Iggy performs “I Wanna Be Your Dog” solo at the Virgin Megastore in Paris and the crowd goes wild. 1990.
 

 
Krautrock meets political theater in Floh de Cologne’s anti-capitalist rock n’ rant “Die Luft Gehört Denen Die Sie Atmen” (The air belongs to those who breathe it) recorded in 1971.

Floh de Cologne’s anarchic politics and free-form musical experimentations evoke The Fugs, Beefheart, Lothar And The Hand People and Frank Zappa, while visually resembling something concocted by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

The lyrics of “Die Luft Gehört Denen Die Sie Atmen” essentially make the case that the earth we live upon belongs to all of us or to no one and cannot be owned by entities like corporations or institutions. Not a new idea but one drolly communicated through the deadpan Floh de Cologne. 
 

 
Undeniably influenced by the West Coast psychedelia of The Jefferson Airplane, New York’s The Group Image released one album in 1968, A Mouth In The Clouds, that managed to go largely ignored by critics and rock fans. Despite having a wild stage show and a dynamic lead singer in Sheila Darla, the band received little national exposure.

The Group Image played for two years in various locations in Manhattan, NYC, including its own productions / shows at the Palm Gardens, and the Cheetah Club, and shows with the Grateful Dead in Central Park and the Fillmore East, and other outdoor shows in parks such as Tompkins Square Park in the East Village.”

While Sheila Darla shares some of Grace Slick’s hippie allure and a similarity in vocal style, her stage performance bears a striking resemblance to Patti Smith rather than the cool and collected Slick. One wonders if Patti ever saw Darla in action.

Time Magazine reviewed A Mouth In The Clouds in their November 18, 1968 issue. I don’t know who the reviewer is, but it’s amusing how hard he/she tries to get down with hipster lingo. “Liquid Eden” indeed.

This is the first recording by the Manhattan hippie tribe that has been turning on with sound and light in a couple of off-Broadway ballrooms; it will soon open its own permanent ballroom in the East Village. The five-man band has a driving, express-train beat, and a sharp and shimmering harmony, and a high voltage singer named Sheila. Their sound is all their own, but there are some familiar touches of The Lovin’ Spoonful (Grew Up All Wrong) and Jefferson Airplane (Banana Split). In Banana Split, two electronic zaps project the listener, as through a time warp, into a liquid Eden of tinkling bells and clicking percussion. The Group Image calls it the Twinkie Zone, and it’s a pretty good place to be.

By the end of the video, the band erupts in a punk rock frenzy worthy of the Plasmatics.

Presenting The Group Image performing “Hiya,” featuring my new obsession Sheila Darla.
 

 
DM pal, Maria Guimil shared this guide to what your cigar says about you, from the Garo Habana site, where it is claimed “Cigars speak”:

And the attentive ‘listener’ can learn much from them about their owner. The way people hold their cigar can reveal much about their characters and moods.

In the early nineteen twenties an issue of the Italian almanac, Il Tabacco, contained an interesting column under the heading Sigaromanzia - twelve positions of the hand holding the cigar with captions showing the psychological characteristics of the smoker.

The Italian psychologists of the last century were, apparently, right. At our request, a number of modern experts conducted a similar experiment and came to approximately the same conclusion. So take a closer look at the people you talk to, and maybe you’ll find out something about them you didn’t know before.

 
With thanks to Maria Guimil
 

 
Iggy Pop’s performs “Bang, Bang” on Germany’s Bananas TV, from 1981. The odd mix of young girls with a distracted, tooth-missing, slightly addled Pop makes this clip all the more intriguing.
 

Peter Tosh, October 19, 1944 – September 11, 1987
 
September 11 is a date heavy with tragedy not only for the absolute horror that befell New York but because it also marks the date that Peter Tosh was murdered in 1987. While most attention will be focused on the tenth anniversary of the death and destruction surrounding the World Trade Center, I thought I’d share something in honor of Tosh.

One man’s death does not equal 3000, so I am not making any comparisons between the two events beyond the fact that they share a month and day and were tragic.

I’ll be avoiding most of the media hype surrounding September 11, 2001. It’s too painful and too exploitive. I think it best to remember 9/11 quietly and solemnly. I am somewhat sickened by the media’s attempt to profit (via TV ratings and book, magazine and newspaper sales) on the wrenching events of that day. I’ve seen enough photos of the burning towers, debris-covered victims, shocked faces and falling bodies to last more than a lifetime. And politicians using the devastation of 9/11 for political gain is beyond nauseating, it’s obscene.

Anyway, here’s a scorching 60 minute set by one of reggae’s greats: Peter Tosh live at L.A.‘s Greek Theater in 1983. Featuring “Pick Myself Up,” “African,” “Glass House,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” “Not Gonna Run,” a dynamic cover of “Johnny B. Goode” and more. Directed by Michael C. Collins.

“I’m like a flashing laser and a rolling thunder”
 

 
You had 3 minutes to close the windows, pull the curtains, fill basins with water, then collect together foodstuffs, torches and radios, before removing the door from its hinges, leaning it against a wall, covering with cushions or sandbags, and sheltering with your loved ones underneath.

Three minutes.

Time enough for one last smoke, and a tumbler of that 25-year-old Macallan - a dash of spring water, no ice.

At school in the 1970s, we were shown Civil Defense Films on flickering Super 8 projectors that depicted the seeming inevitability of nuclear war. Now it’s localized terrorism, back then it was the annihilation of the country, the planet, us.

Of course, through time, we became inured to all of that, and the thought of an all-out nuclear war became a hovering shadow - sometimes we noticed it, sometimes not. It only seemed real when presented as a film The Day After, or as a TV drama, Threads. But it would have hit home hardest, if the BBC had ignored the pressure from the Labour government, and shown Peter Watkins’ film The War Game.

The BBC withdrew the film from its planned transmission on August 6 1965, the twentieth anniversary of Hiroshima, claiming:

“...the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting…”

“Too horrifying” was one of the reasons it should have been aired. Instead we were shown those strangely surreal Civil Defense Films, Duck and Cover, Protect and Survive, in dusty, distracted classrooms, where they had little lasting effect.

The War Game was given a limited cinema release, making it eligible for the Oscars, where it won the Best Documentary Feature award in 1966. Watkins was so outraged by the BBC’s cavils, that he quit the UK for Sweden, and continued to make his distinct, powerful and political films - most recently La Commune (2000), a “6-hour re-enactment of the 1871 Paris Commune which examined the role of media in the modern global economy.”

With The War Game, Watkins continued his:

...experiments in blending fiction and documentary techniques which he had begun with his earlier play Culloden (1964), Watkins presented data drawn from his detailed research - encompassing interviews, Civil Defence documents, scientific studies and accounts of the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts and the non-nuclear devastation of Dresden, Hamburg and other cities during World War II - in the form of charts, quotes and vox-pop style face-to-face interviews with ordinary people. These he embedded into his own imagined scenario of the impact of a blast in Kent following the escalation of an East-West conflict.

The War Game was eventually transmitted in Britain on July 31 1985.
 

 
Bonus Civil Defense Films, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Damien Smith
 

 
“Bloody Disgusting Punk-A-Rama Movie Mayhem”

Here’s a mix of stripped down punk and garage rockers slammed up against splatter flicks, Blaxploitation, biker movies, blood-drenched horror, and assorted Z-grade cinematic atrocities. NSFW or just about anywhere else.

01. “Satan’s Holiday” - The Lancasters
02. “I Put A Spell On You” - Peter And The Wolves
03. “The World Ain’t Changed” - Warden And The Fugitives
04. “David’s Mood” - Dave Lewis
05. “Title In Japanese” - Stalin
06. “Killer Men” - Gasoline
07. “I’d Rather See You Dead” - The Legionaires
08. “Absolute Ruler” - Rude Kids
09. “Ghost Power” -  The Cords
10. “Sick Of You” - The Users
11. “My Dad’s A Fucking Alcoholic” - Frantix
12. “Guaranteed Love” - Limey And The Yanks
13. “Mental” - Glueams
14. “Hillside Strangler” - Hollywood Square
15. “Cheater Stomp” - The Fabulous Playboys
16. “Goofy Foot” - The Lively Ones
17. “Stick To Your Guns” - Zero Boys
18. “Red Dragon” - Blackjacks
19. “Monkey Farm” - Tiki Tones
20. “Carry Go Bring Home” - Justin Hinds
21. “Latina” - The Sentinels
22. “Get Your Baby” -  Mark And The Escorts
23. “Let’s Get, Let’s Get Tammy Wynette” - The Maggots
24. “Hey Scrounge” - The Lively Ones
25. “This Generations On Vacation” - Shock
 

 
Ah, the delights of hair metal. Marc, you have really opened up a can of glam worms with that post on vintage Poison! Here in its engorged entirety is still the best document of the mid-80s spandex metal years I have seen, though how most of these bands qualify as “metal” is beyond me, as is the fact that most of these men were considered red-blooded, macho heterosexuals! This whole world has been undergoing a re-appraisal in recent years, possibly as being the last time mainstream rock was this fun, stupid and thoroughly enjoyable. To quote Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler “And then that pussy Cobain came along and ruined everything”.

Decline… Pt 2 has lots of recognisable faces (Kiss without their make-up, a surprisingly lucid Ozzy Osbourne, the Toxic Twins from Aerosmith, wisened elder Lemmy) but the real stars of the film are the musicians and fans plucked straight from the Sunset Strip who we have never heard from again. The “where are they now” pathos, especially at the end, is almost heart-breaking. But don’t let that detract from the fun, especially the sight of Paul Stanley on a bed full of groupies, and Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P. pouring fake vodka into his own face while floating in a swimming pool and shouting at his mother: 
 

On Tuesday, Sept. 13th, I’ll be doing a special ‘Show and Tell’ presentation at Cinefamily in Hollywood, screening “deep cuts” from my personal video collection, including rare footage of NYC nightlife of the 1980s, Andy Warhol, and Michael ‘Party Monster’ Alig. Afterwards I’ll be showing a 1997 appearance by Robert Anton Wilson and Genesis P-Orridge on my Infinity Factory cable access talkshow. The evening will be streamed live with an HD webcast on Stickam. Watch last month’s Miranda July ‘Show & Tell.’ Get tickets here.
 

Photo by Peter Berberian