Veteran photographer Bob Gruen is responsible for some of the most iconic images in all of rock and roll history. His instantly recognizable shots of the Sex Pistols, New York Dolls, and John Lennon (to name just three of his subjects) are permanent parts of the pop culture oversoul.
Over his five decade career, Bob Gruen has captured the likes of Madonna, Elvis, Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Ike and Tina Turner, The Clash, and The Who. His first concert as a “pro” came when he used his camera to talk himself into the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, the concert when Bob Dylan infamously “went electric.”
Gruen was a close friend of Yoko Ono and John Lennon, serving more or less as Lennon’s personal photographer throughout the Seventies. His shot of John Lennon wearing the New York City t-shirt is probably his single most famous image, and the “Mona Lisa” of Big Apple tourist trap tee-shirts, according to the New York Times. Then there’s the one of Sid Vicious with the mustard covered hot dog, Blondie crawling out from under a car wreck, John Lennon in front of the Statue of Liberty. We could go on and on…
A new documentary about Bob Gruen’s life and work, Rock ‘N’ Roll Exposed: The Photography Of Bob Gruen, directed by another of the rock era’s most energetic chroniclers, Grammy award-winning filmmaker/musician/DJ Don Letts, recently premiered at the SXSW Film Festival.
Rock ‘N’ Roll Exposed is an illuminating document full of fascinating historic moments revolving around the time, people and places memorialized in Bob Gruen’s photographs. With his unprecedented access to John Lennon and Yoko Ono he was able to capture their lives on film with a familial intimacy and Zen-like immediacy. Gruen’s photographs tell stories and in the case of John and Yoko those stories get closer to the subjects than most of the dozen or more wordy volumes written about the couple.
With witty and insightful commentary from Gruen, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Legs McNeil, Tommy Ramone, Alice Cooper and more, Rock ‘N’ Roll Exposed is more than a nostalgic look at over several decades of pop music history. It is a testimony to the power of art to not only immortalize the past but to bring it immediately into the moment. Gruen’s photos are vital because they are so alive.
Combining live performance footage with studio sequences and fictionalized scenes, Hasta Que Se Ponga El Sol (rock until sundown) captures an exciting period in Argentina’s rock and roll history, a brief but liberating moment ablaze with creativity and youthful rebellion. Both an aesthetic and political statement, this vital document is social activism with a beat you can dance to.
Filmed in part on September of 1972 in Buenos Aires at the Olympia Theater, Hasta Que Se Ponga El Sol features legendary Argentinian prog rock, psychedelic, folk and blues bands raising their freak flags high at a time when the country was under the de facto military government of Lieutenant General Alejandro Lanusse. The mere fact that a Woodstock-like festival could occur in the country in 1972 is nothing short of miraculous. This all too fleeting escape from harsh reality was attended by thousands of kids who were craving a taste of rock and roll freedom and who were willing to take real chances to experience it. A decade later Lanusse, Peronism and The Dirty War would be consigned to the ash heap of history but rock and roll would remain in all its defiant glory.
Most of the bands featured in Hasta Que Se Ponga El Sol disbanded in the 70s but some re-united in the 1980s to perform for their fans in what might be described as a pop culture declaration of independence.
01. Color Humano - Larga Vida Al Sol
02. Color Humano - Coto De Caza(Cosas Rusticas)
03. Leon Gieco - Hombres De Hierro
04. Vox Dei - El Momento En Que Estas (Presente)
05. Vox Dei - Las Guerras
06. Vox Dei - Jeremias Pies de Plomo
07. Gabriela - Campesina Del Sol (with Edelmiro Molinari)
08. Billy Bond Y La Pesada Del Rock & Roll - Tontos
09. Claudio Gabis - Raga (with Isa Portugheis)
10. Orion’s Bethoveen - Nirmanakaya
11. Sui Generis - Cancion Para Mi Muerte
12. Litto Nebbia - El Bohemio (with Domingo Cura)
13. Litto Nebbia - Vamos Negro
14. Opiniones Del Publico (interviews with festival goers)
15. Pappo’s Blues - En Las Vias Del Ferrocarril
16. Pappo’s Blues - El Tren De Las 16
17. Pescado Rabioso - Ya Despiertate Nena
18. Pescado Rabioso - Corto
19. Pescado Rabioso - Post Crucifixion
20. Arco Iris - Hombre
My Dangerous Minds colleague, Niall O’Conghaile conducted this rather fab interview with the one and only Christeene, the legendary “drag terrorist” and “sexually infused sewer of live rap and vile shamelessness”, who is more than “capable of adapting amazingly well to all styles of music”. Very little is known about Christeene, who has famously seduced and outraged in equal measure an unforgettable career across the U.S.A., leaving broken hearts, devoted followers, and used bodies behind her. Now in an exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds, Christeene tells us all we need to know.
Who is Christeene and where does she come from / how did you meet her?
I met CHRISTEENE in the dirty backyard of a shit shack coffee shop here in Austin called Bouldin Creek during a queer gathering called camp camp. CHRISTEENE was wearing, only, a very messy black rabbit fur coat and a pair of pink junked out high heeled boots. It was love at first sight.
What would you say are the main differences between Paul and Christeene?
I’ll say that the differences are fewer and fewer these days, but the raunch and stank sexuality of CHRISTEENE is something that shifts when it comes back to me. There is a more gentle southern fella on the inside that carries a knife I’d say.
Does Christeene get on with Rebecca Havemeyer?
Only via snail mail, internet, and very brief encounters. They don’t do tea together or anything, but I’m sure it would be a helluva conversation if they did.
Christeene provokes some very strong reactions, good and bad, in both the LGBT press and the mainstream. How do you feel about those reactions? Is there anyone who gets it very well and anyone who gets it completely wrong?
I think that the reactions that come from this work are so very important and need to be heard. All of them. When it all first started with PJ Raval and myself releasing the video for ‘Fix My Dick’, there were a ton of negative comments…especially from this one person who I think of as a kind of internet comment bully….this lone typist who throws verbal missiles from the safety of their stank couch, ya know? This person was so very upset on so many levels…I was called racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, and the next Shirley Q Liquor. Wowee! This is rough..I’m thinking. I’ve never experienced this kind of an attack before and it’s personal. It’s angry. It’s throwing labels at me. But at the same time it’s fuckin gorgeous and necessary. The stew has been stirred and hot sauce has been thrown in. Good. Very good.
The work being done here is an uncontrollable expression of something very heavy inside of me…it’s not created to merely shock, to splash dick and ass in your face for a laugh. It’s made to make you fuckin think about the state of things…the state of our interwoven communities in the LGBTQIA world and beyond.
CHRISTEENE is an electrically charged dangerous product of our times with a heart of gold, and is used as a very striking yet approachable communicator to the masses. Many fuckin amazing people understand this and attach themselves to the explosion that is taking place onstage with all they’ve got. Those people are wonderful. They offer solid criticism and conversation on what’s being delivered. But the attackers are just as important, and the conversations that come from them, if they have the brains to discuss their anger, are even more wonderful and exciting. Overall, though, the best is the smiling faces from people having the time of their lives with this shit…as we are.
Who are Christeene’s main inspirations? In terms of drag/performance and also musically?
CHRISTEENE is really nspired by the lineage of Drag in performance. The superstars of our day that keep the Drag street in good repair. I have to say that if there is one lady out there that blows my mind, it’s Lady Bunny. Complete adaptation to the times and an impressive hold on the social network. I admire that a lot. But what mostly inspires this work to come out of me is when I think of how I can contribute to all of the amazing forms of Artistic Drag that are out there now and have come before me. It is a beautiful and very historic art form, and I want to explore it and take it to a new level.
It feels like Christeene is an all-round multimedia experience, not just a singer, but a performer/video artist. How do you think she integrates into the performance, video and high art worlds?
I’ll have to say that because of the brilliance of PJ Raval, the work of CHRISTEENE has had the privilege of being put into video and showcased around the world. PJ and I started working together about 3 years ago and our relationship takes the same direction of exploring this new and dangerous creature that is CHRISTEENE with excitement and no restraint. Our videos have been granted access to film fests and art galleries around the world, causing so many people to experience our work who wouldn’t necessarily find themselves in the same room with such stank shit. And in terms of the live shows…they are raw, angry, intimate and real…real as you can get. It’s new, and it burns.
So what exactly is “African Mayonnaise”?
All I can say about African Mayonnaise is that it is a very strange state of mind/experience that we found ourselves in when we were performing at Folsom Street Fair in San Fran back in 2009 I think it was? A very gooood state of mind/experience.
And what exactly is this “new celebrity” and “new America” that Christeene epitomises?
CHRISTEENE isn’t necessarily epitomizing celebrity or America…CHRISTEENE is serving the new breed and brand of it. If this is what these people have become (the current state of things)...if this current state of things is what people have allowed into their living rooms and their states of mind, then this is what these people are going to fuckin get now. Eat it up and hold it in, fuckers.
The video for “African Mayonnaise” is, em, interesting - are there any out takes that didn’t make it in? And who was scarier, the Church of Scientology people who forcibly ejected you form their offices, or the Christians who harassed you on the street at the end?
PJ Raval had sooooo much footage in the end, and our god sent editor, Victoria Chalk was amazingly able to put it all together. She’s the absolute SHIT. There is so much fuckin material that didn’t make it into the video we could make a film out of it. Outtakes? Oh yeah. And by far, the Church of Scientology what the most dangerous place I’ve ever set foot in.
How is Austin at this time of year?
Weather is wonderful, and people are smiling because the devil summer hasn’t hit yet.
Tell us a bit about the Christeene shows coming up at SXSW…
We just performed a show called ‘Get off the Internet” which was created by Alyx Vesey, an amazing writer who gets our shit in all the best ways, and by Homoground and it was fuckin gorgeous. So many amazing bands and people up in the yard of a bar called Cheer Up Charlies here in Austin. And our Showcase was a stank hit as well.
The last thing we’ll kick in the puss is gaybigaygay..and if you are in Austin on Sunday the 18th, you’d be a damned fool to miss this event.
What does the near future hold for Christeene?
A ton of travel with my Boyz, T Gravel, C Baby, JJ Booya and PJ Raval I hope.
And now just a question from me - any plans to come to the UK??
The minute we find a plane that can hold our stank azzesssssssss…we therrrrr. Hold your breath, Hawt Man.
Aside from the obvious— they were the first all-black punk band— two additional things must be said of the early Bad Brains: they were the most ferocious musical tornado ever unleashed; a frantic, thrashing monster of a group that had absolutely no competitors for the crown of being the most hardcore of all of the hardcore bands in Washington, D.C.
They were also the best, most skilled musicians of any of their compatriots. Sure, they played buzz-saw punk rock music that sounded like a Black Sabbath album spinning at 45rpm, but they actually came from a jazz fusion background (think Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra!) before the energy of the D.C. hardcore scene turned their attention to punk.
Lead vocalist H.R. was, simply put, one of the greatest frontmen of the punk era, up there with Johnny Rotten or Jello Biafra as a presence so incendiary, so crazed and so utterly unhinged that you wondered if he was possessed. Backed by Dr. Know (guitar), Darryl Jenifer (bass) and H.R.‘s younger brother, Earl Hudson, on drums, the Bad Brains would explode onto the stage like a nail bomb had gone off. If that prospect seemed worrisome, well, stand back!
It wasn’t long before the group found they weren’t able to play shows in their hometown, hence their famous number, “Banned in D.C.” which has been appropriated for the title of the new film about the group, Bad Brains: A Band In D.C. co-directed by Mandy Stein and Ben Logan. The film actually started as an offshoot of another project about CBGBs, but as Stein told us “What director wouldn’t want to tell this story?”
The 30+ years of the Bad Brains’ existence has been fraught with interpersonal conflict— one epic argument was caught on video by the directors— but it’s that tension that makes the band so great that also, perhaps, prevented them from being as big as they might have otherwise been. Band in DC features some fierce archival footage, more recent live performances and interviews with Henry Rollins, The Beastie Boys, Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye, British black punk DJ and filmmaker Don Letts and The Cars’ Ric Ocasek, who produced the band in the studio.
In the clip below, co-director Mandy Stein and Bad Brains singer H.R. discuss the film and the energy of the early Washington, D.C. punk scene.
Jimmy Page has revealed via his Facebook page, that he will release his music for Lucifer Rising next week.
In a “special announcement” Page said:
On March 20th, the Spring Equinox 2012, the title music for Lucifer Rising and Other Sound Tracks will have its premiere and release.
The title music, along with other musical pieces recorded at my home studio in the early Seventies, have been revisited, remixed and released for the first time.
This is a musical diary of avant-garde compositions and experiments, one of which was to appear on the film Lucifer Rising.
The collection has been exhumed and is now ready for public release. This will be available exclusively on the website.
There will be a standard release on heavyweight vinyl.
In addition there will be a special run of 418 numbered copies. The first 93 copies will be signed and numbered.
There are liner notes and commentary to each track. The tracks are:
As you all know, Page was originally asked to write the music for the film by Kenneth Anger, but various difficulties saw their collaboration fall apart. Anger later claimed he could turn the guitarist into a toad or a statue of gold.
While Page’s soundtrack has been available as a bootleg for some years, this is its first official release, which you can purchase via Jimmy Page’s website
This is what the bootleg version sounds like:
And what Kenneth Anger said after being asked just one more question about Jimmy Page.
Bruce Springsteen and Eric Burdon performing “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” in Austin. 3/15.
Bruce Springsteen’s keynote address at SXSW 2012.
Springsteen spoke passionately about the music that had had a profound impact on his own writing. The Boss rhapsodized about Elvis, James Brown, the Animals, and the Beatles, and the anecdotes he told about his encounters with each were revealing, mesmerizing, and sometimes hilarious. But it was the story of his awakening to Woody Guthrie’s work that tells the most about how Springsteen’s writing has changed over the last twenty years, and where he’s likely to going next.
Whether you’re a fan or not, this speech by Springsteen is full of heart and truth. And having just come home from his phenomenal performance at SXSW, I am fully prepared to take on all comers. This cat still rocks and rocks hard!
When Springsteen introduced special guest Eric Burdon at the show he did so by commenting on The Animals hit We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, “That’s every song I’ve ever written. I’m not kidding, that’s all of ‘em.” Burdon proceeded to prove him right. A lovely rock and roll moment.
This is a fantastic, trippy, and mind-blowing version, one which captures a dark hallucinogenic world of sixties’ psychedelia. The clip made me think of Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising, in particular Bobby Beausoleil’s soundtrack (which came later, much later), where this track could easily sit. Turn down the lights. Play Loud.
Los Angeles-based Chelsea Wolfe‘s intense, artful folk dirges bring to mind a slightly morbid young Joni Mitchell had she grown up listening to Black Metal bands instead of the Carter Family (Still, when asked about her influences Wolfe simply replied “Hank Williams”).
Perhaps unfairly lumped in with the goth crowd, Wolfe’s very specific doom-laden sound is uniquely her own, a blend of hypnotic 6-string repetition and skillfully manipulated vocals. Her latest album is Apokalypsis.
In the live session below, Chelsea sings her compositions “Halfsleeper” and “Recluse.”
It was a real privilege to listen to this being recorded in such an intimate space.
Nick Drake died in 1974 at the age of 26. But his brief life had a lasting and profound impact. It took a television commercial to rescue his music from cultdom and introduce it to an international audience.
In A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, a haunting tribute to Drake and his music, his sister Gabrielle takes us through the Drake family history as director Jeroen Berkven’s camera meditates on the almost mystical landscapes of the English village of Tanworht-in-Arden where Drake was born and lived.
I was introduced to Nick Drake’s music while he was still alive. A poet friend of mine who suffered from depression (as did Drake) turned me on to “Five Leaves Left” and I was immediately enchanted. My friend was obsessed with Nick’s music and found solace in its sweet sadness and a kind of kinship that tempered his loneliness. When Nick died it was a huge loss for all of us who were just beginning to discover and appreciate his work. I had felt this same sense of loss before when Tim Buckley died and would feel it again when Tim’s son Jeff drowned in the Mississippi River. Musical geniuses who died much too young.
Safe in the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light
Safe in your place deep in the earth
That’s when they’ll know what you’re really worth
Forgotten while you’re here”
Lyrics from “Fruit Tree.”
Other than a few childhood home movies, no film footage of Nick Drake exists. So director Berkven had to create a sense of Drake through other means. That he succeeds is quite remarkable. He is enormously helped by Nick’s mother Molly. Her own music uncannily evokes her son’s and creates a deeply emotional dimension to A Skin Too Few.
Here’s A Skin Too Few in its entirety. Pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of tea and enjoy this 48 minute tone poem. The quality is good enough that you can watch it in full screen.
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