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Mark Sandman’s cure for pain
11.11.2010
06:42 pm
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During my days of running a music venue in Manhattan, I had the pleasure of booking Boston band Treat Her Right, a hugely talented group that in retrospect was ahead of its time. Lo-fi, jazzy, bluesy, unhinged and punky, THR created music that oozed a kind of gritty sexuality.

Mark Sandman was in Treat Her Right and over the two years in the 1980’s that I spent time with Mark, I came to know him rather well. Mark was an avid reader of the beats, Bukowski, John Fante and harboiled writers like Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, the dark stuff. He also dug badass surrealists like Artaud and Rimbaud. It showed in the lyrics of his songs, which were miniature narratives of the darker side of modern life, fever dreams populated by broken-hearted lovers, alcohol and drugs. In his noirish tales of romance gone bad and the wreckage left in the wake of lives lived on the edge, the evil ways of the world were shot thru with glimmerings of sweet sex and black humor that gave one the sense that all was not hopeless. He could be very tender.

With his band Morphine, Mark continued to create a body of work that was remarkable in its musical and lyrical integrity. Sandman was a writer as gifted as those he admired. He was just hitting his stride as an artist of significant magnitude when he died of a heart attack at the very young age of 46. The night I learned of his death, I went to my bar and sat on a stool that Mark had sat on many years ago and I had a drink in his memory, a good Scotch…straight up. I recalled the way Mark talked, which was like he sang, deep and soulful, and what he said always mattered. Even his small talk was big. Words were a way out of the dark for Mark and his music was a cure for pain.

Cure For Pain a documentary on Mark and his music has been completed and will soon be released. I’m looking forward to it and so should you.
 

 
Here’s some raw video of Mark being interviewed:
 

 
Check out a very cool Treat Her Right video after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.11.2010
06:42 pm
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Early Marc Bolan: Tyrannosaurus Rex perform ‘The Seal of the Seasons’
11.11.2010
05:33 pm
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Not T-Rex, but the earlier incarnation of the band, when they were still called Tyrannosaurus Rex. Marc Bolan is seen here with percussionist Steve “Peregrin” Took, performing “The Seal of the Seasons” from their 1969 Unicorn album.

After an American tour where the decidedly much more “party hardy” Took, well, partied heartily, Bolan sacked Took, replaced him with Mickey Finn and promptly became an internationally recognized superstar. Took immediately went off to work with more underground and anarchic types like Twink (from The Pretty Things) and Mick Farren (who’d been ousted from his band, The Deviants), forming a proto-version of what became The Pink Fairies.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.11.2010
05:33 pm
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From the archives of rock and roll assholism: Danzig gets schooled
11.11.2010
04:15 pm
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In response to the recent Glenn Danzig piece I posted, Dangerous Minds reader Phillip J. Birmingham sent me a link to a video of Danzig getting a taste of his own medicine. Apparently Glenn can’t walk it like he talks it. The incident documented below happened several years ago. So, it seems Glenn has a history of acting like a prick.

This may be old news for some of you, but it’s new to me. I’ve only recently become a fan of Glenn’s misadventures.

Danzig allegedly got into a scuffle with North Side Kings singer and frequent Soulfly collaborator Danny Marianinho following Danzig’s performance in Tuba City, Arizona. The following is Marianinho’s official statement regarding the incident, as sent to Blabbermouth.net:

Before crazy rumors begin to spread I would like to explain what happened:

North Side Kings were to play with Danzig last night in Tuba City, Arizona. To make a long story short the whole show was a disaster and a few bands got bumped off. Mr. Danzig (or his management??) refused to push back the original scheduled time slot so NORTH SIDE KINGS and RAPID FIRE would have to play ‘after’ his set. Whatever — we agreed to play later because we drove 6 hours and didn’t feel like going home without playing. Needless to say, as soon as DANZIG was finished, the venue turned on the lights and DANZIG’s crew and the staging company began to take the stage apart almost instantly. I confronted Mr. Danzig backstage while he was signing autographs and told him I thought he was an asshole because of his ‘rock star’ attitude and no consideration towards the FEW other bands that got bumped off tonight. In a fit of rage he turned around and slammed me into the wall yelling ‘Fuck you, motherfucker,’ trying to be a big, tough guy in front of his fans. I, in self-defense, punched him in the face, knocking him out as he was attacking me again. He went down, bleeding from his mouth, eyes rolled back, and in shock that he got knocked to the floor so quickly. A friend happened to tape the entire incident and this is all documented. Many witnesses saw him attack me, and I did what any man would do.

It was unfortunate that this went the way it did — and I hoped Glenn Danzig learned a valuable lesson tonight: Do not lay your hands on anyone unless you can handle what may happen. I apologize for nothing, except for the poor little kids that had to witness this big asshole get his ass kicked in a matter of seconds…”

 

 
Previously on DM: Former Misfit Glenn Danzig throws hissy fit.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.11.2010
04:15 pm
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Michel Polnareff: French pop that rocks
11.11.2010
03:07 pm
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Having spent my early teen years in France, I was exposed to alot of French rock singers. Of course I was in love with Francoise Hardy and I owned a bunch of singles by Johnny Halliday and Sylvie Vartan. The Yé-yé scene was my scene. Michel Polnareff became a star after I left France but I was still following French rock close enough to appreciate his distinctive style, which was more Brit poppish and American West Coast hippie than his French peers.

English recording studios offered more advanced technology than Paris, so Polnareff went to London to record La Poupée Qui Fait Non. It was released in 1966 and immediately became a huge hit. Great French rock songs are rare and this one hovers at the edges of greatness.

La poupée qui fait non translates as ‘the doll who says no’.

She is a doll who says “no, no, no no”
All day long, she says “no no no no no”
She is, she is so cute
That I dream of her all night
She is a doll who says “no, no, no no”
All day long, she says “no no no no no”
No one has every taught her
That one can say “oui”
Without even hearing, she says “no no no no”
Without looking at me she says “no no no no”
However I would give my life
for her to say “yes”
However I would give my live
That she would say “yes”
But she is a doll, who says “no no no no”
All the day long she says “no no no no”
No one has taught her
That it’s possible to say “yes”
Oh no no no non no
no no no
She says no.
 

 
La Poupée Qui Fait Non has been covered by many artists, including Saint Etienne and Jimi Hendrix. This version by Mylène Farmer and Khaled is the loveliest in my opinion.
 

 
Hendrix does La Poupée Qui Fait Non after the jump…

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Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.11.2010
03:07 pm
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Curious independent music video with floating keyboard
11.11.2010
01:59 pm
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Witness “In Your Dreams” by James Nyte. Sublime.

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.11.2010
01:59 pm
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Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith - ‘Not in Love’
11.11.2010
07:07 am
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The Cure‘s majestic Robert Smith has recorded vocals for Canadian duo Crystal Castle’s ‘Not in Love’ taken from their self-titled second album. The track is released on 6 December 2010 on Fiction Records - the perfect antidote to the ghastly ‘X-Factor’.
 

 
With thanks to Nicola Black
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.11.2010
07:07 am
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Tom Waits on Australian TV, 1979-81: The great pretender
11.11.2010
04:27 am
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Don Lane was born in Manhattan, became a Vegas entertainer and ended up hosting a talk show in Australia. It’s a long story worth telling… but not now. We’ll just jump right into these segments from Don’s Aussie show and Tom Waits’s appearances on them, which are quite entertaining. Lane is a gracious host who seems to be genuinely interested in Tom’s beat personae, which is about as real as the Charles Bukowski house slippers I almost bought on eBay.

Tom’s schtick, and it is schtick, is performance art of a very high caliber. And I enjoy it. But, having interviewed Waits in the mid-70s in Denver I know his skidrow, Raymond Chandleresque posturing was part of a deliberate process of creating a character, kind of like a hard-edged literary Pee Wee Herman.

In our meeting, Waits had mistakenly pegged me for a young college kid working for a college paper. Yes, I wrote freelance for a college paper, but I was a high school dropout that had grown up around some heavy weight poets in the Washington D.C. area, cats who had introduced me to the beat poets and the king of the bards of the backalleys Bukowski. Waits was laying his Waits trip on me and I was going along for the ride. But, when I mentioned Bukowski’s name, Waits’s attitude changed. Bukowski was not the superstar then as he is now. Tom wasn’t ready to be outed as a Bukowski imitator. I nailed Waits to the wall with my Bukowski rap. I basically told Tom that I felt his streetwise, hipster hobo thang was something he had picked up from Bukowski, which he did not deny. He seemed surprised that I knew who Bukowski was and had identified Bukowski’s style in his own. Waits had spent time with Bukowski and certainly seemed to me to have picked up some of Bukowski’s traits, from the way he held his cigarettes to the low growl in his voice.

As I continued to discuss my take on his act, Waits slowly worked himself out of character and got real. His voice became less gruff, his body language changed from a guy who had taken a few too many punches to an alert intellectual who had read a few too many books. He relaxed and shared with me his actual past: suburban upbringing under the guidance of parents who were school teachers, one of whom taught English. None of this changed my mind about Waits’s art. His lyrical gifts and musical genius stand tall in my mind. But, the Tom Waits we see on stage is a character created by the Tom Waits we don’t see. And maybe none of that matters. But, I did enjoy the soft spoken young cat who dropped his guard for a few minutes in the lounge of a seedy hotel in Denver. A lounge that the puppetmaster Waits had chosen deliberately for dramatic effect. Yes, it’s showmanship. But I always believed that the beats were about getting down to the realness of shit. I wasn’t prepared for the Monkees version of bohemia.

Enjoy the Tom Waits we love in these episodes of The Don Lane Show broadcast in 1979 and 1981.
 

 
More Waits on The Don Lane Show after the jump…

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Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.11.2010
04:27 am
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Jon Savage Compilation Spotlights Early California Punk Scene
11.11.2010
12:58 am
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Acclaimed British journalist and punk historian Jon Savage has curated Black Hole: Californian Punk 1977-1980, a unique and revealing compilation of the Golden State’s hugely diverse pre-thrash punk scene that gets released November 15th.

That seems strange on the surface. Strange that it’s both taken this long into the 21st-century American punk revival and reissue era for such a quality collection to emerge, and that it’s taken an Englishman rather than a Californian to do it. But this particular Englishman is more than qualified. As noted in his recent interview in the Quietus, Savage hepped up to the scene while on the West Coast in 1978 as a journalist for Sounds magazine, hanging with the likes of the Screamers and the Avengers and confirming to himself and others that the UK didn’t own punk.

Savage’s inclusion of both Northern and Southern Cali bands like the Bags, the Alley Cats, the Weirdos, Black Randy & the Metro Squad, and the Dils makes Black Hole most resemble the compilations released by the legendary short-lived L.A.-based Dangerhouse label run by Pat “Rand” Garrett and David Brown from 1978 to 1980. But Savage augments those with a range of others, from superstars like the Dead Kennedys to second-tiers like Crime, Middle Class and the Sleepers, and on to important obscurities like the two-single-releasing Aurora Pushups.

One of Savage’s rationales surrounding the comp, on which he expounds in Quietus, proves striking:

I don’t like hardcore. It’s too ‘boy’ for me. I was into the idea of punk being made for and by outsiders. And that meant outsiders of every hue, and that meant weird boys, hopeless boys, strong women, and gay men and women. As soon as it starts to get a machismo, and this happened in UK punk, too – I’m out of there.

Black Hole will join Penelope Spheeris’s classic late-‘70s documentary The Decline of Western Civilization as primary documents of a rough and energetic multi-city underground music scene—one that reflected the social dysfunction of the state in political schizophrenia with the world’s eighth-biggest economy.

Here’s the title track by the Urinals. This is Cali.
 

 
Get: Black Hole (Californian Punk 1977-1980) [CD]

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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11.11.2010
12:58 am
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Julian Cope explores the geography of the mystic
11.11.2010
12:37 am
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In addition to being a smashing songwriter, singer and memoirist, Julian Cope has spent the past 20 years exploring and documenting Britain’s megalithic heritage: monuments, stone circles, hill forts and barrows. In this documentary made for the BBC, we follow Cope on his journey into the geography of the mystic, a place of ceremony and magic.

The documentary is a companion piece to Cope’s splendid, sadly out-of-print, 1998 book ‘The Modern Antiquarian’. Fortunately, for those of us interested in sacred places he curates a website and you can find it here.

Since launching in March 2000ce, the site has grown to be a massive resource for news, information, images, folklore & weblinks on the ancient sites across the UK, Ireland and Europe.

 

 
Watch parts 2-6 after the jump…

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Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.11.2010
12:37 am
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Sigue Sigue Sputnik on Brazilian TV
11.11.2010
12:04 am
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Life was candy-colored in the eighties.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik performing ‘Success’ with a bunch of cheerleaders on Brazilian TV in 1988. When I saw SSS in NYC they had a great stage show, but no cheerleaders.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.11.2010
12:04 am
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