A tantalizingly brief clip of a collaboration between fashion giant Yves Saint-Laurent and composer/arranger/ key Serge Gainsbourg collaborator, Jean-Claude Vannier. A version of L’enfant la Mouche et les Allumettes from Vannier’s 1972 LP L’enfant Assassin des Mouches (pictured above) is performed as rather surreal accompaniment to the fashion goings-on from The Roland Petit Show in 1971. Wish it went on longer.
Bonus: A few songs from the wonderful aformentioned LP
Directed by and starring Robert Hossein and written by Dario Argento, Une Corde, Un Colt (The Rope And The Colt) is a rarely seen 1969 French spaghetti western ( pâtes de l’ouest) with a dynamite score by the director’s father, André Hossein. The film’s title song is sung by none other than Scott Walker.
I swore a vow on my dyin’ breath
to ride a trail that ends in death
and death could strike with a frightening jolt of a lightning bolt in
the land where the rope and the colt are king
The Rope And The Colt was also released with the much more sinister and compelling title Cemetery Without Crosses. The DVD is available from CultCine Media.
Today I lay before you two LPs by possibly the same artist (nobody knows for sure who these people are !) from mid-70’s Japan that I’ve long felt represented some of the strongest home-made psychedelic music ever made. I give you my ever-effusive compatriot, Eric Lumbleau of the mighty Mutant Sounds blog to illuminate further:
These mid-‘70s releases - by interconnected musicians about whom nothing is known - represent two of the highest peaks of Japanese psych-prog weirdness. Brast Burn’s Debon is an intricate con catenation of cascading sleigh bells and hand drums, windswept Himalayan acid atmospherics, bottleneck acoustic-guitar twiddle and Damo Suzuki-like mantric babble. All of the above is held aloft by a synthesist with a terminal case of pitch wheel woozies and is strategically embellished with outbursts of tumbling bass drums, spiraling flutes and recorders, and some exquisitly hallucinogenic electric guitar. Coming on like an eternal cosmic caravan, the whole damn thing is soaked in a higher-key music of the spheres vibe. Yes, Brast Burn are indeed the real goods, and they will suck you into a hypnogogic reverie. Karuna Khyal are, by contrast, an altogether more psychotic proposition, quite capable of inducing frontal lobe fatigue in those lacking a hardy constitution. Great monolithic slabs of damaged, half speed Beefheartian swamp dirge, replete with squawking, overblown mouth harp, collide with undulating waves of Throbbing Gristle-esque electronic distortion, as the group stridently trudge across your neuroreceptors and eroding your sanity. Attempting to reconcile the contents of those disparate dispatches is a losing game. If there ia any thread connecting these excursions, it’s in the mantrically intoned vocals that wend their way through both of these outings; though the volatility of the vocal delivery on Alomoni 1985 renders even these ties tenuous. Suffice to say, both of these forays into the outer reaches of sound are perched near the zenith of radical innovation.
Little Richard sings “Scuba Party” while frenzied go go dancers attempt to throw planet Earth off its axis with the sheer force of their hips. This is the highlight from the highly forgettable beach blanket dud Catalina Caper. For a few brief minutes Mr Penniman transforms this turd into gold.
After a hard night of playing music, attending after show parties, and working on a script, Nick Cave, renaissance man, sat down with Australia’s Triple J radio to discuss his art, his nipples and performing with Grinderman at the Big Day Out festival.
This is a new upload to Youtube and it came with no description. I’m reticent to post something without a bit of background on what I’m sharing, but this kind of speaks for itself.
The world’s biggest Scott Walker fan? He’s certainly got a fascinating collection.
Update: Dangerous Minds readers are schooling me today. The Walker mega-fan is Arnie Potts and this clip is an extra on the DVD release of the Scott Walker documentary 30th Century Man. Thanks Plastic Palace Alice for the heads up.
Harry Muskee of Cuby And The Blizzards with Van Morrison
In March of 1967, after leaving Them, Morrison toured the Netherlands with Dutch group Cuby And The Blizzards as his backup band.
Here they are doing “Mystic Eyes” in a video clip that I wish were longer.
Update: Dangerous Minds reader Knickerbocker noted that the audio portion of the video is taken from the original 1965 release of “Mystic Eyes” by Them. Good ears, Knickerbocker.
In 1974 heavy duty German classical label Deutsche Grammophon issued a 3LP over-view of European improvised music (pictured above) featuring a full two sides each from a French combo (New Phonic Art), A British trio (Iskra 1903 led by guitar titan Derek Bailey) and the focus of this blog posting, the German ad hoc ensemble known simply as Wired. The truly notable thing about Wired is that it featured super-producer Conny Plank conducting the entire very delicate and minimal affair from his mixing desk. The other players here are Harry Partch disciple Mike Ranta on percussion, guitarist Karl-Heinz Böttner on stringed instruments and Mike Lewis on Hammond organ. Have a leisurely listen to the entire thing, it’s quite a lovely and slowly unfolding bit of primitive soundscaping :
Wired Side One
Wired Side Two
The reason I sought out the above rarity is that the above rather handsome box-set has just been released. Recorded a mere month after recording the Wired LP by the same group (minus Böttner) but previously unreleased, this sounds pretty wonderful. Then again nearly everything Conny Plank had a hand in is worthy of celebration.
Kool Herc, the legendary Jamaican-born DJ famous for “inventing hip hop” during South Bronx dance parties in the early 1970s is ill, and in dire need of financial assistance. According to a story that’s appeared in places from The Source’s website to The Guardian, Kool Herc, now 55, was discharged from a Bronx hospital yesterday, but still needs desperate help to pay for his medical bills. The cause of his illness has not been disclosed and it’s unclear whether he’s had the needed surgery or not.
Armed only with dual copies of James Brown and Jimmy Castor Bunch albums—not to mention a couple copies of “Bongo Rock”—and as many turntables as his mixer would allow for, DJ Kool Herc was the first turntablist to isolate the instrumental “break beat” from hard funk songs and turn them into five to ten-minute long extended workouts for the “break” dancers at his parties. Later these same beats became the musical backdrop for the toasters of the nascent “rap” scene. Kool Herc’s style on multiple decks was soon copied by Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa.
Donations for DJ Kool Herc can be sent to Kool Herc Productions PO Box 20472 Huntington Station, NY 11746
Below, DJ Kool Herc explains how he came up with the idea for isolating the break beat, in the process helping to birth hip hop culture.
This was brought up in the comments to Marc’s last Iggy-centric post - it raised some interesting points, so I thought it would be good to expand on, and to fill in the details.
He may be one of the greatest performers in modern music, the definition of a rock’n’roll animal, but to a section of the planet Iggy Pop is now best known as being that guy in those car insurance ads. This wasn’t a simple case of Iggy licensing music to an ad (as has happened before) - he actively participates in the adverts. The fact that he did them is not news but the campaign has had a few twists and turns along the way. For the benefit of the folks who don’t know the story, here’s the low down.
The Iggy Pop/Swiftcover insurance adverts debuted on British TV in January 2009. In February 2009 it was acknowledged that Swiftcover didn’t insure musicians (who were part of a “danger group” that also included gamblers, bailiffs, professional sports people, bouncers and, um, models.) An investigation was launched by the Advertising Standards Authority (after a grand total of 12 complaints - not a lot but, hey, they made a good point) and in April 2009 the ad was banned for being misleading. The company weakly claimed that they didn’t hire Iggy Pop as a musician, but rather as an actor who “loves life.”
Well, either Swiftcover turned punk fuckin’ rock or they decided to protect their investment in Iggy as, in May 2009, they changed their minds and started covering musicians in their insurance policies. Unfortunately they still don’t cover gamblers, bailiffs, bouncers, sports people or models. It’s not clear exactly why the firm won’t cover these professions, but at least now musicians can claim with them, thanks to Mr Pop. Pity about those models though - perhaps their dainty little feet don’t contain enough muscle power to properly work a set of pedals? A company spokesperson gave this statement to the Telegraph:
Tina Shortle, marketing director of swiftcover.com, said: “Insurance premiums are based on a number of different data, including the historic claims costs for specific occupations. This means that we do not provide cover to some professions that, according to that data, have a higher level of claims costs.”
The adverts returned to the telly, and 2010 saw the appearance of the “Little Iggy” puppet. The puppet is meant to symbolize Iggy’s wildman rock’n’roll past, and how the Iggster is constantly battling to keep it under control when all he wants to do is have a quiet game of golf.
Now, regardless of your views on whether respectable artists and musicians should sell anything except themselves, credit should be due to the technical side of this campaign. The “Little Iggy” puppet is so close to the real thing that it’s creepy - the first time I saw it on a billboard I had to do a double-take and if that’s not effective advertising, I don’t know what is. The hair, the hang-dog face, the knotted muscly torso - it’s incredibly like him. Who would have guessed that in the 21st century Iggy Pop would have gone from iconic rock’n’roll wild child to insurance salesman to being at the vanguard of uncanny valley?
