The Beatles’ original bass player Stu Sutcliffe died 50 years ago today. Does that make some of you feel old? It does me.
The Compleat Beatles is a very fine documentary on the band that Mr. Sutcliffe quit in order to pursue a life devoted to painting, a life which sadly came to an end when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 22.
He wasn’t really a very good musician. In fact, he wasn’t a musician at all until we talked him into buying a bass. We taught him to play twelve-bars, like “Thirty Days” by Chuck Berry. That was the first thing he ever learned. He picked up a few things and he practiced a bit until he could get through a couple of other tunes as well. It was a bit ropey, but it didn’t matter at that time because he looked so cool.” George Harrison.
Narrated by Malcolm McDowell, 1984’s The Compleat Beatles is chock full of fantastic archival footage of the Fab Four and interviews with the band as well as George Martin, Marianne Faithful, Lenny Kaye, Billy Preston and Brian Epstein.
The Compleat Beatles was released on VHS and is out-of-print. It’s never been released on DVD. This is sourced from a laserdisc and looks very good indeed.
Excellent documentary Stuart Sutcliffe, The Lost Beatle after the jump…
Sadly, Slade got lost somewhere in the mid-seventies. A car crash, a tour of the U.S.A., and misunderstood movie Flame, saw the band lose much of their following to Punk, Queen, Heavy Metal and Disco. A shame, as Slade were a far greater band than the critics and even the fans allowed them to be. Here, for no other reason than it is a fan-bloody-tastic cover, is Slade’s version of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Wild” - the final track from the classic Slade Alive! album - as performed live on Pop Shop from 1971.
An amusing little anecdote from Ari Up of the Slits about the time she met Patti Smith after a show in the 70s (which doesn’t go quite as you’d expect.) As ever, Up oozes oddball charm here, she is still very much missed!
I’ve already made my case here on DM for Mark Lanegan’s latest album Blues Funeral as being one of the best of 2012. Nothing in the past couple of months has turned my head on this one. I doubt any music released in the next eight months will topple it from my number one position. We will see.
Here’s The Mark Lanegan Band doing a smoldering version of “The Gravedigger’s Song” in La Plaine-Saint-Denis, France this past February.
Marc posted here recently about Kieran Turner’s new documentary, Jobriath A.D. and I was thrilled to hear that the film was about to come out.
Kieran was kind enough to share Jobriath A.D. with us and, on many levels, I just loved it and think that a lot of Dangerous Minds readers will really love it, too. Narrated by Henry Rollins and featuring interviews with Marc Almond, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Magnetic Fields’ Stephen Merritt, Ann Magnuson, Kristian Hoffman, Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters and Jobriath’s manager Jerry Brandt, Turner’s film seems set to perform the same task for Jobriath Boone, rock’s first out and proud “fairy” that Andrew Horn’s The Nomi Song doc did for the once similarly obscure Klaus Nomi.
I caught up with Kieran over email:
I was completely wowed by Jobriath A.D. My wife loved it too, and she absolutely hates Jobriath’s music, so that’s really saying something, as well. You won her over.
Kieran Turner Now THAT fascinates me. I had a conversation with a journalist in the UK and wondered what people who didn’t like Jobriath’s music would think of the film. For instance, if you go see this film not having heard anything before and you are exposed to the music and you’re sitting there scratching your head, is the rest of film just a complete wash? Would you just sit there with your arms folded and a sneer on your face every time someone popped up onscreen and offered up some praise? Or could a viewer appreciate the story and say- okay, I don’t like the music, but the guy broke ground, and this is an interesting cautionary tale and great period piece. I honestly didn’t know the answer to that question, and looking at it from my own perspective, I wasn’t sure I could, so how could I expect anyone else to? Because I know everyone isn’t going to like this music and I never expected that in a million years, nor can I fault anyone for it. So to hear that your wife, who doesn’t like Jobriath’s music, was able to take something away from the film and enjoy it- that thrills me to no end.
Jobriath, until the last few years, at least, was not an artist who it was “easy” to find out about. I discovered him myself, completely accidentally at the Sixth Ave Flea Market flipping through albums and going “What’s THIS?” How did you first hear about Jobriath?
You know, I had always heard about Jobriath, as I am a huge music freak and particularly obsessed with the 70s and gay history. I’m too young to have been around during Jobriath’s brief heyday, so I never got exposed to the music. And every time I read about him, he was always described as a joke, so I believed it, since I was unable to hear the music. I guess I stumbled upon the compilation Morrissey put out while I was online, took a chance and ordered it and was just blown away by the music and the talent. And after that, I was obsessed. I wanted to know everything. I was expecting to hear a 70s version of Pansy Division and what I got was a real artist.
I never had any desire to make a documentary. In fact, I had been gearing up to make my 2nd feature film in 2007, and our funding fell through 4 weeks before casting was to begin in NYC and I had nothing going on, no job, I’d sublet my apartment, so I had this chunk of time and I just started researching. I took 14 months to really track down enough people, get enough information, lock the music up (which was crucial) and feel comfortable enough to know it was safe to start the cameras rolling, which we did in January, 2009. I shot on and off for 2 1/2 years, still researching, finding new people, new information, new materials the entire time, and then began editing last summer.
Where did you find the vast treasure trove of images and film footage that you uncovered for Jobriath A.D.?
All different places. Honestly, it was a bitch. And we were finding material up until January of this year. In fact, we had what we thought was a finished cut and then a photographer came out of the woodwork with some fantastic photos of which we nabbed a half dozen and put them in at the last minute. And the interview footage with Jobriath and Jerry Brandt was a complete accident. I had been told that the LA NBC affiliate had filmed Jobriath’s first night at The Troubadour in 1974 and did a simulcast, which I always found very suspicious. Why would a Big 3 network do that? It made no sense. That, coupled with the fact that the filmmakers who were doing a doc about Zolar X, who had opened for Jobriath at those shows, had done a thorough search for the footage and had come up with nothing led me to believe it was a myth. Anyway, my co-researcher found some footage at NBC that matched the time period of the Troubadour, but no one knew what it was, only that it was 30 min. So I paid to have it transfered and they sent over a quicktime. I was so nervous to watch it, I sent it to my editor and the two of us watched it over the phone together. Well, there was NO performance footage, just 10 minutes of rehearsal and then this AMAZING 20 minute sit down interview. I was near tears, I was so happy, because the dynamic between Jerry and Jobriath, which was just missing from the film up until that point, was so clear in this interview footage. You watch one tiny section of it and it sums up their relationship immediately.
Speaking as a longtime Jobriath fanatic—one of your interviewees, Ann Magnuson, told me about 20 years ago that I was probably the only straight guy in America who even knew who Jobriath was—the part about how all of his costumes and belongings were thrown away after he died was so heartbreaking, but now that your film exists, and is such a testament to this vibrant, talented supernova individual who once existed, more people will hear of Jobriath than ever did during his lifetime and that was very gratifying to contemplate. The film seems such a labor of love, what was the impetus behind the doc and how long did you work on it?
It was sort of three pronged, my reasons for wanting to make this. First, I thought it was hugely unfair that Jobriath was a pioneer of the gay community, the first openly gay rock star (and I mean OPEN and not the bullshit bisexual pose of Bowie, et al, who were just using it for shock and had wives and girlfriends to fall back on). And I get very tired of people throwing out other examples of artists they think were openly gay back then. Trust me, I did the research. In America, it was Jobriath, then Steven Grossman, who even fewer people had heard of. You had Long John Baldry, who was very fringe and really in the UK. But I don’t want to hear about Liberace, Little Richard, Elton John and all those others. It was Jobriath.
But I would not have made this film if the music wasn’t good. Really good. Because what’s the point? Then you ARE making a doc about Pansy Division who, all they have going for them is the gay gimmick. And I don’t mean to bash PD. I don’t know them, I don’t have anything really against them. I do find the music to be incredibly reductive and rather infantile, but I also know that people do enjoy it, I guess. I just feel like as a gay man, it doesn’t thrill me to have an openly gay band singing about sucking cock and cruising the local skater boys down at the park. But they do have a following, so they’re doing something right.
With Jobriath, I was just so thrilled that it wasn’t only a gimmick and that there was some major talent there. Of course, not everyone will like the music, but it’s silly to expect everyone to like something. I just thought there was a larger audience out there who wasn’t aware of him and who would get it.
And lastly, I felt like I could identify with Jobriath as someone who is creative and and often has to depend on the permission of others in order to share my creativity with the world, whether it be through funding or reviews or getting my foot in the door. How many of us really just want to share what we’re passionate about with the world, but because someone in power deems it unworthy, we’re pushed aside or have the door slammed in our face? That’s all Jobriath wanted to do, just put his gift out there to the world and the world said “Fuck you.” Before they ever heard the music. Because they didn’t like the image, because they didn’t like being told they should embrace something, because they weren’t the ones to discover it, because they were afraid of it—whatever the reason. And it destroyed him. And who can’t identify with that, with putting yourself on the line for something that you’re passionate about, only to be rejected? And that is why I think this is such a universal story. You don’t have to be gay, you don’t have to like the music, you just have to be human.
Often filmmakers are obliged to cut something out for running time’s sake. Anything juicy that we’ll have to wait for the DVD to see?
Oh yes, we cut out a LOT of material. Jobriath was in the running to play Al Pacino’s lover in Dog Day Afternoon. I found that quite interesting, but we just didn’t have time for it in the film, so there’s a section about that. There’s also a section about a musical he wrote which Joe Papp was developing called Popstar, which I have some material from. There’s also some interesting sort of heresay about him and Bowie in terms of a perceived rivalry. I investigated it fairly thoroughly and the reason I didn’t put it in the film was because I couldn’t come to a conclusion. For as many people who said there was an issue, I had just as many who said there wasn’t. It’s something worth examining and letting a viewer make up their own mind, but it didn’t fit in the film and it didn’t further the story. And there is certainly more about Jerry Brandt, more about the family. I also have a lot more interview material with the musicians in the film (Jake Shears, Joe Elliott, Marc Almond, et al) who I had to cut most of for time. This DVD will be packed with extras, I hope. We have the material, it’s just a matter of what sort of distribution deal we wind up getting. But if you like the movie, you’ll want the DVD.
Jobriath A.D. aside from reviving an interest in Jobriath, as both a musician/composer and also as someone who will ultimately be seen as an important and pioneering gay figure in the arts, also seems like it could provide one last big wave for Jerry Brandt to ride. Something like a Broadway musical, as he says in the film, is entirely plausible, don’t you think?
You know, who knows what will happen? Jobriath is a niche figure. I certainly don’t expect FunKo to go into production on a series of Jobriath bobble-head dolls, if you know what I mean. I think everyone involved with Jobriath needs to take it one step at a time. I mean, the music is back out of print, so let’s start there before we make lunchboxes. I’m being facetious, of course, but I think Velvet Goldmine has proven exactly what sort of a market there is out there for fictionalized glam rock.
Glamorous crate-digger Veronica Vasicka is the “musical detective” behind the Minimal Wave record label. She discovers and then promotes/advocates for the work of criminally overlooked, mostly European, underground musicians of the DIY late 70s/80s bedroom experimental synthpop scene, and exposes it to a new generation.
The genre, dubbed by New York-based Vasicka herself, is an electronic twin of the indie-rock “low-fi” movement and dates back to a time when synthesizers and 4-track home recorders were coming down in price and in the hands of more and more people (“Warm Leatherette” by The Normal—recorded by future Mute Records head, Daniel Miller on a $150 Korg 700S synthesizer in his apartment using two tape decks—would be emblematic of this sound). The music was often never even pressed on records, instead circulating on cassette tapes.
Veronica Vasicka’s East Village Radio show (she’s one of the co-founders) provided the initial focus for her archival endeavors, but soon her proclivities for turning up the rarest, most obscure tracks, led to her passion becoming a business and a career. Vasicka’s latest compilation, Minimal Wave Tapes 2 was recently released in conjunction with LA-based Stones Throw Records, best known for being the home to Madlib and MF Doom’s Madvillainy team-up.
D&C: Do you regard yourself as an archivist or a musical detective? Veronica Vasicka: A musical detective, for sure. A lot of the music was lost to particular places and locations. There’s a band called Aural Indifference from Melbourne in Australia on The Minimal Wave Tapes: Volume 2. He only made 30 copies of that tape, just 30 copies! I met his girlfriend by accident and it was such a surreal coincidence the way it happened. He went home and found a copy of the original master-tape in his parents’ basement and brought it to my show on East Village Radio. He was shocked anyone knew about it. In some ways it is such a small world as the people that have been collecting this stuff are connected, so in this underground way the connection already exists. Once people know what you are into, then they will make recommendations.
D&C: Are you surprised at how this sound has caught on? Veronica Vasicka: Yeah, especially because it is kind of like outsider music, and with outsider music you never know how the public will respond. It’s important not to think too hard about it, to just go with my intuition for this kind of band or project, and that is what I have been doing since the beginning: going with what I think needs to be heard.
Not everyone, apparently, is all that happy about seeing their work from three decades ago come back to haunt them:
D&C: What do people think when you get in touch and say, ‘I want to put out a record you made 30 years ago’? Veronica Vasicka: The general reaction is, ‘How the hell do you know about my music?’ or, ‘You really want to release that?! The music that I didn’t take seriously?’ Or, ‘Do what you want with it.’ Sometimes these artists don’t want to take it further and don’t want their music to be out there beyond the format that it’s in because it’s a reminder of a time that was maybe not the best in their lives. It just happens sometimes – they didn’t push it at the time so why would they want to push it now? It happens.
D&C: When this music first appeared there was massive unemployment and financial ruin around the world, and we are seeing the same again these days. Do you think bleak times foster the most radical musical creativity? Veronica Vasicka: Yes, there is certainly a parallel between what was happening economically during that time, the late 70s and early 80s, and what came out of it in terms of music, what people created during that time of struggle. I also think that’s another reason why people are attracted to this music once again, because we are living in a similar economic climate. I think there is a connection there. Great music and creativity always emerge out of times of struggle.
D&C: Do you ever feel like you are living in the past? Veronica Vasicka: No, I feel like I get obsessed with the past sometimes but in this case the music wasn’t given a platform in the past – yes, it was made in 1982, but how many people actually heard it? Not many. It just existed in a vacuum. I don’t feel like I’m living in the past, the music was just made there. The music was fully realised but its existence and purpose in this world was incomplete and so I am completing it.
Read more at Dazed Digital, plus they’ve got an exclusive Minimal Wave mix from Veronica Vasicka.
Hard Corps performing “Dirty” at The Fridge in Brixton in 1986, one of the tracks from Minimal Wave Tapes 2
Everyone loves a hero and even more, everyone loves a villain. The more broad chested the hero and luridly evil the villain, the better. This basic black/white viewpoint that people cling to like a spit stained security blanket is often the main impetus behind the superhero genre. A figure, often with extraordinary powers, becomes the pinpoint of hope for all that is fair and just. Real life is mired with red tape, corruption and the folly of our own nature. These are all reasons why the idea of a flawed superhero wasn’t terribly popular until recent years. (Though The Kinks get some major points with their song, “Catch Me Now I’m Falling” off of their album Low Budget.) But there was a film that predated all of them, way back in 1983 in the form of Philippe Mora’s The Return of Captain Invincible. Did I mention that it’s also a musical?
The Return of Captain Invincible stars Alan Arkin as our titular hero who is first introduced in a 1940’s style B&W newsreel, with our young, clean-cut Captain defeating gangsters, fighting the Nazis and representing everything that is good and wholesome about America. That is, until he ends up getting hit with charges of communism by The House of Un-American Activities, led by Joseph McCarthy. The witch hunt demoralizes our hero, who goes into hiding and ends up in Australia, liquor soaked and trading his spandex for stained, baggy clothes.
To passersby, he’s just a liver-crying-for-help derelict, belting out “New York, New York” to the rural hills Down Under, when he’s not inadvertently saving lives, particularly of tough police woman, Patty Patria (Kate Fitzpatrick). It’s only a matter of time before the superhero within the man has to come back out, especially with his old foe, the devilish and devilishly handsome Mr Midnight (Christopher Lee), back on the horizon. But it takes an old promise to a young boy who has now grown up to be the President of the United States (the incredible Michael Pate), to bring the hesitant, rusty but goodhearted Captain out of retirement. The question then emerges, will the once strong superhero be able to defend the world from the evil megalomaniacal clutches of Mr. Midnight and surpass his own inner demons?
The Return of Captain Invincible is a heartfelt, goony and surprisingly smart film. It is truly a strange creature, one that could have only be helmed by the same man that gave us the historical art film, Mad Dog Morgan (with Dennis Hopper) AND Howling II (with Sybil Danning’s shirt exploding breasts), Phillipe Mora. A wholly unique filmmaker who is never praised enough for his brass balls, not to mention creative flexibility, Mora pulled out all stops with this one. From the bright, comic-book style color schemes to the number of bizarre little touches,Captain Invincible is a superhero film like no other.
For starters, there’s our main character, played with typical perfection by Alan Arkin. Handsome and with a enough emotional gravitas to pull off a man who is solid in heart but whose spirit has been cracked by the very country he protected, Arkin’s Captain Invincible is a true hero with a human bent. We get to see him run the gamut from being your typical 1940’s strong-jawed hero to being a scruffy alcoholic suffering from the DT’s the night before he goes back into training, only to circle right back to being the chap that saves the day. On top of that, Arkin’s musical background comes into play quite nicely here, taking vocal duties on most of the songs featured, with the highlights being “The Good Guys & The Bad Guys” and “Mr. Midnight.” Arkin balances out the humanity and absurdity of it all so perfectly.
Speaking of absurd wonder, Michael Pate as the President is stupendously awesome. If he ran for office, my cynical booty would be hightailing it to the nearest booth in a hot flash of a second! A legendary character actor who had made his mark both in America and his native Australia, Pate is all Kennedy hair, Texan charm and big shouldered awesomeness, with the standout being the “Bullshit” number. This literally amounts to Pate saying the word “Bullshit” over and over again, set to an electronic beat. It is cathartic in its greatness.
Of course, there is the tall, cool, grim-in-his-beauty Christopher Lee as our villain Mr. Midnight. Lee is having a lot of great fun here, bringing a sense of intentional camp to his role. Lee is center point to the absolute musical highlight of the film with “Choose Your Poison.” Yes, Christopher Lee, in that wonderful Wagner-opera from depths of unknown bass voice of his, singing about the joys of drinking. It’s even better than “Bullshit!”
Kate Fitzpatrick doesn’t really get to shine quite as much as the others but is still good and realistically tough, as in you can halfway buy her as a real police officer. The aforementioned soundtrack, while a bit MOR in spots, has some absolute gems here. It should shock absolutely no one that the highlights, minus my much beloved “Bullshit,” were all helmed by Rocky Horror pioneer and flat out genius Richard O’Brien, along with another Rocky alumni, Richard Hartley, providing the music. His numbers, which include the title theme, “Mr Midnight” and “Choose Your Poison” are A+ O’Brien greatness.
Return of Captain Invincible is not a perfect film and it will undoubtedly off-put some with its strange brew of social commentary and goofiness bordering on surrealism. The idea that a bourbon soaked derelict muttering to himself down the road could be a superhero gone to seed is a smart and thoughtful one. Our hero and concept here could fit in any time period. A little flea-bitten and hardened by a flawed world but at the end of the day, still hopeful and willing to fight for a better future.
Debbie Harry and Chris Stein interviewed by the very nearly hip Pierre Salinger, former press secretary for President Kennedy, on TV show 20/20 in March of 1980.
This is surprisingly good for network TV. Some cool live footage. Chris discusses his nervous breakdown after binging on LSD.
Among the many interesting aspects of Pierre Salinger’s career was the fact that he stuck to his guns after declaring “If Bush wins, I’m going to leave the country.” George W. won and Salinger moved to France.
was recently released in conjunction with LA-based Stones Throw Records, best known for being the home to Madlib and MF Doom’s Madvillainy team-up. 
