Here’s a chance to listen to the entire new album by the always wonderful Caribou. Dig those muffled, awkward disco beats, mournful melodies and expert textures !

via Surfing On Steam

 
Before Marc Bolan blew minds as T. Rex, even before he gently blew beards as Tyrannosaurus Rex, he was demolishing stages with John’s Children, a pop-art mod band hell bent on one upping The Who in the auto-destructive art department. 

Featuring Andy Ellison on vocals, Geoff McLelland on guitar, John Hewlett on bass, and wild man Chris Townson on drums, Bolan joined the band briefly in 1967 and wrote one of their most beloved songs, the very twisted and far out Desdemona, which can be heard in the above video that features photos of Bolan with the band.  Although he doesn’t sing lead, his patented guitar playing is front and center and his one of a kind vibrato voice provides backup. The suggestive lyric ‘Lift up your skirt and fly’ was enough for the BBC to ban the song, and after a brief four month stint, Bolan moved on to develop himself as a solo artist.

Sans Bolan, John’s Children would continue to plug away, wrecking stages in their midst and creating a reputation based on their antics rather than their musicianship. They even released an album that would find American distribution on White Whale Records called Orgasm, which was ruined by a record exec’s brilliant idea of inserting crowd noise between songs to make it seem “live.” 

Below is a little-known promotional video the band made for the album, which is apparently part of a film called Smashed Blocked that never saw the light of day. Band member Andy Ellison, whose Corn Flake Zoo must be heard to be believed, even commented on an older post of the video that “Smashed was a mod term for drunk, and blocked was a mod term for being pilled up (high on amphetamines).”  This newer version of the video has significantly better sound that others.  Dig it!
 

 
Wonders never cease. Ganymed were (according to wikipedia) an Austrian space disco (!) band active in the late 70’s. The four proto-Alfs plus Aryan disco maiden format surely is unique if not extremely silly. I’d dare say they could pass for a current band pretty easily ! In any case it’s some decent sub-Moroder action that I’m sure would get any dance floor moving despite (or because of ?) the horrific prosthetic snouts.
 

 

 
(thx Eddie Ruscha !)

 
Although today she is primarily regarded as a gay icon, Cher was undoubtedly one of the most lusted after women in America during the 1970s. I know, I was there. She wore the most revealing outfits of any woman on television, had an amazing body and the longest, most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. I thought she was amazingly, outrageously stupendously hot.

I was nine years old when the above TIME cover came out and I can recall staring at it—I mean staring at it—in a Rite Aid, totally and utterly sexually transfixed. I’d never seen porn at that point in my young life, but this cover was pretty darned wonderful, I reckoned. Before I could probably fully form the thought that certain of these puzzlingly female creatures must be amazing in bed, I think I intuited this fact rather easily when it came to Cher. In the clip below, Cher sings her classic hit song Half Breed, demonstrating the effect she had back then.
 

Spizzenergi’s classic 1979 punk jam set to original Star Treak freakout. “I’ve got some stuff that would tranquilize an active volcano…”

Spizzenergie

(Where’s Captain Kirk: Very Best of Spizzenergi)

Great 1983 video for Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern.” Saturday morning cartoons!

(Liquid Liquid vis A Post Punk Tumblr)

(Liquid Liquid)

Sublime!

 
New t-shirt design from African Apparel:

A Tribute to Joy Division’s most famous record and tossing off in the morning by Christopher Wright.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:Bob (Or is it Jimi or John?) Marley T-Shirt by African Apparel

Thanks, Cedric!

 
I’ll definitely be picking up a copy of How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks when it’s released later this month. It’s interesting to think about how nearly all of our beloved digital tools for art-making have their origins in military research. This tome seems like it might address that a little bit. In the meantime, listen to Holger Czukay indulging in some serious vocoder play.

via Stop Smiling

From Broken Fingaz website, “New animation clip by Tant and Unga! We shot it in 3 days on our roof in Hadar… Turn the speakers on before pressing play..”

(via Mister Honk)