Richard Metzger speaks with author and environmental activist Derrick Jensen via Skype from his home in Northern California. Derrick is the author of thirteen books including “Endgame” and “How Shall I Live My Life.” From the interview: “The industrial economy is killing the planet and we need to shut down the industrial economy using any means necessary because the most important thing is a living planet. The people who come after are not going to care if we voted, they are not going to care if we were violent or non-violent, they’re not going to care if we were nice people, they’re not going to care if we recycled. They’re not going to care if we wrote books or whether we did interview programs, what they are going to care about is the health of the planet. What they are going to care about is whether they can breathe the air and drink the water, because we can all have some great fantasy about how we want things to be in the future, but if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water, it doesn’t matter.”

Recorded at Mahalo Studios.

Special thanks to Jason Calacanis and Alex Miller.

Brilliant short film by Nacho Vigalondo

Via “Why That’s Delightful!” with Graham Linehan

Those of you plugged into the post modern scene know the name Eames. The duo that brought us molded plywood in every shape and form is aped left and right by today?

Inspired by the 1977 release of Star Wars, Yves Hayat (synthesizers and sequencers) formed Droids along with Richard Lornac on keyboards and Jean-Paul Batailley on drums and tablas. Two of the guys performed the single “(Do You Have) The Force” on French TV in 1977 dressed as robots—which could explain the Daft Punk comparison. Star Peace came out a year later, and then the Droids were out. The LP is sought after for its kitsch appeal but also killer electronics and good vibes.

Star Peace’s connection to George Lucas’ space-opera is essentially negligible. Except for a few signifiers, namely the two-part “(Do You Have) The Force” with its R2D2-ish synth squelches and blaster sounds, the whole thing has less to do with Star Wars and more to do with the big astral-plane ideas of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Old New Hope: Half-Baked Record Nerd Oddities From Dennis Wilson and Droids Resurface

Droids

Definitely looks promising! Opens in New York and Los Angeles Thursday, August 14.

The history of the electric guitar as seen from the point of view of three significant musicians: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and the White Stripes’ Jack White. It tells the personal stories, of three generations of electric guitar virtuosos. It reveals how each developed his unique sound and style of playing his favorite instrument. Concentrating on the artists musical rebellion, traveling with him to influential locations and provoking rare discussion as to how and why he writes and plays.

With all the name-brand dying going on these days, I thought I’d mention the passing of someone less well-known who probably touched many of us more deeply and intimately than, oh, Walter Cronkite.  Tom Wilkes, celebrated album cover designer for The Rolling Stones, George Harrison and The Who died recently, in, of all places, Pioneertown, California.  Beyond Beggars Banquet, though, Wilkes was wildly talented, wonderfully prolific.  For a good taste of it all, including his artwork for Monterey Pop, click the link below:

Tom Wilkes homepage

From Cinefamily:

Come join Eric Wareheim (of “Tim & Eric”) and Doug Lussenhop (DJ Douggpound) for an evening of surprises: music videos, short films, video experiments and TV sneak peeks. Like a Gump-ian box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. Except you know you’re gonna get the world premiere of Eric’s new music video for Major Lazer/Diplo for “Pon De Floor”. You also know you’re gonna get free beer and hot dogs afterwards. And you know it’s not gonna suck, like Forrest Gump. It’s gonna be fun, awesome, cool, and neat! See ya there!

Surprises! (curated by Eric Wareheim & Doug Lussenhop)

Thanks Jesse Merlin!

Henry Lanz, Stanford professor, Nabokov’s colleague and chess partner who “married the 14-year-old daughter of a friend.” Was he Humbert Humbert?

Over the chessboard, Lanz confided a dark secret that Nabokov told biographer Field: the memorably dapper professor led a double life. On weekends, he drove to the country to participate in orgies with ?

Marc Campbell of New Wave group The Nails posted this on Facebook:

In the 30 years since 88 LINES ABOUT 44 WOMEN was first recorded there has never been a video version authorized by THE NAILS. Of the dozens of videos on youtube that pay homage to the song, this is the only version created by a member of the band, me. So, here’s the world premier of 88 LINES the video. Hope you enjoy it. I had fun making it.

(NSFW-ish)

Update: This is the infamous video of 88 LINES ABOUT 44 WOMEN that was banned by youtube.

After The Yardbirds in Blow-Up, my 2nd favorite band cameo has got to be from The Zombies in Skidoo-auteur Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake Is Missing.  They’re seen only briefly (and on a pub TV at that), but their presence does wonders to anchor the film in a place and time.  And in a clear reaching out to, you know, “the kids,” they even cut a promo for Bunny—one that manages to mock, it seems, the very serious film they’re selling!

The New Republic’s always brilliant John B. Judis wrote an excellent short essay in last month’s Foreign Policy that everyone should read. I could not agree more with the sentiments here:

In 1995, a magazine published by a conservative Washington think tank brought together a group of writers and scholars to debate a question that seemed to have a foregone conclusion: ?

I like how he’s confused by the rules of American Football. I doesn’t make any sense to me, either, and I’m American… (HT Mikki Halpin)

I am really enjoying Psychoville the new seven part BBC2 comedy series from the League of Gentlemen’s Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. I am an absolute League of Gentlemen fanatic (as anyone who knows me can tell you) and Psychoville’s seven episode run has me in TV heaven.

Attempting to make a comedic series as complex and multi-layered as, say, “24” or “Lost” and with distinctly Hitchcockian elements in abundance (ep #4 is one continuous shot!), Pemberton and Shearsmith’s script ties together several disparate characters: Maureen and David Sowerbutts, a mother-son serial killer duo; Mr. Jelly, a bitter one-armed alcoholic party clown for hire; Oscar Lomax, a blind millionaire who collects Beanie Babies; Joy Aston (played by Dawn French), a nurse who believe a doll is her real son and a dwarf actor with telekinesis trying to hide his “midget porn” past.

All six are connected by a mysterious letter they all receive that simply reads: “I know what you did.”

Welcome to Psychoville by co-creator Reece Shearsmith
Psychoville: the new home of horror comedy
Video interview with Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith

 
I accidentally stumbled across this clip of Madonna making a very early appearance at the fabled Danceteria nightclub in New York. It’s a wonder more people haven’t looked at this clip—just 4k as I write this. Must be one of the earliest Madonna performances out there (according to Wikipedia it was her very first “solo” appearance, but I’m not sure I believe that).

Madonna used to work at Danceteria, in the coat check. This is from a weekly talent show/cabaret night there that was called “No Entiendes,” hosted by Howie Montaug and DJ Anita Sarko.
 

Bryan Talbot is the man who invented modern comics. But you’d never know, because he’s one of the most unsung artists in the field.

Talbot’s Luther Arkwright comic started off in the mid-seventies as a pastiche of Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius character, but by the time Talbot had completed the series in the eighties, he’d ended up laying down the template from which Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and the entire Vertigo line of comics sprang from. Talbot borrowed not only from Moorcock and the British New Wave (of science fiction) but also film techniques like Nic Roeg’s use of cross-cutting, ending up with a particularly potent mix of subject matter, characterization and technique that would inspire practically the entire next twenty years of “mature readers” comics.

(Warren Ellis on Luther Arkwright: “[It’s] probably the single most influential graphic novel to have come out of Britain to date… probably Anglophone comics’ single most important experimental work.”)

Arkwright is an albino assassin who drops out in the sixties, gets stoned, activates his psychic powers, ends up in a parallel England where Oliver Cromwell’s rule never ended, attains enlightenment in a tantric sex ritual, and is charged with leading a revolution against the brutal Puritan regime. Somehow it’s a lot more complicated and cosmic than that?