| Dangerous Minds (2024)

04.26.2018

10:49 am

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‘Self, Deceased XLVI,’ 2011 (via Antecedent Death)

I think of myself as a dedicated Celtic Frost fan, but these art objects escaped my notice. Since 2007, Tom G. Warrior has been making these death masks, many of which belong to the series “Self, Deceased.” They’re cast in concrete and decorated with enamel, epoxy, and occasionally sem*n (BUT WHOSE???). Though much of the work displayed at Warrior’s Antecedent Death blog, last updated in 2011, has long since sold, some pieces are still listed as available; they range in price from $495 to $6,900.

Warrior (born Tom Fischer) was an assistant to HR Giger during the last decade of the artist’s life. The two Swiss surrealists started corresponding in 1984, when Hellhammer sent Giger a demo tape and he recognized the extreme metal band as kindred spirits. Giger let Hellhammer’s successor, Celtic Frost, use the paintings “Satan I” and “Victory III” on their second album To Mega Therion, released the following year, and he didn’t charge them a sou.

During a discussion of Giger and his work in this 2016 interview, Warrior’s interlocutor asked him about his own visual art. Protesting that his work paled into insignificance beside Giger’s, Warrior was self-effacing about his death masks:

I do these death masks because I was always fascinated, ever since I was a child, [by] death masks. And there was a point in my life where I was wondering what my death mask will look like one day, and I realized, when I’m dead, I’m not going to see it. So at the end of the 2007 Celtic Frost U.S. tour, Les Barany, Giger’s agent in America, arranged for me to go to Fangoria magazine’s premises, and they have a workshop there, and a few friends of his took a life cast of me, and enabled me with this life cast to do my own death masks. It was just a curiosity of mine for my own purpose. To my astonishment, somebody wanted to buy a death mask, and then two people wanted to buy a death mask, and then it became “an art project.” But in reality, it was just some spleen of mine to use my face as a canvas, like I do onstage, and to see my death mask while I’m still alive to see it. That’s really all there is to it.

‘Death Mask 3,’ detail from ‘Transmutation I’ (via Antecedent Death)


‘Self, Deceased XXXIX,’ 2011 (via Antecedent Death)

More death after the jump…

04.25.2018

04:27 pm

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I’m pretty sure I washed my hands at least 20 times today, and any OCD-type compulsions that I might have do not lend themselves to handwashing. So why did I do that? Why so many times? And why did I do it so many times in such a short span of time (I believe it was within 1-2 hours)? Because I’m an archivist. And today was FILLED with items that were in desperate need of rehousing lest they suffer the slings and arrows of decay. Which would be terrible.

My primary purpose in life is archiving and preservation. I received a degree in Moving Image Archive Studies from UCLA, so the focus of my training is film/TV related objects. This helps explain the film bench sitting in my home and accompanying variety of educational films, TV commercials and other 16mm materials littered around my apartment.

While that is my main focus and knowledge base, I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with paper documents, slides, photographs, and other ephemera. In fact that is what I do now and I’ve never been happier. But the things that I have run into can be scary—like the days I have to wear a mask due to black mold on papers, the times where I’m super cautious about elements making it out of deteriorating housing alive… I know it may not seem that crazy to you, but some days I feel like I live in an action movie! Goal: save the element being worked on, get out of that battle in best possible condition, rehouse it in a better archival casing, rejoice!

Something that I have said the most over the years: I should’ve paid more attention during high school chemistry class. I got good grades in that class but it was over 20 years ago. No one ever told me how much chemistry I would need for what I do. The amount of stickiness, smelliness and OMGWTFBBQ I have dealt with over the years is phenomenal and it’s ALL BECAUSE OF CHEMICAL REACTIONS.

I love sitting with my colleagues and playing the archivist’s version of “what’s grosser than gross?” While we would never break an NDA or confidentiality agreement, most of us have some winning stories. It is not uncommon to hear about being called in to assess a collection that has been living in someone’s garage for 50 years. Said collection of whatever (documents, film, heirlooms, you name it!) has been partying with families of raccoons and who knows what else for that whole time! OMGZ THE SMELLS. OMGZ THE CRACKLING OF THE PAPER AS IT STICKS TOGETHER.



For film folks, many people have heard of the dreaded Vinegar Syndrome (VS), which is kinda like the HIV/AIDS of film. If you open a can of film and it smells like a salad? It’s infected. And I have gotten many a headache from films with really bad VS. Films with light VS can still have some life to them but ones that make your nostrils burn and eyes water… that’s some heavy sh*t. I’ve been there, man, and I took one for the team. You don’t wanna experience it. It literally feels like it’s going straight up into your brain. Then there’s the sadness of Sticky Shed for magnetic tapes. That one is a killer as well.

The terrible thing about all of this (of course) is that it means that the elements that are smelly and crackly and moldy and sticky are dying. If they are the last (or only one) of their kind, that is even more depressing. I think one of the saddest things I ever saw was an entire rack of films where every can was coated with rust, to the degree that we couldn’t even open the cans. When we finally got one open, the reel of film itself was covered in rust and curled up on itself, shrunken and shriveled. I looked at my hands right after that and they were a bright orange color, this vivid ochre that I haven’t seen since. Again, chemicals were involved. Had the film been made of dust, I’d have known it was nitrate. But since it was just a sad little shadow of its former self, its once-proud emulsion (the layer of the film that contains all the visual information) almost entirely separated from its base, I knew it was just another horrible case of VS decay.

Later that day I held a reel that was rock solid. It had hardened completely. It broke my heart but fascinated me because it looked like art, not film. This small reel of 35mm safety film had been wound in a normal fashion (assumedly) at some point far previous to when I came upon it. Somewhere in between those two points, the emulsion began to lift from the base on each successive wind and stick to the layer above it. The outside of the reel developed this strange and beautiful pattern. I was in awe and yet I wondered: what was this film that was now completely useless and just dead? We would never know.

With today’s modern technologies, there are ways to salvage some of these items that deteriorate and rot before our very eyes. I have many wonderful friends who are (in my mind) superheroes when it comes to this sh*t. But the pure and simple fact is that not everything can be saved. It’s one of the first rules you learn in archiving school. The second? Perhaps not everything should be saved.



On the other hand, you have amazing filmmakers like Bill Morrison whose primary focus in his cinematic work is bringing the beauty out of deteriorating films. His Dawson City: Frozen Time utilized one of the greatest catches in all of film preservation: The 1500 reels of decaying nitrate film dating from the 1910s through the 1920s recovered in 1978 from a sealed-up swimming pool in the Yukon. The ephemeral history of a Canadian gold rush town about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle is told via the film collection, and through that archive, how a Native American hunting camp was displaced. The decay and decomposition of the films provide a narrative of a lost past trying valiantly to survive.

Every time I watch one of his films, I’m blown away. Bill is not only one of the greatest living artists today in my mind, he’s also a goddamn magician.

Continues after the jump…

04.25.2018

12:10 pm

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In the clip below you can watch a 10-year-old blind Swedish pianist by the name of Mats Öberg play the sh*t out of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s sixties concert centerpiece “King Kong.” Not only is the interview (which is translated) charming, the performance is solid.

Mats, who is blind since birth, is backed by his drum-playing pal, then 13-year-old Morgan Ågren and apparently Morgan’s dad on bass. Morgan and Mats joined forces that year in a project called Zappsteetoot and they are still playing and recording together to this day as the Mats/Morgan Band. Morgan Ågren also plays with the reunited 70s Swedish progressive rock band Kaipa.

Mats and Morgan were invited by Frank Zappa himself to do a guest performance at his Stockholm performance in 1988. From Morgan’s website:

In 1988 when Frank came to Stockholm with the Broadway the Hard Way- tour, me and Mats got to meet and play with Zappa on his gig in Stockholm, as guests ! Mat’s uncle (jazz pianist Berndt Egerbladh) had contacted Frank’s tour leader and informed him about us, that we were in this band called Zappsteetoot, that Mats had listened to Franks music since he was 8 years old, and that he knew all of his music. So when Frank got to hear about us, he said he wanted to meet us. Me and Mats sneaked in to Frank’s soundcheck and afterward Frank’s tour leader came out and told us Frank was waiting for us backstage.

We walked to Frank’s room, and there he was - our teenage idol and major influence ! We shook hands and sat down on a couch. Frank started to ask us how we were doing, which of his material we knew etc. Me and Mats ended up playing on our knees and singing. Frank said: “do you know this…have you played that…” After a while he said: ” well I’m amazed that two young guys from a little town called Umeå, knows so much about my music.” Then turning to Mats he said: “You have listened to my music so much, - you should know what I look like.” Frank took Mats hand and laid it on his forehead, and Mats began to feel how Frank looked! And Frank said: “Don’t forget the famous nose!” Frank was so incredibly nice to us and we had a wonderful time. We also gave him a tape with our own music, including one Zappa piece, “T’Mershi Duween,” which surprised Frank cause it wasn’t released at the time, but we knew it from a bootleg. Frank didn’t listen to the tape; there wasn’t even a tape recorder there, but he said: “Maybe we should do something…” We didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. He scratched his head and said : “Would you like to come up and play “T’Mershi Duween” as guests? We gonna do “Big Swifty” tonight, and in the middle section of the song there is this open part were everything can happen! So if you walk behind the stage when you hear the “Big Swifty” theme, I’ll introduce you after a while, okay?”

The thing was that it was only 30 min before the show, and the audience was already inside the hall, so no time to try the keyboards or the drums. What sound will be on the keyboard? What kind of sticks does Chad use? Questions natural for us to ask ourselves before going up on stage with Frank Zappa facing a crowd of 10.000 people.

To me, most part of Franks show was hard to enjoy - I had other things on my mind. We were soon suppose to go up and play, and I couldn’t even remember the f*cking song that well either, so I had to think about how it really went. We had only played it once before, a year earlier - the version we gave to Frank on tape.

Showtime!

When the “Big Swifty” theme came we left our seats, and walked backstage. After convincing one of the guards that we were about to go up and play with Frank, my next problem was I desperately needed to go to the toilet. I had lost the ability to feel needs like that- I had other things to think about. Another 5 min passed and I really had to go. I started to feel pain, I got totally confused; what would happen if Frank introduces us for 10 000 people, and I’m at the toilet unable to even hear him ? No thanks. I even asked a guy from the crew if I could make it. As if he would know! But now I just had to do it, I was in such pain I probably wouldn’t even play properly. I told Mats: “I gotta go, you wait here.” Mats were sitting on a case just behind the stage. I ran backstage rooms and found a toilet. Finished my business and just as I opened the door from the backstage rooms, I could hear Frank introducing us. I ran like a maniac, grabbed Mats arm and we went up on stage. Lucky us I was fast!

A huge round of applauds welcomed us. We were at home, and a lot of people knew about us. The applauds just got even louder as I walked Mats over to Bobby Martin’s keyboards. Bobby said: “Here’s a Yamaha DX-9, and here is the Yamaha electric grand - good luck! ” The band kept a reggae beat going during our entrance, which was good; if it had just been silence it would have felt strange, but now we could sort of start our jam from the groove already going. I led Mats behind the keyboards and adjusted the mikestand a little, then I walked to the drum set. A guy from the crew came from nowhere and put a new pair of drumsticks in my hands. Luckily they were the same model I used to play at the time. When Chad saw me coming he stood up, but kept the beat on the hi-hat.

I sat down and continued where Chad left off, but me and Mats soon started to loosen in up to something else. We had to do our thing, so we just jammed for a couple minutes, like we always use to. The drums felt okay, the keyboards too, I think. I felt high up there, it was just totally amazing. I don’t like using standard phrases like “a religious feeling” but this was something else, it really was. I was in heaven. Much because of the fact I could see Frank standing in front of the drumset with a BIG smile holding his conductor stick. He really liked what we were doing, and that gave us a big kick. We missed a little during the “T´Mershi Duween” theme, but we had probably never played as good before as we did then. Scott played along a little and so did Ed and Mike. After we finished, I left the drum seat, and ran to get Mats away from the keyboards, cause the “Big Swifty” theme had just started again, and Bobby Martin was about to play again, but Mats were sitting in his way. Mats, who is blind, was waiting for me to pick him up! I got Mats and passed Frank as we were leaving the stage. Frank stopped conducting just for a second to applaud us, and the audience followed with even more volume than before. We walked of the stage and got back to our seats to see the rest of the show.

At the end of the show, Frank introduced the band like he always use to, with a chord in the background, saying: “Ike Willis, Scott Thunes etc. AND…Mats Öberg & Morgan Ågren, thanks for coming to the show, hope you liked it. Good night! ” We were sitting in the audience listening to Frank Zappa - introducing us!! When they came back for an encore, Frank grabbed the microphone and said: “Those guys were great!” So guess if we were excited!

After the encores we met in Frank’s room backstage again. He said we have to do this again sometime and we exchanged addresses. Frank told us that he was looking for a new drummer and keyboard player, and then he just kind of stared at us without really saying anything more. I think he wanted to tease us a little bit too, because he was obviously talking about me and Mats. Frank even wrote down some notes on a piece of paper which showed his way of notating drums, he gave it to me and told me to get used to it. Then it was time to go home; go home and wait for the phone to ring…

Although I wasn’t aware of them at the time, I actually saw Mats and Morgan performing as part of the famous “Zappa’s Universe” concert that was held in New York at the old Studio 54 (then doing business as the Ritz) in 1991. It was just before this concert began that Frank Zappa’s children Dweezil and Moon Unit announced that their father was dying of terminal cancer and would not be performing that evening. (In the cab to that show I can also vividly recall hearing on the radio that Magic Johnson had announced that he’d contracted HIV.)

Morgan, who posted the video to YouTube himself had this to say about the clip:

“I sent a copy of this VHS to Frank Zappa just a few months before he passed away (since we play Franks piece “King Kong” on this video). Called Gail Zappa later on to express my condolences, and just before we hang up Gail says “by the way, Frank watched the video that you sent, and he really loved it”. That was great to hear cause I wasn’t sure the VHS even reached his house. ❤️”

04.25.2018

08:39 am

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Ever since the early years of this century, the affable punk singer Eddie Argos has pioneered a co*cky and brash form of nice-guy humility, which he has often employed to brilliant effect; in his best-known combo, Art Brut, he used it to uncork a lively array of undeniable comic gems, including “Formed a Band,” “Direct Hit,” and most especially “Good Weekend.” His projects often sport names with a sloganeering quality, as with Everybody Was In The French Resistance ... Now! His online shop where he sometimes sells his own slapdash but not incompetent paintings at reasonable prices (I purchased one not long ago) is called Lo Fi Punk Rock Motherf*cker.

The Argos project with the unwieldiest name may not even have all that much Argos in it—for the record, its name is Keith Top of the Pops & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band, featuring, bafflingly, none other than Keith Top of the Pops. Legend (er, Wikipedia) has it that the band formed on the night of Art Brut’s first gig in New York City, during which one of the opening acts failed to materialize and the band’s producer, Keith Mahony, stepped in and did his damnedest. It was instantly agreed that a “rotating” band featuring Mahony would be formed, which unit would forswear the need for both rehearsals and soundchecks. Luke Haines, Sarah Nixey, Charlotte Hatherley and many others are reportedly part of the collective.


Demure cover art for Keith TOTP’s first album

On Sunday, the Twitter feed of Keith TOTP (as they are sometimes shortened) spit forth a delightful little ditty called “If You Want Twee (You Got It),” which is simultaneously a likely contender for novelty song of the year, a great song, a great takedown song, and fodder for the best music video I’ve seen in years.

Yesterday Argos cheekily linked to the song in a tweet, praising one of the couplets and calling it “f*cking great.” He isn’t wrong.

On the YouTube page for the video we are informed that the song is on the “upcoming album Livin’ The Dream,” which hasn’t been released yet but will be “SOON!” I assure you that I’m going to buy that f*cking thing.

More after the jump…

04.24.2018

12:54 pm

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In the mid-1980s, the pop music scene had this idea that recording songs with superstar ensemble bands would change the world. Nobody (especially not Sir Bob Geldof) stopped to consider that maybe it was a little condescending, a little patronizing, and a little bit OH I DUNNO colonialist to want to “fix” all the poor starving dark people. Do they know it’s Christmas? Probably not, dude. And they probably don’t care, either. Ever considered that “they” may not be into the whole Jesus thing?

Right. So these songs have existed for years (although obviously George Harrison got in on that action first with The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971.) The most famous ones (of course) were the gazillion-selling hit singles where proceeds went to Ethiopia—“We Are The World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (in 1984 and 1989 respectively). Hell, even the money from George Michael’s “Last Christmas/Everything She Wants” single went to helping the famine in Ethiopia. Not that this was bad. I mean, I’m certainly not gonna attack George because that dude was amazing.

The general feeling of these charity songs ended up being a little “OMGZ we need to helpz the poors who can’t help themselves, c’mon other rich musik frenz! Let us change the world with our synthesizer-ness, big shoulder clothing and rockstar monies!” On the other hand, it catalyzed some pretty HFS songs and mind-blowing music videos. The following works are not all that…good. But they are also not all terrible! Some of them you should love authentically. They are great! Others…well, I love them. But I also recognize that the cheese factor is basically at Wisconsin-level.

Shall we take a look?

When the pop stars got all philanthropist-y, the metalheads just had to get in on the action. Thus we got the complete insanity of Swedish Metal Aid and Hear ‘n Aid. Both bands were (like their new wave/pop siblings) ensemble acts with proceeds headed towards Africa. Unlike Band Aid and USA for Africa, these two acts had hair, voices and attitudes that went sky-high. And spandex. Lots and lots and lots of spandex. Swedish Metal Aid was fronted by Joey Tempest of Europe (yes, “The Final Countdown,” that Europe) and involved members from bands with names like Neon Leon & the Bondage Babies, Heavy Load, Trash, Treat, Orion’s Swords and Glorious Bankrobbers. Hear ‘n Aid was organized by the one and only Ronnie James Dio and he got everybody in there—Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Yngwie Malmsteen, Queensrÿche, Dokken, Mötley Crüe and even Spinal Tap!

More charity singles after the jump…

04.24.2018

11:31 am

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Australian glam band Rabbit. Former AC/DC vocalist Dave Evans is pictured in the center.

“If I was a parent and read this, I wouldn’t let my kids anywhere near this mob, numbnu*ts described them as frenetic, violently hedonistic and Dave himself was described as savagely heterosexual.”

—a rock critic describing Aussie glam band Rabbit and their vocalist, Dave Evans.

If you decide to dedicate your life to being up all night falling in love with rock & roll (like yours truly) you have to be all in. The good, the bad, and the glam. So let’s get right to it, shall we? Glam rockers unite as I bring you a brief history of the flashy rise and quick freefall of Newcastle, Australia’s unhearalded glam band Rabbit.

After relieving Rabbit’s second vocalist Greg Douglas of his short-lived duties, former AC/DC frontman Dave Evans assumed the responsibilities of leading the band. This venture did not go unnoticed as Evans’ brief stint with AC/DC was enough to entice CBS to sign the band thanks to his glammy stagecraft which he had cultivated during his time with the Young brothers. In 1975 Rabbit released their self-titled debut record. The album did alright, and a couple of singles even made it to the charts. This gave Rabbit some real teeth when it came to going toe-to-toe with other Aussie glam rock acts like Supernaut, John Stanley Cave (aka the glitter-bomb that was Sydney glam rocker William Shakespeare), and local heroes Hush and their flamboyant vocalist Keith Lamb. (To attest to the power of Lamb’s persona, he was rumored to have been a contender to fill Bon Scott’s place at the head of AC/DC following Scott’s passing. So there’s that.)

Rabbit would go on to put out a second popular record with CBS in 1976 called Too Much Rock ‘n’ Roll which they recorded at the “House of Hits,” or Albert Studios in Sydney, Australia. Its sister company, Albert Productions, was among the first few independent record labels in Australia and played an instrumental role in the rise of AC/DC. The studio was a joint venture of Harry Vanda and George Young (both of notable Australian band the Easybeats, and Young the elder brother of Malcolm and Angus) along with engineer Bruce Brown and they opened Albert Studio in 1973. Brown recorded numerous hits with the Bon Scott era of AC/DC, like “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “Jailbreak,” and what some refer to as AC/DC’s calling card, “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll). Rabbit’s commercial success would put the band on the map, leading to appearances on music-oriented television shows like Countdown, and a twelve-week Australian promotional tour. Too Much Rock ‘n’ Roll would also be Rabbit’s gateway to markets like Japan and European locations such as Denmark and Belgium where their album sales were swift. Fans have mused nostalgically that Rabbit’s jams drew from bands like The Sweet, T.Rex, KISS, and of course AC/DC—which sounds about right.

As is often the case, the sudden rush of spandex and shirtless adrenalin would ultimately lead to the band’s implosion. Rabbit would disband during their brief tour in 1977


The album cover for ‘Too Much Rock ‘n’ Roll.’

04.24.2018

10:21 am

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We think of the era of below-the-belt satirical media with a left-wing edge as a thing that was more or less invented in the postwar era, particularly the 1960s and 1970s, as the rise of alternative newspapers ushered in a style of humorous, scurrilous, no-holds-barred sloganeering that was unafraid to transgress the usual borders of propriety. Before that, most of the good comps come from continental Europe, especially in the welter of strident and audacious movements that sprang into existence in the first decades of the 20th century, including surrealism, dada, and expressionism.

Not coincidentally, George Grosz, one of the leading lights of expressionism after World War I, was involved with a genuinely bracing and angry left-wing political magazine in the unforgiving terrain of the U.S.A. Its name was Americana, its editor-in-chief and founder was a colorful young man named Alexander King, and a host of publications such as The East Village Other, The Black Panther, The Berkeley Barb, and The Realist, whether they knew it or not, all owed Americana a great debt.

The imagery of Americana, unlike a lot of stuff that is more than eight decades old, still resonates. The images strike one as what might happen if the original editorial minds behind The New Yorker in the 1920s and 1930s were somehow given the task of publishing the International Times of the late 1960s and early 1970s, albeit with a modernist fibrousness to the art that The New Yorker mostly lacked. (Basically this means that Americana was, unusually, willing to be ugly if it achieved other aims.)


King as an older man in the 1950s, here with Jack Paar; photo taken during Paar’s stint as host of The Tonight Show

Publishing historians who track Americana cite it mainly for two things: its impressive roster of contributors and its exceedingly brief publication run. Americana existed only for 17 issues in the calendar years of 1932 and 1933, a moment when America was obviously in the throes of a catastrophic depression. While FDR tried to save capitalism from its own successes, Americana, consistently and with great vitriol, challenged the premise that capitalism was worth saving in the first place. To give an idea of what the folks of Americana thought of the likelihood of Roosevelt solving the problems of the working class, here is what Gilbert Seldes wrote in the issue following Roosevelt’s first election:

I will suggest to the editors of Americana that they reform. No more sadism. Only pretty pictures of sweet communists welcoming Trotsky back from exile; sweet capitalists washing the feet of the ten million unemployed, and sweet editors of liberal magazines smiling broadly at love triumphant.

In his book An Autobiography Grosz reminisced about editor King and Americana:

The only person who took me as I was was my friend Alexander King, who put out America’s first and only satirical magazine, Americana, and regularly published my things. He trimmed neither my wings nor my fingernails: “Scratch their eyes out, George,” he would say to me, “the harder, the better!”

Featuring names like William Steig and James Thurber, Americana did have a fair bit of cross-pollination with the aforementioned New Yorker. (King managed to run an interview with New Yorker grandee Alexander Woollcott in which the acerbic writer allowed that the New Yorker “is got out by a shiftless reporter with the help of two country bumpkins,” the latter two being non-East-Coast-ers Harold Ross and Thurber.)

In addition, Americana published contributions by E.E. Cummings and Nathanael West. Americana’s run coincided precisely with the West’s first great productive period, during which he wrote and published A Cool Million and Miss Lonelyhearts (The Day of the Locust arrived a few years later)—it’s not too much to say that Americana was an near-perfect periodical correlative for West’s corrosive fiction, and it’s not surprising that he found a warm welcome there. Americana was also an early venue for the work of Al Hirschfeld, who later became much more renowned for sticking the word “NINA” into the whiskers of Orson Welles and the locks of Bernadette Peters.


A remarkable editor’s note from Americana

Not surprisingly, King himself was from the Continent—he was born Alexander Koenig in Vienna in 1899. In his later years he became a talk-show personality and wrote several books which did very well. In its review of King’s 1960 book May This House Be Safe From Tigers, Time magazine summarized the author’s eventful life, with some affection, as follows:

an ex-illustrator, ex-cartoonist, ex-adman, ex-editor, ex-playwright, ex-dope addict. For a quarter-century he was an ex-painter, and by his own bizarre account qualifies as an ex-midwife. He is also an ex-husband to three wives and an ex-Viennese of sufficient age (60) to remember muttonchopped Emperor Franz Joseph. When doctors told him a few years ago that he might soon be an ex-patient (two strokes, serious kidney disease, peptic ulcer, high blood pressure), he sat down to tell gay stories of the life of all these earlier Kings.

It’s my impression, researching this topic, that there is just damn little out there about Americana, which is a real shame. However, the images of the publication have aged remarkably well in my estimation, still possessing the power to catch the eye and even to shock, whether it’s the casual yolking of the “modern messiahs” Stalin and Gandhi (!) or the unflinching presentation at the suffering of the destitute. Here is a representative sample of images from the magazine, but by all means there’s more here.



Much more after the jump…....

04.23.2018

01:03 pm

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Secos e Molhados (“The Dry & Wet”) was a hybrid glam-rock/Tropicália band formed in Brazil in 1971 during the most repressive phase of the military dictatorship. The band was short-lived, recording just two albums, but launched the career of feminine-sounding vocalist, Ney Matogrosso. Their name apparently refers to different categories of food in Brazilian supermarkets. Their unusual sound combined elements of baião, jazz, pop, glam and prog rock, along with Portuguese folklore, Brazilian and Portuguese poetry, and instruments of Latin American music.



Matogrosso’s distinctive voice is “sopranino” meaning that he can hit notes higher than F6. Now 76, he’s still a huge star in Brazil, but has dropped the wild costumes and make-up, concentrating more on the purely vocal aspects of his talents, and re-interpreting classic Brazilian pop songs.



João Ricardo, who founded the group, and Gerson Conrad were the other two members. Secos e Molhados recorded in a wide variety of styles. Their innovative make-up and costuming caused a sensation, if not exactly scandal, in early 70s Brazil and they sold millions of records. An urban legend in Brazil was that KISS copied their makeup from them. Although entirely possible, this seems unlikely as their albums were released only in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Portugal.

Below, Secos e Molhados performing “Flores Astrais.”

More Secos e Molhados after the jump…

04.23.2018

10:41 am

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Davide Andreani first drank a co*ke when he was six years old. A native of Pesaro, along the Adriatic coast of Italy, Davide doesn’t recall anything special about the beverage at first sip. His father would often travel for business and one of the things he would bring back to his son as a memento would be a special can of co*ke. The first one in his collection was from Germany in 1979, featuring the word “Coca-Cola” translated from various languages in the world.

Davide has always been a collector at heart. When he was young, he would seek after unique coins and stamps. Now he is only interested in co*ke cans. There isn’t a particular reason for the beverage choice, other than his passion for assemblage and that it is something he got into at an early age. Today, Davide’s collection consists of over 20,000 distinct cans of Coca-Cola.



Digging through the garbage for empty cans is not how one develops a surplus like Davide’s. A lifetime of meticulous searching of the globe has brought him to where he is today. The assortment of cans on display in his collection are those that the Coca-Cola company had only released for a limited time, sometimes not available to the public. Unique cans are usually produced for commemorative purposes, such as the celebration of special events like sporting events, Christmas and other holidays, the opening of a new factory, or a presidential election. The rarest and most hard are those that are gold or silver in color, some worth upwards of $500.



The internet has helped contribute to Davide’s growing soft drink collection. His website is used to display his individual findings and to communicate with others hoping to trade their rare collectibles. He has several duplicates (not included in the total count), which are used to swap with fellow collectors. Several of Davide’s cans are available for purchase here.

Someday, Davide hopes that his collection will be displayed in a museum. His modest home is where the cans live today, and it is not nearly big enough to showcase all of his findings. Approximately 5,000 cans line his walls and pile up on his floor, with another 15,000 or so catalogued and buried away in the garage. Thus far, the Coca-Cola company hasn’t had much interest in acquiring Davide’s tremendous collection.



Davide received a Guinness World Record in August of 2013. The award title is “Largest Collection of Soft Drink Cans - Same Brand.” In order to distinguish the title, the GWR judge closed Davide’s home for two days to count every can. At the time of certification, the assortment totaled 10,558 unique Coca-Cola cans from 87 different countries. Davide’s collection, now much larger in size, still holds the Guinness World Record.

Other than his amusing hobby, Davide enjoys playing volleyball, tennis, and working with computers. His dream is to visit every country in the world (all while pursuing the rarest soda cans, I’d presume), but for financial reasons he is content with sightseeing via the World Wide Web. When asked whether he enjoys the taste of the soft drink that inspired his life’s work, Davide responded “I drink Coca-Cola very little.”



More after the jump…

04.23.2018

10:31 am

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‘The Expulsion from Paradise.’

The miser’s gold won’t save him, nor the knight his belted armor, Death holds dominion over all and is indifferent to our pleading.

The story of Hans Holbein’s woodcut illustrations for The Dance of Death would fit snugly as a vehicle for Bill and Ted to explain the meaning behind these most excellent pictures with their bodacious representations of gnarly death playing a tune for all to follow into the grave. Cue air guitar riff. Which, Bill would add, is but a timely reminder to be most excellent to each other. And now here’s Hans Holbein (1497–1543) at San Dimas High explaining how his outstanding drawings were carved into wood by Hans Lützelburger, one of Holbein’s regular collaborators, who cut forty-one wood blocks before Death did call on him and lead swiftly him away.

But wait, let’s get an idea of size. These images are small, seriously small. Two-and-a-half inches by one-and-seven-eighths. The size of four postage stamps placed together to form a rectangle, as Ulinka Rublack notes in her excellent commentary in the Penguin edition of Holbein’s work. Fascinating she is too, as Rublack points out that these images came at a time of egregious turmoil when the Protestant Reformation was calling out the Catholic Church as most bogus and heinous and the Pope as ye AntiChrist. Think of this rising Protestant faith like emo Goths dressed in black, with a liking for The Cure and a bit death-obsessed. While the Catholic Church was like the New Romantics poncing about in fabulous costumes of silk and lace with a predilection for cardinals having a choirboy sitting on their co*cks. This world was run by faith and disease. If the church didn’t punish you then the plague would.

The Protestants saw the Catholic faith as a false representation of Christ’s ministry on Earth. The Catholic Church was rich and corrupt. Its clergy indifferent, its flock abandoned (see the images of sheep wandering lost among the fields). The Church’s interest seemed more fixed on money (for indulgences, prayers, and masses to buy the rich a place in Heaven) rather than on souls. The Protestants wanted to bring the Church back to an austere faith based on the gospels. This is the background noise while Holbein worked on his pictures.

The idea of Death as some dancing skeleton was popularized by a 13th-century play The Three Dead and the Three Living, in which a band of three young noblemen while out hunting in the deep, dark forest came across three skeletons at three different stages of their journey. The story inspired a series of religious paintings and meditations of skeletons waiting to harvest the living. The skeleton unified everyone for one day we will all come to bone and dust. Once the image was set, the skeleton of Death soon had his victims dancing to his discordant tune.

And so it goes.

It’s not quite clear who exactly commissioned Holbein to produce these images. He was then an artist living in Basel with his wife and two children and the work was, no doubt, a welcome and lucrative commission. He produced his drawings between 1523 and 1525, which were intended to focus throughts towards God—-or at least Death. And like Death itself, Holbein’s deeply serious yet to our eye darkly satiric illustrations take aim at all classes of society—even the infant child is not spared the grisly clutch of Death.


‘The Pope.’


‘The Emperor.’


‘The King.’

More from Holbein’s ‘The Dance of Death,’ after the jump….