Go Ride The Music was produced by pioneering Bay Area rock journalist Ralph Gleason in 1970 for National Educational Television - an era in which even TV was on drugs.

The Jefferson Airplane’s segment was filmed on April 2, 1970. The Quicksilver Messenger Service footage is from a performance at Sonoma State University circa August of 1969.

1) We Can Be Together - Jefferson Airplane
2) Volunteers - Jefferson Airplane
3) Mexico - Jefferson Airplane
4) Warm Red Wine - Quicksilver Messenger Service
5) Baby Baby - Quicksilver Messenger Service
6) Subway - Quicksilver Messenger Service
7) Plastic Fantastic Lover - Jefferson Airplane
8) Somebody To Love - Jefferson Airplane
9) Mona - Quicksilver Messenger Service
10) Emergency - Jefferson Airplane
11) Wooden Ships - Jefferson Airplane

“Free happy crazy people naked in the universe
We speak Earth talk
Go ride the music”
 

 
Punk may be long dead, but the interest in its music, ideas and artifacts continues.

Recently over at the Independent, writer Michael Bracewell introduces a selection of photographs by Simon Barker, a former member of the legendary Bromley Contingent, the group of original Punks that included Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Jordan, Bertie “Berlin” Marshall, Tracie O’Keefe, and Billy Idol. Barker was a participant and witness to some of the key events during the 14 months, in 1976 and 1977, when Punk changed everything - as Bracewell explains:

[Barker’s] photographs share with Nan Goldin’s early studies of the New York and Boston sub-cultures of the 1970s, a profound and joyously audacious sense of youth going out on its own into new freedoms and new possibilities.

In this, Barker’s photographs from this period capture a moment when the tipping point between innocence and experience has yet to be reached. The model and sub-cultural celebrity Jordan, for example, is photographed as a self-created work of art – her features resembling a Picasso mask, her clothes more post-war English county librarian. The provocation of her image remains untamed and unassimilated, nearly 40 years later; and within her surrealist pose there is the triumph of art made in the medium of sub-cultural lifestyle.

Barker/Six was a member of the so-called ‘Bromley Contingent’ of very early followers of The Sex Pistols and the retail and fashion work of McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. Other members would include the musicians Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin, and the writer Bertie Marshall, then known as ‘Berlin’ in homage to the perceived glamour and decadence of the Weimar republic. Originating from suburbia, but all determined to leave its security as soon as possible, the Bromley Contingent became the British sub-cultural equivalent, in many ways, of Andy Warhol’s notorious ‘superstars’ – volatile, at times self-destructive or cruelly elitist, but dedicated to a creed of self-reinvention and personal creativity.

It is this creed, as opposed to the swiftly commercialised music of punk, that Barker’s photographs from the period anatomise so well. At once intimate and forensic, austere and camp, documentary and touchingly elegiac, these photographs capture a milieu experiencing a heroic sense of being outsiders – a condition that has always been the privilege of youth, and which has long claimed many victims in its enticing contract with the thrill of taking an oppositional stance.

Read the whole article and see more of Simon’s photographs here.

Simon Barker’s book Punk’s Dead is available here.
 

Poly Styrene
 

The Banshees: Steven Severin, Kenny Morris and John McKay
 
With thanks to Derek Dunbar
 
More punk memories after the jump…
 

 
If you’ve ever wondered who’s responsible for putting Satanic messages into songs, then meet Damon Lewis, producer at Treble Six Records.

The Devil’s Apricot is a fabulous short from writer / director Jonathan Brooks, starring John Rutledge (aka Eggsy from Goldie Lookin’ Chain) as Lewis, and comedian Mark Davision as Lord Satan. More power to this fine trinity of souls.
 

 
With thanks to What a Prick TV
 

 
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band hit Philadelphia two nights ago and during a performance of “Raise Your Hand” The Boss jumped into the audience and had a tall cold one with his fans.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d swallow a frosty beverage handed to me by a total stranger. And then again, now that I think about it, there was a time in my life that I drank, licked, sucked and snorted just about everything shoved in front of my face. Yeah, rock and roll makes you immortal…or makes you think you’re immortal…same thing.

But back to the video. This Springsteen clip is Rick Santorum’s worst nightmare. The devil’s music on his front porch and a crowd of 20,000 rock fiends drinking Rolling Rock and chanting “Bahhhhhhhhs! “Bahhhhhhhhs! “Bahhhhhhhhs!

Springsteen is pushing hard on this tour to subvert the messages of the right wing and derail the Republican death train. The Jersey boy has picked up Woody Guthrie’s guitar, the one that says “this machine kills fascists,” and is running with it. And no matter what cynical bastards say about Springsteen being a member of the 1%, his new record and tour is called “Wrecking Ball” for good reason - words won’t do it alone, we need to take action…but first we need to come together and create a sense of community. And historically speaking there’s been no better galvanizing artistic force for the good of humankind than rock and roll and no bigger trigger to change society and consciousness than a big fat beat you can dance to.

Look at the faces in this video. These folks vote. And trust me, they ain’t voting for the forces of darkness. You can’t love life and be an advocate for death. The “Wrecking Ball Tour” is the spiritual counterpoint to the shit coming off Santorum and Romney. I would venture to say that Springsteen could wipe their asses on the electoral floor if he ran against them for President. But the Boss ain’t ready to be THE Boss yet. He’s too busy making people feel good. But he’d make a great Vice President. Obama/Boss-mania in 2012. Being Vice President would still give Springsteen plenty of time to tour. It can be done. I’ve heard rumors that Biden was night-owling in a Gary Puckett & The Union Gap tribute band for the past three years.
 

 
Here’s the trailer for the newly restored Yellow Submarine.

The digital clean-up of the film’s photochemical elements was lovingly done entirely by hand, frame by frame. Having seen the world premiere of the restored version at this year’s SXSW, I can attest to its eye-searing intensity and lysergic beauty. While the story obviously remains the same, rather thin with a script comprised of surreal non sequiturs and bad puns, the overall experience of watching the film in a pristine digital format overwhelms the narrative with colors and artwork so you rich you can practically taste it. And the stereo soundtrack sounded wonderful.

Coming out on Blu-Ray and DVD on May 29 with 5.1 surround sound. Expect to be astonished.
 

 
Mod Odyssey is a groovy short documentary on the creation of Yellow Submarine. Enjoy.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: The Beatles’ classic 1968 animated feature film, ‘Yellow Submarine,’ has been restored

 
A new documentary on the ill-fated career of glam rocker Jobriath, Jobriath A.D., screened last night at the BFI London Lesbian and Gay film festival and has received a very warm critical reception. In a glowing review in The Guardian, critic Andrew Pulver writes…

[...] in this fantastically revelatory documentary by Kieran Turner, Jobriath has been thoroughly rehabilitated: as a charismatic performer in his own right, the unwitting victim of record-industry hubris, and an unlikely, reluctant martyr for gay rights.

Haven’t heard of Jobriath? In an article previously posted on Dangerous Minds, R. Metzger, a Jobriath fan, described him in succinct fashion:

If you’ve never heard of Jobriath Boone, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Obscure even by “rock snob” standards, Jobriath was the first really openly gay rock star. David Bowie and Lou Reed flirted with bisexuality, nail polish and make-up, of course, but Jobriath was in his own words, “a true fairy.” He wasn’t just “out of the closet” he was out like a police siren with the volume turned up to eleven!”

And in an article published yesterday in The Guardian, Marc Almond pays homage to his hero and explains why Jobriath may have been too much too soon:

Jobriath (born Bruce Wayne Campbell) was a readymade entity with no big backstory, yet to those in the know he was thrilling and seductive, a guilty secret. I remember, before hearing a note, taking a journey to the big city to buy his first album, the eponymous Jobriath, on import. Its striking cover showed him with porcelain skin and film-star ruby lips, a fallen, broken, beautiful statue. On a first listening, the music is a baffling mix of glam, musical theatre and 1970s rock. At a time when we craved simple guitar chords and a Starman chorus, Jobriath seemed just too musical, too clever – not pop enough. His voice had a touch of Mick Jagger at his most sluttish (like that other wonderful US glam import, David Johansen of the New York Dolls). He was a mix of wide-eyed innocent and world-weary punk. And though there was a nod to Ziggy in the vowels, Bowie he was not.

For me, above all else, he was a sexual hero: truly the first gay pop star. How extreme that was to the US at the time. His outrageous appearances on the hallowed US rock show The Midnight Special prompted shock, bewilderment and disgust. Everyone hated Jobriath – even, and especially, gay people. He was embarrassingly effeminate in an era of leather and handlebar moustaches.

Jobriath A.D. will have its US premiere on Apr 14 at the Florida Film Festival.

Here’s the trailer:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Jobriath, Rock’s Fairy Godmother

 
“Bubbles” (or rather Mike Smith, the actor who plays him) from the greatest Canadian television show of all time, Trailer Park Boys, wants to go to outer space. The Metro News in Toronto is holding a contest to put one of their readers into space and Smith wants to win.

Vote for him here. Let’s shoot this cocksucker into space! Bubbles has to win!
 

Danny, the Elvis years.
 
Re-discovered in recent years via his viral video of the Abba-esque atrocity “I Want To Love You Tender”, Finnish pop star Danny (Ilkka Lipsanen) could plumb the dark side as well as perform sugar-coated fluff. In this video, Danny channels Jim Morrison as he sings apocalyptic versions of “For Your Love” and “House Of The Rising Sun” while being whipped by leather-clad Louise Brooks look-a-likes and beaten by a bunch of shaggy-haired punks.

Somewhere between The Lizard King and Bobby Sherman flails the enigmatic and oh-so silly Danny. Let the “wiolence” begin. 
 

 
A few pages of Nick Cave’s artwork, as culled from his notebooks, posted over at the Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds site.

Images from Nick Cave Collection, the Arts Centre, Melbourne.
 

Notebook known as ‘Sacred and Profane’, 1985
 

Pages from the notebook known as ‘Sacred and Profane’, 1985
 
More from Mr. Cave, after the jump…
 

 
Étienne Sauret’s documentary Dirty Pictures is warm-hearted and appropriately shambolic look at the life of Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, the man who discovered the psychedelic effects of MDMA and a variety of other home-brewed synthetic compounds that alter, expand and raise consciousness.

A former Dow Chemical drug developer who early on saw the light (a mescaline trip), Shulgin moved on to independent research in the mid-1960s. With his wife Ann, he developed and tested hundreds of psychoactive drugs, mostly analogues of phenethylamines (which include MDMA and mescaline) and tryptamines like DMT and psilocibyn.

“I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability.” A. Shulgin.

Shulgin’s books PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) and TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) combine autobiography and research into essential reading for anyone who is interested in the science and history of psychedelics and the life of a spiritual revolutionary who has fearlessly led the fight to wrest consciousness from the brain police.