Wonderful 1967 promotional film for Traffic’s acid rock classic, “Hole In My Shoe,” which reached #2 in the UK singles chart that year. Apparently Traffic leader Steve Winwood always hated this song.
In 1984, actor Nigel Planer, in character as “Neil the Hippie” from The Young Ones television program, also reached #2 with his humorous cover version.
This is rather brilliant! YouTube user bd594 describes his inspiration below:
This is dedicated to all fans of The B-52’s who are also known as the “Worlds Greatest Party Band”. This idea has been simmering in my mind for the last couple of years and after many months of procrastinating it is finally complete. I was also motivated to finish my robot band after seeing a YouTube Video from “The Trons” from New Zealand.
The Bit-52’s consist of:
Fred’s Vocals - TI99/4a computer, speech synthesizer and terminal emulator ii module
Kate and Cindy’s Vocals - Two HP Scanjet 3C scanners, UBunto and sjetplay written by NuGanjaTron
The Guitar, Keyboard, Cow Bell, Cymbal and Tambourine are all controlled by various types of push/pull solenoinds for a total of 23. The Solenoids are powered by four ULN2803 darlington drivers and everything is controlled by two PIC16F84A microcontrollers
(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)
Marius Rossillon who went by the pen name of O’Galop was a French cartoonist and early film animator. He’s best known for creating Bibendum, the Michelin man. In these short public service announcements made in 1912 and 1918, O’Galop warns of the hazards of alcohol and tuberculosis. The film on tuberculosis was commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation to inform the people of France on the spread and treatment of the disease. In both films, O’Galop uses some pretty bizarre imagery to get the point across.
I particularly dig the degenerate spawn of the alcoholic and the drunk clinging to the psychedelically swaying streetlights. His depiction of TB as a malicious skeleton makes for some amusing imagery.
Music by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Link Wray.
The great comedic actor Peter Sellers would have been 85-years-old today. Here he is seen as Laurence Olivier doing Richard III reciting a Shakespearean version of “A Hard Day’s Night” on the Beatles TV special, “The Music of Lennon and McCartney.”
The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide is a guide to the emerging subculture of literary tattoos — a collection of 100 full-color photographs of human skin indelibly adorned with quotations and images from Pynchon to Dickinson to Shakespeare to Plath. Packed with beloved lines of verse, literary portraits, and illustrations — and statements from the bearers on their tattoos’ history and the personal significance of the chosen literary work — The Word Made Flesh is part photo collection, part literary anthology written on skin.
In 1976 I had Rimbaud’s name framed within a heart tattooed on my left shoulder. It cost me $18 at a parlor in Denver where drunks get tattoos on a dare or impulsive lovers get names tattooed they’ll later regret. I was neither drunk or in love. I wanted something permanently etched on my body that I could look at in my later years and be reminded of what helped form my young rock and roll self. Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry, which I started reading when I 15, was a defining part of my evolution as a songwriter. I never wanted to forget that. I made a commitment to one of my literary heroes. Today the tattoo is illegible, a puckered purplish scrawl bisecting a faded red blot that once was heart-shaped. It looks like shit, but I love it. It has history. And it keeps me connected to a part of myself I never want to lose contact with: the punk who believed that rock, poetry and art could change the world. It’s a badge of rebel honor.
The Word Made Flesh has a groovy website here and you can buy the book here.
What literary figure or phrase do you feel passionate enough about to have permanently emblazoned on your flesh?
Behold the berserk cluelessness of “Baby Got Book,” a super lame, not in the least funny or clever, Christian rap ditty set to the tune of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”
Isn’t that special?
Via American Jesus
A conversation with director John Scheinfeld about his superb documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?).
If you’re under 45-years of age, you might have little idea of who the great singer/songwriter/hellraiser Harry Nilsson was, but surely almost everyone has heard his biggest hits “Everybody’s Talkin’” (from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack), “Without You” (a Badfinger cover given its devastating emotional impact by Harry’s plaintiff three octave vocal range, later recorded by Mariah Carey) and “Coconut” which was used in dozens of movies (normally during a drinking scene) and in more than one 7UP advertising campaign.
Harry Nilsson was also responsible for co-creating the much-loved children’s TV movie, The Point, a Ringo Starr-narrated fable about a boy named Oblio, born with a round head in a land of pointy-headed people. (”Me and My Arrow” and “Are You Sleeping” are two of the best remembered songs from the project. Scratch someone in their 40s and trust me, they’ll be able to sing both from childhood memories of The Point)
Another important thing to know about Harry Nilsson is that he was the favorite American musician of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney, no small achievement, that! After Apple Corps press officer Derek Taylor heard Nilsson’s autobiographical “1941” (from his 1967 RCA debut Pandemonium Shadow Show) siting in the car waiting for his wife, he bought a box of the album and gave it away as presents, including to all four Beatles. The story goes that Lennon listened to the album for 36 straight hours before calling Nilsson in Los Angeles and telling him how much he loved his record. McCartney did the same soon after. Nilsson became a part of the Beatles inner circle, becoming close friends with both John (who would produce his 1974 Pussy Cats album) and Ringo (who was the best man at Nilsson’s second wedding).
The documentary features stellar interviewees such as Brian Wilson, Jimmy Webb, Van Dyke Parks, Yoko Ono, Paul Williams, Mickey Dolenz, Ringo Starr, The Smothers Brothers, and Pythons Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle,
Public Enemy’s explosion onto the American music scene in the mid-to-late-‘80s transformed the musical views of a lot of people, myself included. These guys were the full package. Sonically they fused hardcore New York rap style with militant black power lyrics and a dense, bombastic sample-heavy rhythm attack. Visually, they had a solidly political graphic style and tough, utilitarian fashion sense that accentuated their revolutionary attitude. PE were a dream come true for dorky college students like me who were in love with both serious anarcho-punk bands like the then-recently defunct Crass and black music in general—especially hip-hop. Their 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is a landmark in American pop music.
PE marks their entrance into collectors’ posterity via a 3-CD/3-DVD-photo-book-and-t-shirt box set with a new video for their summer single, “Say It Like It Really Is,” shot in the surprisingly peaceful surroundings of Niagra Falls. Older, but still dangerous minds.
After the jump: a 2007 video re-contextualizing of P.E.’s 1999 tune “I”, with Chuck D. surveying New Orleans’ Ninth Ward…
Fascinating! This short film by Ivan Kral of the Patti Smith Group takes a look around a New Year’s Eve party at CBGBs. Viewing this now, it’s striking how many of these people went on to become generational icons.
New Year CBGB party filled with local bandmates like Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Lenny Kaye, JD Daugherty, Patti Smith manager Jane Friedman, Arista, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Roberta Bayley, Lynette Bean, Tom Verlaine, Richard Robinson, Lisa Robinson, David Byrne, Television, Velvet Underground’s John Cale, many more—too many to mention. All us musicians were broke and dreamed of getting a record deal. Dreams came true.
I can’t embed it here, so you’ll have to click through to Ivan Kral’s YouTube channel to view it.
Via Planet Paul
Seldom seen footage of punk-psych rockers, The Wildweeds, performing their regional hit “I’m Dreaming” in 1968. The Wildweeds are most notable today for being the first band of NRBQ guitarist, Big Al Anderson.
What does this mean? Seriously. Is Wonder Exorcist Woman selling us shoes? There’s so much inexplicable going on here my brain hurts.
Not a lot of notice for this one, but some of my fellow Los Angelenos will be happy to hear that the new documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story will be getting its Los Angeles premiere tomorrow night.
With exclusive interviews from the people who knew Hicks intimately, filmmakers Paul Thomas and Matt Harlock boldly recreate scenes throughout the comedian’s life using a stunning new form of photo-animation that Esquire called “brilliant and beguiling,” allowing the audience to be immersed in Bill’s world as he moves from Houston to Los Angeles, where he achieved his first level of success at the famed Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip. (His name is still featured on the Comedy Store’s wall of fame.) Hicks would go onto to make his mark not only in the LA comedy community, but nationally as well, appearing on “Late Night with Letterman” eleven times, as well as two of his own HBO specials.
His life and career, which promised even more to come, was tragically cut short when he was diagnosed at age 32 with pancreatic cancer and died in 1994 within a matter of months. Known as a comedian in the vein of Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl who wasn’t afraid to tackle “big ideas” on politics, religion and even the meaning of life in a stand-up comedy routine, Hicks started with a cult following, first through word-of-mouth, bootlegs and VHS, and is now tipping into a much wider mainstream following.
The filmmakers comment: “Although Bill was a superstar outside America, the challenging nature of his material meant he never got the chance to be seen unedited by mainstream US audiences, but since the rise of Jon Stewart and ‘The Daily Show,’ Stephen Colbert and Lewis Black, the landscape has changed. Considered by many in the comedy community to be one of the most important stand-ups America ever produced, this firebrand comic’s freethinking message of acceptance and hope is more relevant in today’s world than ever. Above all though, his is the human story of an artist who had to overcome great obstacles, personal and professional, to try and make the world a better place. As such, its for everyone.”
The Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles, Wed., Sept, 8th, 8:00 pm at the Civic Center F. Deaton Auditorium, at corner of 1st and Main St., (i.e., across from City Hall in downtown L.A.)
You can get tickets here
Oval, the band nom-de-glitch for one Markus Popp, have made some seriously lovely records, but it’s been a long while. Nearly 10 years in fact. I have mixed feelings about this return, the extremely generous 70 song free download Lp titlled simply O. Whereas in the past I was mystified by the variety of worn and dirty, clean and pristine textures which were somehow woven into delicate melodies, this new stuff sounds like someone futzing around with some guitar and drum simulation software. I’m going to stick with it, though. Could be a grower.
Download the new Oval album for free
Thansk Dave Madden !
Stay with this… it gets super trippy!
Reggie Watts fooling around in a feedback loop with his new reverb box. We set up a mirror so he could watch himself and interact with the colors live!
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Reggie Watts in F*ck Shit Stack
