America’s most-beloved motivational speaker Andrew W.K. kicking it hard at New York City’s Webster Hall on April 2….and the crowd goes wild!
“When it’s time to party we will always party hard
Party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard…”
The hardness begins at the 1:40 mark.
H.R. takes flight
There are folks who think H.R. flipped his wig a long time ago. That may be true - but if this is what being crazy looks like, I’ll have a hit.
H.R. is making the rounds to drum up some excitement for the terrific new Bad Brains documentary, A Band in DC.
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Dangerous Minds interviews H.R. about new film ‘Bad Brains: ‘A Band In D.C.’
I know, I know, this is incredibly silly but it cracks me up.
British comedian Stevie Riks does wickedly funny impressions of rock stars that are often as cruel (though affectionate) as they are funny. In this particular video, Riks portrays Barry Gibb, Freddie Mercury and Lemmy as they perform The Chi-Lites’ classic “Have You Seen Her.’
David Lynch made a video for his song “Crazy Clown Time,” the title track from his debut solo album, and it is exactly what you might expect from the master of suburban weirdness: violent, sexy and nightmarish.
With this kind of brain wave activity, no wonder Lynch practices Transcendental Meditation.
E.V. Day/Kembra Pfahler, Untitled, 50” by 50”/Edition of 3
There’s an online gallery of the amazing new collaboration between Dangerous Minds pal Kembra Pfahler and E.V. Day that’s been posted at Dazed Digital. The photos were shot in France at the famous gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny:
Pfahler told Dazed:
“I find that when your motives are very clear, it sets the tone for how people treat you. The gardeners there were so happy to see the costume juxtaposed with the verdancy of the garden – we got nothing but kindness from those we encountered. It was our intention to spread joy and it was contagious. So we didn’t come into any harmful objections from anyone.”
E.V. Day on Kembra:
“What I admire about Kembra – and the archetype she created, Karen Black – is that she explores the darkness that comes with extreme beauty, without losing sight of the humour in there, too. Plus, Kembra is about the sweetest person I ever met – except when she’s hungry and in the back of a tiny Renault that’s lost in Paris traffic.”
The work is currently on exhibit until April 24th 2012 at The Hole, 312 Bowery, NYC
Below, director Bijoux Altamirano’s music video for The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black’s “Bring Back The Night”
Wisconsin’s foremost art rock exponents Bon Iver and long time collaborators All Tiny Creatures will be visiting Socal and environs in a couple of weeks. I was honored to be asked to remix a tune by all of the aformentioned parties in order to herald these events. Bringing the rather cryptic vocals to the fore and adding harmonies, slide guitar leads and re-thought drum strategy, I hoped to bring out the pop potential, but as usual with me it’s still pretty weird. Have an ear-gander below and also take a look at the video for the original version of the song.
All Tiny Creatures Tour Dates
04/12/12 - Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint^
04/14/12 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo *
04/15/12 - San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar%
04/16/12 - Pomona, CA @ Fox Theater^
04/17/12 - Davis, CA @ Freeborn Hall, UC Davis^
04/19/12 - San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium^
04/21/12 - Los Angeles, CA @ Origami Vinyl
04/22/12 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl^
04/28/12 - Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar
^ with Bon Iver
% with Damien Jurado, Peter Wolf Crier
* with Pontiak
Four never-before-seen paintings and one drawing by Kurt Cobain have been unveiled on The Fix website. According to The Fix, Courtney Love allegedly has plans to auction off the paintings which are expected to fetch over $100 million.
See more of Kurt Cobain’s artwork at The Fix.
Tom Lehrer seemed ubiquitous to me when I was a kid, but I later found out this was not exactly true. Seemed is the key word here. If you had a bunch of Tom Lehrer records (check), listened to the Dr. Demento radio show (check) and watched The Electric Company (check) then Tom Lehrer—and his voice and music—was a presence in your world. He sure was in mine and I loved, loved, loved him.
What I later discovered is that Lehrer basically hated touring, hated singing the same songs over and over and was not always a welcome guest on television shows due to his controversial—albeit hilarious—topical lyrics. Lehrer ripped racism, gored Werner von Braun and sang the Periodic Chart of the Elements to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Major-General’s Song” (!) and he did it all in a quavering voice that drolly accented his wonderful comic timing.
But he didn’t do it for that long. There are actually not all that many Tom Lehrer songs, only 37 which is a pity because of how hilarious each and every one of them is. He did only 109 live performances. But still, if, as I say, your cultural diet consisted of the things I listed above, it seemed as if Lehrer was still active in show business long after he actually was.
By the late Sixties, Lehrer was tiring of show business and returned to his former life, that of a mathematician at MIT and later at UC Santa Cruz, where he still lives, retired. There was long a rumor that Lehrer dropped out from satire after Henry Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, but he has denied this, saying he’d retired long before then anyway.
Lehrer’s best known song—thanks to endless spins on the Dr. Demento radio show over the decades—the darkly humorous “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” after the jump, plus an hour-long Lehrer concert from Danish TV, 1968
Summer 1978: Read this issue in its entirety here.
Holy cow! What a goldmine! Someone wonderful uploaded all the 70s issues of Synapse Magazine for your reading pleasure. Seriously, if you’re an electronic music buff, be prepared to spend days soaking it all up!
January/February 1979: Read this issue in its entirety here.
Summer 1979: Read this issue in its entirety here.
More issues of Synapse Magazine after the jump…
We all know that writer, William S. Burroughs is one of the “people we like” on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album cover, but did you know that Burroughs was around when Paul McCartney composed “Eleanor Rigby”? Apparently so. Over the weekend, I noticed the following passage in the book With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker
Burroughs: Ian met Paul McCartney and Paul put up the money for this flat which was at 34 Montagu Square… I saw Paul several times. The three of us talked about the possibilities of the tape recorder. He’d just come in and work on his “Eleanor Rigby.” Ian recorded his rehearsals. I saw the song taking shape. Once again, not knowing much about music, I could see that he knew what he was doing. He was very pleasant and very prepossessing. Nice-looking young man, hardworking.
The connection here was, no doubt, author Barry Miles. Miles started the Indica Bookshop in London with McCartney’s financial backing. Miles states in his book In the Sixties that Burroughs was a frequent visitor to the shop. When the Beatles started their experimental label Zapple, with Barry Miles at the helm, the idea was to release more avant garde fare, such as readings by American poets Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Brautugan and comedian Lenny Bruce. McCartney set up a small studio that was run by Burroughs’ ex-boyfriend, Ian Sommerville, who also lived there, and this is why Burroughs would have been around.
It’s always thought that John Lennon was the far-out Beatle, but it was Macca who was obsessed by Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Morton Subotnick, not Lennon (he got there later via Yoko).