Static Cling get gonged on The Gong Show some time in 1978.
Status Cling wasn’t the band’s real name. It was The Barf and they were three skateboard punks from Southern California. Apparently they recorded an album’s worth of material but I can’t find any of it anywhere.
This reminds me a bit of The Dickies and Circle Jerks in Captain Sensible drag.
Oingo Boingo on The Gong Show after the jump…
Boing Boing just directed me to a 2002 episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where Cramps’ frontman Lux Interior provides the voice for the lead singer a band called the Bird Brains. Gotta share. Awesome.
Pussy Riot has changed how the world views Russia.
Help Free Pussy Riot here.
Via ART Ukraine
The Illuminator projecting on the Russian Consulate in NYC last night
This came prior to Judge Marina Syrova’s court handing down a two year prison sentence today when the feminist punk band was found guilty of “hooliganism driven by religious hatred.”
Our imprisonment has served as a clear and obvious sign that the whole country is being robbed of freedom. And this threat of annihilating the freeing, emancipatory forces in Russia – that’s what causes me to be enraged. Seeing the large in the small, the trend in the sign, the common in the individual.
Second-Wave Feminists said the personal is political. That’s how it is. The Pussy Riot case has shown how the individual troubles of three people facing charges of hooliganism can give life to a political movement. A single case of repression and persecution against those who had the courage to Speak in an authoritarian country has shaken the world: its activists, punks, pop stars, and government members, its comedians and ecologists, its feminists and its masculinists, its Islamic theologians, and those Christians who are praying for Pussy Riot.
The personal has become political. The Pussy Riot case has brought together as one forces so multidirectional, I still have trouble believing this isn’t a dream. The impossible is happening in contemporary Russian politics: a demanding, persistent, powerful and consistent impact of society on its government.
I am thankful to everyone who has said “Free Pussy Riot!” Right now, all of us are participating a large and important political Event that the Putin regime is having an ever more difficult time controlling. Whatever the upcoming verdict for Pussy Riot, we – and you – are already winning. Because we have learned to rage, and to speak politically.
Pussy Riot is happy that we have been able to spur a truly collective action, and that your political passion has proven to be so strong, it has cleared the barriers of language, culture, surroundings, and economic and political status. Kant would say that he sees no other reason for this Miracle besides man’s moral beginning. Thank you for this Miracle
Defense lawyers for Pussy Riot said they would appeal the verdict, although they are pessimistic about it being overturned.
“Under no circumstances will the girls ask for a pardon (from Putin),” said attorney Mark Feygin. “They will not beg and humiliate themselves before such a bastard.”
Pussy Riot—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30—have been dubbed prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.
Hat tip to Exile on Moan Street
The first time I saw The Cramps they were opening for The Ramones at CBGB IN 1977. It was the original lineup which in addition to Lux and Ivy included hot rebel girl Miriam Linna laying down a deep voodoo groove on drums and the diabolically dashing Bryan Gregory strafing the audience with his deadly guitar. They were a fucking dynamite combination. But as much as I loved the band as a whole, I found myself particularly drawn to Bryan Gregory. While Lux was funny scary, Bryan was really fucking scary. And sartorially speaking, I always thought Bryan was the best-dressed Cramp (a tough call).
Bryan left The Cramps in 1980. He worked as a tattoo artist, did bit parts in horror films, managed an adult book store and re-entered the music scene with several bands, none of which really caught fire. There was a bit of buzz and excitement surrounding his collaboration with Andrella Canne in Beast (sounding a lot like Siousxie and The Banshees) and a decade later The Dials, but that phase of Bryan’s musical career got snake bit when Canne became too ill to continue performing and The Dials broke up. And bad luck followed Bryan when he suffered a heart attack at the age of 49 just as he was putting together a new band called Shiver. While most heart attacks are unexpected, Bryan’s shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to anyone close to him. His health had been lousy for awhile and he wasn’t doing anything to make it better. His body was breaking down and whatever death spiral he was in had begun to spin out of control. The heart attack didn’t kill him, it just weakened him beyond what he could handle. Bryan died of “multiple system failures” in a hospital in Anaheim, California.
Gregory never achieved the kind of fame that his undeniable star quality warranted. He had a vibe, a style and presence, that was as magnetic and intensely mesmerizing as any guitar player I’ve ever seen. Only artists as charismatic as Lux and Ivy could share a stage with Bryan and not be overshadowed. When he left The Cramps, the band felt less dangerous without him.
There’s not a lot of video footage of Bryan out there. Here’s something that was shot for Memphis TV when The Cramps were recording their debut album, Songs the Lord Taught Us, at Sam Phillips studio with Alex Chilton producing. The quality is lousy and the bits with Bryan are brief but you take what you can get.
Bryan Gregory and The Dials after the jump…
In an echo of his past work, Sex Pistols artist Jamie Reid razzes repressive Russian President Vladimir Putin with this great image in support of Pussy Riot. (In 1989, Reid produced a similar image with Virgin founder Richard Branson in a balaclava for a memorable cover of the legendary British punkzine Vague).
Three members of Pussy Riot—Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30—have been jailed since March when they performed their an anti-Putin “punk prayer” during a hit-n-run performance art protest inside a Moscow cathedral.
The three young women have been charged with acts of “religious hatred” and hooliganism. Russian prosecutors are asking for a three-year sentence. A verdict in their case is due on Friday, when supporters of Pussy Riot are calling for a day of worldwide protest.
Photo: David Godlis.
Charles Ball who co-founded seminal punk D.I.Y. label Ork Records with Terry Ork and later Lust/Unlust Records died Monday night of a heart attack in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Ork Records released Television’s debut single “Little Johnny Jewel” followed by records from Richard Hell, The Marbles and Mick Farren, among others. An Ork release was always a thrilling event for me. You never knew what direction the label would move and that was part of what made it such an exciting and ultimately ground-breaking enterprise. With Terry seeking out new bands and Charles keeping the machinery of the business running, Ork Records was a ticket to New York’s underground musical amusement park.
Eventually, Charles ventured out on his own by creating the shortlived but highly influential Lust/Unlust label. In a brief but productive period of time, he managed to release a handful of genre-smashing singles and LPs that expanded the field for rock ‘n’ roll in wildly unpredictable ways, including the first record by Teenage Jesus (with Migraine Records) and various projects by Martin Rev, DNA, Alex Chilton and Robin Crutchfield’s Dark Day. With his all-American looks, Charles may not have appeared dangerous but he had an outlaw’s vision and was taking risks at a time when the music industry didn’t have a clue. He’s earned every true rocker’s respect and will be fondly remembered for helping revive not only an art form but a city.
Here’s Alex Chilton’s “Bangkok” which was released as a single by Lust/Unlust in 1978
Thanks Marty Thau.
The wearing of a cravat is a sign of sophistication and style. Only the most self-assured can carry it off. Look at Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, or, David Niven telling us The Moon’s a Balloon, or the dear Master himself, Noel Coward, accessorized with smoking jacket, tinkling the ivories, saying how he would go through life in First or Third Class, but never Second. Yes, it takes considerable confidence to wear one, for it signifies a sense of the wearer’s identity and self-importance.
Elvis Costello wears a cravat in this documentary on the making of his 1981 album, Almost Blue. He carries it off, in his own way. In much the same way as the Post-Punk, New Wave singer made this album of classic Country and Western covers his very own.
It was an inspired decision, one perhaps touched by genius. At the height of his Indie Pop success, Elvis moved to Nashville, hooked up with legendary producer Billy Sherrill, and learned to make a near perfect C&W album.
The South Bank Show followed Elvis Costello during the making of Almost Blue, and captured almost the whole process by which Sherrill and Costello chose, worked on and recorded the album. It is an excellent documentary, revealing the talent, arrogance and self-belief required to make a landmark album, or to wear a cravat.
From the left: Chrissie Hynde, Deborah Harry, Viv Albertine, Siouxsie Sioux, front: Poly Styrene, Pauline Black
Here’s an excellent mix consisting of female fronted punk and post punk bands via Suicide Watch:
01. The Avengers- I Believe In Me
02. Destroy All Monsters- You’re Gonna Die
03. X Ray Spex- I Am A Poseur
04. Siouxise & The Banshees- Jigsaw Feeling
05. Judy Nylon- Jailhouse Rock
06. Bush Tetras- Cowboys In Africa
07. Au Pairs- We’re So Cool
08. Delta 5- Now That You’ve Gone
09. Girls At Our Best- Warm Girls
10. Pylon- Cool
11. Suburban Lawns- Janitor
12. The Pretenders- Precious
13. Patti Smith Band- Ask the Angels
14. The Maps- I’m Talking To You
15. The Bags- Survive
16. 45 Grave- Evil
17. The Plasmatics- Butcher Baby
18. X- I’m Coming Over
19. The Mo Dettes- White Mice
20. Bow Wow Wow- c30 c60 c90 Go
21. ESG- You’re No Good
22. Shonen Knife- A Day of the Factory
23. Essential Logic- Aerosol Burns
24. Lora Logic- Brute Fury
25. Young Marble Giants- Brand New Life
26. Liliput- Die Matrosen
27. The Raincoats- No Side To Fall In
28. Lizzy Mercier Descloux- Wawa
29. Teenage Jesus & The Jerks- Orphans
30. Sonic Youth- Making The Nature Scene
31. The Slits- I Heard It Through the Grapevine
32. Blondie- Out In The Streets
Download the entire mix at http://www.divshare.com/download/19260176-cb3.
Below, Young Marble Giants performing “Credit In The Straight World.”
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
All I want is some Snatch
