Long Island’s The Eggheads make a rare network TV appearance on the Gary Moore Show in 1964.
I’ve searched the Internet for more info on The Eggheads and have come up snake eyes. Anybody got the lowdown on this group? I know they released a single called ‘Foolin’ Around’ on Bell Records in 1964 and that’s all I know. Based on this terrific little video (in which they sing “Foolin’ Around”), the band seems worthy of some documentation somewhere.
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band perform at the Knebworth Festival, England, 1975-07-05.
Headlining was Pink Floyd, with the Steve Miller Band and Captain Beefheart in support. The festival also had Roy Harper with Trigger, Linda Lewis, John Peel and Monty Python‘s Graham Chapman and Friends.
Beefheart was introduced by John Peel with the words “Here he is, the guv’ner, Captain Beefheart!” The drums beat a couple of times, and they launched into a gloriously lurching, cacophonous version of “Moonlight on Vermont”. There were two distinct reactions from the audience. The Pink Floyd fans put their hands over their ears and looked at each other as if to say “What is this shit?!”. The Beefheart fans lunged forward, electrified by the sound. It was so off kilter; so alien; so “other” to what we’d been hearing all day, yet so much better, deeper; so RIGHT.
The line up was a strange one: Winged Eel Fingerling and Ella Guru Davidson (who he?) on guitars; Drumbo on guitar and drums; Jimmy Carl Black (introduced as Indian Ink) also on drums; and, instead of a bassist, Bruce “fossil” Fowler on trombone, or air bass as Beefheart called it. You couldn’t really say they were tight; one or two songs sort of slowed down halfway through, and the trombone made the rhythm kinda slurry; but it was a great sound; like a load of drunks trying to play impossibly complex music, and threatening to collapse into chaos at any moment, but always just avoiding it.
Captain Beefheart Don Van Vliet vocals, saxophone, harmonica
Indian Ink Jimmy Carl Black drums, percussion
Greg Ella Guru Davidson guitar, slide guitar
Bruce Fossil Fowler air bass, trombone
Drumbo John French drums, percussion
Winged Eel Fingerling Elliot Ingber guitar, slide guitar
Here’s the whole show, track-by-track - sound quality isn’t perfect, but it’s Beefheart.
01. “Moonlight On Vermont”
02. “Abba Zabba”
03. “Band Introductions” 04. “Orange Claw Hammer”
Full concert performance plus bonus TV clip, after the jump…
In this entertaining BBC documentary from 1972, Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, architectural critic/writer/professor Banham takes us on a tour of the four ecologies of L.A. which he described as Surfurbia, The Plains Of Id, Foothills and Autotopia. A landscape of mini-malls, strip clubs, tiki huts, Watts Tower and the Lovell “Health” House designed by Richard Neutra are among the many fascinating sights in this wonderful vintage video.
Freddie Mercury, at Live Aid, Wembley Stadium, 1985
The package, the parcel, the meat house, the fruit basket, the lunchbox, or just plain old junk - call it what you will but the bulging male crotch has a long and noble history in popular music. From the banned-from-the-waist-down wiggling hips of Elvis Presley, to the King of Pop’s trademark grab-and-yelp, all the way up to the nut-busting, skin-tight jeans of the Kings of Leon, VPL (Visible Penis Line) has taken root as a firm fixture right at the very heart of rock’n'roll culture. Generations of hormonal girls (and even some boys) have long stared at glossy posters hanging above moistened teenage bedsheets, and sighed longingly at the thought of what mysterious pleasures lay behind the zippered fly.
Before the internet, before the iPhone, before sex tapes and the widespread consumption of free pornography, a well defined package (visible only through a thin layer of pant material) could be the making or breaking of a wannabe pop Adonis. The times may have moved on, but the crotch still holds a magnetic attraction to music fans. With that in mind, here is a selection of some of the finest packages that rock and pop have had to offer over the last half century:
One of the reasons Elvis was banned from the waist down.
Bruce Springsteen showing you who is boss.
David Bowie in Labyrinth - surely not suitable for kids?
Prince - the man, the myth, the legend.
John, Yoko & Andy engage in a 3way crotch grab. But who’s groping Yoko’s boob?
EDIT
But, egads, how could I possibly have forgotten Die Antwoord?!
“When groundbreaking television writer Dennis Potter learned he was dying of cancer, he sat down with Melvyn Bragg for a final interview. The subject of media mogul Rupert Murdoch came up.”
A young Christian couple in South Carolina believe they have found the face of Jesus in a Wal-Mart receipt:
Jacob Simmons and his fiancee, Gentry Lee Sutherland, said they bought some pictures from Walmart on Sunday, June 12.
The following Wednesday, the couple had just come home from a church service when Simmons spotted the receipt on the floor of Sutherland’s apartment. He says the receipt had changed.
“I was leaving the kitchen and I just looked on the floor, and it was like it was looking at me,” Simmons said.
A dark gray mark on the receipt seems to show two eyes, a nose and a mouth in a thickly bearded face.
“Then the more you look at it, the more it looked like Jesus, and it was just shocking, breathtaking,” Simmons said.
The couple said the image seemed to answer a question they had just been asked at church.
“We had a message on knowing God, abiding in him,” Sutherland said. “(The preacher asked) ‘If you know God, would you recognize him if you saw him?’”
Good question.
I don’t know… to me this looks EXACTLY like the homeless guy who lives behind the liquor store around the corner. Or Charles Manson. I also see Harry Dean Stanton, but I see him everywhere (and yes, I’m on medication for that).
Based on twenty-five interviews with Kurt Cobain, About A Son recreates the singer’s early life and career, through the intimacy of Michael Azerrad’s recordings, and director A J Schnack’s ambient portraits of the landscape that Cobain called home - Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle.
No, this isn’t an Aphex Twin album cover or “Kimmy Gibbler” from 80s shitcom Full House. It’s an advertisement on the side of a truck spotted by Redditor BitchPleeze.
In a 1995 clip from A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Brit wits Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie employ a parody of It’s a Wonderful Life to imagine a world without Rupert Murdoch.
It WOULD be a better world without that vile old vampire! If he croaked tomorrow, I’d piss on his grave.
Fred Durst’s Reality Check, with Scott Weiland, Perry Farrell, Bono and some other assholes, take a heavy metal chainsaw and sonically eviscerate Marvin Gaye’s classic ‘What’s Going On.” This may be the most ill-conceived and disrespectful cover song of all time. I found some appropriately puke-inducing imagery by Shigeru Izumiya to accompany this travesty.
On a lighter note, Captain and Tennille sing one of the most confounding songs of all time, “Muskrat Love.” Exactly what is muskrat love and do we really want to know? Are those squiggly synthesizer sounds in the solo a replication of the erotic dirty talk that muskrats utter when they’re fucking? I paired this ditty with some bump and grind video that features a stripper who just may be wearing a muskrat g-string!
As frequent readers of this blog know, I consider Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to be a great American and a personal hero. He’s one of the only honest politicians in Washington and a blunt-talking national treasure:
On June 18, 2011 artists Ligorano/Reese presented a temporary monument in the garden of Jim Kempner Fine Art in NYC called “Morning In America.” The installation was witnessed by hundreds and lasted a total of 8 hours throughout the hot day.
...A THOUSAND CUTS is a timelapse video of the event. The soundtrack was inspired by an excerpt from Senator Bernie Sanders 8-hour filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor against the extension of the Bush tax cuts and the effects on the middle class. It is orchestrated to music by composer/violinist Michael Galasso.
Below, Bernie Sanders speaks about his career and the remarkable 8-hour speech he gave filibustering President Obama’s extension of the Bush tax cuts and the disappearance of America’s middle class.
Phil Lynott was always something special - a hugely loved and respected musician, an iconic figure who was “the original Dublin rock’n’roller and arguably a bigger natural star than any of those that followed in his footsteps.”
Phil Lynott - Bass, Lead Vocals
Brian Downey - Drums
Scott Gorham - Guitar
Snowy White - Guitar
Darren Wharton - Keyboards
Track Listing:
01. “Are You Ready?”
02. “Genocide”
03. “Waiting For an Alibi”
04. “Jailbreak”
05. “Trouble Boys”
06. “Don’t Believe a Word”
07. “Memory Pain”
08. “Got To Give It Up”
09. “Chinatown”
10. “Hollywood”
11. “Cowboy Song”
12. “The Boys Are Back In Town”
13. “Suicide”
14. “Black Rose”
15. “Sugar Blues”
16. “Baby Drive Me Crazy”
17. “Rosalie”
18. “Disaster” (“Angel OF Death”)
19. “Emerald”
Take a look at the amazing stained glass portraiture by Neal Fox. Fox’s work reminds me of the work of many different artists, including Gilbert & George, Roy Lichtenstein, even Joe Coleman (composition, not details, obviously!). I’ll bet this exhibition is impressive “in the flesh.”
Daniel Blau Ltd. is pleased to present Neal Fox’s latest project Beware of the God. Fox’s drawings depict a phantasmagoric journey through the detritus and mythology of pop culture. From a life-long obsession with the tales of his dead grandfather, a World War II bomber pilot, writer and hell raiser, his large-scale drawings have developed into increasingly layered celebrations of the debauched and iconoclastic characters whose ideas have helped shape our collective consciousness.
Fox’s latest project takes many of the recurring subjects of his drawings and portrays them through the medium of the stained glass window. As traditional church windows show the iconography of saints, through representations of events in their lives, instruments of martyrdom and iconic motifs, Fox plays with the symbolism of each character’s cult of personality; Albert Hoffman takes a psychedelic bicycle ride above the LSD molecule, J G Ballard dissects the world, surrounded by 20th Century imagery and the eroticism of the car crash, and Johnny Cash holds his inner demon in chains after a religious experience in Nickerjack cave. One quality in particular binds these characters and the others together; a refusal to conform and conviction in their own ideology.
Working with traditional methods at the renowned Franz Mayer of Munich manufacturer, Fox is producing a set of twelve 2.5 metre high stained-glass windows; exhibited in a single room – an alternative church of alternative saints.
Neal Fox’s “Beware of the God” at Daniel Blau Ltd., 51 Hoxton Square, London until August 10th.
Proto-punk rock monsters The Dictators performing live at Irving Plaza, NYC in 1981.
Taking inspiration from The Who and The Stooges and in the same league as no-nonsense asskickers like Earthquake and Blue Oyster Cult with a sardonic, streetwise, sense of humor, The Dictators were punk in attitude and arena rockers in spirit. I saw them on several occasions in 1977 and no matter where they played they blew the roof off the motherfucker. They embodied the power and glory of rock and roll while poking some fun at it at the same time. They had their priorities straight: cars and girls.
