Although she often, and memorably, sang in her onscreen roles—she even wrote all three of the songs she sang in Robert Altman’s Nashville—Oscar-nominated character actress Karen Black never had a parallel career as a musician. However, she did leave behind an album’s worth of original music that was partially produced by recording legends Bones Howe (The Mamas and the Papas, 5th Dimension, Tom Waits, The Turtles) and Elliot Mazer (Neil Young, The Band, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt). The tapes—caked in mold and other things—were taken to her friend, musician Cass McCombs by her husband Stephen Eckelberry. They took three years to repair. Many of the details of the sessions that produced this music were lost to the passing of time. One of the boxes held a cover of “Question” by Moody Blues.

Dreaming of You (1971-1976) gathers these recordings—including six songs recorded with Howe—together for the first time. They have a Laurel Canyon folkie/Judy Collins feel to them and there is a certain mysteriousness to her confessional compositions. Ever the actress, Black would do multiple takes of a song, each time changing her tone, phrasing or cadence. “We went looking for a needle in a haystack, and ended up with a haystack of needles,” McCombs says.

Black duetted with McCombs several times on his albums and he was in the process of setting Black’s words to music when she died. “She’d given me all of her poetry and I was trying to work them into some kind of meter that would work as songs,” he says. They recorded two of them, “I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were” and “Royal Jelly.” These songs are included as a bonus 45 with the vinyl release.

Dreaming of You (1971-1976) is released this Friday, July 16 via Anthology Recordings.
 

 
If you recall when Crispin Glover appeared on Late Night with David Letterman wearing a wig, glasses, and loud dollar-bin clothes—you know, that time he nearly kicked in the host’s face with one of his platform shoes—he was attired as Rubin Farr, his character from Rubin & Ed. In fact, Glover turned up in character twice before the movie’s straight-to-video release in ‘91: first on Letterman, and then in the music video for his own song “Clowny Clown Clown,” right at the moment the lyrics mention “Mr. Farr.”
 

“How’d you like a kick right in the taco, buster?”

Directed by Trent Harris (of Beaver Trilogy fame), Rubin & Ed has given me countless hours of pleasure over the past quarter-century. Perhaps only Repo Man is as quotable and as inexhaustibly funny. Hesseman is Ed Tuttle, a middle-aged loser with an outrageous rug, anger management issues and a heartless ex-wife (Karen Black). Ed’s trying to claw his way back to the zero level of dignity with the help of a motivational seminar/get-rich-quick scam called “Power Through Positive Real Estate,” for which he needs recruits. Glover is the socially challenged cat-lover Rubin Farr, whose mother won’t let him move back in with her until he makes a single human friend. And so begins one of cinema’s great romances. 
 

“That cat’s colder than a well-digger’s ass!”

Amazon has the movie on VHS, but you can get it on DVD from Harris himself. Serious Ed-heads can also purchase signed copies of the screenplay.
 

“Man, it is el warmo out here!”

(Incidentally, though these Yelp reviews are pretty old, it looks like the Angelenos among you can still study acting with Crispin’s father, Bruce Glover. He’s still giving out his phone number on his Facebook page.)
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be’: Crispin Glover’s concept album, 1989

 
Before Ali G, Borat and Keith Lemon, “Norman Gunston” was trolling celebrities with his bogus interviews for Australian television. Gunston was the madcap creation of actor-comedian Garry McDonald, who ambushed celebrities and probed them with his microphone and excruciatingly dumb questions.

Gunston made his first (brief) appearances on the Pythonesque Aunty Jack Show in 1972, before becoming the “legendary un-personality” on spin-off series Wollongong the Brave in 1974. With his shiny blue suit and his face covered with blood-spotted pieces of tissue paper, the beautifully observed Gunston was an instant hit.
 

Gunston excited to be probing a Beatle.
 
Over the years, Norman Gunston interviewed Paul and Linda McCartney, Cheech and Chong (who he mistakes as comedy duo Morecambe and Wise), and Lee Marvin (caught in a airport terminal). Sometimes the stars played along—like a flirtatious Karen Black or Frank Zappa, who happily jammed with the harmonica-playing Gunston, or Muhammed Ali who said to Gunston “I’m punchy, what’s your excuse?” 

Occasionally, the celebs didn’t know how to handle Gunston—like an eyeballing Elliott Gould, or a confused Warren Beatty, but their desperate responses only add to the comedy.

Continues after the jump…

 
Decoupage! was a fever dream of a public access show cooked up in 1989 by visionary amateur producer Kathe Duba and drag queen Summer Caprice (Craig Roose, if you want to get technical). Envisioning a kitschy 70’s variety show aesthetic, Craig and Kathe scoured thrift stores to furnish elaborate sets—an episode could take as many as twelve hours to set-up, videotape and break-down (those are Cecil B. DeMille terms for public access). The show attracted counterculture legends like “all-American Jewish lesbian folksinger” Phranc and Vaginal Creme Davis (appearing with her “mother,” Susan Tyrrell). Caprice exuded a fun atmosphere of irreverent, arty, DIY weirdness, and the guests really seemed to enjoy themselves. 

I’d argue the “jewel” of the Decoupage series was actually Decoupage 2000: Return of the Goddess—a 1999 retro-futurist sci-fi version of the original show coordinated after a five-year hiatus. Check out cult queen Karen Black singing Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang,” with grunge goddesses L7 for her band! If you didn’t know, Karen Black has a fucking amazing voice, and her chemistry with L7 is golden.
 

 
The most compelling segment though, is Exene Cervenka (using her actual surname, “Cervenkova” here) performing a spoken-word piece, “They Must Be Angels.” Themes of alien visitation and abduction, psychic abilities and metaphysical spirituality make the monologue a perfect fit for Decoupage‘s retro-futurism, but as Exene expounds, her tangents become more conspiratorial, and you’re left wondering if work like this was the germ of her eventual Alex Jones-levels of delusion. You can never be sure how someone got from Point A to Point Raving, Vicious Crackpot, but man does this piece feel like a red flag; and still, Exene is magnetic, and the performance is mesmerizing.

I’m unsure of exactly how many episodes of Decoupage! were made in total, but there is a Decoupage! YouTube channel with some great clips.
 

 
More after the jump…

 
After months of fighting against cancer, Karen Black, the cult actress who starred in such films as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and Nashville has died at the age of 74. Her husband Stephen Eckelberry posted news of her death on Facebook:

It is with great sadness that I have to report that my wife and best friend, Karen Black has just passed away, only a few minutes ago. Thank you all for all your prayers and love, they meant so much to her as they did to me.

Yesterday, in a heart-rending update on Karen’s blog, Stephen wrote:

A lot of people have been asking me what’s the latest with Karen, so here it is:

Last post I did was mid-June, we were in St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. A week later, everything the hospital could do for Karen had been done; bacterial infections & anemia handled, heart & lungs working - everything but the cancer itself.  By the way, props to St John’s, a top notch hospital with a great staff of doctor’s and nurses.

Karen’s health continued to deteriorate at an alarming pace. She became bed-bound: the spreading cancer having eaten away part of a vertebra and nerves in her lower back. Her left leg stopped functioning.  We could not go to Europe as we had hoped. It would have been almost impossible to travel to the airport.  So we brought alternative treatments to her bedside.  Hardly as effective as doing a full treatment in a clinic, but I firmly believe that these treatments have been keeping her alive.  I can’t tell you how many times doctors and nurses have pulled me aside and told me that I better start hospice, as she was about to die….The cancer is still spreading slowly and it takes its toll.

Stephen and his daughter Celine gave up work to take care of Karen, and in June this year, they filmed a “deeply moving and candid conversation” between Karen and her friend Elliot Mintz. Though emotionally “raw,” it is hoped that this footage will one day be released. Read the full blog here.

R.I.P. Karen Black 1939-2013
 

 
Above, a Karen Black audio interview with Movie Geeks United from May 2012. Below, Karen Black in Trilogy of Terror, the legendary 1975 portmanteau TV horror movie that scared the living daylights out of a generation of Americans (skip straight ahead to about 45 minutes in for the devil doll story.)