Revisiting Vampyros Lesbos

Just fresh from a screening of Vampyros Lesbos ahead of reading the analysis of the film in Murderous Passions later. This would make a good jumping off point into Franco's Cinema, it's certainly one of the more palatable Franco films of his 70's run, the film's sins - some perilous framing, an occasionally ill-prepared looking Dennis Price, a few misused musical cues, are all washed away by a hypnotic performance by a sad-eyed, lovesick Soledad Miranda. Her Grand Guignol nightclub act is one of the most erotic, sensual sequences in European Cult Cinema...

Incidentally, I had an Alphaville moment watching the film !

The Unforgettable Fire

I was listening to U2's album The Unforgettable Fire last night and reflecting on the album's art & design connections - Anton Corbijn's fantastic cover photograph of Moydrum Castle, and its debt to Simon Marsden and his infrared-photography book In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland. But more profound still, the album title which was lifted from an exhibition of paintings and drawings by survivors of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A book of the exhibition was published in 1977 collecting those extraordinary drawings. The book is long out of print but you can download a copy of the book, in multiple formats over at the Internet Archive

J.A. Seazer

I plan on raiding a few albums from Julian Cope's Japrocksampler collection today and first up and probably my favourite record on the list is J.A. Seazer’s stunning 1973 album Kokkyō Junreika, a mind-melting 53min mix of heavy psychedelic rock, freak-folk, spoken word invocations, primal screaming, brilliant studio experimentation and some Kosmiche style organ workouts. J.A. Seazer is one of the great mystics of Japanese music, a kind of cross between Jim Morrison, David Bowie and Keiji Haino. Apparently he was a Yakuza soldier in his early years and having made too many enemies, grew his hair long and escaped into the Tokyo arts scene collaborating with Shūji Terayama and writing a huge amount of music, soundtracks, opera and theatre works. The Kokkyō Junreika album itself are the highlights of a five hour theatrical production and serves as an excellent introduction J.A. Seazer and the Japrockscene. Curious ? Step this way...

TG-Bowie

I wanted to share this intriguing quote plucked from the pages of the January 1995 issue of Record Collector magazine. As part of a feature on Industrial Music a timeline of events of the Industrial scene included the following statement re: Throbbing Gristle - "David Bowie describes TG as the most interesting thing in the UK at present." I've never seen this anything like this quote repeated elsewhere but considering Bowie and Throbbing Gristle are the two most important musical forces in my life, I'd dearly love it to be true...

Three Resurrected Drunkards

Watched Three Resurrected Drunkards, Nagisha Oshima's 1968 film earlier today. Of all the films I've seen this w/end this is the one that's been ping-ponging around my brain all day, for, among other things the interesting parallels with the Monkees' film Head (which I posted about a few days ago). I'd be spinning you a line if I said I had a clear understanding of the politics of the film (Oshima's films much like Godard's are so of their time I feel footnotes are required), but the film is so bizarre, funny, playful and adventurous (there's a particularly inventive and disorientating device about 40mins in), that Three Resurrected Drunkards might well turn out to be the best film from the Oshima's Outlaw Sixties collection. Incidentally, I was fact-checking something in preparation for this post, and according to the Internet Movie Database, the film was released in Japan March 30th 1968 - just two months after Eddie Adams took his famous Saigon execution photograph on February 1st, heavily referenced in Oshima's film - if the IMDB date is correct, that's one incredibly short gestation period !

Venus In Furs

I had a date with Venus In Furs earlier today. I was eager to see the film again after reading Steve Thrower's vibrant, illuminating analysis of the film in the Murderous Passions book. Catching up with the excellent 20min Jesus In Furs piece on the Blue Underground DVD I was excited to learn that Franco had Miles Davis in mind for the lead role when he was writing the Black Angel draft, and it was interesting to backtrack thru the film and imagine Miles in those scenes instead of James Darren. Still I like Darren very much, and watching his scenes on the bandstand I was admiring his fingerwork on the trumpet, and was pleased to discover that Darren himself was a player. I wish there was more jazz in the film and less Rio - there's a wonderful moment when Darren and Manfred Mann look like they're really cooking on stage. Mann's score for the film is really terrific, especially the piece played when the hypnotically beautiful Maria Rohm engages her former tormentors in a dance of death. Watching the scene where Dennis Price falls under her spell I was wondering who the actor reminded me of, looks wise, and realized I was thinking of a middle-aged J.G. Ballard...

Oz

Oz magazine, March 1968 issue featuring Eddie Adams' famous photograph "General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon"...

I came across this yesterday, found in a gallery of Oz magazine covers and the timing was fortuitous - just last w/end I watched Head, the Monkees film which features newsreel footage of the Saigon shooting. I've seen Head five or six times over the years and this moment in the film, folded into some live footage of the group performing Circle Sky, remains startling as ever. The edit is so tight the footage is almost subliminal but in that nanosecond before it reaches its shocking climax I experience what I call that Un Chien Andalou moment - I wonder will they or won't they dare show the eyeball being slit, or in the case of Head, the "head" shot. Watching the film again, the cut-ups of found footage and the channel-hopping reminded me of Natural Born Killers, and two interesting but superficial coincidences crop up here: Head was released in November 1968, the same month Oliver Stone was discharged from the US army, and secondly, in a scene cut from Natural Born Killers, Dennis Leary spouts one of his manic monologues and references a certain Monkee: "Knock, Knock! Who's there? Mickey. Mickey who? Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mantle, Mickey Rourke, Mickey Finn, Mickey Dolenz, Mickey Knox. Guilty? You bet your ass"

Popol Vuh

Currently listening to The Best Of Popol Vuh From The Films Of Werner Herzog, a compilation which collects music from Aguirre Wrath of God, Heart of Glass, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo Cobra Verde and the rare 1984 mountain climbing documentary The Dark Glow of the Mountains. Hardly a definitive overview of Florian Fricke and Werner Herzog’s great collaboration but still this is 44mins of really terrific music. One piece of Popol Vuh soundtrack music that doesn’t appear on this collection or any other album I’m sorry to say is a beautiful nameless piece from Aguirre, the Wrath of God, heard during a shot of bubbling rapids, and later used for the opening of The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner as ski-jumper Walter Steiner soars thru the air. Here’s 49 seconds of it at least…

Powers of Ten

I was reflecting on Jess Franco’s zooms earlier and I remembered this famous science short from 1977… Powers of Ten, a fantastic 9min film which takes the viewer on a cosmic zoom into outer and inner space. The film begins with an overhead shot of a couple picnicking on the Chicago lakeside and proceeds to zoom out at a rate of one power of ten per 10 seconds, all the way to the deepest recesses of empty space. At that point the film reverses its track, back to the picnicking couple and continues its journey into the hand of the man, passed the microscopic foundations of the human body, ending on quarks in a proton of a carbon atom and “the edge of present understanding”. Accompanying the viewer on this mind-bending trip is the warm friendly voice-over of physics professor Philip Morrison as well as a great electronic score by Elmer Bernstein that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Gothic Horror film…

Creepy

I should be making great strides thru Steve Thrower’s magnificent Jess Franco book but I’ve been alternating my reading sessions with a batch of Creepy comics courtesy of Dark Horse’s ongoing archival series. Each volume collects together 5 or 6 issues of the legendary Horror anthology, complete with the original cover artwork, letters page, ads and new forwards by the Creepy staff and appreciative fans. The illustrations are absolutely fantastic with vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches and other unspeakable monstrosities running riot across the pages, each story delivering a nasty twist in the tail much to the delight of the host Uncle Creepy. Of course I wasn’t around during Creepy’s original run from 1964 to February 1983 (recommencing in 2009) but reading these archives, I’m reminded of Gore Shriek and Dead World, two great Horror comics I read in the 90’s. I think a screening of Creepshow is required !

Notes from the Underground

I'm in a metal mood this evening, shooting myself a large injection of nostalgia this evening for my teenage death metal years courtesy of the fantastic Send Back My Stamps website, which houses a huge archive of fanzine scans from the mid 80's right thru to the early 90's before the DIY mag was displaced by the Internet. These were the glory days of the metal 'zine, when bedroom editors were landing interviews with some of the greats of the genre - my preference was always Death Metal, and many of the pivotal bands are present among these scans - Obituary, Carcass, Autopsy, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Dark Throne, Bolt Thrower, Cannibal Corpse... The archive is rigorously indexed so it's easy to seek out an issue with your favourite band, and the scans are very good quality. Check it out here

More nostalgia vibrations, remembering the great album artwork of Dan Seagrave, whose highly distinctive, intensely detailed paintings adorned many of the great death metal albums of the early 90's. Clockwise from left: Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten, Entombed - Left Hand Path, Carnage - Dark Recollections, Nocturnus - The Key...

Revisiting Contamination

Another film watched over the weekend was Contamination, I wanted to see if my Blue Underground DVD was worth upgrading to the Arrow Blu-Ray - it wasn't, but still I enjoyed revisiting this very goofy Alien lift. Evidently I was dozing thru the credits because I had forgotten Ian McCulloch was in the film - he doesn't show up until the second act and later takes yet another walk thru a stretch of jungle - his third consecutive tramp thru the undergrowth after Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombie Holocaust which surely makes him a sort of David Attenborough of European Cult Cinema. I wonder did I miss a crucial plot point along the way, but what exactly was the purpose of the eggs ? Unlike the Alien eggs which serve to propagate the species, the Cyclops' eggs serve no function other than causing a few upset stomachs...

237

I watched The Shining last night on foot of Eric Somer's superb study of the film in Video Watchdog #178. Accompanying Eric's piece is a review of Room 237, the 2012 documentary which presents some intriguing theories about the meaning of Kubrick's film. I watched portions of the documentary on youtube earlier and I'm on the fence whether any of the hidden meanings in the film - one includes Kubrick's involvement with the faking of the Apollo 11 moon landing, hold water. It's interesting though how a germ of an idea can produce great oaks. Watching The Shining last night, portions of the score sounded remarkably similar to James Horner's score for Aliens, so much so I began to see all sorts of interesting parallels with James Cameron's film. After sleeping on it, I'm less enthused by my observations, but interesting what an overheated mind can conjure up...

Who Killed Teddy Bear ?

Just watched Who Killed Teddy Bear ? courtesy of Network's DVD... This is one of those mid-60's independent productions (The Sadist is another) that blindsides you with its brazenness, a psychosexual thriller which explores voyeurism, obsession, lesbianism, rape, and pornography - heady stuff for 1965. References if you need them might include Peeping Tom, Black Christmas and Michael Findlay's Flesh trilogy. This one has some great footage of Manhattan night life and the noirish street photography reminded me of another great 60's indie Blast of Silence. Strong performances and some unexpected arty touches - strobing flash cuts and surreal lens distortions round this out as a must see.

Incidentally, I was please to see some interesting first editions in a scene where Sal Mineo does some after dark book shopping...

That's Exploitation !

Listening to a collection of Horror and Exploitation radio spots - truly a lost art of over-the-top ad campaigns and screaming taglines. Here are some of my favorites...

BLOOD & BLACK LACE ("A chic French fashion salon where 7 breathtaking French models will find their hideous diabolical end")

THE SINFUL DWARF ("A depraved psychotic misfit crazed by the charms of young girls luring them from the city streets to a hellish snake pit")

DERANGED ("He carved a trail of butchery so brutal that newspapers refused to print its gruesome details")

LUST FOR A VAMPIRE ("Disciples of the black mass, devils in female bodies whose embrace is the kiss of death for man...or woman")

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT ("Here is the first motion picture to offer to the daring a look into the final, maddening space between life and death")

HUMAN TORNADO ("I'm Rudy Ray Moore, the Human Tornado ! I chain down thunder and handcuff-lightning, I'm so damn strong it's sometimes frightening").

A selection of radio spots can be heard here