The Pretty Things started as blues-rock band in the early 1960s, and they’re often described as being “meaner, louder, uglier and with longer hair” than the Rolling Stones. (Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor originally played bass in the Stones). Their gritty, primitive R&B sound was heavily influenced by Bo Diddley’s beat.

With their fourth album, S.F. Sorrow,the Pretty Things decided to shake it up a bit and create a psychedelic rock opera that some regard as a lost masterpiece (I am one of them). It’s held in the same high regard as another lost 60s classic, Odessey and Oracle by the Zombies. In fact, S.F. Sorrow was the first rock opera, not Tommy. Although Pete Townshend has pointedly denied that S.F. Sorrow was an influence on Tommy, this seems unlikely to me at best. (They were of the same small London scene, The Who and the Pretty Things, so the notion that Townshend was unaware of S.F. Sorrow is bullshit. It’s got to be.)

S.F. Sorrow was recorded between December 1967 and September 1968 at Abbey Road Studios. The sound incorporates the sitar, Mellotron, flute, dulcimer and tripped out sound effects.. At the same time, the album’s producer, Norman “Hurricane” Smith was working with Pink Floyd on their A Saucerful Of Secrets album and The Beatles were recording their White Album. (S.F. Sorrow came out the same week as the White Album and Beggars Banquet).

The opera’s libretto came in the form of liner notes that told the story of one Sebastian F. Sorrow, an ordinary fellow who works at the “Misery Factory” and is drafted into World War I. His life descends into meaninglessness after he witnesses a hot-air balloon carrying his fiance crash and burn. Along the way he has an encounter with a mysterious whip-cracking character called “Baron Saturday” (based on the voodoo deity Baron Samedi).

Saturday “borrows his eyes” and takes Sorrow on a trippy trip through the Underworld (something that seems to mirror the Acid Queen’s unorthodox therapy in Tommy, don’t cha think?). The opera ends on a sad note as the desolate Sorrow realizes that he can trust no one and that he will die alone.

Following are a series of awesome vintage S.F. Sorrow performances from European television:
 

 
“Baron Saturday” on Tous En Scene, 1969
 
More Pretty Things after the jump…

Romney confuses Sikh with Sheikhbit.ly/N2Xh5z. Also confuses “Prophet” with “convicted conman using magic hat to read gold plates”

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 8, 2012

 
Here’s a video/music mix celebrating New York City in the 1970s - street scenes and music you’d hear in the downtown clubs.

Of course, despite the animosity directed at New York City by people who didn’t “get” it, the City survived. We didn’t drop dead, we dropped beats.

 
1. “Jet Boy” - The New York Dolls   2. “Piss Factory” - Patti Smith
3. “X-Offender” Blondie   4. “Born To Lose” - The Heartbreakers  
5. “SuperRappin’” - Grandmaster Flash   6. “Darrio” - Kid Creole  
7. “The Mexican” - Babe Ruth   8. “Pop Your Funk” - Arthur Russell
 

 
Have you seen the latest commercial from Priorities USA Action, the Democratic super PAC closely affiliated with the Obama campaign? It sticks a knife pretty deep into Mitt Romney’s craw by strongly linking the Republican candidate and his former investment company Bain Capital to the cancer-related death of former steelworker Joe Soptic’s wife. (Soptic appeared in an earlier, hard-hitting Priorities USA Action ad that also seeing renewed interest this morning).

In the ad, Soptic, a former employee of GST Steel in Kansas City—he worked there for 30 years—speaks about his life after the steel plant was shut down under Bain’s ownership.

“When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my healthcare, and my family lost their healthcare. And a short time after that my wife became ill,” Soptic says in the ad,

Is it fair to say the Mitt Romney had anything to do—personally—with this woman’s death? That’s, of course, pretty debatable stuff, but this is entirely the point, that the country debate the matter. All’s fair in love, war and politics and it’s not like Romney’s ads are any “truthier.”

It’s nice to see these issues raised. At last.

On that level, I think it’s fair politics to remind people that Mitt Romney will take away their healthcare in the unlikely event he’s elected President. I also think it’s well within the bounds of the rules of politics as it is played today to link Romney to the real world wreckage that Bain left in its wake. Even if he left Bain before Mrs Soptic’s illness, it’s the entire culture of vulture capitalism that should be called to task when lives and entire communities are destroyed to enrich fat cats like Thurston Howell III Mitt Romney.

Of course conservatives, Libertarians and free marketeers will say that this is how capitalism is supposed to work, creative destruction and pricing efficiency and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Tell that to Joe Soptic. He knows it’s all bullshit.

Free enterprise, free market… free to die like a dog in Mitt Romey’s America. Don’t tread on me!

I thought LOLGOP nailed the reason why this commercial is so effective, and why it’s got so many conservatives seeing red. Via Eclectablog:

This new Priorities USA ad finally makes the connections between a lack of financial stability, a lack of health insurance and death. Yes, death. People die because they lack health insurance and more will die if Romney wins and the Affordable Care Act is repealed. That point needs to be made.

This woman died because she lacked insurance. Like too many Americans, she waited till the last possible moment to seek care. And since we all pay for each other’s health care, we ending paying for a huge percentage of it during the last days when little can be done. Is this Mitt Romney’s fault? No. Does he want to take health care away from millions of Americans? Absolutely.

And Republicans are furious that someone is finally saying that Americans die because of our insane health care system and more will die if Romney wins. Conservatives are willing to use the threat of death by foreign interest to scare you into anything they want. But use the real life fear of what actually kills us and suddenly you’ve gone too far.

Now is the time to go too far, then. Because what the Republicans are planning means that we’ll pay more for health care and get less of it. And Americans will die. We can prevent that if we’re willing to say what’s at stake.

Bingo.

There’s another, (slightly) more subtle message in the ad that echoes something The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote this morning about Romney’s bigger picture problem with Bain and the MIA tax returns:

The question is not whether he did well, or whether he did it legally, but whether he did it with any sense of ethics.

Romney almost certainly didn’t break the law by putting his money in Switzerland or the Bahamas, or by paying an income tax rate of 15 percent. He didn’t necessarily break any laws by creating a $100 million 401(k). 

The question is whether such things are fair, or whether Romney has exploited a system that allows rich people like him to get richer at the expense of less wealthy taxpayers — Italian, in the most recent case, or American, in other cases. Of more concern is that, as president, Romney would further expand the advantages of fellow rich people.

Romney encouraged that worry on Tuesday, when he announced at a campaign stop that he would be tough on welfare — “we will end the culture of dependency and restore a culture of good hard work” — and then went to a pair of fundraisers where high-rolling donors paid as much as $75,000 for access to him.

“The question is not whether he did well, or whether he did it legally, but whether he did it with any sense of ethics.”

Does that one pithy sentence just not sum it the fuck up?
 

 
Disasterland is Mexican artist Rodolfo Loaiza‘s ode to pop culture, cosmetic surgery, drug use, and obsession with celebrity reflected back at us via some of The Walt Disney Company’s most valuable trademarks.

Disasterland will be on display at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles from Aug. 3 to Sept. 2.
 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

 
Okay I lied. Morrison was dead months before “Stairway To Heaven” was released. What we have here is The Australian Doors in a highly entertaining video that manages to take the piss out on both bands.

This performance appeared on Australian TV show The Money Or The Gun, which ran for one season (1989-90) and each week featured a guest performer doing a version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven,” over 25 in all.

I’ve picked three “Stairway” covers I like: Elvis, The Doors and The Beatles.
 

 
More “stairways” after the jump…

 
Holy shit… has it really been a year since the last Everything Is Festival? Twelve months have passed since their last memorable pageant of complete and utter fuckedupedness? Apparently so because the new one, Everything is Festival III: The Domination, is nigh upon us and this year, it’s bigger and badder than ever: TEN FULL DAYS of description-defying mayhem.

If you live in Los Angeles and you love weird, insane, hilarious underground shit—then Everything Is Festival! is better than your Christmas, Halloween and birthday combined. It’s the film, video and music festival that feels like a holiday. But a really fucked-up holiday in a really fucked-up country.

Here’s a list of most of what’s happening between August 18th and the 28th at Cinefamily in Hollywood (and locations elsewhere) in no particular order. I’ve gone to both previous Everything Is Festivals and had my mind blown apart. I highly recommend the Schrab & Harmon’s Found Crap video screening and anything done specifically by the Everything Is Terrible collective. The EIF talent show with Nick Offerman and the Jeff Krulik retrospective show also look like fun. The found footage “battle” is another fucked-up treat..

Show & Tell w/ Joel Hodgson!
One of our favorite comedians ever, Joel Hodgson (the creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Cinematic Titanic) will give us an evening’s worth of his personal archives. Not only might he avail us of his intense personal collection of ventriloquist dummies, but he’s also going to bring video material fro across his career, including the long-lost pilot The TV Wheel!

Everything is Terrible! Presents “The Rise and Fall of God” or “Religion’s Greatest Shits!” or “God Is Alive And Well And Living in Branson”
Since ‘07, the found-footage collective Everything Is Terrible! has not only amassed so much gooey analog gold that even sifting through it as a viewer proves to be a problem—but also a few “cease and desist” letters that have forced the gang to bury some of their weirdest and most outrageous stuff.  Well, fuck that!  For one very special show, EiT! is proud to present the greatest thing to ever happen to VHS: organized religion!  Whether you’re a God-fearing lunatic or an annoying atheist blowhard, let’s put our differences aside and laugh in the face of our Lord while demanding he proves his existence once and for all!  

G.L.O.W.: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling (director & Ladies of G.L.O.W. in person!)
G.L.O.W.: The Story of The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling chronicles the rise and fall of the first ever all-female wrestling show through the stories of those who lived it.  For all of the women, working on G.L.O.W. was a unique and exciting experience that will bond them forever.  Director Brett Whitcomb and the ladies of G.L.O.W. themselves will be here in person for a panel unlike any other!  

Adult Swim’s “Off The Air” (creator David Hughes in person!)
When your show is called Off The Air and it’s on at 3AM, you’re almost daring viewers to hunt down and discover an incredible show like this.  Thankfully we did, and we cannot wait to share it with you.  Each episode starts with a simple theme (animals, food, etc.), and what happens next is hard to explain.  In an insanely short amount of time, the show’s creator David Hughes curates the most wonderfully bizarre and disturbingly beautiful short films of our time.   Dave Hughes will be here in person to show us unseen shorts, his favorite gems, and God knows what else!  

Schrab & Harmon’s Found Crap
Rob Schrab.  Dan Harmon.  Two creative visionaries who happen to collect jaw-droppingly funny found-footage.  In fact, they relate their obsession to their careers as creators of incredible film and television (Community, The Sarah Silverman Program, Monster House.)  Speaking of success, their Found Crap shows (this will be their sixth!) are some of Cinefamily’s most talked-about events.  Schrab & Harmon are living proof that watching Midwestern horror films and bad porno lead to success and power!

Alamo Drafthouse presents Miami Connection, with Y.K. Kim in Person!
There are films that we save for a rainy day—and, baby, it’s fucking pouring!  THE most entertaining film you will see.  Ever.  Directed by 9th-degree black belt philosopher/author/inspirational speaker Grandmaster Y.K. Kim, Miami Connection tells the story of fearless synth rock band Dragon Sound, as they embark on a roundhouse wreck-wave of crime-crushing justice in the streets of Orlando, FL.  “‘Miami Connection’ has repeatedly destroyed our audience in a more powerful way than anything else in the 15 years of our theater’s existence.” - Zack Carlson, Alamo Drafthouse

The Doug Benson Interruption: Everything is Festival Edition!
This Everything Is Festival Edition installment of Doug Benson’s Movie Interruption, where Doug and his friends (who, in the past, have included everyone from Brian Posehn to Sarah Silverman and Zack Galifianakis) chill on the front row couches, mics in hand, and say whatever hilarious thing pops into their heads while a movie of their choosing unfolds on the screen. We don’t know what wacky thing Doug is gonna cook up for us in honor of the festival, but we do know it will be hilarious and stoned.

Jeff Krulik’s ‘Parking Lot’ and Other Treasures
What do Neil Diamond, Harry Potter, and Judas Priest all have in common?  They all have obsessive fans—and they all have parking lots outside the venues they appear at.  The man who brought us 1986’s top-shelf, all-time classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot presents his favorite short films made over his thirty-year career in filmmaking.

An Evening With Longmont Potion Castle
The John Coltrane of crank calls is sitting himself down for a truly rare and intimate interview.  That’s right, THE only crank caller worth our continued attentions: his work is alternately hilarious, tripped out, nonsensical, infuriating, ridiculous, and straddles the line between totally genius and completely stupid. Whether he’s confusing innocent victims, picking fights with some of them, befriending others, posing as the UPS man wanting to deliver some centipedes, or tirelessly harassing Eddie Money—the man is a twisted genius.  Longmont will also perform live his one-man metal show that’s sure to shred your flesh!  This guy is your new hero, so get to know him well.

Found Footage Battle Royale 2012
Think your collection of YouTube videos and VHS tapes is the best in the biz? Well, prove it, creep! This is a Found Footage Battle Royale of viral video insanity—and we’re daring you to bring your A-game, and go head-to-head with your own kind!  We want to see your weird, funny, insane clips that you’ve always wanted to show publicly — think of it like WWF wrestling, but with videos instead of all that greasy groping stuff.  Sixteen brave souls enter the competition—only one leaves alive!

Silver Screen Kitty Queens: The Art of the Cat Film
Everyone here at Everything Is Festival and Cinefamily loves kitty cats—no, we really LOVE KITTY FREAKIN’ CATS!! In honor of our four-legged brethren, we’re putting together the cuddliest, most snuggly, adorable and highly informative cat videostravaganza ever. Some of you may have heard about the Internet Cat Video Festival at Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center—the first ever of its kind. Well, we’re flying its founder, Katie Hill, for a special L.A. sneak peek of her event. The show also includes the L.A. premiere of CatCam, the SXSW Audience Award-winning short documentary about a German engineer who attached a camera to his outdoor adventurer cat’s collar, to see what happens. That’s just a taste of what’s included in this program, with more announcements to come. You’re sure to PURRRR with delight! MEOW!

Ultimate ‘Pete and Pete’ Reunion
Every generation thinks the kids stuff they grew up with is best ever made–and those of us who grew up with Pete and Pete may actually be right. While it only lasted three seasons (1993-1996), The Adventures of Pete and Pete imprinted a generation with its magical and moving mixture of mystery, sweetness, strangeness, and humor — how we remember childhood at its best. As Cinefamily’s Everything is Festival comes to a close, and FYF Fest begins, we are excited to unite our powers for good and bring to you the Ultimate Pete and Pete Reunion to end all Pete and Pete reunion shows. We’ll assemble on one stage virtually the entire population of Wellsville (from its creators to its residents), to wax nostalgic about the quintessential show about nostalgia, to explicate inside jokes, to deconstruct the immaculate mechanism behind the show’s making, and to have a great time. We’ll be flashing Petunia tattoos, eating Mr. Tastee ice cream, getting “loaded” on Orange Lazarus, and, for the first and (maybe) last time in history, listening to our favorite songs live from the band POLARIS — who are reuniting for this special show. This is Woodstock for Kreb Scouts, kiddies, and you’ll wanna say you were there (or you’ll be lying about it later, anyways.) Clear your calendar. Get on a plane. Evade the International Adult Conspiracy. Just don’t be a jerkweed, and do what it takes, cause you don’t wanna miss this show!

More information—and ticket booking—at the Cinefamily website
 

 
Little Britain‘s Matt Lucas voices this darkly hilarious animation Welcome to Glaringly, in which a man visits an old friend in a sinister town with alarming consequences.

Written and directed by Grant Orchard and produced by Nicola Black, from Blackwatch Media, for Channel 4’s Mesh scheme.
 

 
Choice clips of Public Image Limited, performing live at Zeche Bochum, Germany, for Rockpalast in 1983.

John Lydon was 5 years into his PiL experiment, and having either kicked out or split from the band’s original members, was now teamed-up with a band of session musicians (who acquit themselves admirably), and regular drummer Martin Atkins. Lydon seems happy that he is now in charge and gives a great performance of his “greatest hits”, a similar version of which would be released as the double EP record Live in Tokyo.

Track Listing

01. “Public Image”
02. “Annalisa”
03. “Religion”
04. “Memories”
05. “Flowers of Romance”
06. “Solitaire”
07. “Chant”
08. “Anarchy in the UK”
09. “(This is Not a) Love Song”
10. “Low Life”
11. “Under the House”
12. “Bad Life”
13. “Public Image”
 

 
More choice chunks of PiL on ‘Rockpalast’, after the jump…
 

 
This vintage footage of Vangelis playing around on his synthesisers at Nemo Studios in London, is equal parts beautiful and terrifying. What an incredible, intense, truly psychedelic sound he is creating! And what a crazy head space he must have been in to live and work in this environment every day.

According to YouTube uploader Nimanty:

[The] recording of this performance took place [on] Spanish Television in 1982, [and] also when Neuronium (Michel Huygen) visited Vangelis to perform together.

Some enhancement of the original video tape with denoising, contrast improvement and color correction.

Sound remastering for better clearity and stereo imaging.

The sound on this is great - thank you Nimanty!