Here’s some last minute Valentine shopping suggestions for you spooky folk out there, hand-selected for your best ghoul or boo-friend.

All of these creepy cards are available through Etsy. Links are provided below the photos.
 

Lobsterboy “I love you this much” Valentine. $3.92 via Etsy.
 

“The serial killer sweethearts collection.” $12 for set of 5, via Etsy.

 

Horror icon cards. Set of three for $5, via Etsy.
 

Chucky and his bride Valentine card. $3.87, via Etsy.
 

More after the jump…

 
Jack Jones sang the theme song to The Love Boat from 1977 until 1985. Love was life’s sweetest reward; all was right with the world. But before the show’s ninth, terminal season, while the crew of the Pacific Princess was making ready for her 200th seafaring voyage, a hole opened in history. Bonzo went to Bitburg, police beat new age travellers and their infant children at Stonehenge, and after adulterating the national beverage, Bill Cosby called the result “a new explosion of wonderfulness in your mouth.” Sensing that some catastrophe had rent the very fabric of reality, Dionne Warwick seized the mike from Jack Jones and bellowed his signature song into the yawning mouth of Hell. I like to imagine that when they recorded this version of “Love Boat Theme,” Warwick was standing in a doorway during an earthquake, astride a widening abyss in the studio floor, after spending a few months listening to Diamanda Galás records.

So apocalypse and mutiny hung in the air when Andy Warhol joined the lovely Love Boat Mermaids aboard the Pacific Princess in October ‘85. From the Paley Center synopsis of the episode, “Hidden Treasure / Picture from the Past / Ace’s Salary”:

An all-star cast, including Andy Warhol, Andy Griffith, and Milton Berle, helps the crew celebrate the ship’s two-hundredth voyage. In “Picture from the Past,” Warhol, as himself, offers to select a passenger as the subject of his next portrait. Marion Ross plays a former Warhol superstar who fears the artist will recognize her and reveal her secret past to her disapproving, conservative husband, played by Tom Bosley.

According to Victor Bockris’ biography, Warhol was enjoying the benefits of a new health regimen in which chiropractors, shiatsu, a dermatologist, raw garlic, crystals, and an internist all figured. The health kick complemented a new look Andy showed off on The Love Boat. Photographer Christopher Makos:

He wore black Levi 501s or Verri Uomo, a black Brooks Brothers turtleneck sweater, an L. L. Bean red down vest, a black leather car coat by Stephen Sprouse, white or black Reeboks, a big crystal around his neck and big black-framed glasses, and his hair was huge, jutting out wildly. He was like a cross between Stephen Sprouse and Tina Turner. Andy’s look always made a statement, and it was usually about not looking perfect. His last look was as chic as ever, although the overall effect had a lot to do with his general aura: it was as though he’d accomplished everything imaginable in his lifetime.

Not that Andy was always as enamored of celebrity and showbiz as he seemed. Bockris:

After The Love Boat episode was aired, he complained to a friend that people in Hollywood were “idiots.” They didn’t buy art, he said. They stank.

More after the jump…

A man entering a public urinal or ‘pissoir’ at Place Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, Paris, 1875.
 
The photos in this post were taken by one of the most notable and gifted photographers of the nineteenth century, Charles Marville. So revered was Marville in his native France that he was chosen by the city of Paris to document the changing city, especially landmarks that were built by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann who had been tasked with the job of giving Paris a makeover of sorts. According to details found in Haussmann’s biography, he was also responsible for the introduction of new and improved water supply and drainage for the overcrowded city in an effort to remove “foul odors” from the streets. Which brings me back to Marville’s fascinating photos of public urinals—or as they were called during this time period pissiors—that were located all around Paris during the late 1800s and well into the turn-of-the-century.

The pissoirs were conceived in 1834 by Claude-Philibert Barthelot, Comte de Rambuteau—a French official who pioneered and implemented improvements to the existing sewer system in Paris. Barthelot was convinced that the poor, unhealthy conditions of the streets were directly correlated to a massive cholera outbreak in 1832. However, it would be Haussmann that would be instrumental in helping install pissoirs of varying styles and sizes all around Paris, which helped confine the stench of urine that before their arrival was overwhelming the city. Thanks to Marville’s camera lens, this transformative time in Paris was beautifully chronicled in his photographs.

Most of the pissoirs that Marville photographed are quite beautiful despite their lowly utilitarian purpose, while others are not much more than a slab of carved concrete for Parisian men to relieve themselves on instead of a wall. At one time approximately 1,200 pissoirs stood around Paris and according to some the more private varieties were also used during WWII as places to discuss private matters without worrying if a Nazi was eavesdropping on you (or perhaps this was just what the men who frequented them told their wives?) By the time the 60s arrived, the city of lights had begun the process of removing its pissoirs, and only one still stands in the city on Boulevard Arago near the intersection of Rue de la Santé. Photos of Paris’ elegant pissoirs follow.
 

Boulevard Sébastopol 1875.
 

A large, elegant pissoir located at Champs-Élysées 1874.
 
More period pissoirs of Paris after the jump…

 
Back when most kids their age were in the throes of Beatlemania, an octet of Canadian art-nerds calling themselves The Nihilist Spasm Band rewired the whole notion of popular music for their own twisted ends and created one of the most alarming cacophonies imaginable, especially when you consider they formed in a musical landscape dominated by Elvis, the Beach Boys, and Herman’s Hermits.
 

 
There were a couple of unique elements at work with Nihilist Spasm. For one, all of their music was improvised. Aside from vocals, everything they recorded was a first (and last) take, and every live performance is spontaneous. No piece has ever been played twice, at least not in the same way. Secondly, they created their own instruments, or at least modified standard instruments until they were thoroughly unrecognizable. Perhaps their most infamous re-invention is the electric kazoo. Retrofitted with hearing-aid mics stuffed inside its tinny shell, the tuneless bleating of this unholy creation is one of the band’s greatest gifts to humanity.

Their first widely-released album, 1968’s No Record, is a wild, ear-searing wall of chaotic fuck-noise that seems impossible given its time frame (Harry Partch meets The Boredoms was a pretty original concept for the era, you must admit). Naturally, it became a murky underground cult favorite quietly influencing 80’s noiseniks like Sonic Youth, Einstürzende Neubauten, and KK Null. In fact, they were (and still are) huge in Japan. Well, relatively. They call them the “Rolling Stones of noise” there, at least. In 2000, there was even a documentary released about the band. I mean they’re still completely and hopelessly obscure, sure, but they had a few pops of fame here and there.
 

 
And here’s the really crazy thing: they’re still together. Fifty years on and the band still tours with an almost all-original line-up (two members of the founding group, Hugh McIntyre and Greg Curnoe, passed away in 2004 and 1992 respectively), and still play blindingly loud on crazy modified scream machines made to confuse and terrify in equal fistfuls. They’ve opened for Sonic Youth and jammed with REM and if the recent announcement of their upcoming Sonic Protest Tour is any indication, their reign of chaotic improvised terror isn’t over yet. Not bad for a group of 70-something Canadians who still haven’t learned how to tune a guitar in 50 years.

More after the jump…

 
This is some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen: KISS air guitar strings. You heard me. KISS is selling bags of oxygen to people for $3.99 a pop. What’s worse is they’re apparently selling like Pet Rocks.

Metalsucks sums up their value nicely:

These strings are precision manufactured to the highest standards and most exacting specifications to ensure consistency, optimum performance, and long life. KISS Air Guitar Strings are made from nothing wrapped around more nothing, with specially tempered nothing-plated high carbon nothing, producing a well-balanced tone for your air guitar. Gauges .000, .000, .000, .000, .000, and .000. And best of all, they’re only four bucks for a pack of none! WHAT AN AMAZING VALUE!!! That’s a great use of four dollars and is definitely not just throwing your money away.

If people are stupid enough to buy this “merchandise,” I say take their money and run! You deserve to lose your four bucks!

So far, these air guitar strings are only available in Las Vegas. I looked on KISS’ website and couldn’t find them.

 
The Move was probably the biggest British group of the late 60s/early 70s who utterly failed to make any sort of impression on the American market. Nearly every biography written about them begins that way as if it’s the most important thing about the Move. It’s not, although it does provide a bit of (perhaps necessary) context. In England the Move had nine top 20 hits and was arguably ranked just below the Who (and just above the Pretty Things) in terms of pop group popularity. In the US however the Move never really made a dent in the charts, and are recalled—if they are recalled much at all—more as the predecessor to the Electric Light Orchestra, or merely a footnote in that band’s story, than for their own merits. It’s rare to find a Move album when you are crate digging on this side of the pond.

It’s true, in America still to this day the Move would be considered downright obscure, but on (very, very rare) occasion (as in almost never), one does meet a total Roy Wood fanatic. In fact, I used to work with a nerdy guy who pretty much listened only to Wood’s various incarnations (The Move, early ELO, Wizzard, and solo)—along with Be Bop Deluxe/Bill Nelson, Todd Rundgren, and Kate Bush—to the exclusivity of all other music. He had very specific tastes that guy, but God bless ‘im, he truly knew what he liked. And as such, this weirdo was the perfect ultimate Roy Wood fanboy. That he was from Florida shows you how hard he had to work for it.
 

 
The Move‘s original five-piece line-up formed in 1965 when teenaged guitarist Roy Wood (the band’s principle songwriter), drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Ace Kefford, vocalist Carl Wayne (older than the rest of them) and guitarist Trevor Burton “moved” from the ranks of several other semi-successful Birmingham-based bands to play together in a new Brummie “supergroup.” Like a heavier Hollies, four of the quintet were capable of handling vocals and although golden-throated Carl Wayne tended to take the lead, they also switched off that everyone got a turn in the spotlight. They were managed, first by Moody Blues manager Tony Secunda—who dressed the Move in Mod gangster suits, hired strippers for their stage act and got the band a residency at the Marquee club in London—and then later by a proper gangster, the notorious Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne, the former manager of Small Faces.

During one of their Marquee dates the group caused a fire after they’d smashed some television sets onstage with an ax. Three fire engines showed up to fight the blaze, inspiring front page headlines and the subject matter for a future hit single. Then Secunda, without consulting with the group, devised a controversial marketing campaign for the “Flowers in the Rain” single—the first record to be played on BBC Radio 1 and their third consecutive top five hit of 1967—consisting of a postcard depicting Prime Minister Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary. Wilson brought litigation against the Move for Secunda’s actions, which he won costing them—specifically Roy Wood who wrote the number and had nothing to do with the publicity stunt—their royalties for the hit, which were donated to charity. This led to Secunda’s firing and Arden’s hiring. In fall of 1967, the group took part in a two-week-long concert package tour around the UK, playing twice a night with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd and the Nice.
 

 
One major reason the Move never broke the American market is that they never toured here. They tried to—opening two shows for the Stooges before things fell apart—but it was a demoralizing disaster. Another reason might be their overt “Englishness” which would have been a turn off to many American rock fans at the time. The Move were as British as Marmite and Coronation Street, and in that sense, their singles provide the blueprint for much of the British rock that came in their wake—obviously glam rock, but prog (they were incorporating classical music bits earlier than anyone save for Bee Bumble and the Stingers), punk (the bassline in “God Save the Queen” was based on “Fire Brigade”) and 90s Britpop. It’s quite easy to hear their influence on Blur, for instance.
 

 
Magnetic Waves of Sound is the title of a new must-own Move compilation that has just been put out via Cherry Red’s heroic Esoteric Recordings label. Aside from perhaps the very best sounding versions of their hits on CD that I’ve ever heard—half in punchy mono—there is a second disc, a DVD, consisting of German and UK television performances from between 1967 and 1970 including their extended set on Colour Me Pop in 1969. All of these videos are presented in exceptionally good quality and they sound great, too. If this set doesn’t make you an instant Move fan, well, fuck you then, you’ve got shit taste in music.

And don’t try to tell me that KISS didn’t base their entire sound on the stomp-all-over-yer-face “Brontosaurus,” because they so obviously fucking did. (And just where do you think Paul Stanley got his “starchild” look from? Come on.)

Something else from The Move, after the jump…

A vintage dollhouse-sized figure of Burt Reynolds striking his famous pose as seen in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1972.
 
Today my dear Dangerous Minds readers you are going to get an eyeful of a tiny reproduction of Burt Reynolds’ famous Cosmopolitan spread, where the then 36-year-old actor posed nude on a bearskin rug. According to Burt, he now regrets the decision and recalls that to work up the courage to lose his clothes for the shoot he got completely plastered before becoming the first man in history to get naked for a major magazine.

Usually, decisions made after getting “zonkered” as Reynolds so eloquently put it and then taking off your clothes while there are cameras around often doesn’t end well. But this was simply not the case when it comes to the image of Mr. Reynolds that forever set the bar for nude photography at the highest possible level when it comes to the unbridled beauty of a hunky, hairy, naked man looking right at home on top of a bearskin rug made from the hide of a bear that he had presumably killed himself. Now that’s a man. But as usual, I’ve digressed a bit from the point of this post which is my recent discovery that a tiny reproduction of this blessed event exists—and can be yours for the low-low price of $314.99.

According to the information in the eBay listing for little Burt, the dollhouse-sized figure is likely made of porcelain or bisque and just over five inches long. It also includes an inscription, probably added by the maker of the figure, one “Joy #22” (if that is, in fact, her real name). The figure is said to be in excellent condition despite the fact that it’s probably 30-40 years old. Little Burt is slightly less tan than his real-life doppelgänger but is nicely covered with hair that looks to be entirely too real.

Buy it today and keep hairy little Burt prisoner in your own dollhouse. It could be therapeutic?

I’ve included photos from the listing below and even though this isn’t really Burt Reynolds in the nude, it’s still slightly NSFW.
 

 
More after the jump…

 
There’s no movie quite like Barbarella, the delicious sci-fi allegory about sex and war, based on the Jean-Claude Forest comic book of the same name. If you’ve seen it, you surely remember it.

“Barbarella Does Her Thing” is a 6-minute behind-the-scenes promotional featurette on the making of Roger Vadim’s masterpiece. We get to see some footage of Jane Fonda and Vadim pantomiming connubial bliss, as well as a goodly amount of on-set action, including Fonda and David Hemmings rehearsing the scene in which Barbarella and Dildano experience mind-obliterating sex merely by placing their palms against one another.
 

 
They also show the filming of the revolution in the Labyrinth as well as some footage of John Philip Law as Pygar flying around carrying Barbarella in his arms.

“Barbarella Does Her Thing” features the kind of hyperbolic voiceover that could only appear in an advertisement of this type, like: “Barbarella is a five-star double-rated astro-navigatrix whose specialty is love—40,000 A.D. style.”

Barbarella is such a mesmerizingly funny movie, it’s easy to forget what an ambitious production it was. This short clip is a useful reminder.
 
Watch “Barbarella Does Her Thing” after the jump…

 
Of all the places on earth that I know to be real, the Playboy Mansion is the one that in my mind, probably features as fictional. Sure, there’s a Playboy Mansion but—it has an actual address? Someone pays the heating bill? People actually go there? One thing I discovered while researching this post is that Google Maps will not give a result for the search input “Playboy Mansion”—but of course, they do have it.

Yes, the Playboy Mansion does exist, tucked between Westwood and Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. Playboy bought the 21,987-square-foot house in 1971, and the house features a wine cellar with a secret door dating from Prohibition, a screening room with a built-in pipe organ, a game room, three zoo/aviary buildings, facilities for tennis and basketball, a waterfall, and a swimming pool area, which has a patio and barbecue area, a grotto, a basement gym with a sauna below the bathhouse. The grounds include a large koi pond with an artificial stream, a small citrus orchard, and two forests.

Clearly, they chose well…..

2016 was a pivotal year in the history of the legendary empire built on masturbation, what with Playboy ceasing publication of nudes as well as announcing the sale of the Mansion for $100 million. In effect we can say that the “Playboy era” may have definitively come to a close, all the more bizarre that this would happen the same year that Donald Trump would secure the White House.

Shortly before the sale of the house, Hugh Hefner gave well-respected photographer Jeff Minton permission to photograph the house and the property exhaustively, and Minton took full advantage, taking nearly 6,000 photographs. Minton believes that Hefner became interested in hiring Minton based on Minton’s picture of a monkey that had appeared in New York magazine, and suitably enough, Minton commenced his photographic tour of the Mansion with “Hugh’s monkeys” and went from there.

Minton’s goal is to generate “the most comprehensive look at the mansion ever, down to the smallest details.” Minton’s strategy was to stay away from what might be called “explicit” material in favor of odd glimpses of forgotten corners that prompt speculation about who chose to place that particular object in that setting or what was happening just outside the frame.

For those who have never been to the Playboy Mansion, Minton’s photographs provide a fascinating insight into the creation of what is arguably the most hedonistic estate on earth.
 

 

 
Much more after the jump…....

An early shot of Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen.
 
Long before he helped Cheap Trick take over the world by way of Budokan, guitarist Rick Nielsen recorded a record with another Rockford, Illinois band called Fuse. Originally going by the name The Grim Reapers, Nielson was instrumental in convincing another Rockford band Toast and Jam to join forces and Fuse were born from that rock and roll union sometime in 1968.

According to Nielson, he had already secured a record contract at the time Fuse was coming together and they recorded a couple of singles on Smack Records in 1969, “Hound Dog” and “Cruisin for Burgers.” Fuse drummer Chip Greenman recalls that their manager at the time, Ken Adamany, had been pitching the band to different labels hoping to land them a record deal. Later that year—and again according to Greenman—Fuse scored the opening slot for a Fleetwood Mac gig in Chicago. Luckily Mort Hoffman, who was doing A&R for Epic Records was in the audience and told the band that he had to sign them. As all of the members of Fuse had yet to turn 21, their first record contract was signed by their fathers in July of 1969. Awww. Here’s more from Nielson on the early days of Fuse—whose name came about at the insistence of Epic as a requirement in order to finalize their record deal:

The guys we were with were all superior musicians—they’re probably in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now. Tom and I had the stick-to-it-iveness and positive thinking to know what we wanted to do, so we split the band and went off to hang out in England. That Fuse stuff was my finest work. We stand by it and wished Cheap Trick played that well!

Fuse would record their only self-titled album in 1970 and it is full of loud, raucous psychedelically tinged rock with Nielson’s ever present guitar squalls raining down throughout its eight tracks. With influences from The Yardbirds and Cream, there isn’t a single jam on the record that isn’t rock solid.

More after the jump…