WinterBand  are an Apostolic Pentecostal rock group led by a ZZ Top-looking religious zealot and badass named Steve Winter. A fire and brimstone nutjob with a beard more flammable than a Rhode Island nightclub, Winter makes Jimmy Swaggart seem like the voice of reason. His hatefilled diatribes against other religious sects, his extreme and bizarre views on Christian doctrine, his appalling attitude toward women, his dozens of wacky Internet sites, and numerous lawsuits against anyone who questions his legitimacy as a religious prophet, portray a man who is operating in the void left by Jim Jones, David Koresh and Marshall Applewhite (Heaven’s Gate cult). Within the Pentecostal community, Winter has accrued an enemies list so long it makes Nixon’s look like a haiku.

Visit his website and you’ll get a glimpse into the brain of one angry and ugly Bible thumper, seething with self-righteous disdain for virtually every sentient being on the planet.

Winter’s a third-rate hustler, a pious Three-card Monte player on the backstreets of holy salvation. The Steve Winter FAQ provides an interesting insight to the nature of his internet spamming and scamming. Google the dude. He’s everywhere, even appearing on religious-themed dating websites.

Clearly, this guy gives me the creeps and that’s why I find him so compelling. His particular strain of holier-than-thou sermonizing coupled with shitty apocalyptic hard rock is far more doom-laden than most Christian rock. His 70s style riffage and uber right wing politics make him the perfect opening act for teabaggin’ asswipe Ted Nugent.
 

more facial hair after the jump

The speakers of El Dragon
 
As familiar as we are with the Jamaican sound system tradition, it shouldn’t surprise us wherever we find the grass-roots praxis of bumping bass through massive speakers in a non-club setting. Witness for example the pico sound systems of the Colombian port city of Barranquilla off the Caribbean Sea, which like their Jamaican counterparts have been in effect since at least the ‘50s.

People debate the origin of the term pico—is it derived from pick-up trucks that transport the speakers, or from the common practice of picking up the needle on a popular record to start again? But there’s no debate that these systems are a crucial way for underground DJs to break tunes from tons of genres, including cumbia, salsa, calypso, dancehall reggae, soukous, champeta (a Carribean-tinged northern Colombian boogie style), Afrobeat and more.

Plus, any pico worth its salt seems to be obsessive enough about its name and theme that it gets its speakers hand-painted accordingly, with imagery ranging from Camacho Indian hunters to burly combat tanks.

The seven-piece Systema Solar seems to be the savviest group to have emerged from the pico scene—they’ve leveraged their versatility into a touring outfit, and have played throughout Europe and parts of the US. As you’ll see here, they know how to harken back to their roots…
 

 
After the jump: El Gran Fidel, plus the New York-based Dutty Artz crew documents how bananas it gets at a pico dance, complete with speaker-diving and hose-downs from the local fire brigade…
 

 
I first heard the baroque folk group Pentangle’s song Light Flight on the British equivalent to TV Toons, a sprawling 2 CD set of 60s and early 70s television themes with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel on the cover. Because the songs were all so short, there were about 50 per CD, but one song stood out among them and it was the Pentangle track. The other day I stumbled across a clip of the group playing the song in front of a studio audience and I also found a clip of the show Light Flight was the theme for, a series called Take Three Girls, a 1969 BBC drama that followed the lives of three young women living together in a flat in London. It was the first series to be broadcast in color on the BBC. From the looks of things here, this appears to be a swinging 60s antecedent to Sex and the City. I’d really love to see this! It says on Wikipedia that of the 26 episodes all but ten of them are thought lost.

Does anyone out there have a copy? It doesn’t hurt to ask…
 

 
Derf Scratch, a founding member of Los Angele’s punk pioneers Fear, died on July 28. Derf (Frederich Milner) formed Fear with lead singer and vocalist Lee Ving in 1977.

Fear was one of the best punk bands to come out of L.A. They were musically solid, intense and had an outrageous sense of humor. Their songs were confrontational, nihilistic, lewd : throwing satirical jabs at the punk scene, political correctness, feminism, gays, Christians, anything that moved.

Derf left the band in 1982 shortly after Fear released their debut album on Slash Records. It was not an amicable split. He and Ving had fallen out over work habits, drugs, ego. He sold his Fender bass to Mike Watt of The Minuteman and dropped out of the music scene.

Derf died of an undisclosed illness.

For a thoroughly entertaining interview with Derf check out citizen mag

 
Over the weekend via that most wonderful invention known as Netflix Instant View I caught an excellent documentary on the making of the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP. I found it to be one of the best Lennon related documents I’ve ever seen, worth watching if only for the moments wherein the gloriously raw vocals are isolated, check out the last few minutes of the below clip. Chills up the spine !

 
That they also touch…

 
I find this video compelling for a few reasons. Who is this band? I can’t find any info on them, other than the band’s name, The Sounds Of Time, and the words ‘San Antonio’ appearing in the clip. I’ve been googling and coming up with nada. Why does the singer appear to be sitting and is only shot in closeup?  Is he crippled?

I love the song. It’s a fine slice of 60s lite psychedelia, but with a rather gloomy point of view. Which makes it all that much more interesting. Does anybody know anything about The Sounds Of Time?

 
Another groovy kid video. Stick with this. It takes about a half a minute for the happy juice to take effect.

 
My Turkish girlfriend can’t figure out whether these kids are Turkish, Kurdish or Syrian or none of the above. Wherever they’re from, they’re groovy.

 
Using printed cardboard, two turntables, a projector and screen, Austrian student Clemens Kogler created this very groovy concept employing a modern take on the phenakistoscope technique which he calls phonovideo. With one exception, all of the animated paintings are based on album covers. The music for “Stuck in a Groove” was created by Richard Eigner.

The graphic illustrates how the process works. For a more detailed description check out the interview with Kogler at motiongrapher.

Kogler imagines deejays using phonovideo in performance.

Phonovideo is a VJ tool or visual instrument used to display animations in an analog way without the help of a computer. “Stuck in a Groove” is the first film made with this technique, it serves also as a demo for the technique .
In the future phonovideo could be used for live performances in cooperation with musicians, performers and other artists.

 
From an ever growing and queasy-making vintage cheese-a-thon going on over at the always entertaining and educational ilXor complex.
 

 

 
Many more after the jump…