Parisian Bernard Fevre released some exceptionally cool electronic music in the 1970’s under his own name and as Black Devil. His sound was way ahead of its time and is echoed in the music of Aphex Twin, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk and LCD Sound System. Hard to believe this was recorded over 35 years ago. Visionary. Fevre composed these sonic bits of loveliness using synths and occasional tape loops and a drummer, but no computers.
“We were in our own world,” writes Fevre of Black Devil’s original incarnation. “There was no electronic disco scene in Paris at that time and strangely we somehow invented the Italo sound.”
After Monty Python’s Flying Circus ended in 1974, the BBC wanted to find other avenues for their team of talented comedy writers and performers. One of the first ideas, was a proposal for a Michael Palin series. Palin was keen to try something different, but was unwilling to take-on any planned project without his writing partner and fellow Python, Terry Jones. With an offer to make a pilot, the pair came up with Tomkinson’s Schooldays, a hilarious spoof on Tom Brown’s Schooldays.
Partially inspired by Palin’s own experiences at public school, the show starred Ian Ogilvy as the School Bully, Gwen Watford as Mummy, Jones as the Headmaster, the Bear and Mr Moodie, and Palin as Tomkinson and in a selection of other roles. The pilot proved a major hit, and led to a series of Ripping Yarns - each a brilliant single story episode, with an all-star supporting cast (including Denholm Elliott, Joan Sanderson, Roy Kinnear, Judy Loe), covering such derring-do tales as bank robbers (The Testing of Eric Olthwaite), POWs (Escape from Stalag Luft 112b), Agatha Christie-type whodunnit (Murder at Moorstones Manor), stiff upper lip heroes (Across the Andes by Frog), and misadventure on the high seas (The Curse of the Claw).
A second season was commissioned, but only 3 episodes were made, as budget costs and a lack of nerve from the BBC unfortunately led to Ripping Yarns cancellation. This BBC documentary, directed by Maria Stewart for the Comedy Connections series, gives a fascinating and revealing insight into the making of one of British TV’s finest comedy shows.
Most reggae and ska fans have heard Price Buster, the 60s Blue Beat king’s wonderfully offensive and comically misogynist “Ten Commandments”—it’s been a staple of my record collection and a perennial mix tape favorite for 25 years:
But what I did not know, until today, was that there is an answer song from “Princess Buster”—listen below as the cocky street tough of the earlier song gets kicked to the curb by his better half:
This wonderful claymation short Hasta Los Huesos directed by René Castillo tells the tale of a man who dies and ends up in the land of the dead where the party never stops. Castillo was clearly inspired by the art of Jose Posada. Hasta Los Huesos features music by Café Tacuba,
The brazen contempt this guy has for his “flock” is nothing short of breathtaking as he cajoles them to give him their bank account and routing numbers for automatic tithing. How anyone could fall for this is mind-boggling, but they do…
Please act now or Ed Young, Jr. will be forced to sell the private jet, forced to sell his mansion, his condo in Miami, the fishing boat, the $15,000 espresso maker and will have no choice but to move to a bland and boring middle-class suburb and worst of all fly coach to all the conferences that he speaks at. Don’t let this ministry travesty happen to Ed Young, Jr. He can’t be effective for God’s Kingdom unless he is rewarded with the very best and most expensive toys that this life has to offer.
“How can you guys show up and expect a blessing without this? You’re wasting your time and you’re wasting God’s time…”
Cynthia Plaster Caster (Cynthia Albritton) is running for Mayor of Chicago. Cynthia was the founder in 1968 of The Plaster Casters of Chicago who were notorious for making plaster casts of rock stars’ cocks. Her crowning achievement was immortalizing Jimi Hendrix’s pecker in plaster. Cynthia who is now in her fifties has turned her attention away from the low end of rock stars’ anatomies to the lower depths of politics. She knows a lot about dicks so she should fit right in. Visit her website here.
I am not a politician. I am an everyday citizen that is sick and tired of seeing the problems of our city escalate and I believe we ALL need to participate in helping to make our city the best it can be. Please join me by being a part of this election process. Tell your friends and family to actively engage in being informed about what is REALLY happening in City Hall RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES! I will do my best to let you know what I learn along the way AND if you know something that we should all know, join me on Facebook and Twitter and tell everyone.
In their February 28, 1974, issue, Rolling Stone magazine paired up Beat generation godfather, William S. Burroughs with glitter god David Bowie for a dual interview. At the time of the talk, Burroughs had only heard two of Bowie’s songs and Bowie had only recently read Burroughs’ Nova Express novel, knowing the writer through his reputation more than his actual work. Famously, Bowie went on to use the literary and magical “cut ups” technique developed by Burroughs and painter Brion Gysin, when he soon afterwards began working on his stage musical based on George Orwell’s 1984, what later became known as Diamond Dogs.
Burroughs: Could you explain this Ziggy Stardust image of yours? From what I can see it has to do with the world being on the eve of destruction within five years.
Bowie: The time is five years to go before the end of the earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock-and-roll band and the kids no longer want rock-and-roll. There’s no electricity to play it. Ziggy’s adviser tells him to collect news and sing it, ‘cause there is no news. So Ziggy does this and there is terrible news. ‘All the young dudes’ is a song about this news. It is no hymn to the youth as people thought. It is completely the opposite.
Burroughs: Where did this Ziggy idea come from, and this five-year idea? Of course, exhaustion of natural resources will not develop the end of the world. It will result in the collapse of civilization. And it will cut down the population by about three-quarters.
Bowie: Exactly. This does not cause the end of the world for Ziggy. The end comes when the infinites arrive. They really are a black hole, but I’ve made them people because it would be very hard to explain a black hole on stage.
Burroughs: Yes, a black hole on stage would be an incredible expense. And it would be a continuing performance, first eating up Shaftesbury Avenue.
Bowie: Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites to write the coming of a starman, so he writes ‘Starman’, which is the first news of hope that the people have heard. So they latch on to it immediately. The starmen that he is talking about are called the infinites, and they are black-hole jumpers. Ziggy has been talking about this amazing spaceman who will be coming down to save the earth. They arrive somewhere in Greenwich Village. They don’t have a care in the world and are of no possible use to us. They just happened to stumble into our universe by black-hole jumping. Their whole life is travelling from universe to universe. In the stage show, one of them resembles Brando, another one is a Black New Yorker. I even have one called Queenie the Infinite Fox.
Now Ziggy starts to believe in all this himself and thinks himself a prophet of the future starman. He takes himself up to incredible spiritual heights and is kept alive by his disciples. When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make themselves real because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist in our world. And they tear him to pieces on stage during the song ‘Rock ‘n’ roll suicide’. As soon as Ziggy dies on stage the infinites take his elements and make themselves visible. It is a science fiction fantasy of today and this is what literally blew my head off when I read Nova Express, which was written in 1961. Maybe we are the Rodgers and Hammerstein of the seventies, Bill!
The grandson of Oral Roberts breaks the silence about his family’s history in a new “It Gets Better” video. This is simply beautiful:
Randy Robert Potts, the grandson of vehemently homophobic religious leader Oral Roberts, is the latest member of the community to throw in his testimony that life gets better for gay people. In his poignant and haunting video, Potts tells the story of his uncle, Oral Roberts’ eldest son Ronald David Roberts, who was rejected by his family and Evangelical culture after coming out as gay while in high school. “Uncle Ronnie” took his own life in 1982.
After coming out five years ago, Potts began writing a letter to his deceased Uncle Ronnie – “a letter meant for me, for my uncle, and friends I have who are still closeted, terrified their family will reject them.” “My uncle and I were both raised in a world dominated by Evangelicals who taught, and still teach, that the fires of Hell await all gay men and women,” Potts explains. “…While the Evangelical community might not pull the trigger when one of their gay members commits suicide, they often provide the ammunition.”
This is so awesome and yet there are still assholes on YouTube giving it a thumbs down…
Carts Of Darkness is a fascinating film in and of itself but when you factor in the fact that its director, Murray Sipple, is a quadriplegic the film enters the realm of the astounding.
I have not always relied on a wheelchair for my mobility. As an able-bodied person I was a high school quarterback, dedicated mountain biker, skateboarder, and a snowboarder. I lived in Whistler, B.C and directed five independent action sport videos that were pre-“X-games” and pre-“mainstream extreme”. I set down deep roots in a short period while living in the mountain community; and traveled internationally filming snow and skateboarding. That lifestyle/ dream was destroyed in 1996 when a high-speed motor vehicle accident compounded by an emergency room error rendered me a quadriplegic. Throughout the following eight years, I continued to hope that my life could still somehow include my passion for filmmaking. Eventually, I was able to renovate a home in North Vancouver that became a model of accessibility and independence. But outside the comforting accessibility of this new home, my vantage point was largely limited to flat pathways, accessible public buildings, and shopping centers. I learned to drive a van which extended my freedom, but my limited hand dexterity made it difficult to work a camera like I had before. So in spite of solid gains in the direction of freedom and mobility, I found myself largely retreating from the dream of returning to filmmaking. The next few years were chiefly spent adjusting to my disability and trying to ignore the craving to make films. I discovered the story behind Carts of Darkness when I was grocery shopping one evening. I noticed some loud individuals who were cashing in bottles. I had a romantic vision that both of our lifestyles were stereotypes to the passing customers: the drunken and comically disordered bottle returners, and me, wheelchair-bound and precarious in my adapted vehicle. When I approached the men with the idea to make a film, a world was revealed to me I had never expected to discover in my own neighbourhood. Murray Sipple
Carts Of Darkness documents the lives of ‘bottle-pickers’, the hardships they endure, and their method of letting off steam thru the extreme sport of shopping cart racing.
