What you’re about to see is a reporter taking you into slums of Mumbai, India where a long time resident gives her an eye-opening tour of how the poor there “do their business.” There is no sewage system in the area, and few public toilets, so folks are forced to defecate on the beaches or in the water. While, yes, there’s a bit of a gross-out factor to this video, I actually found it quite fascinating.
I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’ll never take my toilet for granted again. Never. But what I can’t understand is the flip-flops. If I had to make potty in these places, I’d be wearing boots.
2015 marks twenty-five years since the debut of both Twin Peaks and the Super NES game console, and evidently, both of those things have some devoted fans at a creative agency called Beutler Ink. In celebration, they’ve produced a Twin Peaks town map in the 8-bit graphics style of Super Mario Bros., which turns thirty this year. Feel old?
Giclée prints in various sizes and the usual array of print-on-demand apparel are available from Society 6. Here’s the whole map. Clicking spawns a readable enlargement.
It may have warped me to a degree, but as a kid in a house with cable and HBO in the 80s, I was subjected, one summer, to at least a dozen viewings of Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece, The Shining.
To this day, I rank The Shining in my top five favorite films. I consider it a near-perfect piece of cinema, and a great deal of what I love and admire about the film has to do with its brilliant utilization of music.
The use of modern classical is similar to Kubrick’s “we’ll use what’s in my record collection” method of scoring 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though Kubrick selected the repertoire, music editor Gordon Stainforth can take credit for painstakingly matching musical passages to the motion picture. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind-Tourre additionally recorded new original works specifically for the film.
Before I had ever heard any avant-garde experimental or industrial music, this was the music that really spoke to me—as a (weird) kid—searching for a soundtrack that represented fear, alienation, and madness. The soundtrack to The Shining was my introduction to a whole world of 20th Century classical that sent me down a path to discovering some of my most-loved pieces and composers. I have The Shining to thank for introducing me to the work of Krzysztof Penderecki, my favorite composer.
The soundtrack remains one of my favorite, most-played albums in my collection. Due to licensing problems, it hasn’t been released on CD, but the vinyl still turns up if you look hard enough (but its rarely cheap).
The pieces found on the soundtrack album are, to my mind, almost inextricably linked to the images in the film. This is precisely why I recently set about hunting down some live video performances of these works, in an effort to deconstruct what makes this music so effective. I have to say, watching full orchestras perform these works is mind-blowing to me.
Collected here are live performances of almost all of the tracks from the soundtrack LP of The Shining. Even if you aren’t a fan of the film, you may want to cut off all the lights and play these in a darkened room for the ultimate Halloween-season soundtrack. It doesn’t get much more terrifying and madding than this. Put on some modern classical, be alone with your thoughts, and completely delve into madness.
So I’ve been sick with the flu for the last few days which means I’ve been spending WAY too much time online buzzing through the Internets in order to entertain myself. Of the many fantastic things I came across was the following footage from 1975 of Judas Priest performing on The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Rob Halford? Yup, Rob Halford!
Not only does the mighty Rob Halford have hair (see above), he has lots of it. It also appears that he may have raided Marc Bolan’s closet for the fancy top he’s wearing. And, as the title of this post alludes to, one of the bands that made heavy metal synonymous with leather and spikes looks like a gorgeous bunch of pot-smoking hippies.
In the following two clips, Priest performs the title track from their 1974 album Rocka Rolla, and the somewhat mellow track, “Dreamer Deceiver” (in which Halford appears to be channelling the bare-chested prowess of Robert Plant) that would later appear on the band’s 1976 record, Sad Wings of Destiny.
If you are at all a fan of Priest, you are in for a wicked treat today as the band absolutely kills it visually and sonically in both of the videos that follow. I also find the quiet, laidback delivery of OGWT host “Whispering” Bob Harris amusing—it’s almost like he’s introducing Priest at the damn library. HA!
Judas Priest performing “Rocka Rolla” on The Old Grey Whistle Test, 1975
After the jump, Judas Priest perform “Dreamer Deceiver”...
Apparently, this Halloween while you’re out trick or treating, TPing houses or getting diabetes from all that free candy, Satan will be chowing down on all the freshly prepared “Christian meat” served up by his faithful acolytes on Earth. Which, let’s be honest, is certainly some feat considering the number of his alleged followers in the USA alone. I mean, Old Nick’s waistline must be XXXXL and his cholesterol thru the roof if all he does is feast on those freshly grilled human patties and barbecued spare ribs—no wonder he only dines out once a year.
Thankfully, not all so very long ago, a Christian church in Chicago decided to help Satan with his dietary issues by warning off unsuspecting Christians from ending up in a well-roasted burger bun in Hades from celebrating Halloween. Through a character called Sam Hain (boy that’s original…) the ad was supposed to shock young, innocent (feeble-minded?) boys and girls about the hidden dangers of Halloween—that this was not a time of fun and games but the Devil’s party night, when he comes a-looking for “Christian meat.”
As any fule no, Samhain is the Gaelic festival marking the end of summer and the start of the “dark half” of the year, when harvest was finished and yon cattle brought down from pasture to shelter from the long, cold winter. What this has to with a kooky Christian anti-Halloween advertisement, I’m not quite sure, but let’s not let the facts get in the way of good giggle at the devil’s expense…
One thing that I have always wanted to showcase on this blog is “Sabre Dance,” the incredibly amped-up 1968 instrumental hit by Love Sculpture, featuring Dave Edmonds, later of Rockpile, on lead guitar, but sadly there was never a performance clip of it posted on YouTube. You’d have to actually see them to get the full effect, I think.
That was then, this is now. Two months ago, a kind soul upped what might be a live color performance from Swiss television. All good things come to those who wait, as well as those who had no idea they were waiting for this, but who WERE.
I first got hipped to this number when it appeared on a See For Miles Records compilation called Twenty One Hit Wonders back in the 80s. It has long been a mainstay of my mixed tapes and CDs and when I DJ. The song, a ferociously crazed rev’d up take on Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian’s already crazily ferocious “Sabre Dance” was inspired by The Nice’s Keith Emerson and his ostentatious “rock” arrangements of classical music. Love Sculpture (Edmunds, bassist John David and drummer Rob ‘Congo’ Jones) were basically a “heavy blues” trio whose first album, Blues Helping consisted of a bunch of Willie Dixon, Slim Harpo and Ray Charles covers. Once they gained a little notoriety due to “Sabre Dance,” which went top 5 on the British pop charts due to support from DJ John Peel on BBC radio, their next album, the more psychedelic Forms and Feelings contained rock arrangements of “Mars” by Holst and Bizet’s “Farandole,” as well as the terrific original number “In the Land of the Few.” After Love Sculpture went their separate ways, Edmunds would later form Rockpile with former Brinsley Schwarz guitarist Nick Lowe.
Prepare for liftoff…
Bonus: A Beat-Club performance of “Sabre Dance” after the jump…
One of the more reliable resources for massively bizarre content that works well on DM is the unbeatable (and perfectly named) blog Christian Nightmares. If you haven’t made it a staple on your RSS feed, well, what in tarnation are you waiting for?? You’ll get all the latest and greatest in messianic cult leaders and overwrought Evangelical preachers.
The personage who runs that blog, a shadowy figure known to me only as “CN,” has spearheaded a remarkable cover of a remarkable song. The impressive collection of musical talent CN has assembled (more on that below) is going by the monicker The Christian Nightmares Tribulation Band for the purposes of covering a single track by the de facto inventor of Christian rock, the preposterously prolific Larry Norman. That’s right, the CNTB has released a cover of Larry Norman’s 1969 classic song about the Rapture, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.”
That song starts with the following lyrics and gets creepier from there:
Life was filled with guns and war
And all of us got trampled on the floor
I wish we’d all been ready…..
As stated, Larry Norman is widely regarded as one of the founders of the genre known as Christian rock. Christian rock historian John J. Thompson once wrote, “It is certainly no overstatement to say that Larry Norman is to Christian music what John Lennon is to rock & roll or Bob Dylan is to folk music.” Freethinking nonbelievers fret about the proselytizing tendency of Xian musicians, but if you’re worried about Norman being too doctrinaire, consider that in September 2007 he said, “I love God and I follow Jesus but I just don’t have much affinity for the organized folderol of the churches in the Western World.” Organized folderol! It’s hard not to like this guy.
Christian Nightmares collected an impressive roster of talent to cover the song. For starters, Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh, Fiery Furnaces) provided lead vocals and guitar, and he recorded and mixed it, too. Other musicians in the band include Ego Sensation (White Hills), Jeff Conaway (The Psychic Paramount), Dana Schechter (Insect Ark, Bee and Flower), David Bozzler (Kosmodemonic, Silver Summit), Laura Ortman (Solo, The Dust Dive), Bryan Zimmerman (Corpse of Discovery, Dichroics).
I assume that Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces need little introduction to our audience, but but you might not know that Ego Sensation’s band White Hills, out of NYC, is one of the most impressive psych-rock outfits going, having impressed Jim Jarmusch to the point that he cast the band as their spellbinding selves in his last movie Only Lovers Left Alive. I hear some echoes of the Flaming Lips in the new track, am I alone in that?
The video for the song uses footage from a bunch of “end times” thrillers like A Thief in the Night, A Distant Thunder, and the ecastically paranoid If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, which I’ve written about before. The CNTB video was directed by Chris Carlone, a.k.a. Borts Minorts, and a fine job he did. Anyone who has seen A Thief in the Night will instantly recognize the debt that CNTB’s version owes to the version of the song that appears in that movie, a debt that “CN” readily acknowledges.
The art for the song was executed by the redoubtable Ross MacDonald, whose work you have surely seen in The New York Times and Harper’s and has also ameliorated the prop design work on Boardwalk Empire and the upcoming Quentin Tarantino movie The Hateful Eight and many others.
For now, the CNTB has recorded only the one song, but the heathens who populate the band have purportedly discussed the possibility of performing the song live at some point, maybe as part of some “Christian Nightmares screening night” featuring clips of crazy Christians. (Presumably this would happen at the site in Fort Mill, South Carolina, where Heritage USA once stood or the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky—or possibly in a place that is somewhat more hipster-friendly.) If we’re really lucky, maybe the gang’ll reassemble to the studio and crank out enough material for an actual album! (I’m reliably informed that this is far from impossible.)
Wow, I really love this idea: Biodegradable urns that “turn you” into a tree of your choice after you die. Just a few days ago my husband and I were walking around a cemetery and he mentioned he didn’t want to be buried and he’d rather be cremated. The whole idea seemed a bit morbid to me at time as I didn’t want to think about him dying nor did I want to think about possessing his… ashes. Like exactly what would I do with his ashes, anyway? Display them on my mantle over the fireplace? No. That’s why I really dig the idea of this biodegradable urn that “turns you into a tree” after you die. It’s kinda poetic, don’t you think?
The design of Bios Urn allows the seed to germinate separated from the ashes. Once the urn starts the decomposing process the tree roots are already strong enough to contact the ashes and grow through the Bios Urn.
Bios Urn is ready to be used with any seed from a tree, shrub or plant. The urn doesn’t have expiration date, so you can buy it when you want and keep it saved for a long time. And you can also use it with old ashes, just transfer them into the Bios Urn and plant it where you want.
A cemetery full of trees seems quite beautiful to me (although my husband has now informed me that he wants to be “reincarnated” via an urn full of Super Silver Haze crossed with Skunk #1 seeds and then smoked by his friends in a hookah). Bios Urns are inexpensive, too. Each one sells for $145.00.
By now, my third autumn with Dangerous Minds, I think I’ve written enough posts about gag Christmas items that the well of anything to say about them—a mighty shallow well to begin with—is beginning to run dry. But I have to share this one, as it’s from those long-lived, acutely teutonic purveyors of experimental industrial clamor Einstürzende Neubauten. That band, since the dawn of the ‘80s, has taken the simple principle that literally anything that makes a sound can be validly harnessed as a musical tool, and ran with it to absurd lengths and sublime effect—notoriously and representatively, they once made an instrument out of a purloined shopping cart and some power drills. The sweater (actually a long sleeved t-shirt, though other garment styles are selectable) is available from Viralstyle, and the design is pretty witty as these things go: it features the band’s familiar Toltec cave-painting human symbol amongst pine trees and snowmen, and a large version of their distinctive variation on Reichsadler heraldry.
Today I have pulled together a post that features a pretty solid collection of highly desirable velvet paintings from a cast of characters that runs the gamut from pop culture phenoms such as Weekly World News cave-dwelling poster child, Bat Boy, to the bad-ass South African duo, Die Antwoord. How’s that sound to ya’?
Divine (as Babs Johnson in Pink Flamingos)
Most of the paintings I’ve featured can be had for a couple of hundred bucks or so. Could there possibly be anything cooler than a slightly inception-esque velvet painting of the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed by artist Diane Bombshelter? Probably not. But I’ll let you dear DM readers be the judge of that.
If while scrolling through this post you find the next thing you never knew you couldn’t live without, most (with the exception of Lou Reed and Morrissey) can be obtained by way of Ebay or Etsy.
and the Super NES game console, and evidently, both of those things have some devoted fans at a creative agency called 
, which turns thirty this year. Feel old?
.
. Though Kubrick selected the repertoire, music editor Gordon Stainforth can take credit for painstakingly matching musical passages to the motion picture. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind-Tourre additionally recorded new original works specifically for the film.
, my favorite composer. 
