www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n7iyYmltMU

Good, isn’t it?

Lee is a pal and one of my comedy co-conspirators on next month’s Rock ‘n’ Relativity Holiday Conspiracy show.  He’ll be playing the role of Dom, a misanthropic conspiracy theorist who narrates the show.  I like to think of him as a cross between Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone and Barry from Auf Weidersehen, Pet.

At least, that’s how I like to think of him…

The debut issue of Dirty Bristow magazine is now on sale.  It’s a beautiful looking thing – as magazine’s go, it’s definitely a looker – and features an article wot I wrote and an illustration wot I drew and lots of great stuff by very talented people.    You can find out more about it from here where you can also buy yourself a copy for the very reasonable asking price of £4 (inc UK P&P).

Part of this year’s Birmingham Comedy Festival, Rock ‘n’ Relativity Holiday Conspiracy from Half-a-Dog Comedy is “an insight into the mind of a man whose life has become ruled by Internet conspiracies.”  If a typical comedy show can be described as a mixtape, then this – dare I say it – is a concept album, featuring a collection of dubious and demented characters united by a single theme.  Its like Dark Side of the Moon, but with more dick jokes.

One of these characters is called Sorted, a middle-aged man trapped in the 1990s.  He’s a BritPop refugee – the Last Man Standing from Madchester – and he may inadvertently and inexplicably be responsible for many of the things that are wrong with today’s world.

But before he’s ready to go on stage, what he really needs right now is a Global Hypercolor sweatshirt.  Remember those?  Clothes made of a special fabric that would tell the world just how sweaty you were.  Does anyone know where I can get hold of one?  Preferably cheap.

It’ll help me get into character.

]]> http://tomlennon.com/2010/08/rock-n-relativity-holiday-conspiracy/feed/ 0 http://tomlennon.com/2010/08/the-exorcism-of-ghede/ http://tomlennon.com/2010/08/the-exorcism-of-ghede/#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:00:20 +0000 Tom Lennon http://tomlennon.com/?p=1524

“Among primitives, ‘possession’ implies that a god or demon has taken over a human body.  Above [a Haitian] possessed by the god Ghede, who is invariably manifested in this position, legs crossed, cigarette in mouth”

- C.G. Jung: Man & His Symbols

It’s been exactly one week since my last cigarette…

]]> http://tomlennon.com/2010/08/the-exorcism-of-ghede/feed/ 0 http://tomlennon.com/2010/08/the-dirty-bristow-summer-fete/ http://tomlennon.com/2010/08/the-dirty-bristow-summer-fete/#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:36:47 +0000 Tom Lennon http://tomlennon.com/?p=1516

Dirty Bristow- the magazine with no ads, no rules and no objections to publishing stuff by me – will be having a launch party at The Edge in Digbeth on Saturday August 28th.   There’s all sorts of strange, summer fête-themed shenanigans lined up for the night as well as live music and comedy (with yours truly helping out with the latter).

Tickets are £5 (which includes a complimentary copy of Dirty Bristow’s first issue) and you can book them here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSG2pD-2O2g

Details of my next stand-up gig are as follows:

Howling Mad Comedy

Wharf 10 Bar

10 Wolverhampton Street

The night is being organised by my pals at Half-A-Dog Comedy and also appearing on the bill will be Bethany Black and Andy Jones (with more to be confirmed).  The compere is Mr Phillip McCullough.

That will be all.

Dedicated to resurrecting the magazine as a fetish object, giving creative people the room to let their minds go. No ads. No rules.

That’s the mission statement of Dirty Bristow, a new magazine that my friends Danny Smith and Jon Bounds will soon be launching in the general direction of an unsuspecting world near you.

I’ve written an article for the magazine and provided an illustration, too.  The illo – a homage to legendary comics artist Jack “The King” Kirby which accompanies an article by Mark Parfit – is now available as a T-shirt.  It looks something like this:

The T-shirts will help raise funds towards the printing costs of this ambitious, ad-free project.  If you’ve ever felt the urge to help a worthwhile cause by wearing a T-shirt that features something drawn by me (and who amongst you hasn’t?), then you can find out more by going here.

I’ve been digging through the archives again…

After a seven year wait, the final volume of cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s graphic novel series The Metabarons is getting a long-overdue English language release this week.  What follows is an interview I did with Jodorowsky back in 2002 for the much-loved, but sadly no-longer-with-us, comics magazine Borderline.

Back then, LA-based Humanoids Publishing were busy releasing sumptuous volumes of Jodorowsky’s comics translated into English.  At the same time, two of his most famous movies - El Topo and The Holy Mountain – were fiendishly difficult to get hold of due to a decades-long feud between Jodorowsky and former Beatles and Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein, who owned the rights to the films.

That’s no longer the case as the two men finally reconciled prior to Klein’s death last year and both films were subsequently restored and released on DVD.  English translations of Jodorowsky’s comics, on the other hand, are now fiendishly difficult to get hold of.

Typical.

‘Alejandro’ or ‘Alexandro’?  I’ve seen it spelled both ways, but I figure you’d have the definitive answer.

Alexandro is used for the books printed in French.  Alejandro is reserved for the books in Spanish language.  [Consequently] for the US it would be Alexander.  I like that my name offers little variation possibilities, therefore, I do not identify myself with any.

Many comics readers [myself included] first discovered your work during the 1980s with the publication of The Incal.  For those unfamiliar with the details, can you tell us how this remarkable collaboration with Moebius first came about?

We worked together on the script of Dune for about two years, but in the end the movie did not get picked up.  The script contained at least 3000 drawings, the majority by Moebius, some by [H.R.] Giger, [Chris] Foss and others.  Dune by Herbert is a very literary book, therefore we had to create about 50% of visual scenes. Moebius suggested that we treat this failure as a change in the path, that we would create a comic with my ideas.

Furthermore, I had a dream where I travelled through space.  There I saw two interwoven pyramids, one white and the other black.  I enter into this image and I am converted into the pyramids, [before] taking off in a galaxy of light.  With all this material we started the work on The Incal.

Besides The Metabarons and The TechnoPriests, are there any other characters from The Incal you’d like to explore in comic form?

For the children  I would like to expand the world of the concrete birds with Deepo as their hero.  For the adults I would like to further explore the repulsive adventures of Gorgo Le Sale.

Humanoids is currently publishing The Incal in its entirety, complete with gorgeous recolouring by Fred Beltran which adds – in my opinion, at least – new depth to Moebius and Janjetov’s art.  How do you feel about this ‘new look’ Incal?

That satisfies me.  The old colors prevented the audience from experiencing the dramatic depth of the history [meaning story] and the excellent quality of Janjetov’s drawings.

Prior to The Incal you collaborated with Moebius on a wonderful horror story called Le Yeux du Chat [The Eyes of The Cat].  You have said that this was to be the first part of a trilogy.  Do you intend to return to the story?

Moebius is extremely busy in producing drawings of this complicated quality.  Maybe I should try to do the sequel with a different artist. How do you like this?

A few years ago I’d have flinched at the notion of anyone other than Moebius illustrating the sequel.  After seeing Zoran Janjetov’s stunning artwork on Before The Incal, however, I’ve learned to loosen up a bit.  You once said: “I ask of film what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs.”  Do you ask the same of comics?

Yes.  You just have to read the Castaka of The Metabarons number 7.   It is a true delirium!

Your stories are always rich in sub-text and symbolism.  Would you prefer your audience to actively seek out these ‘hidden meanings’, or do you prefer it to go by unnoticed, to bypass the conscious mind?

I write in multiple levels at the same time.  I direct myself to different levels of the readers in the same story.  The kids have fun with it, the cultured adults can find hidden messages that I place on every page.

While The Incal and The Metabarons share the same universe, they are two very different animals. Looking at your various collaborations, I’m struck by how effortlessly you seem to adapt your stories to the strengths of the artists you work with.  How do you set about achieving this creative synthesis?  I imagine it differs from artist to artist…

Yes, it differs for every artist.  When I begin a new partnership I investigate the mentality of the artist.  I find out about his preferences, what he does not dare to imagine, his methods, his emotional life, his ideas.  Last, in a concealed fashion I psychoanalyze him.  Soon I write a story tailored to his psyche.  The subject matter has to entice him, he has to be able to identify himself with the characters, etc. I don’t write just for myself: I write for an artist.  And through the artist I fix them up to express my views.

You’ve worked with some of the most talented artists in the business including Moebius, Giminez and Georges Bess.  Are there any other artists you’d like to work with?

For the moment I am like a man that is satisfied with his admirers and who does not need anything else.  Nevertheless, I enjoy working with talented artists.  But now, since I am extremely busy, they would have to come and get me.

If you could go back in time, what artists from comics’ past would you work with?  I ask this because I recently re-read Moebius and Stan Lee’s Silver Surfer comic and found myself wondering what strange magic Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jack Kirby could have created together…

Yes, Jack Kirby, but also Steve Ditko and Steranko.

We’ve seen some teasing glimpses of Travis Charest’s breathtaking artwork on your forthcoming Metabarons: The Dreamshifters book.  How did this collaboration come about?

Through one of these magical coincidences – Fabrice Giger, my editor, being apart for thousands of kilometers – we had the same idea at the same time: that Travis should illustrate the Dreamshifters. Fabrice suggested it to Travis and he accepted immediately, even came to live for some time in Paris to work on it.

Could you give us a ‘teasing glimpse’ into the story?

Impossible! I am capable of writing any type of long stories, but I am not able to deliver summaries.

I believe that this is the first time you’ve worked with an artist more commonly associated with American superhero titles.  Are there any other artists who work in this genre that you admire, and, if so, can you envisage working with them?

There are four artists that I admire, and with whom I would like to work together, however, since they are sometimes artists and writers, they do not need me for anything.  The deceased Harold R. Foster.  The super neurotic [Robert] Crumb.  The classical Stan Sakai.  The profound Will Eisner.  Four genii!

Are there any comics you are currently reading?  Any recommendations?

These days I broaden my life in reading Lone Wolf and Cub.

Did you read comics as a child?

Oh, Yes! Prince Valiant (I fell in love with Aleta). Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers, etc.

Another thing that distinguishes you from other filmmakers who write comics is the fact that your earliest work in the field – such as Fabulas Panicas Weekly in the 1960s – actually pre-dates your movie career.  Would you be kind enough to tell us how you first became involved in writing comics?

In the Fifties an artist from [Cuban newspaper] Vanguardia declared that comics are the poetry and the novels of the future.  He believed it to be a form of art as big as the movies.  Taking advantage of my celebrity status in Mexico, I proposed to a big newspaper to illustrate in their weekly culture segment one comics page per week.  They hired me immediately and so we continued for five years.  We had one million of readers each week.

When legendary film critic Pauline Kael reviewed El Topo, she linked Fabulas Panicas to the works of Robert Crumb and other 1960s underground comic creators.  At the time, did you see yourself as part of this movement?

I never considered myself [aligned] to any movement nor to any political party.  I have an anarchistic spirit or, better, am very liberated like a Metabaron. However, I collected all the underground comics.  The only one that communicated with me (and had a homage to El Topo) was by Spain Rodgriguez.

With Fabulas Panicas you illustrated your own scripts.  Have you ever felt the urge to return to the drawing board?

No. Watching Moebius draw I suffered an everlasting complex.  I feel ashamed of my drawings.

Now that films based on comics are back in vogue, have you ever thought of adapting one of your own titles to the big screen?

I prefer that others take on to it.  The level of idiocy when Hollywood adapts a comic script repulses me.  Actually, for me, I see greater artistic possibilities in creating a comic than making a movie.

Personally, I think The Metabarons would work better as an opera than a movie.  As an artist who has worked in many fields, can you imagine any of your comics being adapted for a medium other than film?

What idea is this, wanting to adapt one art into another form of art?  Comics are comics and they are doing perfectly well in continuing to be comics.

Have you ever considered returning to characters from your movies in comic form?

Once again the same mistake: movies should remain as movies and comics should continue to be comics.  When I write comics I don’t think about the movies.  When I’m shooting movies I don’t think about comics

Humanoids English-language publication of The Metabarons has created a new generation of Jodorowsky fans.  Many will be eager to see your movies El Topo and The Holy Mountain, but will be surprised at how damnably hard they are to get hold of.  For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the grisly details, can you tell us why these films have been hidden away from the public?

These films are in the pseudo-legal possession of the producer Allen Klein. This man hates me to death and he has decided to deny the public from watching my movies.  At the moment we are in a legal battle, where I am trying to recover what is mine: the right to show these movies.

In a television interview with Jonathan Ross a decade or so ago, you described how you felt after seeing David Lynch’s Dune movie.  I seem to remember it made you laugh for hours.  Did you see the Sci Fi Channel’s recent adaptation and, if so, did it provoke a similar response?

All this belongs to the past and it does not concern me anymore.  I watched one minute into it and I turned the TV off.  It wasn’t the Martians that invaded our planet, it was the imbeciles.

Your Dune project featured an amazing cast of collaborators including Orson Welles, Salvador Dali, Moebius and H.R. Giger.  If you had the chance to make an epic science fiction movie now – and money was no obstacle – who would you recruit this time around?

As actors I would only recruit talented people, but not famous.  I find that the poison to the movies are the stars.

While we’re on the subject of your films, can you provide us with a status report on Abelcain [AKA The Sons of El Topo]?  Is Marilyn Manson still involved?

Yes. M. Manson is still involved.  However, the weight remains on my shoulders of getting the money together for the production.  I don’t know if I will succeed in getting it.

Let’s hope you do.  Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Alejandro, and I hope you continue to shock and amaze us for many years to come.

In 1970, the year I was born, Rolling Stone magazine published a review by learned rock journalist Greil Marcus of what was then Bob Dylan’s latest album, Self-Portrait.  The review’s high impact opening sentence has since earned itself a place in the annals of popular culture for its succinct precision and evocative use of language.  It simply asked the question:  ‘What is this shit?’

It’s 2010 and Bob Dylan and Greil Marcus are both nearly 40 years older and I’m nearly 40 years-old.  Dylan has just performed a storming set on a sizzling Saturday night in front of Clare, the kids and me -- and some tens of thousands of other people, too -- in a field somewhere in Kent.  As the crowds disperse, making their way to their tents, cars or wherever, many can be seen gazing wistfully, smiling blisfully and generally indulging themselves in that warm glow of post-gig euphoria.  Some of them are even singing.

But not everyone is happy.  Just as many people look bewildered, disillusioned and visibly pissed off, like first generation Star Wars fans in 1999 stumbling out of a Phantom Menace preview.  They seem hurt, betrayed and are probably asking themselves a similar question to the one Greil Marcus first articulated four decades earlier:

What was that shit?

Of course, over the years Dylan has developed something of a penchant for polarising his punters.  Back in the summer of 1965 he antagonised his core folkie constituency (and endeared himself to a new audience of rock music fans) when he plugged an electric guitar into an amplifier at the Newport Folk Festival.   Five years later and it was the rockers turn to feel betrayed -- and country music fans who were won over -- when Dylan released Nashville Skyline.  Another schism opened up in the late-1970s when he became a born-again Christian and renounced his secular songs in favour of gospel music.  That move pissed off just about everybody, although it might have played some part in securing him a prestigious gig at the 1997 World Eucharistic Conference, where he -- quite literally -- had an audience with a Pope.

Hop Farm Dylan, by contrast, was far less provocative.  Dressed like a Southern US country gentleman in his white Cordobes hat, if anything he was in an uncharacteristically chirpy and crowd-pleasing mood.  Together with his tight as drum-skin band, he kicked off proceedings with a suitably rambunctious rendition of ‘Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35′, and of the seventeen songs that made up his set list,  six of them were culled from Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited, two of his most popular and most enduring albums of the 60s.  He unleashed upon the audience a veritable cavalcade of classics.  ‘Just Like a Woman’, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again’, ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ and ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ were all present and correct, while newer tracks (which I really like, but casual festival-goers probably wouldn’t be so familiar with) were kept to a minimum.  Gospel songs were kept off the bill, and -- bearing in mind his most recent album release -- there wasn’t a Christmas carol in sight.

It should have been enough to keep everyone happy, but sadly it wasn’t.

Nowadays, there are two things that divide crowds at a Bob Dylan concert.  Firstly, he doesn’t play his songs the way he used to play them, and, secondly, he doesn’t even sound like Bob Dylan anymore.  During his current touring cycle (which, it must be mentioned, is now well into its 22nd fucking year) he has consistently, persistently and relentlessly deconstructed, reconstructed and -- at times -- rendered unrecognisable the entirety of his not inconsiderable back catalogue, much to the annoyance of many of his fans.  If that wasn’t bad enough, his voice, too, has transformed -- mutated, even -- into something that’s even more alien and unfamiliar.  That nasally sneer of yesteryear  has given way to something more akin to a raspy death rattle of a fatally wounded frog.

Both of these charges are absolutely and incontrovertibly true, and -- at the same time -- utterly meaningless.  When Dylan plays his old songs now they do sound different, but this is the man who once memorably declared that The Times They Are a-Changin’ and starred in a documentary film called Don’t Look Back.  You can’t say he didn’t warn us.  His career has always been characterised by change, growth and genre-breaking innovation.  Admittedly, over the years this strategy hasn’t always been successful -- pioneers, after all, are the ones with the arrows in their backs -- but at Hop Farm he kept hitting the mark time after time.  Old songs were immersed in even older musical traditions, which had the paradoxical effect of making them sound both newly-minted and even more timeless.

Dylan’s voice, however, must have come as quite a shock to more casual fans unfamiliar with his more recent material, let alone those innocent bystanders who probably expected him to sound like The Byrds.   It wasn’t always easy listening to some of popular music’s most perfect lyrics barked out in a voice so cracked and weather-beaten it made Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong sound like the Bee Gees.  However, its worth remembering that Dylan’s early vocal style -- which David Bowie once memorably described in song as ‘a voice of sand and glue’ -- was considered abrasive and far-from radio-friendly back in the 1960s, and it’s been steadily sliding down the octave scale ever since.  Dylan’s voice on a 70s classic like ‘Hurricane’ doesn’t sound like the same man who sang ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ a decade earlier, while the voice of his 80′s Travelling Wilbury persona sounds like someone else again.  I knew what to expect , managed my expectations accordingly and got along fine, although being a fan of Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong probably helped.

There were so many highlights of the night that its hard to single any out.  Memories of ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again’ still make me smile as it prompted my girlfriend Clare & 6 year-old stepdaughter Lily to bolt towards the stage as it’s currently Lily’s favourite song (it’s one of my favourite songs, too, but someone had to look after Lily’s 14 month-old sister, Edie).  ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ managed to be even more heartbreaking than the original, Dylan’s age and broken voice adding a new layer of poignancy to the lyrics.  The incandescent performances of ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ and ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ also deserve mention, especially the latter which -- unless I’m mistaken -- featured Dylan surreptitiously doing a jig.

I was carrying baby Edie in my arms as he started singing his final song for the night.  Appropriately enough, it was ‘Forever Young’:

May you grow up to be righteous

May you grow up to be true

May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you

May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

May you stay forever young

To those in the crowd who were still asking themselves ‘What was that shit?’ let me offer a suggestion.

That, my friends, was good shit.

_______________________________________

Some footage courtesy of public-spirited YouTube donors:

Ballad of a Thin Man:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzVUD2Jciyg

Simple Twist of Fate:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-c0zFUqNhk

Highway 61 Revisted:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQeX9hjnpXc

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