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‘Anyone here tonight ever had gonorrhea?”: AC/DC’s dirty autobiographical version of ‘The Jack’
08.19.2019
12:50 pm
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The front of AC/DC’s 1977 tour book featuring both Bon Scott and Angus Young’s crotches. The program, signed by the band, and for some reason multiple times by Bon Scott, sold in an auction for $5,000.
 
AC/DC’s second album T.N.T. is pretty much the perfect rock record from start to finish—bagpipes and all. One song on the album, “The Jack,” was reworked lyrically after getting the thumbs down because it was considered too lurid. You don’t say? A song about contracting a sexually transmitted disease is tastelessness personified and expecting anything else from a song covering such a topic seems kinda misguided if you ask me. In an interview with Angus Young in 1998, the guitarist spoke about their lyrics and how with the help of Bon Scott, they would tweak them to avoid being labeled “sexist”:

“Bon was an extremely gifted lyricist. Did he often fine-tune and rework lyrics? It’s difficult to be simultaneously clever and smutty, which was his trademark. I don’t think that “smutty” is exactly the right choice of words. I believe that the politically correct term is “sexist.” Intellectuals like to put a tag on it and say, “these guys are out-and-out sexist.“I’ve always found there’s a two-sided thing when it comes to lyrics: someone can call a song “Sexy Motherfucker,” and be accepted, and yet we’ve been writing all songs all these years, and while there may be the rare “fuck” in the lyrics there somewhere, it’s all been quite clean cut. Still, people just make the assumption that we’re five guys who’ve just got our dicks in mind.”

While I was under the distinct impression pretty much every song has “dicks in mind,” of all the Prince songs to call out for its content, why 1992’s “Sexy MF”? I can’t be the only one who can think of at least five other Prince songs far smuttier than this one but regardless, the iconic Angus makes a good point. The original version of “The Jack” did not appear on T.N.T. (released in Australia in 1975) or 1976’s High Voltage, but it did not stop the band from performing it in all its raunchy glory live. Bon would begin “The Jack” by dramatically asking the crowd if they had ever had “gonorrhea.” In the case of the recording in this post (which is over ten minutes long), Bon eggs the audience on by asking a spotlight be turned on them so he could see who else in the crowd had “the jack” which is Aussie slang used to describe a venereal disease. Through the years there have been several versions about who in the band actually got the jack and how. The general perception is that the song, conceived mostly by Scott, was the vocalist’s autobiographical account of acquiring the jack from one of his female fuck partners. However, in one account attributed to Bon, he confesses it was he who gave the jack to one of the chicks hanging around the band’s house. Scott said he wasn’t worried about the girl spreading it around because she was unattractive. Now there’s some rock star logic for you.

But Bon turned out to be wrong.

After having sex with Scott, she stopped by drummer Phil Rudd’s room for a quickie before leaving. A short time later Rudd got a letter from the girl which included a 35 dollar doctor’s bill to cover her penicillin treatment. Scott has also presented other scenarios about the inspiration for the song, including one in which he confessed every member of AC/DC was at one point passing around the penicillin after also passing around the same female sexual partners. 
 

Another page from the 1977 tour program.
 
In the 2006 book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, it is noted Bon wrote “The Jack” after guitarist Malcolm Young received a letter from a woman claiming Young had given her gonorrhea, but he allegedly received a clean crotch bill of health from the band’s doctor who at this point (according to Angus) was giving the band “group rates” due to their frequent office visits. Lastly, there is also another version of AC/DC’s gonorrhea woes in which Bon recounts a show where all their collective (and seemingly interchangeable) girlfriends were up in the front row, so Scott decided to point them out one by one every time he sang the lyrics “She’s got the jack.” What a charmer

This version of AC/DC’s dirty confessional was fittingly recorded in the band’s birthplace of Sydney, Australia. The band would continue to keep the “GONORRHEA!” version of the song a part of their setlist until Bon passed away in February of 1980. Audio of Bon oversharing while performing the original version of “The Jack” in 1977 follows.  
 

The original NSFW version of “The Jack” recorded in Sydney in 1977.

Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.19.2019
12:50 pm
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Footage of Iggy Pop, Grace Jones, & a yodeling Brian Eno on Dutch television in the 70s & 80s
08.13.2019
02:32 pm
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An ad for Dutch music television show ‘TopPop.’
 
After launching in September of 1970, the music television show TopPop, the Dutch response to Top of the Pops, would give the British show a run for their money by providing bands, musicians, and performers a venue to creatively mime for their lives every week. During its eighteen-year run, the show hosted pretty much every band and musician known to man and a fair share of Nederpop (a word coined to describe the pop scene in the Netherlands). Loads of them such as Slade, David Bowie, Queen, Debbie Harry and Blondie appeared on the show multiple times. Many acts also filmed exclusive video content for the program, especially during the 1970s as promotional video material was not yet a regular industry practice. If for some reason a musical act wasn’t able to make it to the Netherlands, the show had a secret weapon—Dutch ballerina and choreographer Penny de Jager. The gorgeous de Jager and her ballet troupe went all out when the opportunity presented itself, such as her Aladdin-themed dance-off to Queen’s “Someone to Love,” or turning the TopPop studio into the Dutch version of Soul Train for the Commodores soul standard, “Brick House.” There are a few instances of TopPop traveling to film their guests like heartthrob David Cassidy, who the show shot on the grass at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. Then, in 1974, TopPop packed their bags and flew to Los Angeles to film Barry White at his home.
 

A photo of Brian Eno from his appearance on ‘TopPop’ in 1977.
 
TopPop stands out in the vast sea of music-oriented television programming thanks to their creative presentation of their guests’ performances. This included various mind-enhancing stage designs, optical effects, or perhaps mini-narratives in a vein that would later become the norm on MTV. I can personally tell you that your life is not complete unless you have seen Brian Eno yodeling while he falls through a backdrop of trippy 70s-style effects. And, since I’m a special kind of Black Sabbath geek, one of their more infamous TV performances was filmed for TopPop, a fantastic black and white video of the band grinding out “Paranoid” while some sort of bizarre motorized art project spins behind them. Sure the bands were lipsynching, but that didn’t have to mean it had to look dull. 

Iggy Pop was another of TopPop‘s regulars, and you’ve probably heard about him trashing TopPop‘s studio during what was supposed to be his lipsynched performance of “Lust for Life.” This would be one of many times Iggy would appear on TopPop seemingly with no other goal but to fuck everybody’s mind up. Following Iggy’s unhinged destruction of the studio, Dutch journalist and TopPop contributor Mick Boskamp interviewed Iggy, perhaps for damage control purposes, asking him if he rehearses his “acts” or do they come to him “spontaneously”? Iggy replied that trashing a European television studio wasn’t something he would rehearse because it was just not something he “does.” “I just come in and do it.” Which accurately sums up his unhinged ambush of TopPop‘s defenseless studio. 

There are over 3000 videos from TopPop on their YouTube channel, so feel free to use the rest of your lifetime digging through the Dutch treats it contains. A few of my personal favorites are posted below.  
 

Brian Eno doing “Seven Deadly Finns” on ‘TopPop.’
 

One of Iggy Pop’s gonzo performances of “Lust for Life” taped for ‘TopPop’ during which he destroys a chair in 1977.
 
Much more after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.13.2019
02:32 pm
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Battle of the Bulge: Classic rock stars and their packages
08.02.2019
08:51 am
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Marc Bolan dressed to the left.
 
Sometime in the 1970s, an intrepid BBC reporter posited the question What is it about today’s pop stars that appealed so much to young girls and boys? After talking to a small selection of very emotional and breathy fans, he soon discovered the answer was music. This didn’t quite satisfy our keen reporter who seemed to be hoping for an answer more akin to that given by Mrs. Iris Mountbatten’s when she revealed her son “Leggy” had first appreciated the large talents of the Rutles after seeing their tight trousers.

It’s well known that tight trousers have a long history in rock and pop music stretching all the way back and front to the 1950s when Elvis Presley first unleashed his “Hound Dog” on national television. Within weeks, it seemed as if every singer was wearing a pair of strides one size too small leaving many broadcasters to shoot these performers from the waist up so as not to offend the less fashionable viewers at home. But with the arrival of four well-endowed young men from Liverpool, trousers which revealed everything and left nothing to the imagination quickly became the focal point of the sixties’ “British Invasion” and the inspiration for many bands over the following decade.

For some, what God had provided wasn’t enough and their trousers were often padded with socks, lead pipes, cucumbers, shuttlecocks, “armadillos,” and the massed pipe bands of a well-known Highland regiment. However, having spent minutes if not hours poring over rock stars crotches I have got to the nuts and bolts of this subject and cobbled together a small (or should that be large?) selection of classic rock stars and their unfeasibly large talents…
 
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Mick Jagger packed his own lunch.
 
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Robert Plant’s noticeable onstage ‘presence.’
 
More rock stars and their lunch boxes, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.02.2019
08:51 am
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Faith No More danced naked around Billy Idol during a Halloween gig in Seattle, 1990
08.01.2019
05:50 pm
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A vintage concert shirt from Billy Idol’s Charmed Life Tour featuring Faith No More.
 
When Billy Idol asked Faith No More to join his Charmed Life Tour, he was still recovering from a near-fatal motorcycle accident which almost cost him his life and one of his legs. Idol’s extensive injuries are also the reason you only see the rocker from the torso up in the video for “Cradle of Love” as the wreck left him temporarily paralyzed. Before hooking up with Idol, FNM had been on the road with Soundgarden and Voivod. The would officially join Idol in early September for a run of approximately 30 shows with their final gig scheduled for Seattle on October 31st, 1990. Reviews from this leg of Idol’s tour with Faith No More are full of all kinds of stories including FNM pissing off crowds by pissing on them while opening for Idol at the Cow Palace in California. However, nothing on this tour would live up to the debauchery witnessed by the 18,000 in attendance at Seattle Center Arena (now Key Arena) on Halloween night in 1990.

Based on a review of the show published in Seattle publication City Heat by writer Michael Edward Browning, Mike Patton walked out on stage in a pair of gorilla pants and, according to Browning, a “Doris Day” wig. However, with a little more digging, it appears Patton’s intention was not to look like Doris Day, but, most likely, Nirvana vocalist Kurt Cobain. Take a look:
 

Mike Patton on stage at Seattle Center Arena on October 31st, 1990.
 
Patton would then devolve into his signature manic arm waving/drunken sailor trudging/octave-smashing self, which Browning overheard a fellow audience member (who he referred to as a “mother”) describe as someone doing a good imitation of a “retarded person.” Yeesh, this chick. As Faith continued thundering through their set, they launched into their single “Epic.” During the song, Idol’s road crew rolled out a huge pile of smelt on a lightning rig and dumped it on the stage floor. After the initial shock of having 40 pounds of dead fish suddenly appear on stage, Patton started stuffing them in his gorilla pants. The rest of the band proceeded to lob the smelt into the crowd before returning to the stage to perform their cover of the Commodore’s soulful classic, “Easy.”

Now it was time for Idol to take the stage and for Faith No More to get a bit of revenge for Idol’s fish fuckery. And they didn’t waste any time.

While Idol was strutting around during “Cradle of Love” a member of FNM (likely Mike Patton) appeared on stage dressed in a gorilla costume and started coordinating dance moves with Idol’s backup singers. The rest of Idol’s set would go on without any other antics until his encore. While Billy was crooning out the moody jam “Eyes Without a Face” Faith No More would return to the stage in the nude with their heads and faces covered by masks, towels, and bags. Patton, Roddy Bottum, James Martin, Bill Gould and, Mike Bordin formed a naked dancing prayer circle around Idol until Billy joined them. There has been some question in the past as to the identities of the nude marauders but in a Tweet from 2013 Idol confirmed it was Faith No More on stage that night au naturel. On an even weirder note, Idol would end up having the last hee-haw by letting five miniature pigs and a fucking goat loose in FNM’s dressing room. After returning from their heroic naked hijinks, it looked more like a barnyard than a backstage party as the piggies and their goat friend chowed down on trays of leftover food in their dressing room.

Footage or photographs from the show (with the exception of the one in this post), do not appear to exist. To try to make up for this, check out this “performance” by FNM from Top of the Pops. As you may know, bands on Top of the Pops were required to lipsynch and at around 1:24 you can see Mike Patton not giving a single fuck about TOTP’s rules.
 

Faith No More on ‘Top of the Pops’ in 1990.
 
HT: Michael Edward Browning

Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.01.2019
05:50 pm
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Well that sucks: That time Lemmy passed out after getting too many blowjobs in 1980
07.30.2019
11:19 am
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A show poster for Motörhead’s headlining gig at Bingley Hall in Stafford, England on July 26th, 1980.
 
At the age of sixteen, Lemmy Kilmister saw the Beatles perform in Liverpool. This event would play a considerable role in Kilmister’s desire to pursue a career in music. Of course, the image of girls frantically throwing themselves at John, Paul, George, and Ringo (as young Lemmy undoubtedly witnessed firsthand) probably didn’t hurt either. While I’d like nothing better than to keep talking about Lemmy’s early days, nobody has done that better than Lemmy himself in his 2002 autobiography White Line Fever. Let’s jump forward to the glorious year of 1980, so we might pinpoint the reason Lemmy passed out backstage at Bingley Hall in Stafford, England on July 26th, 1980—allegedly for receiving one too many blowjobs from amorous female fans before the show.

During 1980, Motörhead would, among other things, become known for trashing their hotel rooms. Drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor enjoyed a good hotel room thrashing and broke his hand on more than one occasion teaching random hotel rooms a lesson. In fact, Taylor’s time with Motörhead was full of broken bones. On another occasion that same year (following a show in Belfast, Ireland), an obliterated Phil was hoisted into the air by an equally obliterated, and very large, Irish fan. Taylor’s new pal was so drunk that after he lifted Taylor into the air, he moved back to see how high he had lifted the Motörhead drummer. Gravity did its thing, and Phil ended up with a broken neck. Just before the release of their fourth album, Ace of Spades, Motörhead headlined a gig at Bingley Hall with Angel Witch, Mythra, Vardis, White Spirit and approximately 10,000 highly intoxicated fans. At this point, Lemmy had been on a strict 72-hour regimen of sex, drugs, booze, and no sleep. When it was time to play Bingley Hall Lemmy was such a mess that guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke, an epic connoisseur of vice in his own right, told Kilmister that he was “drinking too much.”
 

The cover of the very rare collectible “The Overwhelming Motörhead in Rock Commando” written by Klaus Blum and distributed at the Bingley Hall gig.
 
After going full-gonzo for three days, Lemmy made it to the stage and, for a change, Clark and Taylor were relatively sober despite the excessive amount of cocaine blowing around backstage. According to Lemmy, after leaving the stage prior to the band’s encore, he collapsed and had to be revived. Clark and Phil were pissed at the seemingly indestructible Kilmister calling him a “motherfucker” because they were suddenly concerned about how the incident would affect their careers. Ultimately, (and since this is Lemmy Kilmister), he would return to the stage and finish the encore. Though it remains somewhat unclear how many people witnessed Lemmy’s collapse, the band was concerned enough about the incident that Lemmy chose to downplay his unplanned backstage nap, blaming it instead on three blowjobs he received prior to the show.

Here’s more from Lemmy on that (from White Line Fever):

“After the gig, I told the papers that I’d collapsed because I’d had three blow jobs that afternoon. The part about getting the blowjobs was true, actually. There were chicks all over the place, and there was this really cute Indian bird—she was two of them. There was this room in the hall that was full of cushions and shawls hanging down. It was like some Maltese fucking dream. So I locked myself in there with her and wouldn’t come out.”

So, according to Lemmy, it wasn’t three days’ worth of Lemmy-sized booze, drugs, and sex that caused his collapse at Bingley Hall, it was too many blowjobs! So my friends, the next time “Steak and a Blowjob Day” rolls around, don’t be like Lemmy (it’s impossible anyway) and know your fellatio limits. Footage of Motörhead performing their 1977 jam “Motorhead” live on German television in 1980 follows.
 

Motörhead live on German television performing “Motorhead” from their debut album of the same name. Kind of like Lemmy’s three-day binge, the band recorded the record in two-days fueled by speed and no sleep.

Posted by Cherrybomb
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07.30.2019
11:19 am
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Cheech & Chong’s classic ‘Basketball Jones’ cartoon
07.08.2019
07:17 am
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“That basketball was like…a basketball to me”
—Basketball Jones

“Basketball Jones” was a song/routine/character from Cheech & Chong’s 1973 Los Cochinos (“The Pigs”) record. The original album cover had a secret compartment where you could see how they smuggled pot, sandwiched in their car door. I bought this LP at a garage sale when I was a child just starting to get into comedy albums. I only half understood the idea of what “drugs” were at the time, I’m pretty sure, so I can’t imagine that a Cheech & Chong album made much sense to me at such a tender age. But I loved the routine “Basketball Jones” by Tyrone (as in “tie your own”) Shoelaces & Rap Brown Jr. H.S. and would go around singing the musical part of it like ten-year-olds do.

The song is about teenage Tyrone and his love of basketball sung in a falsetto voice by Cheech Marin. It’s catchy as hell, but small wonder, dig the backing band: George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Carole King, Nicky Hopkins, Tom Scott and Billy Preston. Ronnie Spector, Michelle Phillips and The Blossoms with Darlene Love were the backing cheerleaders’ voices.

Cheech Marin:

“George Harrison and those guys were in the next studio recording, and so Lou (Adler) just ran over there and played (it for him). They made up the track right on the spot.”

Producer Lou Adler:

“That was a wild session. I probably called Carole (King) and told her to come down, but with Harrison and (Klaus) Voormann—I didn’t call and say come in and play. Everyone happened to be in the A&M studios at that particular time, doing different projects. It was spilling out of the studio into the corridors.”

The song itself was a parody of “Love Jones” by the Brighter Side of Darkness. Having a “jones” btw, is a slang for having an addiction to something.

The “Basketball Jones” animation is by Paul Gruwell and was made in 1974. This cartoon has also made some impressive Hollywood cameos over the years, in Robert Altman’s California Split (which was never released on VHS due to Columbia Pictures refusing to pay royalties on the song, Altman had to cut the music—but not the animation—for the DVD); Hal Ashby’s Being There (it’s what Chauncey Gardiner is watching in the limo); and in the 70s underground comedy Tunnel Vision. It was even parodied in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons (”A Midsummer’s Nice Dream”) guest-starring Cheech & Chong.
 

“Basketball Jones”
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.08.2019
07:17 am
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The story of Rob Loonhouse: Air-guitar pioneer & the undisputed king of cardboard guitars
07.05.2019
12:59 pm
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Rob Loonhouse on stage with Iron Maiden at the Music Machine with his trusty homemade cardboard guitar.

“Oh no, I don’t bother with frets…It’s supposed to look like a guitar, but it’s not really supposed to look like a real guitar.”

—Rob Loonhouse on his handmade cardboard guitars in 1981

When Rob Loonhouse (born Robin Yeatman) started rubbing shoulders and banging heads with bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, he was gainfully employed as a wedding photographer. The photographer-by-day had a not-so-secret life which made him somewhat of a minor celebrity, or at least oddity. Loonhouse would frequent pubs and clubs in London including NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) haven, The Soundhouse, and its sister backroom club The Bandwagon, where he would bust out his best air guitar routine. His pioneering performances would eventually become like competitions featuring “homemade imitation guitars” made of cardboard (or “hardboard” as coined by Loonhouse). His claim-to-fame is backed up further by two UK journalists, Pippa Lang and author Garry Bushell in his 2010 book Hollies: True Stories of Britain’s Biggest Street Battles, where he also identifies Loonhouse as the originator of the “new circle of hell that is air-guitar playing.”

According to Loonhouse, the idea to make his cardboard guitars was the result of a throw-down which would decide who the “Headbanger of the Year” was. At the time, Loonhouse was still air-guitaring it when he was approached by another local who had made his own Gibson-style guitar, and wanted a chance to compete. Loonhouse knew he had to up his game and went home to make his first cardboard guitar, described as “very rough.” In Loonhouse’s own words, his guitars were only supposed to look “like” guitars, not actually look like “real” guitars, and if your head is spinning like mine, the faux guitarist went into a bit more detail regarding the evolution of his DIY cardboard guitar collection:

“I’ve got three at home right now, a (Flying) V, a twin-neck (Flying) V, and an inverted (Flying) V which I made especially, which is a bit of a flop really. In all, I’ve made about a half a dozen, getting progressively better all the time.”

 

Rob Loonhouse and former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul DiAnno.
 
Former Iron Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton remembers Rob’s air-guitar competitions before he started making his cardboard axes and was widely photographed with the band during the early 80s, on stage with his trusty fake guitar in full headbanging mode. He was also featured on an episode of UK pop culture television show, 20th Century Box that, in part, attempted to define the NWOBHM as anti-woman with some help from comments by Loonhouse, such as:

“You find very few women down in the front actually headbanging. They are actually quite content to stand in the back and listen to the music.”

Later in his rather extensive interview, Loonhouse was asked another leading question by the BBC as to whether women make “good headbangers.” This time, Loonhouse lived up to his last name a little bit more with his puzzling answer—an analogy involving manual labor: 

“It’s difficult really, you know because many women just don’t have it in them, you know. There’s very few women digging holes in the road. Maybe that’s one of the reasons there’s very few women headbangers.”

Now before we tear into Loonhouse’s words of wisdom, which I’m sure got him laid all the time, it’s safe to say he is merely equating true heavy metal fans to tough, (mostly) manly roadmenders, or ditch-diggers. Of course, Lemmy Kilmister’s gal-pal Wendy O. Williams would probably have a few choice words for Loonhouse, as would the members of Girlschool, Betsy Bitch, Doro Pesch, and others. However, Loonhouse has historically been recalled not as a headbanging misogynist, but as a fun-loving goofball who managed to air-guitar his way into the good graces of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. And again, to be fair to Loonhouse, one of the goals of the piece was to perpetuate the myth that heavy metal lyrics were anti-woman and that heavy metal shows were no place for a girl.

Loonhouse’s first claim-to-fame (after his air-guitar accomplishments of course) was a photograph he took of Iron Maiden on the band’s first album, with vocalist Paul DiAnno, The Soundhouse Tapes. Loonhouse’s next big break would be his appearance in Judas Priest’s 1980 video for “Living After Midnight” directed by Julien Temple. In the video, there are several nods to air-guitar playing and even drummer Dave Holland has some fun hitting an imaginary drum kit hard during the thundering opening to the song. People in the audience are seen holding up cardboard guitars. Loonhouse wraps up the video by thrashing his cardboard Flying V” outside Priest’s tour bus. Later in 1980 Loonhouse’s inverted Flying V would appear on its own in another video directed by Temple, “Breaking the Law,” where it is played in a bizarre scene by a bank security guard. Previously, Loonhouse had been credited with the role of the bank security guard, but it clearly isn’t the cardboard guitar god, though the inverted Flying V is undoubtedly Loonhouse’s unique weapon of choice.
 

Loonhouse shredding the shit out of his cardboard Flying V.
 
Loonhouse was just 23 at the time of the 20th Century Box show, and described himself as not having the time to become a “really good guitarist.” But this wasn’t a bad thing in Loonhouse’s mind, as later in 20th Century Box, he happily mused being a headbanger was a “lifelong thing” and he was going to make a business out of being a “headbanger” because that was what he was “good at.”

Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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07.05.2019
12:59 pm
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Don’t Watch Alone: The ‘Don’ts’ rather than the ‘Do’s’ of Movie Posters
06.26.2019
08:58 am
Topics:
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Don’t Look in the Basement’ (1973).
 
These movies have a clue in their title. You could say the whole fucking plot’s in the title. Don’t Go in the Attic, Don’t Look in the Basement, Don’t Answer the Phone, you know the kinda thing: Don’t Fuck Around in that Big Dark House Where There’s No One Around For Miles and There’s an Ax-wielding Psycho on the Loose. It’s a warning to the curious. Don’t do any of these things OR ELSE! You know it’s gonna end up bad. And that’s part of the attraction.

Most movies with a big ol’ Don’t in their title promise a gory flick featuring some dumb numb nuts sophomore who ignores the advice on the poster ends up kebabbed by nightfall. The idea is simple—stick to the rules or end up dead. It’s a well-worn trope: the myth of Eve and the apple, or Bluebeard’s latest squeeze snooping in the closets, or the enquiring Pandora opening that goddam box of hers. Hindsight’s great but not when you’re dead—for Pete’s sake just don’t do it.

But we all do.

And that’s all part of the thrill—waiting to see what happens when someone answers the call from Mr. Slice ‘n’ Dice or goes out into the woods one moonlit night in their scanties (as you do…) never to return. These are tales to make us aware of possible dangers no matter how bizarre. To make us feel protective, and vow never to be oh, so dumb. Yet, somehow they can seem like fears from an age when things were, shall we say, more straightforward and death wasn’t just one disgruntled shooter or suicide vest away. Horror movies can’t compete with real life horror—but that kinda takes all the fun away. Here, with the emphasis on fun and cheap thrills, is a selection of all the things you really don’t want to do…or maybe, just maybe, you do…?
 
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Don’t Go in the House’ (1979).
 
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Don’t Go in the Attic’ (2010).
 
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Don’t Open the Window’ (1974).
 
More handy tips on the ‘Dont’s’ of movie posters, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.26.2019
08:58 am
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The Man Who Fell to Earth: David Bowie tries to fly, fails, 1973
06.21.2019
02:25 pm
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David Bowie getting up close with his fans on stage at Salisbury City Hall in Salisbury, England on June 14th, 1973.
 

“I thought, “This guy thinks he can fly.” There may be some acrobats could have handled that. He’s a pretty rubbery guy, but I know it was too high. He went flying past me at the piano and just wiped out.”

—Long-time Bowie pianist/keyboard player Mike Garson on Ziggy’s failed attempt at flying in 1973 (noted in the 2015 book David Bowie: The Golden Years).

The lucky souls in attendance for David Bowie’s performance at Salisbury City Hall on June 14th, 1973 would get to see him with the Spiders from Mars a few weeks before Bowie pulled the plug on his most famous alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust. They would also get to see Bowie attempt to take flight when he jumped from a speaker five feet above the stage, only to faceplant on the stage itself leaving a breathless audience wondering if the he was going to get up again.

Before the show, fans started arriving in glammed-out getups, and Ziggy-a-like hairdos. Those who got there early enough apparently got to sneak a look at Bowie hanging out in the foyer of the theater clad in a purple suit. As excitement was building for Bowie’s performance, an announcement boomed over the PA asking the rabble-rousing question “ARE YOU READY FOR BOWIE?” to which the already amped-up crowd answered “YEAH!” As Bowie and The Spiders from Mars were about to take the stage, they were given one more announcement from the announcer:

“Welcome to the fantastic and successful world tour including the United States of America, Japan, and now, his home country of the United Kingdom—David Bowie!”

During the show Bowie would, of course, make various costume changes including several designs created by Kansai Yamamoto, such as his asymmetric knitted, one-leg bodysuit (pictured above) and an elaborate cloak decorated with kanji characters which Bowie would also wear during the Aladdin Sane tour. Under the massive cloak, Bowie had yet another surprise for his fans—Yamamoto’s famous “Woodland Creatures” bodysuit which, when he wasn’t facing the crowd, gave the audience a look at his thin, white butt cheeks. After a short break, so fans could go scoop up merch (after spending a mere £2.50p per ticket mind you), Bowie and The Spiders would return and whip through a few more jams including a cover of the Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” At some point during this part of the show, Bowie climbed to the top of a PA stack on stage. According to one fan who was there, Bowie stood momentarily on the top of the PA’s with his arms outstretched and, perhaps channeling his pal Iggy Pop, or a bird, lept to the stage. As noted by piano player Mike Garson, for a few short moments it did appear as though David Bowie was flying until he hit the stage. As Bowie was always pretty much an actual superhero in real life, he would continue the show with a limp before exiting once more before the encore.

When he returned to the stage to chants of “WE WANT DAVID” Bowie brought a chair as he could no longer stand after his flying/stage diving mishap before kicking into two more covers: the Velvet Underground’s “White Light White Heat,” and Chuck Berry’s “Round & Round.” As he was introducing the Berry cover, he gave his fans an update about his injuries:

“Personally I think I’ve broken my ankle. No, not really, but it hurts a bit. If you wanna make this next one work, you’ve gotta work together, ‘cause I’m gonna do this one sitting down. This is an old one by Chuck Berry, and it’s called “Round & Round.”

You can hear some really, really rough audio of the show below, though it’s nearly impossible to tell exactly what’s happening or when Bowie’s short flight came to an end.
 

Super rough audio of the show at Salisbury City Hall on June 14th, 1973.

Posted by Cherrybomb
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06.21.2019
02:25 pm
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Rebel Without Applause: That time Sir John Gielgud got busted for cruising
06.19.2019
07:02 am
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Being invested with a knighthood can have its advantages. The media will take a knight more seriously and give credence to their pronouncements no matter how inane. Financial services are generally easier to obtain. And there is the potential to be excused of questionable activities, no matter how criminal.

When the illustrious actor John Gielgud was awarded a knighthood in June 1953, he wrote to his friend Edith Evans to say that he “was very proud to be in such noble company,” and hoped to do his best and “be a credit to you all.”

Four months later, Gielgud was arrested for “importuning” an undercover police officer in a public convenience. He described this incident as a “moment of madness” that could have destroyed his career.

Gielgud waited a long time for his knighthood. He had been an international star of stage and film for over thirty years. He had starred in a record-breaking production of Hamlet on Broadway and caused a sensation in the lead of Romeo and Juliet in London’s West End. His contemporaries Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson had already been knighted by the time Gielgud received his honor—even though he was arguably the better, more respected and longer-serving actor. One can only assume that part of the reason for this delay came from suspicions over Gielgud’s long-time status as a well-known bachelor. This was something which had been a subject for comment and innuendo as far back as 1931, when in a eulogy to Gielgud’s performances in Romeo and Juliet and J. B. Priestley’s The Good Companions, some dignitary named Justice Langton commented that although “Mr. Gielgud [was] still unmarried” (nudge-nudge, wink, wink) he hoped the actor would “soon meet with not only a Good Nymph but a Constant Companion.”

Gielgud was gay at a time when homosexuality in Britain was punishable by a fine, or imprisonment, or chemical castration—as what happened to the code-breaking war hero Alan Turing. Gielgud was highly discreet about his sexual orientation. Not from fear of imprisonment but to avoid upsetting his mother.

In 1951, the Conservative Party won the general election and Winston Churchill was returned to office to serve his second term as Prime Minister. Churchill had high hopes for his premiership with plans to develop Britain’s “special relationship” with America and maintain the country’s position as the third major force in the world. At home, the Conservatives were preoccupied with building a new future. However, Churchill was old and his health poor. In 1953, he suffered a mini-stroke. Rather than retiring, he continued with his obligations as Prime Minister much to frustration of his deputy Anthony Eden. Under the Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, the Tories seemed obsessed with a “plague of sodomy” which they believed gripped the country. Buggers were everywhere—or so it seemed to Fyffe. He became determined to “rid England of this male vice … this plague.” The press were encouraged to manufacture homophobic hysteria among the public by which the police could use their full force to arrest and intimidate gay men. Prosecutions for “gross indecency between men” rose by almost 500% to 5,443 under Fyffe’s charge.

The law stipulated that a man could be arrested for merely the intent of committing an act of “gross indecency.” Bars and clubs were raided, phones bugged, suspected homosexuals placed under police surveillance and officers were sent undercover to entrap men in public locations such as toilets which were known for cruising or rather cottaging.
 
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Gielgud in his Oscar-winning role as Hobson in ‘Arthur’ with Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli.
 
On the night of Tuesday October 20th, fired up by a few drinks and after a long day’s rehearsal on the play A Day by the Sea, Gielgud popped into his local public convenience on the off chance of some sex. There at the urinal lurked an undercover policeman to whom Gielgud unfortunately gave the “glad eye.” How he knew this unassuming young man was up for a bit of cock fun—one can only surmise. As the great Alan Bennett once joked, pointing percy at the porcelain for twenty minutes is a performance that merits an Oscar or a Tony—more often a Tony than an Oscar in such circumstances. Gielgud was arrested and taken to Chelsea police station where he gave his name as “Arthur Gielgud” and his occupation as “a clerk earning £1,000 a year.” He was charged with “importuning” and ordered to appear in court the following morning.

That night, Gielgud contemplated suicide. Though he reckoned his career was over, his greatest concern was the effect his arrest would have on his mother:

I thought it might kill her. She hated publicity of any kind. Thank God my father had died before that because he would never have got over it.

 
More dear Johnny, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.19.2019
07:02 am
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