Dangerous Minds pal, LA-based architect John Bertram is doing another cover design contest at his Nabokov-obsessed Venus febriculosa blog. This time, entrants are being asked to make a mash-up between the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon:
Publication of the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013 will mark one the most anticipated events in the mental health field, replacing the current edition, DSM-IV-TR. DSM is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States and contains a listing of diagnostic criteria for every psychiatric disorder recognized by the US healthcare system.
2013 also marks the 40th anniversary of the release of one of the best-selling albums of all time: The Dark Side of the Moon by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. DSoM is also one of the most recognizable album covers ever, designed by Hipgnosis partners Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell and created by associate George Hardie. Thorgerson also designed the cover for the 20th Anniversary box set edition, and also participated in the design of the 30th Anniversary 5.1 channel surround sound mix on the SACD format.
The purpose of the contest is to explore the interrelationship between these two very different works. Submissions may be in the form of a book cover or CD/DVD for the DSM-5 and/or an album cover or CD/DVD for the 40th Anniversary of the Dark Side of the Moon or a “mashup” of both works.
Entries are dues Friday, April 1, 2011. Complete information and rules here.
There will be at least one prize of $671 US for the winning entry. There may also be several interesting non-cash prizes for entries worthy of special mention.
“Good, clean professional wrestling, the way it used to be!” plus Jesus!
This is one of the most hilarious things I’ve seen on the Internet in… I dunno, at least several hours? Just about every spectrum of goofy is covered in this decidedly unironic clip. About 60 seconds in, when the guy is describing his aches and pains—wait for it—it’s genius. If the actual dialogue here was goosed up maybe 5% by a comedy writer, it would have amazing potential as a sitcom.
But this is real. Get these Christian Wrestling Federation guys a reality show! You can’t say this wouldn’t play to an exceptionally large swath of the American public! Imagine the drama (and ratings!) when one of them comes out! Basic cable gold, these guys. If truTV don’t sign these fellows up, they’re leaving money on the table.
Imagine Bernie Worrell jammin’ on a Gameboy, and you’re kind of close to the unique sound of Ben Butler & Mouse Pad. Taking cues from chip-tune, jazz-funk, video games, electro (old and new), 80’s soundtracks, progressive rock and years of formal piano lessons, it references lots of music from the past but sounds like it only could have come from the present.
Ben Butler & Mouse Pad is essentially the work of one man, Joe Howe. Having previously produced an album for the Scottish indie guru Momus (Joemus) and been a part of the Glasgow-based art-spazz electro/trash duo Gay Against You, BB&MP sees Joe focusing on the music he loves the most. Heavily influenced by the Scandinavian Skwee scene, and filtered through his uber lo-fi set up of two tiny keyboards and a laptop, it’s synthy, it’s dirty and it’s ridiculously funky to boot. This guy is like a Herbie Hancock for the Scott Pilgrim generation.
So I should get the nepotism aspect out of the way - I sang the vocal on Ben Butler & Mouse Pad’s debut single “Infinite Capacity (For Love)”, which was released on LOAF in the UK and online in November of last year. But I really don’t care - I would write about Ben Butler even if he hated my guts, as he and his music are the absolute shit. Other vocalists on the upcoming debut album include the main man again, Momus and San Fransiscan rapper Hawnay Troof. You can listen to “Infinite Capacity (For Love)”, with remixes form Dam Mantle, Fulgeance and Dolby Anol, over on Niallism. In the meantime, here’s a video for ‘Supermotion’ made by Charlotte Carden and Gavin Laing:
Ben Butler & Mouse Pad are currently touring the States as support act for the equally awesome Deerhoof. If you get a chance to check out one of these shows, then do. A full list of tour dates are here.
Infinite Capacity (For Love) EP is available now to download via Amazon.co.uk.
There are more releases for sale or just listening on the BB&MP Bandcamp, including the recently released Worm EP, recorded at Worm/CEM Studios, Rotterdam, June 2010 on all analog gear.
Gotta revolution if you want it. Click here and watch the future unfold in real time on your computer. The concept that we’re all in this together has never been truer or more immediate. Governments, Egypt’s and our own, are playing catch up. Information is power and it makes us all equal.
Previously on The President Reagan Show, he told a Time magazine reporter that he sometimes feels trapped in the White House: “You glance out the window and the people are walking around Pennsylvania Avenue and you say, ‘I could never say I am going to run down to the drugstore and get some magazines.’ I can’t do that anymore.”
10/12/82 White House spokesman Larry Speakes to the press: “You don’t tell us how to stage the news, and we don’t tell you how to report it.”
10/19/82 During a White House meeting with Arab leaders, President Reagan turns to the Lebanese foreign minister. “You know,” he says, “your nose looks just like Danny Thomas’s.”
11/11/82 President Reagan explains that his proposed five-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax would not be a tax at all. “It would be,” he explains, “a user fee.”
11/25/82 Larry Speakes chooses Thanksgiving as the ideal moment to announce that the White House is considering a proposal (conceived by Ed Meese) to tax unemployment benefits. This, says Speakes, would “make unemployment less attractive.”
11/26/82 Ed Meese denies that taxing unemployment benefits has been seriously considered, though he can’t help adding, “We do know that generally when unemployment benefits end, most people find jobs very quickly.”
12/4/82 President Reagan returns home from his five-day trip to Latin America. “Well, I learned a lot,” he tells reporters. “You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries.” An aide is soon sent out to explain that the President certainly didn’t mean to imply that he was surprised by this.
12/9/82 Discussing his feelings of confinement with a reporter for People magazine, President Reagan says, “Sometimes I look out there at Pennsylvania Avenue and see people bustling along, and it suddenly dawns on me that probably never again can I just say, ‘Hey, I’m going down to the drugstore to look at the magazines.’”
12/15/82 Literary agent Bill Adler announces that The Deaver Diet, recounting the White House aide’s 35‑pound weight loss, will be published in early 1984. Adler says the book will consist of 75% diet, 20% exercise and 5% “inspiration.”
12/16/82 Spontaneously conveying one of his regrets to a Washington Post reporter, President Reagan says, “I sometimes look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can’t do that anymore.”
12/18/82 Sharing a sudden thought with a radio interviewer, President Reagan says, “I sometimes look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can’t do that anymore.”
All entries are excerpted from the “Reagan Centennial Edition” of my 1989 book The Clothes Have No Emperor, available here as an enhanced eBook. More to come.
As habitual readers of Dangerous Minds know, when I do “product reviews” I try to stay away from debating the merits of the music of “classic rock” acts because, frankly who cares what I think about Neil Young or The Beatles? As for me, I really don’t care what you or anyone else has to say about their music, either. If you don’t like Young or the Fab Four, too bad, buddy, I just can’t help you. They’re awesome, and it’s been long ago settled. Done.
But what I do care about is: Does it sound/look good? Is this newest version a significant upgrade from the last “definitive collector’s edition” they put out? And most importantly, “Is it really worth shelling out the money for this sucker if I’ve already bought this goddamned album in several obsolete audio formats, including 8-track tapes?”
Admittedly, oft-times the answer is “No.” (I don’t think the newly released Tommy Blu-ray sounds all that great, for instance. The surround mix of David Bowie’s Station to Station album is just terrible). Other times the answer is a resounding “Yes!” as in the case of the newly restored Criterion Collection Blu-ray of The Monkees’ psychedelic opus, Head.
Head was written and produced by Bob Rafelson (co-creator of The Monkees) and Jack Nicholson, and directed by Rafelson. The film aimed to deconstruct the “manufactured” image that the Monkees wished to leave behind far behind them in 1968. The group wander through a number of surrealistic scenes, Hollywood sound stages and trippy pop art musical production numbers. Along the way, they encounter the likes of Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Annette Funicello, Terri Garr, stripper Carol Doda, Frank Zappa, Toni Basil, fighter Sonny Liston, and weirdo character actor Timothy Carey. Victor Mature, an over the hill actor known for appearing in Biblical epics and sword and sandals films, played a King Kong-sized version of himself (I’m not old enough to have much context for Victor Mature, but the way I take it is that he’s playing himself in a “human punch-line” kind of way, something that will no doubt be lost on future audiences for whom he’ll just appear to be a weird old giant who appears appropos of nothing).
Head was initially released with a mysterious advertising campaign that never mentioned the Monkees and instead featured the head of a balding man (John Brockman, future literary super agent). The Monkees’ teenbopper fan base must have been mighty confused. These were still the Monkees they loved, but what was with all the lysergic Marshall McLuhan stuff, the Viet Nam footage and the hookahs? Head is an audio-visual mindfuck. Head was a total flop.
Head’s reputation grew during a couple of national CBS late night TV airings in the 1970s. A VHS was released in the mid-80s during the revival of interest in the group brought on by MTV screening The Monkees for a new generation. Today Head is properly considered a odd milestone in Hollywood history—it’s one of the highest budgeted rock films of the era and one of the first counter culture films to be produced by the studio system. What a stylish time capsule of the era it is! In his liner notes, Chuck Stephens called Head, “the Ulysses of a hip New Hollywood about to be born.” What he said!
I’d have to say that of all of the various music related Blu-rays discs that have passed through my BD player since I got it last year, Head is the very best of all. It’s THE thing I’d reach for to geekily demonstrate my sound system for a guest. Seldom are things done this right, but when you consider that it’s Criterion behind this issue of Head, of course it makes more sense. I have no doubt that seeing this new Criterion version on a large HD screen with a good surround system is a superior experience even to seeing it in a movie theatre when it was first released. How could it have been better then? 42-years after Head’s initial release, we have the technology!
So, is it a significant upgrade from the Rhino DVD of Head, still on the market? Hell, yes. There’s simply no comparison, either in the video quality—Rhino’s DVD sucks on that count, they used a scratchy fullscreen print, whereas Criterion’s disc is letterboxed and immaculate, transferred from a 35mm negative—or in the audio department, either, as Head has been gloriously remixed in 5.1 surround. Holy shit did they do an amazing job with the audio.
Head’s opening moment, where Micky Dolenz runs through the dedication ceremony and jumps off the bridge, has, of course, as its soundtrack, one of the greatest numbers the Monkees ever did, “Porpoise Song.” The pristine quality of that scene’s solarized underwater footage combined with the HD DTS surround mix is nothing short of astonishing. Visually, it’s like looking at a stained-glass window. The audio is deeply immersive—like you’re standing in the midst of a strange waterlogged orchestra—and the video so vibrant that I must’ve played that one scene ten times in a row before moving on to “Circle Sky.” Again I wasn’t disappointed, the group’s presence is immediate and electrifying—Head’s performance of “Circle Sky” is the first time a “live” rock performance was used in a Hollywood film. I’ll say it again, they usually never get it this right. As far as slick audio/visual products go, Criterion’s Head deserves a special award.
At the moment, Head is only available as part of the Criterion Collection box set America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. Although the rest of the films in the set—Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, The King of Marvin Gardens, Drive, He Said and the first ever release of Henry Jaglom’s A Safe Place (with Nicholson, Tuesday Weld, Orson Welles and Dangerous Minds pal Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theatre)—are all worthy, frankly I’d sooner have just had Head. Although it’s not on their current release schedule, I’m sure Criterion will release Head solo on Blu-ray soon enough. Surely the word of mouth, in the meantime, will continue to spread.
[A personal anecdote here: In 1994, I met Micky Dolenz and his (super cute) daughter Ami, at the Whisky Bar in New York. He was really cool and a gas to talk to, but after about 20 minutes I sheepishly revealed to him that although I could not have possibly had any forewarning that I was going to meet him, earlier that day I’d actually bought a CD of the Head soundtrack that I had in my coat pocket. The conversation got slightly awkward for a minute until I changed the subject and he politely allowed me to do so. I got the feeling that he had about as much desire to talk about something he’d done 30 years ago as most people would.]
Below, one of the best musical numbers in Head, Mike Nesmith’s powerful “Circle Sky.” Who says The Monkees weren’t a good live band? Also. keep in mind as you watch this, that as cool as this clip is, it’s still a pale comparison to the crisp, vibrant new Criterion Blu-ray release with six channels of audio coming at you:
This new tune from singer-songwriter Molly Lewis is a delight:
On YouTube, one of the highest compliments you can pay someone is telling them that you want to have their babies. This song isn’t necessarily about that.
I adore Stephen Fry, and think that our gene pool would be better with his traits running around in it.
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. Although the rest of the films in the set—Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, The King of Marvin Gardens, Drive, He Said and the first ever release of Henry Jaglom’s A Safe Place (with Nicholson, Tuesday Weld, Orson Welles and Dangerous Minds pal Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theatre)—are all worthy, frankly I’d sooner have just had Head. Although it’s not on their current release schedule, I’m sure Criterion will release Head solo on Blu-ray soon enough. Surely the word of mouth, in the meantime, will continue to spread.
