The late Layne Staley of Alice in Chains modeling the proper reaction to someone throwing up Nazi salutes. Image source.
 
As the world seems to still need a reminder that Slap-a-Nazi-Day should be observed every damn day, let’s take a look at the example set by the late Layne Staley of Alice in Chains when he spotted one in the crowd of an AIC show in Stockholm in February of 1993.

The band was in Stockholm to play a gig at Cirkus during their two-month tour of Europe with Screaming Trees. During the band’s set, Staley took notice of a skinhead close to the stage, acting like a whirling dipshit, creating a one-man moshpit of sorts, beating members of the audience and throwing up Nazi salutes. Once AIC finished up “It Ain’t Like That” (Facelift, 1990), Layne addressed the crowd with the endearing line “We love you fucking Swedish people!” and proceeded to walk to the edge of the stage to speak to a member of Cirkus’ security team. He gestured to the skinhead who had been assaulting people in the crowd and asked him to come up on stage, telling him, “Come on, man. Come join the band—have a good time.” Randy Biro, a contributing vocalist to AIC, was there (as told in the book Alice in Chains: The Untold Story by David De Sola) to see the look on the Nazi numbskull’s mug as he responded to Layne’s invitation asking “Me?”

Staley’s showstopping moment was a puzzle to everyone including the rest of AIC and the Cirkus security team. Biro recalls wondering “why the fuck” Staley was extending an olive branch to a “douchebag” skinhead. During the confusing stand-off, Layne kept encouraging him to come up and join the band on stage, which he finally did. When the skinhead was close enough for Layne, he reached down and pulled the punch-happy asshole up on stage. He then struck him in the face twice so hard the annoying Nazi fell backward into the crowd, who were collectively having a good laugh over what they just witnessed (feel free to insert your “they did Nazi that coming” jokes here). As if Layne’s impromptu romper-stomp of a skinhead’s face wasn’t enough, as the Nazi was being taken away by security, he returned to the microphone and yelled, “Fucking Nazis DIE!”, finishing the rest of their set incident-free.

I wish this was the part where Layne Staley and the band were then shuttled off to the king of Stockholm’s gothic castle to receive the key to the city, but that didn’t happen. And that’s because it’s not actually legal to slap someone (even an aggressive, Sieg-Heiling Nazi) in the face. Layne was in trouble, and he and the band knew it.

After the gig, people were nervously ruminating about the consequences of Layne’s Nazi-slapping incident, and they were right to. John Sampson, Staley’s personal security guard, took the vocalist to a ferry bound for Finland to avoid arrest. As the rest of AIC were leaving their hotel, the local authorities showed up after getting a call from the skinhead Staley had slapped. They confiscated the band’s passports and went to apprehend Layne, who was already on the ferry. The cops boarded the ferry and arrested Staley for the incident at the show. In yet another interesting twist to this story, the skinhead’s brother (who was at the gig), had also gone to the police not to defend his sibling, but to make it clear that his brother had been “picking” on people in the crowd and Layne had stopped him. Since this story really does have a happy ending for everyone except the Nazi, the police congratulated Layne and the band and sent them on their way to the next stop of their tour, Oslo, Norway . Footage of Staley setting a skinhead straight follows.
 

Footage of Layne Staley slapping an aggressive Nazi during an Alice in Chains show in Stockholm on February 8th, 1993.
 
HT: Screaming Trees official FB page.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
A super glam-looking Layne Staley performing with his high school band ‘Sleze’ in 1985
‘Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989’: Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt on his new book
‘Hype!’: The 1996 documentary that captured grunge’s explosive rise (and immediate co-optation)
Ultramega OK: Soundgarden destroy the Whisky a Go-Go, 1990
‘No Nirvana’: Jane’s Addiction, Sonic Youth, Screaming Trees & more live on UK TV in the early 90s
Blistering, previously unseen Nirvana footage captured the night before ‘Nevermind’ was released

 
The mid 1970s pairing of Mariangela, a promising young singer/songwriter, and the Greek composer/musician/producer Vangelis might have seemed illogical on paper, but the result was a unique album that, unfortunately, didn’t get its due.

At age eleven, Mariangela Papaconstantinu began playing guitar, and by the time she reached thirteen, she was writing songs. Before long, she started appearing weekly on a music television program in Greece (Mariangela is half Greek, half Italian), singing her English-language material. This led to her signing with a major label, Polygram, and beginning work on her debut album—all before she turned fourteen.
 

 
In the mid ‘70s, Vangelis Papathanassiou was becoming increasingly famous in Europe. He first achieved prominence as a member and chief composer of the prog rock band Aphrodite’s Child, with their 1972 double-album rock opera 666 getting a lot of attention, though he was still years away from the worldwide success he’d achieve with the soundtrack for Chariots of Fire. Vangelis had released three solo records when he was hired by Polygram to produce promising acts on the label; he quickly chose Mariangela.
 

Mariangela and Vangelis.

Before recording of her album in London commenced, Mariangela sang back-up vocals for a group Vangelis was producing, Socrates. The band returned the favor by playing on Mariangela’s self-titled debut.

As producer, Vangelis selected the tracks that would appear on the Mariangela record. He picked four of her songs, with the remaining seven tunes coming from various writers, including four by an obscure figure named Denny Beckermann. His “Honalulu Baby” kicks off the album and was chosen as the lead single.
 

 
The Beach Boys-esque number, like much of the album, is lavishly arranged, filled with strange synth sounds. The first of the Mariangela-penned numbers to appear on the LP, “You Are the One,” resembles an ABBA production, and is just a gorgeous pop song. Mariangela sings confidently throughout the record, and proves to be a talented songwriter, seeming older beyond her years. This is especially apparent on the melancholic “Memories of Friends,” which includes such lyrics as “good things never last for long” and “loneliness is meant to be my friend”—fairly introspective for someone barely in their teens. Other highlights include “What You’re Doing to Me” (think Olivia Newton-John gone weird), and the glorious “Rainbow,” a throwback to the sunshine pop of the 1960s.

For reasons that are unclear, Mariangela (1975) was only released in select countries, and those didn’t include England or Western Europe. The album quickly sank without a trace. Mariangela wouldn’t release a follow-up full-length until the ‘90s.

Mariangela is now a sought-after collectible. In 2012, a sealed copy of the original Canadian pressing sold for 300 bucks. 
 

 
At long last, Mariangela’s adventurous debut will be reissued on vinyl, courtesy of Telephone Explosion. Due May 1st, you can pre-order it via the label’s website.

With their announcement of the remastered record’s pending release, Telephone Explosion posted one of the songs from the album written by Mariangela, the out of this world, “My Dear Life”:
 

 
For Dangerous Minds readers, the label has uploaded the aforementioned “You Are the One”:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Meet Chandra, the pre-teen who released a fantastic post-punk record in 1980
Unheard new wave track from 1983 by teenage artist Chandra (a DM premiere)
Vangelis stars in the most synth-tastic footage ever committed to videotape

 
At two o’clock on June 15th, 1938, a truck pulled-up outside the church hall at St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall Torkard, England. The vehicle was packed with planks of wood, picks, shovels, crowbars and other assorted tools. The Reverend Canon Thomas Gerrard Barber watched from a side window as a small group of workmen unloaded the vehicle. The driver leaned against the truck smoking a cigarette. His questions to the men removing the tools went unanswered. Barber had ensured all those involved in his plans were pledged to secrecy. No one had thought it possible, but somehow Barber had managed it. This was the day the reverend would oversee the opening of Lord Byron’s coffin situated in a vault beneath the church. Once the men were finished, the driver stubbed his cigarette, returned to his cab, and drove back to the depot in Nottingham.

Over the next two hours, “the Antiquary, the Surveyor, and the Doctor arrived” followed by “the Mason.” It was all rather like the appearance of suspects in a game of Clue. Their arrival was staggered so as not to attract any unwanted attention. Barber was concerned that if the public knew of his intentions there would be an outcry, or at worst a queue around the church longer than the one for his Sunday service.

Near four o’clock, the “workmen” returned. Interesting to note that Barber in his book on the events of this day, Byron and Where He is Buried, used the lower case to name these men rather the capitalization preferred for The Architect, the Mason, and those other professionals. Even in text the working class must be shown their place. Inside the church Barber discussed with the Architect and the Mason the best way to gain access to Byron’s family crypt.

An old print of the interior of the Church shows two large flagstones covering the entrance to the Vault. One of these stones can be seen at the foot of the Chancel steps. It is six feet long, two feet four inches wide, and six inches thick. It was conjectured that the other large stone was covered by the Chancel steps, and that it would be necessary first of all to remove the steps on the south side of the Chancel in order to obtain an entrance to the Vault. Before the work started it was impossible to obtain any information whatever as to the size of the Vault, and to its actual position relatively to the Chancel floor.

Barber was a strange man, an odd mix of contrary passions.. He was as the Fortean Times noted, “a passionate admirer of Byron and a determined controversialist: a dangerous combination, it transpired, in a man placed in charge of the church where the poet had been buried.” For whatever reason, Barber believed he had some connection with the great poet. He never quite made this connection clear but alluded to it like Madame Arcati waffling on about her “vibrations” claiming he had “a personal appointment with Byron.” He was proud the poet had been buried at his church but was deeply concerned that Byron’s body might not actually reside there.
 

 
Between 1887 and 1888, there had been restoration work at St. Mary Magdalene “to allow for the addition of transepts.” This meant digging into the foundation. Though promises were made (by the architects and builders) that there would be no damage or alterations to Lord Byron’s vault, Barber feared that this was exactly what had happened. This thought dripped, dripped, dripped, and made Barber anxious about the whereabouts of the dead poet.

Early in 1938, he confided his fears to the church warden A. E. Houldsworth. Barber expressed his intention to examine the Byron vault and “clear up all doubts as to the Poet’s burial place and compile a record of the contents of the vault.”

He wrote to his local Member of Parliament requesting permission from the Home Office to open the crypt. He also wrote to the surviving Lord Byron, who was then Vicar of Thrumpton, asking for his permission to enter the family vault. The vicar gave his agreement and “expressed his fervent hope that great family treasure would be discovered with his ancestors and returned to him.”
 

 
At four o’clock, the doors to the church were locked. Inside, around forty (where the fuck did they come from?) invited guests (er…okay….) waited expectantly for the opening of Byron’s vault (what else where they expecting…vespers?). According to notes written by Houldsworth, among those in attendance was one name that Bart Simpson would surely appreciate:

Rev. Canon Barber & his wife
Mr Seymour Cocks MP [lol]
N. M. Lane, diocesan surveyor
Mr Holland Walker
Capt & Mrs McCraith
Dr Llewellyn
Mr & Mrs G. L. Willis (vicar’s warden)
Mr & Mrs c. G. Campbell banker
Mr Claude Bullock, photographer
Mr Geoffrey Johnstone
Mr Jim Bettridge (church fireman)

Of the rest in attendance, Houldsworth hadn’t a Scooby, other than he was surprised that so many had been invited by the good Reverend. As the workmen opened the vault, the guests discussed curtains, mortgages, flower-arranging, and the possibility of war.

At six-thirty, the masons finally removed the slab. A breath of cool, dank air rose into the warm church. Doctor Llewellyn lowered a miner’s safety lamp into the opening to test the air. It was fine. Barber then became (as he described it) “the first to make the descent” into the vault.

His first impression was “one of disappointment.”

It was totally different from what I had imagined. I had seen in my imagination a large sepulchral chamber with shelves inserted in the walls and arranged above one another, and on each shelf a coffin. To find myself in a Vault of the smallest dimensions, and coffins at my feet stacked one upon another with no apparent attempt at arrangement, giving the impression that they had almost been thrown into position, was at first an outrage to my sense of reverence and decency. I descended the steps with very mixed feelings. I could not bring myself to believe that this was the Vault as it had been originally built, nor yet could I could I allow myself to think that the coffins were in their original positions. Had the size of the Vault been reduced and the coffins moved at the time of the 1887-1888 restoration, to allow for the building of the two foot wall on the north of the Vault as an additional support for the Chancel floor?

Pondering these questions, Barber returned to the church. He then invited his guests to retire to the Church House for some tea and refreshments while he considered what to do next. The three workmen were left behind.
 

 
With their appetites sated, the Reverend and his guests returned to the church and the freshly opened vault.

From a distant view the two coffins appeared to be in excellent condition. They were each surmounted by a coronet… The coronet on the centre coffin bore six orbs on long stems, but the other coronet had apparently been robbed of the silver orbs which had originally been fixed on short stems close to the rim.

The coffins were covered with purple velvet, now much faded, and some of the handles removed. A closer examination revealed the centre coffin to be that of Byron’s daughter Augusta Ada, Lady Lovelace.

At the foot of the staircase, resting on a child’s lead coffin was a casket which, according to the inscription on the wooden lid and on the casket inside, contained the heart and brains of Lord Noel Byron. The vault also contained six other lead shells all in a considerable state of dissolution–the bottom coffins in the tiers being crushed almost flat by the immense weight above them.

Then Barber noticed that “there were evident signs that the Vault had been disturbed, and the poet’s coffin opened.” He called upon Mr. Claude Bullock to take photographs of the coffin. With the knowledge that someone had opened Byron’s coffin, Barber began to worry about what lay inside.

Someone had deliberately opened the coffin. A horrible fear came over me that souvenirs might have been taken from within the coffin. The idea was revolting, but I could not dismiss it. Had the body itself been removed? Horrible thought!

Eventually after much dithering, Barber opened the casket to find another coffin inside.

Dare I look within? Yes, the world should know the truth—that the body of the great poet was there—or that the coffin was empty. Reverently, very reverently, I raised the lid, and before my eyes there lay the embalmed body of Byron in as perfect a condition as when it was placed in the coffin one hundred and fourteen years ago. His features and hair easily recognisable from the portraits with which I was so familiar. The serene, almost happy expression on his face made a profound impression on me. The feet and ankles were uncovered., and I was able to establish the fact that his lameness had been that of his right foot. But enough—I gently lowered the lid of the coffin—and as I did so, breathed a prayer for the peace of his soul.

 

 
His fears were quashed, Barber was happy with what he had done. Basically dug up a grave for reasons of personal vanity. The Reverend Barber does come across as a bit of a pompous git. He was also disingenuous as the one thing he failed to mention about Byron’s corpse was the very attribute that shocked some and titillated others.

Barber was correct someone had already opened Byron’s coffin. But this did not happen during the church’s restoration in 1887-88 but less than an hour prior to his examination of Byron’s corpse. Houldsworth and his hired workmen had entered the crypt while Barber and his pals had tea.

Houldsworth went down into the crypt where he saw that Byron’s coffin was missing its nameplate, brass ornaments, and velvet covering. Though it looked solid it was soft and spongy to the touch. He called upon two workmen (Johnstone and Bettridge) to help raise the lid. Inside was a lead shell. When this was removed, another wooden coffin was visible inside.

After raising this we were able to see Lord Byron’s body which was in an excellent state of preservation. No decomposition had taken place and the head, torso and limbs were quite solid. The only parts skeletonised were the forearms, hands, lower shins, ankles and feet, though his right foot was not seen in the coffin. The hair on his head, body and limbs was intact, though grey. His sexual organ shewed quite abnormal development. There was a hole in his breast and at the back of his head, where his heart and brains had been removed. These are placed in a large urn near the coffin. The manufacture, ornaments and furnishings of the urn is identical with that of the coffin. The sculptured medallion on the church chancel wall is an excellent representation of Lord Byron as he still appeared in 1938.

There was a rumor long shared that Byron lay in his coffin with a humongous erection. This, of course, is just a myth. As Houldsworth later told journalist Byron Rogers of the Sheffield Star newspaper the idea came to the three workmen to open the poet’s coffin when Barber and co. had disappeared for tea:

“We didn’t take too kindly to that,” said Arnold Houldsworth. “I mean, we’d done the work. And Jim Bettridge suddenly says, ‘Let’s have a look on him.’ ‘You can’t do that,’ I says. ‘Just you watch me,’ says Jim. He put his spade in, there was a layer of wood, then one of lead, and I think another one of wood. And there he was, old Byron.”
“Good God, what did he look like?” I said.
“Just like in the portraits. He was bone from the elbows to his hands and from the knees down, but the rest was perfect. Good-looking man putting on a bit of weight, he’d gone bald. He was quite naked, you know,” and then he stopped, listening for something that must have been a clatter of china in the kitchen, where his wife was making tea for us, for he went on very quickly,  “Look, I’ve been in the Army, I’ve been in bathhouses, I’ve seen men. But I never saw nothing like him.” He stopped again, and nodding his head, meaningfully, as novelists say, began to tap a spot just above his knee. “He was built like a pony.”
“How many of you take sugar?” said Mrs Houldsworth, coming with the tea.

Whether any of the Reverend Barber’s guests saw Lord Byron’s corpse in the flesh (so to speak) and what they made of it, has never been recorded, other than some of the women felt faint when leaving the crypt, but there may have a light of admiration dancing in their eyes. Barber later returned to the vault on his own at midnight to keep his “personal appointment with Byron” and to most likely to ogle at the size of the great poet’s knob.

Lord Byron—poet, adventurer, rebel, adulterer, and a man hung like a horse.
 

 
H/T Flashbak and Fortean Times.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Battle of the Bulge: Classic rock stars and their packages
Through a Lens, Darkly: Weegee’s photographs of death and disaster
Porn-optical illusion: Suggestive collages of sex and architecture (probably NSFW)
That time Salvador Dali met Sigmund Freud
‘I shall meet thee bravely’: Beethoven’s secret ‘suicide’ letter to his brothers
When William S. Burroughs met Francis Bacon: Uncut
Why Francis Bacon destroyed his portrait of Cecil Beaton

A painting by Les Edwards commissioned by KHBB advertising to be used as a poster to promote the UK release of Stephen King’s film ‘Graveyard Shift.’

 
While artist Les Edwards was a student at the Hornsey College of Art from 1968 until he graduated in 1972, he was told on more than one occasion he would never find work in his chosen profession, illustration. Edwards would ignore the advice of his peers and teachers and become a freelance artist shortly after leaving school. During his four decades as an artist, he would work with director John Carpenter and authors Stephen King and Clive Barker. Edwards’ work has appeared on books and in magazines since the late 60s, catering to the science-fiction/fantasy/horror genre, and if you are familiar with Edwards’ work, you might even be a metalhead, as his credits include a few notable album covers such as the 1983 single from Metallica, “Jump in the Fire.” An interview with Edwards from 2016 rightfully touted him as an artist that should need “no introduction.” Still, it seems Edwards’ prolific genre-specific artwork has not received the credit it clearly deserves.

Let’s try to fix that.

While he was beginning his education at Hornsey College of Art, the school was in the midst of student protests and sit-ins, unhappy with the physical state of the school and lack of funding to improve the conditions or curriculum. This would evolve into a six-week situation during which students and faculty occupied the Crouch End building on campus, best described by those there as almost “festival-like” and “empowering.” Given the general displeasure of the student body during Edwards’ time at Hornsey, it’s reasonable to believe the “advice” he received meant to deter him from his desired profession was bunk, and his early acceptance into the Young Artists agency is proof of that. Run by author and songwriter John B Spencer, the Young Artists agency represented the brightest talent in art and illustration in the UK. But, according to Edwards, none of the artists on Young Artists’ roster understood how influential their collective work would become, including future master-airbrush artist Chris Foss, and Edwards himself. Here’s a bit from Edwards reflecting on his time at school and what it actually taught him:

“There’s a lot to learn about painting, and one thing I did learn at art school was that you pretty much have to teach yourself. Also, if you’re painting day after day, you have to make it interesting and challenging, or you just become a machine.”

Looking at the kind of work Edwards put out during his career clearly demonstrates how influential his work has been. In part, we all have Edwards to thank for our modern-day preoccupation with zombies and vampires, as well as his muscle-bound Conan-esque conquerors popularized most recently in Game of Thrones. When the show became a worldwide obsession, Edwards openly speculated his younger self would “laughed” at the idea that such a show could ever exist. These days, Edwards paints more often under the name Edward Miller, illustrating and painting subjects unrelated to his award-winning “Red Period” and has been the recipient of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist seven times. If you kept all your old heavy metal records, such as Krokus’ Alive and Screaming (1986) or Uriah Heep’s nearly perfect record, Abominog, you own artwork created by the talented Mr. Edwards. His work spanning the years 1968-1988 was compiled into the 1989 book, Blood & Iron, the only publication featuring his work to date. If you’d like to own a piece of Edwards art yourself, a large variety (including originals) can be purchased on his website. For now, please take a look at some of his work from the last few decades (and trust me, I’m just slicing through the surface here)—some are NSFW.
 

“The Monsters Escape” (private commission).
 

A portrait of author Robert Bloch for the cover of the book ‘Psychomania’ (2013). Bloch’s 1959 book ‘Psycho’ was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s film.
 

An image of actress and Hammer Films star Ingrid Pitt painted by Edwards for ‘The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories By Women’ (2001).
 
More after the jump…

 
In the liner notes for an upcoming Charlie Parker box set, jazz journalist Neil Tesser writes that one of Bird’s songs suggests a style of music that wouldn’t emerge for over a decade: “…the gravity-defying ‘Constellation,’ which, with its barely sketched melody and supersonic tempo, seems to anticipate the free-jazz energy solos of the 1960s.”

Charlie Parker is one of the most influential figures in jazz, though it’s safe to say that most don’t think of the alto saxophonist in relation to the avant-garde subgenre. While one can understand how his improvisational style generally inspired the foremost free jazz musicians, it’s another thing to come to that conclusion when listening to a particular Parker track.

“Constellation” was recorded by Parker’s quintet in 1948 and released on a single by Savoy Records. Written by Bird and credited to Charlie Parker’s All Stars, the group included a young Miles Davis. On “Constellation,” Parker’s soloing frequently sounds frantic and, at times, delightfully skronky—just like the best free jazz does.
 

 
Dangerous Minds has the premiere of the fantastic, freshly remastered “Constellation” from The Savoy 10-inch LP Collection:
 

 
In the early 1950s, Savoy placed “Constellation” and the other revolutionary bebop tracks Charlie Parker recorded for the label from 1944-48 on a succession of 10-inch LPs. The audio and artwork for the four records in the New Sounds in Modern Music series have been restored for The Savoy 10-inch LP Collection box, which also includes a booklet with photos and Neil Tesser’s insightful notes.
 

 
The Savoy 10-inch LP Collection will be released February 28th by Craft Recordings on vinyl and digital formats. Pre-order the set here or head directly to Amazon.
 

 
Pianist Hal Galper and his quintet covered “Constellation” on the 1999 album, Let’s Call This That, and their full-on free jazz interpretation of Bird’s groundbreaking piece is both logical and highly satisfying.
 

Brian Jonestown Massacre.
 
A small act of kindness can change everything. Alain Bibal was gifted a camera for his fiftieth birthday. It changed his life.

He started taking photographs of the thing he was passionate about—music. His first outing with his camera was to an Arctic Monkeys concert. He took a picture of lead singer Alex Turner. The image featured the singer’s head projected onto one of the screens at the side of the stage. The photograph was different. Eye-catching. It was picked up by the press. Alain Bibal was now a rock photographer.

But being a rock photographer (or just a photographer) is never that easy. It is something one has to work at constantly. Bibal started taking photographs of the bands who visited his home city Paris. Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tess Parks, Jarvis Cocker, the Limiñanas, Angel Olsen, and the Lemon Twigs. He traveled to England where he photographed Sleaford Mods, Suggs, Dandy Warhols, and Nick Cave. His work appeared in magazines, newspapers, and websites.

Bibal started taking pictures in his teens and twenties, then drifted into the world of work. Getting a Leica camera for his fiftieth changed everything. It reignited his talent and long held desires to be creative. He had always loved the work of rock photographers like Pennie Smith and Kevin Cummins. Photographs that were gritty, real and captured an unguarded moment of truth.

Bibal works on film, digital doesn’t interest him, working on film is more disciplined, demands more concentration. When embedded with bands at concerts or on tour, Bibal uses only two rolls of film to capture that perfect image. It means he has to stay focussed on telling a story with his camera that connects with an audience. His resulting pictures are brilliant, powerful, and iconic.

The moral of the story: be kind, you might just change someone’s life.
 

Tess Parks.
 

Pete Doherty.
 

Jarvis Cocker.
 

Jason Williamson—Sleaford Mods.
 
More of Alain Bibal’s brilliant work, after the jump…
 

Album art by Enzo Mombrini for the 1984 album ‘Turbo Diesel’ by Italian DJ, producer and vocalist Albert One, aka Alberto Carpani.
 
Flemming Dalum was born and raised approximately 1000 miles away from Italy in Denmark. Starting in 1983—Dalum, considered to be one of the world’s leading authorities of Italo disco—would make eleven trips to Italy in search of records. Italo disco came into favor in the 1980s, and Dalum became recognized as an expert on the genre as it rose to prominence not only in Italy but in Germany and other parts of Europe. Since immersing himself in the music, Dalum, a self-proclaimed “Italo freak” is able to instantly identify an authentic Italo disco song. Italo disco is probably on your radar, whether you realize it or not. Do you dig Italo pioneer Giorgio Moroder or the synth jams of director and composer John Carpenter? Then it’s safe to say disco Italo style might be right up your alley. While I’d love to jaw more about the ear candy that is Italo disco, the artwork created for the records is as lit up as the music pressed deep into the vinyl inside. 

The variety of album art produced during the decade of Italo disco’s height had one foot firmly planted in the realm of futuristic fantasy, often composed in an airbrush style. That’s what we’re going to focus on for this post. Airbrush art was such a huge part of the 80s, and several artists used this style for their contributions to Italo disco records such as Giampaolo Cecchini, a giant of the Italian advertising world. Italian sci-fi and comic artist Franco Storchi also successfully used this technique for Italo disco trio Time, as did Enzo Mombrini to create his provocative images for Italo disco acts, many which slipped into obscurity, as a fondness for Italo disco started to wain toward the end of the decade. If this topic has got you thinking about fog machines and neon lighting, the 2018 documentary Italo Disco Legacy traces the origins of Italo disco and includes facts and reflections from Flemming Dalum and other curators of Italo disco history. Covers by Cecchini, Storchi, Mombrini and a few others follow. Many are NSFW.
 

Franco Storchi’s cover for Italian superstar George Aaron’s (Giorgio Aldighieri) single “She’s a Devil” (1984). More by Storchi follows. 
 

1982.
 

1984.
 
More after the jump…

One of the entries for Punk magazine’s “Patti Smith Graffiti Contest” from 1976.
 
One of my very favorite possessions in my home library is the massive 2012 coffee table book Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine, gifted to me by a punk rock pal of mine. If you don’t already own a copy of it, find a way to part with $20 (or so), buy the book, and I promise you won’t ever regret it. Every so often, I pick it up and start reading from a random entry point and am taken back to the magazine’s heyday and its gritty yet comical approach to covering the punks of the scene when it began its glorious print run in 1975.

Core components of Punk were the comic strips based on the fictional exploits of the punk elite, the photo pictorials used for “The Legend of Nick Detroit” (starring Richard Hell) and another epic punk rock tale, “Mutant Monster Beach Party.” Both pictorial “movies” featured appearances by, well, everybody involved in the New York City punk scene and beyond, like David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol and Joey Ramone. Punk marched to the beat of its own high-hat-loving drum kit, but they also did regular magazine stuff like running contests.

In 1979 Punk solicited submissions from readers for their Patti Smith Graffiti Contest, requesting that they deface a press photo of Patti. When Volume I, Issue #5 published in August of 1976, the magazine noted it was still receiving entries commenting they “maybe” might print more, but they “doubt it.” Eight Graffiti-inspired press photos of Patti were chosen for the three-page, black and white layout and run the gamut from Patti looking a bit like Alice Cooper (pictured at the top of this post), to a topless collage of Patti (with her name spelled “Paty”) with tattooed boobs. It would take three more years for Punk to launch the Shaun Cassidy Graffiti Contest, announcing it in Punk #17 in 1979. Submissions were strong, but sadly, Issue #19 was scrapped, Da-Doo-Womp-Womp. Lucky for us, Punk’s John Holstrom included nine of the brutal illustrations of Cassidy, sent to Punk in Punk: The Best Of Punk Magazine. What a time to be alive. Some of the images that follow are NSFW.
 

Scribbles announcing the winners of the Patti Smith contest. The photo below is the one mentioned, sent in by Bimbo.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Every week Forced Exposure send out their email blast of new releases. If you are not receiving their newsletter, I suggest getting on it stat if you want the best resource to available new music that you are likely to find anywhere. The curation is valuable to me.I find out about a lot of new stuff there and try to support the effort by buying from them and not Amazon.

Anyway, it was through the Forced Exposure’s newsletter that I was made aware of a long lost disco album titled Sparkle that’s just been reissued. From the cover it appeared to be the music of an Amii Stewart-ish trio. The description, I think you’ll agree is tantalizing:

“In a genre that has classically been driven primarily by hot twelve-inches, it can sometimes be hard to find a disco album that delivers the goods from end to end—let alone a disco LP that could be described as ‘perfect.’ Does such an animal even exist? We’re pretty sure it has to, and we can probably think of a few candidates ourselves. Cultures of Soul Records presents Sparkle’s self-titled album which many disco aficionados would put into this category. Sparkle was a female vocal trio from Connecticut, assembled by the producer Harold Sargent, erstwhile drummer of the sterling funk band Wood, Brass & Steel, and creator of manifold drum breaks that would go on to be sampled for decades. Originally released in 1979, the album and the group are fittingly titled as the music is a scintillating, radiant collection of shimmering disco and dazzling funk, performed by Too Much Too Soon—the multiracial R&B band that featured Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken, the writing/production team that would discover Rihanna and power her career to global dominance fifteen years later. Also on hand is musical prodigy Rahni Harris, whose Sargent-assisted club classic ‘Six Million Steps’ is also included on the album. The result is an album that by far exceeds the sum of its parts, delivering a truly transcendent disco experience.” 

That promises an awful lot doesn’t it? To find out more, I searched for Sparkle on Discogs and saw that there was but a single copy of the original pressing for sale in the entire world. ONE single copy. A single copy that was priced at $2500! 

What does a $2500 album sound like, I wondered? Well, I didn’t have to wonder for too long as I reached out to the reissue label, Cultures of Soul Records in Boston and requested a review copy which they generously sent along. Does Sparkle live up to the advance hype? Absolutely! Seven slices of made-for-Studio 54 coulda been/shoulda been dancefloor classics that… you’ve never heard before by a group that you’ve never heard of either. The only thing I would say—and this is in no way meant to be negative—is that calling it an “album” is a bit of a stretch, the same as calling Sparkle a “group” is. More like a project, or even just a recording session or two, involving an absolutely crack studio band and some quite good vocalists. There’s no continuity with the vocals—the first track is an instrumental and two of the remaining six numbers are sung by men, not the pretty ladies on the cover. So it’s not really an album so much as it’s seven songs that, if you found them separately on 12-inches whilst crate digging, you would be thrilled about discovering them. Finding all seven spread across the sides of a single LP would be… mind boggling.

Buy Sparkle at Forced Exposure or from Cultures of Soul.
 

 
Who are these masked men? That was the question many people were asking when a video popped up on their timeline four years ago featuring band called Orkestra Obsolete covering New Order’s “Blue Monday.” Who indeed?

Little was revealed about this talented bunch of musos other than they were performing “Blue Monday” to illustrate what a classic synth song would sound like without synthesizers. The man behind this classic piece of promo is the immensely talented Scottish musician Angus McIntyre, who is better known as a highly successful TV producer and director.

McIntyre recently uploaded the original uncolorized version of the Orkestra track to his YouTube page where he explained something of the film’s background:

A few years ago I was asked by a BBC producer to make a short three minute film about the synthesiser, and then I thought it might be interesting to do a “what if there were no synthesisers?” scenario. Or something. I roped in my pals Graeme Miller - a skilled theremin and musical saw-ist, and Sven Werner - an amazing artist who has a fantastic studio space. Sound artist and film-maker Nicola Reade and myself worked together on the overall style and approach, and I arranged and directed it using a few tricks I’d learned making Gugug videos.

Gugug videos? More on that later.

For the recording of the Orkestra’s version of “Blue Monday,” McIntyre played drums, ukulele-banjo, tongue drum, piano strings, effects, lap steel, harmonium, clavioline, and sang vocals. He’s a talented little fucker. And an all-round good guy. Also, playing/involved but uncredited on the original were Michael Pappas (camera) and Richard Anderson (double bass).
 

 
More from Angus McIntyre and Gugug, after the jump….