Daniel Grabner’s 2003 documentary Haschich is a fascinating look into the world of hashish artisans living in Ketama, Morocco.
Simple yet filled with detail, the film reveals the daily rituals revolving around the production and business of hash and the centuries-old society of the men who make it. For many of us, hashish evokes a certain exotic mystique, but Grabner’s film shows us that the production of hashish is as ordinary as the work clothes worn by its producers. The end result may be something sought out by connoisseurs of mind-altering smoke willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a finger-sized chunk of Moroccan Caramello, but the process of its creation is far less romantic than the dreams that smoke will generate.
Beautifully photographed and with a lovely soundtrack of traditional Moroccan music, Haschich is so intimate that you can practically smell and taste the sweetness of its subject.
Considering how much I love the shit out of Daevid Allen and Gong, I’ve only posted about them once before on DM??? How can that be?
Well then, here’s to making up for that grievous oversight with something so fucking good it might cause you to have an out-of-body experience: Two insanely great live Gong performances from French television in 1973 on a show called Rockenstock.
First, the band do a ripping version of “I’ve Never Been Glid” that sounds extremely close to the studio version on Angels Egg except that Daevid Allen mischievously changes the song’s last line, “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and have a cup of tea see” to “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and smoke another roach.” (“Glidding” is how the Pot Head Pixes fly the teapots, if you are confused…)
I love the way that Allen’s trippy hippy dancing seems to “conduct” the group. Dig Steve Hillage’s “lewd guitar, Pierre Moerlen’s drums (the man was a god of rhythmic pounding, up there with Jaki Liebezeit), Tim Blake’s spacey VCS3 and synth-work, the great Mike Howlett’s booming, tight, bass-lines and Didier Malherbe’s anarchic sax riffs. This is Gong at the height of their power and they absolutely crush it..
After the jump, “space whisperer” Gilli Smyth performs a mind-melting version of “Witch’s Song/I Am Your Pussy” from Flying Teapot.
This short film created by a collective of film makers, writers, and actors in Boise, Idaho may be the best horror movie of 2011. It’s certainly one of the most intelligent.
Three sad couch potatoes find comfort in the familiar commercials they watch every day of their boring lives. Their reality comes at them in 30 second bursts of hypnotic, frantic and indelible visual and audio propaganda. In the Television Commercial Network, they have found their perfect drug: a station where non-stop jingles, slogans and catch-phrases, assault the viewer with promises of better things to come while reminding us of just how shitty things are right now. They have pills that will make you feel better if they don’t kill you. They have food that will satisfy your cravings for instant gratification while filling your body with the same kind of toxic sludge that the commercials are injecting into your brain matter. The whole fucking thing is insidious.
How many Americans diagnose themselves as having physical and mental problems as a result of seeing countless upon countless commercials pitching drugs for depression and erectile dysfunction? Suddenly millions of perfectly healthy men are suffering from performance anxiety and taking mood elevators to deal with it. As women are made to feel neurotic about their weight, age and beauty. We’re being sold products that pit us against nature and if we’re not winning we’re not fully human.
As TCN reveals, the commercials are a drug, which eventually need to be countered by another drug in order to cope and feel better. And if you don’t leave the room or medicate yourself to a far off island, today’s quick cut frantic back to back commercials of corporate snuff, pill popping propaganda and padded butt panties, will easily leave you suffering from similar effects to that of a horrible acid trip.
You can read more about the folks who made this video at their website: American Films. They’re part of a group of absurdist video artists who are keeping it real and unreal in Idaho.
The Commercial Network exists right now. Turn on your TV set late at night. What do you see? And how long can you watch it before you lose all sense of who you are?
Newt Gingrich falls under the spell of psychedelic pioneer Terence McKenna.
As McKenna speaks, Gingrich tries to maintain his equilibrium as subliminal broadcasts from DMT Radio (space is the place) activate the naturally occurring psychedelics (tryptamine) in Newt’s brain. Secret mystical teachings of love and peace are encoded in his nervous system for subsequent activation on 12/21/2012.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
I was foresaken by rock and roll in the early 1970s. Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Brian Jones had died. The Beatles disintegrated. The Byrds broke-up and then reunited to record their worst album. The Stones released their last great one. The Who were making tedious, bombastic operas choked with bad symbolism and simple minded metaphors. Pink Floyd took the brown acid and became boring. The Dave Clark Five became Dave Clark and Friends. Phil Spector went into seclusion. Elvis went to the White House to shake Nixon’s hand. Bob Dylan went Nashville. Brian Wilson went mad and Arthur Lee wasn’t too far behind.
Top 40 radio was in dire need of a Rotor-Rooter. The pipelines were full of excremental sludge consisting of some of the worst songs to be sprung from the a-hole of rock n’ roll.
“A Horse With No Name” - America
“The Candy Man” - Sammy Davis Jr.
“Joy To The World” - Three Dog Night
“One Bad Apple” - The Osmonds
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” - John Denver
“Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Old Oak Tree” -Tony Orlando & Dawn
” Bad Bad Leroy Brown” - Jim Croce
“The Way We Were” - Barbra Streisand
“Seasons In The Sun” - Terry Jacks
“The Streak” - Ray Stevens
“One Hell Of A Woman” - Mac Davis
All of the above were best-selling singles from 1971-74, all of them appearing in the Top Ten.
And when it came to rock criticism, Robert Christgau’s insulting and utterly clueless one-line review of Tim Buckley’s masterful 1970 release Starsailor is one of the most odious things that sandal-wearing beatnik ever wrote:
A man who was renowned for his Odetta impressions on Jac Holzman’s folkie label switches to Frank Zappa’s art-rock label, presumably so he can do Nico impressions.
Yes kids, it was a wasteland. If it was some fresh badass rock and roll you were looking for, you had to look hard. If you were lucky, you found Iggy… and eventually you’d come upon a few other shards of light within the shitstorm: Marc Bolan’s Electric Warrior and Roxy Music’s debut album, with Lou Reed’s Transformer and Ziggy not far behind. The guys with the make-up, glitter and hairspray brought something essential back to rock and roll: big hooks, guitars, a little danger and sex.
I took a pass on Bowie. Reed, as a Velvet, was already a hero. Roxy music knocked me out, but it was Marc Bolan that blew me way. Everything about T. Rex worked for me : the chugging guitar riffs, undeniable hooks, propulsive tribal rhythms, sassy vocals, surreal alliterative lyrics and Marc’s pimped out fashion sense. It all came together with a certain inspired savoir faire. Bolan, like Hendrix, Chuck Berry and Elvis, exploded fully formed out of the rock and roll godhead. He was one for the ages. His influence reached far and deep, inspiring and setting the stage for The Ramones, The Runaways, Blondie, The Clash and The Sex Pistols.
Marc Bolan:The Final Word is a BBC documentary that provides a fairly detailed overview of Bolan’s life. It’s narrated by Suzi Quatro and features contributions from his companion Gloria Jones, brother Harry Feld, producer Tony Visconti, Queen’s Roger Taylor, Steve Harley, Zandra Rhodes and more.
By god, it’s true. From Tom Jones’ TV variety show circa 1969. Tom seems to be inspiring a certain level of vocal enthusiasm from the other fellas here. Even the untouchably cool Neil Young seems inspired by the odd pairing. I never knew…
Filmed during the Summer Of Love (1967) in the Haight-Ashbury, this groovy documentary features commentary from visionary poet Michael McClure, footage of The Grateful Dead hanging out at their Ashbury Street home, a visit to The Psychedelic Bookshop, The Straight Theater, scenes from McClure’s play The Beard and rare shots of the bard of The Haight, Richard Brautigan, walking through Panhandle Park in all of his glorious splendor.
A 23-year-old South African woman was caught smuggling 3.3 lbs of cocaine into Thailand by hiding the drugs in her dreadlocks!
That much coke on your head would make for a very numb skull, wouldn’t it? That might explain why this numb-skull tried to import 3.3 lbs of coke into Thailand, a country known for enforcing harsh penalties on drug smugglers, including death.
Late last month in Mexico City, Alejandro Jodorowsky organized the “March of the Skulls” to disperse negative energy caused by the death toll of the nation’s drug war. Nearly 40,000 Mexicans have died drug war related deaths in the past five years. The advance billing for the November 27th event described it as “the first act of collective psycho-magic in Mexico” and it attracted nearly 3000 people who donned skeleton masks, face-paint, tops hats. Some marchers carried black versions of the Mexican flag and shouted “Long live the dead!”
The “maestro” arrived at the palace steps about 1:30 p.m., causing brief havoc among the gathered calaveras as people jostled to get near him. The white-haired Jodorowsky, fit and agile at 82, wore a black sports coat, a bright purple scarf and a detailed skull mask.
Along with his family, Jodorowsky led the calaveras up the Eje Central avenue to Plaza Garibaldi in a mostly silent demonstration. In the late 1980s, he filmed some key scenes of “Santa Sangre” at this plaza, homebase for the city’s for-hire mariachi bands. On Sunday, it was easy to imagine another “Santa Sangre” scene being filmed during the march, but this time from a dark and unfamiliar future.
Someone decided the group should sing a song. It became “La Llorona,” the Weeping Woman.
Jodorowsky was displeased with the group’s initial interpretation, so he asked for another go at it. A mariachi band joined in as accompaniment.
“There are 50,000 dead beings,” Jodorowsky said through a bullhorn, before the sea of skulls. “They are sheep. They are not black sheep. We must have mercy for these souls that have disappeared. Let’s sing this song with lament, as if we were the mother of one of these persons. Understand?”
Then he asked that all those present cross and link their arms with those of the strangers around them. The group did. They chanted “Peace, peace, peace!” until Jodorowsky asked that everyone let out a big laugh. Laughter and applause followed.
You have to love that the wiley shaman did the old “c’mon you guys can do better” routine and made them sing it again!
After the jump, a news report about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s November 27, 2011 Psychomagic event in Mexico.
except that Daevid Allen mischievously changes the song’s last line, “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and have a cup of tea see” to “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and smoke another roach.” (“Glidding” is how the Pot Head Pixes fly the teapots, if you are confused…)
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