1. Scanner – Pet (Headz)
2. Daphni – Long
3. Lindstrøm – Rà-àkõ-st
4. Black Moth Super Rainbow – Like a Sundae
5. Crystal Castles – Affection
6. Pye Corner Audio – The Black Mill Video Tape
7. Tamaryn – While You’re Sleeping, I’m Dreaming
8. Errors – Ammaboa Glass
9. Teen Daze – Garden 2

However you feel about seapunk, vaporwave, and Tumblr fashion/aesthetics – love that kind of thing or find it ridiculous (probably the latter!) – it’s always frustrating when the mainstream co-opts, brazenly steals from and commodifies something that was made by people who oppose that mainstream. It’s completely inevitable, though – it’s part of the pop machine, advertising machine, fashion machine. It’s part of the Rebel Sell. Any ‘underground’ aesthetic that can be boiled down and exploited will be, it’s just a matter of time. The mainstream thrives on counterculture!

So when Rihanna went on SNL and basically stole wholesale a number of seapunk/etc referents from the tumblr feeds of broke twenty-somethings who just wanted to identify with and create something they could call their own, it was hardly surprising but it left a sour taste in my mouth. The imagery her visual producers ripped was originally created out of decades-old pop detritus, old 3d spinning animated gifs, Lisa Frank oceanscapes, 90s rave flyers and virtual reality abstraction. It’s an aesthetic that takes the discarded unpolished innocence and obscurities of the past and uses it as an alternative to the hypercommodified plastic sheen of modern pop. Rihanna and her producers adopted this imagery seemingly without any respect for or understanding of this dynamic (or any interest in the music of the scene), and her fans who will adopt the fashion and look will have no context for it either. The cultural recycling of old pop by non-pop unknowns in turn becomes appropriated by megapopstars. Tomorrow we’ll see tumblr-inspired fashion in Forever 21 and Hot Topic and wherever the kids shop at in the malls of 2012. This effectively kills the thing dead.

There’s a limit to how much I can care or take offense as someone who doesn’t identify with this sort of stuff. But it does get me thinking of ways in which you can create noncommercial art you identify with and that stimulates you and others without it eventually becoming “borrowed” and integrated into marketing and consumerist society by people who don’t understand it and just want to extract money from people who want to adopt a ‘cool’ pose. One approach is to not buy into the ‘mainstream’/'counterculture’ dichotomy in the first place – to not put any of your chips into a ‘counterculture’ identity, instead choosing consciously to ride on the waves of all culture, low or high or pop or nonpop without discrimination. Another way is to lean away from identification with anything too easily boiled down to a short list of aesthetic references. To lean towards art and fashion that is confusing and confounding at all levels. This might be a defense for the ‘weird beyond weird,’ if it feels true and resonates with you. Get complicated, ambiguous, unattached. Create an aesthetic and sabotage and subvert it before it has a chance to catch on. Fuck up your own work constantly, introduce doubt and nuance at every turn. It’s more complicated than all of that – aesthetic movements and identification are important and eradicating them would leave the world worse – but I don’t think you can go wrong with introducing complication and subversion and disorder into anything that’s in danger of trending towards capitalist adoption.

This won’t even protect you from Kanye West ripping you off in his next music video, or from the legons of cool-chasers looking for the next whatever. But it will at least let you feel like this is something that’s a complex ‘you’ that belongs to you whether others misunderstand it or not. Create an entire messy wilderness and personal aesthetic ecosystem and no one can cut down all of the trees.

Whatever, fuck all this actually – I love you RiRi, call me

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo,
Guy Fieri

NEWMUSICMACHINE 9 – Halfhearted Seapunk Thoughtpiece | Fine Print Magazine

My request is simple: For every movie I watch, I am asking for a small donation. I watched 90 movies last October. This year I will probably not quite hit that number, but I will still try to watch as many films as I can. Assuming I hit more around 50-60 films, a donation of just 10 cents per movie would be a total donation of $5 or $6. For the price of a bargain matinee, you could help out needy pug dogs! Even if you just pledged 5 cents or a penny per movie, every cent will go to help out pugs who need homes and medical care. You could alternately make a straightforward donation of whatever amount you wish if you prefer. Additionally, if you would like, I will take requests to watch excruciatingly bad movies and write them up in my reviews for extra pledges! Every little bit helps and many hands make for light work. Together, we can make a big difference for some sweet, weird-lookin’ little dogs who need our help! This year, I’ve chosen a different pug rescue: Curly Tail Pug Rescue, based out of New York City.

October 15:

Criminally Insane* (1975, dir. Nick Philips, aka Nick Millard)- aka Crazy Fat Ethel, which is a much more descriptive title for what actually happens in the movie. Ethel (Priscilla Alden) is released from a mental institution into the care of her grandmother (Jane Lambert). It’s not entirely clear why this is, as Ethel is obviously still violently disturbed, and within a short time of living with her grandmother Ethel has stabbed the old woman to death for locking a cupboard in order to keep Ethel from eating everything in the house. Things deteriorate from there until a police detective (exploitation legend George “Buck” Flower) starts nosing around when other people start to turn up missing. If you didn’t know any better, you might think director Nick Millard was a sort of West Coast equivalent of Andy Milligan– and from a technical standpoint, that’s not entirely incorrect. However, Millard’s film lacks the urgency of the best of Milligan, and the bright California sun is a striking contrast to Milligan’s New York grime. I’ll be seeing the shot-on-video 80s sequel later this month.

October 16:

The Boxer’s Omen* (1983, dir. Chih-Hung Kuei)- WOW. This is one of a series of “black magicsploitation” films from Shaw Brothers that started with Black Magic (1975). Thai Boxer Mr. Bu-Bo (Bolo Yeung, star of Chinese Hercules) loses a title match to a fighter in Hong Kong, and in retaliation Bu-Bo punches him in the back of the head, damaging his spine and paralyzing the man for life. Too bad for Bu-Bo that fighter’s older brother is Chan Hung (Philip Kao Fei), a tough gangster who vows to travel to Thailand and avenge his brother. After making a very public challenge to Mr. Bu-Bo, Hung is sidetracked and visits a Buddhist temple, where he becomes entangled in the battle between a monk on the verge of immortality and a group of black magicians. The monk killed one of the magician’s familiars, and in retaliation they are determined to curse him to prevent him from gaining immortality. Hung joins the monks and trains for an amazing black magic fight, but after his initial victory can he stay true to the tenets of Buddhism and keep his power for future battles? Not to spoil anything, but when he returns to Hong Kong he also returns to his live-in girlfriend after being a monk for three months– you do the math. The Boxer’s Omen is really bizarre, packed with crazy black magic fights and increasingly disgusting spellcasting that frequently calls for the magician to chew something up and spit it out; also, plenty of guts. Chances are you’ve never seen anything quite like The Boxer’s Omen; I know I hadn’t, and I’m anxious to check out more of the Shaw Brothers “black magic” films!

October 17:

**Giallo* (2009, dir. Dario Argento)- Dario Argento has always been maddeningly inconsistent, although lately he seems to be in a (permanent?) slump. After the Mother of Tears fiasco, Argento appeared to be making a return to the genre that made his name withGiallo. Sadly, that’s not exactly the case. Giallo is bad, but for the most part it’s not even interestingly bad. It’s more like watching a couple of middling episodes of CSI: Rome. A taxi-driving murderer is stalking beautiful young female models and leaving their bodies around the city, while obsessed police detective Enzo Avolfi (Adrien Brody) tries to track him down. Avolfi’s the kind of detective who doesn’t work by the book, a fact that he helpfully points out by literally saying “My methods are not exactly by the book.” Avolfi teams up with Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner), whose sister Celine (Elsa Pataky) has been kidnapped by the killer, and they race against time as blah blah blah. There’s a bit of seriously misguided stunt casting in the part of the killer, which I won’t spoil, even though I really wouldn’t suggest anyone but Argento completists actually watch this thing all the way through. I will give it this, though– the film’s (abrupt, extremely unsatisfying) ending seems to suggest that Enzo is not all that great a detective, which is a pretty mean punch line to deliver after wading through this whole movie with him.

October 18:

**ATM* (2012, dir. David Brooks)- ATM is the kind of film that you can’t even describe to a sane, reasonable person without finding yourself on the receiving end of a legion of questions: “Why are all three people in the little ATM kiosk? Why didn’t at least one of them have their phone in their pocket or something? Why did they park 200 feet away from the ATM? Why don’t they just walk back to their car and leave? Why are these two guys even friends in the first place?” Naturally, none of these questions occurred to anyone on the production end ofATM, because then there wouldn’t have been a movie. It’s really astonishing how dumb ATMis– the film totally relies on its three main characters being completely incapable of making decisions and taking actions. There are repeated opportunities for all three of them to just run to their car and drive off, but instead they stand around debating whether or not they should run to the car and drive off until the opportunity has passed. Again. Also, I’m all for movies leaving open questions, but that’s not quite what ATM does. It just doesn’t bother to supply a motive for its killer’s actions at all, probably assuming nobody in the audience could possibly be bothered to care. They’re certainly not wrong on that count.

October 19:

Nothin’!

Running totals:

First-time views for October: 28
Total views for October: 36

Scare-A-Thon 2012: Criminally Insane, The Boxer’s Omen, Giallo, ATM | Fine Print Magazine

Child Bite can be found on Facebook and their site.

1. Who the hell are you?
Just your average TMNT wannabe’s. All 4 of us love pizza and actually live in a sewer.

2. Where’s your band from?
Delta City (Detroit)

3. How long have you been at it?
Child Bite started in 2005, but all of us were in bands before that, and bands before that…

4. No bullshitting, what’s your best song? What’s your worst? What’s the reason for each?
I would say “Abysmal Splatter” is our best song as of now. It’s really fun to play, has catchy parts but is still brutal. Nice representation of what we’re going for. Our worst song? I don’t like that question.

5. What have you put out? Who released it?
3 albums, a few EPs and a few split 7″s. Lately it has been half Forge Again (Chicago) and half Joyful Noise (Indy).

6. Why should people buy your album, or stream it at the very least? 
Whether you like it or not, it is unique. If you’re into any of these bands it might sit well: Jesus Lizard, Dead Kennedys, Mr. Bungle, Melvins, Primus, Black Flag. Somewhere between punk & metal, with a “cavemen-playing-prog” vibe.

7. What are your future plans for the band?
West coast tour NOW! New EP this winter! Euro tour in the spring!

8. Do you play live? Do you plan to? Got anything lined up in the near future?
Day 2 of tour is at Ultra Lounge in Chicago. Thursday NOV 1st. Gonna rule!

Photo credit Trevor Long Photography. Used with permission.

Who the Fuck Is Child Bite? | Fine Print Magazine

October 13th & 14th I attended the first Music Box of Horrors event. This was the 8th 24-hour horror movie marathon held at the Music Box Theatre. Previously the Music Box had co-produced the show with Movieside Film Festival as the Music Box Massacre. This year, Movieside moved the Massacre to the Portage Theater to celebrate the theater remaining open after nearly a year of legal wrangling put the Portage in danger of being bought out by the Chicago Tabernacle Church. The Music Box decided to hold their own event on this weekend; Movieside’s Massacre is next weekend, October 20th & 21st. The show ran from noon Saturday until about 12:30 p.m. Sunday. I managed to stay awake for most of the show, although I slept through most of Phantasm and The Deadly Spawn, which played between Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal and Blood Diner in the list below, so I’m not counting either of those films as “watched.”

My request is simple: For every movie I watch, I am asking for a small donation. As I mentioned above, I watched 90 movies last October. This year I will probably not quite hit that number, but I will still try to watch as many films as I can. Assuming I hit more around 50-60 films, a donation of just 10 cents per movie would be a total donation of $5 or $6. For the price of a bargain matinee, you could help out needy pug dogs! Even if you just pledged 5 cents or a penny per movie, every cent will go to help out pugs who need homes and medical care. You could alternately make a straightforward donation of whatever amount you wish if you prefer. Additionally, if you would like, I will take requests to watch excruciatingly bad movies and write them up in my reviews for extra pledges! Every little bit helps and many hands make for light work. Together, we can make a big difference for some sweet, weird-lookin’ little dogs who need our help! This year, I’ve chosen a different pug rescue: Curly Tail Pug Rescue, based out of New York City.

**Golem, The* (1920, dir. Carl Boese & Paul Wegener)- I’ve been meaning to watch this for ages, and I’m glad I finally got the chance to see it for the first time on the big screen with live organ accompaniment! Like many silent films, the pacing is pretty slow, but The Golemis well worth seeking out as a seminal horror film. A rabbi creates a Golem– a living creature made out of clay– to protect the Jews of Prague, who have been ordered to leave the city. The Golem proves to be an effective guardian, if a little unpredictable. Some of the acting is (as in many silent films) hilariously overdone, especially “Knight Florian” (Lothar Müthel), who spends a good chunk of his time twirling around a flower. Certainly worth a watch as a precursor to the sound horror films to come and a contemporary of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Mark of the Vampire* (1935, dir. Tod Browning)- Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi team up for another vampire tale. This time Lugosi plays Count Mora, a long-dead noble and supposed vampire who haunts a derelict castle with his daughter Irena (Elizabeth Allan). The townspeople of a small nearby village begin whispering of Mora and Irena when the local coroner proclaims the death of nobleman Sir Karell Borotin (Holmes Herbert) is due to a vampire attack. From here things seem pretty straightforward until the film’s utterly bizarre final twist, which makes absolutely no sense at all. Still, it’s fun to see Lugosi in his prime basically reprising the role of Dracula, and Elizabeth Allan is creepy as Irena. A very odd footnote to the history of Universal’s horror films, although this one was released by MGM.

**Invisible Man, The* (1933, dir. James Whale)- James Whale had made a huge splash with his film version of Frankenstein, a massive hit that would go on to become one of the most indelible images of horror cinema. Afterward, he made The Old Dark House (1932, again starring Boris Karloff along with Charles Laughton), and then knocked out yet another horror classic with 1933′s The Invisible Man. The Invisible Man plays as an interesting bridge between Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein; more blatantly comic than the former but not quite as subversive as the latter, The Invisible Man is often hilarious. Claude Rains gives a spectacular performance as a scientist driven mad by his achievement of invisibility and desperate quest to become visible again. His reign of terror is something to behold, and some great supporting cast members (many of whom would return for Bride of Frankenstein) keep the tone from becoming too bleak. Fantastic stuff!

**Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors* (1965, dir. Freddie Francis)- Amicus made their name with horror anthologies like this one, although they will probably forever be best known for their later productions of Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973). Their first anthology was this 1965 film helmed by frequent Hammer collaborator Freddie Francis. It’s mostly solid but typically inconsistent, although seeing a baby-faced Donald Sutherland is more than enough of a treat to recommend the film to anyone. Peter Cushing stars as Dr. Schreck (which he explains means “Terror”), an old doctor who boards a train car with five other men. One of them is the aforementioned Donald Sutherland, and another is Cushing’s frequent co-star Christopher Lee as a stone-faced art critic. Dr. Terror offers to read the men’s tarot cards, and what he sees in the cards makes up each of the stories: one man returns from vacation to find a killer plant growing in his yard, another discovers his new wife may have a taste for blood. A musician overhears voodoo drums and works them into his own music with unfortunate consequences; one man returns to his childhood estate to find it haunted by a supernatural beast, and Christopher Lee’s art critic has the tables turned on him in a very unusual manner. The Music Box screened the film from an original release Technicolor print, and it looked beautiful. A lot of fun, and the obvious blueprint for every Amicus anthology to follow.

**Squirm*  (1976, dir. Jeff Lieberman)- During a sweltering hot summer, a massive storm rolls through the town of Fly Creek, Georgia. The roads are flooded and the power lines are down, which complicates a visit by Mick (Don Scardino) to the home of his long-distance girlfriend Geraldine Sanders (Patricia Pearcy). Geri lives with her younger sister Alma (Fran Higgins) and their fragile, overprotective mother Naomi (Jean Sullivan), next door to a worm farm owned by Willie Grimes (Carl Dagenhart) and his strapping young son Roger (R.A. Dow), who does odd jobs– and possibly more– for the Sanders women. Naomi’s grip on reality seems to slip as the day goes by without electricity and water, and she hardly knows what to do when Roger and Mick are coming for dinner– “Lord knows the last time we had two hungry men in this house.” Oh, and also there are about a billion worms that have come up from the ground because of the downed power lines and are eating people. Jeff Lieberman’s Squirm is hugely entertaining, playing out almost like a Tennessee Williams play that happens to have a third act made up mostly of people trying to escape hordes of man-eating earthworms.

**Satan’s Little Helper* (2004, dir. Jeff Lieberman)- Jeff Lieberman appeared at the show in person, and he’d gathered quite a bit of good will after the screening of Squirm. Good thing, too, because the second half of his double feature was not quite at the same level as that film. Douglas Whooly (Alexander Brickel) is a 9-year-old obsessed with a videogame called Satan’s Little Helper. His mom Merrill (Amanda Plummer) has even made him a “Satan’s Little Helper” costume for Halloween, to wear as he trick-or-treats with his sister Jenna (Katheryn Winnick). However, Jenna has brought home a friend from college, her new boyfriend Alex (Stephen Graham). Douglas wanted Jenna to himself, so he throws a tantrum and runs off, where he meets a murderer in a Satan outfit (Joshua Annex) and decides to play Satan’s Little Helper for real. Satan’s Little Helper gets by for a while on goofy black humor, but at a hundred minutes, the film’s schizophrenic tone and collapse into a fairly standard stalker horror film in its last act make it feel much, much longer. The Music Box of Horrors audience ate it up, though, so maybe it’s just me.

Beyond, The (1981, dir. Lucio Fulci)- Really don’t know what I can possibly say about The Beyond that hasn’t been said a billion times before, and much better, by any number of film writers. It’s my favorite Fulci film, although I have found that most of them grow on me after I give them some time and rewatches– I really didn’t care much for House by the Cemetery the first time I saw it, for example, but now I love that movie. The Beyond is the one that won me over and was the first time I felt like I really got Fulci, the one that sort of “unlocked” his other horror films for me, and I still think it’s his best. I’d absolutely recommend watching The Beyond with the other films in his “Gates of Hell” trilogy (House by the Cemetery and City of the Living Dead) if you want a crash course in Fulci. Then go track down his western Massacre Time, aaaand then the giallo Don’t Torture a Duckling. By that point you’ll likely either want to watch everything he’s done or never see another film with his name on it again!

Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal* (2012, dir. Boris Rodriguez)- This was the Music Box of Horror’s premiere, the first time Eddie has screened in Chicago in advance of its impending Music Box Films release (teased as being within the next six months). The film has been getting rave reviews during its festival run, and for good reason: this Canada-Denmark co-production proves that these two countries’ sensibilities mesh so well it’s hard to believe they haven’t done more films like this before. Thure Lindhardt stars as Lars Olafsson, a painter who moves to the small town of Koda Lake to teach at their art school. Olafsson hasn’t actually painted in a decade, although he clearly hopes his new surroundings will provide inspiration. Instead, he quickly gains an unexpected roommate: Eddie (Dylan Smith), the mute son of the art school’s biggest patron. When his aunt dies, Eddie moves in with Lars, who soon discovers Eddie has a sleepwalking habit that often results in the death of small animals. Lars makes this discovery and finds himself suddenly inspired to paint again– but how far is he willing to go to hold on to that inspiration? Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal is very, very funny, with great performances and a welcome appearance by the always amazing Stephen McHattie. The film strikes a perfect balance between humor and gore, and I’d highly recommend it whenever Music Box Films releases it, hopefully sooner than later.

Blood Diner (1987, dir. Jackie Kong)- Completely idiotic and totally indefensible, Blood Diner is sort of a 1980s remake of Blood Feast (apparently it actually was supposed to be a sequel until some legal issues prevented that), only much, much goofier. Michael and George Tutman (Rick Burks and Carl Crew) are brothers who run a vegetarian diner with a nasty secret: most of their food is actually people they’ve killed in order to stage the resurrection of the ancient goddess Sheetar. Their uncle Anwar (Drew Godderis) attempted the ritual when Michael and George were kids, but he got distracted by an underage girl and ended up being shot down by the police in front of the boys. They dig up Anwar’s body and remove his brain and eyes so he can (telepathically?) communicate with them and explain how to perform the ritual. Most of Blood Diner is made up of George and/or Michael making faces for the camera while killing people, usually women, often with kitchen and cooking tools. A seriously pointless wrestling subplot is thrown in for padding (and to work in some Hitler jokes– don’t ask), but mostly Blood Diner cruises obliviously along on gore, stupidity, and a jaunty soundtrack. This is the epitome of bad 80s horror, and I love it. I’m so, so sorry.

**Burning, The (1981, dir. Tony Maylam)- It’s the slasher that launched a thousand careers! Sorta. This shameless Friday the 13th knockoff from the Weinstein brothers and Brad Grey is maybe best known today for starring a young Jason Alexander with a full head of hair. Also in the cast is Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter (in what looks like a single shot of the film, played twice), and there’s a killer synth score by Rick Wakeman. The story: five years after a group of campers accidentally started a fire that left him with severe burns all over his body, Cropsy (Lou David) returns to a neighboring camp to take his revenge. The Burning spends a lot of time with the campers and counselors before and after the slashing starts, and sort of plays like a straight-faced version of Sleepaway Camp (1983). The Music Box showed a very rare UK uncut print that I also had the luck to see at last year’s Exhumed Horrorthon. It’s not the best teen camp slasher, and it’s pretty unapologetic about being aFriday the 13th clone, but it’s worth watching for Wakeman’s score, Alexander’s hair, and Savini’s spectacular makeup and effects work.

Evil Dead 2 (1987, dir. Sam Raimi)- I don’t think I’d watched Evil Dead 2 for a decade before watching it at the Music Box of Horrors, but I’d watched it a few hundred times in high school and college, and it’s one of my favorite horror movies of all time. I wasn’t all that excited to see it again until I saw that Rosebud logo, and suddenly I realized I was about to see one of my favorite movies, that I’ve seen countless times before, on the big screen from a 35mm print for the first time ever. No idea how I’ve gone this long without seeing it, God knows it’s played around here enough. It was a great selection for the final film of a 24-hour marathon, no question– Sam Raimi’s hyperactive splatstick is just as fun the hundredth time as it is the first. I’m going to try not to get too gushy here, but I still love this movie, especially after not seeing it for such a long time. Bruce Campbell’s performance is hilarious and unbelievable, and Sam Raimi’s camera knows when to fly around at insane angles and when to just sit still for a damned second, a talent that seems to have escaped many filmmakers trying to replicate his style. If you haven’t seen it by now, I don’t know what to tell you– it’s required viewing, an undisputed classic that absolutely lives up to its reputation.

Running totals for October:

First-time views for October: 24
Total views for October: 32

Scare-a-Thon 2012: Music Box of Horrors | Fine Print Magazine

Blacklisters – BLCKLSTRS

There’s really no question of how much Blacklisters look up to Jesus Lizard, so much so that the band themselves acknowledge it on their Bandcamp as though someone needed to be tipped off as to where the influence for the bass line in “Nice Garden” came from. Even “Mouthpeace” has the reptilian, inverted feel of “Nub.” Overbearing influences aside, BLCKLSTRS takes the id of Jesus Lizard, adds a bit more muscle and some hardcore elements to it and does so very well. We definitely recommend picking it up, although the currency conversion (the dudes are from England) kind of sucks when you see how pounds translate to dollars. Goddamned Obama.

Standouts on the album: “Trick Fuck” is, without question, the best song on the album. Ten seconds of shrieking guitars and howled vocals downshift to a muscular, deliberate stomp. The song only lets up midway through, and even then “You’re just a trick fuck” is screamed for a few seconds before the band comes roaring back in.

Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay

When you’re a band as old as Neurosis, there’s a certain level of expectation that everyone carries with them when approaching each new release. And while Neurosis has never really fit that AC/DC, Motörhead, Slayer model, there is a definite type of song they do and do well. To their credit, they’ve thrown in a couple wrinkles to their sound. Album opener “We All Rage In Blood” has none of the usual rhythmic twists, even when the band cuts the tempo by half and grinds their way to the ending. “All Is Found… In Time,” once you get past the guitar squall/tribal drum fill intro, is as close as the band has come to a Sabbath tribute track as they’ve come in a long time, until the end which reintroduces Jason Roeder’s relentless drumming again. The album features synths far more prominently than in the past and, while none of the songs stray too far from their sound, they’ve managed to introduce several new elements in a way that revitalizes their sound.

Standouts on the album: “All is Found… In Time” for its economy and willingness to settle into a groove. “At the Well” for its ten minute build and effective, melancholy synths that appear midway through. “Raise the Dawn” for sounding like a cut from Through Silver In Blood.

Pyres – 4 Track Demo

First things first. There are palm squeals. I’m not happy about it. You’re probably not happy about it either. Were it not for that, the album would be recommended without reservation. As it is, using such an awful, metal-guitarist trope is grating when it pops up, which isn’t too often, mercifully. The demo isn’t perfect by any stretch; there’s a few “if we had more time in the studio, we’d fix that” moments which are more endearing than distracting. If I had to guess, I’d say the band has listened to Torche’s In Return a handful of times. Free download!

Standouts on the album: “Atlas Cast No Shadow,” ignoring the palm squeals that saturate the intro.

Hot Garbage – Hot Garbage II

It’s not quite An Albatross, but Hot Garbage II at least gets you in the neighborhood. The two-piece from Chicago sometimes flirt with being just a little too earnest and a little too histrionic on the vocals, but the organ/drum combo serves them well, hitting all the major pluses of Lightning Bolt and the aforementioned An Albatross. It lacks a bit in the low-end sometimes, but never to the point that the songs are a chore.

Standout on the album: “Melinda Dreams of Kanita” is a clear standout, gloomy without being terribly oppressive.

8 Lines or Less: Blacklisters, Neurosis, Pyres, Hot Garbage | Fine Print Magazine

My request is simple: For every movie I watch, I am asking for a small donation. As I mentioned above, I watched 90 movies last October. This year I will probably not quite hit that number, but I will still try to watch as many films as I can. Assuming I hit more around 50-60 films, a donation of just 10 cents per movie would be a total donation of $5 or $6. For the price of a bargain matinee, you could help out needy pug dogs! Even if you just pledged 5 cents or a penny per movie, every cent will go to help out pugs who need homes and medical care. You could alternately make a straightforward donation of whatever amount you wish if you prefer. Additionally, if you would like, I will take requests to watch excruciatingly bad movies and write them up in my reviews for extra pledges! Every little bit helps and many hands make for light work. Together, we can make a big difference for some sweet, weird-lookin’ little dogs who need our help! This year, I’ve chosen a different pug rescue: Curly Tail Pug Rescue, based out of New York City.

October 10:

Sorcerers, The (1967, dir. Michael Reeves)- Michael Reeves’s second film was this great late-career Boris Karloff vehicle that portrayed the battle between the older generation and those wild, wild kids of the 1960s in a very unique manner. While Karloff is great in this, Catherine Lacey very nearly walks off with the entire movie as his wife. A great, under-seen 1960s British horror film that is finally getting a legit US DVD release thanks to Warner Archive. Full review here.

Spasmo* (1974, dir. Umberto Lenzi)- Spasmo has one of the all-time great giallo trailers, six minutes of nonsense that just fly by, punctuated by a very distressed person shouting “Spasmo!” every so often. Luckily the film nearly lives up to the trailer– nearly!– in no small part thanks to a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone and a few well-placed mannequins. Christian (Robert Hoffman) discovers a woman lying on a beach who appears to be dead, but she’s not– she’s just Suzy Kendall (as Barbara), back for another giallo! Christian and Barbara are powerfully attracted to each other, and Christian stalks her to a boat party and follows her home. When a mysterious man attacks Christian in Barbara’s bathroom, Christian shoots him in self-defense, and then stuff gets weird. Is Christian’s brother Fritz actually a savage murderer? Who is leaving these mannequins all over the place? What the hell is going on? It’s not as crazy as Lenzi’s Eyeball, but it’s still pretty great.

October 11:

The Vampire’s Ghost* (1945, dir. Lesley Salander)- This is a fairly unusual story of a vampire who takes up residence in Africa and makes life difficult for an engaged couple. Roy Hendrick (Charles Gordon) visits his fiancee Julie (Peggy Stewart) and her father Thomas (Emmett Vogan), but finds he has come during a tragic time: the jungle drums beat constantly to ward away the evil that is killing people in the night. Roy decides to ask bar owner Webb Fallon (John Abbott), who has recently moved in and learned all about the local underworld. When Roy and his friends put together a team to visit the natives and see if they can figure out how to help, Roy learns that Fallon is actually the vampire. Fallon wants Julie for his companion after centuries of boredom, and it’s up to Roy to stop him. This is an interesting little vampire film from RKO, and if you’re looking for a little something to pad your October horror film totals, it only runs about 55 minutes!

October 12:

The Sleeper (2012, dir. Justin Russell)- I presented the Chicago premiere of Justin Russell’s early 1980s slasher replica The Sleeper at Facets Cinematheque as a midnight movie on October 12th. This was part of Facets Fright School, their annual October run of midnight movies, which are always really fun. This was especially fun since I managed to convince the projectionist to show the VHS copy of The Sleeper, and it looked amazing. I seriously think if I’d tried to pass the film off as being made in 1981, the way the VHS looked projected onto the Facets screen would probably have convinced everyone that it was legit. The film is a dead-on replication of the look and tone of the heyday of teen slasher films, down to the pointless pre-credits sequence, the occasional disappearing character, completely useless police, and a completely pointless/hilarious dance sequence. If you love this type of film, you’ll find a lot to like in The Sleeper; if you don’t, it’s not going to change your mind.

Running totals for October:

First-time views for October: 17
Total views for October: 21

Scare-a-Thon 2012 – Spasmo, Vampires, and Sorcerers | Fine Print Magazine

My request is simple: For every movie I watch, I am asking for a small donation. As I mentioned above, I watched 90 movies last October. This year I will probably not quite hit that number, but I will still try to watch as many films as I can. Assuming I hit more around 50-60 films, a donation of just 10 cents per movie would be a total donation of $5 or $6. For the price of a bargain matinee, you could help out needy pug dogs! Even if you just pledged 5 cents or a penny per movie, every cent will go to help out pugs who need homes and medical care. You could alternately make a straightforward donation of whatever amount you wish if you prefer. Additionally, if you would like, I will take requests to watch excruciatingly bad movies and write them up in my reviews for extra pledges! Every little bit helps and many hands make for light work. Together, we can make a big difference for some sweet, weird-lookin’ little dogs who need our help! This year, I’ve chosen a different pug rescue: Curly Tail Pug Rescue, based out of New York City.

October 8:

Werewolf of Ohio* (1998, dir. Matt Brassfield)- When I was in high school, some friends and I made a short slasher movie called Deth Killr 42. This is sort of like that, only stretched out to 42 minutes (which I would not normally count toward the Challenge, but I had no idea it was that short when I bought the DVD, so I’m counting it, dammit!) and much less coherent. A guy wearing a plaid shirt and a werewolf mask appears every so often and the screen goes black just before he attacks people, then the picture fades back in and you look at the dead people. Meanwhile, a guy who lost his sister to the werewolf teams up with a werewolf hunter and his friend who owns a VHS camcorder to track down the beast and videotape it. The entire movie is made up of a patchwork of short shots that fade in and out of black every 10-30 seconds with occasional longer scenes, and TONS of music that would cost any studio film a small fortune to license. This one has some moments of incompetent hilarity, but they’re few and far between– this one feels a lot longer than its 42 minutes.

Death Metal Zombies* (1995, dir. Todd Jason Cook)- This was also shot on VHS camcorder, but it looks much, much better than Werewolf of Ohio and the pacing is considerably better, so even though it runs nearly twice as long it breezes by. Metalhead Brad wins a radio contest where the prize is an exclusive tape by the band Living Corpse with an exclusive song available nowhere else. When he plays the tape, he and his friends become shambling murderers (“zombies” seems a little generous) who set out to expand the ranks of the living dead and please their master Shengar, Lord of the Undead (who is just a dude in a skull shirt). Brad’s girlfriend Angel teams up with Brad’s friend Tommy to find the tape, play it backwards, and send Shengar back to the underworld. This is shockingly competent for a SOV feature, flying by at 82 minutes and packed with decent gore effects and tons of period metal, most of which was furnished by Relapse records. Really fun and worth digging up!

Gorgasm* (1990, dir. Hugh Gallagher)- Hugh Gallagher’s “Gore trilogy” kicks off with this nasty bit of business about an S&M hooker named Tara who takes out ads in underground Xeroxed zines and offers her clients “The Ultimate Climax.” Considering this costs the client all the money they have in the world, we can assume they know they’re not going to survive the experience. Gallagher plays off of contemporary mainstream ideas of S&M with his characters– in other words, anyone who’s not already into it is absolutely terrified of it. The main plot is somewhat similar to films such as Hardcore or 8MM, where a normal guy descends into a grimy underworld of weird sex and people getting murdered with garage door openers. Despite being technically fairly well made, there’s not much to separateGorgasm from other SOV horror films of the era.

October 9:

Gorotica (1993, dir. Hugh Gallagher)- Opening with a dedication to the memory of Anthony Perkins, Gorotica is the real centerpiece of Gallagher’s “Gore trilogy.” Bleak, nasty, and blackly funny, this is pretty much what I expected Nekromantik to be before I actually saw that film and realized it was a comedy. In Gorotica, a jewel thief named Max swallows a huge diamond that he and his partner Neil had been contracted to acquire for a third party; unfortunately, he is then shot by a cop who happens to catch them in an alley. Neil drives to a cemetery to figure out what to do when he realizes Max is dead. The car is spotted by Carrie (Ghetty Chasun, truly the unsung scream queen of the SOV movement), a necrophiliac out digging up a reasonably fresh body. She offers Neil a hideout in exchange for “taking care” of Max. While Neil tries to arrange a drop-off for the diamond, Carrie enjoys Max’s company. Maybe it’s just the fact that my copy is obviously a copy of a copy of a copy, but the makeup on Max is pretty effective, giving the necrophilia scenes a queasy sense of reality that Nekromantik may have had if its sex scenes a) weren’t shot like Red Shoe Diaries and b) weren’t scored with hilarious Ferrante & Teicher-style epic piano ballads. The film ends with a jaw-droppingly offensive twist that makes that Anthony Perkins dedication even more ridiculous. Definitely not for everybody, but if you’re looking for sick-making late 80s SOV horror, you’ll probably want to seek this out.

Gore Whore* (1994, dir. Hugh Gallagher)- Gallagher ends his “Gore” trilogy with this film, “Dedicated to Lorena Bobbitt.” The video quality on my copy of this film is much better thanGorotica, but mostly it just shows up how goofy some of the effects look. The severed penises still look pretty good, though. Detective Chase Barr (Brady DeBussey) is hired by research scientist Dr. Whitman (Paul Woodard) to track down Whitman’s female assistant Dawn (Audrey Street), who has disappeared with some important (and valuable) information. Barr soon discovers that Dawn was not exactly Whitman’s assistant– Whitman used her as a guinea pig in his experiments, and she’s actually a reanimated corpse who must consume human blood to survive. Despite the penile trauma dealt out during the course of Dawn’s reign of terror, this is probably the most accessible of Gallagher’s “Gore” films, with the makeup and effects ranging from pretty awful to surprisingly effective/disgusting. With all the reissues of late 80s/early 90s SOV films happening lately, hopefully someone will be able to track Gallagher down and give his films another shot; if nothing else, they’re an interesting time capsule of the period, but they also manage to be morbidly entertaining in a fairly unique way.

Running totals for October:

First-time views for October: 15
Total views for October: 17

Scare-a-Thon 2012: Horror in the 80s & 90s | Fine Print Magazine

1. Wonder World – “Let Me In”
2. Solange – “Losing You”
3. Hundred Waters – “Me & Anodyne”
4. Chris Cohen – “Monad”
5. Mount Eerie – “Ocean Roar”
6. The Mountain Goats – “The Diaz Brothers”
7. Why? – “Jonathan’s Hope”
8. Philco Fiction – “Finally”
9. Christian Gleinser – “Coming Around Again”

It would seem as though one of the primary defining things of our current era of popular media is “Retromania.” The Retromania that Simon Reynolds wrote a book about. I haven’t read that book. I intend to. I’m an idiot. But I would also call this the burgeoning era of “The New Nostalgia” as a separately-defined aesthetic from just pure vanilla missionary Retro – something that perhaps goes above and beyond the pure aping of 80s synths or 70s horror movie tropes, in some way – tries to trade on the audience’s need for nostalgia itself in a self-aware way, or subverts the nostalgia, or combines strikingly new/experimental concepts with old retro familiarities. We’re seeing this in games – the chiptune Vangelis b/w pixelart aesthetic of Fez exploded into spinning, swirly, full-panoramic widescreen with a fetish for M83. Or the new XCOM which simultaneously manages to capture the feeling of inexorable terror and micromanagement panic of the 14-year-old X-COM game, while attempting to single-handedly resurrect the tactical strategy genre and bring it kicking and screaming into modern console AAA territory.

But here’s the funny thing about having both M83 and Vangelis as influences – we’re now at the edge of a precipice, here, and when we start the descent it’ll be like the Retro Singularity. Because in 10-20 years we’re going to have bands that are trading on nostalgia for “the M83 sound” (or the Dead Cities-era M83, even) that was left behind with a dozen other sounds of the 00′s, while the makeup of the M83 sound is openly nostalgic for, among other things, Vangelis’s Blade Runner soundtrack. Or Stereolab is a band that people are becoming openly nostalgic for and trying to emulate – a few songs from that excellent new Melody’s Echo Chamber record come to mind. But Stereolab themselves were pretty openly nostalgic even in the early 90′s for a bunch of stuff from krautrock to 60′s french pop.

So there are layers of nostalgia that we discover like peeling the layers of an onion. If you’re scared about the state of bands trading in nostalgia right now, things are only going to get more insane as we fall down this rabbit hole – we’re going to have bands whose defining aesthetic is “Recursive Retro“, calling on a sound that’s nostalgic for a sound that’s nostalgic for a sound and so on. We’re going to need the liner notes of our music to come with footnotes and nested footnotes. It’s either going to be really fucking awesome or really fucking tiring depending on your music geek inclinations.

We haven’t even BEGUN to explore the depths of what we currently call “retro” or “nostalgia,” is my main point. Like your first taste of whiskey where you just taste the burning but then the more immersed you become and the more exposure you have to different whiskeys, the more you can draw out and delineate a deep, rich, complex flavor palette that’s worth contemplating with each sip, and the more the taste of some whiskeys seem to intentionally recall other whiskeys and expand upon their notes. Sorry I’m an alkie and it’s Friday at time of writing. Where was I. The trend toward retromania isn’t going to disappear, it’s just going to become another of the tools in our set, an assumed vocabulary that the audience is equipped to deal with, and then there’s further progression and refinement from there. We’re going to have movies that ape self-aware movies from the 2010′s aping the grindhouse aesthetic just as a starting point established within the first 10 minutes before moving on to more crazy things.

THE FUTURE IS A SERIES OF CONCENTRIC TUNNELS THAT LEAD TO NOWHERE

THANK YOU

YOU’RE WELCOME

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
NEWMUSICMASCHINE

NEWMUSICMACHINE 8 – Recursive Retro and The New Nostalgia | Fine Print Magazine

My request is simple: For every movie I watch, I am asking for a small donation. As I mentioned above, I watched 90 movies last October. This year I will probably not quite hit that number, but I will still try to watch as many films as I can. Assuming I hit more around 50-60 films, a donation of just 10 cents per movie would be a total donation of $5 or $6. For the price of a bargain matinee, you could help out needy pug dogs! Even if you just pledged 5 cents or a penny per movie, every cent will go to help out pugs who need homes and medical care. You could alternately make a straightforward donation of whatever amount you wish if you prefer. Additionally, if you would like, I will take requests to watch excruciatingly bad movies and write them up in my reviews for extra pledges! Every little bit helps and many hands make for light work. Together, we can make a big difference for some sweet, weird-lookin’ little dogs who need our help! This year, I’ve chosen a different pug rescue: Curly Tail Pug Rescue, based out of New York City.

My friend Paul and I drove out to the Cinema Wasteland convention on Friday, October 5th and returned on Sunday, October 7th. I caught several film screenings there, including all those listed below as well as Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia, Macon County Line and Chesty Anderson U.S. Navy. It was a lot of fun, and I’m hoping to go to the April show, where I will totally have Sergio Martino sign my Torso Blu-ray (fingers crossed)!

October 5:

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers* (1988, dir. Fred Olen Ray)- A hardboiled private eye provides narration for the story of a group of hookers on a chainsaw murder spree in Los Angeles. This is about as good as it gets from Fred Olen Ray, with some genuinely funny dialogue and plenty of what you’d expect from a movie called Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley star, and the whole thing’s over in 75 minutes. If you’re looking for a way into Fred Olen Ray’s filmography for some reason, this would be a good place to start! Not that I would necessarily recommend anyone head down that particular rabbit hole…

Sexquatch* (2012, dir. Chris Seaver)- This is sort of like a bunch of 8-year-olds found an old “Letters to Penthouse” magazine and read all the dirty parts in front of a camera for an hour, and also there’s a guy dressed in a bigfoot suit. The filmmakers of Warlock Home Video have clearly been thoroughly schooled in their Troma, and it shows. There’s barely a line of dialogue in this film that isn’t a filthy joke or loaded with inventive profanity, but there’s also not a bared breast anywhere to be found on-screen. Sexquatch is way too dumb to be offensive, and too infantile to get mad about. The Wasteland crowd seemed to enjoy the show, although a few of the jokes had even these folks groaning in disgust. Mission accomplished?

October 6:

**The Food of the Gods (1976, dir. Bert I. Gordon)- Marjoe Gortner plays a pro football player out for a weekend of hunting and relaxing on a remote island when he gets mixed up with giant insects and, worst of all, rats. Bert I. Gordon may be best remembered for his movies featuring giant animals (or humans), and The Food of the Gods is one of his best. Gordon uses trick photography, miniatures and big animal models to great effect in conveying an attack by giant rats and other animals (the giant wasp is not quite as successful). Watching this one as a kid, I thought it was pretty scary, but as an adult the thing that bugs me most is whether or not they killed a few hundred rats during the making of the movie. At the very least they shot a bunch of them with paintball guns or something; in any case, if you’re bothered by animals possibly getting hurt or killed this is definitely one to avoid, unless you make a special exception for rats.

Tonight You Die* (2010?, dir. Jim Roberts)- After an extremely long and super enthusiastic introduction by some guy who really, really loved this movie (we got in to the screening room after he started talking, so I’m afraid I don’t know who it was), this no-budget shot-on-video horror film started up with the promise that it would restore the audience’s faith in the future of horror films. That guy also had a tallboy in one hand and obviously had a pretty good start on it, though, so I figured it would best to take anything he said with a pound of salt, which was definitely the right approach. This is apparently Jim Roberts’s second film, and it’s basically a competently assembled gore film that is definitely better than the vast majority of films answering to that description, but wasn’t quite the life-changer its introduction suggested. The film has some comedic elements that are very spotty, some of them hit and others fall seriously flat. The best part of the production by far is the practical blood and gore effects, virtually all of which are pretty spectacular for such a low-budget production.

The Infliction* (2012, dir. Matthan Harris)- Folks, I believe this film is the reason God sent me to Cinema Wasteland. The Infliction is an almost unbelievably bizarre serial killer horror film, so removed from anything resembling reality that it feels like Tommy Wiseau must have been a script consultant. For the first hour or so, The Infliction is just sort of bad, but then something happens and the film takes a hard turn into “so bad it’s like it was made BY ALIENS” territory. The last half-hour or so of the movie features two different scenes and bits of dialogue that made me laugh so hard I was crying– I don’t necessarily think writer/director/producer/star/etc. Matthan Harris meant for this to happen, but he had the Wasteland audience rolling in the aisles. As an elaborate performance art satire on vanity film projects, The Infliction is genius; as anything else, it’s just jaw-droppingly weird. In other words, it does for serial killer movies what The Room does for all other movies. Hilarious and inexplicable, The Infliction is a must-see, because you would never believe that it exists otherwise.

Necromancy* (1972, dir. Bert I. Gordon)- Gordon snagged Orson Welles for this mostly low-key horror film in which young married couple Lori and Frank Brandon (Pamela Franklin and Michael Ontkean) move to the strange small town of Lilith after losing their baby. Frank gets a job working for the mysterious Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), who literally owns the town and runs the toy factory where everyone works. Lori is unsettled by the strange actions of the townsfolk, but Frank thinks it’s all in her head and is just glad to have a high-paying job. As things get weirder, Lori discovers the truth behind Lilith and Mr. Cato, but by then it may be too late for her. There are some creepy moments in Necromancy, but there is also a lot of goofy, dated dialogue, and the ending suggests Gordon had painted himself into a corner with no idea what to do to actually end the movie. Still, as a time capsule of post-Rosemary’s Baby/pre-Exorcist satanic horror, Necromancy is worth a look.

October 7:

Nothin’! Drove home from Wasteland and basically went to bed at around 6:30 p.m. Whew!

Running totals for October:

First-time views for October: 11
Total views for October: 12

SCARE-A-THON 2012: Cinema Wasteland | Fine Print Magazine

1. Introduction (music: Shuggie Otis – “Pling!”)

“Privacy Please” is many things at the moment; this mixtape series, my blog platform for longform writing about music and recording equipment, records, and other thoughts, and a record label of sorts that I’m in the process of starting in order to release physical versions of my music projects. Far beyond “losing my edge,” I’ve drawn inward in regards to music and culture over the past few years. It seems like there’s more noise and chaff than ever in our conversation; voices louder and louder clambering for attention in the echo chamber of instant culture without any opportunity cost or buy-in. I aspire instead to a private music, small batch experiences that don’t aspire to buzz, memetic success, or attention. This mixtape/podcast/radio show is focused on micro-themed mixes that are procedurally born out of my life – where trends and themes appear, I submit myself to them and explore the synchronicities and hunt for clues in the emergent message. Cool.

“Haunted Soul” is the first episode, fixated on various facets of older black music – pre-war blues, jump blues, acid casualty psychedelic soul, and more – music and messages of haunting, searching, loss, and regret. I found myself listening to much of this material late at night while struggling through the hardest year of my life. It all just came together.

2. Buster Poindexter – “Bad Boy”

I’ve been digging into David Johansen’s post-New York Dolls solo career a bunch lately, but the first Buster Poindexter album has really stuck with me. It’s a hilarious, ridiculous, yet astonishingly sincere and adept record in spite of its “hot hot hot” reputation. This song totally kills me, the swagger, the pomp, the ridiculousness. It’s hard not to remember Johansen as the cab driver in Scrooged, that mania and plastic face. There’s something decadent and wonderfully combustive in this self-scorching shrug of a tune.

3. The Cosmic Rays (ft. Sun Ra) – “Daddy’s Gonna Tell You No Lie”

Sun Ra made his living as a gun for hire on “normal” tunes like this early on. This is one of my favorites. I recently read the Sun Ra biography Space is the Place and find myself listening to a lot of his earliest works; I don’t think I ever gave them their due, writing them off as juvenilia or just work for hire.

4. Sly & the Family Stone – “Just Like a Baby”

I listened to Sly’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On in bed every night for a few months straight this summer. I’d lay there just kind of feeling between life and death, soaking in self-excoriation and listening to the record. The room would get heavy but by the time I got halfway through side two I’d be asleep. Funny, then, that later reading up on the album’s circumstances revealed “The Record Plant studio included a bed and a wireless microphone system, and Stone would often simply lay down in the bed and record his vocals while in repose.” I guess it’s just one of those records.

5. The Ink Spots – “Address Unknown”

I love the damn Ink Spots – really any of that classic vocal group stuff, Four Vagabonds, Mills Brothers, anyone on Bluebird records. That spoken interlude! Misery and searching are timeless.

6. Bessie Smith – “Haunted House Blues”

Like many people, I first heard this as the lead-in on the Mountain Goats’ amazing The Coroner’s Gambit. There was actually a kind of campy horror vogue in a lot of the Okeh and Columbia blues stuff – not the serious and dark stuff, but a bit of minstrelsy and fun. Check it out! This one always wins people over if they’re not sure about “all that old stuff.”

7. Geeshie Wiley – “Last Kind Words Blues”

This song makes the damned hair on the back of my neck stand up every single time I hear it. It’s legendary among the R. Crumb/Terry Zwigoff/”Ghost World” set, and with good reason – it makes Skip James sound like freaking Buddy Guy by comparison. John Fahey reportedly loved this song. It’s one of the most truly haunted pieces of music I’ve ever heard in my life.

8. Mink DeVille – “A’ Train Lady”

Along with the Buster Poindexter stuff, I’ve been really interested in this sort of uber-trad alternate/secret history of the classic NYC/CBGB’s scene. It wasn’t all Arto Lindsay clanging away or the Talking Heads/Blondie/Television Seymour Stein trifecta, there was actually a rich vein of ridiculously traditional American Songbook type stuff going on. Willie DeVille was a Tom Waits of sorts (shorthand, you know what I mean) and his Mink DeVille was the house band at CBGB, if you can believe it. Don’t forget that Alex Chilton was around there at this time doing psychobilly stuff with Tav Falco + Panther Burns, and then half of the other guys couldn’t jump ship from punk fast enough in favor of this sort of thing. That missing element between New York Dolls’ “Trash” and “hot hot hot” – suddenly it all makes sense, the tetris piece falls into place. Man, I’m getting old.

9. James Booker – “Black Night”

James Booker was the best thing ever. I could (and started to) write a book about the guy. His hands are everything; it sounds like he has four of them most of the time. He absolutely slays me in the spirit when I listen to him play. His “blues rhapsody” destroys and remakes the world every time I hear it. This one is a bit of a slow burner.

Privacy Please Episode 1 – Haunted Soul Liner Notes | Fine Print Magazine