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‘Very close to salvation’: Birthday boy punk-daddy Stiv Bators vs. the Rev. Dr. Hands
10.22.2010
06:36 pm
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Steven John Bator (a.k.a.  Stiv Bators) and his Dead Boys blammoed out of the post-steel paradise of Cleveland and landed in New York’s East Village to help jump-start the punk movement in the bowels of clubs like CBGBs. Soon after the Boys broke up in 1979, Bators formed the post –punk supergroup Lords of the New Church with the Damned’s Brian James and Sham 69’s Dave Tregunna.

That was the band Bators was riding in 1983 when L.A. artist Jeffrey Vallance—who’d scored a miraculous gig as a host of MTV’s underground music showcase (yeah, something like that actually once appeared on MTV!!) The Cutting Edge—grabbed him to “debate” the head of the Southland’s Last Chance Rescue Mission, whose name happened to be, yes, the Reverend Dr. Hands.

As you’ll see, Bators took the path of least resistance, but this segment stands as a fun, somewhat campy artifact of the other side of the Reagan ‘80s. Seven years later, Bators will have become a literal dead boy at 41 after getting hit by a taxi in Paris.

He would have turned 61 years old today.
 

 
Bonus clip after the jump: the Dead Boys give CBGB’s the “Sonic Reducer” in ‘77…
 

READ ON
Posted by Ron Nachmann
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10.22.2010
06:36 pm
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Factory Records boss Tony Wilson’s headstone designed by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly
10.22.2010
01:30 pm
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via Creative Review:

In death as in life: Peter Saville and Ben Kelly’s memorial to their friend and collaborator Anthony H Wilson is three years late, but it was worth the wait. Factory Records founder Anthony H Wilson died in August 2007. Just over three years later, a memorial headstone designed by Wilson’s long-term collaborators Peter Saville and Ben Kelly was unveiled in The Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester. The headstone carries a quote from The Manchester Man, the 1876 novel by Mrs G Linnaeus Banks (aka Isabella Varley Banks), the story of one Jabez Clegg and his life in Victorian Manchester.

And yes, there is a FAC catalogue number involved ! According to a comment on the Creative Review site his casket has the FAC number 501 and his estate has vowed that would be the last thing cataloged.
 
Close-up on the quote after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Brad Laner
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10.22.2010
01:30 pm
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William Burroughs does Jim Morrison: ‘Is Everybody In’
10.22.2010
05:14 am
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Burroughs reads Morrison’s ‘Is Everybody In’ on this track from Doors tribute album ‘Stoned Immaculate’ released in 2000. The surviving Doors provided the music. 

Bill Burroughs, the originator of the mashup.

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.22.2010
05:14 am
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Aerobics for the deranged: Erobique’s workout video from hell
10.22.2010
03:32 am
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Fitness-Gymnastik 2 - Aerobique mit Erobique und Katharina - Kunst und Sportverein

When I first saw this video I didn’t know what the fuck to think. Was it for real? A joke? Performance art? Well, it turns out the dude playing the keyboards and smoking the cigarette while leading the group in an aerobics workout is German musician Erobique. And based on this video, I think he’s some kind of genius. Check out his Facebook page here.

36 Years old. Played piano from the age of 8 until today. Member of International Pony (with DJ Koze & Cosmic DJ), Tex & Erobique (Just Drums and Piano Improvisation), Songs for Joy (yearly Songproject at the Gorki -Theater in Berlin with Jacques and Chris Dietermann).
Did Music for Theatre for Schorsch Kamerun and Studio Braun, Remixes for Justus Koehncke, Comercial Breakup, the Happy Couple, etc…

A truly inspired piece of weirdness and one of my favorite videos of the year. Watch it all. I think you’ll dig it.
 

 
Via misterhonk.de

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.22.2010
03:32 am
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Snoot-Flute: Make music with your nose!
10.21.2010
06:59 pm
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Ad in toy trade journal - circa 1960. Every kid must have one! Play real tunes with your nose.

Didn’t Roland Kirk play one of these?

I wish I’d had a Snoot-Flute in my old coke snorting days. Snorting and Snooting. I would have killed at the Mudd Club.
 
Via History Will Absolve Mike

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.21.2010
06:59 pm
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John Sinclair Freedom Rally: rare 1971 rock concert for your viewing pleasure
10.21.2010
02:09 pm
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Ten for Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally,  directed by Steve Gebhardt is a filmed document of the John Sinclair benefit concert held in 1971.

John Sinclair managed the MC5 and was the founder of The White Panther Party. His uncompromising radical political stance made him a target of the U.S. government. He was busted in a sting operation for selling two joints to undercover cops. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Musicians, politicians, artists and friends organized a rally to bring attention to Sinclair’s unjust sentence. It worked. Three days after the rally, Sinclair was released from prison when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state’s marijuana statutes were unconstitutional.

Ten For Two was produced by John and Yoko, who also perform in it, and features Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Leni Sinclair, David Peel, Jerry Rubin, Ed Sanders, Bob Seger, Archie Shepp, Bobby Seale, The Steve Miller Band, Commander Cody, Stevie Wonder and more.

The rally was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. John and Yoko came on at 3 a.m.

Why hasn’t this been released on DVD?  Rumor has it that Yoko owns the rights to the film and won’t release it. In the meantime, this funky video is all I’ve been able to get access to.

Here’s an in-depth article on the concert here.

Part 1 kicks in at the 15 second point.
 

 
Part 2 after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.21.2010
02:09 pm
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Julian Cope: All Hail the Arch Drude on his birthday!
10.21.2010
12:44 pm
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Today is the 53rd birthday of the great Mister Julian Cope! As regular readers of this blog know, I think Cope is one of the coolest motherfuckers alive. Here’s an excerpt from an earlier Dangerous Minds post I wrote about him:

My friend Wm. Ferguson and I met the Arch Drude at the Island Records offices near Tower Records in lower Manhattan. During the interview Cope told us about the mystical experience he had that led to his vision of the earth dying that inspired Peggy Suicide’s somewhat bleak environmentalist message. I recall that we discussed a certain book about Helena Blavatsky which he and I had both read and he compared the physical sensation of his mystic moment to the first time a pubescent boy masturbates, not quite pleasurable and very confusing, a sort of mental orgasm felt in the brain. I asked him if he felt conflicted about bringing a child into a world—his wife Dorian was then pregnant with their first daughter—that he so obviously thought was terminal. He paused and said, “Well, yeah the world is fucked, but it’s not THAT fucked that it can’t be saved, certainly. We’ve got to try.” I then voiced my own skepticism about bring new life into the world—I was 25 at the time—and he said something that I will never forget and have repeated to friends expecting children several times: “If people like you and I stop having children, we’ve ceded our world to the idiots. All intelligent people should have as many babies as possible to prevent all the thick, ungroovy Christians from taking over.”

When we were leaving, I mentioned in passing that I’d seen the infamous Hammersmith Palais show of his first UK solo tour in 1984, a concert that saw Cope performing a bloody act of self-mutilation. During the encore of “Reynard the Fox,” Cope snapped his mike-stand in half and proceeded to rake the jagged edge across his chest, back and stomach drawing lots of blood and generally freaking out the entire audience! Up until the very end it had been a slick, professional rock show. A girl standing near me puked when she saw what he had done. It cemented Cope’s reputation as a Syd Barrett-like acid casualty.

Cope laughed sheepishly and pulled out his wallet. “Well, you’ll appreciate this: Whenever I’m feeling like I am fucked in the head, I pull out this picture—” it was of a bloodied Cope from the concert I’d seen “—and I remind myself that however fucked up I think I am I am still not THAT fucked!”

Read more: Julian Cope: Someone spiked his acid
 

 
A great vintage Teardrop Explodes clip after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.21.2010
12:44 pm
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The Condom Bagpipe
10.21.2010
12:43 pm
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Finally! Actually, this condom bagpipe doesn’t sound bad at all. It’s ‘safe’ music I suppose.

Two condoms are used (one inside the other) to create the bag for this bagpipe. The chanter and drone are aluminium tubes with a membrane reed at the top of each.

(via HYST)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.21.2010
12:43 pm
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Worst Church Musical Number Ever!
10.21.2010
02:32 am
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I’ve been feeling particularly vulnerable lately and I find it therapeutic to make fun of other people. My sense of self-esteem is so low that I’m actually reduced to dissing people who don’t deserve it. These folks are just doing their best to share a beautiful moment with us. It’s indicative of how callous I’ve become (though I claim vulnerability)  that this heartfelt performance makes me nauseous. I hate what I’ve become. I’m a product of the new digital disconnect. I need to start doing drugs again.
 

 
Via Village Voice

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.21.2010
02:32 am
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Mas Alla de Los Gritos: A U.S. Latino Hardcore Punk Documentary
10.21.2010
02:01 am
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Martin Sorrondeguy (ex-member of Los Crudos) directed Mas Alla de Los Gritos (Beyond The Screams), a 1999 documentary on the Hispanic punk rock scene. Illuminating and inspiring.

What occurs with the Latino/Chicano punks is also what occurs to the
communities they come from. So if they are living in corrupt countries or
communities where poverty, drugs, gangs, etc. are part of the every
day, this adds to their struggle for change. Punks may be seen as
outsiders from a voyeur’s perspective but these same punks may go home with
their families and deal with life as it affects them all. Also a lot of
the Latino/Chicano punks living in the US still have ties to family and
friends in Latin America and those ties are strong, so when things get
desperate or intense in Latin America it is a concern for many living
here as well.”  Martin Sorrendeguy

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.21.2010
02:01 am
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