Friday, January 30, 2009
Captain Beefheart ice cream for crow
Captain Beefheart "Ice Cream for Crow"
From YouTube uploader:
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band; directed by Don Van Vliet (with much uncredited assistance from producer Ken Schreiber), cinematography by Daniel Pearl (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre); Don Van Vliet (vocals, harp), Gary Lucas (guitar), Jeff Tepper (guitar), Rick Snyder (bass), Cliff Martinez (drums); filmed on location in the High Mojave Desert near Lancaster, California; clip rejected by MTV USA as "too weird" upon release, now in the Permanent Film and Video Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; track taken from the 1982 Virgin album "Ice Cream for Crow"
From Wikipedia Captain Beefheart entry:
Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet on January 15, 1941) is an American musician and visual artist, best known by the pseudonym Captain Beefheart.
His musical work was mainly conducted with a rotating assembly of musicians called The Magic Band, which was active from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. Van Vliet was chiefly a singer and harmonica player, occasionally playing noisy, untrained free jazz-influenced saxophone and keyboards.
His compositions are characterized by their odd mixtures of shifting time signatures and by their surreal lyrics, while Van Vliet himself is noted for his dictatorial approach to his musicians and for his enigmatic relationship with the public.
Van Vliet joined the newly formed Magic Band in 1965, quickly taking over as band leader. Their early output was rooted in blues and rock music, but Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (as they were collectively known) gradually adopted a more experimental approach.
1969 saw the release of their best known album, Trout Mask Replica, which was produced by Van Vliet's childhood friend Frank Zappa and is today regarded by some as a groundbreaking and influential masterpiece.
Van Vliet released several more albums throughout the 1970s, but his group was beset by shifting line-ups and a lack of commercial success.
Towards the end of the decade, he settled with a group of younger musicians and received acclaim for his three final albums, released between 1978 and 1982.
Van Vliet's legacy is one of limited commercial success, but nonetheless one with a devoted following. Despite this lack of commercial success, his influence on musicians, especially those of punk and new wave, has been described as "incalculable".
Since the culmination of his musical career in the early 1980s, Van Vliet has made few public appearances, preferring a quiet life in his northern Humboldt County, California home where he has concentrated on a career in painting.
His interest in art dates back to a childhood talent for sculpting, and his work—which has been described as a "neo-primitive abstract-expressionist aesthetic,"[3]—has received international recognition.
This Heat health and efficiency
This Heat "Health and Efficiency" 1985
According to Wikipedia This Heat entry:
This Heat were a British experimental music group formed in late-1975 in Brixton, London by multi-instrumentalists Charles Bullen (guitar, clarinet, viola, vocals, tapes), Charles Hayward (drums, keyboards, vocals, tapes) and Gareth Williams (keyboard, guitar, bass, vocals, tapes).
This Heat were active in the ascendancy of British progressive rock and punk rock, but stood apart from those scenes due to a radically inventive approach that touched on numerous different styles and genres, but was always confrontational and politically charged.
Their commercial success was limited, but This Heat are widely considered a missing link between progressive rock (especially krautrock) and such later experimental genres as post-punk, post-rock, and noise rock.
Band history
Their first radio airplay came in early 1977 from legendary DJ John Peel, to whom they sent a demo tape recorded in the band's 'Cold Storage' studio, which they'd converted from a disused meat factory. During this time, they also recorded a session with Ghanaian percussionist Mario Boyer Diekuuroh, parts of which later appeared on a 1982 split cassette with Albert Marcoeur, released by the French experimental rock magazine Tago Mago.
Their self-titled debut album was recorded between February 1976 and September 1978, and was released in August 1979. It was characterized by heavy use of tape manipulation and looping, combined with more traditional performance, to create dense, eerie, electronic soundscapes. Also released in this period was an EP, Health & Efficiency, which foreshadowed the more rock-oriented sound of their second album.
Deceit (1981), the band's second and final album was produced with help from noted reggae mixer Martin Frederick. Deceit found the band incorporating more influence from punk rock, and consolidating the world music influences in their work. Although, like all of This Heat's releases, it sold poorly, Deceit is now seen as a classic of the post-punk era comparable in quality and invention with Closer, Chairs Missing or Metal Box.
[edit] Legacy
This Heat split up in 1982 after completing their final European tour with bassist/vocalist Trefor Goronwy (whose earlier band Dog 2000 with Andy Bole recorded in "Cold Storage") and keyboardist Ian Hill joining Bullen and Hayward.
Hayward went on to form Camberwell Now with Goronwy and ex-This Heat soundman Stephen Rickard, and remains musically active. Charles Bullen had a solo venture called Lifetones, and released one record, "For a Reason", in 1983 on his Tone of Life imprint. Bullen later released the album "Internal Clock" under the name Circadian Rhythms in 1998.
In 1993 a new album of previously unreleased This Heat recordings was unearthed. Repeat featured three long tracks, including the title track, a 20 minute remix of "24 Track Loop".
"Out of Cold Storage", a box set of all the band's official recordings, was released in June 2006 on This is!, a new Recommended Records sub-label set up by Charles Hayward and Charles Bullen to re-release This Heat's back catalogue.
The set comprises This Heat, Deceit, Health and Efficiency, Made Available and Repeat, plus Live 80/81, a CD of concert recordings.
Williams later formed Flaming Tunes with Mary Currie and released a cassette of new material, in a much softer style than that of This Heat. He died in late 2001.
Johnny Rotten interview Finland tv 1987
Johnny Rotten interview 1987 on Finland TV
"I find honesty is the most offensive thing in the world. And you've just been attacked with it." - Johnny Rotten aka John Lydon
Johnny Rotten NYC 2007 interview
Johnny Rotten "NYC 2007 Interview"
From YouTube uploader:
What becomes a legend most? It depends on how accurate the legend is in relation to the person.
In the case of John Lydon, you might start with his autobio "Rotten: No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish" discounting of course, the myth that's always created whenever we attempt to write about ourselves. Still, it's an interesting and very honest story, and it sheds light on his individuality and goes a long way in loosening up the dogma that Punk as a music became, and reminds us of the funkier, disaffected angels that inform whatever Punk as a philosophy was, and hopefully, continues to become.
So when you consider Lydon the person and realize that he was more a catalyst than a dogmatist, the idea of him judging a talent show (Bodog.com's $1 Million Battle of The Bands) isn't really so anomalous, although talent contests by definition would instantly seem counter-intuitive to punk's attempted destruction of the rock star deity and the bloated corporate label.
Of course, punk never completely accomplished this, maybe cuz once one person does something new, either a) everybody copies it to the point of redux, or b: everybody worships the originator to an unreasonable point or conformity.
Punk as music has suffered both fates at times, tho punk as philosophy has certainly had a considerable, if not total, impact - probably because the philosophy existed long before the music.
Coincidentally, while working on this I received an email from a publicist a bout a contemporary band that the late Mr. Tony Wilson said made him feel the same excitement he'd felt at the Sex Pistols' first show, which of course is a legendary event that I simply have to ask Lydon about.
And of course, Lydon initially declines the offer, and rightly so, before sharing very lucid thoughts about punk as philosophy -- and then tearing into Green Day, whose platinum record adorns the room we find ourselves in.
At one point in this interview another platinum record on the wall haloes him and he seems a saint of rock and roll. At another camera angle, the shiny circle looks like a saw blade slicing into his head. Lydon certainly suffered both fates and lived to not tell about it if he doesn't want to, but thankfully, he shares a lot in this conversation and I'm very grateful.
In the past few weeks, I've taped interviews and/or performances from several different legends; Rock Steady Crew's Crazy Legs; Morrissey; Siouxsie Sioux; and Mr. Rotten himself, (video from all coming soon) and it's interesting to see the extent some are, and others aren't, wiling to discuss the days/play the songs from the time when they made their first mark. And they each have a right to share as little or as much from their past as they choose.
But of course, this video interview is about more than the past, or talent contests; it's about what it should be about when The Fates throw you in the Green Room with Johnny Rotten.
Yes, he explains the seemingly-contradictory act of Judging Music in his classic, anarcho-individualistic terms. But he also looks at Richard Branson and the late Tony Wilson, while also throwing in an appreciation for Stephen Colbet, and a love of vinyl records, and whatever else he feels like contemplating.
As for his own "career", he's actually been very busy with this talent contest which (like most contests these days) has proven to have legs and is on FuseTV which i've never seen ('dont have cable).
He's also done a lot of narration for nature programming (again, check your expectations at the door). So the guy's always moving forward, tho' he also doesn't rule out the possibility of touring again with PIL or The Sex Pistols.
I think he should do both, and soon.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Adverts one chord wonders
The Adverts "One Chord Wonders"
Live at London's Marquee club. From the German documentary "Punk In London '77"
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Peter and the Test Tube Babies elvis is dead
Peter and the Test Tube Babies "Elvis is Dead"
live 1998 at CBGBs, NYC
crowd wanker "rubbish!"
Peter: "yeah being rubbish is our trademark, we've made a 20 year career out of it."
Genuine Imitations oedipus rex
Genuine Imitations "Oedipus Rex"
From YouTube uploader:
everyone's favorite White Plains, New York punk funkers tear it up at the Thirsty Turtle. Will eat your mom.
~
Fleshtones lets go
Fleshtones "Let's Go"
From YouTube uploader:
Italian TV appearance from the 90s that includes an interview with the band and performances of Let's Go! and Stop Fooling Around. The sunglasses that Peter Zaremba is wearing are from the "Fleshtones" range that were featured in the French newspaper Liberation. To tie-in with the launch of the specs a "live" CD-EP was used as a promo item.
Pune Ganpati 2008 Chetak Club
Pune Ganpati 2008 - Chetak Club
Manacha Tisara Ganpati, Punyacha Raja, Guruji Talim Mandal - Chetak Club Pathak
Monday, January 26, 2009
64 Revolt hurricane LIVE
64 Revolt "Hurricane" live
Swedish bitrockers 64revolt performing at the Hultsfred Festival in june, 2005.
Mission of Burma not a photograph
Mission of Burma "This is Not a Photograph"
Early live performance at The Paradise, 1980. From the DVD, "Not a Photograph."
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The Move walk upon the water
the Move "Walk Upon the Water" (1968?) on German TV, the pre-punk psychedelic rock band
Compare their fancy-man moves with video of the MC5, especially "Looking At You".
The Monks complication 1965
The Monks "Complication" 1965
The influential and ahead-of-their-time pre-punk band The Monks play on German TV in 1965.
Toy Dolls ellie the elephant
Toy Dolls "Ellie the Elephant"
From the YouTube uploader:
The Toy Dolls are an English punk rock band. They formed in 1979, playing their first concert at Millview Social Club, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, on 20 October 1979.
While much punk rock is political or angry, the Toy Dolls worked within the esthetics of punk to express a sense of irreverent adolescent fun with irreverent lyrics and song titles such as "Yul Brynner Was A Skinhead", "My Girlfriend's Dad's A Vicar" and "James Bond Lives Down Our Street."
There is often alliteration in their song titles (e.g. "Peter Practice's Practice Place", "Fisticuffs in Frederick Street", "Neville is a Nerd").Their albums usually include a cover version of a well-known hit song, usually sped up to the usual punk rock tempo.
Covers have included "Toccata in Dm", "Sabre Dance", "Livin' La Vida Loca", "Lazy Sunday Afternoon", "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) and "The Final Countdown." They have also recorded parodies of popular songs, such as "The Kids in Tyne and Wear (Kids in America)" and "The Devil Went Down to Scunthorpe (The Devil Went Down to Georgia)".
Their albums often start with a short intro with a catchy guitar riff, and end with an outro, which is usually a slightly longer variation of the intro riff. Their lyrics are usually based on singer Olga's experiences and favorite soap operas.
Most of the band members have nicknames and are rarely seen without their cartoonish rectangular sunglasses. Although they appeared bare-eyed on the One More Megabyte album cover, they have usually appeared in sunglasses ever since the group formed.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Smoke she put the hurt on me
The Smoke "She Put the Hurt On Me"
Pre-punk early 60s psychedelic garage band. Live September 1967 German TV.
Toxic Lipstick at ZXZW
Toxic Lipstick at ZXZW & Live in De Living 43
Them Aussies doing Put 'm in, mash up of 2 gigs - ZXZW in Tilburg + Live in De Living, Tienen.
Mangenerated berlin
Mangenerated "Berlin"
Super 8 movie shot in Berlin in the late 90's - music by ManGenerated, circa 1998.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Six Feet Under amerika the brutal
Six Feet Under "Amerika the Brutal"
WARNING: This extreme pacifist video with its anti-violence message may piss off white supremacists, wife-punchers, and war-mongers!
Gas Huffer rotten egg
Gas Huffer "Rotten Egg"
From YouTube uploader:
This was Gas Huffer's last video.
Gas Huffer was a band from Washington state that played a sort of rockabilly punk, with lyrics both formal and comical, with antic stage presence. They classified themselves loosely in the Garage punk genre.
The band created comic books with each album (drawn by all four members of the band, including Joe Newton), that contain the lyrics to the songs. This was done for every album up to (and including) "Just Beautiful Music".
They are contemporaries of many Pacific Northwest rock groups.
Gas Huffer played its final show - dubbed "The Last Huffer" - at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe on January 14, 2006. Opening the show were Girl Trouble from Tacoma, Washington, and Canned Hamm from Vancouver, British Columbia.
At the conclusion of Girl Trouble's set, K.P. Kendall called Gas Huffer's Tom Price to the stage and presented to him a "Certificate of Achievement".
Prior to Gas Huffer, Tom Price played with The U-Men.
~
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Cellar Zombies bitch
Cellar Zombies "Bitch"
This video is a part of the DVD that was recorded on saturday the 26th of November 2005, in 'de Gaffelaar', Zwartewaal, Voorne Putten, the Netherlands.
It's an underground punk festival, performed by Watergeez (punk, part 01-08), de Prutsers (punk, part 09-21), Terror Defence (D-beat, part 22-33) en The Cellar Zombies (Psychobilly, part 34-40).
Trailer Park Kings too much to dream
Trailer Park Kings "Too Much To Dream"
cover of pre-punk psychedelic garage band Electric Prunes hit single "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night"
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Trailer Park Kings pictures of matchstick men
Trailer Park Kings "Pictures of Matchstick Men"
cover of pre-punk 60s psychedelic hit single by the Status Quo
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Diodes time damage
The Diodes "Time Damage"
From YouTube uploader:
The Diodes formed in October 1976 and within 7 months opened Toronto's first punk club, The Crash 'n' Burn.
The club gave the nascent punk scene a focal point but also brought a lot of media notoriety. By August 1977, the Crash 'n' Burn was forced to close, an occasion marked by a sold out show featuring the Dead Boys.
Thirty years later the Diodes not only reform to play Dundas Square during the North By Northeast music festival, but return to visit the art college (OCA) where they came together and the building that used to be the Crash 'n' Burn, now a lawyers' office. Here's some exclusive footage from an upcoming documentary on the band directed by ToBeScene's Aldo Erdic.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Band of Susans now is now
Band of Susans "Now is Now"
"Now is Now" song from Band of Susans' The Word and the Flesh album, Restless Records, 1991.
The Kills sour cherry
The Kills "Sour Cherry"
The Kills played a storming set at Antone's in Austin, TX during the 2008 SXSW Music Conference.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Blood on the Wall baby likes to hollar
Blood on the Wall "Baby Likes to Hollar"
Blood On The Wall video directed by Theo Angel. Though this song appears on their Self Titled album from 2004, this version is from their self released 7".
Siouxsie and Banshees love in a void
Siouxsie and the Banshees "Love in a Void"
live 1979 on music show Something Else, with Robert Smith of the Cure
Teenage Head some kinda fun
Teenage Head "Some Kinda Fun"
From YouTube uploader:
Live clip from 1983
Teenage Head are a Canadian rock group, who were one of the most popular Canadian new wave/punk rock bands in the early 1980s.
They were sometimes referred to as the "Canadian Ramones", despite the fact that their sound was closer to rockabilly than to some of the Ramones' 60s pop influences.
Nevertheless, they shared with the Ramones a love of goofy lyrics and a ferocious live show. Although the band are still recording and touring as a unit, they have never succeeded in recapturing their early audience.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Johnny Thunders: Featured Evolutionist 1-09
Johnny Thunders "Sad Vacation" from Live in Cold Blood (1982)
Johnny Thunders "Born To Lose"
"Music shouldn't be competitive. You like this music and I like that music. I love the Sex Pistols, they're a great band, I loved touring with them."
-- Johnny Thunders
Johnny Thunders obituary on MTV
New York Dolls "Chatterbox" 1973 at Club 82, New York
As we continue the Foundation's research project entitled "Therapeutic Value of Punk Rock", one name popped into mind. Johnny Thunders. While you may not consider Johnny Thunders a success story, one thing that keeps arising in the discussion of punk and underground music is: how it helps young people gain self esteem and courage. And Mr. Thunders and his New York Dolls and Heartbreakers did a lot in that field.
Sure the New York Dolls sang some gay theme tunes. More importantly though, they were rebels. While they proudly paraded their campy satirical routine, the message young outcasts got was this: "It's Okay to Be You, Fuck the Judgmental Jerks".
To feel like you're an abnormal human mistake is horrible. But when you hear a song that smirks about being "different", that's happy to be weird, that's boasts about how oddness is the spice of life, suddenly you don't feel like it's you against the entire world.
Someone else feels the same! Someone else is getting kicked around by society! Someone else is angry at the fascist governments of the world. Someone else is doing something about it, through music and poetry!
Now to this month's Featured Evolutionist: Johnny Thunders.
Speaking of oddness, even this pick is strange.
He hated the word "punk" and boldly claimed "I never made punk music".
Definitions aside, Johnny Thunders has had one of the biggest influences in rock and punk music, in his old band the New York Dolls and later in his band The Heartbreakers. He carved out a path for what you might call "art punk", trash rock, or dirt pop.
A theatrical style, when done with imagination, exaggeration, or absurdity, can add great excitement and differentiation for a band. Johnny Thunders and the New York Dolls changed their look and stage routines often, always in stark and vivid contrast to the blase plaid shirt and farmer bluejeans all the other bands were wearing.
They were almost a parody of the Rolling Stones, like their poorer but angrier step-cousins.
Glamor. Shock. Controversy. Raves. Misunderstandings. Under-valuations. Promotional negligence. Isolation. Self-destruction. The historic trend of many innovative musical groups in all genres.
As Nina Antonia remarked in 'Dead End Kid", discussing her Johnny Thunders bio to Chris Parcellin:
The early 1970s were an abysmal time for rock'n'roll. The radio airwaves were dominated by limp folkies like James Taylor and progressive rock phoneys like Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes.
With only The Rolling Stones and a few cult groups like The Stooges and The MC5 pumping-out great hard rock sounds the stage was set for a revolution.
It came in the form of The New York Dolls. Blasting out of the gutters of NYC with more attitude and snarling aggression than had been seen before, the Dolls personified rock'n'roll decadence. Unfortunately, due to industry indifference, bad management and a lack of promotion--the Dolls went over like a stinkbomb at the senior prom.
But their charismatic lead guitarist, Johnny Thunders, stood out in a band that included snot-voiced lead singer David Johansen and talented songwriter Sylvain Sylvain.
When Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan quit the band due to drugs and ego problems, Thunders was free to front The Heartbreakers and record solo albums like the stunning "So Alone" (1978).
Johnny Thunders Interview Pt. Nighthawks
Johnny Thunders "Joey"
From "Memories of Johnny Thunders" by Kris Needs.
Johnny Thunders had a tattoo on his right upper arm. A big heart and dagger, emblazoned with the words 'Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die'. Even
when he covered his lower arms with cut off t-shirt sleeves to hide his erm, track marks, the tat was still given breathing space.
...........
First time I clapped eyes on Johnny Thunders in the flesh was in early '74. The New York Dolls were opening a place called the Rainbow Room restaurant, which was situated on the top floor of Biba's department store in Kensington High Street.
Biba's was ultra-hip, very expensive - like a Harrods for the glam era. There were a lot of sequins. Obviously such an extravagant venture didn't last long but, if nothing else, it'll be remembered for that Dolls gig.
Bear in mind that in '74 most 'serious' groups, apart from glam-rockers like Slade, wore denim and plaid shirts. They were not only boring to look at but astoundingly tedious to listen to. You really had to dig for gold in those days - which is exactly why punk rock needed to come along in full force the following year.
But here were the Dolls with every member a larger-than-life personality - Jagger-preening vamped-up caterwauler David Johannsen; archetypal inscrutable bass mountain Arthur Kane; livewire hoodlum rhythm guitarist Sylvain Sylvain [with cowboy holster]; powerhouse drum-demolishing hitman Jerry Nolan...and Johnny Thunders, the lead guitarist.
At the time he was described as a cartoon Keef, with his hair an exploding exaggeration of the patented Richards rooster coiffure. But his look was more a startling hybrid of street-gang cool and street-tart back-room.
What's more, it looked like half his outfit had been nicked during the Dolls' little shopping trip around Biba's ladies department that afternoon. [It had!]
The next time I saw Mr Thunders, he was fronting a different band – the Heartbreakers. This band had come over to play on the Sex Pistols' ill-fated 'Anarchy' tour in '76 - and stayed.
They'd been booked for the tour by Malcolm McLaren, who'd managed the Dolls for a stint the previous year, just before they split up. The Heartbreakers bowled everyone over in the first few months of '77, including myself.
The punk movement had been going strong for barely six months. I was totally immersed in the escalating momentum around The Clash, the controversy about the Pistols and the new bands that kept springing up.
But the Heartbreakers were different and special. They were from New York - the place that had spawned the original punk rock attitude [and I'd been into it since the Velvet Underground ten years earlier, anyway].
In Spring '77, the Heartbreakers were a joy to catch as they played everywhere in London - the Music Machine, Vortex, Roxy, Marquee and Speakeasy. They had the same New York attitude as the Ramones – play anywhere if people wanted to see you, make some dosh and blow them away in the process.
For a few months it worked and I managed to catch them at this peak.
Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers "Chinese Rock"
Johnny Thunders "Do You Love Me?" (old Dave Clark 5 hit single)
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Clash londons burning
The Clash "London's Burning"
If you wonder why we don't post many videos by The Clash, it's because they aren't a very good band to begin with...plus, uh, some asshole has made most of the Clash videos: Embedding Disabled by Request.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Pink Snowflakes like ice cream
Pink Snowflakes "Like Ice Cream"
A psychedelic and surrealist music video for the celebrated underground rock band The Pink Snowflakes -- off their upcoming album "Sun Chasing".
Von Sudenfed flooded
Von Sudenfed "Flooded"
The Mouse On Mars and Mark E Smith of The Fall team-up to play 'Flooded' at Liquid Rooms, in Edinburgh.
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