Terry Ork in his punk rock bunker. Unlike most record execs, Terry was content with a cheap 14th street stereo system. The kind the people who bought his label’s records could afford.
Terry Ork’s loft was a safe house for unsafe music. With money he made working at my favorite store devoted to the movies, the long gone Cinemabilia, Ork funded one of the few really great DIY labels to come out of New York City, Ork Records. Releasing 45rpm records by Television, Alex Chilton, Mick Farren, The Feelies and The Marbles, among others, Ork had a great feel for what made Manhattan’s downtown music scene special.
I would go to Cinemabilia to thumb through the movie books, magazines and posters. I really loved the place and I grew to really like Terry Ork. We’d shoot the shit on film and that’s what I knew him as, a film geek. Although I was a musician with a decidedly punk outlook, I had no idea that Terry had an indie label until one day when I was in Cinemabilia he handed me a record with the Ork label on it. The record was a single by Television called “Little Johnny Jewel” and it occupied both sides of the seven inch vinyl. My already high esteem for Mr. Ork escalated into the stratosphere.
The photos you are looking at were shot by Jon Jackson back in July, 1982 during the Brixton Academy stop of The Clash’s “Casbah Club Tour.” Jon’s son, who is a Redditor, posted this little back story about his dad and the photos:
My dad was born in Cambridge in the 50’s, growing up very close to David Gilmour and other members of Pink Floyd - he has always followed the Cambridge music scene very closely and has seen many of their influential concerts. He lived in London during the 70’s and early 80’s, experiencing the cataclysm of culture and music which living with certain people during that time became. He toured with The Clash, The Beat and Bob Marley, there might be more but these are the ones I know about.
I chose six shots of The Clash from Jon Jackson’s Flickr set, but you can see the rest here.
Bonus: Jon also captured The Beat at Nottingham in1982. You can view those here.
Flying Lotus and Harry Smith, two great tastes that taste great together!
Tomorrow night, our friends at Cinefamily present this inspired avant garde pairing:
Reprising an unforgettable show commissioned for the Ann Arbor Film Festival, L.A.’s own Flying Lotus joins Animation Breakdown for a unique screening of animator/folk music archivist/string figure enthusiast/culture hound extraordinaire Harry Smith’s 66-minute animated collage film Heaven and Earth Magic. The marriage of Smith’s ‘50s folk art mindset and Flying Lotus’ genre-defying 21st century sound may seem at odds, but they are both equally brilliant alchemical cut-and-paste samplers of world culture—and as kindred as spirits can get. Heaven and Earth Magic is a testament to the ability of animators to act as magicians, breathing life into even the most static, eyeworn 19th-century imagery—and as Flying Lotus contributes audio from disparate yet familiar sources (drum machine, turntable, laptop, synthesizer), two giants of sampling unite across time, and Smith’s playful experiments are imbued with a new, positively cosmic energy. This is one-of-a-kind live pairing you are not likely to see again!
Tickets $12, Tuesday, February 28th, 8:00pm at Cinefamily
Below, an excerpt from Harry Smith’s “Heaven and Earth Magic.” If you aren’t lucky enough to live in LA (I love saying that) as you’re watching it, maybe listen to Cosmogramma?
Legendary punk, post punk, hardcore, hip-hop, photographer (and Dangerous Minds pal) Glen E. Friedman gives an excellent interview to Paradigm Magazine. He discusses Occupy Wall Street, the importance of your voice being heard in political debate and the importance of of having a rebellious attitutude:
If you’re inspired to do something, if you want to do something, if you have some kind of feeling that you should do something … then you should just do it; don’t let what other people’s preconceived ideas of good behavior, or whatever it is, limit you to thinking what you should and shouldn’t do.
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 !
The Hammer Museum is hosting a 24-hour retrospective of the video work of the late Mike Kelley, the influential Los Angeles-based artist who took his own life three weeks ago.
This video “wake” for Kelley started last night at 9pm and will continue until 9pm tonight at the Farley Building, 1669 Colorado Blvd., in Eagle Rock. A spontaneous tribute to Kelley has appeared on Tipton Way in Highland Park featuring a Kelley-esque assemblage of stuffed animals and quilts.
Below, a “commercial” for Kelly’s limited edition “Little Friend” multiple. I have one of these. It’s got a “talk box” that says odd things when you squeeze it, managing to make this piece both ridiculous and slightly sinister at the same time, like a lot of Mike Kelley’s work.
It can just take one night to rattle and bone-break one’s entire perspective. It’s an intense if not outright harrowing thought, that your whole life could be upheaved into pure rubble in just a few hours. This is exactly what happens to a subway car full of people in the extremely underrated 1967 film, The Incident. Based on a 1963 DuPont Show of the Week movie, entitled Ride with Terror, The Incident is a cult film that has mysteriously languished, despite having an all star cast, a terrific soundtrack and being taut from the opening frame right down to the end credits.
Despite all of this, it remains unreleased on DVD and Blu Ray, with only a long out of print VHS and Laserdisc release, not to mention the occasional TV airing, to its credit. So why is a film this stellar still semi-obscure? Other than the lack of creative justice that has plagued the arts since the dawn of man, a lot of it could have something to do with the unrelenting grittiness that permeates the screen. This film reeks of the sweaty seediness of a warm New York evening in the late ‘60’s, with our two main anti-heroes, Joe (Tony Musante) and Artie (Martin Sheen), heading towards Times Square after an evening of pool playing and low rent thuggery. The stark black and white cinematography, courtesy of Gerald Hirschfield, who went on to work on Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, gives the film a documentary meets violent pulp novel feel. Everything looks beautiful in the ugliest of ways. In fact, the beauty of The Incident is its complete surrender to the ugliness of the human condition.
All of this is conveyed with our cast of characters, most of whom rank very high on the dysfunctional scale. There’s a working class married couple with child, trying to get to their home in Flushing, with the husband (played by Ed McMahon, in his best role ever, and yes, that includes his turn as a pimp in Slaughter’s Big Rip Off) constantly bitching about money and how he doesn’t want any more kids. Continuing the couple theme, there’s a young pair on a date, with the amorous mook badgering his pretty and hesitant date (a young and unrecognizable Donna Mills) into basically putting out. He’s borderline rapey and she ends up being insecure enough to put up with this horny bastard. (Note to our readers: remember that being alone is always preferable to being in the company of assholes. Always.) There’s another married couple, this time an older, Jewish one, made up of Sam (the legendary Jack Gilford) and Bertha (the equally legendary Thelma Ritter) Beckerman, who are constantly bickering over whether or not their son is a good boy or no-good-nik. Then there’s Harry (Mike Kellin) and Muriel (Jan Sterling) Purvis, a schoolteacher and his status hungry ice queen wife. Our last married couple to board is a young, attractive African American pair, including Joan (Ruby Dee), a peaceful activist and social worker and her boneheaded and overly aggressive husband, Arnold (Brock Peters), who tries to pick a fight with the ticket taker before getting on the subway.
The last pair is two young soldiers, Philip Carmatti (Robert Bannard) and our catalyst hailing from Oklahoma, Felix Teflinger (Beau Bridges). In addition to our pairs and families, there is also a recovering alcoholic trying to get his life back on track, a wino passed out on the subway and a lonely, repressed gay man. All of these people are about to have their lives changed forever when Joe and Artie get on board, making their grand entrance by being as loud and obnoxious as possible.
But what initially seems like two drunken clowns quickly turns sinister, when Joe and Artie start to systematically go to each person and break them down psychologically. They start off messing with the bum, threatening to give him a hot foot, when our recovering alcoholic, Douglas (Gary Merrill) steps in, making himself a target, leaving Joe to retort, “Is he a friend of yours, Mister?” It’s all downhill from there, with the two standouts being the scene where Joe sidles up next to Donna Mills and starts asking her date, ‘Hey Mack, what’s she like in the sack?” The guy, Tony (Victor Arnold), once full of dumb testosterone bravado, is now nervous and shaky, weakly defending her, stating that “she’s a good girl.” Musante, not missing one inch of a beat, eyes him up and down, asking, “If she’s a good girl, what’s she doing with youuuuu?” This culminates with Joe toying with her hair, while she looks frightened and her pussy boyfriend looks away, leading to the line, “Well honey, if you change your mind, look me up. Name’s Joe Ferrone. I’ll know what to do with you. I’LL KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH YOU.” This leaves Artie to respond, all wide eyed and brimming with sarcasm, “Woaaaah Joe!,” resulting with both of them laughing as another relationship is obliterated in the wake.
The second one and arguably the most harrowing is Joe’s confrontation with Arnold, whom up to that point, has been enjoying the ugly spectacle, almost drooling with the possibility of violence, while his poor wife looks on, horrified. When he engages Joe, saying “I’m with you guys,” the look on Musante’s face can only be described as shark like, with his dark eyes black and pinpoint predatory. You know this is not going to be pretty and indeed when Joe tells him that, “I wouldn’t be friends with you if you were the last man…..you want to know why? Cause I don’t like black.” It only gets worse from there with Arnold being internally ripped into two, especially once Artie starts harassing Joan, with her crying and pleading with her husband that it’s not worth it. The interesting thing is that it never gets directly physical. In fact, up until the very end, Joe and Artie are never overtly violent. Sure, they are not opposed to using their body language and borderline touching (slight shoving, small grabs, etc), but the biggest damage done is more emotional and mental.
The whole dynamic between Joe and Artie is very fascinating, bringing to mind another villainous and predatory pair from fiction, Dracula and Renfield. Musante is sinister and handsome, roaming around in a pair of stylish and wrinkled dress slacks, matching suit jacket and his dress shirt completely unbuttoned throughout the whole movie. Even though his character is one savvy sociopath, he is charismatic to the extent that you can’t take your eyes off of him anytime he is on screen. Artie, played perfectly by a very young Martin Sheen in his feature film debut, is manic eyed and following Joe’s lead like a crazed magnet. He might not be eating flies but he is the sidekick to Joe in every way. They both are looking for sick thrills, with the difference being that Artie, at his core, is goony while Joe is truly dangerous because he is intellectually on the ball. It is telling that when Felix finally gets fed up enough to actually take a stand, resulting with him beating the crap out of Joe, Artie doesn’t know what to do. It’s almost like he is frozen without his master. Of course, that leaves him with a slightly better excuse than the rest of the car, whom all just sit there, slack-jawed and powerless. As Felix slumps down, bleeding as his buddy finally goes over to check on him, there is the tangible disappointment in his eyes. With Felix, it was not necessarily Joe or Artie themselves that changed him for the worse, but the fact that a car full of people were too apathetic and weak to stand up for their fellow human. Losing faith is painful enough but when it is humanity itself that has let you down, there is no full recovery for that. Some scars never totally heal.
The Incident is one of the most perfect and certainly most cynical, bordering on nihilistic movies ever. The film is unwavering in its mirror to society, revealing the many cracks, pockmarks and bruises within the human condition. It also begs the question of not only why isn’t this film better known and out with a spiffy Criterion-type release, but why isn’t Tony Musante a bigger name? Because that man is absolute dynamite.
In 1987, the B-52s produced an incredible public service announcement for AMFAR (The Foundation For AIDS Research) with the late NYC-based video artist Tom Rubnitz (best known for the “Strawberry Shortcut” and “Pickle Surprise” videos) and several of their closest famous friends. The colorful tableau vivant recreated the “Sgt. Pepper” album cover with the flowers spelling out “Be Alive”
Along with the B-52s, you’ll see Korean video artist Nam Jun Paik, Allen Ginsbeg, Dancenoise, “voguing” pioneer Willi Ninja, Nile Rodgers, Joey Arias, Tseng Kwong Chi, Mink Stole, ABC’s David Yarritu, “Frieda the Disco Doll,” John Kelly as the Mona Lisa, Lady Bunny, performance artist Mike Smith, Kenny Scharf, David Byrne and then-wife Adelle Lutz, model Beverly Johnson, NYC “It Girl” Dianne Brill and Quentin Crisp among many others.
If this isn’t eighties enough for you already, note the presence of “Randee of the Redwoods” (comedian Jim Turner) the acid-fried MTV “presidential candidate.”
Had he not taken his own life in 2008, David Foster Wallace would have been 50 years old today. Perhaps, in the prime of his creative life. We’ll never know.
In this 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, Wallace talks about writing, fame, drugs, depression and David Lynch.
A the end of the interview, while discussing his depression, Wallace remarks “I’m not getting ready to jump off a building or anything.” “Anything” happened 11 years later when he hanged himself, leaving a brilliant trail of words behind him and a big hole in the heart of modern literature.
Portland’s AU may look the part (They resemble the cast of “The Life Aquatic”), but their gorgeous music transcends any easily pegged and unfunnily satired stereotype. I’m hearing shades of Magma and Henry Cow in this powerfully rocking art music. How nice it is to say that and mean it ! Check out the fiery momentum of the beautifully captured live performance below. Certainly went well beyond my (already high) expectations. An LP is due in April on the always sterling Hometapes.
