There I was, 1971, ten years old, bored, and flipping through the newspaper when BAM! It hit me like a ton of bricks! The exact thing my ten-year-old eyes dreamed of seeing: A huge half-page ad with a giant grotesque monstrosity ripping its own head off printed in blood red ink! Dripping red letters screamed BEAST OF BLOOD! I was an avid monster magazine reader then (and now) and even made a slew of my own monster mags. This ad was so very important to me that part of it was used as the entire back cover of “Monster Journal” a one-off handmade on loose leaf paper by a couple of ten year olds (one of them being me, natch). The monster ripping his own head off was the centerfold.

Luckily I somehow still have it. Here’s the front cover, centerfold and back cover:
 

 
Having misbehaved, I was punished the whole week this movie played in our neighborhood theater and I never got to see it, cementing it even deeper into my psyche, as it became my own demented folklore in my personal history. That I had to wait at least fifteen years—and for VCRs to be invented—to see it may be hard for young people to grasp in these days of consumer enlightenment, but such was our world back then, and believe me, the rewards were truly that much more rewarding when it took you that long to find something.

Not so strangely enough, this is exactly what these now 54-year-old eyes still dream of seeing. I have been buying a lot of DVD’s of late and was missing one of the “Blood Island” films so I bought a box set that came out called The Blood Island Vacation on Amazon. The so-called “Blood Island trilogy” has quite a convoluted past. Even the box set has four films in it. There are at least three or four other films that also fit into this trilogy.

The Blood Island saga begins in 1959 with Terror is a Man (later retitled Blood Creature, of course).  It borrows its basic plot from The Island of Dr. Moreau—an obsessed scientist on a secluded island experiments with changing animals into humans. But the film is anything but a cheap rip-off. Terror is a Man is surprisingly intelligent, stylish and suspenseful, and from the same creators/directors/producers as the “Blood Island” trilogy: Eddie Romero, Gerardo De Leon and Kane Lynn. But let’s deal with the three main films to start with.
 

 
Brides of Blood (1968) begins the way all of the “Blood Island” films do, with our hero John Ashley (long time Hollywood B movie favorite starting out in fifties monster and juvenile delinquent films, graduating to sixties beach party films, doing quite a lot of weirdo flicks in the Philippines in the seventies, and then winding up producing TV shows like The A-Team, etc.), some hot chick with a specific reason for going to the island, some natives and the ships captain all sailing out on a steam ship to the dreaded island. This first film co-starred the ample real life stripper/actress Beverly Hills and 1930’s-1950’s B movie star Kent Taylor as her scientist husband (Kent Taylor was apparently the inspiration for the name of Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent).

They arrive on Blood Island and are met with the usual hostile/fearful islanders. Something weird is going on. Why are these people here? Everyone has their own concept of the monster in this film but to me it looks like a big burnt deflated Michelin Man with fangs and ummm… lipstick?
 

 
The big gimmick for Brides of Blood was the wedding ring give-away. Theater managers were encouraged to order hundreds of plastic wedding and engagement rings to give to every unmarried female in the audience.  Hemisphere Pictures even made a special trailer to advertise the rings. I actually have a set of them that were still in the press book for the film that I bought many moons ago. The marketing and advertising for these films is amazing. Wild trailers, including deranged narration from demented doom comedian Brother Theodore on the Mad Doctor of Blood Island trailer (see below), gorgeous posters done by world-class artists (paperback book cover artist icon Charles Copeland on Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood, comic artist Gray Morrow on Brain of Blood) etc.
 

 
You can read a great and funny review of Brides of Blood from BadMovies.org here. The whole film can be watched for free on Hulu here.
 

 
More ‘Blood Island’ after the jump…

This is Spinal Tap
 
Australian artist Irene Hwang’s Etsy shop Bobobabushka is full Russian “Matryoshka” nesting dolls that bear the likeness of alt-cinema misfits from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, This is Spinal Tap, Ghost World, Heathers, cult BBC TV show The Young Ones and various troublemakers from the films of Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers.

Hwang’s customers even harassed her into making a nesting doll based on the lower-than-low-budget 1966 cult film, Manos: The Hands of Fate and they are as excellent as Manos is horrible. A few of the cooler sets of Hwang’s hand-painted dolls ($120 - $190 a set) follow. 
 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
 

Ghost World
 

Heathers
 

The Young Ones
 

The Big Lebowski
 

Manos: The Hands of Fate
 

DEVO
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Motörhead Russian Nesting Dolls

The Ramones pose for CREEM, 1978
Here’s a set of vintage photographs capturing rock stars, punks, and pop royalty playing pinball. Many of these are candid shots, taken on the road during downtime while on tour. Some were taken in such a casual environment that information regarding who took the photo, and when, is scarce.

Debbie Harry, 1977. Photo by Bob Gruen.
 

David Johansen, Lenny Kaye, Dee Dee Ramone, and Andy Paley at C.B.G.B.’s, 1977. Another one by Bob Gruen
 

Bob Dylan, c. 1965
 

Elvis Presley in a Detroit arcade, 1956
 

Bruce Springsteen, 1978
 

Gene Vincent, 1963
 

Joe Strummer
 

Tina Turner
 

Michael Jackson, c. 1983

Keith Moon explains why he loves pinball:

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Pins and Needles: Vintage Pinball Machines
Stop-motion of Sesame Street’s ‘Pinball Number Count’
Finally: The ‘Big Lebowski’ pinball machine is here and it is gorgeous!

 
For what New Yorkers pay to ride “public transportation,” you’d think the MTA wouldn’t feel compelled to sell every square inch of subway car to bloodsucking corporate pirates—much less that aesthetic villain, Dr. Jonathan Zizmor. M.D.. But where there is a square inch to monetize, “public” space will never really be public. Two anonymous artists, going by SKI and 2ESAE, have decided to take the commons with some slick guerrilla tactics.

Now defacing ads is nothing new, and their messaging might be a little platitudinous (“be who you are don’t be sheep”), but the project itself is a kind of a cool ad campaign against ads. While the duo’s traditional idiom is graffiti, the plastering of polished “ad copy” is a subtler, more formal approach to anti-advertising protest—you have to look twice, something straphangers almost never do for a scrawl of Sharpie or an artless tag in spray paint. While very few people probably saw the installation itself (I’ve been on the J train at 3AM—it’s pretty dead), the folks at ANIMAL videotaped it for posterity—YouTube is the last town square, I suppose.

I’d hope actions like this might take off, but the MTA has already announced plans to put cameras in cars... you know… for safety.
 

 
Via ANIMAL

 
Years ago when I was a producer in television,  I recall that there were many discussions on how broadcasters could encourage younger viewers to have brand loyalty with a particular channel. The proposed idea was that if a broadcaster could successfully capture (strange choice of word, I know) a young audience then they were building the consumers of their future output. A rather obvious idea but one that appeared to work—well, at least for me, as I still look with particularly fondness on those shows that illuminated my childhood, and by association the broadcaster. The holy grail here was considered to be quality returnable series and quirky presenters with whom the young ‘uns could identify and grow up with.

I have been told publishers have similar discussions on inculcating brand loyalty through their authors. So you would think, therefore, that when a group of teenagers were set a project by their school teacher encouraging them to write a letter to their favorite author, that these chosen writers would leap at the chance to win over their future readers. Well apparently not, as one class of pupils at Xavier High School in New York found out in 2006, when their teacher (Ms. Lockwood) set this task, and letters were sent out to a variety of authors, with only one writer taking the time to reply.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise that it was the great pessimistic humanist Kurt Vonnegut who was the only author to write back. Who the others were, I don’t know, but I wonder if they’re still popular with readers at Xavier High? Anyway, Vonnegut took the time to read the letter, which asked requested that he make a personal appearance at Xavier. Vonnegut was then 84, “an old geezer” as he called himself, and demurred visiting the school. However, he did offer the five students and their teacher some fine advice on how best to experience life and to grow their souls. It’s a beautiful letter, giving some of the most inspiring advice any high school student could ask for.

November 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

 

 
In 2014, Dogtooth Films made a short film based on Kurt Vonnegut’s letter, using pupils from Hove Park School.
 

 
Via Letters of Note

 
Behold the eerie work of Brazilian street artist Herbert Baglione. These ghostly shadows painted in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Parma, Italy are a part of an ongoing project titled “1000 Shadows.”

Baglione’s work isn’t just limited to abandoned psychiatric hospitals (although I truly dig this idea), his painted silhouettes have shown up all over the world in deserted buildings, foreclosed homes and empty offices. His ghostly shadows tell the stories of the souls who once inhabited the now abandoned spaces. Locations that once had life.

You can follow Baglione’s “1000 Shadows” project on his Facebook page.

 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

 
From the Dangerous Minds archives:

It’s difficult to describe the music, or the persona, of Reverend Fred Lane, but I will try. The above pictured album cover probably paints at least a thousand words…

Fred Lane is an ultra obscure musical weirdo cult hero along the lines of Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, Jandek, R. Stevie Moore or Wild Man Fischer, but he’s way, way more obscure than any of these comparatively famous freaks. At least you know the general territory. Lane was/is the stage name of a Tuscaloosa, AL-based artist/sculptor named T.R. Reed who put out two albums under the Fred Lane moniker in 1983, From the One That Cut You (recorded in 1975) and Car Radio Jerome in 1986. These albums were then re-released by Kramer’s Shimmy Disc label in the late 80s.

First the music: cartoony big-band free-jazz swing skronk sometimes bordering on total cacophony with dada lyrics and elements of easy listening, 70s Zappa, spy-fi, The Residents, Spike Jones, country and No Wave thrown in for good measure.  It’s truly unlike anything I’ve ever heard before and that’s not a throwaway assessment. The music of Reverend Fred Lane exists in its own very, very specific angel dust funhouse mirror continuum in the same way that a film like Eraserhead or Forbidden Zone stands out when compared to other mere movies.

In the mid-70s there was an Alfred Jarry-influenced absurdest arts group/event in Tuscaloosa called the Raudelunas Pataphysical Revue and this is where Reed’s “Reverend Fred Lane” alter ego was born, as the joking MC for Ron ‘Pate’s Debonairs. No pants. A tuxedo jacket. Coke-bottle glasses, a leering grin and a waxed mustache made the sleazy Reverend’s mad look which was then topped off with Band-Aids. Although it is an act, it’s not one that’s completely obvious at first and Lane might seem to some listeners to be genuinely demented.

From the One That Cut You was literally inspired by an illiterate threatening love note/confession from someone named “Fuear” that was wrapped around a knife that was found in a secret compartment in a 1952 Dodge truck. Reed wrote both a song and also a stage show based on the note for his Fred Lane character.

The note read:

“I hope the paine is gone. This is the one that cut you? P.S. Don’t wear about Jimmy I will take kear of him the same way I took kear of YOU.”

Dig his song titles: “Upper Lip Of A Nostril Man.” “Car Radio Jerome.” “The French Toast Man.” “Danger Is My Beer.” Who could forget “I Talk To My Haircut”? I can’t imagine what this music sounded like to unsuspecting listeners in the 70s and 80s. And how in the world did people find out about it? (Apparently John Peel played Fred Lane on his BBC radio show. I heard of him because Kramer gave me his CD.)

Only two Fred Lane albums ever came out, A guy named Skizz Cyzyk has been working on a documentary about Fred Lane and the Raudelunas collective for over a decade now. He says of the Alabamy art/freak-out scene, “Had it been in NY or SF there would be textbooks written about it by now.”

Interesting point. The Fred Lane CDs are long out of print and sell for upwards of $75 for used copies on Amazon. Fred Lane seems like an obvious candidate for a deluxe collector’s edition CD reissue of some sort. In the meantime, there’s a download link on the Remote Outposts blog

“The French Toast Man”:

 
“From the One That Cut You”:

 
More from the Reverend Fred Lane after the jump…

 
“Apparently, there are some people out there who don’t love the Fall,” John Peel once said on his BBC Radio One program. “I spurn them with my toe.”

The Fall did 24 live sessions for legendary BBC Radio broadcaster John Peel, more than any other act. The group were his favorite band and he was a tireless champion of Mark E. Smith’s music, although apparently Smith was ambivalent about “Fuckin’ John Peel” in return, opining that he was “the fuckin’ worst, he’s worse than Tony Blackburn [Peel’s fellow BBC Radio 1 DJ] ever was. Bastard.”

Peel didn’t mind and brushed off the insult, noting that Smith was not perhaps “in perfect working order at the moment” (that was an understatement when Peel was still alive, and more true today) and adding that “the band have given me intense pleasure over the years, I still love ‘em madly.”

Here then, is an entire hour of John Peel introducing The Fall…

“The Fall, The Fall, Fall there, Mark E.Smith and The Fall, Fall, The Fall…”

It’s… hypnotic.
 

 
Via Holy Moly!

 
As the 1964 book Mourka: Autobiography of a Cat amply demonstrates, cats did not need the Internet to become nationwide sensations; they have been, er, catnip to content providers for decades.
 

 
Mourka was an “alley cat” who belonged to the legendary choreographer George Balanchine. A picture of Balanchine “training” Mourka appeared in LIFE magazine, and the picture proved so popular that a book deal was quickly inked. The author, Tanaquil Le Clerq, was Balanchine’s wife, and the photographer was Martha Swope. This text is from the dust cover of the book:
 

Mourka, an extraordinary alley cat is one of famed choreographer George Balanchine’s prize pupils. He has learned to do entre-chats, pas de chats, and even a grand jeté. When photographer Martha Swope caught Mourka doing one of his spectacular leaps, Life printed the memorable photo and Mourka’s reputation was made instantly for millions of Americans. Here, Miss Swope’s pictures and Miss Le Clerq’s text convey his many exploits and suggest that Mourka may well be the most accomplished feline in the world. [This, of course, was written decades before the advent of Maru.]

Mourka, a native New Yorker, shares a large apartment on the upper West Side with Mr. and Mrs. Balanchine. He spends his summers in Weston, Connecticut, where he indulges in his favorite hobby, bug-watching, and such favorite foods as asparagus, potatoes, peas, and sour cream.

Ballerina Tanaquil Le Clerq, the wife of George Balanchine, was born in Paris and brought to this country at an early age. She won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet at the age of eleven and later danced many leading roles with the New York City Ballet. In 1956, while on a dance tour of Europe, she was stricken with polio which halted her dancing career. Now that Mourka is published, she is at work on her next book, a gourmet cook book to be published by Stein and Day in 1965.

 

Balanchine training Mourka
 
Balanchine put in considerable time “training” Mourka, and on the occasion when Mourka was obliged to present a command performance for the composer Igor Stravinsky, it was the only time that a ballet performance ever gave Balanchine butterflies. According to Balanchine: A Biography by Bernard Taper:
 

While [Balanchine] was away, a friend or Tanaquil’s mother stayed with her, or she often chose to remain alone in the apartment, kept company by Mourka, their white-and-ginger-colored cat, a pampered and much admired creature. Balanchine had trained this cat to perform brilliant jetés and tours en l’air; he used to say that at last he had a body worth choreographing for. He talked of presenting Mourka publicly, in a program titled—in parody of the revolutionary program he had presented as a youth in Russia—“The Evolution of Ballet: From Petipa to Petipaw.” Once, at a party at his apartment during the Christmas season, Stravinsky asked to see Mourka perform. Guests present later said that was the only time they had ever seen Balanchine nervous before a performance.

 

 

 

 

 
via Awful Library Books
 

 
On May 14, 1985, Minneapolis, MN hardcore/proto-grunge unfuckwithables Hüsker Dü played their first show outside the USA, on rented equipment, for a UK television show called Live in London. The set spans 20 songs in a bit under an hour, and draws heavily from the albums Zen Arcade and New Day Rising, though the luminous “Makes No Sense at All” from the then still-forthcoming Flip Your Wig makes a preview appearance.

This has turned up occasionally on VHS and DVD bootlegs, but never officially. The excellent Hüsker Dü database at thirdav.com has the set list and some screen grabs. The footage has of course turned up online, and it’s really fantastic—an energetic set full of great moments. Though the version below is clearly digitized from VHS (“PLAY Hi-Fi SP”), the audio and video quality are quite good, apart from a small handful of annoying-but-hardly-fatal sound drops. Since this has been yanked from YouTube before, you might want to enjoy it soon. 

Hüsker Dü’s former singer Bob Mould will be touring Europe in November. Like a dumbass, I missed his US tour, and am told by folks I abidingly trust that he completely slayed it. His new LP is Beauty & Ruin.