few minutes of my personal madness. Thank you.

 
The girl in a cage is one of the most mysterioso slices of vintage exotica I’ve encountered. This jungle Barbarella has penetrated my consciousness like a switchblade made of pink flesh. And man, what a groovy soundtrack.

Thanks to Something Weird.

 
Doel, Belgium, a town known mostly for it’s proximity to nuclear reactors, has become a virtual ghost town. Fortunately, radiation didn’t figure into Doel’s fate.  The townspeople of Doel were forced to move in order to accommodate the expansion of Antwerp harbor. Other than a handful of diehard citizens, a few businesses, and squatters, the town is uninhabited and will soon be demolished. In the meantime, Doel has become a huge canvas for artists. Cesare Santorini made this short film documenting the incredible and ephemeral street art of Doel.

I wish Santorini’s choice of music in this video had been better. You may want to turn down the volume.

 

 
These wild illustrations by Gojin Ishihara are from Japanese children’s books published in the 1970s.

The illustrations are from the Illustrated Book Of Japanese Monsters and various educational and entertainment-oriented publications for children.

 
More wildness after the jump…

 
Lau Nau and Kuupuu are Finnish artists that I had been utterly unaware of until this afternoon when my brilliant friend Shannon Fields posted this clip to his FB whatsis. I think Lau Nau mostly does more song-y stuff (see the rest of the performance at the WNYC site) but I thought this was an exceptional drone improvisation, especially the layered vocals and her totally cool understated guitar feedback.
 
Lau Nau and Kuupuu on WNYC

 
This is haunting, soul stirring and just plain powerful

Dr. Ralph Stanley singing ‘O Death’ at the Hills Of Home festival near Cintwood, Virginia in 2008

On the hillside behind him lies the grave of his brother, the great Carter Stanley, as he petitions the grim reaper to spare him over till another year.

 
thanks artp1g

 
Over at J-Walk Blog I stumbled across the most awesome of awesome web sites, Yvette’s Bridal Forum. One of the commenters at J-Walk sums up this delightful little goldmine perfectly, “It’s the ultimate anti-aesthetic shock site. Sort of like Goatse, but for web designers.”

Click here to try drugs.

 
Just read about this on the Cinefamily site. There was a screening of this earlier in the month and I missed it. You snooze you lose and we live so close. I’m going to have to start pinning their programs up in my office so I don’t miss things like Do It Again. This looks great:

Small-town newspaper man Geoff Edgers, dreading the approach of his 40th birthday, is a man possessed with an improbable mission: find the still-surviving members of British legends The Kinks, and convince them to reunite. Never mind that he’s an American with just one tenuous connection to Kinks leader Ray Davies, and never mind the fact that Ray and his fellow Kink/younger brother Dave Davies don’t speak to each other; through sheer willpower, Edgers will find a way to make it all work—and when his initial mission fails, Edgers turns the film into a meditation on the power of music and his own chance to testify on his love for the band (which is sometimes worn so unabashedly on his sleeve, you almost feel like you shouldn’t be privy to it, yet you can’t stop watching it). Director Robert Patton-Spruill follows Edgers from Boston to California, from Las Vegas to New York City as Edgers meets with Kinks fans Sting, REM’s Peter Buck, a deliciously irate Paul Weller, Zooey Deschanel and Robyn Hitchcock—but the highs and lows of Edgers’ ravenous obsession is the real centerpiece, and ultimately is way more important, relevant and fascinating than any possible outcome.

 
Director Joe Rees’s Target Video operation captured some of the rawest and most iconic performers of the early San Francisco and Los Angeles punk scenes, going as far back as 1977, including such legendary events as the next to last Throbbing Gristle concert, the Cramps playing for a group of patients at an insane asylum and ultra rare footage of The Screamers, a seminal L.A. synth punk band who sadly released no records. Not to mention, the Dead Kennedys, who were anti-music video and anti-MTV, hence the lack of footage of their early years. Luckily, Rees and his cameras captured it all for posterity.

Tonight at Cinefamily/The Silent Movie Theater in Hollywood there will be a special Target Video night with Rees and his comrades playing VJ with two hours of clips of So Cal groups like TSOL, Black Flag and Nervous Gender, plus a set of songs from the era spun by guest DJ Michael Stock from Part Time Punks.

Cinefamily,  611 N Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, 90036 / 323-655-2510

Video: The Mau-Maus performing “War Baby.” This is the probably the only known early footage of the band, shot by Target Video.

 
Erasmo Carlos is a Brazilian singer and songwriter who regularly appeared on the influential sixties Brazilian music tv show called Jovem Guarda (Young Guard). The show spawned a whole scene of young rockers and pop singers, including Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil, Roberto Carlos, Wanderlea and later Maria Bethânia and Gal Costa.

Jovem Guarda came to signify a musical movement more than a mere television show. The ‘Young Guard’ bands eventually went from American garage rock and British Invasion pop styles to more adventurous music , exploring psychedelia, jazz and the avant garde.

Erasmo Carlos is still recording and hugely popular in Brazil.

In the first video (which contains footage from ‘Mondo Mod’), Erasmo performs Vem Quente Que Eu Estou Fervendo (I’m So Hot, I’m Boiling), a tasty slice of Brazilian garage rock. The second video is a compilation of clips of bands performing on Jovem Guarda.

 
video clips from Jovem Guarda after the jump…

 
Okay, sure this is an ad for a battered women’s charity, so not to make light of that, but I find the creative rather baffling on this one, don’t you? It’s difficult to say exactly what they mean to communicate here.

 
‘60s Swedish instrumental group The Spotnicks had the coolest fashion sense of any band to come out of Scandinavia. And man did they love reverb.

Here’s two cool clips of the band. Any bets that Devo got some fashion tips from these cats?

 
more space age grooviness after the jump…