The final volley from Peter Green before leaving the band he formed, this dark and turbulent 1970 masterpiece is the sound of an acid fried young genius being torn apart psychologically by the evil god of money. Indeed as this was being recorded Green was actively trying to convince his bandmates to begin giving away all of their then considerable wealth.

Green has explained that he wrote the song after experiencing a drug-induced dream, in which he was visited by a green dog which barked at him. He understood that the dog represented money. “It scared me because I knew the dog had been dead a long time. It was a stray and I was looking after it. But I was dead and had to fight to get back into my body, which I eventually did. When I woke up, the room was really black and I found myself writing the song.

In any case this is a hell of a guitar workout with amazing chord progressions and has been covered by everyone from Judas Priest to The Melvins, but none matches the vibe of the original.
 

(via Unique Daily)

Photo from Dr. Sketchy’s
 
How could you blame him? From Times Live:

An 18-year-old man on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali claimed he was seduced by a cow after being caught having sex with the animal.

A neighbour caught Gusti Ngurah Alit in the act on Sunday and immediately reported him to local authorities, village chief Embang Ida Bagus Legawa said.

“He was caught by one of the residents standing naked while holding the back of the cow,” Legawa said.

On Friday, Alit underwent a cleansing ritual in which he was bathed and the cow was drowned in the sea to rid the village of bad luck.

Alit said he did not see a cow but a beautiful young woman. “She called my name and seduced me, so I had sex with her,” he said.

He had to pay 2,000 old coins as a traditional punishment while the village chief paid the owner of the cow 5 million rupiah (545 dollars) in compensation.

The village idiot rapes a cow and they kill the cow? How is that fair!?

Via Paul Gallagher

 
Blame Robert Popper for this!

2010 marks the 46th year since a young dandy named Davy Jones made the media scene. On June 6th 1964, at the age of 17, he’d released a typical mod-blues single with the King Bees called “Liza Jane.” Later that same year, he’d appeared on Cliff Michelmore’s BBC Tonight show as head of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men.

Two years before this, he’d gotten into a scrap with his friend George Underwood, who punched Jones in the eye with a ring on his hand. Although imperceptible in the BBC Tonight clip, it would leave the young Jones with a permanently dilated pupil a different color in that injured eye, one of the many features of the future superstar that would later fascinate millions.

 
A voyeuristic and mesmerizing tribute to key Fluxus player and muse to Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys, the experimental cellist Charlotte Moorman. Listen to personal phone messages to Moorman from the likes of John and Yoko, John Cage, Paik and others and drink in that good old-timey analog tape phone machine atmosphere.

 
A Trove of Archival Performances by Charlotte Moorman (UBUWEB)

 
He may be done with politics, but he’s not done with policy!  Nor, it seems, is “43” done with mangling English, or radiating an air of general douchery befuddlement.

 
A commenter on Digg.com writes that Beck’s new novel looks like “a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Left Behind.”

 
So cute and cuddly!  As today’s WSJ reports, the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico “May Harbor Unique Hazards.”  Some version in the fish kingdom of the above, perhaps?

 
Music video for Ty Segall’s rockin’ “So Alone.”

Proof that you don’t need a million dollars to make a great music video. You just need a great song, a Hula hoop and this ultra rad teenage girl! Genius! Video by tab_ularasa
 

 
Thank you,James Frazer!

 
Saddened to see last week the passing of underrated film director Joseph Strick.  You might not know the name, but there can be little doubt you’re familiar with some of the books he adapted into films.

If you’ve never seen his take on James Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s definitely worth checking out—if only for the rather graceful way Strick handles the closing monologue of Molly Bloom.  It was banned in Ireland for 33 years, but now, thanks to Chinese video site, Youku, you can stream the entire ‘67 film here.

Ulysses wasn’t the only 20th Century modernist classic the director would try to wrestle into submission.  Two years later, Strick brought to the screen Henry Miller‘s Tropic of Cancer.

While Miller’s initial hopes for the project ran high (in a letter to the Hungarian photographer, Brassaï, Miller wrote, “The film of Tropic of Cancer will be definitively produced and directed by Joseph Strick, who made Ulysses.  He’ll do it the same way.  No castration, no modification.  Bravo for him, I say!”), he was ultimately saddened that in no way would the production budget allow for a faithful recreation of Paris in the 30’s.  Hired as a consultant on the film, Miller’s visit to the set would be the last time the author set foot in Paris.

While Tropic of Cancer had Rip Torn as Miller, a definitely sexy Ellyn Burstyn as Mona, and incorporated generous portions of the novel into its voiceover, the film never had much of a chance to reach an audience.  It opened to middling reviews, and, more damaging, with an X rating (it’s since been rated NC-17).  Long available, to my knowledge, on bootlegs only, its opening moments follow below:

 
Joseph Strick, Who Filmed the Unfilmable, Dies at 86

 
I’m really getting into the one-hit wonder thing here lately, so I added a new category, appropriately called One-hit wonders. That said, the next artist I want to call your attention to is ‘60s folk singer Norman Tanega, who had an unlikely chart hit with her quirky composition Walkin My Cat Named Dog. I’ve had this album for decades and never knew anything about her until today. There’s not tons of information about her on the Internet, but one fact that I did discover is that she was one of the great Dusty Springfield’s most significant romantic relationships. Check this song out, you won’t get it out of your head for days.
 

 
“Black Dynamite I wanna be just like you.” Based on a true story…
 
Thanks Elvin Estela!

 
Here is some evidence of a truly odd series of LPs perpetrated by one Nik “Pascal” Raicevic in early 70’s Los Angeles. It’s uniformly some very heavy duty solo synth space noise goodness that is right up there with all of your Berlin school favorites and later industrial heroes. Amusingly enough there’s an overt emphasis on drugs. His record company was called Narco Records and Tapes (after being booted from Buddha for being too druggy, ha !) and many of his releases bore stickers admonishing listeners : Do not listen to this album if you are stoned. This I find puzzling. You’d think that was his target demographic ! The strangest thing about this guy isn’t any of that, however. It’s the fact that he also played percussion on The Stone’s Goats Head Soup. Random ?

 
Nik Raicevic-Beyond The End… (Mutant Sounds)
 
Pascal: The Sixth Ear (Dinosaur Garden)
 
Nik Pascal @ Myspace

thx Thomas Wincek !