Wednesday 27 May 2009

The Starkweather Fix - What The Swedish Butler Heard



Here is the only CD my first real band put out. We started in December of 1991. In 1993 - then known as Starkweather - we put out a 90 minute tape called 'This Band Has Seconds To Live'. At some point we changed the band's name to The Starkweather Fix* and that is how it appears on our 1996 CD, released on N.A.R. (as was the subject of the last post, Ocosi).

I could go into way too much detail about this record, but I'm a terrible judge of what is relevant or even interesting; I'm just too close to the thing. So let me simply run down who's playing what, I'll stick up some reviews to provide a clearer picture afterward, and we'll leave it at that.

The band -- Lt. Fucker Bob guitar, Neeler Peeler bass, Jay Matuschka drums, and yours truly vocal microphone. Also Slim Tornado saxophone, Nervous Rex space guitar on 'Edin Na Zu', Randy Groin (who also recorded the record) x-tra guitar on 'Quickie', and finally Art Martian numerous cut-ups and mini-mixes throughout the record.


The Starkweather Fix -- WHAT THE SWEDISH BUTLER HEARD [Neg. Air Research]

In a page ripped straight from the Oblivians' Playbook o' Dirty Trix, these guys got my immediate attention with the CD cover: a gawgeous woman with truly enormous hooters and a big, black... microphone... sandwiched between said golden globes. So right away we know they are shameless. Flip the case over and check out the titles... "Miss September," "Fucked Up," "Girl With a Toke," "Eerie Psychosexual History," "Easy Lay," "Dirty Fuck"... ah, they must be a trashy garage band!

They also have mighty odd ideas about how trashy garage rock is played, which is actually more interesting that all the lowbrow scuzziness imparted from the CD graphics. For one thing, they appear to have two bass players; they also have a guitarist, although he doesn't seem to play very often -- i get this great image of them all bouncing around the practice room while the guitarist stands around smoking Lucky Strikes and every so often he goes, "Oh yeah, i got this here guitar strapped on, i guess maybe i should, like, PLAY something" -- at which point he generally rips off crazed runs like one of Buck Owens' stellar sidemen possessed by the Satan of Surf. They also have a sick fondness for connecting the short blasts o' primal steak with odd bits culled from bad science fiction flicks, which is truly hilarous. This last bit really turns into an art of its own on the last track "Edin Na Zu," in which -- after spending 24 tracks play stripped-down short blasts of trashy rock and roll, they reveal their REAL ambition: to be the poor man's drunken Yes, waffling on in a rambling, stoned jam for a time roughly equal to all the rest of the songs put together, interspersing said rambling with occasional deluded (and hilarious) quotes from more bad cinema. A stroke of sheer fucking genius if you ask me.

So let's see... highlights.... the lurching, death-metal-meets- rockabilly groove of "Fucked Up"; the jumpin' sock-hop groove whose wasted innocence is quickly soiled by the dirty lyrics in "Mutant Cock Rock" (which features a tremendously nifty guitar solo worthy o' Dick Dale); the jumpy bass throbbing of "Shiveraltitude," followed by the guitar wailing that pops up midway through, sounding like the wailing at the end of "Spirit in the Sky," only as done by someone drinking lots of high-tension booze. Then there's the eerie, ominous bass rumbling and creepy arppegiated guitar squealings of "Tourniquet"; the grinding roar and feedback of "Eerie Psychosexual History," which sounds like maybe they managed to set the amps on fire while playing; the crawling kingsnake shuffle of "Death Trip"; more Oblivians-style raving on "Too Late"; more time-warp sonic trashiness in "Bad Back".... Jeez, the whole disc is pretty damn suave, although they get a little to excited for their own good (not to mention listenability) on the hyperkinetic "look at how fast we can play!" numbers, which are thankfully few and far between. These drunken white trash scumlords are better at the slow groove thing....

It must be said: This would be excellent background music for taking over a hotel party on the thirteenth floor to drink all their beer, open the windows, and test the dynamics of Einstein's Theory of Gliding Hotel Furniture. Strictly BYOB, though... i get the feeling they don't share....

- The Moon Unit, fr. DEAD ANGEL #26 (ezine) 6/97



A few years back, four nice, polite, somewhat shy boys from Motown, Ont., (a.k.a. the 'Shwa) created a controversy within these very pages. Somehow, their decision to name their own homemade pop group after the infamous American serial killer Charles Starkweather managed to flood the eye office with mail. Immoral! Obscene! Outrageous! the letters cried. These four sweet lads were cast as "sick, perverted fuckers" by complete and utter strangers. As sad as this injustice is, it could have been a lot worse. Imagine if any one of these decency-patrol officers had actually heard Starkweather. Blood would surely have been shed.

The Starkweather Fix (name changed due to legal intimidation from similiarly monikered U.S. groups) throw down pure garage-punk raunch over the 73 minutes of their debut disc. There are plenty of two-chord odes to sickness and perversion such as "Mutant Cock Rock" and "Easy Lay", but those who take the narrow view and have written Starkweather off as mere purveyors of stupid, sloppily executed filth may be surprised. A lot of the material here shows a band that has evolved beyond that stage, as heard on their home-dubbed demo tape from 1994 (a Can-indie classic, in my incidental opinion). The addition of the tenor sax adds a wallop of free jazz/R&B chaos to the already lurching rave-ups on the opening track "Miss September" and surefire party hit "The Bushwhack".

The track that strikes me the most is "Apocalypse Revisted", which features Fucker Bob's eerie surf guitar over Neeler Peeler and Jay Matuschka's pulsing Velveteen rhythm. Pius Panzram's lyrics describe the internalization of the nuclear threat within our generation better than anyone else has (including Mr. Gen-X himself, Douglas Coupland). Observe: "Mushroom clouds are nostalgic to me/Paranoia doom all I hear or see/memories of WWIII to be". Nukes are no longer an immediate threat, but have become a latent, more insidious one.

The Starkweather Fix may be sick and twisted perverts, but they are also smart fuckers. And they are blessed with a sense of humor, of which no further illustration is required than the cover of this CD. The letter campaign begins now, good citizens.

- Jonathan Patrick, eye (Jan. 30, 1997).





Just in time for Valentine's Day, Durham Region porn pundits The Starkweather Fix ejaculate 73 minutes of lurid, lascivious libido that will offend just about everybody (more than once I found myself raising my hand to my mouth and saying, "oh my"). Debauchery prevails and sexual mores are of course obliterated, but what surprises me is t.s.f.'s refined musicality. Their rock-a-billy tunes are nastier, their blues tunes dirtier, and punk songs tighter. In addition, they even get experimental with some groovy stuff and other altogether weird shit. Still, the best way I can describe What The Swedish Butler Heard is the rendered sound of William Burroughs, Russ Meyer, David Chronenberg, and Ron Jeremy playing strip poker.

- Dylan Brisebois, The Gargoyle (Feb. 13, 1997).




It's rude, it's crude, it's lewd, it's the debut CD from the swamp bred and raunch fed Starkweather Fix. A bubbling blob of sex, surf and swing. It's called What The Swedish Butler Heard. It puts the dirty back in rock 'n' roll. It is sexual mutants dating dilinquent deviants. It's a date with yourself. It's David Lynch and Tim Burton in a trailerpark stripjoint. It's discovering your Dad's porno collection. It's Larry Flint Vs. Dick Dale, Henry Miller Vs. The Cramps. It's in and it's out...and back in again. It was known as Starkweather. The whipping boys of the Purple Toads and any number of 60s garage bands added to their moniker before they had to. It is Pius Panzram, Lt. Bob, Neeler Peeler and Jay Matushka finally after four years getting laid on disc. Their debut cassette from 1993 This Band Has Only Seconds To Live only hinted at what this band would become. In the interim Starkweather Fix have become a staple in the southern Ontario centrefold. They have gigged with Local Rabbits, Suckerpunch, Hanson Bros. and Nimrod. A total of five compilations feature their contributions and the band have enough studio outakes for a whole other album to be released in the near future. Starkweather Fix picked up $500 in a garage wars by playing fifteen songs in seventeen minutes. It's seventy three minutes, twenty five songs, the twenty fifth twenty five minutes long. All original, all new, one cover of co-locals The Brown's 'Sugar Goat', one ab-lib recorded live at the Different Drum coffee shop in downtown Oshawa. Slim Tornado, Art Martian, Nervous Rex and Randy Groin all contribute to the frenzied aural orgy. It's behind the bikeshed lyrics, unprintable song titles and controversial art. It's all in fun. It's sex-positive rock n' roll. It can be yours. It's at any record store that knows good rock n' roll. It is released on Negative Air Research Records, co-operated with producer and former Voodoo Chicken Andy Owen. But that's, as the man on Tales From The Riverbank would say, another story.

- Will McGuirk, The Woolly Toque E-Zine (March 1997).




Back in the infancy of rock'n'roll, Howlin' Wolf recorded "Evil (Is Going On)". Music has changed, punk was born, Charles Lester died (may he RIP), but now a new Chuck is here: the Starkweather Fix, and they're as evil as evil be. Formerly known as just Starkweather, the band started out as a garage band winning garage band contests by playing 15 songs in 17 minutes...or was that 17 in 15? If that wasn't fast enough, their first release was a lo-fi tape called This Band Has Seconds To Live. Besides being liars, these guys are the baddest lyrical perverts around. The sound is brooding punk and '50's dirt. Songs like "The Bushwhack", "Death Trip", "Easy Lay", "Dirty Fuck", and "Mutant Cock Rock" make Howard Stern look like the mama's boy he really is, and that's why I like this disc. It's heavy and fun, it makes me want to booze and dance, two chords really are enough, it scares my mother, they play faster than the Ramones, and the CD has tits on the cover.

- Chris B. Dunk, Exclaim (June 1997).


The Starkweather Fix - What The Swedish Butler Heard (1996)

*to avoid confusion with the US hardcore band Starkweather.

Monday 25 May 2009

Ocosi - [IN]


Here's a neat one I hope you'll enjoy.

Ten years ago, I was running a small independent record label with some friends out of Oshawa called Negative Air Research (or N.A.R.). We had released four CDs & thus far they had all been by people we knew.

I was a complete Mick Harris fanatic at that point & would obsessively visit a now-long-defunct site called Dub Terrorist which focused on bands like Scorn and Techno Animal. Mick Harris himself would regularly post to Dub Terrorist's forum, ranting in full caps about whatever was annoying him.

Well, one day he was going on about how Martin Atkins from Invisible had reneged on releasing something with Ocosi, a band Harris was much enamoured of and who he would go on to record drum loops for...

Posted by MICKHARRIS on September 12, 1998 at 03:35:34:

DONT GET TOO EXCITED ABOUT THE FREQUENCIES RECORDING AS ITS NOT COMING OUT.I DONT SEE THE PIONT IN RELEASING THIS OUT OF DATE DEMO THAT WAS JUST A DEMO.IF IT WAS TO BE RELEASED IT WOULD OF BACK IN 95.THE RECORDING OFFERS NOTHING THAT NEEDS TO BE EXPOSED TO PEOPLE.TIME TO GO FORWARD NOT ASS BACKWARDS LIKE HAS BEEN HAPPENING TO ME.ERALDO LIKED THE RECORDING A DAMN SITE MORE THAT MYSELF SO MAYBE HE CAN DO A FREQUENCIES RECORD ALONE ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC.JOBS AT MACDONALDS LOOK INTERESTING,MINIMUM WAGE WHICH IS A DAMN SITE MORE THAN I EARN FROM THE CRAP IVE TRIED TO DO THE LAST YEARS FOOLING MYSELF AND NOT SUPPORTING MY FAMILY.THE ONLY RECORD THAT WILL COME OUT IS THE PEELSESSIONS AND DUTCH RADIO SHOW AND COMP/HARD TO FIND UNRELESED TRACKS BY SCORN.THE SCRATCH PROJECT IS OFF[FOOLING MYSELF AGAIN THERE]ITS NEVER GONNA HAPPEN SHOULD JUST LEAVE IT TO THE EXPERTS AND SAVE THE LAUGHS AND SLAGS OFFS ITS BOUND TO GET.NO LABEL WANTS MY MUSIC NO MORE SO ITS TIME TO BAIL OUT SAY FUCK OFF TO ALL THOSE THAT WILL NEVER KNOW AND THERES PLENTY OF YOU ON THIS SITE THAT HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE AT ALL YOUR ALL SONICS YOUR EVERYWHERE,ALL BEHIND YOUR FUCKING SHIT COMPUTER SCREENS SEARCHING AND SPOTTING THEN DEBATING ETC ETC ETC,YOU AINT GOT A CLUE YOU AINT PART OF THE PLOT.IVE WASTED YEARS HELPING OTHERS WITH NO COMEBACK IM NOT A BACKRIDER I DONT RIDE BACKS LIKE OTHERS AND ALL THIS CHEAP FAKE WEAK SOUNDING CRAP YOUR ALL UP TO FORGET IT ITS GOING NOWHERE AT ALL.FORGET POSSIBLE INVISIBLE DIDNT SIGN POSSIBLE TO RELEASE THE MUSIC OF POSSIBLE THEY SIGNED IT TO TRY AND GET MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH MJH WITHOUT HAVING TO SIGN AND SUPPORT MJH TO INVISIBLE,WELL THESE STUPID FUCKING CUNTS CAN FORGET THAT THEY ARE SO FUCKING STUPID COME ON HOW SHIT IS INVISIBLE WHERES IT GOING WITH THAT SHITE THEY RELEASE,THEY RIPPED ME OFF ON THE US TOUR PAID ME FUCKING PEANUTS SO MY FAMILY LOST OUT AGAIN THEY WONT PAY ME MY MECHANICALS WHICH IVE ASKED FOR FOR NEARLY 2 YEARS NOW AND THEY THINK MJH WILL RECORD FOR POSSIBLE,THEY ARE FUCKING STUPID THEY AINT GETTING NOTHING FROM ME FULL FUCKING CUNTING BASTARDING TWATING STOP NO CHANCE.IM IN A HUGE FUCKING DEBT OF 11 THOUSAND POUNDS WITH POSSIBLE BECAUSE PHD FUCKED ME UP.IM MEANT TO BE HAPPY AND ACCEPT IT,INVISIBLE SAY MICK WE NEED TO BUILD THE LABEL BEFORE RELEASING NO NAME ARTISTS WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY KNOW I HAVE 2 KILLER ACTS OCOSI AND NOS WAITING BUT NO MARTIN ATKINS TOLD ME THIS WHO ARE THEY WHO KNOWS OF THEM ETC ETC ETC WHAT A TWAT WHAT DOES HE KNOW WHEN HE RELEASES SHITE LIKE MARTIN ATKINS INDUSTRIAL XMAS TWATS LIKE PSYCHIC TV REISSUES OGRE NEW CROC OF CRAP ITS ALL A WASTE.PEOPLE WONDER WHY I LOOSE IT WELL IVE HAD ENOUGH OF IT IT ALL FUCKING SUCKS I CANT EVEN GET A DECENT SLEEP AT NIGHT COZ I FUCKING WORRY SO MUCH.SO FUCK THE FREQUENCIES AND ANY OTHER WEAK ASS CRAP IT AINT HAPPENING AT ALL NO TIME FOR IT FULL STOP.I DONT RIDE BACKS AND I DONT CARE WHO I PISS OFF BECAUSE THERES VERY FEW THAT KNOW,REALLY KNOW.YOU ALL THINK ITS BRIGHT AND FUCKING ROSEY DONT YOU WELL IT FUCKING AINT SO HERES A GOOD OLD RANT FOR YOU CUNTS THAT WILL NEVER KNOW TO SAVE PRINT DO WHATEVER WITH COZ YOU ALL WASTE MY SPACE.AS CAL[SINGER OF DISCHARGE]SAID BACK OF THE CLASSIC SINGLE1980 REALITIES OF WAR THANKS TO NO FUCKER.OUT


Ocosi at this time were Paul Molyneux and Simon Smerdon, two young guys from England - they chopped, demixed & programmed the beats supplied by Harris, & created a great record in the process. This record was called '[IN]'.

Paul and Simon (also in the head-nodding Gator Bait Ten) were similarly obsessive about the music & posted on Dub Terrorist all the time. I wrote them and we struck up a correspondence, they wound up sending me some tapes & everybody at the label's socks were knocked off by their stuff. '[IN]' was too good to go unreleased so - long story short - N.A.R. put it out in 1999 (shortly after which the label folded).

After one more record, Simon Smerdon left Ocosi to start Mothboy; he was to work with Mick Harris again on The Fears & is still active today.

Paul Molyneux continued under the Ocosi moniker - now based in Spain - and was still releasing stuff as of last year.

I'm sure glad to see they're both still doing music.

Here's some reviews of [IN]:

From GM's Canadian stronghold in Oshawa, Ontario, comes this dark hop debut from Britain's Ocosi and their guest Mick Harris. Actually Harris supplied them with beat samples after a joint session was cancelled when Invisible apparently backed off from funding a collaborative release in 1998 (which was much complained about on the late, lamented Dub Terrorist message board). Well, here is a glimpse of what Invisible missed out on, a stripped-down meeting of live funky drumming and atmospheric electronix (similar in ways to Harris' recent collaboration with John Everall).

The duo in Ocosi (recently featured with Mick, SIMM and Everall's Tactile on the EST label's Gone Too Far! compilation) chop and treat Mick's bass drum and snare playing, leaving, in some places, that live-in-the-studio ambience ("Opener [In]" and "Out"). In other tracks, like "Comascene" and "Suck Radius," surreal soundscapes surround the beats like warped space. Ocosi's mood is sparse and industrial, as they lay down a background bed of white noise for "Crave"'s phased breaks, and tweak the analogue synths in an early Cabaret Voltaire-style before the drums' big entry in "Vor-Tec."

[IN] is a fine start for this promising group, who report they have many unused Harris beats for Vol 2.


- Music News Network, Nov. 99

***

[In] is an almost ambient industrial soundscape. Driven by sampled and programmed drum tracks [In] goes nowhere slowly. In fact, the relatively flat line tempo of the 8 tracks is a point of particular interest. Rather than creating inhumanly fast rhythmic textures with the aid of sequencers, the drum patterns are sometimes even slow by primate standards. Combined with ambient synth that mixes various flavors of bass hum and grumble, the effect is one of pulsing, breathing, biotechnological environments.

OCOSI has made an interesting artistic move by creating tracks that are in non-conventional time signatures. The title track, which is 5 beats to the measure, is particularly effective in the sense that its irregularity is smoothly integrated. There is a certain, perhaps intentional, irony in using these odd times to capture the painfully regular rhythms of industrial life. On the other hand, it may simply be that OCASI is not as deeply a part of the machine as their music suggests, or that our machines are becoming more human all the time.

[In] is fascinating and monotonous. I won't be listening to it regularly, but if I ever feel the need to wallow in the despair and angst of modernity, [In] will provide the appropriate soundtrack.


- Joshua Levin, Hollow Ear

And, finally, here is the record itself.

Play it loud --

Ocosi - [IN]

Saturday 23 May 2009

Sunroof! - Temple Music Vol. 1 & 2



Continuing along the same lines as last post, here's another rare Sunroof! album (this time a double CDR) from the same period as 'Slipstream'. Noteable for its inclusion of a track called "The Afternoon Droned Voluftously On In Exquisite Fucking Boredom (Golden Pollen)", which of course provided Skullflower with the title of their platter de resurrection.

'Temple Music Vol. 1 & 2' (2002) is a document of live Sunroof! shows played in Leeds and Newcastle over the period of 1997-2001, featuring members of Jazzfinger and the Vibracathedral Orchestra backing our man Matthew Bower. Like 'Slipstream', this was also a release of Bower's own Rural Electrification Program label.

Sweet, dreamy drones here - get 'em while they're hot.


[Links removed at artist's request]

Friday 22 May 2009

Sunroof! - Slipstream



Apropos of nothing, I figured I might put up a few records I have which have yet to see the light of day in sharity land (so far as I can tell).

One of my all-time favourite musical artists is Matthew Bower, a graying guitar god from England, active in the noisier end of things since 1982.

Mr. Bower has split his output of the last two decades between several different bands, or more properly aliases (among these, Skullflower, Total, Sunroof!, and The Hototogisu are best known); sometimes the style of these aliases shifts so far over time that one outfit's 'house style' becomes the sound of another outfit entirely - so it can get fairly confusing*.

Especially as Mr. Bower is quite prolific, to say the very least.

For the purposes of this post, we're interested in Sunroof!, which began in the late 1990s as Total was winding down, and which seemed to be replacing it initially as Bower's non-Skullflower vehicle of choice. Sunroof! debuted in 2000 with the colossal double CD "Delicate Autobahn Under Construction" on VHF and followed that up with a flood of releases for years to come that was noteable for being anything goes (in the best possible sense) even by Bower's own standard.

Sunroof! seemed to be music designed to evoke a higher state. Pieces were clipped of beginnings and endings putting us in a constant NOW with the psychedelic edit, clip from this track to that, free floating 'pillow music' that could employ keyboards, violins, chimes, birdsong, pipes, hand drums, a child's voice, oceans of fuzz. Gone was the rock of Skullflower, replaced with a sound that floated by contrast, that buzzed and hummed & seemed to exist in its own timeless space.

Among these records was a CDR named 'Slipstream' -- recorded in England between 1997 and 1999 with the help of Godbert, Campbell, Youngs, Jones, and Gaylani, released on Bower's own label Rural Electrification Program (not Giardia or VHF) in 2002.

In the wise words of Aquarius Records:

'Slipstream' starts off with warbling primitive synths, phasing and beating against each other and then proceeds into a chaotic synth/bell/string-scraping symphony, and echo-y washes of instrument hum, cacophonous bells and creaking strings and far-away tinny guitar sounding a bit like a gypsy celebration conducted by Hermann Nitsch and Philip Glass. A lot of 'Slipstream' is reminiscent of Spacemen 3 at their MOST SPACED. Really nice.


If all you have ever heard of Matthew Bower has been cranium-caving noise or sludge rock, you're in for a sonic surprise. MB himself has described as the band as, "piloting a spaceship which makes the nicest possible nice music in the nice universe that you could possibly want to hear".

Dare I say it, this is possibly the most pleasant record he's ever released.

[Link removed at artist's request]



*ie. The Hototogisu's 'White Winds of Autumn' sounds more like Sunroof!'s 'Slipstream' than later Hototogisu albums, which sound more like late-period Total.

Thursday 14 May 2009

Jesjit Gill!


Last Sunday I went to TCAF for the first time -- that's the Toronto Comic Arts Festival -- and it was a whole mess of comic artists taking over the Toronto Reference Library, a weird & wonderful gathering of talent, including such legends as Chester Brown, Adrian Tomine, Seth, and Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

Seated at a table with long time friends Davis Weir & Fiona Smyth was a guy I had not met previously, whose art made the greatest impression on me of the festival - Jesjit Gill.


Mr. Gill has been screen-printing for about five years now and, not only does he make fantastic screen-printed band posters and artwork (as well as the free Free Drawings newspaper), he teaches other people how to do it as well. Very punk rock & I am happy to say he was a really nice guy too.

Catch his work at the Public Address show on now through June 11th!

Below is some of his work I've nicked from these various sites.








Wednesday 13 May 2009

Nina Hartley Speaks!



Here is a pretty great interview with porn star Nina Hartley on the subject of -- you guessed it -- sex.

Speaking with Brad Warner at the Suicide Girls blog last April, subjects tackled include: Buddhism & Zen, getting to know your own needs, sexuality, objectification, feminism(s), the porn industry, and why they'll never be a porn actors' union.

A sample:

NH: ...I realize in my life that kindness is a choice you make.

BW: What do you mean by that?

NH: I take compassionate awareness and acceptance as far as I can take it without being an actual temple living, Zazen-sitting, observant Buddhist. But it is a primary philosophy that I grew up with. Zen, in terms of my daily life, in terms of compassion, infuses all of my work especially my interaction with my fans because a lot of people look at people who consume pornography as losers, wankers, just completely pathetic.

BW: We are!

NH: [Laughs] I don’t see it that way. There are certainly many people in that world who could be considered pathetic losers but liking porn does not make you such a person. As a stripper I realized that men and women are equally fucked over about sex, but in such different areas we’re blind to the other’s pain. For certain kinds of guys, women are heartless bitches and cock teases and will bleed you dry before giving you a kiss. And for some women, men are asshole jerks and want one thing. Really, it’s the culture keeping them equally ignorant and then saying, “Go off and get married!” Watching the men, just showing them my vulva, I realized how sad it was. No woman in their life had ever said, “Here it is, here’s what I like, here’s what you can do with it, try it this way.” Poor guys are supposed to know what to do.

Thursday 7 May 2009

Reel Streets: The Offence!


Here's a remarkable post on British film location site Reel Streets, focusing on one of my fave flicks, Sidney Lumet's The Offence (1972).


Lumet made much of the deeply weird spaces of Bracknell, Berkshire's post-war 'new town', and the effect of the photographs is to make the place seem both more and less real.


Not least because there's no people in them, nor even any cars on the roads.

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Deutsche Banks! Ugly Stick! Live!


So tonight I ventured out for what is, sadly for me these days, a rather rare event: a live music concert, at Rancho Relaxo on College St. in Toronto. What was so important? What did I need so desperately to see and hear?


I could not miss the return of Ugly Stick, one of my favourite local bands; their last show, back in March of 2008, was covered here. Nor did I want to miss No No Zero guitar player Zak's debut performance with baby-fresh Bush League stepchild Deutsche Banks.

Deutsche Banks had the unenviable task of starting a four-band bill to a remote Toronto crowd, but they were busting it out like it was New Years Eve or something and I was instantly hooked on this sound - a potent blur of short songs with great choruses and hooks, and even fancy double-vocal parts. Very impressive set & I hope to catch another show soon.

After Deutsche Banks was a touring trio from Regina called Hot Blood Bombers. They had nice gear and kind of reminded me of Grand Funk Railroad, but weren't really my cup of tea.

Third up was Ugly Stick who, unbeknownst to me, no longer have Mark on drums (sorry, I don't know the new guy's name). ***Note: It's Brendan of The Midways!*** The set started with "Geek U" and ended with a raging "Betray Me", and I was a very happy concert attendee. Ugly Stick have got the knack & are able to rock both fast and slow & that's no small accomplishment. I certainly hope that we won't have to wait 13 months for their next show.



I left after Ugly Stick because, well, I like to go out on a high. And I was getting tired. So I missed Endangered Ape.


Tuesday 5 May 2009

Georges Pichard!


Georges Pichard (1920-2003) was not just an amazing erotic artist, but an amazing artist full stop - whose work ran the gamut from family-friendly comics to advertising illustration (including at least one album cover), superhero parody to classical adaptations, and - most famously - Pichard's erotic works, themselves ranging from whimsical, funny and fantastic to extreme S&M imagery that is still shocking all these years later.









Apparently, none other than Mr. Marvin Gaye was a fan.










From the Lambiek Comiclopedia --

"Pichard's style is immediately recognizable: he draws tall, well-endowed women, whose starry eyes with excessive make-up give them a teutonian and gothic look."











With the advent of high-speed internet, the diligent may be rewarded with volumes of Pichard's work in a single torrent; whether related or not, his art is certainly undergoing something of a resurgence of interest.

There is an "official site" up, but no content is currently available there.

Monday 4 May 2009

Elvis Fire Hydrant!


Consider this a late addition to my Fire Hydrants of Tweed post. Our friend D_W_ of Everything Elevator sends us a pic of one hydrant we missed - the King of Hydrants, in fact.

Just the thing for a case of Burning Love?