In Southern California in the 1980s, KROQ had this weird un-DJ-like guy named (seriously)
Rodney Bingenheimer, who came on late at night on Sundays and played punk records and new bands like Blondie, The Ramones, X, Joan Jett, Devo and Cheap Trick. Did this weirdo really have some influence? A 90-minute 2004 documentary now on YouTube,
Mayor of the Sunset Strip (Part 1) tells his story, and it's weirder than you may have imagined.
[more inside]
posted by planetkyoto
on Nov 14, 2011 -
24 comments
The French romantic thriller “Diva” dashes along with a pellmell gracefulness, and it doesn’t take long to see that the images and visual gags and homages all fit together and reverberate back and forth. It’s a glittering toy of a movie... This one is by a new director, Jean-Jacques Beineix... who understands the pleasures to be had from a picture that doesn’t take itself very seriously. Every shot seems designed to delight the audience. - Pauline Kael, 1982
[more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Sep 16, 2011 -
33 comments
Touched By Your Presence, Dear: Ex-Blondie songwriter and bassist Gary Lachman (aka "Gary Valentine") blogs (and is interviewed) about his books on Jung, Steiner, Ouspensky, and Sixties mysticism, and his time spent toiling in the fields of Crowleyana and The Gurdjieff Work.
posted by darth_tedious
on Sep 14, 2010 -
20 comments
Paul Tschinkel is the producer and director of the series called ART/new york. -- After showing video pieces in New York galleries, he turned to the fledgling New York cable system (Manhattan Cable downtown and Warner Cable uptown), producing a half hour weekly arts program - a gallery on television. From 1974 to 1979
Paul Tschinkel's Inner- Tube was devoted to conceptual and narrative video art pieces.
[more inside]
posted by vronsky
on Aug 18, 2009 -
4 comments
Connecticut's
Have a Nice Life is responsible for one of the year's most
acclaimed, highly conceptual albums this year, Deathconsciousness.
The two discs (entitled The Plow That Broke The Plains and The Future, respectively) feature music spanning over five years of collaboration between the two artists, and are accompanied by a 75-page booklet on medieval Italian heretics in lieu of liner notes. Combining elements of
shoegaze,
new wave,
ambient drone,
post-rock,
experimental industrial,
avant-garde dark metal, and
electronic music, and citing references such as
My Bloody Valentine and
Joy Division to their credit, the original and only pressings sold out
within hours. Full stream of all 85 minutes available
here. Direct mp3 samples
here and
here.
[more inside]
posted by Christ, what an asshole
on Jun 28, 2008 -
34 comments
It was 30 years ago today that Elvis Costello and the Attractions appeared on Saturday Night Live. They'd wanted to play
Radio Radio but SNL said no as it was thought to be 'anti-media.' So they started playing
Less Than Zero, but stopped eight seconds in and played
Radio Radio anyway, which led to them being banned from SNL for 12 years.
Tip o' the hat to the Post Punk Progressive Pop Party.
posted by carter
on Dec 17, 2007 -
85 comments
On the cusp of DEVO's first tour of Europe since 1990 , it's become clear that, though largely cast aside after their 1980 hit "Whip It", DEVO's influence is finally being felt on modern audiences, around the world. DEVO has inspired tribute bands,
some traditional,
some not. They've also spawned new bands,
domestic [MySpace link], and Foreign like
Japan's POLYSICS [YouTube], and Germany's
Mutate Now [YouTube]. With musical inspiration like this, can't we forgive such missteps as
Devo 2.0?
posted by SansPoint
on Jun 15, 2007 -
55 comments
Happy Birthday Ric Richard Otcasek turned 58 today. It's
All Mixed Up, I had no idea he was so old. Well, no matter how old you are, you still need to let the
Good Times Roll, so
Let's Go wish him our very best, since it's pretty much
Touch and Go for any rock star approaching age 60.
Though many of the Cars hits where sung by the late, great
Ben Orr, Ocasek was one of the more recognizable front men of the 1980s. So distinctive that, on April 18, 2006, he was ranked number 50 in The
Boston Phoenix list of "The 100 unsexiest men in the world."
Ocasek has had a low-key, but reasonably successful
career as a solo artist, written a book of poetry and had a cameo role in the John Waters feature film
Hairspray. He also appeared on the Colbert Report where he volunteered to lead a commando mission to "rescue"
Stephen Jr., the baby eagle at the
San Francisco Zoo. Ric also is notable as a producer, though he is probably best known (or infamous in indie circles) for producing
Guided by Voices' much maligned
Do the Collapse. As for my own personal connection, the first time I saw him was in 1984, when the Cars played a show with
Wang Chung and the last time was when I stood next to Ric at
Luna's Farewell show at the Bowery Ballroom, a well known
Nightspot. Nice guy, he let me buy him a beer. It was, he said,
Just what he Needed.
posted by psmealey
on Mar 23, 2007 -
61 comments
"I would like to do better, to be better than I am". He's the French New Wave
maverick and Academy Award winner (
at 26, for his first short) who, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz -- with considerable personal pain and the admission that "
no description, no picture can reveal the true dimension" of what happened in the camps -- made what François Truffaut called "
the greatest film ever made", duly
censored by French authorities. Four years later he baffled audiences with "
the first modern film of sound cinema",
shattering the rules of chronology to describe the “anguish of the future”: even if all he ever wanted was "
to stop death in its tracks"
(French language link),
only for one minute. But he is also the unabashed lover of
la bande dessinée who
learnt English by reading comic books and
in the Seventies dreamed (French language link) of making
"Spider-Man" into a movie (the Hollywood studios were not convinced), the
MGM old-school musical and
operetta nut so in love with design that "
half of the fashion photography of the past 40 years owes a debt" to him. Now,
Alain Resnais' new
work, just shown
at the Venice Film Festival where
his buddy David Lynch was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion, is a French film
inspired by an
English play with 54 short scenes, music by the X-Files's Mark Snow. (more inside)
posted by matteo
on Sep 8, 2006 -
20 comments
AppreciationFilter: Edwyn Collins --Scottish Britpop Master--from Nu-Sonic as a teen in the 70s, Orange Juice ("Rip It Up") in the early 80s, to "A Girl Like You" and "Magic Piper," and still
going strong decades later. He even created a British sitcom, West Heath Yard, and now supports up and coming bands. Even if you've never heard of him, you've heard at least one of his songs, whether in Austin Powers or elsewhere.
More history here, from his old site. (and you can hear 18 streaming songs of his on the main link, above.)
Edwyn is now
in the hospital after suffering a serious brain hemorrhage.
posted by amberglow
on Feb 26, 2005 -
13 comments
newwavephotos.com You will find here a selection of photos (mainly B&W) taken mostly in the late 70's and early 80's of popular and not so popular "rock", "new wave" and "punk" groups.
posted by soundofsuburbia
on Aug 17, 2003 -
22 comments
Boy George Nearly Killed by Glitter Ball There is just something so strangely ironic about this, that made me laugh and spew coffee all over my monitor this morning. Apparently witnesses at the scene said the ball missed landing directly on singer's head by just two inches. Darn!
posted by grant
on Dec 17, 1999 -
2 comments
