Yesterday I posted about something that I did not know about until that morning, thanks to one of our readers: Iggy Pop’s guest appearance as a Vorta on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Today brings another “I did not know that”: The JohnnyCash Money Machine courtesy of Canada Trust Bank. This short-lived promotion happened in 1985.
One more JohnnyCash Money Machine commercial after the jump…
Hard to believe but it’s forty years since Roxy Music released their debut single “Virginia Plain” and made an unforgettable appearance on Top of the Pops. It was a moment that influenced a generation, the same way David Bowie had earlier the same year, when he seductively draped his arm over Mick Ronson’s shoulder as they sang “Starman” together. It was a moment of initiation, when millions of British youth had shared a seminal cultural experience by watching television.
Of all the programs on air in 1972, by far the most influential was Top of the Pops., and Roxy Music’s arrival on the show was like time travelers bringing us the future sound of music.
Listening to “Virginia Plain” today, it hard to believe that it wasn’t record last week and has just been released.
This documentary on Roxy Music has all the band members (Ferry, Manzanera, MacKay, Eno, etc) and a who’s who of musicians (Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Jones, and Roxy biographer, Michael Bracewell), who explain the band’s importance and cultural relevance. Roxy Music have just released The Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982 available here.
Hot on the heels of his last video opus, the magnificent “Earthquake” (which we posted about here), SSION, aka Cody Critcheloe, is back with another clip taken from last year’s excellent Bent long-player.
Both the music and the video styles are different this time round, with the slick dance-pop sounds of “Earthquake” and “My Love Grows In The Dark” eschewed in favor of a darker, electro-rock sound and a straight-to-camera performance. There’s hints of Suicide in here, and also 90s industrial music. SSION’s gender-bending edge remains intact though, with the particularly fine shortening of the Marshall amp logo to simply “Marsha”.
As Cody mentioned in his exclusive DM interview from the start of the year, he plans to make a video for every song on Bent, and it looks like he’s going to make that happen. He has already been teasing his fans with still from the video for the track “Psy-Chic”, possibly my favorite on the album, and there’s an open casting call for folks to star in the video for “Luvvbazaar”. But for now, we’ll just have to do with this:
SSION “Feelz Good (4-Evr)”
As I have mentioned numerous times on here, SSION’s Bent was one of my favorite albums of last year, and I actually included “Feelz Good (4-Evr)” on my Dangerous Minds round up of the best music from 2011. Here it is again for those that missed it:
Yesterday (August 1) was Tommy Bolin’s birthday and I had intended to post this video then…but it slipped through the net. My bad. Anyway, better late than never.
Here’s a promotional video for Zephyr, Bolin’s band in Boulder, Colorado during the late 1960s/early 70s. You can’t imagine how fucking radical Zephyr were at a time and place in which everybody was on a perpetual rocky mountain high and grooving to easy listening music for hippies like Poco, Firefall and John Denver. Loud, badass and dangerous, Zephyr was the first genuine hard rock band to originate in Boulder. Mine was the second. But Zephyr flamed-out as quickly as they hit the scene, leaving very little behind other than a couple of impressive albums (Zephyr and Going Back to Colorado) and some shitty looking videos.
I knew Tommy when we both lived in Boulder. We were the same age, musicians, freaks, and shared similar vices. In a town dominated by well-to-do backpackers in hiking boots, students and ski bums, we were the only ones wearing platform shoes and dyeing our hair in pinks and blues. Even in a city known for being somewhat open-minded, we managed to shock and appall the locals. It was Bolin that inspired me to purchase a pair of leopard print high heeled boots. I wore them in a video for my band The Nails, 15 years after first buying them.
I remember visiting Tommy at a suburban ranch house in a very unhip part of Boulder. It was the only time I spent with him alone. The house was as dark as a vampire’s nest, heavy drapes covered the windows and the hum of Bolin’s amplifier penetrated the heavy air with a pentode om. He came to the door wearing a black silk robe. He was as pale and ethereal as a ghost. I laid out a few lines of Peruvian flake and hung out while the shit kicked in. He nodded his head approvingly and we did a half dozen more hits. The coke was pure and smooth and we felt young and unstoppable… at least I did. Tommy, though, had this haunted quality about him that made him seem much older than he was. He was barely in his twenties, but he could appear ancient, a being of multiple incarnations. If, as the brujo Don Juan claims, death is astride our left shoulder at all times, than Bolin was wearing his mortality like a swashbuckling pirate wears a majestic parrot. It wasn’t hard to miss.
When Tommy died in 1976 I wasn’t surprised. Deeply sad but not surprised. I try to imagine what he would be like as an old man, but I already know. Like I said, he was ancient.
Candy Givens - vocal
David Givens - bass
John Faris - keyboards
Robbie Chamberlain - drums
Tommy Bolin - guitar
Paul covered in colored powder during the Holi festival.
In April of 1968, British rock magazine “Disc And Music Echo” ran these photos of The Beatles’ visit to the Maharishi. Included in some of the shots are girlfriends, wives and friends.
George, Paul, Shah Jahan (who entertains the star guests), Donovan, Pattie Harrison, John and flautist friend Paul Horn.
I’m having an “I did not know this” moment right now. Apparently Iggy Pop guest-starred on an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1998 as a Vorta overseer named “Yelgrun” from the planet Kurill Prime.
Again, I shall repeat, “I did not know this.”
Below, a video montage of Iggy’s most memorable scenes as “Yelgrun” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “The Magnificent Ferengi.”
I suppose it was while idling to the sound of John Peel that I first heard Blancmange—the vastly under-rated synth pop duo of Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe. This must have been spring 1982 or thereabouts. No doubt I’d have been lying on my bed listening to Peel on the radio, smoking and reading Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler or the latest Spider-man rather than studying or writing essays or prepping for tutorials—you know the lark. Life was young and there were adventures to be gained.
This was part of the great attraction to Blancmange. Firstly they had a strange name which Luscombe explains as a kick back against the earnest sincerity of the great coat wearing youth who dominated music at that time and looked like they modeled their lives on the gritty black and white imagery of Anton Corbjin.
The name Blancmange was cheery - as was Arthur & Luscombe’s nickname the Maiden Aunts.
Blancmange was a comforting yet slightly bizarre name. It conjured up the image of a food that is neither jelly nor mousse but actually from the cake family and was originally made from chicken as a remedy for illness. But now best known as some kind of white or pink wobbly gooey dessert made with milk and gelatin. This strangeness fitted perfectly.
So the name appealed and the accompanying music only increased my pleasure. The first two singles—the double A-side “God’s Kitchen”/”I’ve Seen the Word” and “Feel Me,” a twelve-bar dance record, were fresh and exciting. But it was their third single “Living on the Ceiling” that informed the nation and invited Blancmange into the sitting room.
Their music was quirky, original, and fun. The best songs had lyrics that connected with a mood or a feeling that guaranteed a rerun on some subliminal soundtrack.
Luscombe and Arthur were knowingly arty without being pretentious. You knew they enjoyed films with subtitles, had read Camus but probably liked Night of the Living Dead, Derek Jarman, Edith Sitwell, The Crazies and who knows—Knut Hamsun? They also had an album cover that referenced Louis Wain. They were suburban, smart, sophisticated yet somehow quite edgy.
More from Stephen Luscombe plus promos, after he jump…
01. Return To Sender
02. In The Ghetto
03. Blue Moon
04. Fever
05. It’s Now Or Never
06. Baby I Don’t Care
07. Suspicious Minds
08. I’ll Remember You
09. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
10. Crying In The Chapel
Years before the Runaways or the Go-Gos, there was pioneering “chick rock” band, Fanny. Fanny was formed in 1969 by teenaged guitarist-singer June Millington, with her sister Jean and drummer Alice de Buhr, as “Wild Honey.” When Nickey Barclay, a keyboard player who toured with Joe Cocker’s infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen group joined them, the group was renamed “Fanny.” (In the UK, where the word means “vagina” and not “butt” like it does in the USA, they were thought to be quite outrageous by radio programmers.)
Fanny was the first real female rock group signed to a major label (Reprise Records, the artists first label started by Frank Sinatra, who was the “Chairman of the Board”). They worked with famed producer Richard Perry (Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, etc) and later Todd Rundgren. They recorded at the Beatles’ Apple Studios and backed Barbara Streisand on her first “rock” album, Stoney End. They toured opening up for huge 70s acts like Slade, Jethro Tull and Humble Pie, but sadly, they are little more than a gender pioneer footnote today.
Fanny were nothing short of incredible, as you will hear, but they never made it as big as they should have.
David Bowie, in a 1999 Rolling Stone interview, said of the group:
“One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace. And that is Fanny. They were one of the finest… rock bands of their time, in about 1973. They were extraordinary: They wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful. They’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time. Revivify Fanny. And I will feel that my work is done”
Their biggest hits were “Charity Ball” and “Butter Boy.” Fanny broke up in 1975. Fanny bassist Jean MIllington later recorded and performed live with David Bowie. She is married to Bowie’s longtime guitarist, Earl Slick.
In 2002, Rhino Handmade released the excellent Fanny Rocks.
Above, performing “Charity Ball” on The Sonny & Cher Show in 1971.
