FUTURECHIMP

Movie of the Week: Return of the Living Dead (1985)

2013-06-17T18:15:00.001-07:00

In the Summer of 1985 I turned 16, and Return of the Living Dead came to theaters. My two friends and I gained admission to the film without adult chaperones, a sizable victory for boys our age. We sat behind three girls. As the film started, one girl whispered something in her friend's ear. The friend turned around and gave me a cursory once-over, then turned back and said, clearly, "his hair is too long". And I sat there, beaming, "someone almost liked me."

The TV spot used the song Partytime by 45 Grave.

Not a good song in retrospect, but it inspired me to buy the soundtrack LP, which shifted my interest from heavy metal to punk rock in a matter of weeks. From there it was the Repo Man soundtrack (the ultimate 80's punk primer), then Black Flag's Damaged album, then the Dead Kennedys and the Cramps, beginning a lifelong pursuit of authenticity and originality in music. And then I shaved my long hair down to a buzz cut.

Movie of the Week: Surf II (1984)

2013-06-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Circuit Bend: MotorCyclone

2013-06-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Like Supercircuit and Dorbot the Exploder, this was built from a kids' interactive book strip found in a thrift store. Uses a rotary switch (top) to select between eight different digital samples of motorcycle sounds. There's a pitch knob (lower right), volume knob (lower left) and two body contacts (bottom) to add modulation and pitch bending. Light-up arcade button closes the circuit and triggers the sounds. 1/8" audio out. Runs on 3 AAA batteries, easily replaceable. Case is custom-made 1/4" and 1/8" acrylic.

Now Vending: The Aesthete

2013-05-31T18:56:00.003-07:00

My cast resin sculpture The Aesthete (inaction figure) is now allegedly vending from Art-o-Mat machines in the following locations:

Christian Keesee Collection (Oklahoma City, OK)

Washington State University (Pullman, WA)

The American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco, CA)

The National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian, D.C.)

The Cosmopolitan (Las Vegas, NV)

A mere $5 will get you an original sculpture, hand-cast by me in my magical garage. And for every purchase, I get a $2.50 commission. Ka-ching. If they all sell, and I'm asked to make more, they'll hopefully get into some other machines in more locations around the world (I'm also currently finishing a 50-piece edition of a different sculpture for Art-o-Mat that will ship out next week).

If you end up acquiring an Aesthete of your own, take a picture of him looking at something, send it over to me, and I'll put it up on this blog and/or the Novelties by Stexe Facebook page.

Movie of the Week: Terrorvision (1986)

2013-05-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Take this Movie of the Week recommendation with a grain of salt. This is no masterpiece, but it also has many things to offer that most films don't.

Terrorvision is at its best during the first half, which reads like a satire of what happens to baby boomers when they become parents. Mom and Dad are selfish Me Generation narcissists who are too involved in their own fun to give much regard to their children or their elders. Grandpa is a shell-shocked war vet, going senile and living in the family's subterranean bomb shelter. The kids are spoiled and complacent. The art direction throughout is colorful, and the premise allows the integration of clips from classic horror movies, complete with wraparound narration from a TV host named Medusa. Plus, the lovely and inimitable Mary Woronov looks and acts like something out of a Sally Cruikshank cartoon.

So all of that is great, but once the real movie starts, it seems to have nowhere to go. The screenplay needs a third act, or at least, protagonists that aren't so irritating. Assuming this film was made for youngsters, why are the teenagers just as shallow as their parents? Diane Frankin (not her usual charming self) and John Gries (a.k.a. King Vidiot) get the most screen time, but they aren't any more fleshed out as characters than these two. Is the target audience supposed to relate to the fact that they care about nothing besides watching Mtv? I realize that Terrorvision is full of caricatures, but there's no one to like.

After the first 40 minutes or so, it turns into something between E.T. and Gremlins, two movies that helped ruin Hollywood in the 80's. Feel free to shut it off when the teenagers and the alien raid the fridge. You won't miss much after that.

Despite all that, Mary Woronov. And a great theme song.

Movie is not embeddable. Click on above image or here to be directed to the youtube page.

Spawn of the Slithis

2013-05-20T18:56:00.001-07:00

Incident on Station 3

Friday Night Gallery, Part 3 of 3

2013-05-17T18:45:00.001-07:00

Season 2, Episode 15: A Feast of Blood

Season 3, Episode 5: You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Milligan

Season 3, Episode 11: Something in the Woodwork

Movie of the Week, Encore Edition: Screwballs (1983)

2013-05-16T21:37:00.003-07:00

New Metal Robots Single

2013-05-13T13:55:00.002-07:00

After School Special: The Day My Kid Went Punk (1987)

2013-05-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's finally here… after many years of waiting, someone has uploaded The Day My Kid Went Punk to Youtube in near-entirety (looks like just the last minute or so is missing).

It doesn't quite live up to the TV guide ad (above), but then, how could it? The writers have seemingly no familiarity with the subject matter. Granted the the kid is on the extreme end of the fashion scale, but still… at around the time this program aired, I was nearly getting my ass kicked at hardcore shows on weekends just for wearing my stupid spray-painted army jacket. And even I would have bust up laughing if I saw this poseur walking through the hall at school. He looks a cross between Boy George, Bret Michaels and King Vidiot from Joysticks:

But punk was more than the fashion statement this show regards it to be. That's what makes it pretty worthless as a social services program for teens; it doesn't acknowledge the obvious evidence regarding punks. Many of them feel alienated from their families and communities. Many have difficulties at home, and run away or drop out of school long before they're 18. But here, it's just a case of a suburban kid who inexplicably decides to give himself a makeover to look more edgy, and continues living his over-achieving, over-privileged lifestyle, and his parents wring their hands in concern and embarrassment over his clothing and the Halloween temporary color he sprays into his hair every morning, but they eventually give in and do what he wants. Even Degrassi Junior High respected the maturity and sophistication of its audience more than this.

Anyway, it's worth seeing just for for Bernie Kopell, so here it is:

Movie of the Week: Zapped (1982)

2013-05-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Friday Night Gallery (part 2 of 3)

2013-05-10T15:00:00.002-07:00

Season 2, episode 4: A Fear of Spiders

Season 2, episode 21: The Caterpillar

Season 2, episode 22: Green Fingers

New Device: Dorbot The Exploder

2013-05-09T19:05:00.002-07:00

Circuit-bent Dora the Explorer toy. Features a volume knob, pitch knob, two brass body contacts for added distortion and tremolo, an auto-play feature with pushbutton and toggle switch (to select between two different sequences), a kill switch (NC pushbutton), 1/8" audio out and 3 AAA batteries, easily replaceable. Going up for sale in a few days on ebay; will update this page when it does.

New Etsy Item: Smoking Beatnik

2013-05-09T11:27:00.001-07:00

A mere $20 will get you a hand-sculpted, hand-cast, hand-painted sculpture with three included cigarettes and custom-made poly-bag packaging. So hurry and snap one up in my Etsy store before I become famous.

Saturday Morning Anthropology: Korg 70,000 BC

2013-05-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

This Hanna-Barbera series ran for one season on Saturday mornings in 1974. It was lauded for its scientific accuracy, and both the American Museum of Natural History and the Los Angeles Natural History Museum (two of my former employers) served as consultants.

This three-minute clip is all I can find online, but Warner has recently released all the shows on DVD.

After Hours Movie of the Week for Twelve-Year Old Boys Whose Parents Have Just Gone to Sleep: Private Lessons (1981)

2013-05-03T22:19:00.002-07:00

Friday Night Gallery (part 1 of 3)

2013-05-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

For each of the next three Fridays we'll be screening three stories from Night Gallery, Rod Serling's 1970-73 horror anthology. Let's start with the opening story from the pilot, The Cemetary:

From Season 1, episode 1, The Dead Man:

And from Season 2, episode 3, Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay:

New Device: SuperCircuit

2013-05-02T19:38:00.001-07:00

Circuit-bent Superman talking book strip (a battery-operated sound chip device with internal speaker and membrane switches, formally attached to a book). I swapped out the coin cells for a AAA battery holder, put in a 1/8" audio port, added volume and pitch knobs and a couple of body contacts, a switch to kill the internal speaker (for studio recording) and a volume-sensitive LED just because.

Much thanks to Futurechimp reader J.H. for mailing me the original toy, as well as a dozen other similar gadgets waiting to be turned into art. This one will soon be for sale on ebay and / or etsy, along with a few other circuits I've bent in the last couple years. I like them all, but there are too many of them, and I need to make some room for future research.

Music from the Vault: Brooklyn 1999

2013-04-28T14:13:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been moving old recordings from their fragile CD-Rom masters over to hard drive. And as the title implies, here's a selection of music I just dug up, recorded while living in a tiny apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn between May and October of 1999.

These compositions used no computer software, no arrangement, and no multitrack audio recording. The central brain was the Alesis MMT-8 midi sequencer, a masterpiece of minimal design. Eight buttons represent eight tracks; press a button to turn the track on, press it again to turn it off. A red LED below each button tells you if the track is on or off. I kept a notebook with patch assignments for each instrument and a diagram to describe which part was on which sequencer channel.

The MMT-8 signals were sent out to full-size keyboards. Using an estimated 200 feet of midi and audio cables, I synced it up to my Moog Source (with midi retrofit), Chroma Polaris, Roland JP-8000, Ensoniq EPS, Novation Drumstation and a couple of rack mount effects. I went straight from the audio mixer to digital audio tape, improvising the songs by switching sequencer tracks, playing the lead melodies and sweeping the filters in real time.

I haven't heard most of this in over a decade, and it sounds pretty foreign to me. I don't make this sort of music anymore at all, but I don't listen to Orbital anymore either. Influences and styles change. It's a crossing point between the boring, robotic techno-industrial music I was making in the 90's and the improvisational jazzy stuff I got into later, and some of it is catchy. There's something to be said for the precision of quantized rhythms and arpeggiators. I avoid that stuff now, but it works with the right kind of music.

Movie of the Week: Horror Express (1972)

2013-04-24T10:00:00.002-07:00

Looking like a film from Hammer studios (mostly because of the two leads, Chris Lee and Pete Cushing), but actually a small Spanish / UK independent co-production. And the story isn't so much the typical 70's Hammer monster fare as it is like something out of a Larry Cohen movie: prehistoric aliens, a thawed yeti on the loose, zombies, a power-mad bald cossack, a religious fanatic, zombies... it is excellent. Nice original musical score as well.

Movie of the Week: From Beyond (1986)

2013-04-22T20:03:00.003-07:00

3D Theater: Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983)

2013-04-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

We have an exciting program for you tonight, kiddies, so get those 3D glasses ready. Our feature is 1983's Treasure of the Four Crowns. But first, let's enjoy this stop-motion animated short subject, 1955's The Adventures of Sam Space, also in anaglyphic 3D.

…and now, on to our feature:

Movie of the Week: Fade to Black (1980)

2013-04-16T08:12:00.001-07:00

Sex Life of Robots

2013-04-15T13:16:00.002-07:00

One of my favorite segments from the Disinformation television series of many years back. Definitely NSFW.

Sunday Stooges: Horse's Collars (1935)

2013-04-14T20:01:00.001-07:00