Here’s something quite tasty indeed. A really nice quality video of The Flying Burrito Brothers performing “Hot Burrito #1.” This is new to me and doesn’t seem to have appeared previously on Youtube.
With Gram Parsons, Chris Ethridge, Michael Clarke and Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Chris Hillman is seen briefly and only partially (a fleeting glimpse of a blue suit and shock of dirty blonde hair) at the edges of the frame. Why so shy? Was this when he and Gram were feuding? Or was the cameraman as stoned as the band? Also, Clarke and Ethridge have switched instruments. Strange.
“Hot Burrito #1” appears on The Gilded Palace of Sin, an album which has influenced country rock and Americana bands for the past several decades without ever having sold enough copies to achieve gold record status.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein first came to life on celluloid over a hundred years ago, with the monster’s appearance in what has become known as “Edison’s Frankenstein.” Although the great inventor had no direct involvement in the making of the silent short, it was made by the studio that bore his name and using his film process, the Edison Kinetogram. Made in 1910, it was the first horror film in cinema history.
It’s interesting to note that Boris Karloff was actually the fourth actor to play Frankenstin’s monster.
Sharon Tate was murdered on August 9, 1969. We’re all too familiar with the details so I’m passing on discussing them here. Instead, I’d like to share this rarely seen clip of Tate at work as an actor.
In this screen test for Valley Of The Dolls, Tate is playing beautiful pill popper Jennifer North, a role she eventually landed much to the delight of guilty pleasure seekers like myself.
The actor is Tony Scotti who played the adulterous scumbag Tony Polar, whose cheating ways propelled the emotionally frail Jennifer into the arms of Morpheus.
I was in drag the last time I did stand-up, about twenty-five-years ago, in a crowded bar at the Tron Theater, Glasgow. It was a return appearance, on a ‘gong night’ bill that included Craig Ferguson, who was starting out with his comic character Bing Hitler.
In some respects I was amazed to be asked back, and was certain my invitation had been a clerical error. The first time I’d tried to be Lenny McBruce and was full of misplaced energy that led me to telling the audience to ‘fuck off’, whilst reading a copy of the Sun, riffing on its headlines, horoscopes, interviews and adverts. I’d got as far as Princess Diana and Pete Sutcliffe jokes, when the howls of abuse proved too much, I was gonged quickly off.
Other gong nights had seen a generation of new and original talent: a duo called Victor and Barry - Alan Cumming and Forbes Mason - those erstwhile founders of the Kelvinside Young People’s Amateur Dramatic Art Society (KYPADAS), who performed camp musical numbers, in slick-backed hair and monogramed smoking jackets.
And then there was Jerry Sadowitz, who was incredible, and still is. His humor was unpredictable, relentless and much in the spirit of Lenny Bruce - nothing was sacred, no subject off limits. When menaced with the gong, he pulled out a joke pistol and threatened to shoot the compere, John Stahl.
Amongst such talents, I was just a daft, wee laddie, who wanted to succeed more than I wanted to perform.
So, on my return, I revamped one of my old drag characters, Bessie Graham, a mistress of the single entendre. I went through the rehearsed material and it seemed to be working well - at least for half the audience, those nearest to the stage that is. But for anyone beyond row 4, I appeared as an indifferent mime artist, with a basic grasp of mime. Later, I was told my mic had not been working.
Afterwards, watching Craig Ferguson perform, I decided to give it all up. Over 2 years of performing, on-and-off, I’d found out I was fine at comic characters and sketches, but hadn’t grown-up enough to have my own voice, and know what I wanted to say. And without that, I would never be any good.
This is an oldie but goody. A trailer for Dirty Dancing re-cut to replicate the look and feel of a David Lynch film. I think it succeeds magnificently.
Joe Strummer is interviewed for a British television talk show in 1988.
Joe discusses the freshly released CD “The Story of the Clash, Volume 1” and Aex Cox’s film Walker , for which he did the soundtrack and had a small acting role (as a dishwasher turned mercenary).
Here’s a short but very compeling “artistic profile” on Graham Simpson, the original bassist and co-founder of Roxy Music.
After the release of the band’s debut album in 1972, Simpson left Roxy Music to deal with his depression (“mental fatigue”), which eventually led to a trip to India to study Sufism. Though he had not closed the door on a return to Roxy Music, he never did approach the band about future collaborations.
The last words Bryan (Ferry) said to me where “get well and come back” but I never did. I ran out of imagination but Bryan never did”
Bryan Ferry on Simpson:
He was one of the most interesting people I ever worked with. He was crucial to my development as a musician, and in those early years he was a pillar of strength and inspiration. He was a great character…think Jack Kerouac and ‘On The Road’. I liked Graham, and Roxy Music would never have happened without him”
It is somewhat shocking that Simpson’s contribution to the genesis of Roxy Music is as little known as it is. Perhaps, his own behavior was the cause. He seemed unsuited to the glare of the spotlight and apparently made every effort to avoid fame. But this doesn’t excuse history from giving credit where credit is due. In Jonathan Rigby’s well-regarded book on Roxy Music, “Both Ends Burning,” Simpson is hardly mentioned and among the book’s many photographs of Roxy Music in its infancy, there’s not a single shot of Simpson. A recent documentary on Roxy Music that we featured here on Dangerous Minds made no mention of Simpson at all.
Filmed by Simpson’s neighbor and film maker Sara Cook, this video is a teaser for a planned feature-length documentary on Simpson called Nothing But The Magnificent.
I, for one, am keeping my fingers crossed that Ms. Cook will be able to complete Nothing But The Magnificent. Graham Simpson’s life seems quite fascinating and as a founder of one of the great rock bands of all time his story is far more than just an historical footnote.
Graham Simpson died this past April at the age of 68.
Italian film maker Paolo Gioli creates a haunting short movie by animating photographs taken by Bert Stern of Marilyn Monroe shortly before she died at the age of 36, fifty years ago today.
Filmarilyn is both beautiful and foreboding. As the film’s jazzy rhythms start to disintegrate and the images slow to a crawl, “X” marks on the contact sheets appear like magical curses and a fresh scar on Marilyn’s flesh transforms into a stigmata while her face, half-hidden by shrouds of white, eyes closed, turns impossibly pale and lifeless. In the final moments, close-ups of her hands in death-like repose seem almost saintly and as the film’s last frames unspool we are left with the sense of having seen an apparition, a ghost… a soul X-rayed.
It’s amazing how much power and sadness Gioli creates from so few elements - a testimony to his artistry, Marilyn’s radiance and Stern’s skill in capturing it.
