... Stupefaction ...

Movie of the Week: Ghost On The Highway - A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club (2006)

2015-10-29T11:29:00.002-04:00

Official film website

Now Playing: The Black Panthers

2015-10-20T09:46:00.000-04:00

For screenings around the country (including NYC now thru Oct 27), visit theblackpanthers.com.

Movie of the Week: I Thought I Told You To Shut Up!! (2015)

2015-10-15T10:43:00.000-04:00

ithoughtitoldyoutoshutup.com

facebook.com/IthoughtItoldyoutoshutup

Movie of the Week: Kmart Store Background Music & Announcement Cassettes

2015-10-11T11:52:00.000-04:00

From the uploader: OK, I have to admit this this is a strange collection. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, I worked for Kmart behind the service desk and the store played specific pre-recorded cassettes issued by corporate. This was background music, or perhaps you could call it elevator music. Anyways, I saved these tapes from the trash during this period and this video shows you my extensive, odd collection.

Until around 1992, the cassettes were rotated monthly. Then, they were replaced weekly. Finally sometime around 1993, satellite programming was intoduced which eliminated the need for these tapes altogether.

The older tapes contain canned elevator music with instrumental renditions of songs. Then, the songs became completely mainstream around 1991. All of them have advertisements every few songs.

The monthly tapes are very, very, worn and rippled. That's becuase they ran for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week on auto-reverse. If you do the math assuming that each tape is 30 minutes per side, that's over 800 passes over a tape head each month.

Finally, one tape in the collection was from the Kmart 30th anniversary celebration on 3/1/92. This was a special day at the store where employees spent all night setting up for special promotions and extra excitement. It was a real fun day, the store was packed wall to wall, and I recall that the stores were asked to play the music at a much higher volume. The tape contains oldies and all sorts of fun facts from 1962. This may have been one of the last days where Kmart was in their heyday - really!

One last thing for you techies, the stores built in the early 1970's (such as Naperville, IL Ogden Mall Kmart #3066, Harwood Heights, IL #3503 and Bridgeview, IL #4381) orignally had Altec-Lansing amplifiers with high quality speakers throughout the store. When you applied a higher quality sounding source, the audio was extremely good. Later stores had cheaper speakers and eventually the amps were switched out with different ones usually lacking bass and treble controls.

The tapes are available for listening at Archive.org. Amazing!

Hat tip to Chart Attack.

Movie of the Week: Weekender (1992)

2015-10-08T15:20:00.000-04:00

A 1992 short film made to accompany the single of the same name by Heavenly Records band, Flowered Up. The song is considered by many to be an era-defining single. Directed by WIZ.

Hat tip to Paul Gallagher over at Dangerous Minds.

Movie of the Week: Chet Baker - The Final Days

2015-09-09T18:37:00.003-04:00

From the Netherlands in the early 1990's we get a good look at Chet Baker's life in a much better way than the over stylized Let's Get Lost.

Movie of the Week: Lee Hazelwood - Cowboy In Sweden (1970)

2015-08-25T12:17:00.002-04:00

Movie of the Week: Your Mind and We Belong Together (Love, 1968)

2015-08-10T12:54:00.001-04:00

Movie of the Week: Put Blood In the Music - Underground New York Music Scene feat. John Zorn & Sonic Youth (The South Bank Show - 1989)

2015-07-27T11:36:00.000-04:00

Movie of the Week: Speciman & The Batcave at Danceteria (1983)

2015-07-18T15:42:00.000-04:00

This one goes out the goth's, and the goth's at heart. In 1983, hot London club night of the time, The Batcave, hosted a night at Danceteria in NYC. Here is some suitably grainy footage from the night, featuring Jon & Ollie from Speciman, and the band, Sexbeat, along with all four(!) pages of the original invite. Scroll to the bottom for extra gothy Speciman footage.

Movie of the Week: The Queen Is Dead by Derek Jarman (1986)

2015-07-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

Here's a short film by Derek Jarman for the Smiths' new release at the time, The Queen Is Dead. There are three songs used ('The Queen is Dead', 'There is a Light that Never Goes Out' and 'Panic'), and they are matched by some great imagery put together by Jarman. Apparently the "Panic" video was extracted from this film.

Audio of the Week: Noise The Show #25 and #52 with Tim Sommer, WNYU (1981-82)

2015-06-20T18:04:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Everybody Wants What the Next Guy's Got, here are more digitized rare tapes of the infamous WNYU show, Noise The Show, hosted by Tim Sommer, in the early 80's. For links to previous posts click here.

Grab these two shows here.

Audio of the Week: Noise The Show #18, #19, #21, #24 with Tim Sommer, WNYU (1981)

2015-06-09T15:10:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of Everybody Wants What the Next Guy's Got, we'll now be able to enjoy digitized rare tapes of the infamous WNYU show, Noise The Show, hosted by Tim Sommer, in the early 80's. And he did a real nice job in annotating each episode.

In the summer of 2014, I went googling to see if any episodes of Noise The Show were on youtube (there are) or on blogs similar to this one (there are.) I even stumbled across a facebook group dedicated to the show. Earlier this year, a group member mentioned having a box of tapes of a bunch of episodes, and lacked the gear necessary to digitize them. I spoke up and offered to get these tapes into a format that’s sharable on the internets. Which brings us to this post. Continued at the following link:

Read & download the show.

Movie of the Week: B'dum B'dum - Buzzcocks & Magazine on What's On with Tony Wilson (1978)

2015-06-09T14:23:00.000-04:00

Manchester rules, ok. Left to right: Pete Shelley, Tony Wilson, Howard Devoto

Audio of the Week: Interview with Ed Bahlman, founder of 99 Records

2015-06-01T16:37:00.001-04:00

99 Records storefront, MacDougal St, NYC, by Ian Robb

A short, interesting interview with 99 Records founder & owner, Ed Bahlman. Unfortunately I don't know the date or origin of the interview, but it obviously dates to the early 80's as he's speaking of the bands in the present tense. It definitely pre-dates ESG's debut album.

Movie of the Week: Ride at Primavera, 5.29.15

2015-05-30T21:26:00.000-04:00

Ride rocked Primavera last night in Spain. After posting the recent BBC 6Music session, enjoy the added bonus of the visual here.

Setlist:

Leave Them All Behind

Like a Daydream

Polar Bear

Seagull

Sennen

Black Nite Crash

OX4

Dreams Burn Down

Time of Her Time

Chrome Waves

Paralysed

Taste

Vapour Trail

Drive Blind

Mouse Trap

Chelsea Girl

Audio of the Week: Ride, Recorded Live For BBC 6Music, 5.20.15

2015-05-21T22:05:00.002-04:00

They're back, and sounding good. Very good.

Setlist:

Seagull
Daydream
Twisterella
Cool Your Boots
Chelsea Girl
Dreams Burn Down
Time of Her Time
Taste
Vapour Trail
Drive Blind
Leave Them All Behind

Movie of the Week - A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon Years of Lester Bangs

2015-05-11T09:48:00.000-04:00

A big tip 'o the cap to Joe Carducci (who recently started blogging again over at Gas Giant - HIGHLY recommended interesting tidbits, links & tips of a historical bent) for pointing to the full stream of this Lester doc on YouTube.

I first learned of this film almost two years ago, and then promptly forgot about it. I'm happy to have the opportunity to watch it in full now.

Movie of the Week: Desperate Man Blues (2003)

2015-04-27T11:36:00.000-04:00

A look at famed 78 RPM record collector, Joe Bussard, and the wild, weird, world of 78 collectors. From 2003.

Movie of the Week / Revolutions On Air: The Golden Era of New York Radio 1980 - 1988

2015-04-25T10:22:00.000-04:00

Red Bull Music just keeps doing it. This recently produced short documentary about the early days of hip hop radio in NYC is pure magic - I cannot recommend it enough.

For info on a roundtable discussion (May 27, NYC) featuring some of the folks who appear in the film, click here. And for even more info, read the feature on the Red Bull site which has plenty of YouTube & Soundcloud samples for your aural delight.