Laura Kennedy bass player and co-founder of the legendary New York punk/funk band the Bush Tetras passed away in Minneapolis this past Monday. She had been struggling for years with Hepatitis C and despite receiving a liver transplant in 2008 was unable to survive what she described as a “scourge of an illness.”

Kennedy was in the center of the musical vortex that thrived in downtown Manhattan through the 1970s and into the early 80s. It was a time in which rock and roll was stretching its wings while simultaneously banging its head against the walls and sidewalks of a city both bleak and beautiful.

The Bush Tetras pulled uptown downtown and showed the Studio 54 crowd that there was some tribal thunder brewing below 14th street and you didn’t have to beg to get in. The BTs made it clear: funk was Universal and could not be tamed or commodified. It was in our flesh and bone and in the concrete. The city’s jittery pulse ran from the Bronx to the Bowery, a visceric train on tachycardic tracks where each station crepusculated pinpoints of chakric light. The bloodbeat pinballed and banked against Time’s Square and then veered drunkenly and divinely into the throbbing core of Manhattan’s tattered rock and roll soul: CBGB.

Kennedy wrote of her time living in downtown NYC:

Us New York City kids from the ‘80s, often transplanted from other cities, other countries, occasionally other planets (take a wild guess who I’m talking about) - we’ve kicked ass. We’ve taken names, too - and a good many of us have not only lived to tell, but are rockin’ the telling and rollin’ the living in a way that’s inspirational… We keep going, and going and going. I defy you to tell me that all of us weren’t defined by that moment in time that we shared. This has been apparent to me for a while, but more so now that we’re a decade into the oughts. We were blessed to come together in this life at a time that defined the End of a Century.”

The Bush Tetras harnessed the paranoia that snaked thru the shadow side of Manhattan and with their streetwise alchemy of raw beats and angular riffs transformed the fear, the edge, into something you could dance to. Laura Kennedy laid down a groove as deep as a subway tunnel and as persistent and essential as blood.
 

 
On this now more than half a century old clip, the pioneering French musician Jean-Jacques Perrey demonstrates the early synthesiser the Ondioline as part of a quiz show called I’ve Got A Secret. The year is 1960 and electronic instruments (in particular synthesisers) are still fascinatingly new. The point of the show, as the name would suggest, is for guests to reveal a secret to the host and audience and then make the panel of judges guess what their secret is. And I gave away Perrey’s secret in the first sentence of this paragraph. Oops.

Not to worry - the panel guess almost instantly what Jean-Jacques’ “secret” is:
 

 
Perrey then goes on to demonstrate the Ondioline to the genuinely awed people in the studio. What is perhaps more awe-inspiring for the modern audience is the host Gary Moore nonchalantly smoking a cigarette:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Happy birthday Jean-Jacques Perrey!
Jean-Jacques Perrey is Mr Ondioline (1960)

 
In January 1964, Bob Dylan released his classic third album The Times They Are A Changin’. As part of the promotion for the record, Dylan was offered a half-hour slot on Canadian TV’s arts series Quest. The loose form of the show suited Dylan and allowed him to showcase 3 tracks from his new record and 3 from previous album, Freewheelin Bob Dylan.

“The Times They Are A-Changin’”
“Talkin’ World War III Blues”
“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”
“Girl from the North Country”
“A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”
“Restless Farewell”

It was momentous piece of television, one that firmly established Dylan as “the voice of his generation”, as he sang his most radical folk songs, which, in light of Occupy Wall Street, are still as relevant and as important today.
 

 
Much debate revolves around exactly who Lucifer was. One of the only points of agreement is that the band wasn’t actually a band but the product of one person. The question is: who was that person? Legendary British hash smuggler and provocateur Howard Marks claims in his book Mr. Nice that Lucifer was Denys Irving, a pioneering computer arts geek, and that Marks financed his experimental recordings. Others, including a writer on Julian Cope’s blog, say Lucifer is Peter Walker, a former member of Manchester, England psychedelic band The Purple Gang. Based on the information in Mark’s book, I think Irving, who died in a hang gliding accident in 1976, was Lucifer. As far as I know, Peter Walker ain’t talking.

In all of the mystery surrounding Lucifer’s identity, the one thing that is certain is that the artist’s first record was a limited edition 45 r.p.m single “Fuck You” released in 1972 and made available through mail-order only. You’d have to have seen an ad in underground magazines like Australia’s Oz or British music weekly New Musical Express to know the record even existed.

Described by Lucifer as “fuckrock,” here’s the obscure, and yet legendary, “Fuck You” recorded four decades before Cee Lo Green’s hit of the same name.

And if you dig this, stay tuned. I’ll be uploading more of Lucifer’s music shortly.
 

 
Rastafarians Joseph Hill, Albert Walker and Kenneth Dayes recorded one of the seminal reggae albums of all time, 1977’s deeply soulful and rootsy Two Sevens Clash. With their raw and elemental sound, Culture were a significant influence on Britain’s exploding punk and ska scene.

Propelled by the relentless grooves of Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar, Two Sevens Clash is pure reggae with a heavy dose of Rastafari gospel—one of the truly indispensable records to come out of Jamaica.

I had the pleasure of seeing Culture play in New York City in the late-80s and it was one of the most splendid live shows I’ve ever seen—passionate, powerful and uplifting.

This is a terrific performance by Culture from July 19, 1987. They’re playing in Woodbury, Connecticut. The visual quality of the video isn’t great but the audio is more than solid.
 

 
In the mess that is Lulu one song that is generally singled out as having some of the vibe and feel evoking vintage Lou Reed is “Junior Dad.” Last night, during their concert in Cologne, Germany, Reed and Metallica performed the song and, lo and behold, it’s the first live video I’ve seen of the band that actually moves me in a good way.

Reed seems a shitload more engaged with what he’s doing in this video than during his addled performance on Jool Holland’s show from a few nights ago. World weariness has displaced death warmed over.

Is it possible that as Loutallica tours behind Lulu they may actually discover the heretofore untapped magic in their collaboration? Perhaps, if they replace their current drummer with Mo Tucker.

You can visit the Lou Reed/Metallica Youtube channel for more of the Cologne concert.
 

 
Loutallica take another shot at ‘White Light/White Heat’ after the jump…

 
Dutch sociologist Abram De Swaan interviews John and Yoko for the TV program Rood Wit Blauw at the practice of Lennon’s Knightsbridge dentist. The interview took place on December 12, 1968, just after their Two Virgins album had come out.

In the first part, while John was in the dentist’s chair, Yoko discusses Fluxus, the underground vs. the establishment, her own approach to art, why she abores “professionalism” and more.

When Lennon joins them, in reel four, he talks about revolution, reincarnation, taxes and money.

This is the single best vintage Yoko Ono interview I’ve ever seen, a real treat for Yoko fans.
 

 
After the jump, Yoko discusses living her life with Lennon in public and how their first meeting was a “miracle.”

 
Continuing on with the fourth installment of my multi-part “Only assholes don’t like the B-52s” megapost, today’s topic is another favorite, 1983’s Whammy!.

After the band cut their losses and issued the ill-fated David Byrne sessions for Mesopotamia as an EP, they returned to the the studio with Steve Stanley, who produced the first Tom Tom Club album. The B-52s were looking to bring back the playful element to their sound seen lacking in the more avant garde Mesopotamia, so the producer who helped birth both “Wordy Rappinghood” and “Genius of Love” seemed liked a solid choice.

Whammy!, although not my favorite favorite B-52s album—that would be Mesopotamia—it’s up there. It’s a strong album from start to finish, not a bum track on it. Three numbers, “Butterbean,” “Big Bird” and “Queen of Las Vegas” had been recorded with Byrne, but were re-recorded with Stanley. The band’s sound, expanded by Byrne, contracts on Whammy! to mostly synthesizers, guitars and drum machines. Keith Strickland and Ricky Wilson played all the instruments this time, save for sax and trumpet. It was also the first time that all five members of the band sang on record.

ON FIRE version of “Big Bird” from the Rock in Rio festival in 1983:
 

 
More from the B-52’s after the jump…

 
Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation plays Super 8 imagery against a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, in its “exploration of love and desire between two men”.  Jarman descibed the film as:

“a dream world, a world of magic and ritual, yet there are images there of the burning cars and radar systems, which remind you there is a price to be paid in order to gain this dream in the face of a world of violence.”

The sonnets are read by Judi Dench, and the soundtrack is by Coil.
 

 
Bonus footage of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, along with David Tibet, Othon Mataragas and Ernesto Tomasini, performing soundtrack to ‘The Angelic Conversation’ from 2008, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Muriel Couteau
 

 
Mr. T, the Black Betsey Johnson, presents the latest in 80s fashions.

Check out model “Kelly.” Looks like an outtake from Billy Squire’s career killing Rock Me Tonite video

“Thank you Xena and Zena.”
 

 
Squire’s “Rock Me Tonite” video after the jump…