Yes, another new video by another Hometapes band, but hey, when the goods are this potent I am compelled to share. Bear In Heaven are not content with merely making accessibly catchy dance rock for hipsters of all ages. No, they also are intent on altering your brain’s chemistry via the severe abuse of the zooooooom. Move over, strobe lights, here’s something far worse for you !
If The Beatles had been Glaswegian and played Punk they may have sounded a bit like The New Piccadillys, a fab four of respected musicians: George Miller (Lead guitar), Keith Warwick (Rhythm guitar), Mark Ferrie (Bass guitar), and Michael Goodwin (Drums), who have variously worked with Sharleen Spiteri, The Kaisers, The Thanes, Wray Gunn and The Rockets and The Scottish Sex Pistols. This is their toe-taping version of The Ramones “Judy is a Punk”. European tours, world domination and Piccadillymania beckon.
The b&w version of the promo has been taken down (boo hiss) so, here it is in color, directed by Bill Gill,
For your weekend viewing pleasure we present Graffiti Rock, a TV pilot for New York’s WPIX channel that aired once in 1984.
Featuring The “most host” Michael Holman, Run D.M.C., Shannon, The New York City Breakers, DJ Jimmie Jazz, Kool Moe Dee, Special K of the Treacherous Three and The New York City Breakers, among others, Graffiti Rock is a sweet piece of hip-hop history. The show was way too cool for TV. But perfect for the Internet. Dig it.
On the fashion tip, it’s all here: Kangols, shelltoe Addidas, name plate chains and belt buckles, Cazals, windbreakers, air-brushed T’s and fedoras.
25 minutes of bliss.
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Graffiti Rock: Hip-hop storms America’s living rooms in 1984.
When giants roamed the land.
Photographer Larry Jandro took these shots of billboards back in the 1970s. This was an era in which record companies had silly money to spend and signs like these could be seen up and down Sunset Boulevard in L.A.
Pop culture at its poppiest.
More billboards after the jump…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Via Arbroath
A fresh-looking, immaculately dressed 21-year-old Nick Cave covers the Nancy Sinatra classic along with Mick Harvey, Phil Calvert and Tracy Pew as The Boys Next Door, the original name of The Birthday Party, in 1978 (Rowland S. Howard would join them soon afterwards).
I’m a massive Nick Cave fan, but I’ve never seen this clip before. It’s pretty amazing to witness how fully formed his rockstar persona was then, even at this tender age.
Love the mascara. Adam Lambert eat your heart out…
Video directed by Chris Löfvé:
So I was gonna sit here and write a long, rambling post about Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine and the amount of bullshit that’s been spewing out his tiny little mouth of late. You know, something about a guy with a shoulder length frizzy perm being anti-gay, something about a 100% no-homo-heterosexual dude feeling threatened by the sex lives of African women and other consenting adults. Maybe throw in a little reference to still smarting about Metallica here, or “small man syndrome” there, perhaps go off on a diatribe about the über-pseudo-macho world of heavy metal being just as “authentic” as that of drag queens, about how the biggest shit-talkers always reveal themselves to be the most immature, petulant little nerds desperate to live up to a false sense of masculine superiority in the end.
But I’m not going to waste my effort.
I mean, why should I bother? Mustaine is doing all that hard graft for me! Seriously. Here are a selection of quotes from recent interviews displaying the wisdom of Dave Mustaine:
Dave Mustaine on Bible prophecy:
Mustaine explained a biblical prophecy to LA Weekly. “Even if you don’t believe in God and you don’t believe in faith, you’ve got to understand, when Israel became a country again, that was a prophecy in the Bible that came true, and the Bible was written so many hundreds of years ago,” says Mustaine. Also, any of the stuff that it says in there about the end times — that stuff’s really happening right now. Look what’s happening over in the Middle East. It’s crazy.”
Dave Mustaine on Rick Santorum:
Earlier in the election, I was completely oblivious as to who Rick Santorum was, but when the dude went home to be with his daughter when she was sick, that was very commendable. Also, just watching how he hasn’t gotten into doing these horrible, horrible attack ads like Mitt Romney’s done against Newt Gingrich, and then the volume at which Newt has gone back at Romney… You know, I think Santorum has some presidential qualities, and I’m hoping that if it does come down to it, we’ll see a Republican in the White House… and that it’s Rick Santorum.
Dave Mustaine on Afircan women:
There’s so many houses without a dad that it’s just terrible. I mean, you know how they used to say there should be a license to have a baby? Well, as far-fetched as that sounds, I really think that, if the parents aren’t going to stick together, they shouldn’t make that kind of commitment to life. I watch some of these shows from over in Africa, and you’ve got starving women with six kids. Well, how about, you know, put a plug in it? It’s like, you shouldn’t be having children if you can’t feed them.
Dave Mustaine on gay marriage:
Do you support gay marriage, or is that something you oppose?
Well, since I’m not gay, the answer to that would be no.
OK. What about for people who are gay?
Since I’m not gay, the answer to that would be no.
Would you support legislation to make marriage between a man and another man legal?
I’m Christian. The answer to that would be no.
All this is a real shame, because Megadeth were a fucking great band. It’s just too bad that if Dave Mustaine’s reputation ever recovers from being a “very conservative” über-douche who lets the TV make up his mind for him, he’s going down in the annals of history as the guy who wept for Metallica:
Is that Estelle Getty of The Golden Girls on the lower left?
This performance by The Jefferson Starship looks like a musical number from one of those shitty LSD exploitation flicks from the Sixties…Mantis In Lace or The Love-Ins. Or the recent Broadway revival of Hair. Sad thing is Paul Kantner and Marty Balin are actually involved with this travesty. Shameless.
When singer Cathy Richardson isn’t replicating a surf bunny version of Grace Slick, she morphs into Janis Joplin for what remains of Big Brother and the Holding Company. She’s the go-to girl for hippie bands that seem to have lost all sense of what the Sixties were all about. Gotta revolution? I don’t think so. These fuckers are zombies. Someone shoot ‘em in the head.
Don Von Taylor’s powerful 1992 documentary Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest explores the infamous case of two teenage heavy metal fans who were allegedly driven to commit suicide by subliminal messages embedded in the songs of Judas Priest. One kid succeeded in blowing himself away with a shotgun, the other, Vance, did not. He managed only to horribly disfigure himself when the shotgun slipped from his grip as he pulled the trigger.
Fueled by religious extremism, self-deception and grief-induced ignorance, Vance and his parents found in rock and roll the perfect scapegoat for the dysfunction in their own troubled lives.
The film follows the efforts of the parents of the surviving teen to take the English heavy metal band Judas Priest to court based on their belief that the suicide was triggered by the two boys obsession with heavy metal and in particular a track by Judas Priest called “Better By You Better Than Me” from their 1978 album Stained Class which the prosecution alleged contained “satanic” backwards masking which drove the boys to suicide.
This was at a time when the right-wing Christian fundamentalists of America were focusing on the “evil” influence of music on the young and as a response in 1985 the Parents Music Resource Center was set up by politicians wives Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore) and Susan Baker (wife of James Baker) and led to those infamous “Parental Guidance: Explicit Lyrics” stickers which basically told the kids which albums to buy if you wanted to annoy your parents!
Out of this milieu of rabid censorship came the Christian fundamentalists who believed Satanic influences were at work in the music industry and one of their key propaganda weapons was the belief that certain records contained subliminal messages that were played backwards and masked beneath the song (Stairway To Heaven is probably the most famous example of this deranged belief system).
The film is essentially the story of the court case where Judas Priest and their defense team challenged the prosecution who alleged their music “caused” the surviving teen James Vance and his deceased friend to engage in a suicide pact.
Twenty years on the court case itself may seem absurd and yet the Christian fundamentalists are as powerful as ever and a new “moral panic” is just as likely now as it was twenty-odd years ago.
In this sad and disturbing film, it is the progenitors of the Devil’s music, Judas Priest, who come off as paragons of sanity and clarity.
Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest has inexplicably never been released on video or DVD. It’s an unsettling experience but well-worth watching.
Better late than never. A belated happy birthday (February 20) to Randy California. You are missed brother.
A solid performance of “I Got A line On You” by Randy and his stepdad Ed Cassidy from a 1992 episode of Dennis “the cretin” Miller’s short-lived TV show.