This scene from 1967 Greek film Nyxta Gamou is one of the grooviest things I’ve ever seen. The rattle snake funk riff, the white guy who sounds like Otis Redding, the Black chick who sounds like Dolly Parton, the dude who looks like Elvis Costello, the guitar playing beatnik, the go-go dancers, the….it’s all just plain fucking dynamite.
The Liverpool Scene was a confluence of poets and musicians who recorded four albums in the late 1960’s. Founded in 1967 by poet Adrian Henri and musicians Mike Evans, Percy Jones, Mike Hart, Andy Roberts and Brian Dodson, The Liverpool Scene tore down the walls between so-called high art (literature) and pop art (rock and roll). The group was championed by John Peel and received a lot of airplay on pirate radio station Radio London and Peel’s weekly radio show in Germany. But despite Peel’s support, The Liverpool Scene’s records were not big sellers and a tour of the United States was a financial bust. They did thrive on the British college and club circuit and garnered the respect and friendship of Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. After several years of struggling to find an audience with only modest results, the group disbanded in 1970.
Adrian Henri continued to write poetry, as well as paint, until his death in 2000.
Fans of Zappa, The Fugs, Ian Dury and Beefheart will no doubt dig these clips from British TV, 1969. Adrian Henri’s satirical, edgy poetry and the band’s avant-rock and jazzy trippiness keeps the group from veering into hippie dippyness.
Ladies and gents, the amazing Liverpool Scene.
More of the Scene after the jump…
This little girl gives Baby Preacher a run for his money.
“How the hell are we supposed to harvest the crops when there is no rain!?!?”
(via Unique Daily)
This year I’ll be attending Fantastic Fest in Austin as a reviewer/reporter/spy for Dangerous Minds. The festival which runs from September 23 thru the 30th is the largest genre film festival in the US. I plan to keep DM readers up-to-date on the latest in sci-fi, fantasy and horror films, including interviews with filmmakers and cast members.
Gallants is one of the films getting alot of pre-fest buzz. It looks like crazy fun.
Loser office boy, Cheung (Wong Yue-nam), is banished to one of Hong Kong’s rural backwaters to help greedy property developers kick a bunch of old timers out of a run down tea house. But this teahouse used to be a martial arts studio and its owners, Dragon (Chen Kuan-tai) and Tiger (Bruce Leung), are trying to keep the lights on until Master Law (Teddy Robin), wakes up from his 30-year coma and tells them what to do again.
Chen Kuan-tai was Shaw Brother’s most iconic leading man in the 70’s and Bruce Leung started his career as a Bruce Lee imitator before becoming a celebrated martial artist (he played “The Beast” in Stephen Chow’s KUNG FU HUSTLE). Teddy Robin is only four feet tall, but he’s a producer, an actor and the man who invented Chinese rock n’roll, even writing and performing the music for this film. Real-life gangster-turned-actor, Chan Wai-man plays the evil Master Poon; Lo Meng (aka Turbo Law) was one of the Five Deadly Venoms; and Susan Shaw, playing Dr. Fun, was a softcore sexpot back in the day. And with decades of experience behind them, these old pros own the screen.
Delightful animation of Gong leader Daevid Allen’s drawings by Japan’s Mood Magic duo. For a song called “How To Stay Alive” from Gong’s recent 2032 album.
Gong are playing tonight in Glasgow, Scotland at the ABC, tomorrow night in Manchester at the Academy and on Saturday 9/11 at the HMV Forum in London.
I saw the fabled psychedelic cult rockers in Los Angeles a few years back at the Knitting Factory (with Allen’s fellow Soft Machine co-founder Kevin Ayers) and the now 72-year-old “pothead pixie” and crew—core Gong members Steve Hillage on guitar, Miquette Giraudy on synthesizers and “space whisperer” Gilli Smythe (I love her) will be performing with Allen—still put on an absolutely marvelous show. Truly a one-of-a-kind musical experience. The Glasgow concert will be their first in the city for a decade. Hawkwind’s Nik Turner will be opening the shows with his group, Space Ritual. It’s Classic Rock magazine’s Gig of the Week. Tickets available here.
September 9, 1971 saw the population of Attica State prison in western New York state rise up and seize the facility, taking 33 staff hostage. Attica was infamous at the time for both being stuffed at twice its capacity, and for the inhumane living conditions of its majority-black and Puerto Rican community. Prison officials allotted one bar of soap and roll of toilet paper per month and a bucket of water per week as a shower. Inmate mail was regularly censored, visits were highly restricted, and prisoner beatings happened constantly. Responding to news of the imminent torture of one of their fellows who’d assaulted a prison officer, a group of prisoners freed their brother and rose up after guards denied yard-time to the full population.
After four days of negotiation, Governor Nelson Rockefeller—who refused the prisoners’ requests to come to the prison and hear their grievances—blessed Correctional Services Commissioner Russell G. Oswald’s order to retake Attica by force. This resulted in the death of nine hostages and 28 inmates in an episode that shocked the conscience of a nation wearied by war, assassination and urban unrest. It also saw the birth of modern prison reform.
The episode is chronicled in four feature film adaptations—and famously referenced in Dog Day Afternoon)—alongside numerous documentaries, the best being Cinda Firstone Fox’s recently preserved 1973 piece. That one isn’t up on YouTube, but here’s a short doc from the great grassroots media hub Deep Dish TV.
After the jump: Muhammad Ali recites and John & Yoko sing out on Attica…
