Behold the Casey Anthony latex mask for sale on eBay. I thought the Charlie Sheen mask was terrifying enough, but this one takes the cake. The mask is “pre-owned” (WTF? And who owned it?). The current bid is at $182.50.
This one is in excellent condition and it is numbered 6 of 9. I kept one for myself because I know these will be priceless. A significant piece of crime history. No matter what your opinion of the trial is, this is still one heck of a conversation piece. I bet Nancy Grace would love one of these. Fits most heads sizes comfortably.
Wearing this in public could be hazardous to your health…
Meet Ssion, the gender bending electro-punk dance band from Kansas City, led by front person Cody Critcheloe. Is Cody a man or a woman? I’m not completely sure, but it’s not important - s/he can be whatever you want hir to be. And as with other current queer artists like JD Samson, Cody likes to play with people’s traditional perceptions of style and beauty - witness the trademark combo monobrow and mustache, a pretty risqué fashion move in these anti-hair-biased times
Ssion (pronounced “shun”) are a full on audio/visual/performance-troupe well known for their live shows and support slots for the likes of Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Critcheloe has been making a respectable career as a video director on the side, working with Peaches, Liars and Scream Club. Ssion formed in Kansas in 1996 and released their first material in 2003. The band released their last album Fools Gold in 2007 and with it the full length feature film Boy which compiled all their music videos and has been described as a “gay, punk rock equivalent of Forest Gump.” Ssion have taken the step of releasing their new album Bent as a free download for a limited time, and it’s definitely worth downloading. As with Tyler the Creator’s first album Bastard, it’s surprising to hear music released for free that is of this high quality.
Make no mistake though - Bent is pop music. It’s party music, it’s designed for dancing - for those moments at a friend’s house when the sun is coming up, you’ve had a ball, but you’ve got that melancholic feeling that to quit now as it’s can’t get any better. There are shades of very early Madonna here, coupled with the classic mid-80s synth driven sound of the Pet Shop Boys and Eurodisco, all refracted through early 90s NY dance pop like Deee-Lite. Bent is basically the album the Scissor Sisters should have made by now, classy dance music stripped of the chintz (and Elton bloody John references) and honed to a sharp electro-pop point. It’s pretty damn good. So my advice to you dear readers is to let a little bit of Ssion into your life - get Bent.
Ssion - “Clown”
Ssion - “Psy-Chic”
Ssion - “Luvvbazaar”
Ssion - “Credit In The Straight World” Excellent cover of
Some live shows are great, some live shows are awesome, and then there are the live shows that are so good they feel like genuine magickal occurrences - a culmination of sound, vision, venue, performance and atmosphere. Bjork’s Biophilia, which is currently making its international debut with a sold out run at the Manchester International Festival, is definitely one of those. Clichéd terms like “elf-like” have haunted Bjork for years, but when an artist can pull together a show that is this all consuming, this transformative and powerful, there is definitely some truth to those clichés.
Everything about this show is unique. On a baking hot July afternoon we are ushered into a blacked out, cavernous Victorian warehouse space - in the middle sits a round stage, flanked by instruments, and overhead hangs a neat circle of 8 large screens. At one corner of the stage sits a pipe organ, a harpsichord and new instrument called a “gameleste” (a cross between a gamelan and a celeste). These instruments have been programmed to play themselves, a fact which is relayed to the audience by webcams projecting live onto the screens. In another corner sits a huge, manually operated music box, amplified through two very large gramophone trumpets, and beside it stands two new, purposely built, pendulum operated harps, The thudding bass line for the opening track “Thunderbolt” is provided by a large Tesla coil, which spits sparks of electricity over the crowd’s heads.
Still obsessed with the sounds and textures of modern electronica, Bjork underpins all this bizarre musical automata with sub-bass and electronic drums, played live by percussionist Manu Delago and music director Matt Robertson. Plucked chamber music collides with sliced-and-diced breakbeats, booming 808 bass lines accompany delicate organ pieces. It’s a perfect combination of the past and the future (and which is which is hard to tell). The sound world Bjork has created for this show is extraordinary, but it is the choir that really tips this performance over into something otherworldly. Featuring 26 female Icelandic singers, moments of harmony and discordance float from the stage that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Quite simply, this is a new kind of sacred music.
The much-trumpeted visuals are gorgeous. Animated cells sing and coo while spitting out cuddly-looking viruses. Mushrooms grow and expand in stop-motion, a seal carcass is consumed by underwater worms and starfish, and we zoom through veins and arteries while triggering musical notation á la Audiosurf. Bjork has taken a bit of flack for her use of an iPad in Biophilia, but if this is what the actual apps look like, well that’s fine with me. We keep returning to images of the solar system, of galaxies floating in space. There seems to be a theme of circular motion and symmetry here, a music of the spheres if you will, but for Bjork this works on a microbiological scale, as well as the cosmological. At one point she informs us that the rate at which our fingernails grow is the same as the Mid Altantic Ridge drifts. It’s psychedelic without being druggy. In fact, with the heat, the darkness and the spectacle, this is a show where no extra stimulus is needed.
The music itself is largely new and very good too, but there are some classics from her back catalogue thrown in (namely “Unravel”, “A Hidden Place” and a gorgeous choral version of “Isobel”). The new songs are each prefaced by a voice-over by natural historian David Attenborough, which manages the trick of both commenting on the music and unifying it. The show ends with a rousing, triumphant version of “Earth Intruders”, Bjork in a massive orange wig flanked by the choir who are wearing matching gold and blue tunics. We seem to be inundated with crazily-dressed lady pop at this point in time, but we shouldn’t forget that Bjork is a true pioneer of this, and on this showing she still does it the best. Biophilia is set to tour later this year, and I urge anyone with an interest in music to go to a show - it really is that good. 2011 is only half over but I seriously doubt I’ll see another show to equal it. There is no footage of Biophilia yet, as the audience had been asked not to take pictures or make video recordings of the performance. It is a mark of the kind of respect the crowd has for Bjork that they comply to this request - well for the most part , anyway.
Here is the audience’s reaction to Bjork’s Biophilia after the opening night on Thursday June 30th:
“It’s a terrifying sensation that will rip apart your soul.”
I’m not so sure about that, but Things, a pathetically inept, blood-splashed straight-to-video “shocker” will probably do something for you…
Is there anything better than a no-budget gore flick that makes you laugh out loud? Think Bloodsucking Freaks. Extreme gore and humor (especially when it’s unintentional) are two great tastes that taste great together—at least if you are in the right frame of mind, I suppose—but when you add in a hefty dollop of ineptitude, it gets even tastier. The newest “outsider cinema” release from The Intervision Picture Corp. and Severin FIlms, Things looks like it’s a stand-out of the “wow this sucks, but it’s GREAT” genre. They’re the experts!
In 1989, it became the first Canadian shot-on-Super 8 gore shocker commercially released on VHS. Today, it remains perhaps the most bizarre, depraved and mind-boggling chunk of Canuxploitaion ever unleashed upon humanity. Adult film superstar Amber Lynn and co-writer/producer Barry J. Gillis star in this surreal saga about two friends who visit a remote cabin, only to discover a womb of monstrous horror that demands graphic dismemberment. It’s an inexplicable orgy of eye ripping, beer guzzling, boob baring, skull drilling, sandwich making, chain sawing, bad acting and post-sync dubbing from co-writer/producer/director Andrew Jordan that has spawned its own disturbing cult of fans. Some will be repulsed. Others may be transformed forever. But you have never seen anything like THINGS.
Now there’s a factual statement if ever there was one… Order a copy of Things if you dare…
Tonight is the opening night of the incredible five-day long Everything Is Festival! here in Los Angeles at the Cinefamily theater on Fairfax.
Getting the first night off to a great start will be the “Conan O’Brien” writers retrospective panel, featuring a live gathering of Conan writers past and present, followed by a live appearance from IFC’s Thu Tran, host of the delightfully surreal Food Party show.
One event that I’m certainly jazzed for is Neil Hamburger’s tribute to the one and only Dora Hall:
America’s Funnyman finally returns to the Cinefamily, for a program celebrating one of his all-time favorite entertainers — and one of Cinefamily’s fave found footage personalities! Long ago, a handful of enigmatic VHS tapes, adorned with watercolor illustrations of an old lady amidst a generic cast of smiling faces — and the Solo disposable cup company logo — fell into our hands. On these tapes were wonderfully cracked ‘70s variety specials starring septuagenarian starlet Dora Hall; who was this woman? A long-forgotten pop star reclaiming past glory? A wrinkled studio creation meant to appeal to the AARP set? Someone in power’s ambitious relative? WHO?!?!
Neil finally explains it all:
“The undisputed queen of vanity entertainment, Dora Hall was married to Leo Hulseman, the founder of the immensely successful Solo Cup Company — a man quite happy to delve into Solo’s apparently bottomless coffers to finance dozens of record releases by Dora, all given away free of charge with packages of plastic cups and plates during the ‘60s! Not content with her “success” in the record biz, Dora branched out in the ensuing two decades with several full-blown Solo-financed TV specials designed to make her a star — despite the fact that she was an elderly grandmother with limited show business experience!”
Sunday afternoon, Neil Hamburger will appear in person to present a psyche-shattering afternoon of vintage Dora TV variety special highlights, along with other special treats! More info and tickets here.
Below, an excerpt from Hall’s Once Upon a Tour TV special. How could you miss this?
This is the first video by Fucked Up to be taken from their current album, the very highly acclaimed David Comes To Life. Sure, Fucked Up may have made some skits to accompany their music before (namely standing around in public places while their music plays in the background), but this is a real music video, with actors, a story, production values, the whole shebang. And as such it’s pretty damn unusual. To say the least. Presumably it ties in with the narrative of the album, which the band have described as being a rock opera. But don’t let that put you off. To quote Richard Metzger:
Two thumbs up. WAY UP.
A thing of intense beauty. And unexpected. Unexpected is hard to do these days!
