Icon of perversion Jack Smith, Club 57 DJ Dany Johnson and Ann Magnuson at a party on Crosby Street, 1980. Photo by Ande Whyland.
In anticipation of the opening this weekend of Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf’s big East Village West exhibit at the Royal/T gallery in Los Angeles, original Club 57 D.J. Dany Johnson has made an exclusive two-hour musical mix for Dangerous Minds readers:
Club 57 was a magical little club in the basement of a Polish church at 57 St. Marks Place. This mix is like a mixed salad of all the kinds of stuff I played. I spent many nights digging through my old suitcase full of the 45s I had picked up at neighborhood thrift shops, mixing them with records by my contemporary favorites such as ESG, Bush Tetras, Tom Tom Club and the like. This mix may be a little more mixed up than a typical set I would have played, but not by much. There might be some places where I waited too long for the next record or put one on too soon, just like the old days. The only way it could be more authentic is if I spilled a gin and tonic on it.
There is a wonderful richness of color to Pathé‘s news reels that is sadly lacking in our digital age. A warmth of lipstick reds, and oil painting hues, that is quite difficult to resist. This is a 1950’s fashion show of swimming caps against a Punch and Judy background, so beautifully surreal it could have been lifted straight out of a David Lynch movie.
James Brown mistakes William Castle’s Homicidal for an Alfred Hitchcock film in this 1969 clip from the Mike Douglas show. Rod McKuen tries to clarify things while Joan Rivers looks on.
Homicidal was a knock-off of Psycho. Hitch saves Brown some embarrassment by not correcting him. Class act.
I recall the days when Ian McCulloch was Jesus, and girls went weak-at-the-knee for his cheekbones and pout; and the boys wore overcoats and lacquered their hair into shrubs, and sucked in their cheeks in the hope of looking just a little like him. Strange days indeed, but Lay Down Thy Raincoat and Groove…Echo and the Bunnymen at the Royal Albert Hall, will perhaps explain why this all came to pass.
Track Listing:
01. “Going Up”
02. “With a Hip”
03. “Villiers Terrace”
04. “All That Jazz”
05. “Heads Will Roll”
06. “Porcupine”
07. “All My Colours (Zimbo)”
08. “Silver”
09. “Simple Stuff”
10. “The Cutter”
11. “The Killing Moon”
12. “Rescue”
13. “Never Stop”
14. “The Back of Love”
15. “No Dark Things”
16. “Heaven up Here”
17. “Over the Wall”
18. “Crocodiles”
19. “Do It Clean”
The Occupy Wall Street protest is reportedly rapidly gaining in number in lower Manhattan as unions and political action groups begin to show their support of the fledgling anti-capitalist movement. From Crains New York:
But as the action nears the start of its third week, unions and community groups are eager to jump on board. They are motivated perhaps by a sense of solidarity and a desire to tap into its growing success, but undoubtedly by something else too—embarrassment that a group of young people using Twitter and Facebook have been able to draw attention to progressive causes in a way they haven’t been able to in years.
The protestors have transformed the park into a village of sorts, complete with a community kitchen, a library, a concert stage, an arts and crafts center and a media hub. All of that has enabled them not just to sustain the action but to build momentum. And as celebrities like Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons and Cornel West have joined in, the city’s traditional activists have been forced to jump into the fray.
The protestors have transformed the park into a village of sorts, complete with a community kitchen, a library, a concert stage, an arts and crafts center and a media hub.
“It’s become too big to ignore,” said one political consultant.
Some of the biggest players in organized labor are actively involved in planning for Wednesday’s demonstration, either directly or through coalitions that they are a part of. The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort.
“We’re getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers,” a spokesman for TWU Local 100 said.
Community groups like Make the Road New York, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Alliance for Quality Education and Community Voices Heard are also organizing for Wednesday’s action, and the labor/community coalitions United New York and Strong Economy For All are pitching in as well.
You can visit Occupy Together for more information on political manifestations in your area. If you live anywhere near the NYC metro area (that includes YOU, Philly, Jersey, Long Island, CT, etc) you might want to consider showing up yourself. If you live or work in Manhattan, for god’s sake at the very least have your lunch in Zuccotti Park… and bring some pizza for the people! (I live in Los Angeles, but will be in NYC next month for business. I plan to spend time at the protest while I am there).
As mentioned on Daily Kos and elsewhere, the pepper spray incident and the viral video of it have seen a sharp rise in Google searches for items related to the Occupy Wall Street protest. The message IS getting out there. Even Time magazine has reported on the movement—that means it’s officially mainstream news now. If unions and organized lefties start to show up in sizable numbers Zuccotti Park to voice their disapproval of the financial system, who knows what might happen next?
One thing is for sure, the numbers are rising steadily. The movement has vowed to stay throughout the winter months.
Below, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi discusses the Occupy Wall Street movement with Keith Olbermann. Interestingly, Taibbi points out near the end that there are several Tea party and Ron Paul supporters protesting in Zuccotti Park
Here’s an segment that aired in 1969 from the short-lived Vancouver Television music series Where It’s At.
Hosted by local deejay Fred Latremouille, Where It’s At had a pretty hip format for the time - a little smarter and penetrating than most music series of the time…a rock and roll 60 Minutes.
Featuring The Grass Roots, The Beach Boys, Spencer Davis, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jon Lord of Deep Purple, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Tommy James & the Shondells, The Seeds, Eric Burdon, Frank Sinatra Jr. and more.
The Grass Roots discussing Moby Grape and The Bosstown groups (Ultimate Spinach, Earth Opera, Beacon Street Union) as examples of bands killed by music hype still applies 42 years later.
MOJO: Years ago, John [Lennon] was quoted as saying that George was ‘the kid’ when the Beatles began and that John treated George as such. How long did that last?
PAUL: It probably lasted a couple of years. Just because of his age, in a group of men who’ve grown up together, particularly round about their teenage years - age matters. In John’s case, who was three years older than George - that meant a lot. John was probably a bit embarrassed at having sort of ‘a young kid’ around, just ‘cos that happens in a bunch of guys. It lasted for a little while. It was particularly noticeable when George got deported from Hamburg [in November 1960] for being underage. Otherwise, when he first joined the group, he was a very fresh-faced looking kid. I remember introducing him to John and thinking, Wow, there’s a little bit of an age difference. It wasn’t so much for me ‘cos I was kind of in the middle. But as we grew up it ceased to make a difference. And those kind of differences iron themselves out.
MOJO: I’m curious about George’s process in the studio. Do you recall any stand-out moments where George brought something in or made a song click?
PAUL: Oh yeah, sure. There were quite a few. I would think immediately of my song “And I Love Her” which I brought in pretty much as a finished song. But George put on do-do-do-do [sings the signature riff] which is very much a part of the song. Y’know, the opening riff. That, to me, made a stunning difference to the song and whenever I play the song now, I remember the moment George came up with it. That song would not be the same without it.
I think a lot of his solos were very distinctive and made the records. He didn’t sound like any other guitarist. The very early days we were really kids and we didn’t think at all professionally. We were just kids being led through this amazing wonderland of the music business. We didn’t know how it went at all - a fact that I’m kind of glad of ‘cos I think it meant that we made it up. So we ended up making things up that people then would later emulate rather than us emulating stuff that we’d been told.
In the very early days, it was pretty exciting. I remember going to auditions at Decca and each of us did pretty well, y’know. We were in a pub afterwards having a drink and kind of debriefing and coming down off the excitement, but we were still pretty high off it all. And I remember sitting at the bar with George and it became kind of a fun thing for us for years later. I would say, [adopts awed voice] When you sang [Goffin & King’s] “Take Good Care Of My Baby,” it was amazin’ man!’ I’m not sure we said ‘man’ or even ‘amazing’ in those days, but… That was a special little moment and it just became a thing between me and him: [awed voice again] ‘When you sang Take Good Care Of My Baby’...’
Part 2 is here. Below, the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World, out next month.
Sylvia Robinson, 75, the founder and CEO of the Sugar Hill Record label in the 1970s, died died this morning from congestive heart failure at Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus, New Jersey, Sister to Sister reports.
It was Robinson’s idea to “sample” the sinewy bass-line of Chic’s “Good Times” and turn it into “Rapper’s Delight,” the first mainstream hip-hop hit. Robinson also produced “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five and was part of soul duo Mickey & Sylvia.
Think voter fraud is just a paranoid conspiracy theory? Or maybe you see it as a possibility with these controversial DRE voting machines, but not a likelihood? You might want to take another look: In the video posted below, a Diebold (read it) touch-screen voting machine is shown to be easily hacked for cheap by Argonne National Lab’s Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT). With a mod costing 10 bucks ($15 for the remote control) apparently even an amateur could do this.
The votes can be changed remotely from up to half a mile away!
The use of touch-screen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems of the type Argonne demonstrated to be vulnerable to manipulation has declined in recent years due to security concerns, and the high cost of programming and maintenance. Nonetheless, the same type of DRE systems, or ones very similar, will once again be used by a significant part of the electorate on Election Day in 2012. According to Sean Flaherty, a policy analyst for VerifiedVoting.org, a nonpartisan e-voting watchdog group, “About one-third of registered voters live where the only way to vote on Election Day is to use a DRE.”
Almost all voters in states like Georgia, Maryland, Utah and Nevada, and the majority of voters in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Texas, will vote on DREs on Election Day in 2012, says Flaherty. Voters in major municipalities such as Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and Pittsburgh will also line up in next year’s election to use DREs of the type hacked by the Argonne National Lab.
Think how easy it would be for a partisan operative to volunteer at a polling location to gain some alone time with one of these machines long enough to do what the guys do in this video. Or take it a step further and ask if you trust the programmers who maintain them? HOW would the layman know what to think? I’m not a conspiracy-minded person, but a conspiracy theory is not what I’m trying to get across here.
It’s the issue of uncertainty and how it could cause social unrest.
That’s why these machines should be outlawed. THE. ONLY. WAY. to protect against election fraud—or the suggestion OF it—is to dump these evil things and go back to paper ballets.
What I haven’t heard any of the commentators about this matter saying, but I think it’s worth contemplating is this: The mere plausible suggestion that these machines can be so easily manipulated and that voter fraud COULD OCCUR is far more of a pressing issue than any other facet of this matter (i.e. actual hacking occurring) .
Fast-forward to 2012, in your mind: If Barack Obama, the incumbent, wins by a landslide—or (legitimately) by ten votes in a country in Florida, it matters not a whit—VOTE FRAUD is going to be the rallying call of people who don’t like him. It will be the new “Birtherism,” mark my words.
It’s that sort of thing that’s a far bigger problem than any tampering of individual machines ever could be.
On the plus side, that happening is probably what would, in the end, see the DRE machines done away with. I think the Tea party-types are more worried about having it done to them, than doing it themselves (not that most of those confused folks would have the first clue how to, of course…)
As one of the YouTube wags commented: “Can we buy this for Diebold ATMs?” Good question!
