Bauhaus school costume party, 1920s
 
As we get ready to tell yet another year to kiss our collective asses on its way out the door, that also means it’s almost time for that annual liver-killing bacchanal known as New Year’s Eve. But no matter what you have planned this year, I’m fairly certain that your party will not even come close to the costume parties thrown by students and teachers of Germany’s Bauhaus school back in the 1920s.
 

 
Sadly, there are not many surviving photographs of the costumed shindigs thrown at the school, which was founded by the revered German architect Walter Adolph Georg Gropius. It has been said that attendees of the costume parties took the preparation of their costumes as seriously (if not more so) as their studies at the school and the results were a spellbinding array of imagery created by the upper crust vanguard that made up Bauhaus’ academic population. Such as Russian abstract painter, Wassily Kandinsky and the great painter, Paul Klee both of whom taught classes at Bauhaus for approximately a decade starting in the very early 1920s.
 

Bauhaus costumes by Bauhaus Mural and Sculpture Department head (and later Theater Workshop director), Oskar Schlemmer (1925)
 
As for the the school itself, Gropius was very specific about the type of students he and his free-wheeling, arty-administration wanted roaming the halls of Bauhaus. As detailed in his 1925 essay, “Life at the Bauhaus,” then student and Hungarian architect, Farkas Ferenc Molnár, described the very specific “party people” attributes a prospective student should possess before deciding to pursue their studies the school:

For someone to be admitted to the Bauhaus workshops he or she must not only know how to work but also how to live. Education and training are not as essential requirements as a lively, alert temperament, [464] a flexible body, and an inventive mind.  Nightlife at the Bauhaus claims the same importance as daytime activities.  One must know how to dance.  In Itten’s apt phrase: locker sein [loosen up].

I don’t know about you, but if this was a part of my former higher education institution’s “mission statement,” I probably would have stuck around longer. As many photos of the fantastical Bauhaus costume parties that I could dig up follow.
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
In the years before the Butthole Surfers had a radio hit with “Pepper”—a single that, Billboard noted at the time, “borrows liberally” from a much better song by DM’s Marc Campbell—not much was heard from the band. About a year after I saw them (billed as the “B.H. Surfers”) at the bloody, fiery Castaic Lake stop on 1993’s Bar-B-Que Mitzvah Tour, I heard that singer Gibby Haynes had roomed with Kurt Cobain during Cobain’s final trip to rehab; one year after that, I caught a glimpse of Haynes at the business end of a blowjob in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. One day bled into the next. Butthole Surfers news was scarce, and Butthole Surfers kicks were scarcer.

(I was unaware of P until the late 90s, when I asked a record store owner to explain why the Buttholes’ 1993 promotional 10-inch, wrapped in Mylar in parody of Madonna’s Sex, was no longer prized by collectors. He told me that everyone stopped caring about the Butthole Surfers when the P album came out.)

During some of that period, Haynes hosted a radio show on Austin, Texas’ brand-new alternative rock station, 101X (KROX-FM), which has recently posted a few clips in celebration of its 20th anniversary. It’s a good time. When he wasn’t forced to play the period’s dreadful “modern rock” product, Gibby took calls in rapid succession, dispatching listeners’ requests and opinions with psychedelic non sequiturs, and he fit in some quality music when he could, too. Sometime co-host Robbie Jacks and Gibby’s father Jerry described the chaotic radio show in SPIN’s oral history of the Butthole Surfers, “Feeding the Fish”:

Robbie Jacks Gibby hit rock bottom. He had just rehabbed. He was at the point where he needed money, and he really wanted to do a morning show [on alt-rock radio station 101X in Austin], cause his dad did a morning TV show, Mr. Peppermint. We always gave out the wrong time [on the air], and Gibby always spelled the words backwards on whatever we were talking about. He’d say sgurd for drugs: “I spent all my money on sgurd.”

Jerry Haynes It was great. He was really funny. He’d introduce all the songs he didn’t like as “puke chunks.”

Robbie Jacks When the station got enough publicity out of the morning show, they told him, “You’re too rank for the mornings,” and put him on at nine at night. Instead of going to bed at nine at night, he was going to work, and so it was time to party. He just degenerated into drink. I called the station manager on the first night and I was like, “Do you want me to go down there? I mean, he’s falling apart, just listen to him.” And she was listening and she found it compelling.

One night he locked the engineer out of the door and then just rambled for two hours and he didn’t even do an air call, and it was hysterical. He had Mike Watt on the phone and he wouldn’t let him go. I think the band getting back together saved him more than anything, not AA.

 

Some of Billboard’s “local radio air personalities of the year,” 1996
 
As the unnamed station manager suggested to Jacks, if there was a problem with the show, it wasn’t the DJ or his “sgurd” habits. The problem was the miles, acres and tons of grade-N horseshit music demanded by the 1995 alternative rock format—a format I remember all too well, since it was invented in my hometown of Los Angeles, where the only entertainment option in my teenage car was a 20-year-old stock radio that picked up about three stations. Listening to these broadcasts from the grim days of the 104th Congress, I heard long-forgotten songs by Soul Asylum, Hum and Green Day that made me wonder what the opposite of the word “nostalgia” is. Take the top clip below, in which, after playing a killer set of Jon Wayne, Chrome, Mudhoney and Cycle Sluts from Hell, Gibby is reduced to setting up this “rock block” of undifferentiated hog slop:

I regret to inform you that we’ve done enough damage to radio programming in general, at this point. Now we’re forced—we’re literally being strong-armed by a woman with blood on her shoes—into playing Live, whom I hear from a reliable source cries onstage. I want to cry onstage, and I have cried onstage, and I will continue to cry onstage. One of my favorite ways to cry onstage is to do it alone while playing an acoustic version of “Daniel, My Brother.” And, uh, this would be, we’re gonna totally throw up on ourselves as we play Live, Bush and the Offspring all in a row on the X.

(Happily, Gibby improved the Offspring song with judicious use of a Jeff Foxworthy sample.)

The two longest clips (undated, I’m afraid) are embedded below, and you can find others here and here.

There’s much more after the jump!

 
The Coolies were an alternative band out of Atlanta during the mid- to late 1980s with a jokey sensibility reminiscent of generational confrères the Dead Milkmen, Stormtroopers of Death, Camper Van Beethoven, etc. They didn’t last too long, but they put out two albums before folding in 1989, and they were a beloved band in their hometown while they lasted.

Audaciously, the Coolies’ first album, dig..?, which came out in 1986, consisted entirely of nine punky Simon and Garfunkel covers and a bruising rendition of Paul Anka’s 1974 #1 hit “(You’re) Having My Baby.” The strategy was perfect for a band with its roots in punk but just maybe, without all that much to say. Recalling David Letterman’s early days, it was a viable strategy of the moment to throw real pencils through fake windows.

The Coolies’ charismatic frontman was Clay Harper, who later became a local entrepreneur, running the Fellini’s Pizza and La Fonda paella chains. dig..? came out on DB Recs, a thriving regional label probably best known for being the first company to release music by the B-52’s when it put out “Rock Lobster” in 1978; additionally, DB Recs put out Pylon’s first two albums and stuff by Bill Berry’s old combo Love Tractor.
 

 
Shortly after its release, Greil Marcus wrote about dig..? in the pages of the Village Voice, describing it as “a precise and gleeful mutilation of Paul Simon hits. ... it may be only copyright control that keeps the Coolies from taking on the townhouse jive of Graceland next, which deserves it more.”

Not all of the tracks from dig..? are on YouTube, but a few of them are available. The one I want to hear the most is “Mrs. Robinson,” of course:
 
“Scarborough Fair”

 
Much more after the jump…..

 
The path to success can often have many false starts. For Ian Fraser Kilmister—the man, the myth, later known simply as Lemmy—his early success was a useful apprenticeship for his later career.

The first real clue as to what he would do with his life came when Lemmy saw the Beatles at the Cavern Club in 1963. They were thrilling, they were fab, and they were doing something Lemmy knew he would be good at too. But how the fuck do you get started? He’d left school, was working in dead end jobs and playing in bars with local bands for kicks. Seeing the Beatles made him focus on his music career.

After a few misfires, Lemmy joined The Rockin’ Vickers as guitarist in 1965. The group was originally called Reverend Black and The Rocking Vicars—known for their upbeat live act and clerical dog collar outfits. The band came to the attention of American record producer—known for his work with The Who and The Kinks—Shel Talmy and a record deal was signed.
 

 
A few singles and tours followed. By the time Lemmy joined, the band had shortened their name to the Rockin’ Vickers—as “Vicars” was thought by some to be “blasphemous.” The Vickers were (allegedly) the first band to play behind the Iron Curtain—Yugoslavia in 1965—and with Lemmy on guitar were hailed as “one of the hardest rocking live bands around.” Lemmy played guitar “with his back to the audience ‘windmilling’ power chords (like Pete Townshend)” but the sound, their sound—well their sound on disc—was just like many other beat combos of the day, which can be heard on their singles “It’s Alright” and—a cover of the Ray Davies’ song—“Dandy.”
 

‘It’s Alright’—The Rockin’ Vickers.
 

‘Dandy’—The Rockin’ Vickers.
 
Lemmy moved to Manchester, but covering songs and playing guitar was soon not enough for the nascent rocker. In 1967, he quit the band and moved to London where he shared a flat with Jimi Hendrix’s bass guitarist Noel Redding. Lemmy—still using the name Ian Willis—briefly worked as a roadie for Hendrix before joining tabla player Sam Gopal and his band (aka Sam Gopal’s Dream).
 

 
Sam Gopal’s Dream was a psychedelic rock band that had achieved some success on London’s underground scene in 1967. Following a line-up change in 1968, Gopal brought in Lemmy as lead singer, along with Phil Duke and Roger D’Elia—shortening the band’s name to just Sam Gopal.
 

‘Escalator’—Sam Gopal (written and sung by Lemmy).
 
Lemmy started writing songs and the band recorded them for the album Escalator. Released in 1969, it showcased Lemmy’s compositions and vocals.

To get an idea of the kind of psychedelic thing Lemmy and co. were into here he is lip syncing (badly) a number called “The Sky Is Burning” with Sam Gopal on a boat for French TV circa 1969.
 

 
More early Lemmy, after the jump…

 
Poet, shaman, high priestess of punk rock… Patti Smith turns 69 today. Celebrate with this professionally shot clip of the Patti Smith Group performing a rather incendiary—you might say Dionysian—rendition of “Radio Ethiopia” at Stockholm’s Konserthuset on October 3, 1976. This gets to the essence of what makes Patti Smith so great, and what made her work seem so exciting, inspiring and utterly revolutionary at the time.

Radio Ethiopia is the name of our new record and it represents to us a naked field wherein anyone can express themselves. It’s a free radio, ya know. We’re the DJ’s. The people are the DJ’s. When we perform “Radio Ethiopia,” I play guitar. I don’t know how to play guitar, but I just get in a perfect rhythm and I play, I don’t care. And the people are allowed to do as they wish. If it’s a really good show, there’s like a thousand, 10,000, 50,000 people. 50,000 minds, 50,000 sub-consciousnesses that I can dip into. I mean, the more people submit and the more I submit, the greater show it’s going to be, the greater we’re going to be. I mean, I don’t like audiences who sit there and act cool like this—“pfft”—because nothing’s going to happen.

 
Appropriating its title from Nicolas Roeg’s mid-‘70s masterpiece starring David Bowie, Brian Eno: The Man Who Fell to Earth, 1971-1977, directed by Ed Haynes, also unmistakably asserts that the high points of Eno’s career fell within the stated years. So that includes the first two Roxy Music albums, Eno’s first five solo albums (Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, Discreet Music, and Before and After Science), his early work with Robert Fripp, and a few other projects. If that weren’t enough, it also includes his “Oblique Strategies” project with Peter Schmidt.

There’s little question that this body of work represents a very, very high bar, and it’s certainly an interesting strategy to focus on exclusively the very best section of Eno’s career, leaving out most notably his production work on David Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy” as well as multiple albums for Talking Heads and U2, DEVO’s first album, and many others.
 

 
As rock critic George Starostin has written, “If there is anybody in this world who could really penetrate into the very nature of SOUND itself and analyze it with the sharpest scalpel, yet leaving no traces of rude treatment upon its delicate soul, it is Mr. Brian Eno.”

This lengthy (157 minutes) documentary is an engaging look at one of the singular figures of 1970s music.

This video, which is on the SnagFilms website, will begin playing automatically if it is embedded in this page, so this link will have to do.

 
Songs don’t come a lot more direct in their emotionality than “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” the third track off of Neil Young’s 1970 album After the Gold Rush. This is a song that rapidly lays down a strong melody and a strong chorus and more or less bludgeons the listener to death with them. (In case it’s not clear, I don’t mean this as a criticism.)

The best-known cover of the song arrived in 1990 when Saint Etienne’s version popped up in discos everywhere in advance of their first album, 1991’s Foxbase Alpha. Interestingly, according to Robert Webb’s 100 Greatest Cover Versions: The Ultimate Playlist, Saint Etienne had shown an interest in covering Young’s “Ambulance Blues” but changed their minds after hearing Psychic TV’s cover of “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” which appeared on the 1989 benefit compilation The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young, right between Sonic Youth’s cover of “Computer Age” and Dinosaur Jr.‘s cover of “Lotta Love.”
 

 
Those expecting a bilious or arch dismantling of this ultimate Boomer ballad from the U.K.‘s premier experimental art punks might be abashed to learn that Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and the gang must have found something in the song that resonated with them, for they appear honor the song’s insidiously catchy chorus as well as, it seems, the message of the song.

In his collection Interrupting My Train of Thought, Canadian critic Phil Dellio (who once isolated “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” as the greatest song of all time) commented, after addressing the Saint Etienne and Juliana Hatfield takes on the song:
 

And that leaves the bug-eyed, transgendered Satanist with the lengthiest and best version of all, the strangest thing about which is how very unstrange it is. There’s a lifetime of disappointment and missed opportunities in the counsel kept by “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” and while the lifetime that Psychic TV’s Genesis P-Orridge brings to the song is undoubtedly a lot more unusual than where Neil was coming from, all that matters in the end is the way he invests every last bit of it into the delicate fall of “Yes, only love can break your heart” each time he hits the chorus. Perfection.

 
Indeed. Enjoy.
 

Graham Duff. Photo by Douglas Jones
 
Graham Duff is a prolific scriptwriter, producer and show runner.  His latest TV show is the horror anthology series The Nightmare Worlds of HG Wells, starring Ray Winstone and Michael Gambon with a soundtrack courtesy of Damon Reece (Massive Attack) and Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins).  He also created Ideal, the cult hit dark comedy that ran for seven series on BBC Three.  As an actor he’s appeared in Doctor Who and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Aside from all of that stuff, Graham Duff is a lifelong music fanatic and each year he contributes his “best of” list to Dangerous Minds.

30. Lonelady - Hinterland

With her second album, Lonelady (aka Julie Campbell) has truly hit her stride. The post-punk touchstones are clear – the chopping rhythms of Gang of Four, the short, looping riffs of Wire and the truncated funk of early A Certain Ratio (especially in the bass propelled groove of ‘“Into The Cave” which boldly quotes from ACR’s “I Fall”). Yet Campbell is also capable of crafting lucid pop. On the title track, her melodic phrasing almost lulls you into believing you’re listening to a superior Cyndi Lauper. But it’s when she suddenly unleashes a guitar solo that comes on like a tripped out Robert Fripp you know you are in the hands of a true mistress of sound.

29. Helen - Original Faces

At first listen, with its waves of fizzing, distorted guitar, rolling drums and partially submerged vocals, The Original Faces might appear to be a lo-fi shoegaze album. Although quite whether this is lo-fi or fau-lo-fi is hard to judge, as there are points when it feels like a clean studio sound which has been deliberately eroded. Not a solo artist, but a three piece band, Helen is the brainchild of Grouper’s Liz Harris. Yet frequently it’s Jed Bindeman’s fluid drumming which holds centre stage, with Harris’ guitar and Scott Simons’ plangent bass coalescing into a thick melodic cloud. Repeated exposure reveals that despite their noisy, rough corners, Helen’s songs have a genuine delicacy. This is an immersive and seductive collection of songs which worm their way under your skin.

28. Slug - Ripe

Sunderland-based Ian Black joins forces with Field Music’s Brewis brothers for some decidedly skewed art-rock. “Cockeyed Rabbit Wrapped In Plastic” and “Eggs And Eyes” clearly owe a debt to the melodic excesses of early Sparks, whereas the moody angularity of album closer “At Least Show That You Care” recalls Henry Cow. Black is fond of adorning his ostentatious prog structures with elements of dub and funk, and it makes for an album of quirk, strangeness and charm. Some of the music’s undoubted ambition is occasionally dimmed due to a slightly offhand production. However, with a little more focus, Slug could develop into something extremely special indeed.

27. AKATOMBO - Sometime Never

The 4th long player from Akatombo (aka Paul Thomsen Kirk) is a dense and brooding nest of instrumental electronica. And if the mood is one of displacement and impending apocalypse, it’s not without reason. Over the last two years, Hiroshima-based Kirk has been suffering from a debilitating and life threatening illness. Indeed, field recordings of hospital visits and treatments are woven into tracks with titles such as “Scans and Needles.” In terms of its atmosphere of bass driven claustrophobic dread, the album’s closest cousin is probably PIL’s Metal Box. Although clearly a long way from being a feel-good album, what remains is a testament to one man’s ability to not only survive, but to translate his illness and fear of the unknown into a compelling sonic world.

26. Teho Teardo - Le Retour a La Raison

The ever productive Teardo returns with a bold and intuitive collection composed to accompany several short abstract films made in the 1920s and 30s by the American surrealist Man Ray. Whereas many composers would have opted for a score which works comfortably as a background wash, Teardo’s compositions have a very clear identity and more than stand up to scrutiny without the visuals. The high points include “Hotel Istria” and “Rrose Sélavy” which showcase Teardo’s mastery of achingly beautiful sustained string arrangements. In contrast, Le Retour a la Raison spins into view on twitchy percussive loops before being swept away by maniacally circling violins, which eventually unclench to allow a mournful cello solo to blossom.

25. Big Brave - Au De La by Southern Lord

Montreal trio Big Brave are an intriguing band. Their drums, vocals, dual guitar, no bass line up is unusual, but certainly not unique (see Sleater-Kinney amongst others). Beyond that, one of the things which sets Big Brave apart, is their contrasting use of noise with space and silence. “On The By And By And Thereon” opens the album with chiming guitars and brief rests of quiet to dramatic effect. “Look At How The World Has Made A Change” sees Robin Wattie’s almost Bjork-like vocals floating over a gradually shifting landscape of humming guitars and ride cymbals, before building into the kind of alternately grinding and peaking dirge which recalls the early work of Sun O))). If you enjoy Merzbow or thisquietarmy, then Big Brave may well be to your taste.

24. Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf

A Welsh language concept album apparently based on a 1970’s sci-fi novel. The idea might be interesting as a starting point, but it wouldn’t matter a jot if the songs didn’t cut it. And they do. Former member of The Pipettes: Gwenno Saunders seems to have found her true voice, trading in the kind of retro futurist pop which brings to mind Broadcast, or perhaps Saint Etienne at their most psychedelic. The majority of the tracks here roll along on dreamy synth lines underpinned by a featherlight motorik. Standouts include the wistful disco throb of “Golau Arall” which meshes soft detuned horn sounds with Saunders’ tumbling, breathy vocal.

23. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love

Having disbanded a decade ago, following arguably their finest album The Woods, Sleater-Kinney return with a short, sharp jolt of an album. Ten songs. Over and out in 33 minutes with not a wasted note. Tracks like “Surface Envy” and “Hey Darling” prove that the band have lost none of their fire. It would be easy to read this as a set based around a more adult vision – to interpret the words as voicing the concerns of women who have matured. But in truth, this feels like Sleater-Kinney doing what they always excelled at, observing the world, finding it wanting and conveying that via choppy, angular guitar, propulsive detailed drumming and smart, biting lyrics.

22. Holly Herndon - Platform

Bay area composer Herndon produces a form of glitch-tronica which is multilayered, richly detailed and in constant motion. The album features minimal instrumental sampling, with Herndon preferring to take sounds from non-musical sources, primarily noises generated by laptop and internet use. Although everything is subjected to such intense processing, it becomes impossible to pinpoint the samples’ origins. And yet it’s the way Herndon samples and manipulates her own voice which intrigues the most – especially on the more pop-tinged pieces such as “Chorus” or “An Exit.” On the album’s centrepiece, the uplifting “Morning Sun,” she fashions a song form which recalls both Laurel Halo and Laurie Anderson whilst retaining her own clear identity.

21. Bjork - Vulnicura

Across her career, Bjork has covered many bases, from thoughtful yet obtuse electro ballads, to songs about living life on a molecular level, to pounding dance floor celebrations. Vulnicura, however is something different again. From the first note, it nails its colours to the mast as a break-up album. Lyrically, her descriptions of the act of separation veer from the deeply poetic to the near forensic, with loss of love depicted as a form of bereavement. The mix is in the hands of The Haxen Cloak (aka Bobby Krilic), but despite the fresh blood, the sparse and atmospheric string arrangements share a definite kinship with her masterwork Vespertine (2001), with “Stonemilker” especially, recalling the sweeping majesty of “Joga.”

20. Membranes - Dark Matter/Dark Energy

Over 25 years since the Membranes last album appeared, Dark Matter/Dark Energy shoots out of the traps with everything to prove. And goes on to pretty much prove it. John Robb’s original vision of a pummelling yet frequently joyful post punk/metal has aged extremely well. And the band aren’t afraid of going for the big themes; life and death, the birth and collapse of the universe and the fabric of reality. From the intense riffing of opener “The Universe Explodes Into A Billion Photons of White Light,” through to the ethereal drift of the closing moments of “The Hum of The Universe,” this is a powerful and epic album. Yet, thanks to the Membranes urgent bass driven repetition and jagged guitar work courtesy of Peter Byrchmore and Nick Brown, the band sidesteps bombast in favour of something much more vital.

The top 20, after the jump…

 
When I watched this the first time, I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was actually produced by a group of conservatives, the Public Integrity Alliance of Arizona, a nonprofit largely made up of East Valley Republicans. Frankly one doesn’t expect to see something legitimately amusing coming from Republican quarters—as everyone knows Republicans aren’t funny. But this is excellent, a pitch-perfect country-rock video starring Phoenix-based comedian Brian Nissen’s redneck “Dwain” character, a mullet-wearing simpleton who wants to “make America great again” by voting for a blustering, buffoonish billionaire who believes American wages are too high, that we need a border wall to keep out all of the Muslims and Mexicans and all kinds of other silly stuff tailored to the basest of the GOP base… Perhaps you know who he’s talking about?

As Raw Story’s Travis Gettys points out, although the song brutally mocks Trump’s most outrageous ideas “in the bizarro world of the 2016 presidential race, it’s not hard to imagine Trump playing the song at his own rallies.” Sadly this is all too true…

“I’ve noticed that some of the Trump fans loved it,” said Tyler Montague, founder and president of PIA. “They’re like, ‘Yeah, this is everything Trump is about, this is dead on.’ We’re like, ‘You’re kidding us, right?’”

Montague, who appears in the video as a redneck buddy, said the 501(c)(4) group — which is not required to report its donors but cannot be used primarily to influence elections — became motivated to act after Trump suggested a ban on Muslims in the U.S.

“When he said the stuff about Muslims, we were like, we’ve got to call that out and make fun of the absurdity of that,” Montague said.

He blasted Trump’s ideas as anti-conservative and un-American.

“I don’t want to overstate it, but [Trump’s] kind of a fascist,” Montague said. “It’s the closest thing to fascism that America’s had, at least in our lifetime.”

Here’s the video. Tell me if you think the average Trump supporter will get the joke or simply sing along?
 

 
Readers of Time Out New York and listeners of WFMU’s “Miniature Minotaurs” know writer/editor/DJ/producer Kurt Gottschalk, who’s also the founder/curator of the ridiculous single-serving Facebook group “Ace Calling,” accurately self-proclaimed “The #1 Ace Frehley fan page on Facebook when measured in terms of posting the same photo over and over and over again.” The group’s premise is simple and stupid and wonderful—Gottschalk and other members juxtapose a photo of KISS guitarist Ace Frehley on the phone with a photo of someone else on the phone. Captioning the the pairing with an imaginary snippet of conversation is optional.
 

 

 

 
Gottschalk was kind enough to take some time to talk about the group with DM:

I had this photo [of Frehley], I have no idea where I even found it, the main one of Ace on the phone. Then i stumbled on a still from Under the Cherry Moon of Prince talking on the phone in the bathtub. It just struck me as funny to think ‘what would Ace Frehley and Prince talk about on the phone, especially if Prince was in the tub at the time?’

I posted that and then I started posting other pics of Ace on the phone “with” other people.

Eventually I decided I wanted them all in one place so I made a separate group. I thought it’d just be a few friends goofing on it.

 I think what makes it so funny is how Ace isn’t talking in the pic, he’s listening and he looks so calm. Anything could be happening on the other end of the line and he’s all zen about it. Plus just seeing him in costume and makeup doing something so mundane is funny. Like Morris Day vacuuming at the beginning of Purple Rain.



There have been a bunch of spin-off groups—Duke Ellington writing, Farrah shredding, Kelsey Grammer kissing, a few more - but none have taken off the same way. It’s all just goof upon goof. Oh, and Paris Hilton DJing, that’s my other favorite one. But the phone call thing works better than other activities. The split-screen aspect of it, the fact that he’s using a landline, that he’s stuck in the ‘70s.

 

 

 

 

 
More Ace calling, after the jump…