Bishopbriggs was where the trams from Glasgow ended. It was also where Dirk Bogarde spent his early teenage years, from 1934-37, living with a well-to-do uncle and aunt, while commuting to-and-from Allan Glen School in the city.

Glasgow shaped Bogarde, and though he hated his time there, he latter admitted, in his first volume of biography, A Postilion Struck by Lightning:

‘The three years in Scotland were, without doubt, the most important years of my early life. I could not, I know now, have done without them. My parents, intent on giving me a solid, tough scholastic education to prepare me for my Adult Life, had no possible conception that the education I would receive there would far outweigh anything a simple school could have provided.’

What Glasgow gave the young Bogarde, after his childhood idyll of Sussex, was “a crack on the backside which shot [him] into reality so fast [he] was almost unable to catch [his] breath for the pain and disillusions which were to follow.”

At Allan Glen’s School, Bogarde soon found himself “dumped in a lavatory pan by mindless classmates” because he spoke with “the accent of a Sassenach”. It was part of the cruelty that taught the young Bogarde to build a “carapace” against his peers. In his isolation he developed his skills as an artist and writer, and dreamt of escape.

Glasgow also offered Bogarde his first sexual experience with an older man - the dressed in beige Mr. Dodd, who he met whilst skipping classes at the Paramount Picture Palace - “the meeting place of all the Evil in Glasgow”.

Mr. Dodd seduced the young schoolboy with an ice lolly and a hand on the knee, during a performance of Boris Karloff’s The Mummy. Though Bogarde had seen the film 3 times before, he was keen to replicate Karloff’s performance, and so willingly returned to Mr Dodd’s apartment, where he was tightly trussed-up in bandages, all except his pubescent genitals, which thrust through the swaddling rags “as pink and vulnerable as a sugar mouse.” Mr. Dodd flipped Bogarde onto a bed, and tossed him off. Bogarde felt something terrible was going to happen, and offered up 3 or 4 “Hail Mary’s” in the hope of being rescued. Of course, he knew God’s help wouldn’t arrive, as he knew what would happen as Mr Dodd fiddled about.

When he left Glasgow, Bogarde was changed. He had developed the drive that would bring him success, and formed a personality that would keep the world twice-removed from the creative and sensitive young man he was at heart.

The following interview with this charming man was never broadcast on TV. Recorded in London for the release of the film Permission to Kill (aka The Executioner) in 1975, Bogarde discussed the movie, and his career with interviewer, Mark Caldwell.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Dirk Bogarde Still Cool

 
Allen Quist is the crazypants political mentor to MN Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. The two teamed up as Minnesota state representatives in the late 1990s to fight the onslaught of the atheistic, permissive, Marxist totalitarianism society encroaching upon our “freedoms”—or something like that—and to successfully beat back a state school curriculum that would have taught some scientific ungodly stuff they didn’t like.

Now the 67-year-old Quist, an anti-gay crusader and soybean farmer who believes in dragons, that females are “genetically predisposed” to subservience to men and that humans and dinosaurs coexisted on Earth (possibly as late as the 11th century), is running for the US Congress to join his former partner in Washington, DC.

“Thanks” in large part to the, uh, zany supporters of Congressman Ron Paul, the Minnesota GOP’s nominating convention, held in April, ended in a stalemate after 14 hours and 23 ballots failed to select a clear winner in District One, meaning that the top two candidates (incredibly, one was Quist, which says a lot about whoever came in third!) will now have to face one another in front of voters in an August primary race. Mother Jones has the story:

As a Minnesota state representative in the 1980s, Quist staked out a position on his party’s far-right wing. At the time, the state’s GOP was undergoing a rightward shift from a party known for its mild-mannered moderates to one populated by family values firebrands. Quist was the tip of the spear.

During his time as a state representative, Quist slammed a gay counseling clinic at Mankato State University by comparing it to the Ku Klux Klan (both would be breeding grounds for evil—AIDS, in this case) and went undercover at an adult bookstore and a gay bathhouse in an effort to prove to a local newspaper reporter that they had become a “haven for anal intercourse.” (A decade later, Bachmann would bring groups of supporters onto the Capitol floor to pray over the desk of a gay colleague.)

Quist’s almost singular focus on sexuality didn’t go unnoticed. “At one point,” the St. Petersburg Times reported in 1994, “a Senate leader suggested he had an unhealthy preoccupation with sex, having devoted 30 hours to it in a single session.”

Quist was a staunch pro-lifer who once argued that abortion should be classified as a first-degree homicide. When his pregnant wife died in a car accident in 1986, Quist had the six-and-a-half-month-old fetus placed in his wife’s arms in an open casket at the funeral. A year later, he married Julie Morse, a former pro-choice feminist who had been reborn as a Republican activist. (Morse had cofounded Minneapolis’ first feminist bookstore, Amazon Books; originally based on the front porch of a women’s collective, it soon migrated to the city’s Lesbian Community Center.)

“When he ran, obviously we looked him up—a very bizarre record. I mean really bizarre,” says Minnesota’s former GOP Gov. Arne Carlson.

Ya think? In 1993 Quist challenged Governor Carlson in the GOP primary on a platform of mandatory AIDS tests for couples wishing to marry and against gay rights:

In one memorable interview, Quist told a Minnesota reporter he believed women were “genetically predisposed” to be subservient to men, pointing to, among other things, the behavior of wild animals.

Quist’s candidacy quickly became a national story—one that sent the state’s moderate party establishment scrambling to avert disaster. Mike Triggs, a former Carlson aide, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “Mr. and Mrs. Gopher are going to think [the Quists] are damn weird.” He dismissed Quist supporters as “zombies.” The governor himself played up his opponent’s under-the-covers ops. “Instead of prowling through dirty bookstores, why didn’t he go out and change state spending policy?” the governor asked the Associated Press.

Carlson, who went on to beat Quist by 20 points, is still sore. “Wonderful, wonderful guy—one of the great intellectuals of the 21st century,” he deadpanned when asked about Quist recently. “He’ll do a lot to improve the IQ of Congress. If we can get a Bachmann-Quist team together, they could probably take over the world. Talk about a dynamic duo!”

When Quist and his wife founded the nonprofit Maple River Education Coalition (MREC), to push for the repeal of the Profile of Learning, a state plan to raise educational standards, they got Michele Bachmann to front the group.

With Quist providing much of the intellectual grist, the MREC argued that the Profile was a step toward a United Nations takeover of Minnesota. International Baccalaureate, the global Advanced Placement program, was brainwashing by another name. “Sustainability” was a euphemism for a future dystopia in which humans would be confined to public-transit-oriented urban cores. Schools would be breeding grounds for “homosexual indoctrination.” Even math was under assault by the forces of moral relativism.

In 2000, Bachmann won election to the state Senate with help from the MREC and the Quists. When Bachmann ascended to Congress six years later, Julie Quist joined her, serving as the congresswoman’s district director until 2011.

If Quist can best his opponent, Republican state Sen. Mike Parry—which is entirely possible, Quist has the edge in fundraising—he’ll square off against Democrat Rep. Tim Wirtz, who must be praying he’ll be running against this crazy motherfucker come November:

“Unfortunately,” [former Governor] Carlson added, “what was bizarre in the ‘90s is becoming the centerpiece of this new Republican party.”

Read the whole thing at Mother Jones.

 
Create the most “liked” caption, as determined by our readers in the comments, for this photo of Allen Ginsberg, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones and you’ll win a collectible Allen Ginsberg figurine from the fine folks at Aggronautix.

Awesome six inch tall figurine of the king poet of the Beat generation, Allen Ginsberg. Comes with Uncle Sam top hat, glasses, beaded necklace, a groovy coat plus a CD of Allen live at the Knitting Factory in 1995! The CD includes five previously unreleased spoken word pieces. The perfect addition to your shrine to the awesomeness that is the Beats! Figure designed by Archer Prewitt of The Cocktails and The Sea and Cake!

To enter the contest, you must first be following Dangerous Minds on Twitter or Facebook. Post your caption in our comment section and Dangerous Minds’ readers (the most discerning readers on the planet) will pick the winner by clicking the “like” button. The caption that gets the most likes, wins!

The contest will run through Memorial Day weekend and the winner will be announced on Tuesday, May 29. Good luck and have fun.
 

 

 
Here’s the world premier of a video I just finished editing last night for “The Sound,” a song from my forthcoming album, Tantric Machine.

I wrote the lyrics for “The Sound” after a night of drinking, walking 47 miles of barbed wire and listening to Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” and some Petey Wheatstraw records.

It’s an old song (writ in 1999) that I resuscitated after years of ignoring it. I didn’t like it at the time I recorded it but I’ve had a change of heart and decided to unveil it (or allow it to escape) for all the world to hear, particularly folks who frequent Dangerous Minds.

After three decades of making records, I still can’t get a handle on my own music, which in some ways is a good thing. If a song takes me by surprise it generally means it has something to say to me. In the case of “The Sound,” I was playing around with the kind of over-the-top, often funny, boastful lyrics you hear in old blues and rock tunes like the aforementioned “Who Do You Love” to which I added a dose of noirish Peter Gunn guitar and a Morricone-esque wail from a Casio keyboard. I’m not sure the song has anything to “say,” but it certainly draws from my history of loving the dark shit.

The Sound

This is the sound
Of big love come to town
In the night

This the beat
That crawls up the street
In the night

I’m the mighty soul brother
The mighty machine
That generates love
In your groovy love scene
In the night

This is the sound
Deep and profound

Well young Aphrodite
Was hung from the trees
When I rode though the town
With a bitch on my knees
In the night

The Portuguese mother
With albino twins
Gouged out her eyes
When she saw me walk in
In the night

Women love men
With money and wit
Some will respond
To the crack of a whip
In the night

I’m the mighty soul brother
And Lord there’s no other
Go ahead ask your mother
She knows what this brother can do
In the night

This is the sound of big love come to town

Thanks for indulging me. This is like undressing in public.
 

 
“Girls have got balls. They’re just a little higher up that’s all.” Joan Jett

 
Yesterday’s Interstella Zappadrive: When Frank Zappa jammed with Pink Floyd post led me to some more footage from the Actuel Rock Festival, held in late October of 1969 in Amougies, Belgium, of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.

Zappa was supposed to be the MC of the festival, but when the language barrier made that impossible, opted to jam with a few of the groups on guitar, including, of course, The Magic Band.

Bill Harkleroad (“Zoot Horn Rollo”) told Hal’s Progressive Rock Blog:

“All I can remember is playing in front of thousands of people huddled together in sleeping bags at three in the morning in this huge circus tent. It’s 27 degrees out, and there’s frost on my strings! It was Don, Victor, Mark, me and Jeff Burchell on drums. Frank was sitting in with us, because he was supposed to be the festival MC - a difficult job when he spoke no French and most of the audience spoke no English. Having Frank play with us made me a little more nervous than normal. I think we played five tunes - the five tunes Jeff knew and that was it. Pretty weird flying us all the way over there and playing one gig!

Don Van Vliet’s recollection of the festival:

“We had a good time. I don’t know, what they were doing; they were throwing what looked like birds nests at us, and then one fellow out of the audience - between one of the compositions - said my name was Captain Bullshit, and I said: “well, that’s all right baby, you’re sitting in it.” You know what I mean? I don’t know if he was an American; I’m not sure, because he was using early Gary Cooper movie talk. Like “yep,” things like that. I think they did well in five days and moving it from France to Belgium. But it was awfully cold… the people in the audience, I don’t know how they did it. I think it was probably pretty nice for them to leave their bodies… but the amplifiers were blown out by the time we got to them, and we need clarity for that, and there wasn’t any. I don’t know. I hope they enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.”

Naturally, as with the Pink Floyd footage that has slipped out of the vault to collectors (and YouTube) there’s no Festival Actuel footage of Zappa actually jamming with Captain Beefheart! Fwustrating! Was Zappa strapping on a guitar the signal to turn the camera off? Of course not, so where is this priceless footage?!?!?

In any case, there’s 5:32 seconds of sync-sound footage of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band in 1969 on my computer screen, so what am I complaining about? They do “She’s Too Much For My Mirror” and “My Human Gets Me Blues.”

The lineup for this concert was Don Van Vliet, vocals, tenor & soprano sax, bass clarinet; Victor Hayden (“The Mascara Snake”) bass clarinet; Bill Harkleroad (“Zoot Horn Rollo”) guitars; Mark Boston (“Rockette Morton”) bass; and Jeff Burchell (“Imposter Drumbo”) drums & percussion. Frank Zappa sat in on guitar on “When Big Joan Sets Up’” at the end of their set.
 

 
Oh dear, a reporter from the Realitatea TV news channel in Romania has become a laughing stock for faking a sandstorm. Apparently he missed the real thing and thought this would pass.

He says, “The wind blows with incredible power, there are moments when it is impossible to stand up here.”

Cue “Enter Sandman.”

Austrian Times Online has the rest of story: Dune and Busted

 
Via Arbroath

 
From Hal Wilner’s 1988 tribute Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films comes this incredible version of “Baby Elephants on Parade” from Dumbo performed by none other than the amazing Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

Some enterprising person decided to sync the Sun Ra version up to the scene in the film. It’s highly enjoyable.
 

 
Pastor Charles Worley is the dumbshit dipsy doodle-bug old Christian guy who called for “lesbians and queers”—millions and millions of them, apparently—to be penned up inside electric fences until they all die. A videotape of Worley’s words have become a viral sensation on YouTube, making the pastor a laughingstock the world over. Now some of the members of Worley’s Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina are speaking out in the old coot’s defense. Via Raw Story:

Geneva Sims told WCNC that she had been listening to Pastor Charles Worley’s sermon’s since the 1970s and agrees with the message.

“He had every right to say what he said about putting them in a pen and giving them food,” Sims explained. “The Bible says they are worthy of death. He is preaching God’s word.”

Church member Stacey Pritchard agreed that Worley was just speaking the truth.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be scared straight,” she said. “He is trying to save those people from Hell.”

So says a woman who listens to hate speech every Sunday and mistakes it for religion!

In a sense, though, as appalling and moronic and as totally idiotic as Worley and his minions are, they are, IN FACT, “doing the Lord’s work” as Faith in America Executive Director Brent Childers told WCNC:

“When [LGBT youth] see this type of rhetoric coming from a so-called Christian pastor, they aren’t going to want anything to do with the church—now or in the future. If you defend this pastor’s comments, you are mocking God’s love, God’s understanding and God’s knowledge.”

Whether they realize it or not—and clearly they are not bright enough to have noticed—these bigoted, buffoonish Christianist pukes, like the Westboro Baptist Church before them, are only furthering their enemies’ cause.

Here’s to stupid people! Viva l’Idiocracy!

Catawba Valley Citizens Against Hate have organized a protest at Worley’s Providence Road Baptist Church this coming Sunday at 10 am.
 

 
Seriously, this needs to be seen to be believed.

It appears this accident took place somewhere in Russia. According to some of the comments on the YouTube thread, it’s not uncommon for cars in Russia to come equipped with cams due to an escalating problem with insurance fraud.
 

 
Via reddit

 
Those darlings at Retronaut have posted a fine selection of Brian Ward’s photographs for David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album cover, taken in January 1972. See more here.
 

 

 
More of Ziggy, after the jump…
 

Lady Liberty is 420-friendly

The results of a new Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely nationwide voters, conducted earlier this month, was released yesterday and the results show a surge of support for the legalization of cannabis. The question posed by the pollsters was “Would you favor or oppose legalizing marijuana and regulating it in the similar manner to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are regulated today?”

“And the survey says…” that a solid majority support legalized nature.

Via NORML:

The poll affirms, once again, that the tide of public opinion continues to turn in our favor. Fifty-six percent of respondents stated they would support legalizing and regulating marijuana in a similar manner alcohol and tobacco. Only 36% were opposed to the concept and 8% were undecided.

You can view more information about the poll on Rasmussen Reports’ website here.

A previous poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports in April reported that 47% of adults “believe the country should legalize and tax marijuana in order to help solve the nation’s fiscal problems.” Forty-two percent of respondents disagreed, while ten percent were undecided.

In 2011, a nationwide Gallup poll reported that 50 percent of Americans support legalizing the use of cannabis for adults. Forty-six percent of respondents said they opposed the idea.

The 2011 Gallup survey results marked the first time that the polling firm, which has tracked Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana since the late 1960s, reported that more Americans support legalizing cannabis than oppose it.

Bear in mind, anything coming from Rasmussen is likely to be suspiciously—and not even that subtly—biased in favor of the GOP. Considering the source, the results of this poll showing a SOLID majority for the first time seems especially promising. That the Obama administration’s record is worse than Bush’s when it comes to prosecuting cannabis offenses, seems all the more galling in this light.

Google’s Moog doodle.
 
Robert Moog inventor of the Moog synthesizer was born on this date 78 years ago. His invention has been so much a part of modern music that even Google has paid homage to Moog by creating an interactive doodle on its homepage. Cute. If you haven’t done it already, go over to Google’s page and play the thing.

I too am a big fan of synthesizers. I’ve used all kinds on my own recordings, including Moogs. The Moog sound has a distinct warm and rich personality all its own - the Nat King Cole of synthesizers.

Here’s a video offering in commemoration of Robert Moog’s birthday and his fabulous invention. 

Moog features interviews and performances by Stereolab, Keith Emerson, Walter Sear, Gershon Kinsgley, Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert, Rick Wakeman, DJ Spooky, Herb Deutsch, Bernie Worrell, Pamelia Kurstin, Tino Corp., Charlie Clouser, Money Mark, Mix Master Mike and others
 

 
What fresh madness is this? Well, apparently it’s the Japanese version of Rickrolling, “switch and bait” trolling using footage from American gay wrestling porn instead of Rick Astley, and it has been a relatively popular meme over there for the last few years.

As you can imagine from that description, it’s pretty fucking nuts. And very NSFW.

Much of this “wrestling series” stars a guy called Billy Herrington, who has become such a cult figure in Japan that a doll has been made in his honour (above, part of the “panty edition”.) You may have seen some of these kinds of clips before, in particular a 3D computer graphic version of Herrinton riding a clone of himself like a Segway, chasing after a guy on a steamroller, and thought “what the fuck am I watching?” Well, friends, wonder no more, thanks to the folks at Know Your Meme (Herrington also has his own Wiki page with more info.)

Here’s a great example of the wrestling series, an edit of a film called Bayollante, supposedly a parody of Bayonette. Even though this is completely made up, I love this quasi-review-cum-description by YouTube commenter skidreckums:

With a palette of visual effects that would make James Cameron blush and some of the most bone-crunching sound effects to be found outside of a Jell-O factory, Bayollante 4 leaves little to be imagined or desired by anyone lucky enough to stumble across this gem in their local video store’s import bargain bin. Fans of Bart Howard’s 1954 vocal jazz standard, Fly Me to the Moon, will also appreciate the subtle yet fully modern remix heading the otherwise brutal soundtrack. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that SEGAY really has outdone themselves this time. Just writing this review has gotten me wondering if I will ever be able to water my motorcycle with peace of mind again. The great thing about watching Bayollante 4 - Trillion Real Handguns isn’t seeing the beefcakes smack each other down with colorful energy attacks and hard gay magical summons, it’s showing everyone online that I did. It’s official, I’ll never be able to watch anything else again.

Bayollante - Stylish Gay Wrestling (in Japanese) - NSFW:
 

 
In 1970, Fontana Books published the first of 7 paperback books in a series on what they termed Modern Masters - culturally important writers, philosophers and thinkers, whose work had shaped and changed modern life. It was a bold and original move, and the series launched on January 12th with books on Camus, Chomsky, Fanon, Guevara, Levi-Strauss, Lukacs, and Marcuse.

This was soon followed in 1971 with the next set of books on McLuhan, Orwell, Wittgenstein, Joyce, Freud, Reich and Yeats. And in 1972-73 with volumes on Gandhi, Lenin, Mailer, Russell, Jung, Lawrence, Beckett, Einstein, Laing, and Popper.

Fontana Modern Masters was a highly collectible series of books - not just for their opinionated content on the likes of Marx or Proust, Mailer or McLuhan, but because of Oliver Bevan’s fabulous cover designs.

This eye-catching concept for the covers came from Fontana’s art director, John Constable, who had been experimenting with a Cut-Up technique, inspired by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin and based on The Mud Bath, a key work of British geometric abstraction by the painter David Bomberg. It was only after Constable saw Oliver Bevan’s geometric, Op Art at the Grabowski Gallery in London, did Constable decide to commission Bevan to design the covers.

The first full set of books consisted of 9 titles. Each cover had a section of a Bevan painting, which consisted of rectilinear arrangements of tesselating block, the scale of which was only fully revealed when all 10 covers were placed together. Bevan designed the first ‘3 sets of 10’ from 1970-74. He was then replaced by James Lowe (1975-79) who brought his own triangular designs for books on Marx, Eliot, Pound, Sartre, Artaud and Gramsci. In 1980, Patrick Mortimer took over, with his designs based on circles.

The original Fontana Modern Masters regularly pop-up in secondhand bookshops, and are still much sought after. Over the years, I have collected about 20 different volumes, but have yet to create one complete painting. Here are a few samples, culled from my own collection and from the the web.
 

 
A small selection of Fontana Modern Master covers, after the jump…
 

 
The geniuses at Alamo Drafthouse and Badass Digest are at it again. This time they’re giving film makers an opportunity to win video cameras and movie-making software by creating a parody trailer where you’re challenged to mash-up a President with B-movie tropes. Perfect for an election year.

Here’s the press release:

Alamo Drafthouse and Badass Digest have teamed up for “The Commander-In-Chief: Ultimate Badass Filmmaking Frenzy”. The Filmmaking Frenzy is inspired by 20th Century Fox’s new film ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, which will open in theaters June 22.  Badass Digest asks filmmakers to consider the possibility that Lincoln wasn’t the only president who moonlighted as an ass kicker. What if other presidents lead secrets lives with badass jobs and hobbies?

The Commander-in-Chief: Ultimate Badass Filmmaking Frenzy challenges filmmakers to pick any U.S. president from any era in our history and pair him with one of the “alternative occupations” listed below. To enter, filmmakers will write and produce a parody trailer for the film about the ass-kicking President of their choice and post it on the Badass Filmmaking Frenzy site.  Audience votes, via Facebook likes, will determine the top five trailers, which will then be sent to the esteemed panel of judges.  After careful consideration the judges will crown a winner from the top five audience favorites to be rewarded with a Sony HD professional camera and Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 editing software.  The second place winner will receive a Sony Bloggie Touch Camera.  In addition to the prizes, the best entries will play before screenings of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER at all Alamo Drafthouse locations nationwide.  Once your film is uploaded, it’s up to you to spread the word. Share your film on all your social media channels and get your friends to watch and vote for yours. 

Films will be judged on entertainment value and technical proficiency as well as historical accuracy and plausibility. This means filmmakers should do a little research before beginning filming. While this contest is all about creativity and originality, a flying George Washington wielding a light saber probably won’t cut it.  All film entries must be submitted by 11:59 PM CST on June 18 to be eligible and voting will be open till 5:00 PM CST on June 21.”

And here’s an example of what they’re looking for:
 

 
Gimps come in all shapes and sizes. Find the physical regime that works for you. I personally have lost dozens of unwanted ounces using the Gimp Workout.

Keep in mind that exercise is not enough. Diet is important too. Therefore whenever possible wear a mask to discourage eating.

Once you get past the lack of slickness in this modestly-budgeted workout video, I think you’ll find it an invaluable tool for improving not only your appearance but your outlook on life as well.
 

 
YouTuber miltoncarmona has done Lou Reed fans a service by compiling a bunch of clips of Reed performing live in Paris from 1974 to 1976. I’ve seen most of these before but not in one place. Thanks milton.
 

 
Here’s the back story of the famous William Burroughs/Jimmy Page Crawdaddy magazine cover story of June 1975, excerpted from LZ-‘75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour by Stephen Davis. Read the original article, “Rock Magic: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin and a search for the elusive Stairway to Heaven” by William Burroughs here.

The long black limousine carrying Jimmy Page to his encounter with William Burroughs made its way down Fifth Avenue in a light snowfall. The car stopped in front of 77 Franklin Street in a dark, shabby neighborhood of vacant or abandoned industrial lofts that were slowly being reclaimed by young artists and urban pioneers. Jimmy was greeted at street level by James Grauerholz, Burroughs’s young assistant, who led Page up four steep flights of stairs to Burroughs’s loft. The sixty-one- year-old writer, dressed in a coat and tie set off by an embroidered Moroccan vest, extended his hand and offered his guest a cup of tea, which Page happily accepted. Also on hand was a photographer to document the interview, and Crawdaddy’s publisher, Josh Feigenbaum, whose idea this meeting had been. Before getting down to business, Burroughs proudly showed Page his orgone accumulator, which looked like a big plywood crate. Sitting in this box, Burroughs explained, concentrated certain energies in a productive and healthful manner according to theories developed by the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich. Jimmy Page declined Burroughs’s offer to give the orgone box a try.

Burroughs thought he and Jimmy might know people in common since Burroughs had lived in London for most of the past ten years. It turned out to be an interesting list, including film director Donald Camell, who worked on the great Performance; John Michell, an expert on occult matters, especially Stonehenge and UFOs; Mick Jagger and other British rock stars; and Kenneth Anger, auteur of Lucifer Rising. Burroughs told Page about the feelings of energy and exhilaration he experienced sitting in the thirteenth row of a Led Zeppelin concert. These feelings, he told Page, were similar to those he had known while listening to music in Morocco, especially the loud pipes and drums of the Master Musicians of Jajouka. Page somewhat sheepishly admitted that he had yet to visit Morocco but had been to India and Thailand and heard a lot of music there.

Burroughs was interested in getting Page to speak about crowd control, a longtime fascination. “It seems to be that rock stars are juggling fissionable material of the mass unconscious that could blow up at any time,” he pondered.

“You know, Jimmy,” he continued. “The crowd surges forward . . . a heavy piece of equipment falls on the crowd . . . security goes mad, and then . . . a sound like goddamned falling mountains or something.”

Page didn’t bat an eye. “Yes, I’ve thought about that. We all have. The important thing is to maintain a balance. The kids come to get as far out with the music as possible. It’s our job to see that they have a good time and no trouble.”

Burroughs launched into a series of morbid anecdotes he’d collected about fatal crowd stampedes, like the 360 soccer fans crushed to death during a riot in Lima, Peru. Then there was the rock band Storm playing a dance hall in Switzerland. Their pyro effects exploded, but the fire exits had been chained shut. “Thirty-seven people dead, including all the performers,” Burroughs recalled.

He poured two fingers of whiskey for himself and for Page. Burroughs had been informed that these were the first Zeppelin shows to deploy any special effects. “Sure,” Page said. “That’s true. Lights, lasers, dry ice are fine. But I think, again, that you have to have some balance. The show must carry itself and not rely too heavily on special effects, however spectacular. What I really want is laser . . . notes. That’s more what I’m after. Just . . . cut right through!”

Burroughs then wondered if the power of mass concentration experienced by Zeppelin’s audience could be transposed into a kind of magic energy that could materialize an actual stairway to heaven. He added that the moment when the stair- way becomes something physically possible for the audience could be the moment of greatest danger. Page again answered that a performer’s skill involved avoiding these dangers. “You have to be careful [with large audiences],” he said. “It’s rather like driving a load of nitroglycerine.” Page described the fan abuse they had seen in Philadelphia a few days earlier as an ex- ample of a situation that could really crack, but somehow didn’t.

Over margaritas at the nearby Mexican Gardens restaurant, Burroughs asked about Page’s house on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland, which had once belonged to Aleister Crowley. Was it really haunted? Page said he was sure it was. Does the Loch Ness monster exist? Page said he thought it did. Skeptical, Burroughs wondered how the monster could get enough to eat. The conversation continued over enchiladas. Burroughs talked about infrasound, pitched below the level of human hearing, which had supposedly been developed as a weapon by the French military. Then on to interspecies communication, talking to dolphins via sonar waves. Burroughs said he thought a remarkable synthesis could be achieved if rock music returned to its ancient roots in ceremony and folklore, and brought in some of the trance music one heard in Morocco.

Jimmy Page was receptive. “Well, music which involves [repeating] riffs, anyway, will have a trancelike effect, and it’s really like a mantra. And, you know, we’ve been attacked for that.”

They parted company on the icy sidewalk outside the restaurant, with many thanks and good-byes. Jimmy Page’s limo, which had been waiting for him, whisked him back to the Plaza Hotel. William Burroughs, James Grauerholz, and Josh Feigenbaum walked back to Burroughs’s loft to listen to the tape that Josh had recorded of the conversation.

Speaking of Jimmy Page and magick, here’s the maestro’s seldom-heard abandoned score for Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising: Part II is here.
 

 
Dark Side Of The Moon was broadcast on Canadian TV series “The Passionate Eye” in 2005. It was written and directed by William Karel.

CBC television describes the film thusly:

How could the flag flutter when there’s no wind on the moon? During an interview with Stanley Kubrick’s widow an extraordinary story came to light. She claims Kubrick and other Hollywood producers were recruited to help the U.S. win the high stakes race to the moon.  In order to finance the space program through public funds, the U.S. government needed huge popular support, and that meant they couldn’t afford any expensive public relations failures.  Fearing that no live pictures could be transmitted from the first moon landing, President Nixon enlisted the creative efforts of Kubrick, whose 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968) had provided much inspiration, to ensure promotional opportunities wouldn’t be missed. In return, Kubrick got a special NASA lens to help him shoot Barry Lyndon (1975).

Some of you may already be familiar with the theories discussed in this film and the “conspiracies” exposed…familiar enough to know it’s a deftly made put-on composed of manipulated archival footage, false documents, actual interviews taken out of context or altered with voice-over or dubbing, staged interviews and some real ones. Like all good satire or parody, there are truths to be found within the artifice. When truth and the lie seem indistinguishable, we’ve entered a zone in which both possess a bit of each other.