Glenn has height issues.

Danzig cancelled a Minneapolis gig at the last moment on Tuesday night because the venue where he was booked didn’t have high enough ceilings. Shit, considering Glenn is only a few inches taller than your average dwarf, those ceilings must have been really really low. Danzig’s star tripping cost the Cabooze club and its employees some serious revenue. According to reports, the former Misfit was a major pain in the ass.

Last night Danzig, sourpuss extraordinaire, was scheduled to appear at the Cabooze in support of his new record, Deth Red Sabaoth, that no one’s heard of. Looks like it will probably stay that way, at least around the Twin Cities.

A spokesperson for the club said…

He walked off the show before we even opened the doors. They picked him up around noonish, he was pretty bitter then. Then it just went from bad to worse, idle threats, and then finally he just said “fuck it, I’m outta here.”

For more on the incident click here.

 
Alan on Youtube has taken the ‘Strawberry Fields’ episode of the Beatles cartoon television series and added a stereo mix of the song to the video. Quite nice.
 

From 1967, with the song dubbed in a new stereo remix I made to expand the orchestral section! (...unlike the newly remastered “Magical Mystery Tour” CD!) This episode was inspired by the fact that the “Strawberry Field” of the song had been based on a real-life Salvation Army orphanage in Liverpool. When the Beatles stop by a dilapidated orphanage, the hostile attitude of the children (who are drawn in muted colors like the downtrodden Pepperlanders in “Yellow Submarine”) is explained by the Beatles’ driver, James, as being being due to their “sociological environment”. So the Beatles set about to create an Elysian playground with song! John’s “Musketeer Gripweed”, of his film “How I Won the War”, has a cameo!

 
The recently deceased Tuli Kupferberg plays God in the wild 1972 underground film, Voulez-vous coucher avec God? made by Canadians Michael Hirsh and Jack Christie. A rare screening of Voulez-vous coucher avec God? will take place on November 14 at the Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave. in Manhattan during a special celebration of celluloid Tuli called “Fug on Film.” Presented by Arthur.

J. Hoberman writes in the Village Voice:

As strenuously druggy, anarchic, and blasphemous as it is, this 1972 feature might have been one of the many post–El Topo movies auditioned as a midnight attraction by the old Elgin Theater and might even have caught on. Instead, it’s having its belated local premiere this Sunday as part of Anthology’s tribute to Kupferberg, beat poet, Fugs founder, and Voice contributor (mainly in the form of letters to the editor).

Here, he plays Middle America’s worst nightmare: His God is an unkempt, hairy schmoozer, consorting with his female subjects in a vaguely Baghdadian crash pad identified as Hashish Seventh Heaven, while holding forth in a braying New York accent: “Give ‘em some of that blackface crap—we’ve got enough sexism,” he advises the filmmakers in between chants of “Oy, oy, let’s bomb Hanoi!” As cheerfully offensive as it is, the movie’s greatest outrage comes when God anoints a toothless derelict to run for U.S. president. (The same actor, identified only as “George,” doubles as the angel Gabriel—in which role he’s punished for dereliction of duty with a hot-oil enema.)

Slapdash, but not badly made, this exercise in Yippie vaudeville employs Claymation and television, as well as a bevy of naked houris, to hold one’s attention—although it does fall apart midway. End title delivered as a moon notwithstanding, the climactic gross-out is the mouse omelet prepared for George—a repast that only serves to burnish the genius of John Waters, whose Pink Flamingos (the movie in which Divine eats dog shit) was the Elgin’s midnight attraction for 48 weeks, from late winter 1973 to January 1974.

 
Originally airing on October 3rd, 1977, less than two months after his death, Elvis in Concert, is the final documentation we have of Elvis Presley performing in front of an audience. He would do just five more shows after this. It is never likely to see a proper release. Showing a bloated, druggy, puffy-faced performer who can barely remember the lyrics to songs he has sung hundreds of times before, Elvis in Concert is the very epitome of the “fat Elvis” period. Certainly it’s not the way the singer’s estate would like him to be remembered. Might be bad for business!

The media at the time was luridly fascinated with the King’s rampant Demerol addiction and terrible diet, such as his late night demands for deep-fried peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches. A book titled Elvis: What Happened? written by three former members of his Memphis Mafia inner circle, became a best-seller. The National Enquirer even ran a truly tasteless cover photo of Elvis in his casket that was their best-selling issue ever.

And then this came on TV, in the midst of all that. For lovers of the “fat Elvis” era, this is as good as it gets. During “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” the footage the producers had made Elvis look so bad (sweaty, fat, nervous, mumbling, incoherent and unfunny) that they cut away to a fan interview during the song. This footage was later used in the amazing documentary, This is Elvis, to illustrate just how far he’d fallen. (I highly recommend renting This is Elvis on Netflix, it’s a fascinating cautionary tale. In the span of the film’s 144-minute running time, the rapid physical decline of Elvis, as seen from between 1973 and his death four years later is painful to watch)
 

 
Via Calle Nostalgia

 
The Hill blog reports that outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist is considering pardoning Jim Morrison for a crime that was most likely never committed.
 

In his last two months in office, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is considering a December surprise: a posthumous pardon for Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, for indecent exposure charges after an infamous 1969 Miami concert. In a phone interview with The Hill, Crist said “stay tuned” regarding the idea of a posthumous pardon for the singer who died in Paris in 1971.  Crist said he won’t make the decision lightly, noting the many complexities surrounding the 41-year-old case. Numerous sound recordings from the show exist, for example, but Morrison’s defenders say none of the scores of photographs from the show prove the exposure charge. “We would have to look into all of that,” Crist said.

 
Archival footage of Morrison’s Miami trial (no sound).

 
Via The Daily Swarm

 
Booda Ode (Stupid Brother) is a Nigerian musical comedy in which the characters are constantly in motion. I’ve never seen anything like this. Between the looped Yoruba rhythm track, non-stop dancing and chanting of dialogue, this is a completely new take on the concept of the film musical. It’s either hypnotic or maddening, or both, depending on where your head’s at.
 

 
Parts 2, 3, and 4 after the jump…
 

 
Some bands just slip through and are never caught by the audience they deserve. I was reminded of this tonight by dear Tommy Udo, who refreshed the aging memory cells with a superb clip of The Hook ‘n’ Pull Gang. In the words of Mr Udo:

Another of the greatest bands you’ve never heard of. One single, a few gigs that I was too out of it to fully appreciate. Actually, no, I appreciated them like fuck. Just cannae remember them. The guitarist/singer formed Die Cheerleader after this. They were great too.

The Hook ‘n’ Pull Gang were Eileen McMullan (drums/vocals), Rita Blazyca (guitar/vocals) and Alan McDade (bass), who were part of Edinburgh’s late 1980’s indie scene.  Described as “a cross between the Sex Pistols and the Ronettes,” they sang about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released only one single Gasoline, rarely gave interviews, were a great act live and appeared on FSd  - BBC Scotland’s up-its-own-arse music show, which made some amends by premiering bands such as The Dog Faced Hermans, The Blood Uncles, and, of course, The Hook ‘n’ Pull Gang.
 

 
With thanks to Tommy Udo
 
Bonus clip ‘Gasoline’ after the jump…
 

 
Hard-charging San Francisco quintet Hank IV’s “Garbage Star” from their album III (Siltbreeze)

Directed by Staci DeGagne & Heather MacLean Produced by Clean White Lines

Thank you Syd Garon!

 
Fabled Silver Lake indie rock venue, Spaceland has announced on their website that they’ll be closing their doors soon. Then again, having said that, it looks like other than a change of name things won’t be all that noticeable to the joint’s hipster clientele when it reopens as The Satellite. As reported in the LA Weekly: The “new” management (i.e. one half of the old management, Jeff Wolfram, the guy who owns the real estate) at the 1717 Silver Lake Blvd. space are bringing back Jennifer Teftt, the longtime booker at Spaceland who left last year. There will be no changes in shows already scheduled at the venue, including the upcoming Melvins residency in January 2011.

Spaceland Productions’ Liz Garo confirmed to the LA Weekly that Spaceland Productions plan to open another live music venue within a “few months.” So, in the end, the place isn’t really closing, the promoters are just moving on and keep the name.

So the more things change, the more they… something something.

We just hope they keep booking Neil Hambuger. He’s the dour, non-singing “Marty and Elayne” of Spaceland, a venerable LA institution! Where else else would I take my parents when they’re in town?
 

 
Eddie Ruscha aka Secret Circuit is an old pal of mine who happens to be a bit of a Renaissance man about town. He’s been posting some fantastically synth-centric mixes as of late and I thought I’d share the latest offering here as well.

Digitized mix from ‘05.
Straight from the cassette….
Contains strong doses of: Schultz, Eddy Grant, Dury, Yello, Earth Wind and Fire, Soft Rocks, J.P. Massiera, Sly Dunbar, Joe Thomas, Roland Boquet, Emperor Machine, Clouds, Funkadelic, McCartney, Cloud One, Tom Tom Club, Can, Space, YMO, Bohannon, Vicious Pink, and a brain crushing cast of other artists that will make you sick with confusion!