Glammy pub rockers The Little Roosters released one album in France in 1981. It was produced by Joe Strummer (with help from Roosters’ guitarist G.J. Lammin) at London’s Pye Sudios in 1980 and features Alison Moyet as a guest vocalist. Joe also plays piano on the album.

Instead of being paid cash for his production services, the Roosters’ manager arranged for Strummer to receive extensive dental work.

The album is long out-of-print which is too bad. Sounding like a combination of The New York Dolls and Dr. Feelgood, the Roosters did indeed rock.
 

 
I really like this smart CD package designed by Travis Lampe for The Pauses’ A Cautionary Tale album. It’s rather sweet.

To be honest, I’ve never heard of The Pauses until now, but I gave them a lil’ listen and they *sort of* remind me of Columbus, Ohio’s Scrawl. Again, sort of.

 

 
(via Super Punch)

 
Italian pop superstar Adriano Celentano recorded the infectious “Prisencolinensinainciusol” in 1972 and it became a big hit in Italy. In the past couple of years the video for the song has gone viral.

Sounding a bit like a parody of Bob Dylan, the lyrics in “Prisencolinensinainciusol” are gibberish. Centano explains:

[H]aving just recorded an album of songs that meant something, I wanted to do something that meant nothing.”

YouTube’s Buffalax sees the song differently than its composer and has translated the seemingly incoherent song into something slightly more coherent. Here is “Prisencolinensinainciusol” with subtitles.
 

 
I am a big aficionado of “the art of the interview.” As a reader, I don’t really require for a journalist to spell something out for me. I’d rather hear what the subject has to say for themselves, but this hardly means that the interviewer is a superfluous part of the equation. Take if from someone who knows, you have to show up properly prepared if you want to achieve good results with an interview. A well-done Q&A can take the form of an interrogation or a narrative. I like both styles. A good interviewer knows how to get someone to reveal what makes them tick.

Longtime underground journalist, cinema festival organizer, filmmaker and screenwriter, Shade Rupe’s new anthology, Dark Stars Rising: Conversations from the Outer Realms (Headpress), is a collection of his interviews conducted over the past 26 years with some of the more transgressive and—okay, I’ll say it—dangerous minds out there. Many of the folks interviewed in Dark Stars Rising are even friends of mine, or people who I’ve met and interviewed before myself, so when the book came through the post the other day, my reaction was a pretty swift, “Yes!”

And chances are that if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might feel the same way yourself about a slick, well-designed 568 page collection of terrific interviews with the likes of Richard Kern, Alejandro Jodorowksy, Udo Kier, Tura Satana, Teller, Brother Theodore (incredible!), Divine, Floria Sigismondi, Hermann Nitsch, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Dennis Cooper, Gaspar Noe, performance artist Johanna Went Dame Darcy, Stephen O’Malley, Crispin Glover and many others. A lot of this material was original published in various underground zines, but here the interviews appear in their unedited form. Visually, it’s a treat. There are photographs (some in color) on nearly every single page and the “documentation” and ephemera contained in the book embellishes the discussions nicely.

If, like me, you appreciate being able to eavesdrop in on smart conversations between smart people—and if you’re nostalgic for the fast disappearing world of zine culture—Shade Rupe’s Dark Stars Rising, is a book you won’t want to miss.

 
Kate Bush was only sixteen when she signed to EMI Records in 1975, on the recommended of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Over the following eighteen months, Kate prepped, wrote and recorded her first single, “Wuthering Heights”, which went to number one in the UK, and her debut album The Kick Inside, which hit No. 3 in the UK charts.

Following on from her chart success, Kate Bush presented The Tour of LIfe, her first and

ever tour, consisting of twenty-eight shows across Britain during April and May of 1979.  The BBC’s quirky news and features series, Nationwide (previously responsible for a fascinating insight into David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust… tour), made this 30-minute behind-the-scenes special of the tour and Kate’s preparation for it.
 

 
Bonus documentary on Kate Bush plus original live TV performance of ‘Wuthering Heights’, after the jump…
 
Previously on DM

 
With thanks to Damien Smith
 

 
Pastor Tommy Sparger of Northpoint Church in Springfield, MO is mashing up the good word with… fart jokes. I can’t think of… well, really anything lamer than a Christian fart joke. Can you? It stretches the definition of lame until it snaps back and hurts you, and then throws up in its own mouth.

Nevertheless Pastor Tommy will be delivering several sermons in the coming weeks with the theme “Whoopee Cushion Life” and I’ll bet his congregation simply can’t wait! Classics like “Pull My Finger!” “Silent But Deadly!” “Blame it on the Other Guy in the Elevator!” And who can forget “He Who Smelt It Dealt It!”

Christian fart jokes. What a shitty idea. Who would be dumb enough to consider such a series of sermons worth attending? (“Maybe I’ll learn me a lil’ sumpthin’! And there’ll be plenty of fart jokes in case all th’t Jeebus talk gets boring!”). WHY would this seem enticing to anyone???
 

 
Via The Museum of Idolatry

 
Trish Keenan, lead singer of the British indie/electronica group Broadcast, died today of pneumonia following a swine flu infection. Associated with Stereolab, the band had a similar psych-pop-esque sound, if a bit more electronic and sample heavy. Having released some of their earliest work on Stereolab’s Duophonic label, the band found a more permanent home on Sheffield’s reknowned Warp records. Broadcast really deserved their reputation as one of the best bands the UK has produced in the last 15 years, and I guess that Ms Keenan’s death spells the end for them. Very sad news indeed.
 
Broadcast - Winter Now (live)
 

 
More Broadcast after the jump…

 
(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)

 
Flickr via Flash Glam Trash!

 
I wanted to call shenanigans on this, but the person who uploaded it on YouTube says,“This video was discovered by someone who used to work at a public library several years ago. This has not been edited in any way. This is 100% authentic.”

There’s even a poor man’s Portishead tune that reminds you to “Think about this.”

(via Nerdcore )