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Neil Young announces ‘Live at the Cellar Door’
11.04.2013
10:12 am
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neil
 
Neil Young has announced the impending release of Live At The Cellar Door, a collection of performances recorded over the course of a week in late 1970. Via Hennemusic:

The album collects recordings made during Young’s intimate six-show solo stand at The Cellar Door in Washington D.C. between November 30th and December 2nd, 1970, a few months after the release of his classic third solo album, After the Gold Rush.

The album, which features Young performing on acoustic guitar and piano, includes a mix of solo and Buffalo Springfield tracks. It also includes early, raw performances of songs that wouldn’t appear until subsequent Young albums, including the rarity “Bad Fog Of Loneliness” (which appears on Live at Massey Hall ‘71 – released in 2007- but was previously unreleased until the studio band version was included on Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972), “Old Man” (released two years later on 1972’s Harvest album), and “Down By The River” from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

The announced release date is December 10th. The track listing is as follows:

1. Tell Me Why  
2. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
3. After the Gold Rush
4. Expecting To Fly
5. Bad Fog of Loneliness
6. Old Man
7. Birds
8. Don’t Let It Bring You Down
9. See the Sky About To Rain
10. Cinnamon Girl
11. I Am a Child
12. Down By the River
13. Flying On the Ground Is Wrong

Young has released a video trailer for the album, which you can repeatedly enjoy here to your heart’s content while you wait a month for the album to drop.
 

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.04.2013
10:12 am
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‘Cows,’ Eddie Izzard’s bizarre unaired sitcom pilot
11.04.2013
09:41 am
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In the mid-1990s, Eddie Izzard, in the years in which he was rapidly expanding his audience for his long-form stand-up shows, spent several years trying to get a sitcom into production at Britain’s Channel 4. The show was called Cows, and that title expresses everything you need to know about it. It was about a family of cows that lives in Britain like a normal family, except that they’re cows. Because of Izzard’s pedigree as a master of absurdist humor, it’s tempting to see Cows as some kind of an ingeniously brilliant and scathing anti-comedy casting a skeptical glance on Cool Britannia or something, but mostly it’s just really surprisingly stupid. Channel 4 was right to say no. The show went as far as shooting an episode or two, but it never made it to air.

The cast wore enormous cow heads that are quite unsightly and unfunny, considering that they came from Henson Corporation. The show isn’t, honestly, all that different from a lot of “wacky,” fish-out-of-water sitcoms in the manner of, say, Third Rock from the Sun, except that John Lithgow wasn’t obliged to do his emoting from inside what amounts to a massive Phillie Phanatic outfit. But even more fatal, Izzard and co-writer Nick Whitby appear to have thought that the risibility of cows would, in and of itself, carry them a long way.
 
Izzard. Moo.
 
The show was apparently in development for a long time—the pilot that was eventually shot is dated 1997, but already in 1995 Izzard was quoted as saying, “It’s now about a group of cows moving into a street, and how they get on with the people there who don’t know many cows. … It’ll either be great or it’ll be a pile of shit.” Well, Izzard seems to have gotten that one right, anyway. Easy as it is to take potshots at the show, who knows what the conception was at the outset and how that initial kernel morphed into this incomprehensible sitcom.

In this appearance at an Apple Store in 2009 with comedian Simon Amstell, Izzard fields an audience question about the failure of Cows. Izzard comments that his original conception was to do something similar to Planet of the Apes, but the bovine/simian differences ended up being a problem:
 

Cows by Eddie Izzard on Grooveshark

 
Izzard appears to have understood his limitations as a TV writer, commenting that he had a “problem with creativity without adrenalin” and “sometimes despaired of disciplining himself” in that field and that he missed “the lack of instant response.” According to Sunshine on Putty: The Golden Age of British Comedy from Vic Reeves to The Office by Ben Thompson, Izzard’s agent Caroline Chignell later reflected on the experience: “Eddie was absolutely determined to prove that he had the skills and the application to be a writer. I think as it turned out, [the rejection of the series] was probably the best thing that could have happened.” Clearly, he needed to get an experience of that sort out of his system.

It’s funny to think that Izzard’s successful introduction to American audiences was happening right around this time. His standup show Definite Article went to New York City in 1996, and he taped his breakthrough show Dress to Kill in San Francisco in 1998; the latter special, which appeared on HBO in 1999, ended up winning Izzard two Emmys. Izzard has always had boundless energy and is known for biting off more than he can chew, as his running 43 marathons in 51 days in 2009 and recently declaring his intention to be elected mayor of London in 2020 surely attest.

It’s hard to make head or tails of the 49 minutes of the pilot, it doesn’t hang together as a single story, and the episode breaks aren’t clear. Among the first acts the cow family engages in is to light up a spliff roughly the size of a cricket bat. The cow family goes to a casino, they host a posh dinner party, one of them marries a human woman who is “our” surrogate for the “humor,” one of the cows delivers an address at a political convention in which, unaccustomed to speaking in front of an audience, he steals and mangles a bunch of Winston Churchill quotations. And none of it makes a lick of sense.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Eddie Izzard Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Will Eddie Izzard run for Mayor of London?

Posted by Martin Schneider
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11.04.2013
09:41 am
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24 Hour Party Aliens: Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder BELIEVES
11.02.2013
03:39 pm
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ryder ufos
 
In what could be construed as an effective warning as to the risks of cognitive impairment that can accompany long-term ecstasy abuse, Happy Mondays vocalist Shaun Ryder has traveled the world seeking evidence of UFOs. His travels were documented for air on a forthcoming new program, Shaun Ryder on UFOs, for the ever-increasingly misnamed History Channel, TV home of God, Guns and Automobiles, Storage Wars, and Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy.

In advance of the show’s debut, Ryder spoke to The Guardian about the close encounters he believes he experienced in his youth, his ongoing passion for UFOlogy, and his most recent sightings:

His sentences become disjointed. “Well, all I’ll tell yous, right, is that I’ve seen one, really close up, about 50 foot above, and it looks like a cartoon. It doesn’t look real. It looks like it’s made out of Airfix kit. They look like toys. When you’ve seen something as close as I’ve seen – and bullshit drink, drugs, bollox, none of it, absolutely normal and straight – and you see it and you know they’re here … “

Tell me more, I say. “I can’t go into any more detail, apart from that it was literally 50 foot above me.” Did he have any contact with it? “No, no, but the thing is I wasn’t frightened one bit. I was very peaceful and placid when I was looking at the thing.” He says it happened after he finished making the documentary series.

Well, there you go, someone call SETI and tell them to turn off the machines that go ‘ping,’ England’s most wasted saw it with his own bleary eyes, so clearly the matter’s settled.

(Before any believers go all berserk on me in the comments, I’m not dismissing the likelihood of life elsewhere. I just think it’s telling that the world’s best and most dedicated scientific minds have thus far located none, despite decades of rigorous search, but we’ve got plentiful anecdotal testimony from hayseeds, drug and alcohol casualties, the mentally ill, and profiteering charlatans. In a universe as vast as the one in which we occupy a pitiful little corner, it’s incredibly unlikely that self-reproducing organisms and sentience are unique to Earth. But it’s even less likely that whatever technologically advanced E.T. life as may exist has made it its mission to traverse the vastness of the cosmos and stick things in our butts.)

Truth is, though, it’ll probably be a vastly entertaining show. Ryder is a gifted bigmouth. I was so fortunate as to interview him face-to-face in the late ‘80s, and though he was only just barely coherent from God knows what he and Bez were dosed on, it was massively enjoyable - captivating, really - just to be in a room with him talking. The sheer force of his lively personality is nothing to dismiss, which is why he’s lately experienced a career renaissance as a UK reality television personality. If his show turns up on Hulu, I will most certainly check out an episode or two. After all, the Mondays were basically a rickety band whose sheer energetic joy pushed them into transcendental greatness, maybe Ryder can tap that magic again on television? Failing that, he’ll still be himself, merrily opining, a sort of lumpen, less-literate Julian Cope. And that’ll be fun, too.

Enjoy Ryder in his prime, in 1989 on BBC Four’s “Club X”
 

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.02.2013
03:39 pm
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Have we all forgotten Lou Reed’s remarkable turn as Mok in ‘Rock and Rule’?
11.02.2013
02:03 pm
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Rock and Rule
 
This video clip comes from Rock and Rule (1983), a kind of follow-up to 1981’s legendary animated sci-fi anthology movie Heavy Metal directed by Gerald Potterton. Both movies were Canadian, but there appears to be no official connection between them.

As with Heavy Metal, Rock and Rule was able to cobble together a very impressive musical lineup, including Reed, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Cheap Trick, and Earth, Wind, & Fire. Mok, who is an ageing rock musician who in search of a particular voice that can unleash a fearsome demon from a different dimension, was voiced by Don Francks (who also did voice work in Heavy Metal), but his visual look was clearly inspired by Iggy Pop, even if his song was sung by Lou Reed. It’s all a little reminiscent of a certain T-shirt we heard about recently.
 

 
Thank you Wilder Selzer!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Punk rock humanoid cats and Iggy Pop in the animated flick ‘Rock & Rule’

Posted by Martin Schneider
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11.02.2013
02:03 pm
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The Stupid Set—Italy’s answer to DEVO—deconstructs The Doors’ ‘Hello, I Love You,’ 1980
11.02.2013
01:52 pm
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Only a smart person names their band The Stupid Set. Right? The Stupid Set, active from 1979 to 1983, were from Bologna, Italy, which is Italy’s oldest student center—also a city famous for its red-tiled roofs, its red pasta sauce, and its red politics.

The Stupid Set’s best-known song was this 1980 deconstruction of the Doors’ “Hello, I Love You,” which bears a very strong similarity to DEVO’s approach in their 1977 cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”
 
The Stupid Set
 
I can’t read Italian, and the Google Translate rendition of the band’s Wikipedia page is not the clearest, but I have to say I’m enjoying the list of related bands that were connected to The Stupid Set: The Center for Metropolitan Scream, the Hi-Fi Bros, Tide Toast, the Marconi Connection, Astro Vitelli and the Cosmos, and so on. I also like that the Smart Set’s label was called Italian Records.

The Stupid Set: “Don’t Be Cold (In The Summer Of Love)”

 
“Hear the Rumble”

 
The video and song for their “Hello, I Love You” do not go where you think they are going to go…

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Stryx: Italian TV Disco madness with Amanda Lear, Grace Jones, Patty Pravo & more
Sound of SIlver(heads): Rockets on Italian TV 1978
Vee and Simonetti: Italian disco so mysterioso

Posted by Martin Schneider
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11.02.2013
01:52 pm
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Saturday Morning Tetratome: New Paintings by Dimitri Drjuchin
11.02.2013
08:52 am
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“As Getout”

If you are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles—I love saying that—get on down to the Paul Loya Gallery in Culver City tonight for the first Los Angeles solo show of Dimitri Drjuchin’s paintings.

Drjuchin’s career has really taken off in the past few years. He’s the creator of the already iconic cover art for Father John Misty’s Fear Fun album and his “Fuck You, I’m Batman” stickers have the same sort of presence around New York City as Keith Haring’s radioactive baby once had. This will only be the artist’s fourth solo showing.

Here’s a sample of the new show.
 

“We The Food Chain”
 

“Be Cool and Everything Will Be Cool”
 

“No One Noticed the Birth of the Multiverse”

Paul Loya Gallery, 2677 S. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA, 90034

Saturday Morning Tetratome runs from November 2 to December 7.

Below, the time-lapse view of “Honeymoon” being painted in 2011:

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.02.2013
08:52 am
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Cosplay and the fursuit of happiness
11.02.2013
08:49 am
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Austrian photographer Klaus Pichler, known for a book of prison tattoos, Inked for Life, among other works, has created a wonderful series of portraits featuring cosplayers in full costume, hanging around at home.

Who hasn’t had the desire just to be someone else for a while? Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego and a second skin which one’s behavior can be adjusted to. Regardless of the motivating factors which cause somebody to acquire a costume, the main principle remains the same: the civilian steps behind the mask and turns into somebody else.

For this photo series I visited owners of elaborate costumes in their own homes. As a matter of fact, ‘Just the two of us’ deals with both: the costumes and the people behind them.

Some are charming and poignant.
 

 

 

 
Some are striking feats of design.
 

 

 
And many run the gamut from admirably witty to just flat out hilarious.
 

 

 

 

 
Also, it must be noted: the attention to staging in these is incredible, is it not? Either that, or a lot of costume enthusiasts just happen to have crazy nice houses.

The series, along with a great deal of Pichler’s other fine work, can be viewed at his web site. And you really should have a look at them there, they absolutely benefit from being seen at a larger size than we can show them here.

Via Metafilter

 

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.02.2013
08:49 am
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Dangerous Finds: Jesus, meet Britney Spears; Food stamps cuts start; Brief stay for new Dr. Who?
11.01.2013
07:43 pm
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Who’s Next? New Doctor Peter Capaldi may stay just 13 episodes - Express.co.uk

This is what the decrease in food stamp benefits means for your state - BuzzFeed

Meet the American nomads of Walmart’s plentiful parking lots - Wired

T. rex grew beefier than museum fossils suggest - Nature

Japan likely to pass new secrecy law that would put whistleblowers and journalists in jail - TechDirt

Student sent home because black Jesus costume made teachers uncomfortable - Awfbase

Mishaps and deaths caused by surgical robots going underreported to FDA - PBS

Germany may invite Edward Snowden as witness in NSA inquiry - The Guardian

Blind woman, 67, faces eviction after land sold for $43 - Chicago Tribune

Third sex now legal in Germany: Newborns now not considered boy nor girl - Parent Herald

Pacific Ocean ‘warming 15 times faster than ever before’ - The Independent

Stream of reports say Pakistani Taliban leader died in drone strike - New York Times

Infected ‘zombees’ in San Francisco may help scientists understand honey bee decline - Huffington Post

New musical SPEARS will tell story of Jesus Christ through Britney Spears songs - NME

Marijuana smokers may get high—taxes - USA Today

What your dog’s tail wagging tells you about his emotions - The Independent


Below, “My Little Pony: Friendship is Manly”:

Video via Metafilter

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.01.2013
07:43 pm
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Break Club: The club where you go to break stuff!
11.01.2013
06:30 pm
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Break Club
 
A club in Buenos Aries is offering a means for angry patrons to blow off steam, and safety gear is provided. Break Club is exactly what it sounds like. The clientele is provided with glass bottles, electronics, a concrete room, and a club (I’m sure the pun is unintentional), for smashing to their hearts’ content. The club’s founder says 85% of his clients are young women, which doesn’t surprise me. I can definitely attest to the limited outlets for female rage.

What’s a little more surprising is that they also appear to be mostly young professionals and office workers. I’d think stay-at-home-moms and fast food workers would catch on to this real quick. Maybe the careers of the modern world leave our animal instincts unsatisfied? Or perhaps it’s just because young educated women are more open to a trendy destruction experience, and possess the disposable income for the cover charge. I’m sure it’s a little of both, but either way, I think most communities could benefit from an affordable local Break Club nearby.
 

 
Via BBC

Posted by Amber Frost
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11.01.2013
06:30 pm
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‘Interviews Before Execution’: Fascinating, disturbing Chinese talk show
11.01.2013
06:13 pm
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Interviews Before Execution
 
China and the United States are both among the countries that execute the most prisoners annually—but only one of them has ever had a TV talk show dedicated to presenting the death row inmates in a personal way. (According to Amnesty International, China executes the most people by more than an order of magnitude over its #2 competition, Pakistan. The United States is #6 on the list.)

From 2006 to 2012, the Henan Legal Channel in China’s landlocked Henan province ran a weekly TV show called Interviews Before Execution, with an appealing host named Ding Yu, who became something of a star because of the show. She has interviewed more than 200 inmates on the show. In March 2012, BBC Two, on its This World series, aired an hour-long documentary on Interviews Before Execution; with its typical light touch, the Chinese authorities, fearful of embarrassment in the international arena, quickly moved to cancel the show.

In China, citizens can be executed for any one 55 offenses, including endagering public security and “economic crimes” such as embezzlement, but Interviews Before Execution focuses almost entirely on brutal murder cases. Most of the prisoners are glumly contrite, resigned to their fate, inarticulate about the motives that led to the crimes. Providing an instructive snapshot into China’s sexual mores was Ding Yu’s extended interview with Bao Rongting, a homosexual man who was convicted of murdering his mother. In China, homosexuality was a criminal offense as late as 1999. The Bao Rongting episodes of Interviews Before Execution were a huge ratings success. Since 2007 a new safeguard has been introduced: all capital cases must be sent to the Supreme Court for review—it does happen that they occasionally return cases to the lower courts for further investigation.
 
Interviews Before Execution
 
Interviews Before Execution is a fascinating mixture of good, old-fashioned reporting, TV sensationalism, and an undefinable quality that is uniquely poignant and human. In its tone, the show feels like a cross between America’s Most Wanted and a Barbara Walters special. Regardless of one’s feelings about the death penalty—count me against—it’s difficult not to think that the show’s positive effects outweight its negative ones. As none other than Albert Camus pointed out (in “Reflections on the Guillotine”), if you argue for the death penalty because of its deterrent effects, it’s a contradiction to conduct the executions and everything surrounding them far from public view, as is done in the United States. Whatever your position, the show has featured some incredibly compelling television, and even if the viewers’ reactions may feel comparable to rubber-necking, the show does permit the audience to get to know convicted murders not as statistics but as complex members of the human race.

The BBC2 documentary is linked below; it’s one of the most interesting and powerful hours of TV I can remember watching.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Artist and Activist Ai Weiwei arrested and missing in China
China’s Forbidden Words
China’s Re-education Camps, Version 2.0

Posted by Martin Schneider
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11.01.2013
06:13 pm
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