Flash Gordon’s Ape: Insane footage of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, 1971
02.08.2012
04:30 pm

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Heroes
Music

Tags:
Captain Beefheart


 
This 1971 video of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band captures the group at their zenith, powering through a set comprised of several numbers from the then new Lick My Decals Off Baby album and Trout Mask Replica:

Taped on January 15, 1971 at WABX TV Studio in Detroit for the Detroit Tube Works program.

1. When Big Joan Sets Up (0:00)
2. Hair Pie Bass Solo (6:23)
3. Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop (6:42)
4. Flash Gordon’s Ape/Marimba Solo (8:48)
5. Bellerin Plain (9:11)
6. Instrumental for Foot and Fingers (13:00)

Crappy versions of this have been bootlegged for decades, and parts of it appear on the Grow Fins box set, but this is the best version I’ve seen of this puppy, by far.
 

 

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Happy Birthday Kenneth Anger!
02.03.2012
06:18 pm

Topics:
Art
Heroes
Movies
Occult

Tags:
Kenneth Anger


 
The magus of American cinema turns 85 today. I had the good fortune to see Kenneth recently at his MOCA opening and he’s looking rather hale and hearty for a man his age, I must say.

Anger’s musical collaboration with Brian Butler, Technicolor Skull, has recently produced a limited edition blood red vinyl album available only at the Technicolor Skull website (I have one, it’s a cool looking object).

Below, Anger’s short film made for the 2010 fall/winter collection of the house of Missoni:
 

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Advice on life from Frank Zappa
02.03.2012
10:42 am

Topics:
Belief
Heroes
Music

Tags:
Frank Zappa

 
I see this Frank Zappa quote pop up on my Facebook feed from time to time and I think it needs to be parked right here on Dangerous Minds, too. Advice like this never gets old.

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Rub Out The Words: New collection of William S. Burroughs letters out this week


 
Editor Bill Morgan cataloged William S. Burroughs’ correspondence from the early 1960s through the mid-70s, selecting over three hundred letters for Rub Out the Words: The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1959-1974, out this week from Ecco.

The material in this new volume covers an era that sprints from Beat to hippie to punk rather quickly. Some of the recipients of Burroughs’ letters at this time were Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Gregory Corso, Billy Burroughs Jr., Paul Bowles, Ian Sommerville, Alexander Trocchi and Brion Gysin.

Here’s one letter, sent to author Norman Mailer. Mailer had written to Burroughs requesting that he join the anti-war tax resistance protest against the Vietnam War.

Via the Paris Review’s website:

November 20, 1967
8 Duke Street
St James
London S.W.1
England

Dear Norman,

As regards the War Tax Protest if I started protesting and refus­ing to contribute to all the uses of tax money of which I disap­ prove: Narcotics Department, FBI, CIA, any and all expenditures for nuclear weapons, in fact any expenditures to keep the antiquated idea of a nation on its dying legs, I would wind up refusing to pay one cent of taxes, which would lead to more trouble than I am pre­ pared to cope with or to put it another way I feel my first duty is to keep myself in an operating condition. In short I sympathize but must abstain.

all the best,

William Burroughs

The volume is set for a February 7 publication date. You can pre-order a copy of Rub Out the Words: The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1959-1974 at Amazon.

The cover portrait of Burroughs is a Polaroid shot by Andy Warhol. Below, some undated footage of Burroughs and Warhol dining together sometime in the late 70s, or more likely early 1980s that was used in a BBC documentary about the Chelsea Hotel. The voice heard off-camera belongs to Victor Bockris, author of the classic book With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker and Warhol: The Biography.
 

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RIP Don Cornelius of Soul Train


 
Don Cornelius, creator and star of Soul Tain, has been found dead at his home in Sherman Oaks, California. From TMZ:

Law enforcement sources tell us ... Cornelius died from a gunshot wound to the head and officials believe the wound was self-inflicted.

Sad news indeed - I had only posted on Soul Train here on DM a few weeks ago. Thanks for all the awesomeness, Don! In memory here’s the man himself introducing the legendary Soul Train line dancers to Earth Wind and Fire’s “Mighty Mighty” in 1974:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Have Yourself A Soul Train Sunday

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Dear Me: Diaries and those who keep them

sylvia_plath_diary
 
It’s around this time that the enthusiasm started almost a month ago begins to wane, and the pages of the diary remain blank, as days dissolve into weeks. Keeping a diary is hard work, but it is rewarding work. If you’ve started a diary and want a little encouragement to keep going, or even just to start writing, then here is a personal selection of diary and journal writers, who may inspire.
 
Sylvia Plath kept a diary throughout her life, which reveals a world beyond her poetry. Here is Sylvia setting out on her adventures as a writer, from November 13th 1949.

As of today I have decided to keep a diary again - just a place where I can write my thoughts and opinions when I have a moment. Somehow I have to keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen. Every day is so precious I feel infinitely sad at the thought of all this time melting farther and farther away from me as I grow older. Now, now is the perfect time of my life.

In reflecting back upon these last sixteen years, I can see tragedies and happiness, all relative - all unimportant now - fit only to smile upon a bit mistily.

I still do not know myself. Perhaps I never will. But I feel free – unbound by responsibility, I still can come up to my own private room, with my drawings hanging on the walls…and pictures pinned up over my bureau. It is a room suited to me – tailored, uncluttered and peaceful…I love the quiet lines of the furniture, the two bookcases filled with poetry books and fairy tales saved from childhood.
At the present moment I am very happy, sitting at my desk, looking out at the bare trees around the house across the street… Always want to be an observer. I want to be affected by life deeply, but never so blinded that I cannot see my share of existence in a wry, humorous light and mock myself as I mock others.

 
Playwright Joe Orton filled his diaries with his sexual escapades, and vignettes of the strangeness of the world, from January 18th 1967.

On the bus going home I heard a most fascinating conversation between an old man and woman. “What a thing, though,” the old woman said. “You’d hardly credit it.” “She’s always made a fuss of the whole family, but never me,” the old man said. “Does she have a fire when the young people go to see her?” “Fire?” “She won’t get people seeing her without warmth.” “I know why she’s doing it. Don’t think I don’t,” the old man said. “My sister she said to me, ‘I wish I had your easy life.’ Now that upset me. I was upset by the way she phrased herself. ‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ I said. ‘I’ve only got to get on the phone and ring a certain number,’ I said, ‘to have you stopped.’” “Yes,” the old woman said, “And you can, can’t you?” “Were they always the same?” she said. “When you was a child? Can you throw yourself back? How was they years ago?” “The same,” the old man said. “Wicked, isn’t it?” the old woman said. “Take care, now” she said, as the old man left her. He didn’t say a word but got off the bus looking disgruntled.

 
More diaries from Jack Kerouac, Emily Carr, John Cheever, and Andy Warhol, after the jump…
 

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TN bistro refuses service to anti-gay Republican: ‘He’s gone from being stupid to being dangerous’


 
In recent days, you may have heard of Senator Stacey Campfield, the woefully stupid Republican legislator from Knoxville, TN’s District 7, who is behind the bill nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill (SB49), which will block any and all discussion of the topic of homosexuality in grades kindergarten through eight in Tennessee schools. Campfield has a history of idiocy when it comes to statements on the LGBT community. He once even likened homosexuality to bestiality. He certainly reflects poorly on the citizens of Knoxville who voted him into office.

Campfield was interviewed by Michelangelo Signorile of Huffington Gay Voices, on his SiriusXM radio show, “OutQ” and said some dumb, dumb things. Very unhelpful, silly and very unintelligent things.

Gems like:

“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”

“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].”

The thing is, Stacey Campfield is one of those people who is too dumb to know how dumb he is. He needs other people to explain that to him.

As writer Sean Braisted put it on the progressive blog Nashville 21:

“Stacey Campfield has made it a mission in his life to make life harder for those who don’t fit his own personal view of ‘normal’.”

But there has been a pushback against this bigot, as Braisted reported, started when a Knoxville restaurant called The Bistro at the Bijou refused Campfield service on Sunday.

The customer clearly ISN’T always right. Congratulations to owner Martha Boggs who ejected this shithead from her establishment (which is on South GAY Street, btw! What was Campfield doing there in the first place? Looking for a new boyfriend, maybe? Doesn’t he know that you can catch “the AIDS” from the bread sticks!?!)

Boggs told the Metro Pulse:

“I didn’t want his hate in my restaurant. I told him he wasn’t welcome here. ... I feel like he’s gone from being stupid to being dangerous, and I wanted to stand up to him.”

Bravo! I’d have have done the exact same thing in her shoes (or else pissed in his soup?). Round of applause for Martha Boggs!

The Bistro at the Bijou also posted a Facebook message that read, “I hope that Stacy Campfield now knows what if feels like to be unfairly discrimanted against.”

More from Nashville 21:

Stacey Campfield has blogged about his experience and says that he left the restaurant because “she started to yell and call me names again so I figured it was better to just leave.”  He also adds this nugget:

“Some people have told me my civil rights were violated under the 1964 civil rights act in that a person can not be denied service based on their religious beliefs. (I am catholic and the catholic church does not support the act of homosexuality)”

Ummm…no. According to the EEOC, “Social, political, or economic philosophies, as well as mere personal preferences, are not “religious” beliefs protected by Title VII.” While Title II covers restaurants, its safe to say that the same definition of “religion” would apply there as well. Arguably the belief that “homosexuality is a sin” is a religious belief, but saying that AIDS resulted from people having sex with monkeys, or passing laws that prohibit the discussion of the concept of same-sex relationships, does not fall under that classification.

There’s nothing in that legislation that prohibits discrimination against fucking assholes either. Sorry Stacey!

Below, Martha Boggs talks about the Stacey Campfield incident, saying she thinks Campfield is a “bully” and that “he needed to be stood up to.”
 

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Recently unearthed film of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Rome, 1968
01.30.2012
12:40 pm

Topics:
Heroes
History
Music

Tags:
Captain Beefheart


 
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band filmed onstage at the 1968 Rome Pop Festival at the Palazzo Della Sport. Image how freaky these guys must’ve seemed at that time. Hell, even by today’s standards, they’re still arch freaks!

From the description on YouTube:

Paul Brown: One obscure Beefheart performance, which has been preserved on film, is the Rome Pop Festival from May 1968 - this was broadcast by the BBC on Saturday 18th May 1968. The BBC were covering it, possibly due to the influx of UK bands, ie Julie Driscoll and The Brian Auger Trinity who were headlining it and The Move who, on the third day, were the ones to incite the police and authorities to close the Festival two days early. Captain Beefheart was the only one to represent the West Coast although there were big plans to try and get a few of the larger, and possibly at the time more well known groups to attend. (But it seems Beefheart was the only one willing to attend on the money offered. Probably because they were already in Europe). The clip with Beefheart and the band shows an unknown person, it is Krasnow?, nodding his head to what sounds suspiciously like Dropout Boogie - then the camera is on-stage and the band are performing Sure Nuff ‘n’ Yes I Do. There are closeups of Don Vliet in Top Hat and Jeff Cotton in his Yellow Leather Coat and also Alex Snouffer and Jerry Handley. 

The clip I managed to see was luckily, somehow, saved on Reel to Reel and, despite its length and rather poor sound, was a sight for these sore eyes. The camera pans to someone, who on first viewing I thought was Grant Gibbs, Beefheart’s manager in the early days, although it may possibly have been someone complete different. This someone looks completely oblivious to the interview and is just nodding his head to what sounded suspiciously like Dropout Boogie (old non-circulating dubbed version). Then the camera is on-stage and the band are performing “Sure Nuff ‘n’ Yes I Do.”

It ain’t long, or in sync, but take what you can get.
 

 
This is an excerpt from a longer piece. You can watch the entire BBC report from May 19th,1968 here.

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May Day: Massive protest planned for NATO and G8 summit in Chicago


 
Adbusters magazine, the original impetus behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, has issued a new invitation for a month-long direct action and occupation this May in the Windy City. Looks like this one could be quite a party, too:

Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.

And so will we.

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.

And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

Below, footage of the confrontation between Chicago police and protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago:
 

 
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Chicago”:
 

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An hour of Leonard Cohen performing live in Austin in 1988


 
Leonard Cohen’s new album Old Ideas is being released next Tuesday. The critical reception has been ecstatic. Which thrills me because I have loved Cohen from the moment I heard “Suzanne” when I was 15 years old. He’s been a massive influence on my own music. My debt to him is deep.

Here’s something to hold you Cohen fans over until Old Ideas release: a brilliant performance by Mr. Cohen on Austin City Limits from 1988.
 

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Glitterbug: Derek Jarman’s final film

derek_jarman_glitterbug
 
Glitterbug was Derek Jarman’s final film, compiled from the many hours of Super 8 footage he had shot throughout his life. Originally made in 1994 for the BBC’s Arena. arts strand, Glitterbug is a visual journal that ties together aspects of Jarman’s life from the 1970s to 1990s.

The film opens with the artist awakened by the memory of dreams, of lovers, of friends, of place - Jarman’s lofts on Bankside, Upper Ground, the Thames River; of self, shaving, washing, breakfasting - those small rituals that prepare the day, the structuring of artifice and order. The world outside, My Tea Shop, the day-time existence, Jarman’s curiosity for the world around him. Then at night another world, we see preparation for Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World, returning to day, a garden party, is this Andrew Logan singing as Little Nell Campbell dances? Duggie Fields watches, Jarman films.

The dreamer sleeps, travels to the country, Van Gogh fields, standing stones, the memory of place, absence of others, a white-washed cottage room, the creation of art, the structuring of order.

The dreamer awake, and we are now watching Jarman at work, Sebastiane, the sea flecked gold, the actors at play, legs entwined. An office, an apartment, ‘phone calls, then filming the artist Duggie Fields, his designs, his face, a prelude to Jubilee, a young flame-haired Toyah Willcox, The Sex Pistols, Jordan and a dress rehearsal for what will become The Last of England, as she pirouettes around a burning Union Jack, Adam Ant, hair-cutting, the Silver Jubilee.

Jarman is showing us the sketches for preparation, the themes he returned to throughout his life. Rome, ritual, the research for Caravaggio, punk, the art of mirrors, The Slits, William Burroughs, Gensis P. Orridge, Throbbing Gristle, Jarman’s fascinations and obsessions, his idols and co-conspirators. The ritual of sharing tea, sharing cigarettes, a shared communion, youthful faces, sun flecked, smiling in the sun, a future ahead, too often cut short by the frost, this the last summer they danced on the rooftop,  ‘Here I am, here are my secrets,’ he is saying, as we plunder through his film diaries, Super 8 scrapbook, glittering trinket chest, memory is what makes us, what sometimes betrays us, what gives us the love we have to share, returning to the Thames, the friends, the lovers, those living, those dead.

Glitterbug Derek Jarman’s Super 8 films, with Andrew Logan, Duggie Fields, Tilda Swinton, Michael Clark, Adam Ant, Toyah Willcox, William Burroughs and Genesis P. Orridge. Music by Brian Eno, specially commissioned for this film.
 

 

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Milton Glaser & Mirko Ilic: Design of Dissent


 
Tonight in New York, revered graphic designer Milton Glaser (do a Google Images search if that name doesn’t ring a bell) will take part in a panel discussion with Mirko Ilic about the creation of powerful politically driven graphics. The event is hosted by Reality Sandwich creative director, Michael Robinson

This panel discussion features graphic design legend Milton Glaser and award winning designer/illustrator Mirko Ilic focusing on graphic design’s ability to convey how power is effectively used and distributed, and justice is fulfilled. Based upon Glaser and Mirko’s book The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics, the authors will discuss how today’s image makers and corporate shamans can use design to create the more beautiful and just world we all know is possible.

This event is co-sponsored with Evolver/Reality Sandwich. Hopefully they’ll put a videotape of the discussion online soon.

Thursday, January 26, 8–10pm at The Open Center, 22 E. 30th St., NY

Below, a delightful portrait of Milton Glaser by Hillman Curtis:
 

 
Milton Glaser’s Graphic Influence: 14 Iconic Images (Fast Company)

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John & Yoko: Discussing Art on David Frost’s show 1968

frost_ono_lennon_1968
 
The Fab Two, John Lennon and Yoko Ono gave their first interview together on the David Frost show Frost on Saturday, August 24 1968. On it they discussed how they met, their personal and artistic philosophies, and explained some of the ideas behind their shared exhibition You Are Here:

Frost: Yes, you gave me one of these badges beforehand. Now, what, this is really the basis of what you’re talking about isn’t it, You Are Here.

Lennon: It’s that show, yeah.

Frost: Now what exactly does it mean, You Are Here?

Lennon: Well, er, You, are, here.

Ono: Usually people think in vicarious terms, they think ‘Somebody’s there,’ ‘John Lennon’s there,’ or somebody. But it’s not that. YOU are the one who’s here, and so in art, usually art gives something that’s an object and says ‘This is art,’ you know, but instead of that, art exists in people. It’s people’s art, and so we don’t believe in just making something and completing it and giving it to people, we like people to participate. All the pieces are unfinished and they have to be finished by people.

As part of the interview, two audience members tried out Yoko’s Hammer and Nail Piece, where they hammered nails into a block of wood. Both found the experience “satisfying” and “unbelievable”. When Lennon encouraged Frost to have a go, the “bubonic plagiarist” said he felt like “a man hammering in a nail”, to which Lennon countered, “I felt like one hammering it in on TV”.

The interview over-ran, and ends with Lennon conducting the audience to sing-a-long on “Hey Jude”, as the closing titles played out.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

John and Yoko: The Dentist Interview 1968


 

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Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band: ‘Pachuco Cadaver,’ 1969
01.25.2012
03:33 pm

Topics:
Heroes
Music

Tags:
Captain Beefheart


 
I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t an “official” music video for “Pachuco Cadaver,” but having said that, this song was the sole single to be pulled from Trout Mask Replica, albeit only in France, so it very well could be.

I’m not really sure what this is. Maybe it’s just a fan-produced video, I don’t know. Here’s all it says on YouTube:

Edited by Nuno Monteiro. Filmed February 1969. Featuring Captain Beefheart, Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton, Antennae Jimmy Semens.

 

 
Thank you, Elixer Sue!

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Superheroes ‘trapped’ in a drop of water


 
Lovely superhero emblems reflected in a droplet of water by German photographer Marcus Reugels. Visit Mr. Reugels’ Flickr page to see more of his awesome work.
 

 
More after the jump…

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He-She: The most cunning, vicious and fiendish killer of all time!
01.23.2012
01:33 pm

Topics:
Amusing
Art
Heroes
Literature
Pop Culture
Sex

Tags:


 
One of the weirdest villains in the history of comic books was the formidable He-She. A creation of writer and artist Chuck Biro, the part man/part woman baddie appeared in the pages of Crimebuster comics featuring crime fighter Chuck Chandler. The series ran from 1942 to 1956.

Crimebuster had no super powers. Chuck Chandler decided to fight crime (Nazis, specifically) after his parents were murdered by Iron Jaw, who was Crimebuster’s main recurring nemesis and a really pretty nasty bad guy.

Want to read the whole exciting comic featuring He-She? Go here.

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Francis Bacon’s women

francis_bacon
 
On occasion, Francis Bacon settled outstanding restaurant or bar bills with one of his paintings. It didn’t always satisfy the creditor, as a certain London restaurateur, not taken with the Irishman’s work, sold each painting on as quickly as he received them. What then would this dear gentleman make of the news that a single portrait by Bacon is expected to reach £18m at auction?

Described as “seductive and sexually charged,” the painting shows one of Bacon’s famous muses, Henrietta Moraes, slightly tipsy, lying naked on a rumpled, stained bed, in some Soho apartment. The image was based on one of a series of photographs Bacon commissioned from Vogue snapper, Colony Room habituee and chronic alcoholic, John Deakin, who ensured he took enough photos to hock around as under-the-counter porn at ten bob a print.

Though he lived an exclusively gay lifestyle, women were central to Bacon: they were his muses, who loved, nurtured, inspired and developed his talents. Indeed, Bacon surrounded himself with strong women, almost replacements to the mother who had been callously indifferent to her son’s brutal beatings, when caught as a child dressing-up in her clothes, and flirting with the stable boys.

In moments of fancy, I think Bacon had the hawk-like look of Joan Hickson’s Miss Marple, especially when all glammed-up for a night on the piss. I can imagine him solving an Agatha Christie, or board game mystery—Professor Plum, in the library, with a candle-stick - for there was the shadow of country house and prim maiden aunt (doling out make-up tips to younger girls, and at night reading Mrs Beeton recipes in bed), at the heart of him.

These grim childhood beatings opened Francis up to the delights of S&M—he fucked all the grooms who had horse-whipped him, and fantasized about his father (whose purple face screams form so many Popes, or glowers from under blackened umbrellas)—and a long life of violent relationships with his lovers. 

Even so, it was the women who shaped him.
 
henrietta_moraes_francis_bacon_1963
“Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” (1963)
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Notes towards a portrait of Francis Bacon


 
More on Francis Bacon’s women, after the jump…
 

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David Bowie profiled on ‘20/20’ in 1980
01.20.2012
10:52 am

Topics:
Heroes
Music

Tags:
David Bowie


 
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a vintage interview with David Bowie from the BBC that included more footage from his Broadway turn in The Elephant Man than I have ever seen elsewhere. This is a follow-up to that, a personality profile from ABC’s 20/20 shot around the same time.

You don’t tend to think of 20/20 as being so cutting edge today, but this story must’ve been quite a startling thing for some Americans to have beamed into their living rooms 30 years ago. I can vividly recall my parents being very perplexed by this piece and why I thought David Bowie was “cool” in the first place. It just didn’t make sense to them.
 

 
Part II here.

Previously on Dangerous Minds
‘The Elephant Man’: David Bowie on Broadway, 1980

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David Gibson’s ‘Art of Mixing’ will blow your mind


 
People, I have a new guru. A visionary, a sage, a seer. I hang on his every uttering like they are precious droplets of Mana. He is a true master, and I am keen to follow in his ways.

His name is David Gibson, and he is the author of a book called The Art Of Mixing, a text used by some of the world’s top music production courses to show how best to “mix down” a track using its individual parts (drums/bass/vocals/etc). At some point in the early-to-mid 90s David also produced a video guide to accompany his book, using primitive computer graphics to help explain various ideas. Imagine if Wayne Campbell’s cable-access show had been directed by Tim & Eric, and concerned solely with music production techniques and the intricacies of a track’s mix, and you’re in the right ballpark.

The Art of Mixing (subtitled A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering and Production) uses a very clever two-dimensional representation of a song’s “sound world” to show how effects, pan, track levels and EQ can be used to alter a song’s final mix, its shape, movement and dynamics. As well as imparting valuable information that any music producer will appreciate—be they bedroom or studio, headphone, Mackie mixer or Neve desk, witch haus, thrash metal or trad jazz—what really shines through is Gibsons sheer joy at working with music. This dude just exudes good vibes (in a slightly goofy, 90s-retro way, natch.)
 

 
In the modern world music is both hugely rejoiced and profoundly debased. Talent shows spread a myth that music is merely an easy route to fame, and that fame should be a musician’s ultimate goal before they are disposed of by the corporate behemoth in favour of the next big thing that comes down the machine’s pipeline. At the same time the tools for creating music have become easier than ever to obtain, as have the distribution methods, and now everyone’s voice can be heard. I believe we NEED people like David Gibson right now to remind us WHY we make music, and just why music is so precious, so magical, so moving and so much fun.

Gibson does not shy away from talking about music’s innate spiritual dimension and the long path of discovery, both personal and musical, for anyone who chooses to work with music. To the more literal-minded reader this may sound corny, but it is important to remember that music IS an artform, with as much wisdom to impart to the practitioner as any other discipline, be it scientific, artistic or spiritual. David Gibson is the Buddha of the track bounce. He IS the Anti-Cowell.

What you see below is the conclusion of The Art Of Mixing in its video form, as uploaded to YouTube, and it is truly inspiring. I have started at the end because it gives a very neat summary of the topics covered in the book/video, but also, in the words of Guru Dave himself: 

Now that we have covered all of the dynamics you can create using the equipment… we’ll let you begin this lifelong exploration on your own.

David Gibson “The Art Of Mixing (Part 17)”
 

 
David Gibson’s The Art Of Mixing: A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering and Production is available to buy, in book form, on Amazon

Thanks to Kurt Dirt for expanding my mind!

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Ken Russell: A documentary tribute to his life and work

Ken_Russell
 
There was an interesting letter in that scurrilous rag, the Daily Mail yesterday, printed under the headline, “Let Ken’s movies inspire a new audience”. It was written by Paul Sutton, of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, who gave a passionate plea for the BBC to stop using edited clips of Ken Russell’s early TV work to liven-up crap shows made by today’s lesser talented directors:

These Ken Russell films aren’t entertainment fit only for ‘found footage’. They’re films, works of very real cinema in which every frame,pictorial composition, cut and music cue has been thought through with a craftsman’s hand and an artist’s mind and eye. They constitute a body of work which stands with the best of any director working anywhere in the world between 1959 and 1970.

Mr. Sutton went on to explains how both Lindsay Anderson, in If…, and Stanley Kubrick, in A Clockwork Orange, lifted from Russell’s TV work, and concludes:

Every one of Ken Russell’s 35 BBC films displays the master’s art. We should be boasting about them and using them to inspire the next Lindsay Anderson, the next Stanley Kubrick and the next Ken Russell.

I for one, certainly do hope the BBC listen up and release all of Ken Russell’s TV films for all of us to enjoy, very soon.

Most recently, the Beeb made this fine documentary Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil , and while it doesn’t cover all of the great, genius director’s work (no Savage Messiah, no Crimes of Passion, no Salome’s Last Dance) it does manage to show why Ken Russell was England’s greatest film director of the last 50 years, and one of the world’s most important film directors of the twentieth century.

Presneted by Alan Yentob, this documentary tribute includes interviews with Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Amanda Donohoe, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey.

Read Paul Sutton’s blog on Ken Russell, Lindsay Anderson and Stanley Kubrick here.
 

 
With thanks to Unkle Ken Russell
 
More on L’enfant terrible Msr. Russell, after the jump…
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher | 13 Comments
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