I happened to notice that the mad genius behind Final Placement‘s anti-hit song Shine, one Clint Golden, has been doing his solid best to disappear his young protege’s masterpiece from the innerwebs, but to no avail. A quick search leads to his professional photography site which features loving portraits of bunnies and Newt Gingrich. Yet the tributes keep coming. I particularly enjoyed the following two clips, the first of which being a useful tutorial by a nice-seeming young gent named er, Coffin Fuck who gives us a comprehensive overview of all things Final Placement. Thanks Mr. Fuck !
The second clip is an adorable (note puppy t-shirt, awww) cuddle-core cover version by a nameless lad. What an incredible inspiration this song has been !
He’s back! Kim Fowley, “the missing link between Chuck Berry and Orson Welles” returns for a second go ‘round. What does a typical day in the life of Kim Fowley consist of? Find out what he eats! Learn where the freaks are. Stories about Jimi and Janis, Alice Cooper, Charles Manson and more! And remember he doesn’t even take drugs…
Pastor Steven L Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church (and Teabagger) preaches that men must urinate while standing up. This is what being a man is all about. And it’s emblematic of everything that’s wrong in the world. Apparently. And did you know that President Obama probably pees sitting down. too? That’s what the good reverend thinks! How he knows this, I can’t say.
This has to be one of the most bizarre (and meaningless!) sermons ever delivered in a Christian church. And he’s got more of ‘em! Check out his diatribe against women wearing pants below. It’s almost as good. What were the parishoners thinking when this guy went off like this? And YES, this is the same guy who was tazed at the border last year and the same idiot how prayed for Obama’s death. I suspect this won’t be the last we hear from him, what do you think?
After a 15-year absence from recording (although many would say he checked out longer ago than that) Texas psychedelic legend Roky Erickson has returned with a new collection of odd ballads. If you’re already a fan, True Love Cast Out All Evil is a fascinating glimpse into Erickson’s mental state and the progress he’s made this decade, with the care his younger brother, a classical musician living in Pittsburgh, has given him (plus better meds have certainly helped). Erickson, of course, is often compared to Syd Barrett and the comparison remains valid here, too, as this collection has the same vaguely shambolic feel as Barrett and The Madcap Laughs. At times it feels like you are listening to something a bit too private, although therein lies an undeniably important part of the emotional power of the Erickson’s music in 2010.
Characteristic Ericksonian imagery can still be found, as in this line, which comes from the lead-off track Devotional Number One, a paean to Christ: “Jesus is not a hallucinogenic mushroom.” (A reference to John Allegro’s controversial thesis in The Sacred Cross and the Mushroom?).
Video below: A vintage 13th Floor Elevators performance featuring a young Roky Erickson on vocals. Here they do You’re Gonna Miss Me on a show called Where The Action Is:
YouTuber “Jordan” gives a thrilling keynote presentation about the lifestyles of the Chavs for the benefit of confused Americans—how to spot and avoid. And he does it without a powerpoint prompter, even. This should bring anybody up to speed who was confused by yesterday’s post on Chavs:
The trailer for Chris Morris’s Jihadi comedy “Four Lions” went up today (the film has already shown at Sundance). Guardian review also attached below.
Chris Morris is still the most incendiary figure working in the British entertainment industry. Even if you have not read reports of Four Lions’ premiere at Sundance, it should come as no surprise that Morris – the man behind surreal short film My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117, and the TV series Nathan Barley, has taken on arguably the most bad-taste subject imaginable: a cell of homegrown jihadi bombers, feverishly plotting martyrdom from terrace houses in Doncaster.
The title is offered up with sledgehammer irony: our crew of wannabe killers are as fervent as football fans, and at one point — in a parody of the 7/7 tube bombers’ group hug caught on a station surveillance camera — cuddle up and chant motivational phrases.
But of course it’s as contrary an idea as everything else Morris sets up: these are anti-patriots of the most unmistakable kind. Added to which, there are actually five of them. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is the intense, coiled-spring leader, Fessel (Adeel Akhtar) his clueless, dozy lieutenant; Waj (Kayvan Novak), an easily confused bruiser; harmless-looking Hassan (Arsher Ali), a late sub when one of the others enters heaven a little earlier than planned; and Barry (Nigel Lindsay), — the most bizarre of all the “lions” — a Caucasian convert to Islam with a streak of ferocious invective and penchant for little hats.
The always excellent Soul Jazz Records have released a new DVD, 135 Grand Street New York 1979, a rough-hewn documentation of the No Wave scene, by Ericka Beckman. Featured groups in the film are Theoretical Girls, UT, A Band, Rhys Chatham, Chinese Puzzle, The Static, Morales, Youth in Asia, Morales, Steven Piccolo and Jill Kroesen. (In the mid-80s, I worked with Jill Kroesen, briefly, at a video post production facility in New York called Caesar Video Graphics. She was a really good designer as I recall).
Recently screened at the Museum of Modern Art and currently showing as part of Sonic Youth’s ‘Sensational Fix’ touring art exhibition around the world, the film has also screened before Glenn Branca’s most recent live shows in New York City.
In this documentary film, punk rock and non-musicianship fight it out with art world attitude. Garage band line-ups in varying degrees of musical destruction sit alongside post-everything poetry and cultural terrorism. Ericka Beckman’s film matches the rawness, minimalism and radicalism of the music - a fitting document and visual statement of new forms created out of New York’s anti-everything musical nihilism, circa 1979.
This film includes the only known footage of many No Wave bands of the period. It is a film about bands filled with painters, filmmakers, actors - and occasionally musicians - thriving and thrashing in the pulsating, vibrant post-punk world of New York where high art met low culture; where Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Wharton Tiers, Taro Suzuki and the others featured here made the connections between John Cage and Joey Ramone, between the questioning of art and ? and the Mysterians.
Text and photos culled from the Jet magazine (starts at page #22) where Cleaver discusses the philosophy behind his pants, which, to quote the former Black Panther Party leader, “are just the tip of the iceberg.”
It’s a fascinating read. Cleaver goes on to describe his then-plan to open a finishing school for boys where they’ll learn, among other things, manners, how to dress, and how not to rape. And here’s the text that accompanies B. Laner’s prior post:
Life is just a chain of daisies when you slip into (careful, now) these revolutionary hot pants – with their ever-so-daring accent provacateur – just unveiled by famous radical designer Edridge Cleaver of Paris. They’re bad, they’re mad, they’re up front (but never out of sight)... and, of course, they’re for men only… REAL men… the three-fisted variety. ‘There’s no mistaking they are men’s pants,’ says M. Cleaver (seen here modeling a high-waisted two-tone pair of ‘Cleavers’ with side zipper and matching ‘appurtenance.’ ‘The pants that men wear now will be seen as girls’ pants after my models are sold. And don’t forget…heavy on the starch!”
In light of Bradley’s penis pants post I’ve had several hipsters point out to me that Eldridge Cleaver was there first, and so he was. Lord have mercy.
Ah, my “Prince Charming” outfit is now complete! Pants from Spanish designer Isabel Mastache’s Fall/Winter ‘10 collection. More from the collection below:
Criterion just released the Blu-Ray version of 1962’s Vivre sa Vie, starring Jean-Luc Godard‘s one-time wife, but always expressive muse, Anna Karina. Much like many a real-life Hollywood story, Vivre sa Vie charts an aspiring creative type’s descent into prostitution. And while it may end in tragedy, the surfaces along the way are typically gorgeous to look at.
Karina would, of course, continue to appear in such essential Godard films as Band of Outsiders and Pierrot le Fou, but she was first introduced to the director in the French soap commercial below:
As Karina lathers up, the Situationist engineer himself intones in a voice-over: “The advertisements during intermissions are the truest reflection of an intermission from life.” While you’re left to ponder that one, check out what many feel to be one of Vivre sa Vie‘s more sublime moments, Nana’s Dance:
Chavtowns is a public blog dedicated to horror stories of towns run by chavs (council housed and violents). The blog is stacked with highly impressive tales (sorted by region!) of the antics of the chavs, most of which are too out-of-hand to post directly. But this should give you the gist:
Romford is commonly referred to as ’slag town’ and i’ve heard that a number of times when people have asked me where im from. The thing is, its hard to dislike Romford – its a slice of fried gold next door to Dagenham and gangster paradise Ilford. But, its notorious for a lot of really embarrassing and stupid things – notably its chav form. Slag Town, and I heard it from a Dagenhamite once, is a haven of orange tinged cockneys. Girls walk around with dodgy make up and highlights with the typically Romford talk ‘me old mucka’ and ‘wa’s goin on son?’. Unlike other outer London Boroughs, Havering is surrounded by cackholes like Basildon and rough Essex-boi areas like Loughton and Debden. Literally everyone in Romford wants to be Danny Dyer and you see flocks of angry young men with comb overs and polo shirts heading towards Liquid and Envy on a Friday night ready to get ‘gattered’ or find a girl and ‘bang her’...
Romford is one of those areas where if you look at someone on the street, you WILL be challenged. The number of times I have been threatened by a yute on a pushbike and a hoody is big big big and it isnt uncommon to see a 14 year old girl with a ponytale and tracksuit top holding a baby in one arm and a fag in the next.
I also found this rather stupendous story, which through a stroke of some kind of blind Internet info juxtaposition luck I was able to actually find the video of, attached at the bottom of the post. It’s… well, just watch it.
Arguably the thing that made Crawley famous was a little event in an area local to my house called Tilgate Park. A place where, shockingly for Crawley, there are very few council houses. Single mums teenage mums, however, are surprisingly enduring when it comes to finding a home. Anyway, some chavs who were feeling far more clever than they actually were hooked a moped up to a child’s roundabout. They proceeded to rev it and cried in youthful glee when the engine caused the toy to spin. Three Chavettes then seated themselves on it and the fun began. It spun so fast that the stupid s***s were thrown off and given broken limbs and third degree friction burns. This made NATIONAL NEWS and so it should. We should remember the amazing depths of chav idocy. We could scarcly believe it. Other chavs could scarcely believe it.
Archdruid John Michael Greer’s excellent new article on how the Iceland volcano poked some very large holes in our assumptions about the way things run, and how many of our views on economics are the superstitions of the modern age. Very lucid, clear, direct-to-the-point stuff.
The widespread reaction to the Eyjafjallajokull eruption, for that matter, points up what may just be the most deeply rooted of our superstitions, the belief that Nature can be ignored with impunity. It’s only fair to point out that for most people in the industrial world, for most of a century now, this has been true more often than not; the same exuberant abundance that produced ski slopes in Dubai and fresh strawberries in British supermarkets in January made it reasonable, for a while, to act as though whatever Nature tossed our way could be brushed aside. In the emerging postabundance age, though, this may be the most dangerous superstition of all. The tide of cheap abundant energy that has defined our attitudes as much as our technologies is ebbing now, and we are rapidly losing the margin of error that made our former arrogance possible.
As that change unfolds, it might be worth suggesting that it’s time to discard our current superstitions concerning economics, energy, and nature, and replace them with some more functional approach to these things. A superstition, once again, is an observance that has become detached from its meaning, and one of the more drastic ways this detachment can take place is a change in the circumstances that make that meaning relevant. This has arguably happened to our economic convictions, and to a great many more of the commonplaces of modern thought; and it’s simply our bad luck, so to speak, that the consequences of pursuing those superstitions in the emerging world of scarcity and contraction are likely to be considerably more destructive than those of planting by the signs or leaving a dish of milk on the back step.
