It must be Terry Riley week. How else to explain the sudden emergence of this pristine footage, which I’m sure some smarty-pants will shortly point out to me is actually from some DVD or such, this week along with revelations about the fine composer’s questionable eating habits. Terry Riley’s all night organ and tape loops concerts are the stuff of legend and it’s pretty marvelous to finally have a bit of filmed evidence to gawk at.
 

 
Even more interesting is this sadly brief little clip of the quartet of Riley, La Monte Young, Pandit Pran Nath and Marian Zazeela playing live in Rome. Riley doing a respectable job on the tablas:

 
And just for good measure and because it sounds great to me at the moment, here is a portion of La Monte Young’s The Second Dream of the HighTension Line Stepdown Transformer for your listening pleasure:

 
With thanks to Lance Grabmiller

 
NJ.com’s Stan Goldstein reports on the much-maligned, and deservedly so, sculpture of Bruce Springsteen that is on display in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

The bust has been put up as part of what’s called Sculptoure, which is sponsored by the Arts Coalition of Asbury Park (ArtsCAP) and the Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts (SICA).

The five-month long sculpture display will take place in Asbury Park and Long Branch and runs from May 7 until Sept. 11.

According to a story in “The Coaster” an Asbury Park weekly newspaper, the Springsteen sculpture was molded out of cement and done by Princeton trained sculptor Stephen Zorochin.

Stephen, I’m sure you worked hard on this bust, but sorry, it is hideous. Bruce with a red bandana and the nose the size of a ski slope just looks creepy.

The rendering of Springsteen is lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, to put it mildly. It makes the boss look like Abraham Lincoln if Lincoln were in a motorcycle gang.

But even more disturbing to my eye is the artist’s take on Jimi Hendrix (visible behind the Springsteen bust). He looks like Ronald McDonald extruded from the anus of Anubis.

“Scuse me while I eat some fries.”
 

 
Via The Daily Swarm

 
Nothing groovier than go-go dancing. And Linda Rogers is sublime in this 1970 video from Atlanta-based TV show The Now Explosion.

The Now Explosion broke new ground for broadcasting music on television, programming music in a free-flowing style and experimenting with video in a format that pre-dated MTV by 10 years. Check out their website. It’s a gas.

The special effects used in The Now Explosion were crude but state of the art for the early 1970 era. Video was shot with heavy, non portable studio cameras on large rolling tripods. The music videos were recorded on two inch magnetic tape. The video editing required the use of 3 massive and costly “quad” tape recorders allowing only simple transitions such as cuts and dissolves.

Most performers were young amateurs recruited from the Atlanta audience. Many appeared with home-grown costumes - often after midnight when station facilities became available - and were recorded dancing extemporaneously as rock rhythms were piped into an almost bare and darkened studio. The lighting often placed performers “in limbo” so that only the illuminated dancers were seen against darkened studio walls. Extensive special effects were added in post production as images were combined and distorted to form what production people often called “eye candy.”

Linda Rogers (Albritton) went on to have a career as a dancer and dance teacher. She continues to teach dance to this day. 

In this segment from The Now Explosion, Rogers is simply dreamy as she does a sultry go-go to Bread’s 1970 hit “Make It With You.”
 

 
Linda and Grand Funk get the trippy treatment:

 
R. Metzger, always ahead of the curve. Previously on DM: The Now Explosion: The Original MTV. 

 
Redditor suziecreamcheese says she made this abstract Beatles quilt for her friend’s baby shower. Where’s the “Butcher Block” cover?

(via reddit and TDW)

 
Taken from the upcoming New Order/Joy Division greatest hits album “Total,” this rocky track has been played on Irish radio and since found its way onto the web. This brings up two questions in my mind - how can this be described as a “leak” if it has been played (presumably officially) on the radio? And why the hell do these two different bands need a combined “best of”?
 

Hellbent - New Order by oldwaver
 
Thanks to Jeb Edwards.

 
Here in the UK one of the most popular energy drinks (after Red Bull, of course) is the relatively new Relentless. The drink is a trademark of, and is aggressively promoted by, Coca Cola. So much so that in November of last year Coke threatened the Relentless Steak and Lobster House in Portsea with legal action over the typography of their sign. The matter has since been settled.

The tables have turned however, as the established British record label Relentless (which in the past has released music by Joss Stone, Seth Lakeman and KT Tunstall) is now taking Coca Cola to court over the use of the name in relation to music. This could force the drink company to drop the brand altogether. They have already been declined a trademark on their slogan “No Half Measures” because of a Glasgow-based management company of the same name. From The Independent:

The label sought mediation with Coca-Cola but has now issued a writ, calling for the drinks company to stop using the Relentless name in connection with music and to pay damages for trademark infringement.

Shabs Jobanputra, Relentless Records’ co-founder, said: “It is causing real confusion because Relentless drinks has a tented stage at the Reading Festival and sponsors venues like the Garage in London. Artists and managers are asking if we’ve been bought up by Coke. Some artists don’t like that kind of corporate association.”

Relentless, now an independent label after ending a partnership with EMI, is spending valuable resources on the court case. Jobanputra said: “We’ve been trying to resolve this for four years but their attitude is, ‘Let’s see how much money you’ve got’. They are a huge company. But it’s clear that we established the Relentless brand in music, years before the drink launched.”

Coca-Cola declined to comment on the record company’s case, but said it has reached a deal with the Portsmouth restaurant. A spokesman said: “We requested that they redesign the font of their logo. We believed it bore a strong resemblance to our energy-drink design and that this had led to consumers thinking the two were connected.

I await the outcome of this with interest!

 
Moscow-based artist and musician Alexei Tegin shifted from his experiments in electronic and industrial sounds toward the traditional ritual music of ancient Tibet. Tegin began exploring the roots of Tibetan Buddhism and the ceremonial practices of the pre-Buddhist philosophy of Bon and gathered like-minded artists to form his group Phurpa (named after a Tibetan ritual dagger.)

Employing various instruments, including drums, cymbals, gyaling oboes, dunchen and wandu horns, Phurpa is keeping an ancient musical tradition alive and introducing it to the West.

Tegin’s evolution from industrial music to ancient drone seems a perfect transition. The soundwaves of the human voice when amplified in the cavities of the throat, mouth and larynx is an awesome instrument, a virtual chest shuddering roar. The grinding of the spheres.

Overtone singing and incantation converge in a hypnotic, powerful resonant roar in this Bon mantra.
 

 
More Phurpa after the jump…

 
It’s nice to see the grand old dude of rock and roll being interviewed by someone who knows a bit about rock and roll, writer Anthony DeCurtis.

Even though we’ve been deluged with Keith-related media since the publication of his memoirs, this relaxed interview goes deeper than most. I love Keith’s comments about women, brief but quite loving.

The discussion took place at The New York Public Library on October 29, 2010.
 

 
Parts two thru four after the jump…

 
On June 15, 1964 The Beatles flew into Melbourne, Australia to play a couple of shows at Festival Hall. A huge crowd of over 30,000 fans were there to greet them. At one point, the group sought shelter on the upper floors of Town Hall where they waved and goofed around from a balcony for the fans below. Spoofing their own fame, power and the hysteria of their fans, John gave the throng a Nazi salute while mimicking Hitler by placing his finger over his upper lip as though it were a mustache.

On the balcony with John are Paul, George, Ringo and Ringo’s substitute drummer Jimmy Nicol.
 

 
Here’s something that doesn’t turn up often, nearly 30 minutes of vintage live concert footage of renegade psychedelic folkies, The Holy Modal Rounders:

A live concert in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam in the Summer of 1972. Shot by Videoheads who also organized the concert. The Holy Modal Rounders appeared frequently wherever the Grateful Dead were appearing. Electronically colorized using the Marcel Dupouy colorizer accesory for the Movicolor Video Synthesizer.

Courtesy of the fine folks at Videoheads, the same Dutch outfit who recently posted that amazing live footage of Mick Farren and the Deviants from 1969 on YouTube
 

 
Below, the trailer for the 2007 documentary on the Holy Modal Rounders, Bound to Lose.