Soft Cell (Marc Almond and David Ball) share the stage with Clint Ruin/Foetus/J.G. Thirlwell and squealing saxophonist Gary Barnacle for this excellent cover version of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider.”

Obviously Suicide would have been a huge influence on both Soft Cell and Thirwell, and they really tear it up here in this intense homage taped for the BBC in 1983. Listen loud.
 

 
I missed them in Austin, so this kind of makes up for it. Here’s 40 minutes of Spiritualized’s two hour and 15 minute set at Washington D.C.‘s 9:30 club on May 10. If you want to listen to the entire show, go to NPR’s website for the audio.

One of the great double bill’s of my concert-going experience was seeing Spiritualized open for Radiohead at Radio City Music Hall in April of 1998. Sublime.

The audio on this video is a touch low. Turn it up.
 

 
I’ll join the chorus of folks asking why the fuck Obama and the national Democrats aren’t doing more to support the Scott Walker recall efforts in Wisconsin???

Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, Walker’s opponent in the recall match-up, lost to him in 2010 by 125,000 votes, or 5%. You’d think that after all that’s happened, Barrett’s victory in the recall would be a sure thing, but some recent polls indicate otherwise. Probably has to do with Walker having 20x the cash on hand, thanks to his super-rich pals, like the Koch Brothers.

Although I am not a Democrat and have never self-identified as one, I have voted a straight Democratic ticket for my entire life, SOLELY to vote against the Republican candidates. The beginning and end of any perceived loyalty that I have to the Democrats has to do with my lifelong hatred of Republicans and nothing else.

I’m someone who is resigned to voting for the lesser of two evils, because I believe you get less evil that way. I am, however, a staunch socialist, and strongly believe that the outcome of the WI recall election is of supreme importance to the future of organized labor and all working Americans, not just in Wisconsin. If the anti-Walker movement in WI fails to oust that cross-eyed weasel, Charlie Brown-looking dickhead, the implications for the future of labor unions in America should be seen as dire indeed.

SO WHERE THE FUCK IS OBAMA?

Why hasn’t the President already been in Wisconsin several times to support the state’s progressive Democrats and the labor union members who have worked tirelessly for over a year to kick Walker’s dumb ass to the curb? I thought the unions were the Democratic base, just like the GOP relies on billionaires and IDIOTS. Have Obama and the DNC completely written off big labor? WTF???

They couldn’t have done any less than they have if they decided to do nothing at all.

ONE fundraising email! ONE!

And where are the Occupy folks? THIS is the real battle of 2012, not holding down a park or clogging up the Brooklyn Bridge, as important as that might be symbolically, this is THE REAL DEAL. The Wisconsin recall election is equally important to the 2012 election, I think much more so, in some respects. Want to show the hard right what democracy looks like? Get thee to Wisconsin for the next few weeks and help out.

Clearly this is a battle between people power and the millions upon millions of dollars being funneled into WI by reichwing interests who have a big stake in seeing the unions crushed. The WI recall election is going to be a tight one and in the end the single biggest factor in whoever wins will be the ground game. The DNC could, if they wanted to, make a major impact in this regard, but for whatever reason, their support has been tepid, at best.

Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce—who is one of America’s finest political wordsmiths—laid out another, very compelling factor that should be of great concern to the DNC: Call it “The Future Newt Gingrich Factor”:

Right now, if nothing else changes, it looks very much like Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, is going to keep his job. If that’s the case, and assuming he doesn’t go down in the ongoing John Doe investigation in Milwaukee, I predict that he will have an “exploratory committee” set up in Iowa within the month, and he will suddenly discover a deeply held desire to spend a lot of time in places like Nashua and Manchester. Make no mistake: If he hangs on, he will be the biggest star in the Republican party. Chris Christie yells at all the right people, but has he ever faced down the existential threat that schoolteachers and snowplow drivers brought to bear on Walker? Marco Rubio? Has he withstood the wrath of organized janitors and professors of the humanities? If Walker wins in June, it wouldn’t take very much effort at all for Fox News and for the vast universe of conservative sugar-daddies and their organization to decide that Walker should be the odds-on choice for 2016.

Dear Debbie Wasserman-Schultz: That heinous future actually could happen if you don’t get out of the Green Room and get the DNC off the stick here. I’m still not kidding. If the Democrats blow this one, and if it’s proven that the DNC could have helped in any way and didn’t, you should be fired before the sun goes down. In 1990, the DNC declined to help fully a congressional candidate named David Worley in Georgia. The Worley people were begging for money, for organizers, for a lifeline of any kind. Very little was forthcoming. Worley lost to Newt Gingrich by 978 votes. How would the subsequent 10 years have been different if Gingrich’s political career had ended ignominiously in 1990? That’s the kind of chance that you seem to be allowing to go a’glimmering in Wisconsin. Let Walker win, and Democrats not yet born will curse your name. [Emphasis added]

I am less than optimistic about Tom Barrett’s chances because he’s getting outspent about 20-1, and because the numbers stubbornly refuse to move. This should be a base-vs.-base election, but it’s being played, at least by the Democrats, as yet another unicorn-hunt after “independent voters.” Barrett keeps talking about the “civil war” that Walker incited in Wisconsin. But that’s not the argument. There should have been a “civil war” over what Walker was trying to do. There wouldn’t even be a recall without what Barrett calls “the civil war.” The “civil war” was entirely appropriate. Sometimes, in politics, there are issues worth screaming about. I’m no expert, but the end of collective bargaining during an era of flat-lining wages would seem to be one of those. By citing the “civil war” as the reason for voting for him, and without, I believe, intending to do so, Barrett makes all those people standing in the cold last January marginally complicit in what he says as the problem the recall was meant to solve. But the problem with Scott Walker was not that he inspired an outburst of incivility. It’s that he tried to screw the workers of the state of Wisconsin, and that he got more than halfway there, and that he apparently intends to go the rest of the way if he manages to survive the recall. It’s not idle speculation to say that a lot more is riding on this than who gets to be governor of Wisconsin. This is the first real fight of the 2016 presidential election.

If you’d like to support the drive to recall Scott Walker, without giving a dime to the national Democrats, you can donate at ActBlue. Even $5 will help offset the 20 to 1 spending by Walker’s billionaire supporters.

Below, an inspiring trailer for We Are Wisconsin: The Movie premiering soon.
 

 
The Doors perform “Crawling King Snake” in the Elektra Records studios in 1970 as part of a promo for the soon-to-be released album L.A Woman. Morrison would be dead less than a year after this film was shot.

This footage was produced by ABC Australia for TV program “Getting To Know.”
 

 
I don’t really care that much about LEGOs, but this “Legolize It!” weed-themed exhibition showing at the Known Gallery in Los Angeles May 26 - June 9, looks like a can’t miss art show.

In the wake of increasing raids on Medical Marijuana dispensaries by local, state and federal drug enforcement agencies, the LAgo brand’s brand-new, flagship storefront is set to open on May 26, 2012 at Known Gallery located at 441 North Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. The LAgo brand, as a perpetual “harvest” of healing power, has been especially commodified to meet the addictions of anyone who has ever wanted to experience the transaction of purchasing medical marijuana – or fine art – at a legal business organization.
Synthetic starter-plants, seedlings,  clones and a totally huge selection of intoxicating, fake plastic buds- all built with LEGO bricks to resemble some of the finest strains of medicinal marijuana ever grown- will be on display and available for limited purchase.

The LEGO grow room is the best. Genius!

Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
info@knowngallery.com
 

 
Via GeekOSystem

Toni Young of Red C. Photo by Jim Saah.
 
Salad Days: The Washington D.C. Punk Revolution is a new documentary written and directed by Scott Crawford which will take a “comprehensive, honest and insightful look at the DC punk scene from the early 1980s to the decade’s end.”

The film will include exclusive archival photographs, concert footage and interviews with dozens of bands, artists, label owners, zine publishers and others who helped mold and nurture DC’s underground community during this inspired decade of music.

Starring John Stabb, Ian Mackaye, Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl, Alec Mackaye, and many more.

The release date will happen some time in 2013. Watch the trailer below.
 

“Why do you bust your butt ‘working’?”

We’re all familiar with the concept of the “low information voter” (a term that can be used interchangeably, and with wanton impunity, of course, with “Fox News viewer” and “your average Depends-wearing, scooter-riding old Tea party fart”).  Without low information voters, the Republicans would have virtually no chance of winning elections. They rely on them as a stalwart voting bloc every time and they never disappoint.

Lately I’ve been wondering if there should be a brand new term coined to describe a voter with even lesser cognitive abilities?

Take this new advertisement for Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher’s Congressional run in Ohio against popular Democrat Marcy Kaptur. There’s something that is so amazingly… what’s the word I’m looking for… REVEALING, yes, that’s it, revealing about the state of US politics in 2012 captured so perfectly in these succinct 50 seconds.

If this video was made by smart people, it would be brilliant, but since it’s so obviously the work of fucking dolts, it can only be seen and appreciated through that lens, probably. You’d want to believe that people dumb enough to be suckered in by “propaganda” this pitifully stupid wouldn’t even know how to register to vote or even how to acquire a driver’s license, but clearly a sizable amount of the American electorate IS THAT DUMB. So dumb, in fact, that Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher is seen as a freakin’ credible GOP candidate for Congress… I mean… what?

There are so many ridiculous subtexts going on here that anyone with half a brain would just snicker a bit at the tools on their screen who thought this lameness counted as “satire.” BUT, to someone with LESS than half a brain, the obvious Fox News-watching target of this ad, this must be how they see the world around them.

First there is the portly, shiftless, white, middle-aged “hippie” Occupier (who confusingly looks exactly how I picture the average Fox News viewer to look, but never mind that or the even more curious Rod Blagojevich t-shirt he’s wearing!) who mooches off “the system” while biting the hand that writes those sweet, sweet government checks. This lazy leftie bum is juxtaposed against hardworking, conservative “Joe the Plumber,” a man who takes care of business, his family and who pays his taxes, fair and square (despite Wurzelbacher’s own tax troubles, but he’s obviously counting on no one remembering that). 

Which one of them is supposed to be Justin Long and which one is John Hodgman???

And what kind of mongoloid would watch this and think “Hey, Joe the Plumber! That’s who I’ll vote for”???

Unsurprisingly, the dumbest man in the Congress, Colonel Allen West, has endorsed “Joe the Plumber.” (“We stupids gotta stick together” his endorsement communicates, doesn’t it?). It makes you wonder, at what point will the balance tip irrevocably in favor of the really stupid people in this country? When they made all of those cuts to education during the Reagan years, THIS is what the result was, ultimately, that clowns like these two can be considered credible candidates for the United States Congress. The idea that West, a man who makes Sarah Palin seem, well, not so bad, has been bandied about as a VP candidate this year is… well, par for the fucking course, isn’t it?

Devo were right! From George Washington to THIS GUY? Unless the educational system gets turned around quickly, America is fucking doomed.

[I’d like to take this opportunity to remind our readers from outside of the United States who feel all smug and superior to us that we’ve got the big guns. That is all.]
 

 
Via Wonkette

 
San Francisco-based Spoke Art Gallery presents Portraits: A series of fabulous depictions of tyrants, dictators and popes by Scott Scheidly.

Scheidly’s oil paintings depict 20th century dictators and tyrants revealing their more feminine sides, like Kim Jong-il’s heart-shaped glasses or Hitler’s pink armband and diamond stud earring.

Scott Scheidly’s work is currently on view May 17th – May 20th at the ArtPadSF fine art fair.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
How far would you go for love? Would you give up all your possessions? Renounce this world and all its cruelty? Would you die for love? Would you kill for love?

Kill For Love is the new album by Chromatics, a band from Portland, Orgeon led by the producer Johnny Jewel of Italians Do It Better renown. I’ve written about the Italians Do It Better label before, drawing a comparison between the IDIB roster’s sound, and the lo-fi, tripped-out, “haunted retro” aesthetic of acts like Ariel Pink and John Maus.

The Italians Do It Better sound is rooted very firmly in late 70s and early 80s disco music, particularly the more soundtrack-oriented work of Giorgio Moroder, Claudio Simonetti and Patrick Cowley. As those names would also suggest, Johnny Jewel (who produces practically everything on the label) LOVES the sound of analog synthesizers. Jewel was the original choice to compose the soundtrack to last year’s 80s-noir sleeper hit Drive, and with his trademark throbbing, moody sound, it’s not hard to see why.

Chromatics are one of Italians Do It Better’s flagship acts, and one of its most popular, so expectations for this new album are high (particularly as it was originally due for release in 2010.) Thank god then that it doesn’t disappoint. It goes without saying that there’s nothing radically new here, no re-invention of the wheel, but when a form and function are just so perfect, why would you want to reinvent them?
 

 
Having said that, there is less of a reliance on arpeggiated synth lines on Kill For Love as there has been on past Chromatics releases. Of all the IDIB acts, Chromatics seem most like a “real” band, in that they aren’t afraid to adopt the “traditional” band roles of bassist, guitarist and drummer. In fact, the addition of live electric guitar on a lot of Kill For Love is perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of the album.

Still, that chilly John Carpenter-vibe is present and correct, like a sliver of ice through a beating heart, as are the hauntingly distant female vocals of singer Ruth Radelet. The opening cover of Neil Young’s “Into The Black” is simply stunning, one of the musical highlights of the year so far for me, and as an opener it sets up the rest of the album perfectly. In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Jewel explained the rationale behind that particular cover version:

It was very, very intentional in terms of rock mythology. You can’t underestimate the power of the guitar for an American audience. It’s a really strong symbol—just everything the guitar and Western culture represent—and Chromatics is part of that fantasy. The Neil Young song was recorded in 2009, and I knew I wanted to open the album with it, for multiple reasons. Part of it was a challenge to us as beatmakers or mood-makers, to see if we could actually write songs that could stand up in a pop sense. Because if you cover a song like that, you’re biting off a lot. You can’t touch Neil Young, but I wanted to challenge us to go beyond the loop and think about songs more. 

The rest of that interview is well worth a read.

You can hear (and download) the Chromatics cover of “Into The Black” right here:
 

 
 
Here’s another free download from the album, the single “Kill For Love”:
 

 
And here’s the “Kill For Love” album in full:
 

 
For LOTS more great music, visit Johnny Jewel’s Soundcloud page.

To order Kill For Love, and for more info on Italians Do It Better, visit Viva Italians. 

 
Via Ego Trip:

Moved by the news of Donna Summer’s death, South Bronx-bred aerosol artist and DJ, SERVE (a/k/a SERVE ONE), wasted no time painting the stunning mural pictured above in homage to the late singer. With “Last Dance” – the title of Summer’s 1978 classic – emblazoned by an iconic image from the cover of her Live & More LP of the same year, it’s a beautiful piece of work. “I just had to do it…” SERVE wrote on his Facebook wall to the enthusiastic response of friends. Props, SERVE. RIP, Donna Summer.

Beautiful.

Here’s another thing of rare beauty, Donna performing the wonderful “Spring Affair” from the Four Seasons Of Love EP on Soul Train: